Daphne Clair - Wife To A Stranger

In the centre pocket of the bag she discovered a slim flower-patterned plastic folder designed for two photographs, and opened it to see her own face as a child looking back at her, formally posed and smiling in front of a man and a woman and beside a younger girl who must surely be her sister.

She stared at the photograph for a long time, and then like a faint echo a name came to mind. ‘Venetia.’

As sisters they were only superficially alike. Both girls had long fair hair, but Venetia’s eyes were blue, her face more square than Capri’s.

Curious, she turned her attention to the adults in the picture, her eyes flicking from one to the other.

Divorced. The word entered her consciousness as she looked at the smiling couple behind the two children. They were divorced. It was like someone else saying the words inside her head, except that the voice was her own.

Opposite the family group was another photo—a classic head-and-shoulders wedding picture of herself and Rolfe. Her hair was long and piled into an elegant knot under a veil secured with a pearl coronet. Rolfe was gazing down at his bride, smiling, while Capri’s eyes, her smile, were directed at the camera.

Rolfe glanced at the folder. ‘Luckily that was in the zipped pocket with your passport. All I had to do was wipe a bit of water off the plastic.’

She closed it and put it back. ‘Wasn’t there anything else in the bag?’

‘Some tissues that I threw away. A couple of sodden train and bus tickets. I couldn’t find your address book, or any clue as to where you’d been staying recently. The bag was closed when I got it, but it could have fallen open at some stage. Do you know of anything that’s missing?’

‘No.’ She had no idea what should have been in the bag, couldn’t even remember owning it.

She half-dozed for much of the two-hour drive to the airport. Rolfe dropped off the hire car and hauled out an overnight bag from the back seat. Her only luggage was the plastic boutique bag.

He dug into a side pocket of his bag and produced two passports, stuffing them into the pocket of his light jacket. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘let’s go.’

Stepping off the plane hours later at Auckland’s international airport, she felt disoriented. The feeling remained as they crossed rain-wet tarseal to where Rolfe had parked his car when he’d left the country to race to her side. She was glad now of the jacket he’d bought her. Spring in New Zealand was decidedly nippy.

‘Are you all right?’ Rolfe asked after he’d paid the parking fee and joined the stream of traffic leaving the airport.

‘Yes.’ She felt as though she was in a strange land. ‘How…how long have I been away?’ He’d said they’d talk, but the airport bar in Sydney where they’d filled in half an hour before the flight had seemed too public, and on the plane Capri had fallen asleep again following the meal that had been served after take-off.

Rolfe braked for a traffic light. ‘A couple of months,’ he told her.

A long holiday. ‘I can’t have spent all the time on my own?’ A twinge of anxiety hit her. ‘Was there someone I knew on the train? Someone I was with?’

‘Not that I know of,’ Rolfe answered after a moment. ‘There didn’t seem to be anyone looking for you.’

‘But…some people were killed.’

‘Several, yes. I believe they were all…claimed.’

‘My parents,’ she said suddenly. ‘Do they know—?’

‘I phoned your mother in Los Angeles after the doctors told me they expected you to fully recover. She sends her love.’

‘Thank you. Los Angeles? My mother’s not American.’

Rolfe said carefully, ‘No, she’s Australian, as of course you are by birth, but she’s lived in L.A. for years. So did you, for a while.’

‘And Venetia?’

‘Venetia too. Right now she’s trying to break into films, with a bit of help from your stepfather.’

‘My mother’s remarried?’

‘Her second husband is a photographer with contacts in the movie business.’

‘What about my father? Did you contact him?’

He gave her a probing glance, then returned his attention to the road. ‘I wouldn’t know how to get hold of him, I’m afraid.’

Her father, then, hadn’t kept in touch after the divorce. ‘Why was I holidaying alone?’ she asked. ‘Were you too busy to come with me? You’re in…’ her mind fumbled for clues ‘…electronics or something?’ Swiftly she added, ‘I’m sorry. I should know, but—’

‘It’s okay. I own a manufacturing plant at Albany, just north of Auckland. We make laser equipment for medical and industrial use, selling to both local and international markets. It’s highly specialised. I’m CEO of the firm, but the factory is run on a day-to-day basis by a very competent site manager and a team of engineers.’

‘So you don’t actually work there?’

‘Usually I do. But I’m mainly concerned with design and development, and I have another office at home.’

‘I’m…not sure where that is.’

‘Atianui. A small coastal settlement an hour’s drive from the factory, a bit more from Auckland.’

‘Atianui.’ She stumbled over the Maon syllables.

‘Perhaps you’ll remember it when we get there.’

She looked out of the window. Nothing out there had jelled in her memory. She blinked, lifting a hand to surreptitiously flick an unexpected tear from her cheek.

As she dropped her hand back into her lap, Rolfe’s warm fingers covered hers. ‘Don’t worry, Capri. It will all sort itself out in the end.’

She gave a shaky sigh. His hand on hers was reassuring, strong. ‘You didn’t answer my question.’

‘Which question was that?’ Rolfe took away his hand and replaced it on the wheel. He wasn’t looking at her.

‘About…how I came to be holidaying in Australia on my own.’

He didn’t answer immediately, speeding up to pass a couple of cars and change lanes as they approached more traffic lights. ‘You decided on the spur of the moment to take this trip, and I wasn’t able to get away. I can’t just drop everything on a…on an impulse.’

A whim, he meant. ‘But you came to the hospital.’

‘Of course.’

‘Have I disrupted your work?’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

She watched him covertly. The car moved smoothly under his guiding hands—houses, trees flashing by the windscreen. His profile was strong, like his hands, his expression remote as he concentrated on driving, only the curve of his mouth hinting at the possibility of gentleness tempering the strength and potent masculinity she’d sensed in him from the moment she’d opened her eyes and seen him standing with his» back to her at the window of her hospital room. Soon they were on the Harbour Bridge, riding up the steep curve over water that sparked and flashed in the afternoon sun. She remembered this, distantly. ‘The Waitemata,’ she murmured, relieved that she was able to name the harbour. ‘Rolfe…?’

‘Yes?’

‘Did we quarrel?’

It was several seconds before he answered. ‘Sometimes.’

‘I mean…before I left. Didn’t I want you to come with me? And if you…couldn’t—’

‘You mean wouldn’t.’ He seemed to think about it. ‘Let’s say,’ he conceded finally, ‘that things were a bit strained. Never mind about that now. I’m taking you home again, and I suggest we let the past go.’

‘I don’t have much choice,’ Capri said wryly. ‘Since I don’t remember it anyway.’

It was scary how few details she could recall of a whole life. Twenty-three years of it.

‘You must be…’ Rolfe hesitated. ‘I can’t imagine how you must be feeling. Confused, disoriented… afraid?’ He accelerated and changed lanes smoothly to pass a lumbering truck.

‘All of the above.’ She tried to sound flippant, failing abysmally.

‘You’re taking it remarkably well.’

‘Am I? What did you expect—hysterics?’

‘It wouldn’t be surprising. I’m grateful you haven’t resorted to that.’

‘I’m not that sort of person—’ She paused there, frighteningly aware that she couldn’t tell what sort of person she was, and willed the wave of panic to subside. ‘Am I?’ she asked him.

He gave a short laugh. ‘None of us sees ourselves as others do,’ he said enigmatically. ‘And I probably know you a lot less well than I think. While you…’

‘I don’t know myself at all, any more,’ she said. ‘That sounds very self-pitying,’ she apologised, and gazed round them at the passing countryside. ‘I still don’t recognise any of this.’

‘At least I can help there.’ He described the various places they passed as if she were a tourist. When they reached the green fields and new buildings around the recently established university campus at Albany he nodded towards a side road. ‘My factory is down there.’

They passed the long sweeping foreshore at Orewa, almost hidden by housing, and later the little town of Warkworth that Rolfe told her lay along a riverbank, invisible from the highway. Soon after that they turned off to take a quieter road that eventually led them to a seaside settlement of mainly new houses.

‘Atianui.’ Rolfe glanced at her. ‘Recognise it?’

Capri shook her head. ‘No.’

He swung round a corner and into a driveway, pausing momentarily to touch a button on a small black box fixed to the dashboard. Wrought-iron gates swung open and he eased the car inside the high stuccoed walls. ‘It was only subdivided ten years ago—as a sort of combination dormitory town and retirement complex. We both liked the idea of living by the sea but not too far away from Auckland.’

The house was Spanish-influenced, long and low and white, with bougainvillaea, its thorny branches barely beginning to show colour, climbing the outer wall and framing an archway between the house and the two-car garage where Rolfe parked.

‘I know the house.’ Her relief was profound. ‘I know I’ve seen it before.’

‘Good. Of course you have.’ A garage door opened and Rolfe parked and pulled on the handbrake before turning to her. ‘It’s your home, Capri.’ He lifted a hand and gently turned her to face him, his fingers warm on her cheek. ‘Welcome back, darling.’

HIS lips touched hers, sure and firm but not demanding, lingering only moments before he moved away. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you inside.’

A smart little hatchback runabout occupied the other space in the garage. Rolfe said. ‘That’s yours. You probably shouldn’t drive for a few days, though.’ He took both bags from the car and put a hand on her waist to lead her to the house. Inside, she stood in a wide, terracotta-tiled hallway and looked about. ‘How long have we lived here?’

‘Two years,’ Rolfe said matter-of-factly. ‘Since we were married.’

She swallowed a dismaying desire to turn and flee. She’d been married to this man for two years, yet she knew nothing about him. Except that he was doing his best to cope with a situation that must be as difficult for him as it was for her. ‘I…’ She gazed around again, helplessly. ‘It’s not…familiar.’ The disappointment was sickening. She’d been sure that once she was home everything would fall into place. But this didn’t feel like home.

Rolfe touched her arm. ‘I’ll show you…the bedroom. Maybe you’d like to rest for a while.’

‘I am tired,’ she admitted. ‘Although I seem to have slept a lot today.’ Her skin felt stretched, her eyes heavy.

He ushered her into a spacious room overlooking the sea. The carpet was deep turquoise, the furniture white with touches of gold, the sumptuous cover on the double bed patterned in several shades of blue and green.