“You should call him, John, he’d be happy to hear from you.” Sue looked through her dark bob at me. I was in Melbourne for a week, and a friend I haven’t seen in four years was back home.
Duncan, a cheery, crystal-blue-eyed man who used to drink beers with me and laugh at the chaos that always followed George, Sue and me, had returned from Europe, now divorced and looking sadly like a broken man.
I had avoided Duncan since his return. In hindsight I guess it was too close a situation and it was hard watching someone go through pain like that. I waved Sue off. I felt embarrassed yet knew she was right. I picked up the phone.
The lunch group was stitched together like an old handmade jumper, warm, comfortable and made with love. Kevin and George sat down with Jade who beamed over her pregnant tummy at the table. On the bench seat twitched Duncan and I.
Friends who had watched me in such raw days were now peering over menus at the return of a second wounded.
Talk occasionally veered like an oversized truck on a hairpin curve. Gentle words and curious questions breathed amongst friends mostly absent from daily lives were set free in this glassed café on Chapel St on a winter weekend afternoon.
Five friends rejoined lives, some to catch up, one to show off her bump and one sat quietly in remorse. As the cool wind rattled the door, I knew that months earlier I had thrown a rock into this fragile scene.
As we walked up High St to say goodbye, I wanted to say a million things but settled on just two. “Duncan, your situation is so similar, yet different, I know. There will be good bits, but it takes time. There are a lot of people here for you.”
Today is what mattered, so I didn’t go into the reasons for my absence — in any case it didn’t matter. Here was now.
Before I crossed the road to my car I put my arms around him and gave him a gentle hug.
He smiled, his blue eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses as he walked to his car, towards his tomorrow.
info: Follow John on Twitter @daddydearest_
