Three . . . Two . . . One.
The light, when it came, was blinding.
The curtain had been whipped off the sculpture at the same moment as a spotlight had hit it and so, for a second, my eyes struggled to adjust and take in what was now being shown on the screen. When they did, I saw that the sculpture consisted of two bright blue bands in Helena’s trademark polished steel, crossed to make a globe. Suspended within the two circles were a variety of stylised objects: a cracked vase; a pillow with the case half off; a crumpled hundred-dollar note; a remote with the batteries falling out; a wilted flower. The more I looked, the more I saw.
As the screen started showing close ups of each object, I heard Theo make a constricted noise and I saw that he was staring intently at the objects in a way that suggested that he’d much prefer to tear his eyes away.
‘They’re fights.’
‘What are?’ I asked, not sure I’d heard him correctly over the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ and wild applause of the crowd.
‘All that stuff.’ He nodded towards the sculpture. ‘They’re fights we’ve had in our family. When I hid Harvey’s keys in my pillow when I was six because I’d figured out he’d started up with Philomena’s cousin again. Helena smashing Philomena’s million-dollar vase when she told her that clay work wasn’t really art.’ He shook his head with a grey sort of laugh that I had to lean in close to hear. ‘The time Philomena left each of us a dead flower to tell us she wanted to leave the family.’
I blanched.
‘She didn’t, obviously.’ He shrugged. ‘She had a good night’s sleep and laughed it off in the morning. But, still, how nice to have that moment immortalised for the whole city to enjoy.’
His sarcasm didn’t hide his dismay and I wanted to run over to cover the sculpture and stop such a beautiful thing from being so ugly.
I had no idea what to say, or whether I even should say anything, but before I had time to figure it out, the spotlight on the sculpture moved slightly and the shadow it cast bloomed out in the space the crowd had been cleared from to form the unmistakable shape of a person holding a child.
I couldn’t help gasping along with everyone else, staggered, despite myself, at the way Helena had arranged the pieces inside the metal circles to create the shadow image.
Soon the shadow began to morph and the emcee announced that the spotlight on The Family was moving in an accelerated imitation of how the sun would hit the piece on a summer’s day. Other shapes started to appear as the light moved, the monitor above us showing a shadow in the shape of a pair of clasped hands and then a teddy bear; broken things forming symbols of safer, kinder familial elements.
‘Amazing,’ Isma breathed. ‘Can you imagine the work needed to calculate the sun’s trajectory and align meaningful pieces to create the sorts of images she wanted? She’s a genius.’
Still horrified by Theo’s insight into what the objects meant, I wanted to disagree with her, but I couldn’t – it was incredible, an absolute triumph as far as Lena’s career went. And yet I’d never disliked an inanimate object more.
‘She’s done well,’ Theo agreed abruptly, adding, ‘we should go.’
‘What?’ Isma looked between Theo and me and then over to her brother in surprise. ‘But Helena hasn’t given her speech yet and you haven’t had a chance to see The Family up close.’
Theo let out another dark laugh. ‘Trust me, it looks better from a distance.’ He drained the last of his champagne and looked at me. ‘You ready to go?’
I nodded, but before we had time even to begin our goodbyes, the emcee’s amplified voice was once more booming through the tent, introducing the woman of the hour herself: Helena.
The crowd went wild, whistling and stamping their feet and, seemingly despite himself, Theo froze and watched his sister as she was handed the mic.
‘Thank you! Thank you all so much.’ Helena had been a powerful presence in Theo’s flat, she’d appeared even stronger in the bastion of her family’s fortress-like home, but in the marquee, buffeted on every side with adoration, she was omnipotent. We were all in her thrall.
She spoke as the emcee had done for a while, thanking people I’d never heard of and speaking of her creative process in a way that I imagined surgeons who’d led the way on some sort of pioneering surgery would talk about their research, as if there was nothing more important, as though her work was life itself.
Lena put as much drama and energy into these formalities as she could, but I could tell she was done with them and was moving on to the real focus of her speech when her throaty voice dipped and she started to sound like she was speaking intimately to each one of us.
‘Sculpting is a solitary pursuit,’ she purred, ‘and I’ve spent long hours alone in my workshop bleeding, sweating and crying over my Family series. To see all of you here, to know that you were my silent supporters during those times, is more important to me than I can properly express.’
Looking up to the screen, I saw that Philomena had wrapped an arm around her daughter’s waist and that Harvey had clasped one of Lena’s hands, the three of them presenting as a completely self-contained, supportive unit.
‘This series of mine has been a discovery,’ Helena continued – once she was sure she’d wrung every last emotional cue out of her pause, I couldn’t help thinking. ‘A discovery of your support, my talents and of my own family. The known and the unknown.’
Theo shifted slightly and, my left hand still clasped in his, I turned to place my right on his arm, feeling the tension roping through the muscles under my palm.
‘Forming my family with my own hands has been nothing short of a revelation.’ Helena looked between her parents with a somewhat misty smile. ‘My mother, who is first and foremost herself, who wears nudity like armour and so carries her strength with her always. My father, who expands, tightens, focuses and blurs my lens on the world, and expects me to do the same for him. And . . .’ She paused dramatically and I felt a little shock of pure antipathy thrill through me as I knew what was coming next. ‘My brother, my lost little brother who has worked so hard to rid himself of us that he struggles to fill the ensuing void. It’s to him that I dedicate The Family. It is his as he is ours.’
The tent erupted into applause, the emotion spilling from Helena taken up by strangers who, I could tell, were all suddenly remembering that stoic little boy from Turbulence and that incisive article Philomena had written about him changing his name, and where was he anyway?
It was exactly what she’d promised Theo she wouldn’t do and my hand clenched on his arm, stunned by Helena’s betrayal, even as he stood silent and still as stone.
‘Theodore didn’t come to my other unveilings,’ Lena continued, her voice lowering sweetly, a snake charming her prey, ‘because it was too much, because we’re too much, but he’s come tonight and I want all of you, as well as him, to know something important.’
Oh my god! She was coming our way! She was releasing herself from her parents and she was bloody coming our way!
‘You are this family, Three Bags,’ she said firmly, her strong voice filling the marquee, ‘you always will be.’
Theo turned suddenly to me, my hand slipping off his arm with the movement.
‘I’ll meet you at the car,’ he said, low and fast.
It took me a beat to understand him and then, my eyes not leaving Lena’s inexorable approach, I shook my head.
‘No, she promised–’
He looked over my head and said one word: ‘Ari.’
‘Got her,’ his assistant replied and, in the next second, Theo had dropped my hand and started to move away.
As I stared after him, slack-jawed, Ari muttered a couple of words to his sister and then started to shepherd me through the crowd.
‘You don’t understand,’ I said in a furious whisper as he propelled me forward, ‘we can’t leave him. Helena said she wouldn’t–’
But I was cut off again as Ari murmured into my ear, ‘To his mind, he’s about to
be humiliated in front of all these people. Don’t make him be humiliated in front of you as well, yeah?’
I stopped protesting. As I allowed myself to be pressed forward, however, I looked back to see that one of the spotlights that had been on the sculpture had followed Lena into the crowd. Just as I was about to slip through the back of the marquee into the catering tent, I saw Lena embrace Theo and at least twenty camera flashes go off. It was everything Theo had specifically not wanted, what he’d asked his sister to not make it.
‘Why would she do that?’ I hissed, as startled caterers moved out of the way of Ari’s and my exit. ‘She made him a deal that she wouldn’t draw attention to him so he’d come, she said she’d just be happy if he was here.’
‘Yeah, I’m guessing that was before the nepotism comment,’ Ari replied, his laughing mouth twisted into what seemed like an unnaturally severe expression on him.
‘So – what? – she revenge acknowledged him?’ I asked as he held the flap open for me and we slipped into the alley where Theo had parked.
‘Who knows with Lena?’ Ari turned as we reached the car and leant against the bonnet, shoving his hands into the pockets of his loud suit. ‘It’s possible it had nothing to do with anything Theo said and she just got overwhelmed by the moment.’
For the next fifteen minutes or so I fidgeted, worrying at the tips of my fingers, looking between Ari and the back of the catering tent, hating that Theo was in there by himself.
When Theo finally emerged, Ari and I both started towards him, but stopped when he waved us back.
‘What happened?’ Ari asked as he reached us. ‘Are we in damage control? Is there someone I need to call? Cease and desist emails I need to send?’
‘No,’ Theo said, his voice sounding thick and strange. ‘Don’t do anything, I’ll call you when I’ve got Giovanna home.’
Theo’s response seemed to worry Ari and his forehead furrowed. ‘Bossman, don’t make this an excuse to take Anderson up on–’
‘I’ll call you later,’ Theo repeated over the top of him, unlocking the car and holding the passenger door open for me.
I turned to Ari, pulling his bright orange suit jacket from where he’d kindly draped it across my shoulders while we’d waited. ‘Thanks,’ I said quietly, ‘say bye to Isma for me. It was nice to meet you both.’
He flashed me a quick smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes, and I felt the tension in my chest clench tighter.
It’d been a silent ride with Theo down to the building’s car park earlier that evening, and while technically impossible, it felt like an even more silent ride back through the streets and up to level three of 26 Veronica Way. Maybe it was because the silence felt forbidding this time, like any noise would’ve been yet another betrayal in a night already full of them.
I felt droopy and deflated as we exited the lift, the ill-fated bronze dress seeming somehow spoilt on its very first outing. Maybe it was time I took the hint and stopped dressing up – the last two times I’d done so had not ended well.
Theo and I walked slowly down the corridor towards our flats, not talking, not touching, our impending goodbye like a physical weight on my shoulders. With each dragging step I worried at my brain, trying desperately to prompt it into providing some words to make him feel better, or to at least show him that I had his back, that I understood how Lena had betrayed him. Nothing occurred to me, however, so as we reached our doors, I found myself just saying lamely, ‘Well . . .’ and then trailing off.
It was like we’d reverted to our relationship of a fortnight ago as he simply nodded in return and then turned away.
No. I couldn’t just leave it like this.
Theo was in the midst of finding his key, but looked up as I took a step towards him, and then went very still as I reached up to cup the side of his face. As he watched me almost warily, I rose up onto my tiptoes and pressed a light kiss to his cheek. His skin was warm beneath my fingers, his light stubble pleasantly prickly against my lips and the dual sensations made my heart start to pound.
Feeling that I’d accidentally expressed more than I’d been planning to, I went to pull away, but Theo suddenly splayed his right hand against the small of my back, holding me against him.
Our faces were so close I could see all the shades of gold that made up his features: the warm tan of his skin; the dark honey of his eyebrows and eyelashes; the faint shimmer in his pale eyes. It was the detail you didn’t see unless you passed the usual boundaries of someone’s personal space, unless you were in a position where it would only take one person to ever so slightly tilt their heads . . .
It was everything a kiss was without our lips actually touching.
A heavy beat passed, ripe with expectation, and then I saw him withdraw. It wasn’t a physical withdrawal in that first instance, but mental, something changing in his expression that made our almost kiss skitter away from reality. Then he physically withdrew, his pressing hand releasing me, his warmth fading as he moved away.
It was actually painful, this lost moment, but I tried not to show it.
‘Giovanna?’
‘Yeah?’ I’d dropped my head as I moved away, but I raised it with embarrassing speed as he spoke.
Only for him to offer me a small smile and murmur, ‘Thanks and sorry.’
*
‘Don’t do it. Don’t take that smug prick Headhunter Harry up on his offer.’
Theo sighed down the phone at Ari’s predictable response to his call, knowing that he should’ve left it for the morning, but also knowing he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he put in motion what he needed to. What he should’ve started a long time ago, in fact.
‘It’s not going to be immediate.’ He wanted this night to end, to shower and fall into bed, but he stayed in the kitchen, the knuckles of his free hand pressed against the counter. ‘I’m not going to leave you high and dry.’
‘I’m not worried about me.’
Theo dropped his head. It wasn’t late, certainly not by his standards, but he was exhausted, the type of exhaustion that only came from time spent with his family.
‘I don’t want to argue with you about this. I’m not asking you to do any work on it, I’ll handle all the negotiations and any paperwork that comes out of it.’
Ari let out a rude noise. ‘This isn’t about my workload, either.’ There was a moment’s silence crowded with all the things it was about, and then Ari continued, ‘I’m never going to come round to this. I get that tonight was messed up, but if you run away now you’ll never stop running.’
‘Spare me the clichés.’
Ignoring him, Ari immediately delivered another: ‘It’s never as bad as you think it is. There’ll be some photos and some chatter about Lena’s speech, but you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t have anything to be ashamed of.’
‘That depends on who you ask.’ Theo knew that the hours he’d spent agonising over what was worse, not turning up to support his sister or turning up and being punished for it, would count for nothing in the public eye. He would, yet again, be the cold-hearted businessman, the black sheep of Australia’s favourite artsy family.
‘So don’t ask anybody!’ Ari exclaimed in frustration. ‘Who cares what other people think?’
He did! Theo knew he shouldn’t and that he should be used to it, but he was so goddamn sick of being the bad guy when all he was guilty of was being different from the rest of his family.
Knowing better than to rise to Ari’s bait, he worked to modulate his voice as he said, ‘You’ve come to this, the calls from McKillop, the press about my family, the stunt that Vanessa pulled, only recently. This has been my whole life – you can’t blame me for wanting something different.’
‘I’m not blaming you, I’m just saying that your family is your family and that’s not going to change no matter what Headhunter Harry offers you or where you are.’
There’d been raised eyebrows when Theo had made Ari coming across with him as his assis
tant a condition of working at AHC, but when he made these incisive, unflinching assessments of situations, Theo knew any of his superiors would kill to have Ari as an offsider.
Still, perhaps there were some days he wouldn’t have minded a somewhat less incisive offsider.
‘I liked Giovanna, by the way.’
The abrupt topic switch was another of Ari’s favourite techniques, but Theo still found himself blindsided by it. ‘Good,’ he replied warily, knowing there was more to come.
‘And she certainly seems to like you. She was gunning to stand up to Helena on your behalf. Since when did loyally stupid become your type?’
‘She’s not stupid,’ Theo snapped and Ari let out a cackle.
‘Anyone who wants to stand up to your nut-job sister after more than a second knowing her is stupid,’ he insisted. ‘Which isn’t to say she isn’t one of the most endearing people I’ve met in a long time and that I don’t one hundred per cent approve of her as your rebound.’
Theo’s mouth opened to form a denial, but the feel of Giovanna pressed against him and the brush of her lips against his cheek were too fresh for him to discount. There was no ignoring that desire to kiss her, either, no denying that his brain had basically short-circuited when he’d first seen her in that dress with her skin glowing and her shape so clearly outlined.
‘She doesn’t care that I’m a Leventis,’ he said, a blurted admission that made him cringe.
‘Yes, I know.’ Ari sounded amused. ‘And you know what that says to me?’
‘What?’
‘Reeeeeebound,’ Ari sang and, despite himself, Theo let out a small breath of laughter.
‘So let’s add it up, shall we?’ Ari continued. ‘One, you took this girl to meet your parents, something you pretty much never do in case your stepdad impregnates her while your back’s turned. Two, you took her to your sister’s sculpture thingy, something you pretty much never do in case what happened tonight happens. Three, you two were pretty much joined at the hip out in public, something you pretty much never do in case–’ He faltered and then rallied, ‘I guess in case you get attached and form some kind of mature, lasting, emotional bond with someone. And don’t try to tell me that Herself counts, because you and I both know that that whole relationship was pure business, not pleasure.’
Cake at Midnight Page 17
