Into My Arms Read online

  Praise for Last Summer

  ‘. . . an absorbing and compelling tale about the fragility of human relationships, and how we can never know with certainty what the future holds and, when it arrives, how we will react.’

  Good Reading

  ‘Vivid characters as recognisable as your own family and friends, facing the challenges that affect us all, make this a very human read.’

  Better Homes & Gardens

  ‘In a poignant, intelligent, believable and acutely observed tale Ladd delves into her characters’ imperfections without judging them or poking fun, and she tells us things about ourselves.’

  Adelaide Advertiser

  ‘. . . riveting . . . presents a vivid snapshot of contemporary suburban Australia and how we live now.’

  News Mail

  ‘. . . a stunning exploration of loss, life, families and friendships . . . begins with a punch and within the first few pages I had laughed, cried and held my breath as I read on. The pace never falters and I found the writing and storyline literally breathtaking . . . written so beautifully and honestly.’

  Writing Out Loud

  ‘An insightful, natural storyteller.’

  Australian Women’s Weekly

  ‘It is clear on reading Last Summer, though, that Ladd is an artist, first and foremost. Her ability to reproduce the phrasing of a liar, to provide meaning with an action left half done, to describe the slow and painful progress of someone attempting to clamber over the ramparts of a wounded heart, these cannot be reduced to her professional interest in human psychology. We must conclude that an artist’s instinct and craft is at work here, too.’

  Booktopia

  After the Fall

  Two married couples: Kate and Cary, Cressida and Luke. Four people who meet, click and become firm friends. But then Kate and Luke discover a growing attraction, which becomes an obsession. They fall in love, then fall into an affair. It blows their worlds apart. After the fall, nothing will ever be the same again.

  Praise for After the Fall

  ‘. . . a subtle, moving and perceptive story of love, loss and hope.’

  Sydney Morning Herald

  ‘I loved After the Fall. I absolutely devoured it . . . Kylie’s writing is so beautifully descriptive, capturing emotions and moments in a few delicious phrases. And her characters are so real, so vividly drawn in all their complexities, that re-reading the novel seemed to be a re-visiting of old friends.’

  Kerri Sackville, MamaMia.com.au

  ‘A fascinating dissection of infidelity told from the point of view of two couples. Voyeuristic in its storytelling, After the Fall is a gripping insight into the anatomy of an affair, in the tradition of Anita Shreve, Josephine Hart and Anne Tyler.’

  Maitland Mercury

  ‘Ladd illustrates just what makes human interactions so difficult.’

  Oz Baby Boomers

  ‘An engrossing dissection of an illicit affair . . . the reader is swept along by the intensity of the characters’ emotions. A fascinating insight . . . Riveting.’

  Townsville Bulletin

  ‘A dissection of deceit and the heady days of new love.’

  Bayside Bulletin

  ‘Starting an affair is like falling—there’s the initial thrilling sense of plunging, followed by out-of-control plummeting, and, inevitably, pain. That’s how author Kylie Ladd describes it in this story of a friendship between two couples that ends in an affair. Told from the perspective of each person, the book has a deliciously voyeuristic feel that will have you hooked.’

  Cosmopolitan

  ‘This gripping novel examines the nitty-gritty of the affair and how it affects each person involved. From gentle Cary, who was hoping to start a family with Kate, to Cressida, coping with her dying father and her husband’s infidelity, to playboy Luke and indecisive Kate, all four react in very different ways. I found it hard to put this book down, and it stayed with me long after I had finished it . . . five stars.’

  NZ Girl

  Kylie Ladd is a novelist and freelance writer. Her essays and articles have appeared in The Age, Griffith Review, O Magazine, Kill Your Darlings, The Hoopla and MamaMia among others. Kylie’s first novel, After the Fall, was published in Australia, the US and Turkey, while her second, Last Summer, was highly commended in the 2011 Federation of Australian Writers Christina Stead Award for fiction. Her previous books are Naked: Confessions of Adultery and Infidelity and Living with Alzheimer’s and Other Dementias. She holds a PhD in neuropsychology and lives in Melbourne with her husband and two children.

  KYLIE LADD

  Published by Allen & Unwin in 2013

  Copyright © Kylie Ladd 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, London

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available

  from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 74331 458 6

  EISBN 978 1 74343 196 2

  ♣: Copyright © 1992 by Michael Ondaatje

  Reprinted by permission of Michael Ondaatje

  ♣: ‘Into My Arms’

  Written by Nick Cave (Mute Song Ltd/Mushroom Music)

  Reprinted with permission

  Text design by Lisa White

  Set in 12/17 pt Minion Pro by Bookhouse, Sydney

  Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Cameron and Declan.

  My daughter, my son.

  A love story is not about those who lose their heart but about those who find that sullen inhabitant who, when it is stumbled upon, means the body can fool no one, can fool nothing—not the wisdom of sleep or the habit of social graces. It is a consuming of oneself and the past.

  MICHAEL ONDAATJE, THE ENGLISH PATIENT

  I don’t believe in an interventionist God

  But I know, darling, that you do

  But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him

  Not to intervene when it came to you

  Not to touch a hair on your head

  To leave you as you are

  And if He felt He had to direct you

  Then direct you into my arms

  Into my arms, O Lord

  Into my arms, O Lord

  Into my arms, O Lord

  Into my arms.

  NICK CAVE, ‘INTO MY ARMS’

  Contents

  September 2009

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  January 2011

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

&n
bsp; 25

  26

  27

  28

  November 2012

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  Acknowledgements

  September 2009

  1

  Skye saw the blood before she felt the pain. It surprised her, the sudden red welling near the base of her thumb, smearing the tile she was holding up to demonstrate her technique. Some technique.

  ‘Damn!’ she exclaimed. She would have said something stronger, except she was surrounded by a class of grade five students, all eager ears and impressionable minds.

  ‘Bet that hurt, miss,’ remarked a tow-headed boy at the front of the group. Louis, she thought it was. She was still learning their names. She nodded, sucking at the webbing between her thumb and forefinger, willing herself not to cry. Shit. She’d been showing the children how to use tile clippers to shape the materials for the mosaic they’d be working on together, but now all they’d remember from the lesson was her clumsiness.

  ‘Perhaps you should rinse it under the tap,’ ventured a serious-looking girl. Rowena. Skye knew that one. Rowena was a teacher-pleaser; she’d spent their whole first class together last week waving her hand in the air and wearing a pained expression whenever another student got an answer wrong.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Skye, removing her injured hand from her mouth with as much dignity as she could muster and hoping she wouldn’t bleed on the desk. ‘The clippers slipped,’ she added. ‘They can do that, particularly when you’re using tiles with a high glaze. I was about to warn you all to be careful.’

  Rowena nodded. She’d remember.

  Blood was still oozing from the gash as Skye washed it at the sink in the corner of the art room. Bending forward so that her long hair screened her from the gaze of her students, she surreptitiously sucked at it again, then inspected the wound more closely. The cut was deep, almost down to the tendon. It probably needed a stitch or two, but there was no way that was going to happen. Stitches meant a trip to the principal’s office, meant admitting her carelessness and standing around awkwardly while a replacement teacher was found. Stitches begat incident reports and raised eyebrows; stitches eroded confidence and the possibility of further work when this grant had run its course. And she’d been so thrilled to get the grant, given her limited experience and that the hours could be juggled with her job at the gym.

  ‘Do you need any help? Is it still bleeding?’ asked Rowena, materialising at her side. She was probably anxious that the class had been left for three minutes without a teacher, thought Skye; then she saw the concern on the girl’s face and softened.

  ‘It hurts,’ she admitted. ‘I think it’s almost stopped, but I could use a bandage. Do you know where they’re kept?’

  Rowena shook her head. ‘Not in here. There’s a first aid kit in our classroom though. Should I go and get it?’

  ‘That would be great,’ said Skye, turning off the tap and wrapping a paper towel around her hand. It bloomed pink as it came in contact with her thumb, the stain spreading like a Rorschach blot.

  Rowena set off, stopping only to admonish Louis for throwing crayons at another boy. He waited until she had finished and was a good five paces away before picking up another, taking careful aim and hitting her squarely in the back, between the shoulder blades. Rowena, Skye was impressed to note, didn’t even turn around.

  Five minutes later Rowena hadn’t returned, and Skye was onto her third paper towel. Though she’d managed to get the class to go back to their work, she was beginning to get nervous. Should she still be teaching? Was there a blood rule, like in football? A dark-skinned boy kept glancing at her hand, dropping his eyes whenever she tried to smile back reassuringly. Yet when the door finally opened, Skye felt more annoyed than relieved. Rowena had brought another adult with her, probably a teacher. She hoped he wouldn’t talk about this in the staffroom.

  ‘Miss Holt, Mr Cunningham said he should come with me,’ said Rowena. ‘He was in the classroom when I went to get the bandaids.’

  The man stepped forward with his hand outstretched, then dropped it when he saw Skye’s makeshift dressing. He placed a white box on her desk.

  ‘Ben Cunningham,’ he said. ‘I was just doing some lesson planning. When Rowena told me she needed the first aid kit I thought I should probably have a look. Lucky it’s only a teacher who got hurt, and not one of the kids.’ He smiled to show he was joking.

  Skye didn’t smile back. She was too surprised, her mind racing. ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’ she blurted.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said, looking confused. ‘I’ve only been at the school since the start of the year. You’re our new artist in residence, right?’

  Skye hesitated. It seemed such a serious title for what she was actually doing: working one day a week with the two grade-five classes to create a mosaic on a bare concrete flank of the tuckshop. ‘Just for this term, yes.’ She nodded. ‘And I’m clearly off to a great start.’

  Ben laughed. ‘Things can only get better. If it’s any consolation, my guys all seem really excited about the project. When they came back from your class last week they didn’t stop talking about it.’

  Skye barely heard him, so intently was she trying to figure out where she knew him from. Brown hair, brown eyes, medium build, broad smile . . . He seemed so familiar she was sure they must have met. ‘You don’t have a daughter who does gymnastics, do you?’ she asked.

  Ben looked startled. ‘No kids here. 5C is enough for me.’

  ‘Oh,’ Skye mumbled, still perplexed. ‘I teach at the Y, three days a week. I thought I might have known you from there. It’s so hard to keep track of all the parents, though mostly it’s the mums who bring the children in, of course . . .’

  She was rambling, but she couldn’t seem to stop. It was infuriating, recognising his face but not being able to place him. This must be how her father had felt at the end of his illness, she thought, when the words that he wanted seemed always out of reach—close but untouchable, like birds in a tree.

  ‘How did it happen?’ asked Ben as he peeled back the sodden paper towel and bent over Skye’s injury to examine it. It seemed to her somehow a courtly gesture—anyone watching them might have thought he was about to turn over her hand and kiss it, maybe pledge his troth. She glanced around the art room, but 5C’s eyes were on their workbooks, their designs for the mosaic just beginning to take shape.

  ‘I wasn’t holding the tile clippers tightly enough,’ Skye admitted. ‘They were sharper than I’m used to.’

  ‘I can tell. It’s pretty nasty.’ Ben looked up, and she was struck by the velvety brown of his eyes. Eyes like Arran’s. Vegemite eyes, her father used to call them. ‘Sure you don’t want to go to hospital? I could take you after school, if you don’t want to leave your classes.’

  Skye shook her head. She appreciated the offer, but she was due at the Y at four, and Hamish wouldn’t be impressed if he had to swap her shift at short notice. ‘I have to teach,’ she explained. ‘The gymnastics, like I said. It’s hard to get someone to fill in. Can’t you just put a bandaid on it?’

  ‘I can do better than that.’ Ben rummaged through the first aid kit and drew out something that looked like a doll-sized bow tie. ‘Presenting the butterfly bandage,’ he said with a flourish, then added, ‘St John’s Ambulance Senior First Aid certificate: workplace level two. I’ve been dying to put it into practice.’

  Skye laughed. ‘You don’t get out much, do you?’

  ‘It was offered as part of the course last year,’ he said, pressing the edges of her cut firmly together. A few more drops of blood appeared, and he dabbed at them gently.

  ‘Last year?’ Skye said, not following.

  ‘Teacher training,’ Ben replied. He positioned one
white wing of the bandage just below the cut, smoothed it down, then stretched the middle section up and over the breach in the webbing, deftly anchoring it on the other side. ‘There,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘The trick is to keep it tight. And don’t try any cartwheels for a week or two.’

  ‘So you’re only just qualified?’ Skye asked. ‘This is your first year out?’ She would have guessed he was in his mid-twenties, like her, not fresh out of uni.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, tilting his head as though admiring his work. ‘I did a few years of science before I transferred to teaching. I wanted to get into vet school.’

  ‘What happened?’