Chapter 21: You Feel No Pain, and You’re Younger Than You Realise

On Friday morning, the tide was right and the bay was calm. I had set an alarm and rowed out just as it got light. I fished the edge of the channel for an hour and a half, and put four good sized snapper on ice in the bucket.

The beach is usually deserted in the early morning, but as I came back and put my dinghy on its trolley, a couple came across the road walking a Jack Russel. I don’t like small dogs. If it can’t rip your arm off – it’s not a real dog. I like them even less when they yap and fuss. This one was well behaved and fit for human companionship. Just. The owners were well behaved too.

As they got closer, I recognised Mrs Vaughan. She seemed a lot happier than the last time I had seen her. The day after the crash she had her dead son in her head, but that had changed bigtime. This morning she was glowing. In fact, Mrs Vaughan looked as though she was well fucked or tripping, or possibly both. I thought the guy was probably Stan. He looked pretty happy too.

Usually, the first few times people meet outdoors in NZ, they are at least a little reserved, but Stan came forward with his hand out.

“Stan Vaughan.” I looked at my own hands and wrinkled my nose.

“Kia Ora Stan. David Ericson. Bit fishy mate!”

“Won’t hug you then.” Stan didn’t pull back, but shook my hand vigorously. I smiled and nodded to Mrs Vaughan, who held the dog’s lead and looked slightly bemused. Stan moved to the stern of the dinghy and pushed, while I pulled the trailer from the front, and we were over the road and up in my carport very quickly indeed. It seemed only polite to invite them inside.

Butch the terrier had had ample opportunity to relieve himself during his walk, but made a territorial claim by lifting his leg against my SUV tyre. Mrs Vaughan apologised and tied him up in the carport, but I wouldn’t have let him inside anyway. The Vaughans accepted my offer of coffee, so I invited them to make it, left the snapper on ice until I could process them, and went to change my fishy clothes.

We sat on my deck. I realised they were a matching pair. Both fiftyish, small and compact, reasonably fit, dark hair, ruddy complexion, sweat suits and trainers. On closer inspection, they both looked like an old fashioned honeymoon couple. But even after our previous intimacy, I still knew her only as ‘Mrs’.

“You’ve cried all over me, but I don’t know your name.” She looked slightly embarrassed.

“Sarah.” Stan looked puzzled. She turned to him. “Last weekend. I coped with the accident and the blood, but next morning when I heard the boy had died, I needed to talk. You were in Auckland and I couldn’t get Russel out of my head. I came along here and talked to David.” Stan paled slightly.

“And cried?”

“Yes – Bugger you!” Sarah looked slightly sheepish. Stan looked a bit happier. I wasn’t sure whether there was a trace of ‘I told you so’, or whether it was pure relief. There was certainly lots of care and love and interest between them. I had just enough sense to keep my mouth shut. Stan didn’t.

“And felt better?” Sarah bristled. Her response was almost a snarl.

“Yes. Felt better. Happy now?” She turned back to me. “You had the sense to shut up and just let me cry. You didn’t say anything when I gave them the homeopathic drops, and when I came over in the morning, you just held me and let me dribble snot all over you.” I just nodded, but Stan had another go.

“You didn’t tell me. I’m glad you felt ok about finding someone to talk to.”

“I didn’t tell you because I was bloody embarrassed you moron!” Stan dug his hole deeper.

“Why were you embarrassed?”

“I gave rescue remedy to some poor bastard who was bleeding to death, and then went back to an empty house. It was almost alright until I heard the guy had died, but then I had Russel in my head all the rest of the night. I was pretty awful until I came over here and David just let me cry and cry. He gave me the same shit you do about letting feelings out, but somehow it was alright.” She paused for breath, and seemed to gather herself. “And you were right. I did feel better – Damn you!” Stan decided he was ahead, and had the sense to quit. He stood, opening his arms, and Sarah fell into them.

“You two have lots more to talk about. I’m going to process the fish and talk to Butch.” I took my time and left them to it for nearly an hour. The dinghy needed a good scrub out anyway, and once I untied him, Butch turned out to be a surprisingly good listener for a terrier, with a healthy appetite for raw snapper scraps. When I retied him I thought he might be there for a while, so left him some water.

By the time I went back inside with a big plate of fillets and a pottle of trimmings, Sarah and Stan were side by side on the couch, half turned towards each other, making eye contact and holding hands as they talked. All good signs.

“Looks like you’ve made a really good start. I’ve sorted Butch, so you can carry on while I cook breakfast.”

They didn’t protest, and snapper, eggs, and silver beet provided an easy one pan meal. The pottle of trimmings was mixed with lime juice, garlic, coconut cream, and finely sliced onion and red pepper to make a serving of ceviche as a starter. Life was good.

It stayed good as we drank more coffee and I learned a bit more about the Vaughans. They had moved to the bay only about three weeks previously, renting the house formerly occupied by ‘The Duchess’, a local identity who had gradually become unable to look after herself and had eventually gone to live out her days in a rest home nearer her children. The Vaughans had no surviving family, and were, as Stan put it, ‘trying out the area as a place to slide into retirement’. Sarah worked on line doing something lucrative but well beyond my understanding, and Stan worked ‘consulting in Human Resources’. They clearly wanted to be friends. That was fine by me, and after another half hour or so they collected Bob and continued their walk with a tentative agreement to meet for a meal ‘next week’.

I had my family comparatively late in life, and though by now my kids were ‘well launched’ on their own life voyages, my grandkids were all still at home. I drove south on Friday afternoon and spent the weekend visiting and doing ‘Grandad’ things, so it was early Monday afternoon before I caught up with Ryan. He was very keen to talk.

“Wow! That was quite a date.”

“Nice time huh? Where did you go?”

“Bed. But she was just as interested in boating and diving as she was in sex. I reckon she quizzed me on bloody near every place I’ve dived in the last forty years. That woman is obsessed!”

“Diving, boating, fishing, and fucking. There are worse things for a beneficial friend to be obsessed with.”

“Yes – no complaints. But she’s really into the tantric stuff she was having with you.” I ‘Hmmed’ and Ryan went on. “She was really keen to try lying still with me in her, but it didn’t do anything much for me, and whatever it did for her wasn’t what she was after. And she’s right into bums but she didn’t want anal.”

“We’ve never talked about your predilections in that area. How was that for you?”

“It was interesting – strange, but interesting.” I ‘Hmmmed’ again. “She cleaned me out good in the shower and made me clean her bum out too. I’ve never been very much into bums – either mine or a woman’s. I had a hooker wank me and massage my prostate once, but she was more interested in the 200 Francs than my response and if I’m honest, it hurt a bit, though I came buckets.”

“I imagine Pauline would have been sensitive to your responses and would have wanted to make sure that you had a good time.”

“Yes - The first time we fucked, Pauline pegged me with a little vibe as I came, and that was really nice. Later she put some marble thingies connected by a string up my bum, and pulled them out slowly while I came again. That was interesting, and I’d certainly be a starter for exploring some more. Later, she wanted me to fuck her while I stimulated her with the vibe up her bum. But the batteries died, and by the time we had replaced them the energy had changed and the moment had passed.”