The Lightkeeper's Wife - By Karen Viggers Page 0,72

lurches against me. A possum startles from the shadows of a tree and gallops across the path. Emma uses this as an excuse to grip my hand, and she holds it firmly as we walk up the hill, running her thumb back and forth across my fingers. My knees weaken. I’m too entranced to pull away.

Halfway along another quiet street, Emma pauses and fiddles with the catch on a low iron gate. It swings open with a musical creak and she leads me around the house to a bungalow in the backyard. She unlocks the front door and walks in, turning on the lights. Tossing her coat across a chair she swivels to look at me, hands on hips. My mouth dries and I lick my lips uncertainly. She smiles then—a slow confident smile that travels up into her eyes. My heart batters, and I stand there useless, hands hanging by my sides.

Time stretches and the moment subsides. I curse myself for my inaction. Emma couldn’t have spelled out her interest more clearly. She shows me to a tiny bathroom and when she leaves, I stand in front of the mirror and examine myself. In the glare of the fluorescent light, I look gaunt and pale and there are dark hollows under my eyes. My cheekbones are too high and there’s a shadow of regrowth on my cheeks. I shiver away from the emptiness in my eyes. It’s like there’s something missing. When I peer at myself again, I look afraid.

I splash water on my face and dry it on a towel, then wander through the lounge to the bedroom where Emma has lit a candle and is undressing. It’s as if she knows I’m unable to do it for her. I glance around and watch the candlelight flickering warmly on the walls. There’s not much furniture in this room. Emma is still living out of a suitcase; her shoes are in a pile in the corner and there are framed prints leaning up against one wall. She notices me looking around.

‘I haven’t had time to hang my pictures yet,’ she comments, pulling off a sock. ‘There was someone else using the room while I was away.’

I try not to look at her muscular thighs.

‘Would you like to see them?’ she says, and then laughs when she sees my face. ‘I’m talking about the pictures.’

‘There are hooks on the wall,’ I say, dodging her gaze. ‘We could hang them now.’

I pick up the first photo. It’s a picture of Emma in Antarctica. She’s standing outside a round red building a bit like a spaceship on stilts. Around her are rocks and ice and a line of Adelie penguins mid-waddle.

‘Béchervaise Island,’ she says, taking the print from me.

Now she’s down to one sock, knickers and a singlet. My heart tumbles as I watch her reach up to hang the photo on a hook. She selects a picture of a grey-headed albatross perched over a moody view of Macquarie Island. The light is dim and the sea is a restless white, foaming over the rocks below.

‘A friend of mine took this shot. It’s good, isn’t it?’ She hangs it above the bed. ‘I’d love to go there, wouldn’t you?’

I’m staring at her toned body. ‘Go where?’ I ask vaguely.

‘Macquarie Island.’

‘Yes, yes,’ I say.

I bend quickly to lift the next frame, but she grasps my arm gently. The candlelight is soft on her face as she looks up at me. A moment of breathlessness hovers between us, a fragment of time when we both wait. I know it’s up to me to act, but I wallow in the luscious darkness of her eyes, quivering internally. The smallest smile flickers on her lips, and suddenly it isn’t difficult to kiss her. Passion, long unfamiliar, floods through me. Her lips are full and eager. Her body curves into mine.

I didn’t think I could do this. But now that I feel her, warm and strong and close, something releases, something that has held me in check for years. It eases out of me like a sigh. And slowly, slowly I allow myself to go with sensation. The untapping of myself; an uncorking. Like a slow-motion replay.

Emma is soft, but firm in my arms. She draws me onto the bed and allows me to explore her with my hands: the tautness of her forearms, the tight curve of her back, the softer roll of her hips. This is like music, like summer, like the quiver of birds’