The Marriage Gamble

by Meredith Webber

  Walking down the side street and into the lane reminded her of Mike. He’d be expecting her call but there wasn’t anything she could do right now.

  There was no obvious way into the building from the back, the entrance to what must once have been a coal cellar was padlocked shut and a fire escape ended some ten feet from the ground.

  ‘Let’s try the pub. Maybe someone there knows who has keys to the place,’ she said to Norrie, and though Norrie cowered at the thought of entering forbidden territory, Jacinta had no qualms about knocking at the back door, then opening it and going in, calling as she went so no one thought she was about to rob the place.

  Norrie, whimpering now, clung to her shirt, following so close she was treading on Jacinta’s heels.

  ‘What the hell?’

  A man appeared, and Jacinta hurriedly explained.

  ‘There’s any number of old women hanging around the place, but I’m not their keeper and no one pays me to look after the place,’ the man said.

  ‘Do you know who owns the building?’ Jacinta asked.

  ‘Look, lady, I don’t even know who owns this pub. I work here, that’s all.’

  He began to walk away, then apparently relented, turning back to say, ‘The best bet is to phone the police. They can break in. Come this way—you can use the phone in here.’

  Norrie, whose wailing had increased at the mention of the police, backed away, but it seemed like a sensible idea to Jacinta so she followed, feeling in her pocket for the scrap of paper with Mike’s number on it. She’d phone him at the same time, explain she’d been unavoidably delayed.

  She smiled to herself as she imagined his comment. ‘More lame ducks, Jacinta?’ he’d probably say, but she’d hear his smile in his voice as he said it.

  The police took some convincing that they should break into a building on the off chance a bag lady might be injured inside, but eventually Jacinta persuaded them to at least come and have a look.

  The phone call to Mike wasn’t much more successful. He sounded harassed himself, said he understood and asked if she’d phone when she was free.

  He must have people in his office with him, she told herself, but disappointment that she hadn’t heard the smile in his voice bit into her confidence.

  Norrie was backed against the wall outside and nothing would convince her she needed to talk to the police.

  ‘They won’t listen to me because I don’t know for certain Mrs Nevin sleeps here,’ Jacinta threatened. ‘They’ll just walk away—do nothing!’

  She must have sounded desperate because Norrie accompanied her back to the front entrance to the building, though she drew back into the shadows when two policemen arrived.

  ‘The building’s listed as belonging to a company, with a solicitor’s office as the address for mail. No one there this morning, of course, and the only person we could get hold of from the solicitor’s firm had never heard of the company.’

  The older of the two policemen explained this to Jacinta as soon as they’d introduced themselves. Then he asked again who Jacinta was and how she’d come to be involved.

  ‘The pub cleaner confirmed that a number of elderly women, including Mrs Nevin, use the building, which is why Norrie might be right. Mrs Nevin has a bad leg—she could have fallen and be lying injured in there.’

  ‘Are you prepared to pay for any damage we do if it becomes an issue with the owners?’ the policeman asked.

  Jacinta frowned. She glanced at her watch. It was already after two and her time with Mike was dwindling rapidly. Now it seemed she was going to be up for the cost of a new door if she pushed the policemen into breaking this one down!

  She glanced at Norrie, and saw entreaty in the faded old eyes.

  ‘I’ll pay for it,’ she said, and stepped aside.

  Breaking down a door was nothing like she’d imagined it would be. The younger policeman simply aimed his boot at the lower hinge, and when it gave way with a splintering of wood, the door sagged, releasing the lock.

  ‘We’ll have to board it up after,’ the older man remarked to Jacinta. ‘You’ll pay for that as well?’

  She nodded and followed the two men inside, smelling dust and damp, and something else.

  Cooking smells?

  Norrie had dashed away, scuttling like a crab up a curved staircase to disappear out of sight on an upper floor.

  ‘Follow her,’ the older policeman said to his colleague. ‘You and I’ll look around down here,’ he added to Jacinta.

  Signs of recent occupation were everywhere, but there was no sign of Mrs Nevin. Then the younger man called out.

  ‘We’ll need an ambulance. Can the doc come right away? She looks bad.’

  Jacinta raced up the stairs, following the sound of Norrie’s wailing. Mrs Nevin was unconscious, lying in a curiously twisted way beside a tipped-over metal chair.

  Jacinta knelt beside her, feeling the faint flutter of a pulse below the woman’s jaw. The younger policeman was despatched to call an ambulance and wait downstairs for its arrival.

  ‘She was putting up the blanket,’ Norrie whimpered, kneeling on the other side of the woman. ‘She liked to live in different rooms but put the blanket up so the light didn’t show.’

  Jacinta was gathering up coats and blankets slung haphazardly around the room, wrapping them around the unconscious woman, while the policeman was going through Mrs Nevin’s handbag, no doubt in search of identifying documents.

  ‘Do you know if she has any relatives?’ he asked Norrie.

  Norrie shook her head.

  ‘Just her that I know, though she lets a few of us sleep here. If we don’t bring drink. She doesn’t like the drinkers, but she forgot to open the door last night so I knew something must be wrong.’

  ‘There’s a bunch of keys here. They might be for the doors. Wonder where she got them.’

  The ambulancemen arrived and started a saline drip then lifted Mrs Nevin’s frail body onto a stretcher. The older policeman gave orders to the younger, telling him to get someone in to secure the building and to stay until it was done, while Norrie, apparently realising her chances of sleeping there that night were disappearing with Mrs Nevin, began to wail again.

  ‘Come to the hospital with me,’ Jacinta suggested. ‘We can’t just abandon Mrs Nevin, and as we don’t know of any relatives, you can stay there with her.’

  Norrie brightened perceptibly, then Jacinta remembered she had no transport. The suggestion they get a cab pleased Norrie even more.

  So, instead of heading off for a weekend of sensual pleasure with her new lover, Jacinta found herself in the familiar confines of the A and E department, awaiting the results of Mrs Nevin’s tests and keeping Norrie as calm as possible under the circumstances.

  She phoned Mike, her voice pleading for his understanding as she finished her explanation.

  ‘So, you see, until I know what’s happening and can arrange something for Norrie, I can’t really leave.’

  ‘I do understand,’ he said, and added, ‘Phone me when you can get away. Maybe we can salvage something of the weekend.’

  Jacinta felt a chill creep through her blood—where tingles had been earlier.

  It’s because he’s been working and he’s tired, she told herself. And he’s disappointed.

  She even began thinking it might be for the best. If Mike couldn’t handle her chaotic working hours, then it was best they ended whatever they had now—before they both became more involved.

  But her heart didn’t believe it, beating erratically at the thought of not seeing him again.

  By four, Mrs Nevin had been tested, assessed and admitted to a ward. Her hip was broken and a replacement operation had been scheduled for Monday. In the meantime, she’d be given fluids and antibiotics and kept as pain-free as possible. No relatives had been found, so Jacinta gave her address and various phone numbers as a contact for the woman.

  All that was the easy part. Having co-operated as fully as possible, Jacinta now
sought a little co-operation herself.

  ‘Norrie is her friend,’ she explained. ‘Can she stay?’

  The sister on duty surveyed Norrie doubtfully.

  ‘While I’m on duty, but I can’t guarantee anything later.’

  The thought of the elderly woman being turned out at the end of visiting hours that evening, in a strange part of town and with nowhere to go, disturbed Jacinta, and she was fretting over it, wondering if she could ask her mother to collect Norrie later, when Mrs Nevin regained consciousness.

  Far from wanting to know where she was or what she was doing there, all she wanted was her handbag.

  Jacinta pulled it from the little cabinet by her bed and handed it to her, then watched the thin, frail fingers fumble in it, finally producing the keys.

  ‘This is the key for the front door,’ she said to Jacinta. ‘You’ll have to open it up each night about ten. Just unlock it but leave it closed, so the girls can come in. There’s Norrie and Jess and sometimes Alison. No one else. The place isn’t a dosshouse, you know.’

  Jacinta closed her eyes and wondered if she’d strayed into a nightmare.

  ‘They know they’ve got to be in by twelve and I lock it again then. I don’t want hooligans or thugs bashing us up.’

  Realising Mrs Nevin was too weak for an argument, or to be told the lock no longer worked, Jacinta took the keys, but had no idea what she was going to do with them. Or with Norrie, Alison or Jess. Unless, of course, Mike could be persuaded that a night in an abandoned building on the edges of the city was a sexy alternative to whatever he’d planned.

  She dropped the keys into her own handbag, found a ten-dollar note and gave it to Norrie.

  ‘For something to eat and cab fare back to the city if the nursing staff won’t let you stay,’ she said. ‘The cab fare is about five dollars, so keep that much.’

  ‘And you’ll let me in?’ Norrie said, hope gleaming in her eyes and shaking in her voice.

  ‘I’ll do whatever I can,’ Jacinta promised.

  What she should do was walk away. She knew there were massive problems among homeless people, and had chosen to help the younger street dwellers, deliberately closing her eyes, mind and conscience to these older people so she could focus on the young.

  Now she had keys to a building, probably illegally as there was no way Mrs Nevin had a right to them, but the door would be boarded up so keys were no good anyway.

  All the way back to work, she worried about it, but when the cab dropped her in the back lane she was no closer to a solution.

  Once back in the clinic she settled into the chair behind her desk and pulled out her file of charitable organisations that provided services for the needy. And started phoning them.

  By the fifth call she was ready to despair when a man said, yes, he’d be willing to wait at the building from ten to twelve and take any women who turned up there back to his shelter for the night.

  ‘We have dormitories for men and women, and I’ve a van to pick up strays. I’m usually on the street from midnight, so the two hours won’t make much difference.’

  Jacinta thanked him and was about to hang up when he said, ‘Hey, not so fast. I know the mall and Abbott Road Clinic, but where’s the old ladies’ building? I can get away now, be there in about ten minutes. Could you meet me at the mall entrance to your clinic and show me where to go?’

  Jacinta agreed, then listened to the man describe himself as overweight and balding.

  She disconnected, and her fingers hesitated over the keypad of the phone. She should call Mike and tell him she’d be ready in half an hour, no later, though something in the way he’d sounded earlier made her reluctant to make the call.

  But indecision was making her edgy, so she dialled and heard his voice—the deep, husky voice she knew.

  ‘Poor mouse,’ he murmured. ‘What a torrid day you’ve had. Would you rather cry off the weekend? It’s up to you. I can pick you up and take you straight home if you’d prefer that. Maybe do something with you tomorrow? Or we can go away as planned. How do you feel? Tell me what you want.’

  Jacinta was overwhelmed by the emotion his gentle understanding generated in her body.

  ‘You come, and we’ll decide then,’ she managed to say, though her voice was trembling as much as her body. ‘I’m sorry it’s been such a mess.’

  ‘Don’t apologise,’ he told her. ‘You’ve no idea the amount of work I’ve got through, trying to keep my mind off seeing you again.’

  They arranged to meet in the car park at the back of the building, as Mike had returned his keys to the security people.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ he whispered as they said goodbye, and Jacinta held the words to her as once again she locked her room, set the alarm and went up the stairs to the mall.

  A huge man was standing there, peering down the stairs.

  ‘Dr Ford?’ he said. ‘I’m Neville.’

  ‘And I’m Jacinta,’ she told him, shaking his hand then indicating which way they’d go.

  ‘Sorry to make you do this, but it would be dreadful if I was waiting in the wrong entrance and missed the women,’ he said, and Jacinta waved away his apology.

  ‘I’m just so glad you agreed to help. I couldn’t think what else to do. Even with keys, I was chary about the legalities of letting people into the building, though now the door’s been boarded up the keys weren’t much use.’

  She led him past the pub and into the entrance of the building next to it.

  The door’s at the back here. It’s one of those old three-storey places, and there’s no lift. Just inside, the stairs wind up and up. It’s a wonder none of them have been injured in it before.’

  Neville had a good look around, and seemed content to linger for a chat, but Jacinta knew Mike would be waiting, and she’d already ruined half his day.

  She excused herself, told Neville to feel free to look around and hurried back down the mall. If she’d thought to take her overnight bag with her, she could have gone down the side street and along the back lane, and saved herself the bother of locking and unlocking the doors, not to mention disarming and rearming the alarms.

  But then she’d have missed the signs!

  She stopped dead in front of the adult bookshop window and stared in disbelief. The ‘placard’ she’d seen earlier had been erected and the sign read FOR SALE BY TENDER, in letters so red they looked like blood. ‘Inner city building, ideal redevelopment proposition’ it went on, then mentioned land area, zoning possibilities and a real-estate agent who’d be happy to arrange a deal.

  Mike was selling Abbott Road.

  Mike, who was probably waiting in his fancy Jaguar, right now behind this building, was selling it, closing them down. He must have known because signs like this weren’t made overnight.

  And he hadn’t told her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  JACINTA’S anger built as she unlocked doors and fumbled with alarms, until finally she stormed into the back yard in time to see Mike’s car glide to a halt.

  He switched off the engine and opened the door, his delight at seeing Jacinta emerge from the building wiping away some of the frustration of the morning.

  Then he noticed the scowl on her face, the pent-up fury in her eyes, and realised the virago had returned.

  ‘You’re selling the place and didn’t think to tell me? You let me paint it, fix the chairs, talk about restructuring, and all the time you had no intention of keeping Abbott Road.’

  He took hold of her shoulders, hoping to calm her, but small fists beat against his chest as she continued her tirade.

  ‘It’s all about money, isn’t it? You can’t even commit to a lasting relationship because you’re so hung up over losing a few of your millions if it didn’t work out. You’re a pathetic excuse for a man, Mike Trent, and I’m glad I found out about it before I fell even more in love with you.’

  And with that she tore herself out of his arms and raced back to the building, slamming the door and, no
doubt, setting the alarms, before he’d taken two steps.

  Mike stared at the closed door, and felt his own anger mounting. How dared she rave and rant at him when he’d spent the whole morning in a fruitless endeavour on her behalf?

  She’d not even stayed to listen to his side of the story!

  He’d tell her now—throw a few words at her for a change.

  Though maybe it was for the best, he decided as his anger began to cool and rational thinking returned, that things had ended now, before they became too involved with each other. But the ache in his chest gave the lie to the thought, and the rest of the weekend stretched before him like a vast desert of emptiness.

  He leant against the bonnet of the car, folded his arms and closed his eyes. There was a way out of this somewhere—if only he could find it.

  His mobile buzzed and he snatched it from his pocket, praying it was Jacinta, calm now, wanting to talk, but the voice, though familiar, wasn’t the one he desperately wanted to hear.

  ‘What’s going on with Libby?’ Lauren demanded. ‘Is she using “something on at school” as an excuse to go to you tomorrow, instead of coming to me? And what are you letting her get away with that she’d want to go to you?’

  Mike lifted the phone away from his ear and looked at it, though that didn’t help him make sense of Lauren’s words. Then he thought of a similar message he’d received himself, and frowned.

  ‘Libby’s not coming to me tomorrow and, in fact, she didn’t come last time she was due to. I didn’t speak to her but she phoned Dad with the same excuse— “something on at school”. Do you think she’s up to something?’

  He doubted it even as he spoke—Libby had always been honest with him.

  ‘She’s almost a teenager, Mike,’ Lauren said in a long-suffering tone. ‘Teenagers are always up to something.’

  Worry niggled in his gut. Between his daughter and Jacinta, he’d have an ulcer by Monday.

  ‘Did you phone the school?’

  Lauren laughed, but it was a harsh, discordant sound. ‘And admit to those prissy women that I don’t know what my daughter’s doing? You chose the school, you phone it.’