I was so nervous waiting for Jarvis at the McClelland Sculpture Park. It was like my insides had been freeze dried and snap locked in plastic. I felt as though I wouldn't even be able to talk to him when he arrived. My hair felt damp around my neck, my hands felt trembly and my throat felt dry. I paced around the lawn outside the café . We hadn't been specific about where we'd meet, but I'd already checked inside. I was fifteen minutes early, anyway. The last week had passed by so slowly, like an entire year, the days dragging their feet like a stubborn child.
I feigned interest in the Omar O'Hannah sculpture, feeling like everyone in the café must've been watching me out the window, knowing that I was about to embark on an exercise in infidelity. Was it written all over my face? The word 'infidelity' is terracotta. I placed my shaky hands in the pockets of my fine Lolita dress, it was black lace, knee-length, with white netting underneath, creating the perfect funnel-shape around my waist.
I tried sitting on a wooden bench by the lake, but the squawking ducks got on my nerves. I hovered by the entranceway to the inside gallery, but the sun was bright and I didn't want to get burnt. I'd forgotten to apply 100+ under my makeup. I went back and looked at the Omar O'Hannah again and marvelled at the engineering that made the steel propellers float like the hands of a clock.
'Sylvie,' he said. Jarvis' dark hair was longer and he was wearing a hat. His eyes were green and when I said his name, 'Jarvis', in reply, lilac shot like fireworks before my eyes. I didn't know if lilac represented his name or the feeling of love that I was so overcome with.
He took my hand gently as I was still dazed by lilac. 'Where shall we start?' I heard him ask. I blinked, but the colour wouldn't fade. I could hardly see him. 'There's a sculpture track,' I muttered. I started walking away from the lake, his hand moulded into mine. I could just make out the entrance to the track, but everything was fuzzy.
'I felt so nervous,' he said, his voice was as soft and gentle as a dandelion floating in the wind.
'Me too,' I said. 'This week has felt like a year.'
'I was so happy you contacted me. You can't know how much I tried to find you. I've thought about you every day, every hour.'
He took my breath away. I hadn't expected that he felt the same as me. His words created lilac waves topped with foamy white bubbles.
'Sylvie, are you okay?'
I was so nervous and breathless and overwhelmed by everything, I blurted out, 'It's lilac, it's everywhere, I can hardly see.' I regretted saying it straight away, because he was going to think that I'm a mad girl.
'What?'
'I see colours for letters of the alphabet, days of the week and now I see lilac when I'm with you. I'm swarmed by lilac, I can hardly see.'
'Colours?'
'It's this thing I have. I've never told anyone before. But I'm so overcome right now, I can hardly see. Give me a minute. It should fade. It never lasts long ... but you, you have this effect on me.'
He laughed. 'My brother had something similar. He saw shapes when he heard music. He had to listen to talk-back radio when he was driving because music was too distracting. He said that the The Pixies created triangles.'
'Really? Wow, I've never heard of that,' slowly the lilac began to fade and I could see him more clearly. I could see his concerned expression, his clean-shaven face, a freckle just under his lip.
'We all have our quirks,' he said. 'Or perhaps they're not quirks, maybe they're special gifts.' He wrapped his arms around me and our kiss lifted me on to my tiptoes and sprinkled us with dusts of gold.
'I forgot how sexy your voice is,' he said.
'Really? My mother hates my voice,' I said. 'She's always telling me to tone it down and to speak like a lady.'
'You shouldn't listen to your mother.'
'I try not to.' We stopped beside a Guan Liang piece. 'How did you get away from Sydney?' I asked.
'I told Nina I had a work thing here. She's too busy to become nosey about anything. She's just been promoted, so she's settling into her new position this week. She hardly even notices me at the moment.'
'Do you feel guilty?' I asked.
'I probably should. But how can I feel guilty when what I feel with you feels so pure?' He kissed me again and guilt was the last emotion I felt too.
We walked through the sculpture path. I wasn't paying attention to anything except the curve of his shoulders, the warmth of this hand, the stream of lilac that surrounded me every time he spoke. The sculptures were folded into a fog in the background.
When we sat under a tree, by the Patterson stone maze, he asked, 'Why couldn't I have married a girl like you, Sylvie?'
'Why couldn't I have married you?' I replied. 'It's so unfair. Alistair is the biggest dud. Seriously. At least Nina has some brains.'
'Doesn't she know it, though?' he asked, and I laughed, deep and throatily like my mother hates. He held me tighter, as though it was music to his ears.
'I wish I was born in the olden days, when people could find their own partner. Some days I even wish I was a desperate. Who needs a fancy house, a good job and a cleaner? I just wish I had freedom,' I said, looking up at the expansive sky. 'It's like being trapped. I walk in the door, hear Alistair at home, and I get this feeling that travels all the way up my throat and I can hardly breathe. It's weird, I can hardly explain it, but it's like I want to scream ... all the time.'
'I know exactly what you mean. And it's hard to rationalise, because we're actually really lucky. We're healthy, we're well off, so why this empty feeling then?' He plunged his eyes into mine, 'I want you so bad, Sylvie. I want you all the time. This, us now, being together ... it's making it even worse. I don't even know how I'm going to go home tomorrow.' He looked down at his feet. 'This wasn't in my five-year plan to meet someone else. So I'm really confused. I don't know what to do.' He took a deep breath. 'Let's not think about all that, hey? We're together right now ... Let's not think about what all this means, yeah?'
'Sure,' I said, feeling his depth of confliction. He leant his body into mine and soon we were lying on the grass, still damp from the rain the night before. There was no one around so we did as we pleased, logic and modesty giving way to touch.