A Child In Need

by Marion Lennox

  She was as stuck for words as he was, and when she finally spoke her voice was loaded with bitterness. ‘I think,’ Shanni said carefully, ‘that I’ve been set up.’

  ‘Not by me,’ he told her, and sat down opposite. Nick’s voice sounded angry, and Harry looked at him in surprise. Unnoticed, the train gathered speed and Bay Beach faded into the distance behind them.

  ‘I guess I could always get off at the next stop.’ Shanni looked as if she’d like to jump off right now.

  Great. But… Nick bit his lip and looked at Harry’s drooping face. He’d looked so pleased! ‘Why are you going to Melbourne?’ he enquired at last.

  ‘To visit my Aunt Adele. She’s ill, and my mother’s worried.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Except now…’ She was deep in thought, not seeing him, and she was almost talking to herself. ‘My family have been odd. Mary’s been telling me how worried Mum was about Adele, and Mum was sort of agreeing-only not saying much-and then when I said I’d phone Adele, Rob said Emma phoned her this morning and she was miserable. Then Mary offered to buy me a train ticket. As the family contribution…’

  ‘You think they’ve set this up?’ Nick said. He couldn’t see any other reason behind this, and he wouldn’t put it past Mary for a minute.

  ‘I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.’ Shanni’s anger matched his. ‘John came around last night and Louise told him-right in my hearing-that he wasn’t welcome and I was in love with you! He drove off before I could reach him. I ask you. In love with…you!’

  She said you as if he was some sort of dung-beetle-and, despite his annoyance, Nick had to grin.

  ‘Which is ridiculous,’ he said politely.

  ‘Which is ridiculous,’ she said, and glowered.

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘We’re all going to Melbourne,’ Harry said, pleased again now Shanni had stopped talking of getting off. ‘You and me and Nick.’

  ‘I imagine we can put up with each other for the journey,’ Nick said politely. ‘You never know, your aunt might be sick.

  ‘She might not be.’ Shanni sighed, anger giving way to exasperation. ‘I guess I can shop.’

  ‘Will you shop with me?’ Harry asked anxiously, and Shanni managed a smile.

  ‘Hey, you and I shopped last Saturday. You haven’t worn those clothes out yet?’

  ‘No, but…’

  ‘You and Nick are having a boys’ weekend,’ she told him. ‘You don’t need a lady.’

  ‘You’re not a lady,’ he told her. ‘You’re you.’

  ‘That sounds the very nicest thing anyone has ever said about me,’ she told him, still smiling. ‘But flattery will get you nowhere, Harry, my lad. It’s a boys’ weekend and I don’t need anything to do with it.’

  Which meant, as the train arrived at Melbourne, Harry and Nick prepared to bid Shanni farewell. Or Nick prepared to. Harry had other ideas.

  ‘Where does your aunty live?’ Harry demanded.

  ‘Brighton.’

  ‘Is that close to where we’re going?’ This was one bright kid-and he was certainly persistent.

  Nick nodded reluctantly. ‘Yes. We’re going to St Kilda, which is on the way to Brighton.’ Then, because it was the only polite thing to say, he added a rider. ‘Would you like to share a cab?’

  ‘That would be nice,’ Shanni said, smiling at Harry but eyeing Nick with reservations. ‘And then separate directions. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  Only, once in the cab, Harry started to talk. He’d been his usual silent self on the train journey, but now he seemed to sense there was some urgency about proceedings.

  ‘What will you and your aunty do for the weekend?’ he asked Shanni.

  ‘If my aunty’s sick then I’ll look after her. What are you boys going to do?’

  Nick shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. We’ll think of something.’

  ‘Will you meet us for just a little bit?’ Harry said, and suddenly there was the faintest tremor in his voice. He looked uncertainly at Nick, and his look said he’d suddenly remembered he didn’t know this man very well. For all he knew, Nick could be planning a weekend doing very boring grown-up things-and Miss McDonald was fun.

  ‘I…’ Shanni wasn’t sure what her response should be. She’d heard the tremor.

  ‘Come shopping with us,’ Harry urged.

  She glanced at Nick-and then glanced away again. ‘I may not be able to.’

  And Nick sighed. He knew when he was being bulldozed, and he was being bulldozed now. It would make Harry feel more secure if he knew he’d see Shanni again, so there was no choice.

  ‘I’ll take Harry to one of the cake shops in Acland Street tomorrow morning,’ he said grudgingly. ‘Join us for coffee. If your aunt can spare you…’

  ‘Or if I can spare my aunt,’ she said-and looked at Harry. ‘Okay, Harry. I make no promises, but you just might see me tomorrow morning.’

  There was no time for more. The taxi pulled up outside the address Nick had given, and she gazed up in stunned silence. Nick’s apartment was in a three storeyed block right on the esplanade overlooking the ocean. She didn’t need to see any closer to figure this place had cost him a mint.

  No wonder he hadn’t been too impressed with his sea view at Bay Beach. He had his own sea view here, surrounded by city comforts.

  ‘Wow!’ said Harry.

  ‘Double wow,’ said Shanni. St Kilda was only ten minutes from the city and her aunt’s place at Brighton was further out. It had made sense, therefore, for the taxi to drop Nick and Harry off first. So now she knew where he lived-and his obvious wealth didn’t make getting to know the man any easier. They had even less in common than she’d thought.

  He was a lawyer and a magistrate and he was wealthy. He was a man alone… A man completely out of her ken. She watched in silence as Nick handed payment to the taxi driver-and then frowned as he demurred at the change.

  ‘No. The lady’s fare is on me.’

  ‘Nick, you don’t need to…’ she started, but he allowed no protest.

  ‘It’ll make me feel better to make sure you’re safely home.’

  Or…safely away from you, Shanni thought bleakly as the taxi did a U-turn and drove away from man and child. Leaving you to your precious independence.

  But…why on earth did the thought make her feel so bleak?

  It wasn’t only Shanni who was questioning feelings. Nick might have his independence-sort of-but independence wasn’t something that sat well with three-year-olds.

  He showed Harry into the spare room. Harry looked at the enormous bed and his eyes stayed blank in a look Nick was starting to know. It was his withdrawal look.

  ‘It’s a great big bed,’ Nick said cheerfully. He’d fitted his spare room with a double bed because most of his friends were partnered-spasmodically. ‘You can sleep in the middle and wiggle all you want.

  ‘Where do you sleep?’ Harry asked in a subdued little voice that told Nick he was in even more trouble than he’d thought.

  ‘Next door. Want to see?’

  He did, so Nick led the way, opened the bedroom door and heard Harry gasp.

  ‘Do you sleep in that bed all by yourself?’

  ‘Yep.’ Well, most of the time, anyway, and he wasn’t going into that with a three-year-old.

  ‘It’s…it’s ginormous.’

  ‘It is.’ Nick smiled and led the little boy forward. ‘It’s called a king-sized bed. Actually,’ he admitted, ‘it’s two beds. It’s so big I couldn’t get it up the stairs in one piece, so I brought two single beds and joined them together. See?’ He lifted the covers, Harry dropped down on the plush pile carpet and inspected eight legs.

  ‘It is two beds,’ he agreed. ‘Why do you sleep in two beds?’

  ‘I…I like room to wiggle.’

  ‘If we pulled them apart then we could have a little bed each in the same room,’ Harry said wistfully-and waited. His eyes were still blank-as if he was afraid to hope.

/>   That hadn’t been in the plan. Sleep in the same room as Harry!

  But Harry was looking at him with dreadful eyes-eyes that told him the thought of sleeping in a huge bed in a bedroom all by himself held nothing but terror. Oh, great… Big choice here!

  So… ‘I guess we can,’ Nick agreed faintly, and watched the blank look fade.

  ‘You’d like that,’ Harry told him, and his eyes dared Nick to agree. ‘We could talk in bed.’

  ‘So we could.’ He hadn’t thought of that, either.

  ‘Wendy says I have to go to bed at eight o’clock. Do you go to bed at eight o’clock?’

  There was nothing for it. Nick nodded with all due solemnity. ‘Not usually,’ he said truthfully. ‘But this weekend I just might.’

  He did. In the end it was easier, because Harry couldn’t settle. He lay and stared at the ceiling while Nick read him a story, and when Nick finished reading his eyes were just as firmly open as when he’d started. When Nick tried to leave the room he said nothing-just stayed staring up at the ceiling with a fixed expression of stoicism.

  He’d been here before, the expression said. Strange place. Strange people. Strange shadows.

  Familiar fear…

  And Nick, who remembered the feeling as if it were yesterday, couldn’t bear it.

  ‘I am tired,’ he told Harry. ‘I think I’ll come to bed, too.’

  ‘That’d be okay,’ Harry said, still stoical. He was so careful not to let his eagerness show, in case this wonderful offer should be snatched away again.

  So Nick slid between the covers of his now single bed and stared at the ceiling himself in the half-light-for heaven’s sake, at eight it was hardly dark.

  And, while Harry drifted firmly into sleep, Nick wondered what Shanni was doing.

  And wondered and wondered and wondered.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  COFFEE and cakes in Acland Street was an institution. The street had been the cake centre of Melbourne for generations, each shop vying to supply the most mouth-watering cakes and each shopfront more wonderful than the last.

  Nick and Harry wandered hand in hand for half an hour as Harry checked every cake. Nick was content to do as Harry wished. Two weeks ago cake-choosing would have bored him silly, but he’d come a long way in two weeks. To give Harry pleasure was pleasure enough, and his mind had things to dwell on.

  Finally Harry made his choice-sponge cake topped with meringue, strawberries and chocolate. And he wanted a rather strange-sounding lemonade and lime drink too-a lime spider! Nick gave his approval-this place had great coffee too-and they settled on a table outside on the pavement like long-term friends,

  ‘I like this place,’ Harry said in a very muffled voice. His mouth was full of cake. He took a sip of his lime spider and thought about it, then paused and his face clouded. ‘I don’t think my daddy brought me here.’ He stared down at his cake and his voice fell away. ‘I can’t even remember if he liked cakes.’

  ‘He loved cakes.’

  And here she was! Nick spun around to see Shanni bearing down from behind. She was dressed in a lovely light linen dress, her hair was flying free and she was laden with shopping-she must have a dozen carrier bags!

  ‘Hi, boys.’ She beamed her pleasure at finding them, dumped her bags in a huge pile and plonked herself onto a spare seat. ‘Phew. Harry, your daddy was the biggest cake-eater in Bay Beach. When the local school had its fête he was first in the queue for the cake stall, and, by the look of that cake you take right after him. What a great choice. Can I have one, too?’

  She kicked off her sandals, sighed with relief and beamed again at the pair of them. ‘Aren’t I clever to find you? We didn’t even make a definite time or a place.’

  ‘Very clever,’ Nick said dryly-there was no hint in his voice of the lurch of pleasure he’d felt at the sight of her-and Shanni’s beam broadened.

  ‘You might at least sound pleased to see me. Harry, are you pleased to see me?’

  ‘Yes,’ Harry said definitely. ‘I am. Nick’s bed’s too big. We had to chop it in half.’

  ‘I see.’ Her perplexed forehead said she didn’t see at all but she was game to try. ‘So…tell me all. You chopped Nick’s bed in half. With an axe?’

  ‘No, silly.’ Harry giggled and Shanni’s eyes met Nick’s. There was a message clearly written-congratulations! Her smile was almost patronising, Nick thought, but he felt his chest expand a notch. His world had lightened just a little.

  Or maybe a lot. He hadn’t wanted to see her-but now she was here…

  ‘Shanni, we think we might be bored now,’ Harry was confiding. ‘After our cake we don’t know what to do. Nick says we might visit a lawyer he knows who has a baby.’

  ‘Do you want to do that?’ Shanni asked.

  Harry buried his nose in lime spider. ‘No,’ he whispered, avoiding Nick’s eyes.

  Shanni smiled again. Goodness! A Harry ready to assert himself. This was something indeed. ‘I see.’ Her eyes flew to Nick’s, gently mocking. ‘Time for a rethink, then, Your Worship.’

  ‘I’ll figure it out.’ He signalled for more coffee-he needed it!-and cake and spider for Shanni, and when he turned back Harry and Shanni were deep in her parcels. Harry was peering into one parcel after the other, his whole head disappearing.

  ‘They’re all clothes,’ he said, emerging disgusted, and Nick grinned.

  ‘Women do that.’

  ‘Yeah, and men buy hair cream and silk ties. Bought your semi-trailer-load yet?’ Shanni’s eyes flew to his unruly mop and he grinned self-consciously.

  ‘Well, no.’ This felt strange, he thought. Weird. But…good. To be sitting in the sun with a funny, bubbly lady and a kid who no one wanted but who looked at him as if he knew everything. As if he liked him…

  It wasn’t a sensation Nick had ever experienced, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

  Go with the flow, he thought. And try to keep the goofy grin off your face…

  ‘How’s your aunt?’ he asked, and Shanni wrinkled her pert nose in disgust.

  ‘She isn’t.’

  That startled him. ‘You mean…she’s dead?’

  ‘She’s in Adelaide visiting an ancient schoolfriend,’ Shanni said bitterly. ‘She left last week. Ill, my foot! Lying, conniving family. You wait until I get my hands on them.’

  ‘I…see.’ He didn’t quite. ‘So you stayed in an empty house last night?’

  ‘I stayed in a hotel.’ She gave a beleaguered smile. ‘My aunt’s locked the place like Fort Knox, there are signs saying the house is guarded by the Automatic Shotgun, Doberman and Machete-Carrying Security Company, and I don’t have a key. So I got to stay in a seedy, third-rate hotel…’

  ‘Shanni, you can stay at Nick’s,’ Harry said urgently. The conversation was confusing but he had one point clear. Shanni needed a bed-and he needed Shanni. The course, therefore, was crystal-clear. ‘Nick has a whole bedroom he doesn’t use and he has the biggest bed! Nick and me sleep in the chopped-up bed in Nick’s room, so you can have the big bed.’

  ‘Hey…’ She was taken aback-and even more so when she glanced at Nick and found him smiling at her. Well, what else could he do?

  ‘Yes, Shanni, it’s free.’ For heaven’s sake, what was he saying? It was as if his mouth was forming words without his head being engaged, but he couldn’t stop himself. ‘Or…’ He just had a brilliant thought! ‘You could have the chopped-up bed if you like-with Harry-and I’ll have the big one.’

  ‘No,’ Harry said urgently. ‘You and me have to sleep in the chopped-up beds, Nick. Wendy says boys don’t sleep with girls.’

  Neither they do, Nick thought resignedly, watching Shanni grin and seeing every last vestige of a controlled weekend disappear before his eyes. Neither they do.

  After elevenses Shanni went straight into bossy mode and they went rollerblading.

  ‘Because you guys haven’t decided what to do, it’s up to me to organise something. I haven’t been to the es
planade for years, but I bet they still rollerblade just like they did when I was here on teacher-training.’

  ‘Can I go rollerblading?’ Harry said, and Shanni nodded.

  ‘Well, sort of. It’ll be rollerpushing for you, my boy, until you get that leg straight, but I’ll bet you’ll enjoy it. Won’t he, Nick?’

  ‘Sure.’ For the life of him, it was all he could think of to say. There was nothing for it but to agree.

  So they dumped her gear in Nick’s apartment-‘Great jumping Jehosophat!’ Shanni said when she saw Nick’s expensive white and chrome decor, and Harry chortled his agreement-and headed down to hire equipment.

  ‘I can’t rollerblade in my leg cast,’ Harry said sadly, seeing the equipment on offer and looking down at his ungainly leg. ‘And I don’t know how. Do I have to watch?’

  He most certainly didn’t.

  ‘No,’ Shanni decreed. ‘I told you. It’s rollerpushing for you. These are just the ticket.’ And she motioned to the pushchairs beside the hire store.

  ‘You’re the navigator,’ Shanni told him, belting him into a pushchair. Unlike normal strollers, this one had huge wheels and a high handle, built for parents who wanted to push children with speed. ‘You say fast, and we’ll go fast. You say stop then we stop.’ She rethought that, and grinned up at Nick, who was too stunned to say anything. ‘Or…we might stop. If we can. It’s a long time since I wore rollerblades, and I don’t know how good Nick is.’

  ‘I’m good,’ Nick said, affronted, and Shanni grinned.

  ‘There you go, then. Your Nick’s a lawyer, a magistrate and a rollerblade expert as well, Harry. What a man!’

  And Nick knew she was mocking him but he was so far out of his depth that he couldn’t care less. This was a day for putting pride aside.

  For putting everything aside except the moment.

  They rollerbladed for the day. With Harry before them they took a handle each and went flying along the beachfront-whizzing in and out of pedestrians and cyclists and dog-walkers as if they’d been born on wheels.

  ‘Slow down,’ Nick said at first, but Shanni grinned and increased speed.