The next day, around eleven a.m., Quent’s guitar was delivered by courier. It came in a flight case. I took it into the guest room and, quite reverently, unclipped the lid. In there sat a beautiful, battered old Martin, the king of acoustic guitars. It looked like genuine vintage from the nineteen fifties, dark Brazilian rosewood, and well played, judging by the scratched pick guard. I carefully picked it up and ran a nail along the strings. Slightly out of tune, but the rich, warm yet dry sound of it was unmistakable.

When I was at Uni, I used to work in a vintage guitar shop down the road for the odd extra quid. I did some administration, drank a lot of coffee and smoked a lot of cigarettes. The shop was run by musicians and the atmosphere was utterly relaxed. It was a miracle they made any money at all, but I learned quite a bit about guitars and even managed to pick up the odd chord here and there, just from hanging around.

I hadn’t played in years, so I sat down on the bed, tuned up, and strummed an E chord. My fingers remembered slowly, and moved to an A, a D, a C… I tried to remember which other chords could go with that. Erm, let’s see, a C#min for the bridge, back through B to A, to E… It sounded like a song already.

Then, my eyes fell on something in the flight case that looked like half a post card. It lay there, picture side up… I picked it up and turned it over. The address side was ripped off and whatever the card had said was crossed out in haste. Next to it was sloppily scratched: hoping, wanting to see you, XQ. I could hardly make it out.

Did he leave that for me? Or was it something that had sat there for who knows how long? A message to one of his girlfriends from the past, maybe?

I sniffed the card. It smelled of ink. Recently written, then. Maybe it was for me after all? God, how sweet that would be, if he’d have taken the time to hide it under his guitar, for me to find. I fought the swooning feeling that was trying to overtake me. Don’t be ridiculous, Taryn. Telling myself that didn’t help, of course.

I balanced the card on my knee and resumed strumming, my eye on his handwriting. Started singing along softly:

I’m hoping, hoping for your love

I’m hoping, hoping for your love

I’m hoping, hoping for your love

hoping to see your sea green eyes on me

I thought for a bit. There was a song lurking in there; it had been ages since I even tried writing one. But for some reason it felt like the only way to express some of the turmoil inside me. I was in love with Quentin Finch, there was no denying it, and though my mind had determined that going home was the best thing for me to do, my heart wanted to just wait right here until he came back for me. I sang:

I’m waiting, waiting for your love

I’m waiting, waiting for your love

I’m waiting, waiting for your love 

waiting to see your sea green eyes on me

Quentin made me feel like… like I had never felt before when I was with a man. Apart from what I felt coming from him, his emotions, whenever he came close, I also felt... elated. Lighthearted. Weightless, soaring… all those trivialities, suddenly all true. I sang:

I want to soar like a zephyr in the sky   

and roar like a fire in the night

seek the devil in the deep 

and kiss those eyes when you fall asleep

Ah, I had a chorus. This was going well! I smiled; I felt and behaved like an utter adolescent, breathlessly in love, writing romantic songs, hovering between hope and despair, and longing, longing… I sang:

I’m longing, longing for your love

I’m longing, longing for your love

I’m longing, longing for your love

longing to see your sea green eyes on me

God, this was just so cloyingly sweet; I almost got annoyed with myself. I thought for a bit, moved my hand up the neck of the guitar a couple of frets and played down from the C#min, singing, with a hint of sarcasm:

I’m only thinking

Everything’s just fine, fine, fine

But how I’d like to pay you back in kind 

For all the time that you were on my mind

There. That was better. I ran through it again, giving it a light bluesy feel, and I was sure that I’d remember it for the rest of my life.

I caressed the guitar neck, then put the instrument back in its case. I left it in the corner, the lid open, so that I could look at it from time to time and feel Quentin close to me. I sighed like the lovesick idiot that I was and sat down at my laptop. I looked at my watch. It was a bit past one in the afternoon already and I hadn’t heard from Quentin yet. I was beginning to expect him to call, damn him, this was no good. No good at all. I counted on my fingers: for him it must be around seven or eight in the evening – maybe he was at dinner. With Bree.

What was I thinking? He had sent me his guitar when he had just left the farm, when he was still in Oz; the fact that I’d only gotten it now, with his secret message, didn’t tell me anything about how he was feeling this very moment. It was a full day later and no doubt his old life had caught up with him by now. He wasn’t going to ring me again.

So I went online and checked out flights, a big lump in my throat. It looked like I’d have to spend at least one night in Sydney, whatever I did. Qantas only had flights that had at least two stopovers, and the trip went on forever: over 34 hours. I wasn’t looking forward to the journey, and not only for the obvious reasons. There were other flights on offer with only one stopover and I compared prices. I hovered over my keyboard for what seemed to be ages, but couldn’t make up my mind to order. So I worked on my book for a bit, the flights site still open in the background. Flipped back to the site, looked at flights again. Still couldn’t make up my mind.

Finally I logged off and immediately, my phone started ringing. A bunch of text message alerts popped up and I picked up as quickly as I could.

‘Quent?’

‘Yeah Quent. Who the fuck were you on the phone with?’ he growled in my ear, all worked up. ‘I’ve been tryin’ to get through to you for the past hour.’

‘Oh... God, I was online, can’t have been for that long... I’m sorry, I thought this mobile could do internet and mobile phone functions simultaneously...’ I stopped talking. Why was I being apologetic? My tone changed. ‘Listen, Quent, I didn’t know you’d be calling, I mean, I thought you’d be far too busy with whatever it is that you have to do, to... Well, anyway, you can’t possibly expect me to sit next to my mobile all day long, waiting for you to...’

‘I was stuck in a massive breakdown meeting with my US lawyer team,’ Quentin snapped at me, interrupting, ‘I’ve been at it for fuckin’ over five hours and I’m going bloody mental by now. You bet your arrogant pommy arse that I’m too busy to have to put up with your petulant shit.’ The line went dead.

I blinked. My hands started to shake as I tried to open the text messages (six of them) that Quentin had sent me. My throat lumped up and a tear that refused to be held back snaked down my cheek. There. The proof that I had dreaded, but expected nonetheless. I don’t want to say I told you so, Taryn Archer, but I told you so. Another tear, and another one.

Then, unexpectedly, he rang back. I picked up with an insecure, shaky ‘Quentin?’ and hated myself for the way I sounded.

‘Tazzie?’

‘Mm,’ was all I could manage through the tears that were spilling down now.

‘You crying?’

‘Mm-mm,’

‘Oh, Christ, don’t cry, I’m... I was just getting so ragged from all this bloody lawyer talk, and I really needed to hear you for just a tick, and when your mobile was engaged all the time, all sorts of things went through my mind...’ His words tumbled over each other, trying to get out.

I sniffed and all I could produce was a small mewing sound. Shit, I was pathetic.

‘I’m, oh bloody hell, shhh, I wanna hold you and I’m fuckin’ half a world away... please, Tazzie, please stop, I’m sorry luvvie, I’m s...’ he heaved a wobbly sigh and I heard him light up a fag.

‘D...do they let you smoke in their office?’ I inquired, shakily.

‘Fire exit,’ he replied, exhaling. ‘Said I needed a fag break. I’ve been on a bloody fag break every five minutes for the last hour, trying to ring you. They’ll think me a right fidgety bastard.’

‘Fidgety bastard heading for a nicotine overdose,’ I said with a cautious smile, my voice almost normal again.

‘Mm, too right,’ he conceded, blowing out another cloud of smoke. I could almost see him, see his posture, the way he held the fag cupped in his hand, the way he closed his eyes for a second when he took a drag.

‘Got your guitar OK,’ I said. Waited a while, then added: ‘there was a note.’

‘Yes... I was in a bit of a hurry.’

‘I...’ I began, but he suddenly interrupted me, his words spilling out like my tears earlier: ‘Taz, I really don’t want you to leave; not just yet, I’m thinking about it all the time, you goin’ home, I can’t get my mind to work, in this meeting today I was a bloody nightmare, ninety nine percent of the time I hadn’t a clue what they were on about, I was just... stressing out over you going back to London...’ silence. Fag. Exhale. Then, small voice again: ‘...please promise me you’ll stick around for just a while longer, just until after my case has been up? Please?’

I kept quiet, thinking. I had rationalized that leaving would be best, but my heart was telling me otherwise. The urge to just say ‘Yes, Quentin, of course I’ll stay Quentin, I’ll do anything you say, just please promise you’ll come back here as soon as you can,’ was overwhelming.

‘Taz?’

More silence from me.

‘Taz, I’m really sorry about losing my rag earlier, Christ, I dunno how many times you want to hear me say it, I was just... I can’t seem to find... Can’t seem to settle, I just feel... out of sorts; pffff,’ he blew out the air in his lungs, exasperated, ‘I can’t put this into words. Just please stay an Nana for a bit longer, if you can.’

‘But why, Quent?’ I finally managed, ‘’I... Why do you want me to...? We said we’d nip it in the bud, not complicate things, and you’ll get married to Bree and get back to work in the States, and I’ll get my new book done...’ Inside, I was still shaking, but my voice was steady again, thank God. I took a deep breath and continued: ‘What are you trying to tell me, what is it you’re saying, are you planning to come back to Oz after the court case?’

Now Quentin was silent for a long time.

‘I want to, yeah,’ he finally said. ‘But I dunno how it will go, here.’

‘So you want me to... to put my life on hold and wait for you, just in case you decide to come back home, and...’

‘Well it’s only another six fuckin’ days,’ he interrupted, defensively, but then his tone softened: ‘...you’re right though, I’ve no right to ask this of you. No right at all.’

I heard a voice asking: ‘Mr. Finch, are you ready to come back inside?’

‘Listen, Taz, I had better get on with it, I’m keeping these blokes from their dinner... I’m really glad though that we... talked...’ He cleared his throat. He sounded, oh I don’t know, sad, lonely, lost, confused... I felt my heart wrench in my chest.

‘I’ll stay.’

I had said it before I had time to think it through.

‘Ahhhhhh,’ a colossal sigh of relief, followed by a very, very soft, ‘ta, luvvie,’. Then he hung up.

Chapter Eight

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