by Minnie Darke
Nothing more about workplace change, alas. Or about old flames leaping back into her life. She sighed, and looked down the page to the entry for Aquarius. This month sees you reaping the benefits of the difficult decisions that you have made in recent times. Tread your new path with determination, Aquarius, remembering that temptations to turn back will be amplified by Venus in retrograde, which can bring up wistful, nostalgic thoughts. For water bearers seeking new homes, or considering significant changes to existing environments, the final days of the month will provide favorable cosmic conditions for choosing well.
What would Nick make of this? she wondered. Perhaps it would appear to him as a subliminal message that he really ought to play Hamlet. Or Henry IV. She shook her head at the thought of Nick’s illogical trust in the stars. But she also had a thought. An interesting thought.
If there was anyone who could prompt Nick to pick up his phone and call her, then it was probably Leo Thornbury.
* * *
The Wednesday before Good Friday was deadline day at the Star—Justine’s first as contributions manager. The cover shot for the new edition was an arresting close-up of the troubled face of Tariq Lafayette, the young film director who’d recently won an award for the latest of his hard-hitting documentaries on asylum seekers. The editorial, which referenced Lafayette’s work and called on the nation’s leaders to show moral leadership, had been written not by Jeremy, but by the Star’s Canberra correspondent, Daniel Griffin, and Justine had agonized over the edits. She’d also sunk hours into the food page, trying to compress Dermot Hampshire’s column on the pleasures of autumnal food to make room for his recipe for lamb rack and beetroot salsa. Apparently, it was a good sign that he’d hung up on her only once during their protracted negotiations.
Justine spent the early hours of the day going over every column centimeter of the sections for which she was responsible. She wanted them polished to a high gleam before Jeremy dispatched the files at close of business. Late in the morning she was visited, just as Natsue had predicted, by the cryptic crossword setter, Doc Millar. He stood at Justine’s shoulder and fixed his watery, doleful eyes on her computer screen, checking, double-checking and triple-checking every last detail of the setting, all the while slurping coffee through the scrubbing-brush bristles of his gray mustache.
Doc had only just departed, having gloomily pronounced the crossword to be satisfactory, when the desk phone rang.
Not again, Justine thought, sure that this was yet another call from Dermot Hampshire, who would want to argue and complain about her edits. As she reached for the receiver, she prepared to go back into battle: calm, professional battle, she told herself.
“Hello,” she said, trying to sound firm from the outset.
“Justine?”
It wasn’t Dermot.
“Yes?” Justine said.
“Hi. It’s Daniel. Daniel Griffin. In Canberra.”
“Oh,” said Justine uselessly. Her brain, meanwhile, helpfully dredged up an image of the Star’s chief political reporter and placed it front and center of her mind. It was cobbled together from Daniel’s rather suave byline picture and the impressions Justine had formed at the last two office Christmas parties. Although she had been introduced to him, she didn’t feel that she had ever really met him. She had him pegged as the sort of person who looked over your shoulder while talking to you, just in case there was someone more important on the other side of the room.
Why was he calling her? Perhaps he’d rung to complain as well. Maybe she’d cut his copy too aggressively. Had he been insulted by the number of times she’d taken out a slightly pretentious phrase and replaced it with a simpler one?
She braced.
“Look, just a quick call,” Daniel said, ending a too-long silence. “I just wanted to say thanks. For the job you did on that editorial of mine. It was really thorough. The attention to detail…you really made the piece sing.”
“Oh,” Justine said, utterly wrong-footed. “Thank you.”
“And while I’ve got you on the phone—congratulations on the promotion. I did my years as a copy-runner at the Star too, and I can tell you there were times when I thought I was going to go gray on the job. I know contributions manager isn’t exactly a reporter, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.”
“Yes, absolutely. A step in the right direction,” Justine managed. God, she sounded like a parrot.
“See you next time I’m in town, okay?”
“Okay.”
Justine put the phone down and leaned back in her chair. She rubbed her dry, screen-sore eyes as she processed what had just happened. Daniel Griffin had called her to thank her. He had appreciated her work and bothered to call her up to say so.
Brain: Maybe he’s not so up himself, after all.
Justine: You don’t think?
Brain: I can’t think. Not without food.
Justine grabbed her coffee mug, fished her lunch out of her bag and headed for the tearoom. Still glowing from Daniel’s compliment, she was just about to toast her cheese sandwich when Jeremy appeared, shrugging on his suit jacket.
“There you are! There you are! Excellent,” Jeremy said, and waved a hand at her sandwich. “Heavens! Put that away. We have been summoned.”
“Summoned?” Justine said.
“To lunch. At Cornucopia. Dermot wants to meet you,” Jeremy explained. “Apparently, you’ve made something of an impression on him over the phone. And so he is offering us lunch. On the house.”
* * *
Although it was broad daylight when Justine and Jeremy arrived at the Dufrene Street bistro, the dark interior of the establishment cultivated the intimate atmosphere of evening. Huge light globes hung from the dark timbered ceiling, their dim orange filaments glowing like swing sets for fairy folk.
“Mr. Byrne? Miss Carmichael?” said a waitress. She had a long, unstructured ponytail of pale curls, and prominent piercings in the cartilage of both ears. She led the way through a busy maze of tables and chairs to a booth at the very back of the dining room.
The bistro’s decor was all about rustic, raw timber and hard edges, but as Justine slid into her booth seat, she discovered the bench was plushly covered in sheepskin.
“Dermot says not to worry about ordering,” said the waitress, pouring icy water from a jug into Jeremy’s and Justine’s glasses. “He’s taken care of everything.”
When she was gone, Jeremy asked, “So, how have you been managing? With Dermot? Hm?”
“I think we’re reaching an understanding,” Justine said. “Although, I wouldn’t say it’s been a simple process.”
“Ah,” said Jeremy, nodding apologetically. “I am afraid to say that talent does not discriminate against arrogance. Indeed, the two—in my experience—seem to have something of a rapport.”
It was not in dispute that Dermot Hampshire was a talented chef, and for Justine and Jeremy he put on a virtuoso rendition of his skills, sending out from the kitchen a steady stream of tapas plates and bowls. There was a rich, spicy broth that was thick with pearl barley, breaded lamb cutlets with elegantly wilted greenery, and small and tempting displays of meats and vegetables and skewers.
The waitress kept appearing out of the gloom, bringing food, taking plates, filling glasses with both water and wine. Before long, Justine was feeling the effects of the excellent, full-bodied Cornucopia house pinot. Her cheeks were warm, and she had a sense of her internal firewalls being softened and pulled down. Realizing that in this state she might say, or do, something ill advised, she resolved to drink only water for the rest of lunch.
Justine was raising her wineglass to her lips for one last sip—just one, she told herself—when Dermot Hampshire himself appeared, bearing a large platter of cheeses and a bottle of tawny port. The cheeses were slightly luminous and waxy, beautifully arranged with wedges of fig past
e and sliced pear. As well as being the proprietor of Cornucopia, Dermot had founded the Un-ewes-ually Good cheese factory in a small rural town not far from Edenvale.
“Jezza,” Dermot said loudly to Jeremy. “Great to see you, mate.”
Jezza, Justine mentally repeated. Jezza?
“Ah, my good man,” Jeremy said. “An excellent repast. Truly excellent.”
Dermot inclined his head with mock modesty and expertly cleared a space on the table in order to set down the platter. Then he landed his own intimidating bulk on the bench seat, forcing Justine to shuffle over.
“How did you like the stones?” he asked her.
She was bewildered. “Sorry?”
“The stones,” he repeated, picking up a knife and tapping its blade on a plate that now held nothing but crumbs.
The things on the plate had been delicious. Little nuggets of some kind of meat—a bit chewy, perhaps, but not in a bad way.
“They were delicious,” Justine said.
“They were lambs’ balls,” Dermot announced, clearly very pleased with himself.
First, Justine blanched. Then blood hurtled back into her cheeks in a rush.
Dermot chortled. “Why don’t you have some more, since you liked them so much?” He snapped his fingers loudly. “Dolly! Hey, Doll! More stones!”
“Thank you, Dermot, but please don’t—”
“I insist. And, listen, don’t do the polite crap here. If someone offers you more, you take it. You know that thing people say? Less is more? What a crock of shit! In my book, the only thing that’s more is more. Take my column, for example. I think I’m worth two pages. But the editor, here—he’s cramping my style keeping me at one. You tell him, Justine. Tell him I need more room. Room to move.”
Justine waited for Jeremy to intervene, but he only looked on with amused interest.
There was the click of china on timber as a serving of “stones” appeared at her elbow, but this time it was not the waitress with the fair curls who made the delivery. It was a young man. With dark hair, blue eyes and a smile that sat ever so slightly sideways on his face.
“Nick!” Justine said. Oh God, she thought, her cheeks reddening—had that come out as a squeak? She hurried on, “You’re working here now? What happened to the fish gig?”
“They let me off the hook,” he said, and Justine laughed, though perhaps a little more than the joke deserved.
Dermot leaned back and put an arm along the top of the seat back, so that his hand rested just behind Justine’s neck. He was a big man in any case, but this expansive gesture seemed engineered to make him appear bigger still.
“Know each other, do you?” he said.
“Indeed we do,” Nick said, collecting up some empty glasses on the table and stacking them in the crook of his arm.
Dermot, trying to lean even further back, said, “And are you acquainted with Jeremy here, too?”
Nick smiled professionally. “No, I—”
Dermot made a regal gesture. “Jeremy Byrne, editor of the Alexandria Park Star, this is Nick, one of my newest recruits.”
“A pleasure,” Jeremy said.
“Likewise,” Nick responded. “And can I just congratulate you on having the good sense to employ Justine. She always was destined to be a writer. Even before the spelling competition, there were signs.”
“Spelling competition?” Jeremy asked.
“You mean you don’t know?” Nick teased, though his face remained mostly deadpan. “Has she been keeping her true identity a secret?”
Dermot raised his eyebrows in Justine’s direction as Nick continued, “You are in the presence of someone who was once the under-ten televised spelling bee champion of the nation.”
“Is that so?” Dermot drawled.
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Jeremy said.
“She was always one of those scarily clever girls, you know? All the boys at school were terrified of her.”
I was? thought Justine. They were?
She observed that Nick was affecting a slightly formal demeanor—treading a fine line, in Dermot’s presence, between subservience and self-assurance.
“Nick’s an actor,” Justine said, in the hope of changing the topic. Then she wondered if that statement had been tactless, so she added, “As well as a waiter, of course. If I’m not mistaken, he’s about to play Romeo?”
“At your service,” he said, taking a half step backward and making the slightest of bows.
Dermot weighed in. “Well, Justine here has recently been promoted. The lucky girl’s been given the job of keeping me in line.”
Nick’s smile was carefully neutral as he collected up an empty tapas plate and Jeremy’s crumpled napkin.
“Promoted,” Nick said, nodding that he was impressed, although as he straightened up and turned toward the kitchen, Justine saw one of his eyebrows twitch into an unspoken I told you so. “So, I’ll see you around?”
Justine, feeling Dermot’s and Jeremy’s eyes on her, shrugged as carelessly as she could manage. “You have my number.”
Brain: Well, that was about as warm and encouraging as a blanket made of icicles.
Justine: Shit.
After a moment, Dermot forked one of the crumbed stones and grinned at Justine. “Did I detect a certain, shall we say…frisson…in the air?”
Justine flushed.
“You’ve got taste, Justine. I’ll say that for you. He’s a good-looking kid. But then, all my waitstaff are good-looking kids. So, you and young Nick, are you…you know?” Dermot made his eyebrows wriggle.
Justine looked at Jeremy meaningfully, but Jeremy was absorbed in pouring himself another glass of port.
“It’s getting late. We should probably—” Justine began.
“Ah, so you’d like to be, but you’re not. Yet,” Dermot said.
“Jeremy?” Justine said beseechingly.
Dermot leaned in close to her. “You should call him.”
“I don’t think—”
“Grow a set, lambkin! Call him. Call him.”
Justine took a steadying breath and smiled as confidently as she could manage. “It’s a beautiful place you have here. Almost perfect.”
“What do you mean almost?” he asked.
She picked up a menu, laid it in front of Dermot, and tapped her finger on the description of a particularly lavish pasta dish.
“ ‘Fetuccine’ wants a double ‘t’—fettuccine—as well as the double ‘c.’ I felt sure you would want to know.”
Dermot peered closely, disbelievingly, at the menu.
Justine went on, “And, for future reference, Dermot, we women already have a set. We just don’t hang ’em out where everyone can see them.”
Jeremy let out a delighted chuckle. Dermot scrutinized Justine for a moment, and then he laughed, too—a huge guffaw that showed all his super-white teeth.
“I like you, Justine. I like you,” he said.
Great, thought Justine, as Dermot poured a generous measure of port into a fresh glass in front of her. Despite her earlier resolution, she took a long slug.
* * *
It was well past four o’clock by the time Justine and Jeremy returned to the office, both of them rosy-cheeked and somewhat fuzzy around the edges. After fixing a strong coffee, Justine retreated to her office. She had lost several hours to Dermot’s hospitality; there were now less than forty-five minutes until deadline. But where would the remaining time be best spent?
“What’s the worst thing that could happen?” she murmured to herself, then clicked open the page that contained Doc Millar’s crossword.
It was hard to believe that this dull and generic page—unenlivened by color of any kind, with the horoscopes laid out above the two crossword puzzles, the cryptic and the quick—could cause so much tr
ouble out there in Readerland. And yet, so Natsue had warned, this boring black-and-white page had the power to unleash a tsunami of consequences.
Justine read through Doc’s clues forward, then backward. Having found no errors, she read through them forward, just one more time for good luck. Satisfied that she had taken scrupulous care, she was about to close the page for the last time when it occurred to her that she really ought to check over the horoscopes as well. Leo Thornbury in his thumbnail picture stared out at Justine from the screen, mystically, his eyes dark under the silver coif of his hair.
Brain: This Nick…
Justine: Yes?
Brain: I think you like him. Quite a bit.
This was probably true. But it was no excuse to tinker with Leo’s copy.
Brain: But who would ever know?
Justine considered. Leo’s original fax was on the document spike on the desk, placed there by Justine, just as Natsue had instructed. But it was well buried now, lying somewhere beneath Lesley-Ann’s gardening column and a selection of Letters to the Editor. Furthermore, Leo didn’t read the Star. And nobody at the Star had seen Leo’s April fax. Except for Justine and Natsue. And Natsue was by now in Sweden. Even if somebody did send Natsue a copy of the April Star, would she bother to read the horoscopes? And, if she did read them, would she remember the text for Aquarius? Word for word? Having done no more than glance at it before Justine took over the transcription?
But, what if Leo were to pick up the magazine, just this one time?
Brain: He won’t.
Justine: How do you know?
Brain: And anyway, it’s not as if the horoscopes are…real. They’re all just rubbish. What’s one random phrase compared to another? What harm could it do?
The texture of the air in Justine’s office seemed to gather a new charge of possibility. She stared at the page layout on the computer screen for so long that it seemed to shimmer and pixelate before her eyes.
