‘Because Michael Foster is turning out to be an excellent client and I want you to concentrate on his account. There are a lot more billable hours there. In just over sixteen weeks, he and Wrens have become our number three client.’
‘But I’ve developed the CAP account. It’s mine.’
‘You can’t travel to Sydney to the advertising meetings. Since Nick left and Sophie started school, you’ve been arriving at the office around nine-thirty and leaving before five-thirty. So I’d like you to now concentrate on developing Wrens. There’s huge potential there.’
‘That’s unfair. I always meet my deadlines. I work at home all the time.’
‘The decision has been made.’
‘I want to speak to them,’ I said.
‘I’m asking you not to do that.’
We stared at each other.
‘Wrens isn’t full time,’ I said.
‘I’m giving you Pools Galore as well.’
‘Lena. Please. I can manage CAP. I can.’
‘What are you going to do about Sophie?’
‘What about her?’
‘You need to get more help.’
I shook my head. ‘We live in an electronic age but I still have to be physically present in meetings? Where’s the flexibility? Why is it such a big deal to Skype in?’
As I was saying that, I remembered the night Nick and I had argued about the hopelessness of him Skyping in fatherhood, and a relationship with me. He had been in Nairobi or maybe Juba. The connection was bad, or the power was off, or he was out covering a story and couldn’t get back in time. Always an excuse. For the five weeks he was away, he missed every call we set up.
‘You know face-to-face works in our business. It keeps the relationships warm.’ Lena opened a file and closed it. ‘We’re done here.’
I stood.
‘By the way, who’s the admirer?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The lovely roses.’
‘No one special.’
Then something changed. There was a firmness in her shoulders, her head became very still and a slight frown appeared between her pencilled brows. ‘Did I see Michael Foster’s driver here this morning?’
‘How do you know he has a driver?’
She slowly shifted in her seat. ‘More to the point, how do you?’
I couldn’t think.
‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘Tell me. Are the flowers from Michael Foster?’
I turned but did not sit. ‘They’re a thank you for a speech I wrote at short notice.’
Her lips twisted. ‘Pretending to be naïve doesn’t suit you.’
‘Why are you making such a big deal about a client sending me flowers?’
She pointed at me. ‘Let me say this. You’re treading a very fine line so be careful you don’t cross it. Now, is there anything else you wish to discuss with me in relation to the CAP account going to Amelia?’
‘No.’
She sighed deeply as she placed her reading glasses midway down her nose.
‘All right then. That’s all I’ll say for the moment.’
She was the same age as my mother and I felt like a daughter who had just been caught out. I looked out the window at the tiled rooftops and the bland sky, and all at once I knew it was time to stop working for her. That I really should move on. That I really should grow up.
I needed to think so didn’t return to my office. In the lift, I pressed for the ground floor, and as the doors closed I stared at the floor to avoid the mirrored walls. But I did look up and there I was – pale-faced and expressionless, my eyes seeming bigger than they were. Through reception, the glass doors opened. On Collins Street, I walked staring ahead, exhausted from the constant sadness in me. People were moving alongside, others were coming towards me with blank faces. At the Elizabeth Street lights, I looked across to CAP’s silver-glassed head office and its fluoro green-and-blue logo positioned more than two hundred metres above ground. I knew the forty-sixth floor – the dark-beige carpet and the row of meeting rooms with jarrah tables and brown leather swivel chairs. The tiles in the ladies toilets were pale green.
It was a good thing not having the CAP account. I knew that. With the pressure taken off it would be easier with Sophie. I kept walking, passing shops, going nowhere. If anyone looked at me they’d see a woman of average height in her mid-thirties wearing a taupe skirt and jacket, cream shirt, and black heels. My brown hair was tied back. But if anyone really looked, closed their eyes and slowly breathed in, they might have heard my heart beating too fast and felt a flood of something desperate, a yearning. I missed Nick and wanted to speak to him, to tell him how hard everything was. He was still phoning and Skyping, but he only spoke to Sophie, not me. Last call he was in Lebanon, before that Jordan.
It was then, right at that moment, that I heard the soft sound of an incoming text. I stepped to the kerb and fumbled in my pocket.
How strange that his timing was so perfect. Surely it was a sign.
Flying to Singapore tonight back Wed. You have urgent meeting with me Thurs. Lunch. Michael x
The entry to Michael’s South Melbourne place was a wrought-iron security door with an intercom lodged in the brick wall. I pressed the buzzer and waited. Nothing. I looked left and right, and pressed again.
A fine misting rain was damp on my hair. Further along the lane a green awning was sheltering a wheelie bin, and as I turned to go there the black car appeared. Neil was behind the wheel, wearing sunglasses and a deadpan expression. I couldn’t see Michael but I waved at the tinted side windows, thinking he’d have Neil stop so I could get in. But they drove on and disappeared around the corner and left me there feeling offended. But this meeting was not just about Michael and me seeing each other. I had my laptop in my bag and pages of notes on country-of-origin labelling. There was a food industry conference coming up in Sydney and he was the keynote speaker. The deadline was close. So while I waited, I stood under the awning making a play of being busy on my phone by checking the latest news, and posts on Facebook. I had an email from Pools Galore about a proposal I was writing for them. And while I was doing that my unease grew about meeting at his place on a work day. Why not a restaurant or his office?
I was looking in the direction of my car when Michael rang.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Running late. Was taking calls all the way.’ His voice came in bursts as if he was on the move. ‘I’m coming out the front to let you in.’
It only took two steps to enter his house – one from the path, the second into the hallway. He landed a hurried dry kiss on my lips and turned away, a flick of his hand indicating I should follow. He was wearing a grey suit with a shiny edge to it, a pink shirt with a darker pink tie. I didn’t like it. I thought of Nick in his Levis and un-ironed cotton shirts.
Our footsteps clipped on the large stone tiles and I felt the slow motion effect of orientating myself into his unusual home. He lived in a three-storey converted grain warehouse. The upper floors were accessed by central timber-planked stairs with glass-and-stainless-steel banisters. It was old and beautifully modernised. I looked from bottom to top, upwards into the open shaft of space to the ceiling. Light came through the glass of the far wall.
Michael pulled a bottle of white wine from the fridge and two glasses from a cupboard.
‘Not for me.’
‘Just one,’ he said, cracking the cap. He took a mouthful, and a second. Then he put our glasses and the bottle on the dining table.
‘I hope you like lasagne,’ he said, unzipping the bag and pulling out an aluminium tray covered in foil. Then he strode to the bin, threw the packaging out and swiped his hand across the bench to clear invisible crumbs.
‘Had a busy morning?’
‘There’s a problem with a new glass line at the factory. Baby food jars have been smashing. Some consumers have said they’ve found glass in the organic lamb with pumpkin and peas.’ He shook his head and looked at me as if I understood. ‘It’s n
othing to worry about yet. And the monthly trade spend numbers are out of control. I’ll get to it all later.’
He took another swig of his wine and then he was on the move, to a drawer for a long knife and a server.
‘You mean mothers feeding their babies have found glass in a jar?’
‘It happens. Glass breaks.’
‘What if a baby swallows glass?’
‘Let’s not discuss it. We should get to this while it’s hot.’
He sliced into the lasagne.
‘Where’s Neil?’
‘Gone off somewhere. Probably for a run. Can you grab some plates? That cupboard over there.’ He pointed. ‘This should be good. It’s in our new frozen meals range, Chicken and Mushroom.’
So there I was, only five minutes inside his front door, eating chicken, mushrooms and cheese in sheets of sweaty pasta.
‘You could’ve cancelled lunch if you’re busy,’ I said.
‘I wanted to see you.’ He reached across the table and rubbed my hand.
‘I’ve got questions about food labelling,’ I said.
‘Ask away.’
‘Why does Wrens source ingredients from other countries?’
As I picked through small lumps of processed chicken he explained the complexity of aligning quality and cost with constant supply.
‘Consumers,’ he said, ‘no matter how patriotic they think they are, buy food for its quality and price, wherever it’s made.’
I took notes and asked more questions. He had a way of looking at me, direct and unflinching, taking me in, thinking.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘You’re lovely.’
He wasn’t handsome, not at all, but there was something about him.
‘We can work on this on the weekend,’ I said. ‘When you’re not so busy.’
He topped up his glass. I’d not touched mine.
‘I’m off to the States on Sunday and you’ve got your daughter with you anyway. But during the day works, when we can be alone.’
I took that in, unsure of his meaning.
His phone rang then, and he glanced at me as he put his fork down.
While he walked around the room, listening and nodding, I observed how austere everything was. He lived in a beautiful building, but there was no hint of his character; no knickknacks, photos, books; the walls were bare.
The lasagne was bland and I pushed the plate away, hardly touched.
Whoever Michael was talking to, he told them he would be there in an hour.
That was good. He’d answered my questions. I was ready to go.
‘That glass line at the factory is a bloody worry,’ he said, taking another mouthful. ‘We’re working through the batch codes, but still haven’t quite identified the problem.’
‘If consumers are aware, do I need to get involved?’
‘Not yet. Now, come here.’
The smell of his leathery aftershave, the closeness of his ear, the neat trim line of his short sideburn, the taste of wine in his mouth – I noticed these things in parts, as if searching for the reason I was standing there, kissing this man. When he took my hand and led me towards the stairs, it seemed too complicated to resist. He was my client, my job depended on his ongoing commitment to the account. And I was a fool to have got myself into this situation.
His king-sized bed was covered in a charcoal doona, smoothly flattened. The bed butted to a panelled wall and behind it was the wardrobe and ensuite. I had been in hotel rooms designed like it, each with the same clichéd predictability.
‘I’ve been looking forward to seeing you,’ he said, swaying us as if we were about to slow waltz. I felt the weight of him pressing in. His grey-blue eyes had yellow flecks. I held his gaze, ignoring the small voice telling me I was not completely comfortable with this.
I caressed his cheek.
He smiled, a little wildly.
‘When’s Neil coming back?’ I asked.
‘I told you, he’s gone for a run.’
There was no door to be closed. We had sex between the crisp white sheets. I could hear the faint sound of traffic on Ferrars Street, the metal skim of a distant tram. When he kissed me I kissed him back, and it didn’t take long before I was going with it. But this was not ecstasy, that lost-in-passion-and-time feeling. I knew the difference. A dim confusing question came, asking what I was doing. Then something sad and wounded clutched at my heart and all I could do was relax my body and wait. There were six recessed lights in the ceiling. I wondered about his son, the staring fair-haired boy in the gold-framed photo on the bedside table. If I’d noticed him earlier, I would have turned his face away.
I shut the door to the ensuite. The marble tiles were cold. I shivered. On the granite vanity bench was a squat half-full bottle of aftershave, Gentleman. A single towel hung on a long rail. I pulled the toilet seat down and sat, hugging myself. My toe-nails were a rainbow, all the colours Sophie had painted them.
I heard Michael phone Neil. ‘Leaving in five minutes.’
We pulled on and straightened our clothes in silence. He knotted his tie perfectly without looking in a mirror and deftly inserted his cuff links; two small silver replicas of the Wrens logo. At his bedroom entry, he held me lovingly, breathing in, happy and relaxed, and I wanted to push him away.
Downstairs, I went to the dining table for my bag and stiffened. Neil was standing at the doorway that led beyond the back wall. Dressed in navy pants and jacket, he didn’t look like he had been for a run.
His soft voice, almost a whisper, was the first time I had heard him speak. ‘He brings others here. You’re not the only one.’ He stared at me, flat-faced, unflinching. He wasn’t lying.
A moment passed before I picked up my bag and walked up the hallway.
Michael was waiting at the open front door. Perhaps it was the way the light came from behind but he seemed a caricature of himself, somehow over-exposed, jowly and pale. He put his arm around me and brushed the side of my face with his mouth. I pulled away and stepped outside.
‘I’ll call you,’ he said.
The front door shut solidly behind me. There I was, standing in the cobbled lane, momentarily confused about where my car was.
I drove where the traffic took me. My hands gripped the wheel and I stared at the road, dumbly following a white SUV across a four-lane highway, down a street and onto a boulevard. The white car turned right, and so did I. We wound our way along scrubby bush that hid any sight of the bay. I kept driving, going nowhere. The SUV turned left. I didn’t follow and felt disappointed we had parted. The traffic flowed to a sweeping view of the bay. I found a park and turned off the motor. The grey sky and sea joined at the horizon. A ship with orange containers was headed to port or maybe it had just left, I couldn’t tell. Gulls appeared in front of the car and stood on the pine railing. They studied me side-on with their dark-brown unblinking eyes.
When I was eight, Mum and Dad took my brother and me on a family holiday to Apollo Bay. We stayed in an aqua house with a sloping stretch of lawn that ran all the way to the beach. Ewan and I spent all our time in the water, bodysurfing or looking for fish in the rock pools, or just wandering around. Unusually, our parents didn’t hassle us about sunscreen or hats and we got badly sunburnt and no one seemed to care. One afternoon, Mum said she wasn’t feeling well and went to bed with the blind down and the bedroom door closed. She’d been crying; it made no sense. Dad took us to the beach, detouring on the way to buy fish and chips and cans of Fanta. We sheltered from the wind by sitting against a bank of small dunes and marram grass and picked our salty dinner off the paper while Dad stared out into the rolling dark ocean. I’ll never forget the moment Ewan spilt his drink and Dad hit him across his burnt back. My brother didn’t cry out but shrunk down like a faithful dog taken by surprise. Before we had finished eating, Dad flung his arm and tossed the chips to the gulls.
We didn’t see Dad much after that, only the odd weekend. I can’t quite explain, even now, why he wa
s always so absent and never available. There was no more trout fishing. In my last year of school he invited me to his place in Berwick for dinner to meet Alison, his new girlfriend. She was only five years older than me. I stared into their cheerful, yet anxious faces, trying to work out what they wanted from me. I never worked it out, not that night or any time after.
The container ship was gone and more gulls had arrived, scuffling for position in case I had a food offering. I looked at the time on the dash. School was almost finished. I drove out of the car park and headed towards Sophie. A surprise for her: no after-school care.
3
THE next day in the office I met with Hamish West from Pools Galore. Mugs and plunger coffee were on the table and a plate of cream biscuits neither of us touched. Hamish was an ex-Hawthorn star player who thought of himself as a celebrity – I’d done a Google search and confirmed he was. I took notes as he vented on the media, how they exaggerated the problems of his leaking pools. A morning talk-back program had invited calls on the subject and four or five irate customers had phoned in and repeatedly mentioned his name. An evening current affairs program had called him, wanting an interview.
‘It’s because of who I am,’ he said. ‘They’re targeting me to get higher ratings.’
‘Why do the pools leak?’
‘It’s the sealant.’
‘So there is a problem?’
‘Well, yes …’
The door opened and Lena came in.
‘I have to speak to you right away.’
She held the door open and closed it after me. We stood in the corridor. A pulse ticked in her sinewy neck.
‘There’s a panic at Wrens,’ she said. ‘Something about glass in baby food. They’re doing a recall and need you there now.’
I glanced at the meeting room.
‘I’ll take care of him,’ she said.
Michael sat at the head of the boardroom table with his team facing him, necks craned forward, listening. Coats were slung over the back of seats, some of the men had loosened their ties and undone the top button of their shirts. I took my seat and plugged my laptop into the console in the centre of the table. People came and went with a controlled, purposeful energy. Phones rang in a blend of tones.
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