Ukulele Girl

He was smiling. ‘I know, I know,’ he laughed, ‘sounds like a cliché, doesn’t it?’

I’d run him out to the airport, and we were in the bar waiting for his flight.

‘Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.’ Laughing again. ‘Our eyes, you know, met across a crowded room.’

Please, that’s just what a girl wants to hear.

At the conference dinner last night, her in a little black dress, halter neck, showing just the right amount of skin, him slacking off his tie. She had a crookedness to her smile, damn it, that only made her more attractive. Her hair was down, sun-and-sea bleached streaks falling on bare shoulders. Her shoes off and under the table, her silver ankle chain catching the light.

They were networking, was all, he said. It’s why we were there, why everyone was there, wasn’t it?

But I saw them leaving together, leaning into each other just a fraction more than friends would, so subtly other people wouldn’t notice unless, like me, they were paying attention.

So I asked him, straight up. I had to. Did he sleep with her? No, he said. Of course not. But he was still smiling.

I’d kept my distance for so long, out of respect for him, for his wife, letting them work it out, giving him time, waiting for the right moment. Then along comes this girl, out of nowhere.

I’d seen her during the day, but I hadn’t taken much notice. There were hundreds of people there, scurrying between sessions. I only made the connection later, sitting at the table next to them. I couldn’t help hearing what they were saying.

I’d made the most of the free wine, I wasn’t wasted, but I thought I was hearing things when – and you really couldn’t make this up – she looked straight at him and said, ‘So where are you staying?’

I rolled my eyes, as if anyone was paying attention, but she said it straight-faced, didn’t falter, not in the slightest.

I left it to the last minute, they were already calling his flight, before I asked him. Put away a couple of glasses of merlot, even though I was planning to drive back into town. Of course, he lied to my face.

‘We just talked,’ he said. ‘No, we did not sleep together, how could you think that?’

My words, too many of them, came tumbling out, too fast, too indignant, as he stood up. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘well, when we were all saying our goodbyes, funny she was suddenly there, that kiss, you’re not telling me that kiss was just between friends?’

He smiled again.

‘I don’t need your pity,’ I said, but he was already walking away.

***

I had noticed her earlier in the day, I don’t deny that. You know, when you look at someone, and they look back, and you hold it a fraction of a second longer than you should. Then you find yourself doing it again, and they’re already looking at you? You know what that’s like?

I’ve been married fifteen years, happily enough. We raised two kids as well as we could. Definitely better than some, I’d say.

I travel a lot. You can’t help looking around. There’s something about being away, it changes things, as if you’re in a parallel life. No-one’s watching you, or waiting for you. It’s as if you’ve got options. Whatever you’ve got back home, you can ignore it for a while.

I’d forced myself to go to the conference dinner instead of my hotel room. A hotel room, it’s like an oasis, a place you can get some solitude, some peace. At dinner, you have to talk to people, listen to people, when all you want is silence.

After the main course, people started to move around. This tired looking grey-suit sat down at my table, looked at my badge and insisted on telling me, in detail, how his concrete company had – he made quotation marks in the air – ‘become sustainable.’ I tried to be polite and look impressed. You never know when you might need something from these people.

He paused, and I said, ‘Sorry, I just need to get another drink,’ and turned away for a second and there she was, sitting right next to me. How long she’d been there, I don’t know. A waiter appeared with a bottle of wine, filled our glasses.

It was like a first date in your twenties, you know, when you talk about dreams, boats and the sea, music, how to create a better world? The kind of things you’ll do together, before you know anything about real life, paying a mortgage, ferrying kids to football or music lessons, or the tedium of parent-teacher evenings.

It seemed natural, it really did. Neither of us mentioned relationships. I didn’t want to send a signal that said ‘I’m taken,’ given the situation with my wife, and I could see she didn’t either, and that suited me just fine.

You remember how time disappears at student parties? 10pm and people are arriving and drinking and getting stoned, and the next thing you know everyone’s in the kitchen, someone’s playing a guitar and trying to sing ‘Wonderwall,’ and the sun’s coming up. The waiters had given up so I poured her another glass of wine, and suddenly it was midnight. Apart from some die-hard drinkers intent on making the most of the free booze we were the last people in the room.

‘Should I see if I can find you a taxi?’ I said.

‘I’d prefer to walk,’ she said.

‘Is it safe?’

She laughed. ‘It’s not Sao Paulo. Where are you staying?’

Her father’s apartment, down at the Viaduct Basin, looking out over the old America’s Cup bases, was just past my hotel. It was midnight, but the streets were still warm and damp, the northerly bringing humid, sub-tropical air from the Pacific. She stumbled on some broken paving and I caught her. I wonder now, did she do that on purpose? In any case, we didn’t let go of each other after that.

We stopped by the ferry terminal, outside my hotel. You’d think, maybe, there’d have been an awkward moment, but there wasn’t. It was as natural as anything. She said she supposed we should say goodnight, but she just stood there. I knew, if I wanted to, I could kiss her. I thought about it. I really did. Was it right? But she wouldn’t be standing there forever. She might never be standing there again, waiting for me to kiss her.

So I did, I kissed her, I put my arms around her. She looked up at me and said ‘thank you’ and it sounded like she was grateful, as if I had given her a gift. I could have taken her by the hand and walked into the lobby, waving away the receptionist on the front desk, saying she was my guest and she wouldn’t be staying long. But something held me back. I didn’t want this to be one night. I wanted more. I didn’t want to screw it up.

She said, ‘You are going to walk me all the way back, aren’t you?’

Outside her father’s apartment I kissed her again before she got her keys out, and again before she closed the door.

I walked over to the water’s edge and leaned against the railings, looking out at the yachts as the rain fell, until I started to feel cold. From my seventh floor hotel room I looked down at the harbour, the reflections shaky and shimmering in the rain. I turned the light off and took off my wet shirt, watching people getting out of taxis, hurriedly putting up umbrellas, half running to get into the dry although it wasn’t cold. No-one looked up at me, the window cool against my skin.

The next day I thought she’d decided not to come back. Maybe she was embarrassed, or perhaps bored with it all, but at the coffee break there she was, all designer t-shirt, sunglasses pushed up, face glowing and working the room like an expert. She saw me and smiled and carried on charming the ranks of would-be greenies. No awkwardness, no stumbled words of re-acquaintance.

Later that afternoon, when the conference ended, everyone was saying their goodbyes and promising to keep in touch, knowing they wouldn’t, that they’d be saying the same things next year.

She came over and leaned into me, and I kissed her on the cheek. I felt the rush, my heartbeat racing, and I hoped like hell Jane couldn’t tell what was going on.

***

Danny and I had split up, for good, a few months before the conference. I think I loved him, at least to start with. But I kept on getting sick. Mostly colds, but other stuff as well. I should have read those signs earlier.

I found a flat, worked hard. Got involved in a load of other stuff, music, volunteering for Women’s Refuge, filling that empty space. I was tired, but I didn’t want time to think. And I was definitely not interested in a new relationship.

I should have been more wary, but the place was full of cool, interesting people. I loved the intensity of it all, the way people you’d never expect were getting involved in green issues. It was a world I hadn’t seen before and I connected with it, deeply.

From the first moment I saw him I was captured, though we hadn’t spoken a word. I remember, he was looking at me across the room. I looked down, but it was too late. There was an intensity there.

I didn’t want that, I really didn’t. But there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t help it. I’ve said this before – I said it to him, once – meeting him was like seeing the world in colour again.

It was later, at the dinner, when we first spoke to each other. Once people started moving around, I went over to his table and there it was, that feeling. We talked and it was wonderful, and when it turned out he was staying near Dad’s place I knew we would leave together.

We stopped outside his hotel and I so wanted him to hold me, ask me in. But he just smiled and kissed me, gently, and said goodnight. And then – what was I thinking? – I actually said thank you. Thank you! Christ knows what he thought of me, but he didn’t let it show.

He walked me to Dad’s apartment – I asked him to – and I sat on the tiny balcony, watching him lean against the railing, looking at the water.

I really needed a cigarette but I didn’t want to risk him turning around and looking up and seeing me. So I just sat there, half hiding behind Dad’s beloved jasmine, until suddenly he stretched his arms, palms up as if to catch the rain, before turning to walk back to his hotel.

It was the perfect end to our first evening together.

***

We’d been asked to fund this film director, Timo, years ago, but turned him down. The films would never get made, we thought, and the tiny contribution we’d been asked for wouldn’t make any difference. Note the we, it wasn’t me who said no, even though I was chief sceptic. Now his three shorts were finished and, credit where credit’s due, no grudges were held and Timo had invited us all to the launch.

I love coming down to the capital – except the wind, obviously – and I always try to make the most of it. Wellington just has the cool factor that Auckland doesn’t, no matter how hard it tries. But I’d loved it a little too much the night before – a beautiful car crash of craft beer and cocktails – and definitely did not feel my best. Luckily Timo had persuaded a friend of his to invent a ‘new’ kiwifruit vodka cocktail, and a quick one-two took the edge off my hangover very nicely.

Next thing I know, and you can imagine what I’m thinking after the events the week before and our little stand-off at the airport, I see her standing next to him. I thought he hadn’t noticed her, but he says he had. If it had been me – as if – I’d have walked away, furious, but she didn’t, she just stood there patiently and eventually he turned and kissed her.

After that, I didn’t see them apart all evening. To be fair, I got distracted by the cocktails. Well, if I’m honest, by the guy mixing the cocktails. OK, if I’m really honest, his skinny black jeans left little to the imagination. As I said, I always try to make the most of it so once the vodka had run out we were straight out the back door to my hotel.

So, although I don’t really know what happened afterwards, whenever I looked at them it was as if they were physically attached to each other. I saw people – Timo, the vodka sponsorship people, even the Mayor for god’s sake – try to get his attention, but his unspoken message was clearly, ‘you talk to me, you talk to both of us.’

I just wonder what he told his wife in the morning.

***

Jane and a couple of other colleagues were going to the launch of Timo’s short films – they probably thought they’d bump into Wellywood royalty – so I didn’t really need to, but I wanted to have a quiet word with Timo, tell him it wasn’t me who turned him down for funding.

So we all rolled up to the DeLuxe cinema, the one where they hold the red carpet premieres. I thought we’d be in the main auditorium, that we’d see the films on the big screen, but instead we got three trailer-length snippets on a roll-down in the upstairs foyer. Underwhelming. By the looks on the faces of the other guests, they felt the same.

Timo had just started speaking when there she was, beside me. He went on and on – he always does, but he just about gets away with it, that cute Finnish accent with a hint of kiwi – and if it had been someone else, perhaps I would have worried they thought I was ignoring them. With her it didn’t feel like that.

When Timo finished his speech I turned, and kissed her on the cheek, and she smiled and said, ‘Hello again, mister eco-warrior.’

I’ve had the occasional night ‘away’ over the years. Mostly conversation, always drinks, more social and emotional than physical. But this was different. I wanted to be with this woman. I felt like I could let everything else fall away, like it was less important to me than I’d ever thought.

I wanted to walk her home again, re-live the thrill of last week, this time through our own set of late evening streets. We’d stop outside her house and stand a moment, holding hands. A taxi would drive by, slow down in the hope of a fare, and I’d wave it on. She’d invite me in, not for coffee, or a drink, but just to come inside.

As we were leaving the cinema a friend caught up with us, outside. He’d been at the event, but hadn’t managed to catch me to talk to. When he saw me leaving he had hurried after me, hoping for a quick word. Wasn’t it a great achievement, these films? A wonderful way to spread the sustainability message, to make the world a better place. He turned to her, as if seeking her agreement.

‘Yes, they’re wonderful aren’t they,’ she said, glancing at me, and smiling.

‘Shouldn’t you be catching the bus? Or do you have your bike tonight?’ I said. ‘It’s getting late, after all.’

‘Bike tonight,’ he said, turning to her again, ‘no hanging around for the bus that never comes, eh?’ She laughed, and he started talking about buses and bikes and Wellington’s hills.

She did her bit, I can see that now. She nodded, made positive noises, but the moment was slipping away and I think she knew, even then. Maybe he could see what was going on, and was trying to prevent it? Was he attracted to her, thought she was available or at least not attached to me. After all, I was married, wasn’t I? Or maybe he just didn’t know anything.

The last time I’d seen Jane she was having an intense conversation with the guy mixing the cocktails and although I told myself I didn’t care, maybe I did a little, maybe I was looking for Jane to appear, to have followed us out to the road as well, to break up this conversation and take it in another direction.

Eventually she said, much as she enjoyed talking about buses and bike lanes and Wellington’s sustainable future, she had to go, work in the morning and all that. So I said goodnight to her there on the pavement with the traffic and the rain. As she walked away, my friend stopped talking, and said perhaps he’d better be on his way as well, with all those hills to bike up to get home.

I thought for a moment about following her, but I didn’t. It would have looked like I was chasing her and I wasn’t, was I?

My friend left and I waited for my bus, alone.

Later on I felt empty, detached. My wife didn’t notice but there’s no reason why she would. We were pretty much keeping our feelings to ourselves by then.

***

All week I’d felt like a kite flying around dangerously on the end of a thin, nylon line. I’d made damn sure I was standing next to him after the conference closed. Then, the goodbye kiss. You know that song from from Grease, the one they sing at the end? Stuck in my head. Our band had it on our playlist. We used to play on Thursday mornings, before work, at the No-Name Café in Wellington, you know, the one next to the DeLuxe cinema? So there was no escaping that memory. As if I wanted to. As if I didn’t know this was special.

Then, at the launch of Timo’s short films on the environment, there he was. We’d found each other, unplanned, just a week later. I’d felt out of control before, things just happening like they were meant to, and now here it was again.

I walked over to him as Timo started his speech, and he didn’t react. Normally I would have been annoyed, but this wasn’t normal. I felt his silent greeting and the way we relaxed standing next to each other. Although we were barely touching, it felt like we relaxed into each other. After a few minutes he turned and kissed me, one of his lovely hands resting on my arm.

When it was time to leave, he asked me where I lived, and when I told him he said from the moment he met me he knew I was a hip Mount Vic girl. I poked him in the ribs, and said, ‘Who uses the word hip anymore?’

He went to poke me back, on the shoulder, but I moved and he ended up touching my breast. He sucked in his bottom lip, as if he’d made a fatal mistake, but I knew he wasn’t really worried. I took his offending hand and put it firmly on my hip, and said, ‘Here’s your hip from Mount Vic,’ and he laughed.

We walked down the stairs together, that wonderful staircase that sweeps down from the upstairs foyer, people watching us, and it felt like we were making a grand exit.

Outside on the pavement, with the cars and buses stopping and starting, a man appeared, a friend of his I assumed, and started talking. Somehow I was drawn into the conversation and suddenly we were talking about sustainability, my passion, but right then all I wanted was for him to walk home with me.

As we talked I saw he couldn’t do that, couldn’t be seen leaving with me, and that’s when I knew there was something he’d left out, that there must be someone else, a lover or wife, maybe children. We said our goodbyes but promised to have lunch soon. Two days later, in a now long-gone dreary city café, he told me about his family.

So I shut him out. I concentrated on my music, trying to mask the ache until it faded.

My oldest friend, the one who’d always promised to marry me if I ran out of time, was there, compassionate, patient, loving, and maybe he understood me better than I understood myself.

***

After a big night I really wasn’t up for ukuleles and banjos at breakfast time. I know the capital’s got that creative element and everything, it’s one of the reasons I love it, but sing-a-longs in the morning is going a bit far.

Apparently he hadn’t seen her for months, although he wouldn’t tell me exactly how long. He told me they’d met accidentally at some green achievement awards ceremony, at the city art gallery. Then she’d invited him to this gig. Why did he ask me along? I don’t believe he had it all planned out but what do I know? But it was obvious, to me anyway, that he was looking at her and it seemed like the message he was sending was, ‘I’m here and if you want me you’d better let me know.’

She looked as gorgeous as ever, smiling and laughing with her musician friends, but she didn’t come over and by the end it was too late, and at last I had what I guess I’d wanted for ages, both of us just sitting there, me hung over, drinking flat whites and chatting.

I should have known we wouldn’t last for long – my relationships never did – and I think I knew even then, really, that they’d get together in the end. Especially now he was separated from his wife.

Really, how could I possibly have competed with her, her looks and all the amazing things she was doing with her life? I should have known. But back then I just wanted to make the most of it, before the inevitable.

***

I’d known Jane so long I couldn’t tell anymore whether she was interested in me. We’d had a couple of nights together early on when I’d been up north for work, after she’d taken me out for a few drinks. She certainly knew how to have a good time. But I liked her and I suppose I always thought there might be something more than just casual.

I’d said I’d go to an early morning gig where – let’s call her ukulele girl, after that Himani print – was playing at the No-Name Café. I’d met her again, after ten months of silence on her part, at a sustainability awards ceremony and, for some reason, she’d invited me to the gig.

I won’t lie. I went to that ceremony because I knew she would be there. I needed to see her, to find out what had happened. She polite, distant and it didn’t seem right to blurt out that my marriage was over. As if that had anything to do with how she might feel about me, as if it would have made a difference.

It seemed obvious to me now that any feelings she’d had – and she’d had some, hadn’t she? – were gone. But she did ask me to the gig. Perhaps she was simply looking for something to say, perhaps she wanted to make it clear there were other things, other people, in her life now.

Jane was down and without thinking I asked her if she wanted to go with me. It wasn’t planned and I half expected her not to show as she’d been out getting trolleyed as usual the night before. But we sat there listening, drinking our coffee, and it felt more than comfortable. We must have looked like two school kids sharing a secret, the smiles on our faces as we both realised what was happening.

Ukulele girl didn’t really seem to notice us. I could have been her lover, but instead we’d had some intense moments, and I thought I was happy with that.

I should have known I was with Jane for the wrong reasons, and it would end almost as soon as it began but at the time, more than anything, I felt relieved.

***

He looked different. Nice shirt, perhaps leaner and more relaxed than I remembered. We talked, but not with the same intensity. I kept my distance. I refused a glass of wine. But I ended up inviting him to the gig the next day. I didn’t mean to ask, and I didn’t expect him to come, but there he was with a woman I thought I recognized, a colleague from his work, but I didn’t really know her.

By the end the intimacy between them was obvious, and I could hardly sing or play a note. He was married, he had kids, that’s why I had so carefully and deliberately pushed him away. How could he be seeing her? How could he?

It felt cruel and vicious, but he wasn’t like that, was he? I’d sacrificed my happiness, the children we could have had together, all for nothing.

My partner was looking at me in despair as I tried to steady myself, forcing back tears, belting out the final song to give me something to hold on to, and he left seconds after we finished, walking out silently as if I wasn’t there, as if I’d never existed.

***

We were sitting up on deck, the salty air cooling quickly as the light faded.

‘I’ve always thought it could be a film,’ I said. ‘One of those summer season rom-coms. Don’t you think?’

She was leaning back against the rail, counting the stars as they appeared in the twilight. Bioluminescence trailed behind us.

‘So many stars,’ she said. ‘So beautiful. There’s the cross, it’ll disappear soon. And there’s matariki, that won’t, it’ll be there all the way across, at least until Hawai’i.’

I half-closed my eyes and sang, ‘Up in my lonely room, when I’m dreaming of you…’

‘I hate it when you do that.’

‘Because it’s the ‘special’ song you used to sing with him? Is that why?’

‘Oh, leave it out. Please.’

She opened her book, although it was too dark to read.

‘You’ll strain your eyes,’ I said. ‘Well I think it would make a great film.’

‘Christ, you just can’t leave it alone can you? You can’t stop re-living it. How was I to know you didn’t love Jane? What if your wife hadn’t been having an affair? I didn’t know any of that.’

‘Well I didn’t and she was.’

‘Didn’t stop you sleeping with them both. At the same time.’

‘Can’t stop reminding me can you. Can’t stop trying to put the guilt trip on me. What if you’d got pregnant straight away with, what’s his name, your friend – that was the idea wasn’t it – with your clock ticking and all that? Didn’t do a very good job there, did he?’

‘You have no fucking idea, do you? Get over it. And he’s a good man. A really good man.’

The yacht started to heel slightly. ‘Wind’s picking up,’ I said. ‘I need to furl the genoa in a bit, for the night, just in case.’

She continued staring out at the water, as if she hadn’t heard me. Then she stood up.

‘I suppose so,’ she said, turning away. ‘Do you need me?’

‘No. I can manage.’

She pushed past me, climbed down into the cabin. ‘Good. I need to get some sleep.’

I could hear her moving around below, then it was quiet.

I shivered as the breeze gave up the last of the sun’s heat but I stayed where I was, staring out over the Pacific.

I focused hard, pretended my eyes were sucking in every last scrap of light fighting to stay in this hemisphere, convincing myself I could still see where the ocean stopped and the sky began.