by Kris Webb
I headed for the kitchen, where I blocked the exit with two up-ended chairs and concentrated on making coffee. What had I been thinking? Not only had I got drunk by myself, but I had managed to do so on almost pure alcohol. What would have happened if Jack had woken up through the night? Or there’d been a fire?
I was still standing, drinking strong black coffee with three sugars, when Patrick came in.
‘Morning,’ he said, hardly looking at me as he headed over to where Jack was playing.
‘Hey man – give me five.’ This was something he’d been working on with Jack since the pancake incident, so far without much success. To my surprise, Jack raised his hand, smacked it solidly against Patrick’s and said something that sounded suspiciously like ‘Yo’.
Delighted, Patrick ruffled Jack’s hair and gave me a triumphant look. ‘That’s my boy!’
Jack followed him while he poured some Coco Pops into a bowl and drowned it in milk. Just watching it made me feel queasy. Obviously deciding it looked much better than the wholegrain muesli I had offered him, Jack began to climb up onto the counter stool to reach it.
Patrick helped him settle onto the seat and poured another bowl. Expecting me to object, he glanced over at me. I knew that introducing Jack to Coco Pops was setting a dangerous precedent but I couldn’t find the energy to complain.
‘Jack sleep all right last night?’ he asked.
‘Ah, yeah, I think so.’ ‘You think so?’
‘Well I didn’t hear him.’
Patrick looked confused. ‘You don’t look great. Are you feeling all right?’
‘Ah, no. I’m a bit hungover actually,’ I said in what I felt to be the greatest understatement of the century.
‘Really?’ Patrick looked interested. ‘Who came over?’
‘Ah – no one.’
‘You got drunk by yourself?’ Patrick looked justifiably concerned. ‘I’m surprised you found enough wine in this place to get drunk.’
I was silent.
‘Julia?’
‘Actually I had a bit of limoncello,’ I confessed.
‘You got drunk on limoncello by yourself?’ Patrick asked incredulously.
‘Yeah, but it was kind of social,’ I attempted to defend myself.
‘How can getting drunk by yourself possibly be social?’
‘Well, I was doing something else while I was drinking. I made a photo album of Anita so Jack could remember her and I just had a couple of drinks while I was doing it . . .’ I trailed off.
‘Things aren’t going well, are they?’ Patrick asked.
‘Nope,’ I replied honestly. ‘I didn’t realise that looking after a child could be so hard – and I haven’t even gone back to work yet. How the hell I’m ever going to manage both things, I have no idea. I must be totally incompetent. Women all over the world manage with a lot more than one child.’
‘Other women don’t have a toddler suddenly arrive in their lives. Face it, you need someone to help – someone who actually has some clue about children.’
‘Yeah, but where? At the moment it seems like I’ve got a better chance of winning the lottery than finding someone to look after Jack.’
Patrick looked at his watch. ‘Tell you what. Go back to bed for a couple of hours. I’ll go in a bit late this morning. It can’t exactly make things any worse with Jennifer.’
‘Really?’ I felt so pathetically grateful, I had to stop myself from throwing my arms around him. About to give instructions about what Jack would eat, when he’d sleep and so on, I stopped. They’d sort it out.
I practically sprinted back to bed and fell immediately into a dreamless sleep.
I had no idea how many calls to expect in response to the advertisement, but when I switched on my mobile at nine the only message I had was from my parents saying they were back in Queenstown with sore feet but had loved the walk.
I’d promised Patrick that if things hadn’t improved by the time they were back in range, I’d ask them to come home. By no stretch of the imagination could I be described as having things under control. When eleven o’clock passed without a single call about the job, I picked up my mobile.
Feeling like a failure, I sent my parents a message saying there was something I wanted to talk to them about and asking them to call me.
I was due back at work in four days’ time and I still had no one to look after Jack. What on earth was I going to do?
Despite having an impressive-looking affirmative action policy, Jennings Walker had only a few female partners, none of whom had children or worked fewer than eighty hours a week. Mark had been understanding about my predicament, but I doubted the other partners would be so kind when they voted on my partnership in July. I had to come up with a workable solution very soon.
When my mobile finally rang at two, I dived for it, suddenly desperate to talk to Mum and Dad.
I took two deep breaths before pushing the button, trying to regain my composure. ‘Hello, Julia Butler speaking.’
‘Hello Julia. It’s Carla here.’
‘Hi . . . Thanks again for yesterday, we both really enjoyed it.’
‘Oh, that’s all right.’
The silence stretched for a few seconds.
‘Look, Julia, I’ve had an idea. Well, weekdays aren’t that busy in the shop and since Joe died it gets pretty lonely. I never had kids of my own and I know I’m not an expert, but I thought maybe I could help out by looking after Jack on the days you have to go to work.’
My tired brain was still trying to catch up and before I could think of a reply she went on.
‘If you’ve got something else lined up then that’s fine. It was only an idea. It’s just that I would really love to help out if I could. You’d be doing me a favour letting me have Jack around too.’
Doing her a favour? I looked over at Jack, who was stacking books as high as he could and then knocking them over with great gusto.
This was a perfect result. Carla was lovely, Jack had loved the place and seemed perfectly happy with his great-aunt. It solved all my problems. Didn’t it?
‘Carla, that’s such a nice offer. It’s just . . .’ I paused, not sure what I was trying to say.
‘I don’t know anything about kids because I haven’t had any myself?’
I laughed. ‘Trust me. That’s clearly not part of the criteria or I’d be out of a job. No it’s just . . .’ Carla was silent as I debated whether to tell her what I was thinking. ‘I was kind of hoping I could find someone who would sort everything out for me.’
I realised how pathetic that sounded and added quickly, ‘It’s dumb I know, but I just can’t see how I’m going to be able to keep both Jack and me alive once I go back to work, even with someone to help out. I kind of had visions of Mary Poppins or, I don’t know, Mrs Doubtfire moving in and taking care of both of us. Except they’d also have to be independently wealthy because I couldn’t afford to actually pay someone for that.’
There was no sound from Carla’s end of the phone and I was sure I’d offended her.
I shook my head in disbelief at my own stupidity. Carla had made possibly the nicest offer I’d ever heard and I’d told her that unless she could sort out all my problems I wasn’t interested. If I’d had half a brain I’d have accepted gratefully and worried about everything else later.
I braced myself for the sound of her receiver being slammed down in my ear. Instead she said softly, ‘I don’t think it’s dumb at all. What about if we just think of me helping out as a short-term thing – until Mary arrives.’
Relief washed over me. ‘That would be wonderful. You may have just saved my life,’ I said with feeling. ‘Things have hit a bit of a low point.’ That seemed like a fair comment given that I could still taste last night’s limoncello. ‘I’m not sure what the rate is for this sort of thing, but I may be . . .’
Carla cut me off. ‘Julia, I’m not interested in doing it for money. Joe left me more than I need – I just want to get to know Anita’
s baby.’
I immediately felt stupid again and decided the less I said while my brain was still coping with this hangover, the better.
‘Thank you so much,’ I managed weakly.
We agreed that I’d drop Jack around the next day for a trial run and I hung up the phone smiling. Feeling light-headed with relief, I picked up my mobile and scrolled to Mum and Dad’s number.
Problm slvd. No need 2 call love J.
Maybe something was finally starting to go my way.
ELEVEN
This was what I’d been dreaming of for the last two weeks.
To be in an office full of adults whose clothes were not covered in food stains. Nine whole uninterrupted hours in which to calmly and methodically make my way through my pile of work.
So now that I was actually here, why was I calling Carla every hour and spending the rest of the time wondering when I could next call without offending her?
I knew I was being ridiculous. Jack and Carla had been great friends by the time I’d collected him after the trial run the week before and when we’d arrived that morning he’d disappeared in search of her cat without a backward glance.
‘Right, well I’ll be going then,’ I’d said with a touch of embarrassment. Despite my plans to include fifteen minutes to make sure Jack would be comfortable without me, I was already running late.
Since the first morning he’d crawled into bed with me reading had become a ritual.
It had been surprisingly difficult to pull myself away this morning and I had succumbed to three more ‘one last stories’ before I’d managed it. So as I headed to Carla’s front door, I told myself it was a good thing he clearly didn’t need me to stay.
I’d decided the best plan was to drive across town to Carla’s place in Paddington, park there and catch a bus into town. The whole trip had taken more than an hour, almost four times my normal commute time. But, I reminded myself, beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Even walking to the bus stop by myself had seemed odd and I was finding it hard to relax now I was at work. Having been with Jack almost constantly for the last two weeks, it was strange not to know what he was doing.
I forced my eyes back to my foot-high in-tray. The morning had started with a procession of colleagues returning the files they’d been looking after for me while I was away. When someone else was babysitting your file, only problems that couldn’t wait were dealt with. Which meant that most of them now urgently needed my attention. There was also a stack of phone messages I needed to deal with.
But instead of accomplishing anything, I’d spent the last two hours making lists and flicking from one problematic email to another. All I’d succeeded in doing was making myself feel sick at the amount I had to do and how little time I had to do it. Previously a huge workload could always be dealt with by working longer hours. Late nights and weekends came with the territory, and a whole weekend away from the office seemed like a holiday. But suddenly my available time had been slashed and all I seemed to be able to do was panic about it.
The telephone rang and I picked it up reluctantly, hoping it wasn’t a client wanting to talk about something I hadn’t yet glanced at.
‘Julia, it’s Mark. I’m in conference room two with a new client. Would you mind coming in for a while?’
‘Sure. I’ll be straight in.’
Excellent, I thought automatically. A new client and Mark was bringing me in at the start. That was good.
Before I’d even completed the thought, I changed my mind. That was not good – it was bad. Very bad. When in God’s name would I get a chance to do anything on another matter? And if it was a new client it would have to be done straightaway. Get a grip, I thought fiercely. More work meant more hours I’d be charging which was exactly what I needed to have any chance of being made a partner.
I grabbed my jacket off the back of the chair where I’d slung it earlier. Doing up the buttons, I stopped when I reached the bottom. The jacket was dark blue, while the skirt was definitely black.
I toyed with, but discarded, the idea of not wearing a jacket. Several years ago a senior partner had seen me returning jacketless from lunch on a baking hot day. He had berated me loudly about the importance of professional standards of dress. As a result, I couldn’t even contemplate walking into the meeting ‘half-naked’, as he’d put it. All I could do was pray that the client was male. After all, twenty per cent of men were colourblind.
I knocked briefly on the conference room door and opened it. Mark stood up, as did our new female client.
‘Ah, Julia. This is Sandra Stewart. She’s the managing director of First Gen. They want to retain us to deal with the fallout from their incident.’
I paused in case more information was forthcoming. Nope. I nodded in what I hoped was an intelligent manner, despite the fact I had not the faintest idea what First Gen was, let alone what incident Mark was referring to.
Before Jack’s arrival I’d spent half an hour a day reading two daily newspapers and a folder full of relevant clippings compiled by a media scanning company. These days I was lucky if I managed to catch the six o’clock news and wouldn’t have been particularly surprised if another world war had broken out without my knowledge. My reading material consisted exclusively of Diggers and Dumpers and, at a push, Hairy Maclary. And given that First Gen’s incident hadn’t featured in the last edition of Babies and Toddlers, I had not a clue what was going on.
Despite the fact that to all outward appearances I was a successful female professional, I always felt outclassed in the presence of women like Sandra. Her hair fell to her shoulders in soft waves and I was sure she’d never decided that ten more minutes in bed was worth a day of greasy hair. Her fingernails were beautifully manicured and her expensive fountain pen rested on a leather-backed notepad. I hid my hands behind my foolscap block and plastic pen. Of course, underneath the confident attractive exterior, she was desperately unhappy, I decided with little conviction. Anyone who was that perfectly turned out must have issues – at least I hoped she did.
Act confident when you feel the least so. It had always been my standard tactic when I felt out of my depth and I saw no reason not to employ it now. It wasn’t like I had a lot of options.
‘Hello, Sandra.’ I held my decidedly unmanicured fingers out to her. ‘It’s very nice to meet you. I’m pleased to hear we’ll be acting for you.’
I flicked open the business card holder which I’d taken from my handbag. Slipping out a card, I handed it across to her.
Her forehead creased and I looked down. The top of the business card was fringed in a soft pulp. I could clearly make out the bite marks across its length and I suddenly remembered handing the holder to Jack when we were in the car last week. It seemed that having been unable to remove the tightly wedged cards, he’d decided to wreak as much havoc as was possible given the limitations he had to work with.
‘Oh dear,’ I laughed hollowly. ‘I forgot this lot went through the wash last week. Sorry about that.’
‘As you’ll understand, things are pretty stressful at First Gen right now.’
Mark was speaking to me and I nodded sagely. ‘Mmm,’ I added as an afterthought, frantically running the possibilities through my mind. First Generator, First Generation, First Gender . . . Even if I didn’t know what had happened last week, I should have at least had some glimmer of recognition of the name.
Thankfully Mark spoke again. ‘I’ve told Sandra that I’d like to bring you in to help me with this matter.’
‘Of course.’ I had absolutely no doubt that Sandra had noticed the mismatched outfit the second I entered the room and was wondering just what value someone who was incapable of dressing herself could bring to the case.
Determined to show her how wrong she was, I pushed to the back of my mind the fact that my life was in chaos and I was hardly capable of changing the sheets on my bed.
In for a penny in for a pound, I decided. ‘I understand that you feel it is important
that you act immediately. But in my experience it is often better to take the time to work out the best course of action.’ That sounded generic yet wise, I thought.
They both looked at me strangely. ‘Yes . . .’ Mark said. ‘Except that when you have fifteen miners stuck in a mine shaft, sooner is often better than later.’
‘Ah yes, the miners.’ I wondered if I should just hand in my notice now and be done with it. ‘Of course – that goes without saying.’ I tried to sound impatient about having to go over ground I had already taken as a given. ‘But once the ground crew have done their job, we need to be ready to deal with the strategic aspects of the case.’
To my amazement Sandra nodded. ‘That was exactly what I was saying before you came in. Because First Gen was only spun off a month ago, the first that most people have heard of us is that we have a mine disaster. The rescue efforts are going excellently and we’re confident we’ll have everyone out safely very soon. So we need to be prepared to deal with an inquiry as soon and cleanly as we can.’
Mining. Spin off. The words jogged a faint memory. My mind whirred as I tried to pull the picture together. With a blinding flash I had it. First Gen was the coal-mining company which had recently been sold off by a large Australian company. From the sound of it, I’d missed the blanket media coverage that would have surrounded a mining disaster.
I started making notes, trying not to picture my already overflowing in-tray.
By six o’clock my to-do list had reached the end of the second page. The only good news was that given the high profile of the First Gen matter, Mark had decided to handle things by himself for the moment.
But I’d told Carla I’d pick Jack up by six-thirty, so I resolutely shut down my computer, ignoring the fact that I was the first to leave. Law firms hadn’t exactly switched on to the idea of paperless offices and I shoved five huge files into two supermarket bags.
The bus was late and the traffic horrific, so it was well after six-thirty by the time my plastic bags and I arrived at Carla’s.
Great effort, Julia, I fumed. I couldn’t even get here on time on the first day. Carla would probably throw Jack at me and withdraw all offers of help.
