The waterslide had washed something out of Toni. Showered and dry, and with plenty of time before dinner, she suggested they visit Adam's bed-ridden partner. As Adam's proxy, Rob looked tearful in gratitude. "She'll love that, I know she will," he said, even though he'd not met her either.
Rob gushed about the authenticity of Adam's lifestyle as they walked. "When you think about it, old Adam, he's nothing less than a hunter gatherer, and that's what we human beings evolved to be. That's what we're supposed do, not sit in an air-conditioned office staring at a computer screen all day long. He's got a plot where he grows his own veggies, probably got somewhere in the forest to grow his own recreational produce. If there's a nuclear war or a plague, and all the computers and the machines stop working, we'd have to make Adam our leader because we've forgotten how to live from the land. But he certainly knows how."
Toni said nothing but smiled as she imagined what Byron might be like as a man.
They skirted the bank of trees that screened Adam's place from the onshore winds. Outside the Bedford truck he'd converted into a fairy tale woodcutter's cottage, three faded boiler suits – orange, blue and green – hung on a washing line. Toni wondered what colour boiler suit Adam wore to relax in – or go to a wedding or funeral – but she spotted him sitting on the step of the van in a tie-dyed t-shirt and faded sarong, his beard down to his chest, deep in contemplation; definitely a guru. But even Rob would have to admit, it was not obvious what Adam might be a guru of.
Adam stood to greet them with a look that told them he couldn't believe they'd actually come to visit after all. Toni would lead from here. "We're leaving tomorrow," she said. "So we thought we'd pop in to say hello to–"
She didn't know Adam's partner's name, but no worries, he called inside. "Maia, we've got visitors." And he ushered them in. Tears, as Rob had anticipated, clouded Adam's eyes.
Inside was a pixie cabin with intricate woodwork fretted into curlicues and fronds. And, on a dais of cloths and quilts, Maia lay patient and ready, as though she'd been expecting them all the time. She was pale and unfamiliar with sunlight as Adam was burnished and beaten by the weather: moon-blanched to sun-ruddy. Maia was decked in layers of lace and shawls like the antimacassars of an old lady's settee. And flowing over her shoulders, across the pillows, and – if she ever were to stand – beyond her waist, tresses of wavy silver hair. It was impossible to tell what was Maia, what was silk or wool, or what was the well groomed spaniel nestling under her arm.
Toni was brilliant. Her talk of Byron and Kyron was free and intimate as though Maia were their long lost godmother. She admired features of the caravan; she marvelled and congratulated. And, in turn, Maia was gracious and shone as the berries of mistletoe glow in the northern winter. She caused tea to be made, and poured for Toni into bone china cups. The men said little, but clasped tankards of home brewed beer to their sternums. They were creatures of a lesser species, lowing cattle at the manger door. Occasionally they peeked in, lest anything needed fixing or replacing. When the women stopped for breath, they heard the low drone of male conversation, all about how things are made and work. They laughed and the men were abashed. Rob would tell Toni much later it was then he realised omnicompetent Adam wasn't wise at all, he was simply sad to his core he wasn't enough for Maia. With Artemis gone, from time to time, more than anything, Maia yearned for a lovely, garrulous woman to visit and be served tea in bone china cups.