‘Yeah. Three years. It runs complementary to their law degree.’
Nick frowned at my preposterous lie but I didn’t care. His wife was a snobby bitch.
‘What is all this talk about,’ piped in Eireen. ‘I didn’t hire Tara – she’s a family friend. Her great-grandfather was lord mayor.’
Toni peered at me closely. ‘You do look familiar. Where did you go to school?’
‘Toni!’ said Nick in a warning tone.
‘Shotske State High in Bunka,’ I lied again. Was there even a place anywhere called Shotske?
‘Oh . . .’ Her interest faded again, and she looked like she’d tasted something bitter.
Nick spoke up to forestall any further interrogation. ‘Pleasant and all as it is chatting, we have a lot on today. Remember, Toni? Could you excuse us while Tara and I get this done?’ He bent over and righted a chair. ‘Mum, would you like to sit?’
Eireen’s eyes glinted with sudden mischief. ‘Seeing as you’re already acquainted with Tara, I’ll leave you both to do this tedious and painful job. Antonia, come with me.’
Toni wavered, not wanting to leave us alone, yet knowing that she couldn’t refuse her mother-in-law’s imperative. Duty and fear of Eireen won out, and she followed Eireen from the room.
Nick sagged a little with tension release. ‘I’m sorry, Tara. Toni can be a bit rude.’
I nodded. ‘Oh well. Your problem, not mine,’ I said cheerfully.
His mouth pursed. ‘Yes.’
‘Let’s get to it then. Can I touch things? Or do I have to wear gloves or something.’
‘The police have finished here. They’ve taken their pictures. I thought we could start with the chest and then move on to the carton.’
‘No need for system,’ I said, standing in the centre of the room and letting my eyes defocus. There were several bright objects. I walked from one to the other. First was a tangle of ribbons and pennants proclaiming various season wins, then came an autographed basketball. I couldn’t read the name on it.
A pair of huge size-sixteen boots stood in the foot of the open closet. I bent over to them. They had the faint smell of mould and an eyelet had pulled out.
‘Haven’t worn them since I left the States,’ he said.
I smiled. I could understand that. Wearing them again would somehow dilute the memory.
Each thing was significant enough to Nick to glow with his energy, but none were the thing I was looking for.
Then I noticed something next to the overturned carton, covered by some clothes. The energy around it was bright but disturbed.
I lifted the clothes off it. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s an antique writing desk; a portable one. My grandfather left it to me. He fancied himself as a poet.’
‘What do you keep in it?’
He thought about it. ‘Some special things. Odds and sods.’
‘Do you mind if I have a look through it?’
‘Sure. I guess.’
I sat down cross-legged and gently turned the writing desk up the right way. It was like a small drawer with a lid, shaped for writing on your lap. The wood was scarred and inexpertly restored, but the leather insert was in quite good condition. I ran my hands over it and felt a little charge. This piece had been owned and cherished by many people and somehow their lives were all still evident in the energy. Mr Hara called it ‘living memory’. Natural materials were like that – wood, especially. I couldn’t tell who or what, just that it was there.
Some of the contents had been tipped out and spread around; some were still inside. A tingle spread across my body. This was significant, I was sure. Something in this little desk was important. I scooped it all into one pile. ‘Nick, can you come over here please?’
He came over and knelt down next to me. ‘What is it?’
I passed him the papers. As I did, the thread between us reappeared; from his chest to mine.
‘Could something here be important?’
He looked at the first item, an envelope with an old stamp on it. He didn’t need to look inside to know what was in it. I noticed a slight flush rise up his neck.
‘Love letter?’ I joked.
‘Jenny Baracas. She races Super cars now.’
‘Lucky her,’ I muttered with genuine envy.
He set it aside and picked up the next piece. ‘Ticket stubs to my first game.’
I shrugged. ‘Can’t see much importance in that . . . err . . . other than to you, I mean.’
He discarded them and picked up the next thing: a glossy brochure with a windsurfer on the front. ‘The place we went to on our honeymoon.’ Instead of putting it on top of the letter and the stubs, he threw it towards the bin.
The next thing was a manila envelope, slightly crumpled. He drew the papers out of it.
‘These are lease documents,’ he said.
I raised an eyebrow.
‘Toni’s father gave me a Pilbara mining exploration lease for my birthday a while back.’
‘Novel present.’
‘He’s a Falk,’ he said, by way of explanation.
I sort of got what he meant. The Falks had been involved in the West Australian mining industry for a lot longer than I’d been around. They reputedly owned great chunks of land throughout the Pilbara and Kimberley, and goldmines near Kalgoorlie.
‘Why is the document in here?’ We were sitting facing each other, our knees almost touching.
‘This carton had all my private documents that I keep at home. But the lease is worth nothing. The assay report said there isn’t enough of any particular mineral to make it worthwhile mining it. Fifty acres next to a national park and not a damn speck of anything to get excited about. I can’t understand why he leased it in the first place. Guess he made a mistake, and thought he might offload it on his beloved son-in-law.’
I heard the sarcasm. ‘You don’t get on?’
Nick shrugged. ‘No one was ever going to be good enough for his little girl, especially someone who works in sport. It’s not a real man’s job, you know.’ He gave a bitter smile.
‘Why didn’t you tell me that you were living here?’ I asked, suddenly.
‘Does it matter?’
‘Of course it matters. It makes the connection between Barbaro and Johnny Vogue even stronger.’
He looked me straight in the eye. ‘What exactly are you hoping to find? I mean, nothing’s been stolen, thanks to Mum interrupting him. How can you possibly tell what the burglar was after?’
‘It’s hard to explain. Sometimes I n-notice things that other people don’t.’
He frowned. ‘What sort of things? Are you saying you’re a clairvoyant?’
‘No,’ I said, shaking my head emphatically. ‘I don’t believe in that crap.’
His tone had been so disparaging there was no way I could tell him about the energy disturbance around the writing desk. He’d think I was crazy. I had to find some tangible connection to one of the items first.
I leaned back, palms on the floor. ‘Look, maybe you’re right. There’s probably nothing to find.’ I uncrossed my legs and went to get up.
One giant paw shot out and grabbed hold of my hand, pulling me back down. ‘Whoa! You can’t just bail like that.’
The cord between us thickened and began to pulse. Where our hands touched, our auras mingled and turned into the colour of fire. I jerked back from it.
‘There!’ he said. ‘You did the same thing in my office.’
‘What?’
‘Jumped. Like you’d been stung or –’ ‘Burned?’ I offered.
‘Yeah.’
I felt the heat rush into my face. ‘I can’t explain that either, without sounding weird, so I’m not going to.’
‘Have I offended you?’
I saw the confusion on his face and sighed. I touched his arm. ‘No Nick, it’s just –’
‘Tozzi, darling? What are you doing?’ Toni’s voice cut between us like a diamond drill.
I dropp
ed my hand and turned to face her. ‘Finishing is what we’re doing.’
‘But the mess?’ She frowned, and not just at the mess. Toni had sharp antennae for a messed-up coke addict.
‘Nick said that he’d tidy it up.’ I glanced back at him. ‘Right?’
Nick opened his mouth and shut it again, then nodded mutely.
I went to walk out past Toni but she planted her feet astride and blocked the doorway. ‘Harvard doesn’t run courses in communication analysis and investigation. I just checked on the internet.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I meant Cambridge. Harvard’s where I did my undergraduate.’ I barrelled on out the door, knocking into her shoulder as I went.
She tottered backwards.
The words, ‘how rude’ followed me to the front door.
I didn’t care. Nor did I stop to say goodbye to Eireen. Truth is I couldn’t bear to be in the house with Toni or Nick Tozzi a second longer.
Chapter 32
I GOT HOME AND gorged on a tin of cold baked beans to raise my carb levels and because it was all I had in my single-drawer pantry.
Then I decided I’d go for a run to work off my stress. It was only a few days until the triathlon and I needed to get in a little fitness work to make the distance.
Make that a lot of fitness work.
I tossed on my daggiest shorts with the flapping pocket (they were clean at least!), joggers and a Lorna Jane crop top, and hit the pavement. My feet were still sore from the Bunkas fiasco but not enough to stop me. The first two k’s were easy, down Lilac Street and into Peppermint Street, past Smitty’s parents’ house. Instead of running west towards the highway, though, I turned left at the end of Peppermint and headed towards the river.
The river-end of Euccy Grove was one beautiful little suburb, full of magnificent old paperbarks and pepper trees. The block sizes were enormous and the houses mostly grand, if a little dated. These were occasionally interspersed with uber-modern, white block houses with lots of glass and embassy-type security.
I’d always fancied myself ending up as an eccentric old lady living in one of the grand old houses, feeding the wild birds and forgetting what day of the week it was.
Not sure how I was going to get one of those houses exactly, considering my net worth was zero dollars, a laptop and a reconned Monaro.
By the time I made the downhill stretch to the river, I was puffing hard but feeling good. Four k’s and no problem. I was fitter than I thought.
I turned left at the Freshwater Bay Yacht Club and began the arduous climb up to Devil’s Elbow.
Joanna, on the rare occasions we were in a car together, sometimes drove me around Devil’s Elbow and pointed out the house her grandfather used to own.
‘He gambled away all their money, you know.’
‘Uhuh.’
‘Broke my grandmother’s heart. They had to leave the house and move down to Lilac Street.’
‘What’s wrong with our house?’ I’d say defensively.
‘Oh Tara,’ she’d say, and roll her eyes in despair.
As I puffed my way towards dear old gambler-holic Great-Granddaddy’s home, I admitted to myself that Mum was right. The view was spectacular: a crow’s eye view of the Swan in all its sapphire, sandbar-dotted, boat-busy, sunlight-glinting glory. It was something else.
Come to think of it, the house I imagined growing old and feeding the birds in looked a lot like this.
Right about the end of that thought, things started to go very wrong. Yesterday’s blisters grew new blisters and the mild air became like sandpaper on my windpipe. My legs developed a serious wobble, and the jog became a walk, became a shuffle. My stomach boiled with the exertion.
I spotted a lane between Great-Granddaddy’s house, and the next, and staggered up there to find a discreet something or other to throw up in.
With immaculate timing, I began barfing my baked beans into a small jade bush just as a removals truck roared into the lane, tooting his horn and scaring the decorum out of me. I jumped back into the jade bush to avoid being flattened.
As I shook my fist at the truck’s rear-view mirror and let loose with my most alliterate profanity, a sleek grey Lamborghini cruised up behind it and the batwing door popped open.
Not any old Lamborghini, mind – a Reventon, the most bad-arse sports car ever made.
‘Tara, are you alright?’ A Hugo Boss-suited Nick Tozzi enquired from within.
Fuck. ‘I thought you drove a Porsche,’ I stormed to combat my embarrassment.
‘I do,’ he said. ‘Most of the time. But we’re moving house today. I had to bring the Lambo over.’
I looked helplessly after the truck as it turned into the back entrance of Great-Granddaddy’s house. ‘You’re moving in here?’
‘I wasn’t aware I needed your permission,’ he said dryly.
Somewhere, someone was laughing at me. Nick Tozzi drove a Reventon and he’d bought my house. Have I really been so bad, God?
I suddenly stopped feeling sorry for him.
‘May I give you a lift home?’ he asked. ‘I think I have a towel in here that you could sit on.’
I looked down at my bare legs. They were spattered with something I’d rather not name. I drew myself up to my full height and stepped out of the bush. ‘Not if yours was the last Lambo on earth.’
Lame, Tara. And what was I saying anyway? Naught to one hundred kph in 3.3 seconds. I’d kill for a ride.
Without a shred of dignity left, I strode off.
A few houses over the crest and thankfully on the downhill, my phone rang. I pulled it from the strap of my crop. ‘Yes,’ I snapped into it.
‘Tara?’ asked a deep, masculine voice.
‘Er, yeah.’ I didn’t know any deep masculine voices other than Bok and Tozzi, and it wasn’t either of them.
‘It’s Edouardo.’
I sucked in a breath. Edouardo. Club Eighteen. Gorgeous tight butt. ‘Hey dude.’
‘Hey.’
Silence. I mean I hadn’t really expected him to call and I was plastered in sweat, vomit and envy.
He jumped in. ‘I . . . err . . . wondered if you wanted to catch a bite tonight?’
‘To eat?’
‘Yeah.’
My mortification began to ease. ‘Sure. Where?’
‘I’m working until eight.’
‘I’ll come by after that if you like.’
‘Great. Pick a place.’
‘You like Indian?’ I asked.
‘Onion bhaji is my muse.’
‘Mine too. Later.’ I hung up.
My day was looking up.
Chapter 33
I ARRIVED AT CLUB Eighteen as the afternoon shift swapped over with the evening bar staff, and had to wait while Edouardo pried himself away from a fresh lot of gym junkies. At least Mrs Honey-to-be wasn’t one of them.
‘You must get tired of that,’ I said to him as we ran out to the car park before they could follow him. ‘My friend Bok has the same problem. Though not as badly as you do.’
‘I didn’t think he looked like your brother.’
I grinned, though I doubt he could see it in the dark.
My phone rang as Edouardo unlocked the car. It was Wal.
‘Bog called me. Your car’s ready. He wants it out of there tonight,’ he said.
‘Tonight?’ I gasped.
‘He’s got a load coming in. Needs the space.’
‘But it’s 8 pm.’
‘Load’s not in till midnight. He’ll be there all evening. Can you do it?’
‘What if I can’t?’
‘He’ll likely park it outside the compound. Course it might not be there in the morning.’
I thought of Bunka. ‘Tell him I’ll be there before midnight.’
‘Right. Ahhh. Take some company. Not the place for wimmen at night.’
That so?
I got inside Edouardo’s 2002 Subaru, and we sat with our knees pushed up around our ears. ‘Nice car,’ I said. ‘Cosy.�
�
He laughed. ‘Got it for my eighteenth birthday. Then I grew eight inches.’
‘Wow!’ I said. ‘You must be from the same gene pool as Bok. Happened to him too. Scrawny little punk at seventeen; major tall hunk at twenty.’
‘So where are we going?’
I fixed him with my best smile. ‘Actually, Edouardo, I have a favour to ask.’ I gave him a lean account of the abridged version of Mona’s plight, leaving out the nature of the graffiti, how I knew Bog, and that I had a little scouting in mind.
‘Sure, no problem, Tara. Haven’t been out to the east side. Time I learned my way around Perth. Mind if we eat first though?’
‘Sounds like a plan. You know Northbridge?’
‘Sure. My modelling agency’s got their office in there.’
‘Well there’s a great Indian restaurant in James Street and it’s kind of on the way to Bunka (in the way that following the North Star is the way to Jesus in the crib!).’
Edouardo drove into the city and we found a lucky park on busy William Street. ‘My modelling agency is right over there.’ He pointed across the road to a shop window full of black and white photos on easels.
We ran across when there was a break in the traffic and I ogled the male models.
‘That you?’ I asked, pointing to a particularly hot body wearing only a mask and a pair of boxers.
‘That’s me,’ he said. ‘Advertisement for Bonds.’
I swallowed hard, taking in the silky skin, and abs like rippling sand dunes. His curly hair had been straightened and he looked like something from Man Power only much, much more gorgeous. And tall!
‘Yeah. You like it?’
I stuck my fingernails into my palms to help collect myself and shrugged. ‘Not too shabby for a country boy.’
He laughed again. ‘Anyone ever tell you, you’re pretty cool? Most girls I show this one to come over all man-eater.’
‘Uh?’ My ego detector began to swivel. ‘So I’ve passed the test then?’
He flushed. ‘Yes . . . no . . . what I m-mean –’
I punched him in the arm. ‘Let’s eat.’
We chatted our way through two serves of onion bhaji, a madras curry and cucumber raita. Edouardo was a witty conversationalist – interested in everything. It’s never been this easy with a guy, I thought. Not on a first date. Maybe he’s gay?
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