‘Tell me it’s not true,’ she whispered.
Leila sank onto the arm of the nearest chair and began pulling on her hair, clutching it in fists near her scalp.
‘Tell me it’s not true,’ Kate repeated. Her exhausted mind was telling her to lie down and sleep, while her body was doing the complete opposite, thundering with adrenaline. ‘Tell me what I’m thinking is crazy. That the couriers haven’t been held up by the riots because there are no couriers because there are no ads. That he hasn’t run off with the money. That we haven’t been scammed.’ She strode towards Leila.
Leila looked woozy. ‘I—I don’t know,’ she said at last.
Kate grabbed Leila’s shoulders, aware that her fingers were digging in but knowing it was the only thing keeping her upright.
Her phone chirped. She released Leila and pulled it from her pocket. There was an email alert. Apparently, Judy was up early and keen to share her decision.
Kate reached for a chair.
‘What is it?’ Leila said, recovering her wits.
‘Judy,’ Kate managed to whisper. ‘She’s going to sue.’
Just then, the doorbell rang. The whole house went silent for the second time in less than half an hour.
The bell rang again.
‘I’ll get it,’ Victoria said finally, moving down the hall, pulling her robe around herself even more tightly.
Kate held her breath, her fingers still around the mobile phone.
There was a creak as the front door opened, but there was no other sound for several moments. Then footsteps. And the reverse creak of the door closing again. More footsteps. Then a tall man dressed in a lightweight jacket appeared and walked into the kitchen.
Ten years earlier
There was so much to do.
Judy cast her eye down the list again. Simone had signed a five-year lease on a shop space in Racecourse Road just prior to her sentencing, not believing for a second she would end up in jail, despite her barrister’s warnings. And she’d signed a personal guarantee to cover the rent. Fool. So now it was up to Judy to sort out the mess and get this latest project started. There was still the insurance to organise, the business name registration, the signage, the fitout. She checked her emotions, controlling the anger that seemed to froth non-stop these days, both at Simone and at herself for being dragged into yet another of Simone’s problems.
And right now, she’d rather be at home, relaxing, taking care of Graham. His recent cancer scare had really taken its toll and now he had a clean bill of health they wanted to go on a cruise and celebrate somewhere tropical. They should be heading towards retirement, not starting risky ventures.
‘You could just say no,’ Graham had suggested the night before, passing her a glass of wine.
Judy groaned. ‘And watch her go bankrupt? I don’t think I can handle any more stress from Simone. The only thing that ever seems to keep her functioning is when she’s got a new business and it’s going well. If she lost everything now . . .’ She shook her head, tapping the wine glass. ‘Well, I don’t think I could cope.’
So now she was filling out paperwork for the registration of the name The Tea Chest. Paying the bills herself for the phone and electricity connection, the insurance and the contractors. Keeping all bills carefully documented. This wasn’t going to be a free ride. If she had to sink money into this venture she’d better bloody well get her cut at the other end, if by some miracle it succeeded.
Of all Simone’s business ideas this one had to be the worst. People bought tea in supermarkets, not expensive riverside boutique stores. As much as she knew Simone needed this to succeed, she wasn’t so convinced it would. But if she could just get her through this phase, perhaps something good would come of it somewhere down the track. Though she couldn’t imagine what.
The anger dissipated for a moment as she thought of Simone in a cold jail cell, behind bars.
At least there’d be something for her to come home to when she was released, even if it didn’t last long.
Elizabeth jumped up and backed into the corner of the kitchen, her hands flying to her face in shock. She barely registered Kate and Leila coming into the room, or her father’s voice calling, ‘What’s going on?’
Then her mother leaped to her feet and embraced Elizabeth’s husband in a move that was so inappropriate it made Elizabeth want to slap her.
‘What are you doing? Don’t hug him!’
‘He’s still family, Elizabeth. And what can I say? I’ve become more understanding of problems in a marriage and they’re not always straightforward.’
An awkward pause. Looks shot between Margaret, Angus and Bill, whose face was purple-red.
Elizabeth turned to John. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she demanded.
John tried to smile, the kind of sheepish smile he reserved for days when he’d spent money on joining a wine club or signing up for Foxtel without discussing it with her first. It was generally accompanied by a lot of babes and sweethearts, as well as shoulder massaging.
‘I came to see you,’ he said.
Elizabeth glared at him, feeling a torrent of emotions rushing like white water through her middle.
‘Do you realise there are riots going on?’ Victoria said.
‘I do now. They stole my suitcase as I walked down the street.’ He rubbed a hand through his curly hair in an unsettled gesture.
A flicker of leftover marital concern caused Elizabeth to say, ‘Have you come straight here? From the airport?’
‘Yes,’ he said, his voice lacking strength. ‘Twenty-four-hour trip. You know how it is.’
Angus rose to his feet and pushed his chair towards John. ‘Please, have a seat.’
‘No.’ Elizabeth intervened, striding to the chair and taking it from John and tucking it under the table. ‘He’s not staying.’
It was unbelievable. She hadn’t seen or spoken to her husband in almost three months and then he showed up unannounced, right when she’d started to move forward with her life.
He didn’t move. No one moved. She wanted to grab him by the arm and lead him to the front door but the thought of touching him, an arm so familiar it was almost one of her own, was overwhelming and she faltered.
‘Well?’ She scowled. ‘Go on. Get moving.’
John lowered his head and cleared his throat. ‘Right.’ He made a move to go.
‘Wait a minute,’ Margaret said, placing an arm out between John and Elizabeth. ‘You can’t send him out there. There are riots, Elizabeth. Be reasonable.’
‘Reasonable? Reasonable? How reasonable was it for him to have another family in another country and lie to me for years?’ Her blood pressure soared and she sensed Angus retreating a little. ‘How reasonable was it for him to pretend to try for a baby when he’d had the snip? How reasonable was it for him to expect me to forgive him?’ She was screaming now, thrusting her finger towards him. ‘How dare you come here?’ She kicked him hard in the shins.
He puffed in pain and crumpled, grabbing at his leg. There was a collective gasp from the others but, she was pleased to see, no one actually rushed to help him. She was especially pleased to see her father smother a smirk.
Her chest heaved with the effort of breathing and, to her horror, tears threatened. She stamped her foot instead.
John straightened, wincing, looking more than a little galled. But he raised his chin and said, ‘Please, Elizabeth. I’d just really like the chance to talk to you.’
All eyes volleyed back to her.
Just then, a siren started close to the house, its piercing wail making the walls vibrate and Elizabeth knew no matter how angry, betrayed and hurt she was she couldn’t send him back outside into that. It looked like the bastard had won again.
‘Fine.’ She left the kitchen and headed back to her old bedroom, John trailing behind.
Leila excused herself and went to the bathroom and shut the door. She sat on the edge of the peach-coloured bathtub and called Quentin’s phone
again, a vice-like pressure in her chest.
‘Quentin, it’s me. I called the hotel and they told me you’d gone to the airport. I’m really confused and I’m really worried and I don’t know what to think and . . . please, please tell me everything’s okay with the deal. Call me. Urgently. As soon as you can.’
She snapped the phone shut and listened to the tap dripping, recounting the thirty-eight ‘pros’ she’d listed about Quentin the other day in her notebook. She’d marked the page with a cat-shaped paperclip.
But suddenly, words like charming, stylish, and witty didn’t seem as important as words like honest, decent and trustworthy, which she hadn’t even considered.
Elizabeth faced her husband across the bedroom. She leaned against the small white desk and crossed her arms.
‘Nice room,’ he joked, gesturing around. ‘It’s very you.’
‘Cut the crap. You don’t know me at all.’
His face twitched and he backed up to the wall.
She shook her head slowly, taking him in, her gaze roaming over the bloodshot eyes and the lines around them that seemed to have deepened since that day in their bedroom when he’d burned her world to the ground with just a few sentences.
I have another family in Japan. We won’t be having a baby. I should have told you sooner.
And what was that beneath the buttons of his shirt? It looked like his breastbone, more prominent now than before.
‘Have you lost weight?’ she blurted, though she reminded herself that she didn’t really care.
‘A little. Look, Liz, I wanted to see you. I had to see you.’
He pushed himself off the wall and took a step towards her, then stopped short as she recoiled. His weary face fell. He reached into the pocket of his pants, pulled out a handkerchief and wiped at his brow, which was shiny with small beads of perspiration.
‘Why?’ she demanded, her voice edgier than she’d intended it to be. ‘So you could humiliate me some more? Show me photos of your boys?’ She halted, struck by images of two young boys, pale-faced with dark hair, sitting on John’s knee. Cuddling in his lap. John reading them a bedtime story. Teaching them to tie their shoes.
‘Does she know about me?’ Her bottom lip trembled.
John took a deep breath and shucked off his jacket, revealing large pit stains of sweat on his maroon shirt. He went to the edge of the bed and sat on the pink duvet.
‘Yes.’
It was amazing how a single word could be so shocking.
So many questions demanded answers. Had she thrown him out? Did he still see the boys? Would he be moving to Japan? Would they be moving to Australia? Did she forgive him? Had she known all along? How long had she known? And the question she was still somehow thrown by: was he here to ask for a divorce?
And if he was here to ask for a divorce, was that what she wanted too?
It was absurd. There was no turning back from this. This was not a situation where you just forgave and moved on. This was a deal breaker. No question. Yet, the word divorce made her feel like she was living someone else’s life. Who was this person?
‘It’s hot in here,’ John murmured.
‘Oh. Is it?’ She rubbed her arms, assessing the temperature.
‘Would you mind getting me a glass of water?’
Elizabeth opened her mouth to unleash another round of abuse—how dare he ask her to fetch him water?—but the sight of him sweaty and crumpled on the edge of the bed made her stop. Clearly, the guy felt fantastically guilty. That gave her an edge of satisfaction and the motivation to take the high road and go downstairs to get him his damn water.
Kate trembled. She was almost paralysed with fear.
Quentin was a fraud.
Quentin was a fraud.
Quentin was a fraud?
She tried to prioritise the issues facing her. Right now, she couldn’t do anything about Judy’s decision to sue. Quentin was a much bigger problem.
Perhaps he’d simply had to travel overseas suddenly. He did have investments all over the world. It was easily possible something had come up.
And Leila had checked him out. Hadn’t she?
Kate paced the small bedroom and stared at Leila’s bed and possessions as though searching for clues.
Leila was on her side—wasn’t she?
She shook herself. She wasn’t making sense. The whole world was spinning, there were riots going on all over the city, and it was hard to see straight.
Think, Kate, think.
She took a deep breath and tried to break the problem down into smaller pieces. Number one was the cheque.
She stopped pacing. The cheque! She could cancel it.
She rushed to the laptop on Leila’s bed and flipped it open. She just needed to see if the cheque had been presented. If it hadn’t, she could cancel it. She went to the bank’s website, forgot all her log-on details and had to fish through her huge handbag to find the little card with the numbers in the side pocket, entered them, moved through the welcome screens and went to the transaction site.
She held her breath, waiting for it to load. It seemed to take an age for the transactions to appear on the screen. She gripped the laptop in her hands.
‘Come on, come on,’ she urged.
Then the numbers were there on the screen.
Her heart jolted painfully. It was too late. The cheque had been cashed and the money had been taken from The Tea Chest’s account.
It was all over.
Elizabeth trudged up the grey shagpile-carpeted stairs, her husband’s glass of water in hand.
Her husband. Was he her husband? She pondered all the nuances of the word. If he didn’t behave like her husband, then surely he wasn’t a husband. But the law said he was. But perhaps Annie, a staunch I-will-never-get-married type who argued marriage was an archaic institution and it was ‘only a piece of paper’ had been right all along. It hadn’t protected her heart against anything.
She sighed as she reached the last step.
‘Here,’ she said, as she approached her bedroom door. She tried to sound as ungracious as possible. She certainly felt it.
But inside the room, sprawled out on the bedroom floor, apparently unconscious, was her husband. The man she had married, for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. He was there on the floor at her feet.
22
It was morning again and London residents remained behind locked doors. The sombre crew of Hemberton Road hunched around the television, watching Sky News.
Leila really didn’t know why she was still in the lounge room. No one was speaking. Kate was avoiding her. Bill avoided any space or conversation that involved Margaret or Angus, especially the mattresses and bedding that had been left for them to sleep on overnight. Angus seemed excruciatingly uncomfortable in the home of his girlfriend’s husband. The tension between Bill and Margaret was obvious. And Victoria had long since given up trying to bridge the uncomfortable silence with pleasantries and had settled down with a glossy magazine and a nail file, having finally got out of her robe and slippers.
Leila padded down the carpet towards the room she shared with Kate. She desperately wanted to leave the house, go to a café or bar, and breathe some smog-filled London air. She considered having a shower to wake up and give herself some energy. Instead, she sank into her narrow bed. Her mobile phone was clutched in her hand, where it had been for almost twenty-four hours. There was still nothing from Quentin. She scrolled through her contact list, hoping to find someone she could call for comfort. Her mother had sent several texts, worried by the images on the news at home, wondering if she was okay, as had her brother. Andrea from Zumba had texted too. And Gemma from Strahan Engineering, wondering the same.
But nothing from Lucas. Still nothing. Nothing since their phone call, when he’d abruptly hung up without responding to her revelation. Nothing since he’d promised to call her back and talk.
Kate’s angry words bounced around her head.
&nb
sp; ‘You’ve ruined my one chance to get this right,’ she’d hissed at her in the kitchen, trying to keep her voice low in the small, overpopulated house. ‘I trusted you, Leila.’ Her face had been twisted with pain and betrayal as she delivered her blow. ‘There’s no place for you at The Tea Chest anymore.’
The words were bullets through Leila’s heart.
She’d been fired. Again.
And so she drifted in numb, ashamed silence except for one desperate call to Clive Evans to ask about the contract.
‘You only asked me to view the contractual agreement,’ he’d protested. ‘It wasn’t my responsibility to be a private investigator on each party to the contract. The contract terms were sound. Whether or not the other party upholds them is a different matter.’
Now, her finger hovered over her mother’s name in her address book. But Leila’s abject disgrace made it impossible. Her mother would simply repeat the lectures she’d delivered the first time Leila was fired, only it would be much worse this time because of Quentin.
There was really only one person in her life who’d understand.
Lucas might not forgive her for kissing someone else. Then again, he might not even care. But he would know what to do. She was sure of it.
She brushed away any fears of what he had to say about her personally or about their pseudo relationship. This wasn’t the time to be protecting her pride. She needed practical business help. Now.
She dialled his mobile number, knowing it was late in Australia but that he was a night owl and was probably still up. He answered on the second ring, his voice a mixture of surprise and wariness.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you in riots?’
‘Yes. I’m holed up in a bunker with an interesting combination of people. I’ve got cabin fever already.’
There was a moment’s silence. She could hear the echo of her voice down the line—a split-second delay between her and Lucas that made her feel fragile, as though she might be lost at any moment.
The Tea Chest Page 23
