Christmas with her Boss

by Marion Lennox

  ‘The Internet’s down,’ Scott said and smiling was suddenly the last thing on his mind.

  ‘The Internet…’ Meg said, sounding stunned. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘There’s been a landslip over at Tandaroit South and the lines are down. They don’t know when it’ll be fixed. Days probably.’

  He was having trouble figuring this out. ‘Lines?’

  ‘Telephone lines,’ Scott said, an adolescent explaining something to slightly stupid next-generation-up.

  ‘You use phone lines for the Internet?’

  ‘I know, dinosaur stuff and slow as,’ Scott said. ‘But satellite connection costs heaps. Mickey has satellite connection, but Meg’s only just figured out a way we can afford dialup.’

  ‘And…’ He checked his phone. ‘There’s no mobile reception here either,’ he said slowly.

  ‘No,’ Meg told him.

  ‘And now no fixed phone?’

  ‘No.’ Meg sounded really nervous-as well she might.

  ‘So no Internet until the line’s fixed?’

  ‘Well, duh,’ Scott said, sounding adolescent and a bit belligerent. Maybe he thought his sister was about to be attacked. Maybe she was.

  But William wasn’t focused on Meg. He was feeling ill. To be so far from contact… He should have rung Elinor before he left Melbourne. He should have woken her. He had to contact her. Her entire Christmas would be ruined.

  ‘I can’t stay here,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘The airport’d be better than this.’

  ‘Hey!’ Letty said.

  He didn’t have time or space to pacify her. All he could think of was Elinor-and two small kids. ‘I need to use a phone,’ he snapped. ‘Now.’

  ‘I have supper on,’ Letty said.

  ‘This is important. There are people waiting for me in New York.’

  ‘But you’re not due there until tomorrow,’ Meg said, astounded. ‘They’ll hardly be waiting at the airport yet.’

  ‘I still need a phone. Sort it, Jardine,’ he ordered.

  He watched her long thoughtful stare, the stare he’d come to rely on. This woman was seriously good. He depended on her in a crisis.

  He was depending on her now, and she didn’t let him down.

  ‘Supper first,’ she said at last. ‘If it can wait that long.’

  Maybe it could, he conceded. ‘Supper first. Then what?’

  ‘Then I’ll take you over to Scotty…to Scott’s friend, Mickey’s. Mickey lives two miles north of here and his parents have satellite connection. You can use the Internet or their Skype phone for half an hour while I catch up with Mickey’s mum. The weekend before Christmas she’ll probably still be up.’

  ‘I need it for more…’

  ‘Half an hour max,’ she said, blunt and direct, as he’d come to expect. ‘Even that’s a favour. They’re dairy farmers and it’s late now. But you should be able to talk to New York via Skype. Mind, it’ll be before seven in the morning over there, so trying to wake anyone up…’

  ‘She’ll wake.’

  ‘Of course she will,’ she said, almost cordially, and he looked at her with suspicion.

  ‘Miss Jardine…’

  ‘I’m Meg,’ she said. ‘Remember? Meg until I’m back on the payroll, if that ever happens.’

  ‘I don’t believe I’ve fired you.’

  ‘So you haven’t,’ she said. ‘And Christmas miracles happen. Okay, I’ll take you over to Mickey’s and I will try and get you in touch with New York but let’s not go anywhere until we’ve had some of Letty’s mango trifle. You have made me mango trifle, haven’t you, Grandma?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then what are we waiting for?’ she demanded, and she grabbed her bag, manoeuvred her way through her dog pack and headed inside. ‘Trifle, yay.’ Then she paused. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, sir,’ she said, looking back. ‘I mean… William. Do you want your mango trifle in your room? Do you want me to take you straight there?’

  ‘Um…no,’ he said weakly.

  ‘That’s a shame,’ she said. ‘If you’re sitting at the kitchen table you’ll want seconds. There’s less for us that way, but if you’re sure… Lead the way, Grandma. Let’s go.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  AN HOUR later, fortified with a supper of huge ham sandwiches and a mango trifle which seemed to have stunned William, they were in the car again, heading for Mickey’s. It was almost eleven but Meg knew enough of Mickey to believe he’d still be awake, Net surfing.

  This was the only option for her boss to contact home. It had to work.

  Who did he have waiting for him in New York? He wasn’t saying, and she wasn’t asking. They drove in silence.

  She pulled up outside a farmhouse a lot less startling than Letty’s. Instead of knocking, though, while William watched from the car, she tossed gravel at the lit end window.

  Mickey hauled up the window. ‘Bruce?’

  That one word deflected her thoughts from her own problems. Once upon a time, Mickey would have expected Scott, Meg thought bleakly. The kids were the same age and they lived barely two miles apart. Four years ago, their bikes had practically created a rut in the road between.

  But the rut had long been repaired. Tonight Scott had been too tired to come with them. He was always tired. He’d hardly touched his supper. His school work was slipping; he was simply uninterested. There were problems apart from his physical ones, she thought. In the New Year she’d have to talk to his doctors again about depression.

  But how could she sort depression for a kid facing what Scott was facing? How long before he could ride a bike again? He believed he never could.

  She hadn’t accepted it, though. She’d fight it every inch of the way. But that meant staying employed so she could pay the bills. It also meant being nice to her boss over Christmas, or as nice as she could. Which meant throwing stones at a neighbour’s window three days before Christmas.

  ‘Bruce?’ Mickey called again and she hauled her attention back to here and now. ‘It’s Meg,’ she called to the kid at the window.

  ‘Meg?’ Mickey sounded pleased, and she liked that. She liked coming home. She liked it that every person in the tiny shopping town of Tandaroit East knew her, and she could go into every house in the district and find people she knew.

  ‘The phones are out and I have a guest here who needs to contact New York,’ she said. ‘Scotty…Scott said you have Skype.’

  ‘Hey, I do,’ Mickey said, sounding inordinately pleased. ‘I’ve never used it for New York, though. I don’t know anyone there.’

  ‘Would it be all right if Mr McMaster used it?’

  ‘William,’ said William.

  ‘Hi, Will.’ Mickey was clearly delighted to have company.

  ‘Are your parents asleep?’ Meg asked.

  ‘Dad is. He’s gotta milk at five. But Mum’s making mince pies. You want me to tell her you’re here?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ Meg said thankfully. ‘I don’t want to be caught creeping round the place at night without your parents knowing.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Mickey said in a laughing voice that said such an action had indeed been indulged in on more than one occasion before now.

  And Meg thought sadly of how much of a normal kid’s life Scotty was missing.

  So her boss used Skype while Meg helped Mickey’s mum scoop mincemeat into pastry shells. Jenny wasn’t much older than Meg, but while Meg had gone to university and then to a career, Jenny had married her childhood sweetheart at seventeen and had Mickey nine months later.

  She could have done the same, Meg thought, feeling nostalgic and a bit jealous as she took in the cosy farm kitchen, the muddle of Christmas baking, the detritus of a farming family, with twin girls of nine as well as Mickey.

  ‘This place looks gorgeous,’ Meg said, sitting on an ancient kitchen chair and scooping mincemeat.

  ‘Nope,’ Jenny said and grinned. ‘Gorgeous is what’s up in Mickey’s room right now.’ Jenny had been introduced be
fore Mickey had taken William off to link him with the other side of the world, and Meg could see her friend adding two and two and making seventeen.

  ‘You mean my boss.’

  ‘I mean the man you’ve brought home for Christmas. Yum. I’ve seen him in the gossip rags and he’s even more gorgeous in the flesh. He’s a squillionaire. He’s your boss. And you’ve got him for Christmas.’

  ‘You can have him if you want him,’ Meg said morosely. ‘He might be happier here. You have a computer.’

  ‘Yeah, and I have twins and Ian’s extended family arriving tomorrow to stay for a week. There’ll be eight kids in the house. Heaven help us.’ But she was smiling as she said it and Meg thought, even though she had never understood Jenny’s decision to marry and make a home so early, maybe… just maybe it made sense.

  ‘You’re not getting clucky,’ Jenny demanded, following her gaze, and Meg realised she was staring at a pile of paper chains at the far end of the table. She remembered making them as a kid.

  ‘I have spare paper,’ Jenny said happily. ‘You can help your boss make paper chains. Very bonding.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘No, I think it’s lovely,’ Jenny said, getting serious. ‘To have him here for Christmas… Oooh, Meg. But does he have a girlfriend?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘No idea?’

  ‘Well, I’m his PA and I haven’t been told to send flowers to anyone lately. But he was desperate to use the phone.’

  ‘So who’s he ringing?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘I’ll ask Mickey.’

  But Mickey, who wandered into the kitchen two minutes later, was no help at all.

  ‘Yeah, he’s talking but I put my headset on and left him to it. Nah, I didn’t hear who to. Mum, you reckon it’s too late to put another CD on my Christmas list? I’ve just found this sick new band…’

  ‘Forget it,’ his mother said. ‘Santa asked for a list a month ago and you couldn’t think of anything except a farm bike, which you know we can’t afford. So what are you giving William for Christmas, Meg, love?’

  Uh-oh. Here was yet another problem she hadn’t thought through.

  On Christmas morning she sat under the Christmas tree and opened presents. Lots of presents.

  Meg’s mother had always believed in…excess. She’d loved Christmas with a passion and Meg had still been getting a Santa stocking at twenty-five.

  The next year, with her parents dead, Meg had over-compensated, and so had Letty and, to their delight, so did Scott. He’d plundered his piggy bank and asked the nurses to help him.

  They’d had a silly, over-the-top Christmas in Scotty’s hospital ward, and the tradition had thus continued.

  So Meg’s last minute Christmas spree had filled her baggage with gifts but there wasn’t a lot she could recycle for William.

  ‘He has everything,’ she said, feeling hopeless.

  ‘He hasn’t got Skype,’ Mickey said.

  ‘He will next week when he goes back to New York.’

  ‘So buy him a satellite dish for the weekend,’ Mickey said cheerfully. ‘Then Scotty can use it after he leaves.’

  Right. With what?

  ‘That’s just a bit more money than I had in mind to spend,’ she retorted and Mickey screwed up his nose and sloped off to watch television in the other room. Grown-up problems. Not his.

  ‘So how’s the debt reduction going?’ Jenny asked. Jenny had been one of the many who’d come to Meg’s aid after the crash. She knew of Meg’s debt. Scott’s medical expenses were colossal, and on top of that they’d had to keep the farm going when there was no one to run it.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she told her friend. As long as I’m not sacked, she added under her breath. But I’m probably sacked, so let’s not go there.

  ‘So it’s just a present for Mr Sexy-Eyes. Can you knit?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘So that’s home-made socks out of the question. Leaves only aftershave,’ Jenny said. ‘Ian gets some every year from his Aunty Merle, only Merle hasn’t noticed that Ian’s had a full beard for twenty years now. I’m happy to donate a gallon or six.’

  ‘I suspect he uses his own.’

  ‘I guess he would,’ Jenny said, sliding one batch of mince pies out of the oven and another in. ‘So there’s nothing in the world he needs.’

  ‘Except a plane out of here.’

  ‘Out of your control, love,’ Jenny said. ‘It’ll have to be aftershave.’ She glanced up at the ceiling. ‘I’d so love to be a fly on the wall, wouldn’t you? I wonder who he’s talking to?’

  ‘It’s not my business,’ Meg said, a bit too primly, and Jenny laughed.

  ‘You mean the walls are too thick and there’s no way we can find out. Let’s face it, you’re interested, and why not? He’s the most eligible man on the planet, as well as the most gorgeous. As well as that, he’s your house guest for three days. You have him trapped. Meg darling, if you don’t try and get him interested-seriously interested-you have rocks in your head.’

  ‘Finished,’ William’s voice growled from the door and they both jumped and Meg did her blushing thing again. That was twice now. All I want for Christmas is my dignity, she thought desperately, as Jenny stifled laughter.

  ‘Did…did you get onto who you wanted?’ she managed, wondering how pink her face was.

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ How much had he heard? she thought. The most eligible man on the planet… And… You have him trapped… If he thought…

  ‘Who did you need to talk to?’ Jenny asked innocently and offered him a plate of mince pies.

  ‘Friends,’ he said shortly, his face expressionless. Meg knew that expression. It meant the McMaster displeasure was about to wreak consequences. There wasn’t a lot of wreaking he could do right now, though, except wave away the mince pie plate as if it was poison.

  ‘Eat my mince pies or I’ll be offended for ever,’ Jenny said. ‘The price of my Internet café is a compliment for the cook.’

  And he really was trapped, Meg thought. He was forced not to snap; he was forced even to be pleasant.

  So he ate and he somehow managed to tell Jenny her mince pies were excellent, while Meg tried to get her face in order, and she almost managed it but then Jenny, dog at a bone, refusing to be deflected, said, ‘So are you going to tell us who this friend is who’s awake at six o’clock in the morning in New York?’ and Meg blushed all over again.

  ‘Jenny, he doesn’t have to answer.’

  ‘No, but I’m interested.’

  ‘Thank you very much for your Internet use,’ William said, clipped, tight and angry. He tugged his wallet out and laid a note on the kitchen table. A note so large it made Jenny gasp.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Paying,’ he said.

  ‘Put it away,’ Jenny said, angry to match now. ‘There’s no need for that.’

  ‘Jenny’s my friend,’ Meg said. ‘She’d never charge.’

  ‘She’s not my friend.’

  Whoa. Line overstepped. She was home for Christmas and there were some things which she would not put up with. Hurting Jenny was one of them.

  ‘She is because she let you use the Internet when she didn’t have to. Without thought of payment. You won’t have to walk back to the station. I’ll drive you,’ she snapped. ‘Jenny, do you have a sleeping bag I can borrow? And a water bottle? Give him a couple more of those mince pies so he won’t starve.’

  ‘Hey, I wasn’t that offended,’ Jenny said, her flash of hurt disappearing and being replaced by her customary laughter. She took William’s money and tucked it back into his suit pocket. ‘It was very nice of him to offer.’

  ‘It was not nice,’ Meg said, glowering. ‘He was being snarky.’

  ‘Snarky?’ William said.

  ‘Don’t look at me like I’m speaking some other language,’ Meg retorted. ‘You know what snarky is. Jenny. Sleeping bag.’

  ‘You’re not serio
us,’ Jenny said. ‘If you are, he can sleep here.’

  ‘He’s not your friend. He just said so.’

  ‘He wasn’t serious.’

  ‘I was,’ William said. ‘But I’m having second thoughts.’

  ‘You know, I think that’s wise,’ Jenny said, and grinned again and waggled her finger at the pair of them. ‘Birds in their little nest agree…’

  ‘Jenny!’

  ‘Go on, get out of here, the two of you,’ Jenny said cheerfully. ‘Take him home, Meg, and don’t even think of going via the station. Can you just see the headlines? Tomorrow’s express train thundering through Tandaroit Station, with William McMaster sleeping off the effect of too many mince pies on a deserted platform? So be nice to her, William, and if you can possibly manage it, tell her who it is that you contacted tonight. She’s dying to know, even if it isn’t her business.’

  She raised floury hands and shooed them out into the hall, out of the front door. She banged it shut after them, and then tugged it open again. An afterthought had just occurred.

  ‘It’s the season for peace on earth and goodwill to all men,’ she called after them. ‘So don’t leave him on the railway station.’

  They drove home in silence. Meg was too embarrassed to say anything. William simply…didn’t.

  She pulled up outside the house and made to get out, but William’s hand came down onto her arm, making her pause.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But I don’t take kindly to questions.’

  ‘That’s your right. But you will be nice to my family and to my friends.’

  ‘I will be nice to your family and to your friends,’ he repeated. ‘Tell me about Scott.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I’ve employed you for three years. I’ve never asked about your family.

  ‘I don’t take kindly to questions,’ she intoned and he grimaced.

  ‘That’s your right,’ he conceded. ‘Of course you’re not obligated to tell me.’

  ‘As you’re not obligated to tell me who you just telephoned.’ She relented then, sighed and put up her hands in mock surrender. ‘No. Don’t tell me. It’s Jenny who wanted to know that one, not me.’ And how about that for a barefaced lie? she thought, but some lies were almost compulsory.