‘There’s no limit on it,’ he says. ‘I want to look after you.’
‘I still don’t understand why.’ Her voice catches.
‘When a man feels deeply for a woman, he wants to take care of her. It’s a natural instinct. I don’t want to keep mentioning my wife but I …’ He squeezes Margot’s hands again. ‘I knew that I wanted to marry her when I found myself wanting to take care of her. To make sure that she was happy and secure. I couldn’t explain it.’ He stares into her eyes. ‘I just knew.’
She tries to understand what he is saying, and thinks that somewhere in it he’s telling her that he thinks of her the way he thought of his late wife. Which is both exhilarating and confusing, because Margot has never thought of herself as the sort of woman a man could be serious about.
‘And I just know about you, Margot.’
His eyes are so kind, she thinks. Big, deep, warm. Reassuring. Who knows what he sees in her eyes, but he’s still staring into them so it can’t be too awful.
‘So may I look after you?’ he murmurs.
She nods her assent, unable to speak in that moment. Even though he has been looking after her in so many ways, this feels like the biggest way. The most significant way.
Margot is not religious, although she has prayed from time to time. When she was a child she would ask God to bring her brothers back to life, so her father didn’t need to be so sad any more. When she was a teenager she tried to bargain with Godto make her mother happier. And when Lavinia was taken to hospital after her fall, she prayed again, in a manner of speaking.
The last of these prayers is the only one that worked. It has not once occurred to her to pray for herself. She’s never asked for a lightning bolt of love to strike her, for example. So she does not know how to explain to herself that it has. That this man in front of her is offering her such tenderness. Such care. There are no words she can utter which can encompass that.
Stephen smiles and releases her hands.
‘Then please leave it with me,’ he says. ‘And let’s continue to eat this delicious meal.’
They talk lightly after that, and without pause until he leaves, kissing her on the cheek, staring into her eyes, promising he will call in the morning. She knows he will. He is a man of his word.
After she has cleaned up in the kitchen she slowly pushes open the door to the dining room and sees Lavinia sitting up in bed, reading a book.
‘You had a nice night,’ Lavinia states, smiling.
‘A wonderful night,’ Margot affirms.
‘I’m so glad.’
They smile at each other.
‘I do believe,’ Lavinia says, ‘that everything will be all right.’
Margot takes a breath and considers this. Then she feels it, in her chest: the absence of fear. It’s been years since she’s been able to let it go. Fear of the wider world, fear of her inner world. Fear of never being enough and having enough.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I believe it too.’
She blows Lavinia a kiss and pulls the door to, before she makes her way up to her bed, to sleep, to dream.
CHAPTER FORTY
Duncan takes Christina’s hand as they slowly walk along the concourse from the Sydney Opera House toward Circular Quay. He’d invited her to join him for a baroque concert in the Concert Hall. Baroque music! Men have tried various things to impress her, but not baroque music until now.
‘So …’ he drawls. ‘Are you a convert?’
She laughs. ‘Are you?’
‘What makes you think I’m not an expert?’
She laughs again and turns to look at him. ‘The fact that your CD collection is almost entirely made up of Cold Chisel and INXS.’
He grins. ‘Admit it – you love it.’
That sounds almost like a dare, but she’s not sure if she’s willing to take it. And in the time it takes her to decide he leans in and kisses her.