Keepers of the House

by JH Fletcher

  He had everything: wealth, fame, power, a beautiful and stylish wife who in her way — although not always with his approval — was more of a public figure than he was.

  He had nothing; as long as there remained fresh fields to conquer, Mostyn Harcourt would always be hungry. More money, more power; the lust for more drove him through his eighteen-hour days, made him the most dangerous predator in the Sydney jungle. Not only in matters of business.

  One evening in October, he stood at the window of his office, staring out at the city that had become his empire. Twenty-four floors below, the diamond lights seemed to him more beautiful than any galaxy. Even Mostyn knew better than to make a takeover bid for the heavens but would have done so without hesitation, had he thought there was the slightest chance of success. Would have made a profit out of it, too.

  He picked up his private phone, tapped out a number that he knew by heart. At the other end, the receiver lifted.

  ‘Free this evening?’

  A light laugh, breathless over the wire. ‘You’re a naughty boy, you know that?’

  ‘That’s what you like about me.’

  Again the laugh. ‘Among other things. When are you coming round?’

  He checked his watch. ‘An hour?’

  It would give him time to look over the Belair contract.

  ‘I’ll be here.’

  He replaced the phone. I’ll bet you will, he thought. He opened the file, picked up his Mont Blanc pen, began to scan swiftly through the report that had come up that evening from the legal department. Forty minutes later he closed the file, locked it away in his desk and took the express lift to the parking garage in the basement.

  All work and no play … He was a great believer in old adages when they suited him, had no intention of becoming a dull boy. Not while he had Nicki, the friend from way back who had introduced him to his wife and who had been recently — and profitably — divorced for the second time. She would keep him up to the mark.

  Anna had been on the periphery of the Women’s Rights movement for years. She disagreed with much that they said, but it was a field where much work was still needed. By degrees she had become more and more involved.

  A year earlier she had gone to Canberra to lobby Jack Goodie. He’d got the job of Foreign Minister by then and was making a fair fist of it, far better than the incompetent bag of venom and spite who had preceded him.

  Foreign Minister or not, Jack was still the larrikin he had always been. ‘My God,’ he said when Anna walked into his office, ‘The lady from hell.’

  There was talk of sexism in some of the country’s embassies and she wanted him to do something about it.

  He groaned. ‘You want me to change the Diplomatic? Might as well tell me to kick over Ayer’s Rock.’

  No Uluru for Jack, not when the cameras weren’t turning.

  ‘No need for me to get involved,’ he said. ‘The legislation’s on the statute books.’

  ‘Laws are one thing,’ she told him, ‘practice something else.’ The sure way to Jack’s heart was through the ballot box. ‘Don’t forget: an election’s coming. More women voting than ever before.’

  He looked thoughtful. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  And did. It was only cosmetic but the principle of equality, in practice as well as in law, had been acknowledged. She went away pleased.

  She must have rung a bell with Jack, too; two months later, David Gould phoned her. She had known the New South Wales Premier for years. When it suited him he made derogatory noises about the big end of town but it never meant much, the worlds of business and politics a lot closer than some people liked to admit.

  ‘There’s a position on a Board of Enquiry,’ he told her. ‘If you’re interested.’

  He knew damn well she’d be interested. There was no money in it but as a way back into politics it couldn’t be beaten. Anna had no definite plans, but keeping one’s options open never hurt anybody.

  The enquiry dragged on — boring, painstaking, useful — but things must have gone okay because a few months later she was invited to serve on another one.

  Mostyn didn’t like it. ‘Playing footsie with the pollies. Bad for your image.’

  It was his image, not hers, that worried him. Afterwards Anna supposed she should have taken more note of his concerns but in truth they hardly saw each other. Mostyn was out of the country a lot, chasing one deal or another. He had climbed into bed with Suharto and spent weeks at a time in Indonesia. The way that gang was pillaging the country it seemed obvious there had to be trouble coming but, when Anna tried to say so, Mostyn told her to keep her nose out of it.

  Then David Gould made her his offer of a ministry. A month later, Anna came home to find her husband had walked out.

  She was surprised how hurt she was; was hopping mad, too. More at herself than him; she should have been the one to walk. Indifference or perhaps an old-fashioned notion that marriages were supposed to last — how sentimental could you get? — had stayed her, and now it was too late.

  She had to pick up the pieces of her life, her career. Because that too would be affected. Not many people liked Mostyn but plenty were scared of him; not for nothing was he called Hatchet Harcourt. The Harris Donnellys of the world might think she was wounded badly enough to risk trying to knife her. That thought didn’t trouble her; she could eat Harris Donnelly for breakfast any day of the week, but she would have to guard her back. A nuisance.

  She had lunch with Mark.

  ‘At least you’ve still got plenty of supporters,’ he told her. He was right. That night, after she had returned to her empty house, David Gould phoned her.

  ‘Is it true?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Dickhead.’

  She laughed; brave try, girl. ‘Me or him?’

  ‘You don’t qualify.’

  ‘How would you know?’

  There were plenty who said Anna Riordan had more balls than a man. ‘Is that an invitation to find out?’

  He’d been happily married for years. Faithful, too. Which made it all right.

  ‘If I said yes, you’d run a mile.’

  ‘Moira would murder me.’ His voice changed. ‘That ministry’s still available, if you’re interested.’

  She was grateful; a gesture of support was just what she needed. As for the offer itself … She had imagined she would jump at it.

  ‘It’s a kind thought.’

  He heard the refusal in her voice. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m tired, David. I need to think before I get into anything else.’

  ‘Okay.’ A busy man; no time to waste. ‘If I can ever do anything …’

  And was gone. Taking one of her potential futures with him.

  She walked slowly through the house and into the garden. The fresh scent of the bedding plants came to her. She remembered how she had lain naked under the stars, facing the hopes and desires of what she had been determined would be a new life. Now she stood by the wall and looked across the harbour at the sun-bright city. The setting of so many battles, only a few of which had been creative.

  What was the point of it all?

  Mark Forrest had made a career, and a name, out of commitment. Someone else had done it, too: Ben, her old friend from uni, who had believed so passionately in the cause to which he had sworn to devote his life. He was still doing it; only recently she had seen his name in the papers about some conservation issue or other.

  Her friends had laughed, calling him a fool, and she had laughed with them. He didn’t seem such a fool, now.

  Even Mostyn believed in what he was doing. Only Anna was the odd one out. She was in the business of making money, yet the accumulation of money for its own sake had never seemed a worthwhile objective.

  She had told David the truth. She was too tired to climb back into the arena. That, like everything else in her life, would have to wait.

  She saw now that what she had told herself would be no decision had in fact been a decision o
f the greatest importance. She had decided to do nothing, to wait; that, in a life that until now had been sacrificed endlessly upon an altar of frenetic movement, was a decision of momentous proportions indeed.

  She had no doubt that she was right. Somewhere beneath all the nonsense in her life there had to be a sustaining passion. The trick was to find it. Do that and she would find herself, too, perhaps. She would be whole.

  That did not mean remaining passive, accepting everything that Mostyn chose to chuck at her. She thought of Anneliese dying in her bed at ninety-five, the passion that had sustained her until the end. Anneliese had gone from riches to poverty; some would say she had achieved nothing in her life, yet she had lived with an intensity that even now, twenty-six years later, made Anna catch her breath in both admiration and envy.

  Would Anneliese have sat back, meekly accepting what had been done to her? Never on your life. Perhaps Anna needed to learn a lesson from her.

  Having lunch with Mark had been fun. More than fun; it had re-opened vistas that she had thought closed forever but, as far as her fight with Mostyn was concerned, it had achieved nothing. She accepted his judgement that she should not wage war through the press. Very well, but that did not mean she should do nothing.

  She thought some more, then picked up the phone. ‘Get me Maurice Steyn …’

  Time for the lawyers.

  Mostyn could not believe what he was reading. He threw the letter down on his desk and grabbed the phone.

  ‘Get me Anderson!’

  When his lawyer came on the line, he said, ‘I’ve a letter from Anna’s solicitor.’ He shouted through the other man’s protests. ‘I don’t care what appointments you’ve got. Just get here. Okay?’

  Anderson took his time reading the letter.

  Mostyn eyed him with increasing impatience. ‘Well?’

  Anderson read it again, carefully, put it back down on the desk. ‘She’s got you by the shorts,’ he said.

  Mostyn was having none of that. ‘I made that bitch! Everything she has is due to me!’

  ‘The courts won’t see it that way.’

  ‘It’s your job to make them see it that way!’

  ‘Most of her directorships went to her direct. You had nothing to do with them, any more than you had with those Boards of Enquiry.’

  ‘I set the ball rolling —’

  ‘She was the one who ran with it.’

  Mostyn set his teeth. ‘You saying I have to settle with her? On her terms?’

  ‘You walked out on her,’ Anderson pointed out. He wished that some of his rich clients might one day stop to consider before rushing headlong into matrimonial disasters of this kind. Although, as disasters went, this was reasonably mild.

  ‘You could have done a lot worse. If the Trumpet hadn’t published those articles —’

  Mostyn brushed that aside. Whether he could have done worse was not the point; he resented having to settle at all, on any terms.

  ‘It puts me in the wrong,’ he complained.

  ‘You are in the wrong.’

  Mostyn Harcourt had never been wrong in his life. ‘I’ll fight her.’

  ‘I strongly advise against it. All she wants is the house and contents, plus half your share portfolio —’

  ‘All!’

  ‘— in companies where you are not a director. Your general portfolio, in fact.’

  ‘She’s not getting any of my vineyards —’

  ‘We can discuss that. Perhaps we can get her to agree.’

  ‘What about my house?’

  Mostyn had never been interested in the house. A roof over his head in a fashionable address was all he had ever wanted; in some ways a penthouse on the south side of the harbour would have suited him better, but now the house had become the most desirable thing on earth. Because Anna wanted it.

  Anderson looked doubtful. ‘The matrimonial home —’

  ‘It’s as much mine as hers,’ Mostyn shouted.

  ‘But you walked out.’

  Mostyn changed tack. ‘You any idea what my portfolio is worth?’

  ‘Quite a lot, no doubt.’ Anderson hesitated. ‘Reconciliation is really the answer.’

  Mostyn slapped an outraged hand on the letter. ‘After that? I’ll see her in hell, first.’

  For the letter and another reason. He had walked out in rage after discovering that the bloody Premier had offered her a ministry in the next government. That, on top of the directorships that had not come from his patronage, the well-publicised and politically correct causes that he was convinced she supported only because they were fashionable. More and more he had felt himself becoming the junior member of their partnership and was not prepared to put up with it. He had cleared out in order to teach her a lesson, remind her how much she depended on his support. He had wanted her to come crawling. He should have known better. Anna was one of the very few he had never been able to push around. He remembered how she had forced him to chase after her into the Blue Mountains. That was another memory that still rankled.

  ‘I’ve got mates in this town,’ he threatened. ‘Time I’ve finished with her, she won’t get a job as dog-catcher.’

  Anderson was alarmed. ‘I advise most strongly —’

  Mostyn had done with listening, if he had ever started. ‘Write and tell her I’ll see her in hell before I agree.’

  Which, more diplomatically, Anderson did.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Anna asked.

  Maurice Steyn placed Anderson’s letter on the table and steepled his fingers.

  ‘What other matrimonial assets are there?’

  ‘The cottage in the mountains. The boat. A condominium in Delos. A couple of cars. I’m not interested in any of them,’ Anna said. ‘I just want to make an end to it. Leave us both with a bit of dignity.’

  ‘Perhaps I should give Anderson a ring. But I have to warn you, if your husband wishes to maintain his adversarial stance —’

  ‘Do what you must,’ Anna said, defeated by her distaste for the whole situation. ‘But I want the house.’

  ‘And if he won’t agree?’

  ‘Then we’ll take the bastard to the cleaners.’

  ‘You’ll give me a free hand?’

  She hesitated. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ll have to settle,’ Anderson told him. ‘She’s willing to concede over the vineyards, but only if you accept everything else.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘As before. Plus the condominium on Delos.’

  A hornet sting; Mostyn leapt. ‘You telling me she’s upped the stakes?’

  ‘Steyn said if you don’t settle, she’ll go for fifty percent of the lot. You’re getting off cheap. Let her have the house,’ Anderson urged him. ‘You never wanted it, anyway.’

  Wanting it or not had never been the point. ‘You’re saying I have no choice?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Very well.’ Mostyn stared fiercely down at the city as though holding it responsible for the mess. ‘Prepare the necessary papers. But she needn’t think she’s heard the last of it. I’ll pay her back, you see if I don’t.’

  ‘Be careful. Slander is a serious business —’

  ‘Better than slander.’ Hatchet Harcourt smiled savagely. ‘I’ll make her sorry she ever tangled with me.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Anna was astounded when Tracy rang from reception to say that Ben Champion was waiting in the foyer to see her. She had been thinking of him only the other day, as from time to time she did, with nostalgic fondness. She had never really expected to see him again.

  ‘Send him up.’

  She hadn’t set eyes on Ben for years; now, waiting for him to be shown into her office, she felt like a girl on her first date. He’d been her first man, after all; if he had been more grown up both their lives might have been different.

  A tap on the door.

  Anna straightened her blouse, checked her hair in the hand mirror she kept in her desk.

  ‘Come …’
>
  One glance and she saw this was no longer the youth she remembered. Ben’s face was lean, a spider’s web of sun-lines white about the corners of his eyes. His mouth was firm; he had the look of someone who had found himself, knew where he was going and why.

  Maturity. She wondered if she could say as much for herself.

  She took his hands in hers. ‘What a lovely surprise!’

  The Ben she remembered would have been awkward; now he smiled, accepting her pleasure at seeing him. It was a measure of how much he had changed, this man who had once been so close to her. Several times over the years she had seen him on television in connection with conservation issues; once or twice he’d been in trouble with the police; there had been rumours that he might nominate for the Senate on a Green ticket, but knowing these things and seeing the changes in his flesh were different matters entirely.

  She had a meeting in twenty minutes, had been planning to run through the reports that would be tabled. Now she decided that for once in her life she would give preparation a miss.

  ‘Coffee?’

  It came at once; in Anna’s office, things did.

  ‘Tell me how you’ve been,’ she said.

  He smiled. ‘Still beating the drum.’

  ‘Planet Earth’s most loyal supporter.’

  He shrugged it off. ‘Someone’s got to do it.’

  ‘Not married?’

  ‘No one would have me.’

  She doubted that, particularly as he was now, but did not pursue the subject. Too close to home, perhaps. ‘Is this a social visit?’

  ‘Not entirely. You’re on the main board of Ryan’s, aren’t you?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘One of the Ryan companies is into forest management.’

  ‘Gippsland Forestry. What about it?’

  ‘Woodchips,’ he said. ‘You know how much forest has been destroyed in this country in the past ten years?’

  ‘Gippsland has a policy of sustainable felling.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘What it says. We plant many more trees than we fell.’