Swifty Taylor and the Missing Child – Episode 4
Confessions on the Concrete Bench
I had been around long enough to acknowledge that – along with death and taxes – there are many things in life that are inevitable. Changes will occur whether I like them not; I will fail more often than I’d like; night will follow day; and the evening that follows the day and proceeds the night is the preserve of a Jameson or two. The other inevitability was that Laura and I would make contact once again.
“The usual place. 9am.” The text message required no further embellishment. At 8:55am, I was sitting on the concrete bench overlooking the Williamstown seafront. The waves were working overtime, throwing themselves against the rocks like they were annoyed at something but couldn’t quite remember what. I slouched forward on the bench and let the salt air take a swing at my lungs. It didn’t improve my nervousness, but for a moment it offered me some company. In the years when we were together, golden years that now played like ancient history, we would sit for hours on this very bench. Sometimes saying a lot, sometimes saying very little, all of the time Laura doing most of the talking.
I sensed her presence a few moments before I caught sight of her. She was late of course, but Laura had always had a knack for timing. She’d arrive at the precise second that you had started to believe that she wouldn’t show up at all. A zephyr of a breeze playfully caught her hair and caressed it more effortlessly than I ever had. I thought I saw the hint of a smile on her lips when she saw me, or perhaps it was a grimace. I couldn’t be one hundred per cent sure. But she was here, and for the moment that was all that mattered.
“Swifty,” she said softly, like a child who was learning to read names in a vocabulary book. “Hello, Laura,” I replied, giving her name the kind of acknowledgement you give an old sparring partner – respectful, courteous, but slightly distant just the same. She sat down next to me, and for a brief instant the years melted away, and we weren’t as embittered as the passing of time had decreed we should be. Regret was bubbling inside, threatening to consume me. She kept her hands in her coat pockets. I kept mine where they would cause the least amount of strife.
I was amazed by how good she looked, but was aware of the need to curb my enthusiasm. “You look like trouble aged well,” I said. It wasn’t my best line, but for now it was all that I had. “And you look like it sure didn’t learn anything,” she rejoined. Her line abrupt and straight to the point. This was still the same old Laura. Yet something about her seemed fragile and, perhaps, broken. If it was the latter, I hoped that she wasn’t counting on me for running repairs. I looked out to the horizon, but it remained impassive. It never looked back at me.
“Why did you contact me, Laura?” I asked, pretending I was angry that she had. Overhead, a seagull let out what sounded like a cry of anguish. Maybe it had looked into my heart and was surprised by what it had seen. The waves continued to crash against the rocks of the Crystal Pool, as if urging me to say what I really meant, to tell her how I really felt, and to get up and leave right after. “I owed you an explanation, Swifty. I was devastated when my brother died. I was concerned that I was using you to mop up my grief.” I wanted to tell her that I didn’t mind her using me, for anything. She kept talking. I kept listening. Just like way back when.
Against the sea wall, a rogue wave clattered, harder than the rest. The spray settled on our heads and shoulders, unwelcome and cold. “The water isn’t as inviting as I remember it,” she whispered. She turned and studied my face, scrutinising it for any cracks that might be opening up to let out my pain, or maybe let in hers. “You always were a stubborn b*st*rd, Swifty.” That hit me somewhere it shouldn’t have, but like the toughest of players, I refused to let on that I was hurt.
“I just want to say one thing,” she said, after a pause, and after all she had already said. I thought I knew how this would all end. I thought I had seen it all before. But suddenly a tear was trickling slowly down her cheek, and she was suddenly looking more beautiful than she ever had. “I’m sorry, Swifty. Can you ever forgive me?” The truth was she didn’t need to apologise for anything, and she never would as far as I was concerned. I’d take her back in a heartbeat, and I reckon she knew that anyway. But instead of replying, I let the silence sit right between us on that concrete bench. In front of us, the sullen bay’s angry waves kept on pounding away at the rocks like they were trying to tell me a secret – in a language that I couldn’t understand or a code that I couldn’t decipher.
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Don’t go back Swifty…believe me it’ll end in tragedy….. cheers Smokie
Laura; oh dear, would she be the legendary Laura Norda?
Glen!