The Hyacinth House Pt. 01

Maddy saw the movement and somehow managed to straighten herself up and move towards him, flicking the other woman away with her hand.

"Oh my god, Adam, I'm so sorry. I'm late. Have you been waiting long? What will you be -"

"Maddy, it's fine, I was late myself, I've only just arrived. Please, it's okay." He moved towards her, took one of her hands in both of his to stop her frantic movement, and kissed her on the cheek. "Hello Maddy," he said softly, so only she could hear. "Welcome back."

Stepping away from her, Adam touched his hand to her back, and ushered her to the seat opposite where he'd been sitting. "Your friend, is she joining us?"

"Jilly? No, she's -"

"Gone. Outside, there she is, look." And he gestured outside, where Jillian was approaching the window. She pattered her fingernails against the glass twice, then, using her extended thumb and little finger as the universal sign for a phone, mouthed the words, "Call me" in Maddy's direction, and was gone.

"That's Jillian, I presume. Will she approve?"

"Approve of what? Oh god, you, right? She's checking you out, is that what you think?" Maddy looked more flustered than before.

Adam saved her. "Very wise, really. I might be a terrible man."

"A terrible man? I don't think so. You're like your Adam, aren't you? A very nice man."

"I hope so. I hope I'm a likeable man in real life, like the character is in my stories."

"Well, you sort of rescued me just now, so I think so."

"Rescued you?" he asked.

"From myself. You've probably been waiting for ages, but you said you'd only just arrived so I wouldn't feel bad."

"Well, five minutes maybe," he replied, touching the folded back pages of the newspaper as evidence.

She laughed. "See, a little fib so I wouldn't feel crappy about myself, being late."

"From what I see, Maddy, a man would be silly not to wait."

She blushed, which Adam found delightful, even more so when she knew it and tried to hide her cheek behind a hand. "God, look at me, I'm hopeless. I give myself away."

"Not hopeless, Maddy. Delicious. Now, what would you like?" He caught Lizzie's eye, and she came to the booth, order pad at the ready.

"Hello," she said to Maddy. "What will you have?"

"Ummm, just a flat white, thanks."

"A latté for me," added Adam. "Anything to eat?" he asked Maddy.

"Oh, one of those little friands would be lovely, do you have a choc and walnut one?" She looked up at Lizzie.

"Yes, we have those," the waitress replied. "And for you, sir?"

Adam ordered a slice of mudcake. "It's a bit of a weakness, you'll find," he commented to Maddy, once Lizzie had gone.

"A weakness? Do you have many?"

He smiled. "Not so much weaknesses, more so things I enjoy."

"Like what, may I ask?" said Maddy, slowly recovering her poise and naturally being swept into a conversation. He made it seem so easy; and soon, she forgot her flustered arrival and was telling him about her world, what went on in it, and what was around her.

Adam listened and let her talk, and it was as simple as that. He met the real Maddy. Not the remote, mixed up ice queen he'd fabricated in his story, full of riches and hints of a darker, tormented past, with her jewels and long flowing dresses.

No, this woman was quite different. She was a girl from the city's suburbia, brought up by a single mum with a little sister and no father at home, went to a mid-grade government school, liked her sport and was good at it, couldn't afford a degree, so found a job in the city as a legal secretary and was good at that, too.

"But I'm no good with men," she admitted, "I get all tongue-tied and silly, and don't know what to say. I'm quick around the netball court, but with men I've got two left feet. God, I'm annoying, listen to me. I haven't stopped talking, have I?"

She was nervous and flushed, and really quite beautiful, but she didn't know that at all. Adam, who after ten minutes of listening, with gentle prompts now and then, sat with a semi-serious look on his face, "Ah ha... really...? no... go on..." and was quite entranced.

Then, like the last wave of a high tide reaching out to touch their feet on a sandy beach, he was rewarded with Madeleine's touch on his arm. Electricity shot through them both, and she stopped talking. She looked at the fingers resting on his forearm, as if she'd never seen her hand before, let alone knew how it got where it was. She looked up to see his dark blue eyes gazing at her, deeply curious. She looked down at her fingers once more, but was powerless to move them; and even if she could move them, she wouldn't. She felt a blaze of heat on her throat and knew that he'd see it too.

"What just happened?" she asked, in a voice full of wonder. "I just felt a ghost walk across my grave."

She slowly, reluctantly, pulled her fingers away from his arm, and with the same fingertips, touched the heat on her neck. "I'm a bit of a give away, aren't I? How long have I been flushed?"

He smiled, and in that tiny moment, Maddy knew with a visceral, heart-pounding certainty, that she'd sleep with this man. She didn't know how long it would take, nor when, nor how, but she knew, one day, that she would.

Maddy didn't want to throw herself at him, and she sensed already from the man before her, and from the man who was revealed in his writing, that Adam wouldn't take her before she was ready. He would never presume so much.

So Maddy, with the same dedication she applied to her weights and her finely tuned body, and to every thing else that she did, decided there and then to have him, when she was ready. But she wanted to be his friend first, before anything else happened. She'd worked out that was where she'd gone wrong before, having a lover who wasn't a friend.

"I've seen that look. You're determined, aren't you, that we'll do this your way?" Adam looked at her, and she saw his pupils dilate.

"Oh yes, Mister Cain, I think that's best, don't you?"

His laugh, when he heard her say that, was rich and spontaneous, full of pleasure, full of life. Across the café an older woman heard him, and said to Lizzie, "Can I have what he's having."

Lizzie grinned. "I think it was mud-cake, will that do?"

"I think it was something else," the woman replied, "but yes, that will do."

* * * *

"Seriously, Mads, you said that? Fucking hell, that's a bit of nerve."

Jillian looked at her friend with a new found appreciation. She'd not seen this side of Maddy before, not when it came to a man, anyway, and she thought this Adam, whoever he really was, was the luckiest bloke in the world. Maddy, when she set her mind to it, generally got what she wanted.

"Yes, it was a bit cheeky, but my god, Jill, you should have heard him laugh. He was so alive! I could have leapt across the table and fucked him right there. I tell you, yummy older man doesn't cover it."

"Yes, but you didn't, did you? How long do you reckon this seduction of yours is going to take?"

"I want him to take me to every place he wrote about; where his characters walked, where they ate, where Madelyn blows him by the car. Every place. Assuming they're all real." She pondered. "I wonder what writers do, about their realities?"

"Make a lot up, I'd say, " Jillian replied. "But truck stop mama, huh? What do you want to do, re-enact everything in real life?"

"No, just see how his imagination works. To picture his characters in the surroundings he puts them in."

"And to put yourself in those surroundings?" Jilly was curious as to how Maddy would manoeuvre her sweet kitty into the setting, and what she would do once she got it there.

"His stories, Jill, you've read them. This guy is patience incarnate, you've seen how long he waits in those stories." Maddy looked at her friend with an intensity that astonished Jillian. "I want him to wait that long for me."

Jillian studied her friend. "Christ, Mads, this isn't like you. I'm impressed. You've thought about this, haven't you?" She paused for a moment. "But what if he gets bored, waiting."

"I thought about that, too. But look at me. I'm fit, remember. Who's going to get bored with the promise of this?" Maddy spread her arms wide and pointed both forefingers in at herself.

Jilly, who had been waiting a very long time, saw her point. "So, where are you going first?"

* * * *

"This place is beautiful. I can see why you bring your characters here all the time. I didn't even know it existed." Maddy stood at the entrance of the Hanjo gardens, gazing at the vista before her. "Is this where your floating world idea comes from, the Japanese thing?"

"Yes, that and Japanese woodcut prints, the whole Zen aesthetic. Wabi sabi. I love the simplicity, the beauty of simple things, the wide world seen in the smallest place." Adam stood slightly behind Maddy, his hand on her waist as if ushering her forth, as one would escort a girl onto a dance floor.

"The hair of the Chinese woman falling on Adam's wrist, the time between ticks of the clock. Is that it?" Maddy turned to him, her eyes bright.

"Yes. The shadow of the branch, moving through the seasons; a single freckle, perfectly placed."

Maddy, who had some perfectly placed freckles of her own, smiled. "I'm beginning to understand you better, Mister Writer Man."

She linked her arm through his, wanting to be by his side; not behind him, not before him, but with him, side by side. "This is where Adam undid the buttons on Gabriela's wrists, isn't it? Show me. Show me where that was."

"It's the far end of the garden. There's a whole world first, forests and plains, rivers and waterfalls. Beautiful flowers. Snowdrops, look." He pointed to clusters of drooping white flowers on a small island, maybe ten feet from them.

"Show me, show me all of it!" Maddy's eyes were shining, excitement radiating from her. "We can walk slowly, but inside, I want to run!"

"That's the point of it all," said Adam. "To contain all that energy in a still place. But to keep it all there, waiting to explode."

"How -"

"Ssshh, No questions. Wait." He was gentle with her, and his hand was at her waist. "You'll see."

They walked ten paces, and stopped. "Listen," said Adam. "Close your eyes and listen. Tell me what you hear."

Maddy listened, and at first all she heard was the trickle of water from the tiny waterfall in front of them, falling and splashing into the pond, into the miniature lake. Then she heard the sound the water made on the rock as it rippled from a spout, and that was different to the splash of water into the pond. She heard two tones in the splashing fall, and when she opened her eyes she saw two separate streams, one thicker, deeper; the other lighter and more delicate, twisting bright silver in the sun.

She closed her eyes, moving slightly so that Adam was behind her. She took one of his hands and placed it on her belly and leaned back into his solid strength. Listening more closely, she heard the background rush of the wind through the leaves of distant branches, and closer to her, a swish swish that must have been reeds. She felt herself let go and her body lose its tension, and Adam held her. She heard two birds with a call and response, and beyond them a different song, three rising notes and a long plaintive cry. Closer still, she heard the tiny croak croak of a little frog, and she heard it across the water.

In the far distance she picked up a steady thrum of an engine, and the regular beep beep of a reverse warning alarm. 'I don't want to hear that,' she thought, so she listened to something closer.

Adam said nothing, and was just there, with her. Maddy opened her eyes slowly and gazed upon the vista in front of her. She looked at the lake the same way she'd listened, bit by bit; seeing how the rocks fitted between the reeds, how the water fitted between the rocks, and how the island in the middle had three, perfectly gnarled trees, and really, no other trees would do.

She turned in his arms, and it was absolutely right that he was there, showing her this. She brushed his cheek with her lips.

"Thank you," she said, "for making me listen. I don't do that very often, not properly. Is this what it's like for you, all the time?"

"A lot of the time, yes. I try to slow down, whenever I can."

"No wonder your stories are so slow, and seem to last forever." She kissed him again, took his hand, and started walking. "If that's how you make love, I want to wait." She squeezed his hand, so he'd know that was exactly what she wanted. "It'll be worth it."

"Two of us waiting. Does that make it twice the time, or half the time?" Adam led her across a small lawn to a rock, upon which he sat. "Sit beside me, Madeleine. See, it's a different view."

"It's so clever, the design. Everywhere you look, what you see is beautiful, isn't it?"

Adam, who was looking at her, agreed. "Very beautiful, yes."

Maddy turned towards him and realised he was gazing at her, what his words meant.

"Am I, really? I've never thought so. Not beautiful. Attractive, maybe, but beautiful? Some words don't really suit me."

"That's because you look out from your eyes, whereas we look in. Beauty's an inside thing. I guess we see it, because it radiates."

Maddy, who'd never been called beautiful before, decided she liked it. Somehow, the way Adam said it, it was almost the same way he said her name. Ma de leine. Beau ti ful. The long syllables rolled off his tongue like honey.

She understood, then, why in his story he called the woman Madelyn. The shorter sounds were abrupt, harder, just like his fictional creation.

"I like the way you call me Madeleine. I've never been a Madeleine, always a Maddy. Or a Mads."

"That's a very Australian thing, isn't it? Long names made shorter, short names made longer." He got to his feet, and offered his hand to help her up. "That's why I like Adam. You can't change it."

"I don't know," she teased. "Ads. How about that?"

"Madeleine, no. Just, no."

She laughed, and wrapped both arms around him from behind. "All right, I promise. Just Adam."

Maddy knew he'd never be 'just Adam'. Nothing could be that simple. She wondered if she'd ever have a pet name for him, but she didn't know him well enough for that.

"Show me where Gabriela sat, please show me. I want to sit where she did. Can we do that?"

They walked on past a low bamboo fence surrounding a raked gravel garden, five small islands of rock perfectly placed. The pale grey of the gravel and the darker, lichen covered rocks were in stark contrast to the soft foliage and the green of the lawn behind them; and again Maddy saw how the contrasts of the garden matched Adam and his moods.

She'd seen how his eyes could change quickly from the deep intensity of a piercing look to the softness of a lingering gaze. She liked the lingering gazes best, they were almost as if he was floating, falling but gravity no longer mattered. She contemplated herself, wondering what quality she had that he saw. She didn't know, and she wasn't quite ready to ask.

At the end of the raked gravel, there was a covered walkway with a low bench along a wall. The bench was set back six feet or so from a wooden rail. Maddy guessed the dimensions came from traditional Japanese measurements; their sense of proportion just right.

"It's covered; just as well, it's starting to rain." Adam ushered her in under the shelter, and Maddy was becoming quite accustomed to the gentle guidance of his hand at her waist. She smiled, recalling how often he used the image in his writing; Amanda and the Chinese lady dancing, Gabriela in her beautiful cream dress, Juliette swirling on the lawn. The lawn where they had just walked, or another one? She wasn't sure. It didn't matter, she was dancing now, in her head.

He sat against the corner of the colonnade and she curled next to him with her head on his shoulder, her legs tucked up on the bench. She felt at peace, and in a rare instance in her life, realised she didn't need to talk. They sat, curled together, and watched the rain turn the light stones dark, the boughs of the surrounding trees beginning to drop with the weight of water.

Maddy heard the drip drip of run-off from the roof, rain dripping from trees, and in the far distance she heard the steady tumble of the waterfall. Liquid sounds all around her; was this what a baby heard, in the womb?

She looked up to him. "I get this now. It's the still place. There's one in every story, isn't there? If you know where to find it. Sometimes I think I read too fast and gallop by. You've got so many tiny moments."

"Yes. The places where time stops then starts again."

Maddy remembered something, and took Adam's wrist. She found his pulse, and after about thirty seconds she smiled. She kissed her two fingertips and touched the soft skin where she'd felt his heart beat.

"You found it," he said softly. "That was quick."

"But you've written about it, so I knew it was there." Adam's heartbeat, every tenth beat, paused for a while and restarted. "Are you ever afraid it won't start up again?"

"No. It'll only stop the once, completely. Then I'll be gone."

"I shouldn't have said that, I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It's not going to happen for a very long time. Not today, anyway."

She gently stroked the back of his hand. "Thank goodness. I'm not ready for that."

"You're still young, Madeleine, you've got plenty of time to think about mortality."

"Do you think about it much?" she asked.

"Not often," he replied. "When my parents appear in dreams, sometimes. But not often."

"Good. It can be like my sex life with Jilly. 'I don't want to talk about that'."

Adam laughed at her reply, then asked, "Does Jillian often quiz your sex life?"

"All the bloody time. She's insatiable. She just wants to know everything. I've got nothing to tell her, but she still wants to know about it. She drives me nuts, but I love her to death." Maddy's voice showed affection for her friend, she couldn't hide it.

"Maybe Jillian loves you more than to death," Adam mused.

"What? No. No way. Me? Don't be silly. She loves cock way too much. No way." Maddy protested her friend's hetero nature.

"Does she seek out cock all the time, or just talk about it? There's a difference, I think."

Maddy thought about the way Jilly teased her, touched her, how she often saw Jill look away as if she'd seen too much. Or not seen enough? "She does talk about my kitty quite a lot. My 'sweet kitty' she calls it, but god, no, really? Really? That's just... weird. Isn't it?"

"Not really. Look at you, you're very, very attractive. Why wouldn't she be interested? I would be, if I was her."

"Adam, stop it. You're as bad as she is. Stop teasing." She fell silent, and thought about what he was saying. Then she said, "I always did have a crap gaydar. I never see anything like that." She pondered some more. "How would I find out for sure?"

"You could always ask."

"But -"

"I didn't mean now."

"Maybe you could ask? After all, she's introduced herself to you as my private secretary, almost. Jilly Smithers! I don't know where she gets the daft names from. She really makes me laugh."

"She seems good for you. How long have you known her?"

"Seems like forever. Beginning of high school, actually. We met in our first year, and stuck together like glue ever since. I was all skinny and tall, she was all curves and cleavage. I think we fascinated each other, being so completely different." Her eyes softened. "We fit well together."

Adam looked at Maddy closely, hearing her words and wondering if he sensed another meaning. Women were always a puzzle, but he was no longer surprised when pieces fitted together.

He smiled. "Something to keep in mind, then," he said, more to himself.

"What? What do you mean?"

"Me? No, nothing, just puzzles." He swiftly changed the subject. "Tell me, Madeleine, what's your favourite scene from my stories?"