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A Tang Dynasty Horse |
The Tang Horse was one of three Chinese
restaurants in Beauville and was her favourite.
The paintings of misty Chinese mountains, the softly twanging music, the
spicy fragrances, all seemed exotic to her.
In the window was a reproduction of a green Tang dynasty horse and she
liked to imagine she was somewhere far more interesting than her home
town. As usual, she took a table facing
the street. That way she could pretend
she was in Paris, watching the passers-by, or some restaurant in Chinatown in
San Francisco. Anywhere rather than Beauville. She ordered, as she always did, sweet and
sour pork and green tea, and ate slowly, thinking all the time of good things,
of her little cottage and its garden, of her life as a teacher, which she
mostly loved and found deeply satisfying, and of her friends. Even Jennifer, who could be so annoying, she
knew, really cared about her and was always there for her when things were bad.
The
bell on the restaurant door tinkled and she looked up to see who had come
in. She felt the blood drain from her
face, and her stomach tighten into a knot.
It was Shane Campbell. He appeared
not to notice that she was there at first, and then, observing her, turned away
suddenly, his features twisted into an odd expression. Shane Campbell had been the great love of her
life. He had thick, curly brown hair,
golden brown eyes and his broad, muscular body bore testament to his obsession
with many different sports. He had been
captain of the school footy team. She
had been in love with him since she was fifteen. He was a bit older than the others in the
class, not because he'd been kept back, but because he'd started school later
than usual. This meant he was one of the
first to get his P plates and to get a car.
He had worked hard at the local auto-mechanic in a part time job and
saved enough to buy himself an old Holden Monaro sports car which he and his
mates did up in the back yard and drove up and down the streets of
Beauville. The car had a deep burble and
a huge engine and Shane was the envy of every male in the class and the adored
object of every female.
She
never showed him how much she fancied him.
Because of her shyness, she remained aloof. She watched with wistful envy as he went
after each of the gorgeous girls in class – Emma Pratchett, Laura Simpson,
Chanelle Roberts, and the others who were all slim, with long, flowing hair and
perfectly proportioned faces, and seemed so confident and glamorous and clever,
and made little snide comments about her when she walked past. These were the sort of girls Shane Campbell
pursued. Lucy knew she didn't stand a
chance. She stayed in the background,
never speaking to him, never taking any notice of his bad-boy behaviour, or
pandering to his arrogant assumption that he was the most important human being
on earth. None of his relationships
seemed to last very long; perhaps three months as most. Then the girl was ditched and Shane would
walk with a little added swagger in his step into the classroom and start
looking around for a new conquest.
One day
after school he came up to Lucy, where she was waiting at the gate for one of
her friends.
“Hey,”
he grinned charmingly, and held her eyes with a warm, confiding gaze.
“Hello,
Shane,” she said expressionlessly, ignoring the powerfully muscled arm casually
draped over the gate she was leaning against.
She had no intention of being added to the list of trophies taken by the
bad boy of Beauville.
“I saw
you at the Rialto last Saturday. What
did you think of the movie?”
“It was
Casablanca,” she muttered, “I've seen it a dozen times.”
“I love
old movies too,” said Shane softly, his eyes travelling over her face.
“Really?”
she said, feigning indifference, although her heart was beginning to pound a
little harder in her breast.
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A Holden Monaro HQ |
“Yup.
Casablanca is one of my favourite
films of all time. Hey, I've got some
jobs I need to take care of on Saturday arvo, how about you come along for the
ride and we can maybe take in a movie afterwards? Or whatever you'd like. Go for a Coke, anything.”
So she
did. It was only much later that she
discovered he hadn't even been into the cinema that day and didn't know who
Humphrey Bogart was, in fact had never seen Casablanca.
He took
her in his wonderful old coupé to a footy game in the next town of
Mallaroo. She found the game pretty
boring, but he stood next to her the whole time, so close she could feel the
warmth of his body, and after the game made disparaging comments about both
teams and how much better he and his team would have played. By then Lucy's sense of reality had
diminished under his charms and she didn't see this for what it was – an
arrogant and rather pathetic attempt to big-note himself. She agreed with him and felt that this was
the happiest moment of her life. She was
with the hero of the town, handsome, sexy, intelligent and thoughtful. He even loved old movies for goodness'
sake! After the game he took her home in
the winter dark and she was half disappointed, half pleased, that he didn't try
anything with her but merely asked if she would like to come out with him next
weekend and perhaps hang out with him at lunch time at school.
The
crunch came on the fourth date. They had
gone through the early stages of kissing and petting but now he made it clear
he wanted to go all the way. Lucy was
old-fashioned. She believed that you
shouldn't have sex before marriage unless it was with someone you were sure was
the lifetime partner for you, and even then it somehow seemed wrong. She resisted his sweet talk, and then his
increasingly amorous and demanding advances.
She could see he was becoming angry, but also that he was a little
intrigued. Obviously none of the other
girls had held out.
“Do you
love me?” he whispered huskily, breathing into her ear. She nodded, unable to speak. “I love you very much,” he breathed, pulling
back to gaze into her face, his brown eyes warm and filled with sincerity. “Won't you do this for me,” he begged, “For
our love?” Still she refused, although
she was hesitating. He dropped his arms. He drove her to the cottage and turned his
face away when she wanted to give him a goodnight kiss. That Monday at school he pretended not to
know her when she joined him for lunch. This treatment continued all week.
On
Friday he said, “So would you like to come out tomorrow?” Grateful for any crumb, she accepted at
once. The next night they sat in the car
outside the takeaway diner. Shane said,
“I'm sorry I behaved so badly this week, but I really care for you and I was
hurt. Because you didn't want to prove
you loved me.” That night she lost her virginity to him. Their relationship lasted just as long as all
the others. But by then Lucy was
hopelessly in love with him. He dumped
her one Thursday lunchtime in front of all his friends and all the other girls
of the class.
“You're
such a prissy, up-yourself bitch, Lucy,” he said offhandedly, his eyes
sparkling with malice. Foolishly, she
stammered, “But you said you loved me.”
“Oh
come on, Lucy!” he countered, “You're so not my type! All those curls, those old-fashioned
dresses. You look like my auntie! And anyway I prefer my women hot in
bed.” His friends sniggered. “Seriously, you need to do something about
yourself. You wouldn't look so bad if
you did something about your hair and stuff.”
Her
eyes brimming with tears, trying desperately and failing to hold them back,
Lucy stumbled away, as far as she could, to the other side of the playing
fields, her cheeks burning, her heart torn in two. She heard the word 'frigid' and a guffaw of
laughter from the boys.
Shane
had made a point, after that, of flaunting his new girl in Lucy's face. He found someone in the neighbouring town to
go out with him. And later, when she
heard that this girl, Rosa, the daughter of an Italian family, was pregnant,
Lucy was saddened but not surprised. Shane
Campbell was married at nineteen and divorced at twenty-five, with three children,
no career, no progress in life, no qualifications, no hope. After his public humiliation of her she had
made a point of ignoring him whenever she saw him. She didn't have much, but she did have her
pride. She had told her mother about the
whole thing and her mother had produced the usual platitudes – men only want
one thing, you must hold out until you're married, why don't you find a nice
boy with career prospects, and so on.
But even though Lucy never went near Shane again, she still loved him
deep down. His appearance in The Tang Horse spoiled her evening for
her. Yet another reason to leave this dump, she thought, get far away from all
these people. At the same time, she felt
trapped.
She
heard the scrape of a chair at the table behind her. The next minute Shane was standing next to
her table. He was alone. She wondered at that. She knew he had divorced, a messy divorce,
but he was still good looking and probably just as charming as ever. It surprised her that he was coming out to
eat alone.
“May I
join you?” he asked. There was a flash
of the old, warm charm, but his eyes were a little bloodshot, his shirt tighter
around his belly. Her eyes averted, she
shook her head, pushed her plate to one side, rose, and leaving fifteen dollars
at the cash register, left the restaurant, wondering if she would ever be able
to return. She was conscious of him
staring through the plate glass window at her retreating back, and she thought,
this has to be one of the worst weeks ever.
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