‘I don’t know, Lay. I can see why you’d be attracted to that right now. Europe’s a seductive temptress.’ He made a few throaty noises, like trying to decide what gear a car should be in. ‘Have you thought about what you might be leaving behind?’
Hope bloomed. ‘Like?’
‘Well—’ more gear changing ‘—your family.’
She barked out laughter. ‘You’ve met my mother, right?’
He laughed too. ‘Good point.’
‘So what is it?’ she urged.
Say it, Lucas. Just say it.
‘I want to be a good friend here so I want to tell you to do whatever makes you happy.’
‘But what do you really want to say?’
He clicked his tongue in thought and she could imagine him leaning back in his executive chair. ‘You should do whatever makes you happy.’
Leila thanked him for his advice and hung up the phone.
Damn him. Why couldn’t he ever just say what he was really thinking? She slumped down on the bed and thumped her fist into the mattress a few times to release some stress.
Why couldn’t she just say what she was thinking?
But it wasn’t that simple. Achara and the Great Secret lay between them. If the content of that email could change Lucas’s mind about relationships then he had to know the truth. She might as well lay all her cards on the table. She might lose him but, hey, she didn’t have him anyway. Not the way she wanted.
She texted him again and waited an agonising eleven minutes before he called her back.
‘Hello?’ He sounded guarded this time.
‘I need to tell you something,’ she said, forcing her voice to steady.
Come on, she urged herself. It’s just like ripping off a bandaid.
‘You still there?’ Lucas said.
Leila’s mouth was dry.
Kate might have been right. Perhaps Achara would change her mind and Lucas would never need to know or feel the pain of rejection. But if Achara didn’t change her mind and rejected Lucas when he visited then he was going to need Leila to be a friend.
She opened her mouth to confess, then was hit by the responsibility she held. If she really loved Lucas then she would do anything she could to spare him the pain of that email. She might save herself by giving him a reason to be with her, but it wasn’t about her.
She decided right then that she would never tell him.
‘Leila? You were going to tell me something?’ Lucas was beginning to sound distracted.
‘I love you,’ she said, resigned to speaking what she knew to be true and right.
Silence.
‘Lucas? Are you still there?’
Just then, she heard muffled voices in the background and what sounded like Lucas placing his hand over the receiver and talking to someone. It went on for several moments, the conversation batting back and forth. She waited, mute.
At last she heard the hand scrape away from the phone.
‘Leila? I’m so sorry but I’ve got to run. I’m late for a meeting. I’ll call you later. Promise.’
‘But . . .’ she began to protest, but the call ended, the phone beeping at her with an awful finality until, in anguish, she clicked it off.
‘We’ve got two days.’ Mark’s voice was tight. Kate’s body contracted in response. ‘Two days and then Judy will sue.’
‘But what for?’
‘She’s contesting the will based on Simone’s alcoholism. She claims Simone wasn’t in a fit state of mind to write the will and that she’d had to assist Simone more and more over the years, and she was totally incompetent by the time she had the accident. She says the fact she crashed her car and killed herself while three times over the limit is a perfect example of her inability to look after herself let alone a global company. She says her lawyer’s assured her she’ll win.’
Kate’s head spun. So The Tea Chest wasn’t really hers. Or it was but it could be taken away. They could lose everything and this would have been for nothing.
No wonder Mark sounded stressed.
She closed her eyes and mentally willed herself to be calm and in control, the way a businesswoman of her standing should be.
‘This doesn’t make sense,’ she said, sounding much calmer than she felt. ‘Judy wanted out altogether. Why would she want to sue us when that would mean she was responsible for one hundred per cent of the company? That’s even more responsibility than she has now.’
‘But as the sole owner she can go ahead and dissolve the company immediately.’
‘What about all the work I’ve done? The London shop is up and running. Thriving, in fact. And it’s beautiful, Mark. Bigger and better than I’d imagined. I’m so proud of it. I wish you were here and could see it in person.’
Mark spoke carefully. ‘Unfortunately, Judy’s got a good case, Katie. And if she sues us we’re in for a world of hurt.’
His last sentence stung. She’d had the chance to get out. Letting Mark down just wasn’t an option, not after how he’d supported her, despite his secret valuation of the house. But she needed him to find some nerve now too. She couldn’t do this alone.
‘I think she’s bluffing,’ Kate said. ‘She doesn’t want to drag this out through the courts. It’ll take too long.’
‘But she knows it’ll cost us a lot personally. She’s banking on us backing down.’
She wondered whether Mark had taken Judy’s side, whether he’d stuck up for her at all.
‘Did you explain to her that if she could just be a little patient the London store will be flying and she won’t have any trouble finding a buyer for her share?’
‘I did.’
‘Then she’s bluffing. She has to be.’
Mark inhaled. ‘Two days, Kate. What do you want to do?’
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and rested her head on the wall behind her four-post luxury.
‘I can’t just pull out now. You understand that, don’t you?’
‘I understand,’ he said. ‘Look, I’ve got to go. I’ve got a meeting to get to.’
A meeting. Mark had things going on these days she knew nothing about. She was about to ask him what sort of meeting when he said goodbye and hung up.
She shook herself, literally, standing on her feet and shaking her arms and legs, trying to rid herself of Judy’s intimidation. If Mark had lost faith in her then she’d just have to step up and have faith enough for both of them. And if Judy thought she could push her around and scare her into submission she had another think coming. Kate knew she could succeed. Hell, she was succeeding.
She’d proven them all wrong. The glowing reviews for the London store kept coming thick and fast. She was handling it. She was doing it. Spreadsheets no longer terrified her. Business language no longer baffled her. She had a lavish advertising campaign in the works. She’d proven she had the nous, the determination, the creativity and the vision.
‘Bring it on, Judy,’ she shouted to the room, and air-boxed the posts of the bed for a while, dancing around and humming the fight-scene song from The Karate Kid, the original.
She was the best around.
Pow. She was Daniel. Bam. And Judy was Johnny. Pow, pow, bam. And she was going to kick Judy’s arse. She threw an air kick just to finish off her fight and then stood with her hands on her hips, her blood rushing and breathing hard.
‘Come and get me, Judy. You’re going down.’
She hit the ground running the next morning, bouncing into the breakfast room and greeting Leila with a huge grin.
‘Ooh, rough night?’ she said. Leila’s face was pale and her eyes heavy.
‘You could say that,’ she grumbled, biting into her toast and pulling a face. ‘Wish there was Vegemite.’
Kate grabbed the jug of orange juice and began pouring. ‘What happened?’
‘Lucas,’ she growled. Leila told her about their phone calls. ‘You see. Nothing good comes of these conversations. I should never have said anything.’
> Kate pursed her lips. ‘I don’t really know what to say. I’m sorry it’s worked out this way.’
Leila growled again. ‘Forget it. Let’s bury ourselves in work.’
They finished their food quickly, checked out, wheeled their bags to the car and hit the road, whizzing through farmlands until they reached the Blake Berry Fields.
They were ushered into the kitchen of the farmhouse, shook hands with Seymour Blake, a man who looked as ancient and grey as the building he stood in, along with his three sons and several grandchildren. One of the sons—who went by the name Ringer, for unknown reasons—took them on a trip around the fields in his rusted-out truck.
Kate was relieved to find that the fields were far more well-maintained and fertile than either the Blake buildings or Seymour Blake appeared to be.
She couldn’t but help feel joyful as they bumped their way over the fields, viewing acres and acres of rows of green leaves and bushes, all bursting with colour.
‘We’re right at the beginning of the season,’ Ringer said. He had a slow, considered way of speaking, with an accent that had just the slightest Irish lilt.
‘Raspberries are just coming in now. The blueberries were out last month. The blackberries should’ve been but were a bit late this year for some reason, but they’re here now. We’ve also got gooseberries till the end of this month. And down that hill are the tayberries—they’re a cross between blackberries and raspberries,’ he explained in response to Kate’s quizzical shake of the head.
‘I’m really keen to get to know those tayberries and gooseberries. They’re so foreign to most Australians.’
They finished their tour with Kate slopping through some muddy furrows to pick some berries. She pulled out her little cotton drawstring bag to fill with pickings for making tea.
Ringer took them back to the farmhouse, where they sealed their forthcoming deal with a handshake and bacon sandwiches, made in the greasy kitchen, along with black nondescript tea in pint-sized mugs.
Kate was having a rollicking good time. She’d managed to hold on to the determination and euphoria of the night before, and anytime she felt her confidence wavering, she just began humming the song from The Karate Kid.
Eventually, when they were back in the car and heading towards London, Leila began humming it too, drumming on the steering wheel as she drove, and then stopped herself with annoyance.
‘I can’t get this song out of my head,’ she said.
‘Which song?’
‘ “You’re the Best”, from The Karate Kid. I don’t know why it’s stuck there.’
Kate burst out laughing. ‘That’s because I’ve been singing it all day. It’s my theme song right now. I need it.’ She sang a bit more and air-punched in the car.
‘Why?’ Leila said. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Judy’s thrown us another curve ball, I’m afraid.’ She told her about the threat to sue.
‘Oh, Kate. That’s awful. That’s not what we need.’
‘No,’ Kate agreed. ‘It’s not. But you know what? As awful as it is, or could be, it’s actually roused my fighting spirit. I’ve worked too hard—we’ve all worked too hard—to have her take it away now. She’s out of line and I refuse to let her get the better of me. Not after all these years. Not when I’ve taken this huge risk. No, it’s my time to shine.’
She clapped her hands together. ‘We can do it,’ she said, pumping the air.
Leila laughed. ‘Of course we can.’
‘I can’t wait to see the ad campaign.’
Leila beamed. ‘Me too. I think it’s going to make a huge impact and it can only make us that much more successful.’
Kate put both her hands on top of her head. ‘I can’t believe I wrote a cheque that size.’ She felt butterflies the size of cats begin to jump around in her abdomen.
‘It’s just a number,’ Leila said, with the blasé attitude of someone who wasn’t actually responsible for the money.
Kate took a deep breath. ‘I suppose so. Have you been to the advertising office? Checked them out? Looked up their website or something?’
‘No. Quentin’s using a firm in the US that’s actually a subgroup of his parent company. He says they’re far better and cheaper than any he could find in England. He reckons they’re the best. Just like your song.’
‘That’s convenient,’ Kate said. ‘You don’t think he’s come up with this idea of an expensive campaign just to line his own pockets, channelling it through his advertising business?’
‘I did consider that,’ Leila admitted. ‘But at the end of the day, it wouldn’t matter which advertising company we used. The ad campaign was part of the deal for him to help us open more stores. We need to make the London shop so attractive and so necessary to consumers that Quentin is willing to risk putting his money into more stores. It’s sensible on his part. And the bonus of using his own company is that they have to do a good job.’
‘I suppose,’ Kate said, chewing her lower lip. She forcefully quelled her nerves. All the deals had been done. Now they just needed to get the ads produced and blitz London with their brand. If Judy went through with her threat to sue, that would be another matter to deal with. Until then, she had to proceed as if everything was okay. And it had to be.
19
Elizabeth waved frantically at the smoke billowing out of the griller and whacked the burning cheese on toast with a tea towel to smother the flames. Then she threw open the shutters, encouraging the smoke to head that way, though it seemed determined to waft to the lounge room instead.
Her father came into the room and she threw another tea towel at him, expecting him to help. But he just squeezed it together in his wrinkled hands. His eyes bugged out of his head.
‘What’s the matter?’ she said, irritated he wasn’t helping her. She dumped the blackened bread into the bin on top of some of Victoria’s handwritten notes about chai. Elizabeth was tempted to peek at them, her competitiveness flaring, but resisted.
‘Do you think Tennessee Blundell is involved?’ her father said, breathless. ‘I was just about to buy his new book. I’d hate it to be his last.’
Elizabeth supressed the urge to shake him and instead took a shallow breath through the smoke and tried to connect the dots. Tennessee Blundell was her father’s favourite crime author. Tennessee Blundell lived in London.
Dot . . . dot . . . dot. Nope. She had nothing.
She stretched back a little further in her mind to the moments before the toast exploded. Her imagination had been a long way off, back at Haruka’s flat, in fact.
After their kiss under the streetlight, she’d gone back to his place for coffee and they’d talked for hours. She’d been savouring every word of their conversations. Every sly flirty smile and spontaneous moment of shared humour. The way he never once tried to touch her, other than when their fingertips met as he handed her a coffee mug. The way he never once expected or even suggested they move to the bedroom. The way his dark eyes burned into hers until heat flushed her face and she had to look away, knowing he was still watching her. The way she instantly felt at home in his place. The excited way he talked about his art as he showed her his ceramic pieces, some half-painted, some drying, clay still splattered on the floor of his studio.
Her father’s voice brought her back to the smoky room with a jolt.
‘The writers have torched a double-decker bus and a police car and a row of shops.’
She tried to focus.
‘Huh?’
‘They’ve taken over London.’ Bill twisted the tea towel into a knot.
Now, Elizabeth had to see for herself. She went to the lounge room, where Sky News was on the telly. Indeed, scenes of chaos, raging fires, looting and conflict with police flashed across the screen. She read the words running across the bottom and groaned.
‘Rioters,’ she said to her father, quite loudly. ‘Not writers. Ri-o-ters.’ She pointed to the text.
Her father put his hand over his heart
and slumped into his chair with relief. Elizabeth rested on the arm next to him for a bit as they watched in silence. A peaceful protest over global economics had unexpectedly erupted into violence when the police began forcibly moving protestors on.
Elizabeth decided to embrace the moment of stillness with her father. She’d been so busy with the shop that she’d had next to no time to check up on him since Margaret had moved out. Although, she had to admit, he seemed to have moved on from depression to enthusiastic denial. She reached for the remote control and turned down the sound.
‘Dad, have you spoken to Mum lately?’
‘Yes, I’m sure I have,’ he said vaguely.
‘What does that mean? When did you speak to her?’
‘Oh, I’m certain it was only a few days ago.’
From the cheerful way her father said this, Elizabeth wondered if he had cracked. She was just about to prod him some more when he turned the tables on her.
‘Have you seen her lately?’ he said, innocently enough.
No. She hadn’t seen her since that awful day in the kitchen when she’d thought her own mother had hacked up her father and crammed him into a carpet bag. She hadn’t spoken to her either. She’d picked up the phone once or twice but just couldn’t bring herself to dial. What would she say?
Besides, she told herself petulantly, her mother hadn’t contacted her either.
‘Perhaps we should go see her together,’ she suggested now.
Bill’s facial features drooped like those of a bloodhound and Elizabeth’s heart lurched.
‘I think our time’s passed, kitten,’ he said.
‘What do you mean? For visiting? Or do you mean as a family?’
‘Your mother loves you, you know?’
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow at him.
‘In her own way,’ he conceded. ‘But whatever’s happening between Margaret and me is separate to how we feel about you. You need to know that.’
Tears sprang to Elizabeth’s eyes and she shook her head. She couldn’t believe she was having this conversation with her parent at this stage of her life. She wasn’t a kid anymore and she of all people should have known that nothing lasts forever.
The Tea Chest Page 20
