Crosswinds
The next day, I moped. I had no will against gravity and slumped and dragged and sagged all about the house, driving everyone to despair. I ached for Curtis; I pined for him with an intolerable, bittersweet fervour I was sure had never been experienced by any other. I flung myself down on the chaise to indulge my heartache fully, morbidly curious about the symptoms I’d heard so much about.
Agatha, the housekeeper, came into the lounge and, finding me prostrate and trailing a woebegone finger around the patterns on the rug, tutted and immediately set to opening the verandah doors. ‘It’s a beautiful day outside. You’ll not make him come any faster by acting lovelorn.’
‘It’s cold.’
‘A brisk walk will get the heat up. Go up to the weather station like you used to.’
Though she still spoke to me as though I were nine, it is true that perhaps I needed it that day and the child in me responded in kind, with grumbling and dawdling as I put on my coat and boots and took her advice. The weather station, located near a musterer’s hut, gave purpose to an uphill hike to one of the highest points on Rāwāhi — a spare, flat peak Papa called ‘Crosswinds’ because on the day he’d surmounted it, he had been buffeted by strong breezes from all points of the compass. The station was another of Papa’s auxiliary offices: a collection of weather- monitoring instruments sent to him by the Royal Meteorological Society; a minor science I had enjoyed sharing with my father as a child.
I thought about Curtis the entire time it took to climb the hill to the weather station, and although the whole errand took only half an hour, I felt by then so imbued with alpine oxygen I was light-headed. As I closed the little gate to the station’s picket fence, I heard a shout and spun around, alarmed. There, approaching over the brow of the hill, was Curtis.
My heart leapt in a way I had never felt before — like a live thing it seemed to want to escape my very breast and fly to him. His appearance — so sudden and providential — rendered the scene like a magnificent Baroque painting, as though a divine light followed him and angels sweetened the way before. Time slowed and I could discern the movement of every windswept hair, each hastened footstep, the rise and fall of his chest; he was smiling now, eyes locked on mine. For myself, I could do nothing but stand and stare, awaiting my destiny.
‘Mere,’ he said, and paused a little just before reaching me, perhaps concerned as I didn’t return his smile. ‘Agatha told me you were here. I couldn’t wait to see you.’
‘Oh Curtis! I—I have . . .’ For a moment, I’d been about to burst out all my anguish and worry, but it no longer seemed to matter anymore, and I didn’t want to tire him with girlish histrionics. ‘I hope . . . did you have a pleasant trip?’
A gale snatched his hat from his hand, and although he caught it again easily, the movement was impatient. ‘Come, there is a shack of some kind yonder. This wind is abominable.’
‘A musterer’s hut,’ I informed him, but the wind took my words, immaterial as they were, and since my hair blew all about my face, Medusa- like, I nodded and we set off together, carefully stepping down the slope, Curtis ever attentive to my safety.
The hut was situated on a tussock flat, sheltered by a crag to its back. It was a composite construction of stone, timber and iron, designed with only the most rudimentary nod towards comfort, but inside was sturdy and calm. There was a strong smell of wet wool, dogs, oil, smoke and hessian, and I had a keen sense of having invaded a private and very masculine place. We had only the light from an open window to see by, but it was enough for me to enthrall in all the details of Curtis I wanted as I watched him glance about us and lay his hat and coat on the old crate that served for a table. There was a book and pencil on the range for shepherds to mark their passing and whereabouts. ‘What are these scrawls?’ he enquired, peering closely at words etched into the wood frame with a scowl. ‘What a dismal life. I don’t know why it should be worse than some of the Ndebele huts I stayed in, but somehow it is.’
‘A musterer might only stay a few days at a time,’ I said, noticing a pack of playing cards tucked away and a few torn- out illustrations of glamour ladies pinned to the beams. ‘It’s rudimentary, true, but it’s out of the weather and I’m grateful for it.’
Curtis took my hint and immediately I was the sole focus of his attention. ‘My darling Mere.’ He took my hand and stood so close before me that I raised my gaze. ‘Can you know the strength of my feeling while I was gone — a handful of hours, I know — I am almost abashed to admit how desperate I was rendered in such short time.’ He kissed the back of my hand, then turned it and lingeringly kissed my palm until I almost swooned. ‘But I cannot deny it. As if I need to put words to this, Mere, for I demonstrate frankly with every fibre of my being how I feel about you, but I wish to say it anyway because it must be spoken; the atmosphere alone must hear it: I love you. I love you with abandon, without control, in a way I have never known. No, don’t speak, I must say it even more, it bubbles up inside me. I . . . I adore you and can’t tolerate the thought of leaving this island and never seeing you again. Say you feel the same, my darling — are we partnered in soul like I believe we are?’
Of course I nodded, but was otherwise speechless, struggling to grasp that this was not another fantasy but as real and tangible as the grit beneath my boots.
Fortunately, he was content to carry on. He held a hand to the side of my face. ‘Then . . . then, will you be my wife, Mere? Does this mean you’ll have me as your devoted husband, forever, and partner me in person wheresoever I shall go, as well as in my heart?’
‘Heavens, oh Curtis, yes—yes!’ I leant into his hand with eyes closed, so distracted with excitement I barely knew what I did. My Curtis had just proposed, and my fears parted to admit a blazing joy.
‘She accepts . . .’ he murmured to the listening atmosphere. As my eyes were still shut with the reeling intensity of the moment, I did not witness the lowering of his lips to mine — an ardent kiss that caught me by surprise.
‘My darling Mere,’ he said huskily, breaking off after a moment, ‘I can tell how pure and unpractised you are, and that you give me the gift of yourself to guide into womanhood. We shall have wonderful adventures together. I shall never tire of your innocence and simplicity.’
He kissed me again, this time trailing his lips over the frame of my face, jawline and neck, and the thrills this elicited competed with the vague humiliation of being described as unpractised and simple. Irrespective of his choice of words, his actions spoke volumes, as did the peculiar noises now coming from his throat. His grip was tightening, possessive. I was being ravished just like the starlets in Mother’s periodicals; here in this rustic, gloomy hut, I was in an unmarried dalliance, and my father would be outraged.
But Papa wasn’t here, and I wanted to trust Curtis utterly. With reservation, I allowed myself the sensation of what I’d imagined for weeks and began to play the part I’d cast for myself. I moved my hands up his arms, kissed his face and tangled my fingers in his hair and delighted in how he reacted like the mimosas in our hothouse. There were no more lovely words forthcoming, but they were hardly necessary compared with the urgency of his kisses. Indeed, with little more than a grunt, he lifted me off my feet and carried me the short distance to a slat bed that must barely suffice for even an exhausted musterer, but which was forced to support both our weights and proportions as he lay atop me.
‘Goodness!’ I breathed, genuinely startled and a little frightened in case Curtis had lost control of himself. ‘I—I, do you think . . .’
‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he muttered. ‘I shan’t take advantage of you, but as you will be my wife, I must be allowed to express my love for you in all the ways available to a man — a man, I add, who has been driven to delirium by you for several weeks now. You must relax and learn to enjoy the pleasure it brings; there is nothing unnatural about a physical union for men and women who love each other. You’ll find the thinking around this among young people in London and Paris is much changed since your father’s time.’
A part of me so wanted to subscribe to his persuasions, but even had I known the proclivities of a young moral expressionist at the Moulin Rouge, I still didn’t know what to actually do with a rampant man breathing heavily into my neck. I lay quite still and tried to think as he pulled away my coat, and submitted to his advances, my mind racing with conflicting desires and uncertainties. At last, he relented, unclasped me, and sat up on the bed.
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