they were alert to each other. Sly glances through a shield of leaves. The flash of a brown arm stretching for the same piece of fruit. Helping to fill a tipped bucket. Watching each other bite into the crisp white flesh of a just-ripe apple.
He came often to the shed while she was milking, begging a jug of cream for his mother, dipping a cup into her bucket and drinking it warm, or simply standing at the shed door watching her, as he had done at their first meeting. She fumbled when his eyes were on her, making the cow tense up and interrupting the flow of milk. ‘Go away,’ she’d pout. ‘You’re bothering my cow.’ He’d laugh, his eyes dancing, and then he’d wander off down the path to find Uncle Max so he could borrow some tool or other.
When she recognised her susceptibility to him, she saw a need to avoid him. If Max and Faye discovered her interest, she’d be parcelled off home. And by that stage, she didn’t want to go. She’d fallen in love with the farm and the island: the trees, the space, the air. When they drove to Lunawanna to collect supplies from the store, she would see mainland Tasmania, shimmering bluish-purple across the channel. As she sat outside the shop with Uncle Max, eating fish and chips, she’d gaze across the water, reminded of where she had come from. The island wove a special magic, and its isolated beauty was emphasised by the proximity of the mainland. They were on Bruny, happy and free. Everybody else was over there, with their complex city lives, buried in urban Hobart.
In small windows of spare time, the two families went to Cloudy Bay for picnics, fishing afternoons, walking and scarpering through the waves. Sometimes, the older generation stayed home, and it was just Mary and the boys. They took the truck to the far end of the beach, built bonfires on the sand, climbed East Cloudy Head in the raw bite of the wind.
One afternoon she found herself alone up there with Jack. The others had forgotten to bring extra layers and they retreated back to the beach as the sharp wind sliced through to hot skin. Snug in a thick woollen jumper, Mary tucked her knees in tight and sat in silence, swirling with the cold air and revelling in the long misty view. Jack stood nearby, and when she glanced up at him, she saw in his expression a kindred exhilaration, a parallel delight.
He looked down at her and his eyes were warm blue beacons. She felt her stomach melting. He sat beside her, blocking the wind, and she could smell the male tang of his sweat and a grassiness like sweet freshly cut hay. Tingling and alert, it was as if Mary’s skin was speaking to him, and her breathing was a butterfly trapped in her throat, tight and light and anticipatory.
She knew he was looking at her, but she was afraid to connect, frightened to look up again. Then his hand covered hers, gently, carefully, and she felt her cold fingers engulfed in the warm dry grasp of his work-roughened skin. He was staring away across the wild spread of land and sea, holding her hand in his like the fragile precious shell of an egg. They breathed together, each raggedly attuned to the presence of the other. He reached out and touched her hair, his hand softly gliding over the tangle of her curls.
She was waiting, her lips already warm for him. Soon he moved closer and kissed her forehead. He was so hesitant, so restrained. She wanted passion from him, released and fervent and strong. But he was cautious and unsure. He desired her, yes, but he was strapped by awkwardness. And yet there was beauty in it, and ardour too. The magnetism was powerful, and there was something in his constraint that only escalated her eagerness. She wanted to lean against that hard chest—her entire body was bent towards it. At last he wrapped her up in those capable firm arms and drew her close.
They descended from the cape like Pacific gulls skimming over sand. Not much had happened really: an embrace, a few tentative kisses. But they had traversed a social gulf; ahead was a long road of caution and concealment, but a seed had germinated and a tendril of promise was flickering. The farm became a landscape of opportunity: chance meetings, stolen kisses in the barn,