by Fiona Greene
Lexi stared at him for a second. The conversation was nothing unusual, but the wink? She struggled to shake the feeling this was about to blow up in her face. Her head was telling her to be cautious, but her heart wasn’t buying it. It was busy chasing the fantasy of a relationship with Mark. And look how that had turned out the last time.
She had to attempt to keep this business. ‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’ He flashed her a smile.
Heat pooled in her belly and she checked her purse, so she didn’t have to keep looking at him.
What the hell just happened?
Business meeting, she reminded herself. Crucial, potentially life or death, business meeting.
Now was not the time to have an interlude in the car with Mark Conroy.
A small delegation was gathered at the entry and she and Mark walked over to meet them. Mayor Forsdyke was there, with someone from the engineering department and a design consultant with an overstuffed folder, who’d made the trip from Sydney.
‘Let’s begin, shall we,’ the mayor said after the introductions.
The Butter Factory was an industrial red-brick building on white foundations, perched on the bank of the Brachen River. Built in 1907, it was used for butter production until the mid 1980s, with butter shipped out on the river in its early life. Unlike Rivervue, it wasn’t designed to have any view to the river, and the only space that opened to the river was the loading dock.
It was a stark contrast to the beauty of the existing theatre.
The main factory floor had been converted into partitioned-off multi-purpose spaces housing myriad community groups, and while the hardwood floors took her breath away, the rows of columns, now painted fire-engine red, threw up immediate alarm bells.
Columns and theatre spaces didn’t mix.
They toured the entire complex, including the old staff facilities and the upper floors, which housed the office workers. The further into the tour they got, the more uneasy she became. Yes, the space could be converted into a theatre, but unless they removed the columns, the space was unusable. Even if they removed every column, the theatre would be half the size of the existing one—there would be no rehearsal spaces or costume repositories. There wouldn’t even be room for a workshop.
The building, in Lexi’s eyes, was clearly unsuitable.
They had regrouped back in the main foyer, and the mayor was talking as though the move was a done deal.
‘Is there any heritage protection over this site?’ Lexi asked.
The designer consulted his ‘folder full of facts’ as she’d started thinking of it. ‘Yes.’ He scanned the document. ‘The facade, the brickwork interior, the hardwood floors and the jetty complex down on the river are all covered under the order.’
‘So, they can’t be modified? Or obscured?’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’ The mayor spoke over the top of him. ‘With Council permission, the building can be modified.’
Lexi felt the flush of heat as her blood pressure rose. ‘Actually, the heritage listing is a state issue. Council has no jurisdiction.’
Mayor Forsdyke shot her a venomous look. ‘Council could work with the state for permission.’
Lexi decided not to argue. Instead, she spoke to the engineer. ‘I would need a floor plan with measurements, but this space does not appear to meet the needs of Rivervue. It’s too small to build a theatre of the same capacity, the columns make it unsuitable to use as a theatre, and there’s no ability to add the required infrastructure without modifying the building. There is limited car-parking, no nearby catering and no ability to walk from town, as most people who visit town to attend the theatre do now.’ She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the mayor. ‘This space is not suitable for Rivervue’s requirements.’
‘I disagree.’ The mayor’s eyes were hard and cold. ‘This is an underutilised space owned by the Council. Moving Rivervue out here makes perfect sense.’
Lexi turned to Mark, who was standing with the engineer. ‘There’ll be some sort of technical report I can access? With dimensions?’
‘Of course,’ the engineer said.
‘And are you organising some technical scoping for lighting and sound?’
He nodded.
‘Good, I’ll need those too.’ She paused, then eyeballed the mayor again. ‘I’ll check the wording in your letter, but if my memory serves me correctly,’ and she knew the letter by heart, ‘the Council would be providing an equivalent space. This is not an equivalent space.’
‘Letter?’ The mayor turned to Mark and held out his hand.
Mark shrugged. ‘I don’t have it here. I’ll forward a copy when I return to the office.’
The mayor’s face went red. ‘Then I think we are done here.’
So, Mayor Foreskin was taking his bat and ball and going home.
No surprise there.
What did surprise her was the response from the rest of the team, who were all busy inspecting various bits of the ceiling and walls. Anything except making eye contact with the mayor.
Or her. Interesting.
There was clearly a power gradient here, and she’d bet her bottom dollar the mayor could terminate the contract of any one of these employees if they spoke out. Except hers. Only Thomas Clayborne could do that. The thought of the mayor sacrificing careers to get his own way made her more determined that he wasn’t going to get his hands on her theatre.
There were few pleasantries as the group left and soon, she and Mark were the only ones left in the car park.
‘Thoughts?’
‘You don’t want to know what I’m thinking,’ Lexi stated crisply. ‘I’m not going to let him railroad me.’ Not the way he’s railroading all of you.
‘I’ll have a look at the letter over the weekend. I’m not sure how legally binding it is, but even I can see this is not the same size. Or shape.’
Lexi blew out a frustrated breath. ‘Don’t take what I’m about to say as any sort of acceptance of this proposal, because I’m one hundred per cent against it. Size, shape etcetera, I could potentially work with those in isolation if I had one of them as a challenge. But this location...’ She turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees. ‘There is nothing here, and that’s what will kill Rivervue. People won’t drive for ten minutes to come out here when they could enjoy live music at the pub or sit in comfort at one of the restaurants in town, then walk back to their holiday accommodation. They can’t even see the river.’
‘Being this close to the river is one of the prime advantages of this site. How about we take a walk.’ He gestured to the crushed-granite path that meandered along the bank.
‘I’m not going to change my mind.’
‘I’m not going to try to make you change your mind. I haven’t been out here before and I want to see the potential for the site.’
Lexi gave him a long hard look. ‘You’ve been working on the proposed relocation, and you’ve never been out here? Never?’
‘I prioritised the sites I was working on. Visiting everything Council owns would take about a year.’
‘Okaaaaay.’ She couldn’t figure out whether to be as mad as hell he hadn’t bothered, or keep the glimmer of hope the site visit had given her. She walked a few paces down the path, and decided to keep the hope alive. Maybe, now, he would know it wasn’t suitable.
The Butter Factory was sited on a long wide bend on the Brachen River. Here the banks were steeper than in town and there was no easy access to the water. The crushed-granite path ran in both directions. ‘Which way?’
‘West. It’s gorgeous out here at sunset.’ Show him how great this site is for anything but a theatre.
Lexi was pleased she’d teamed her outfit with a pair of flat white sneakers. She had plenty to show him.
They set off in silence, with only the crunch of the granite underfoot, the birds and the occasional airbrakes from a semi-trailer out on the highway. Narrow to start with, the area opened up as
they followed the bend, widening out into parkland with picnic shelters and playground equipment.
‘Nice,’ Mark commented as he looked around.
‘When people talk about coming out to the Butter Factory, this is what they come for. Sundays, this is full of families.’
‘Swimming?’
‘No. You might get the occasional swimmer here, but they tend to head down to the waterholes end of town and go in at the shallows. It’s deep over there, and trees and rubbish wash down in the floods.’
‘When was the last flood?’
‘We had a minor flood in the summer of ’09. I’d just started with River-vue, and I spent the two days before the peak moving everything out of the lower floors. I will say one thing for Council, they’ve worked hard on flood mitigation with the levy walls and things. If we had that event again, I don’t think the water would even get to Main Street.’
‘And here?’
‘The factory didn’t go under. All of this did.’ Lexi scanned the park. ‘The locals always mark the posts when it happens. Here you go.’ She walked over to a light post. ‘See, up there.’
Mark peered up at the mark. ‘That’s a minor flood?’
‘For Brachen.’ Lexi wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m a bit worried about all that development along the river actually. My dad always used to say if it wasn’t built on in the ’70s in Australia, you wouldn’t want to build there now.’
‘Because?’
‘Flooding, or swampy land. Bad soil.’ Lexi ticked the myriad reasons off on her fingers. ‘Our forefathers were good at choosing the best sites and moving on from the bad sites. That’s why the theatre is where it is. That land was deemed unsuitable for housing. Flood risk.’
‘There’s a lot more modelling nowadays. The one in a hundred year event is an acceptable risk for housing.’ Mark stopped and stared at the view. ‘How is your dad?’ He paused. ‘And your mum?’
Lexi considered her answer carefully. ‘Last I heard, they were good. Your parents?’
Mark gave a brief shake of his head. ‘Mum had breast cancer. Aggressive. She died before Emma was born. Dad never recovered from losing her. He’s in care now. Dementia. That drive that kept him going during his career, he’s still got it. Just can’t remember where to use it. It’s hard to watch.’
Lexi laid a hand on his arm. ‘Oh Mark, I’m sorry, I didn’t know. That must be awful.’
‘There’s one positive. He doesn’t remember all the times I disappointed him.’
‘He had nothing to be disappointed about.’ Lexi stopped at the rail and stared out over the water. ‘You’ve worked hard your whole life. You’re successful.’
‘Someone’s been reading my bio.’
‘Guilty.’ Lexi smiled.
Mark smiled back. ‘Don’t worry, I read yours too.’
Lexi stiffened, then relaxed again. Everything in her bio was in the public domain. There was nothing to worry about.
They came to the path’s junction with Deadhorse Lane just as the sun touched the horizon. ‘We should head back. There’s no streetlights out here.’
They were walking back, side by side when Mark said, ‘You never showed any interest in a career in theatre when you were younger.’
Unlike him, who’d mapped his future out at a very young age. ‘We were young, we never talked about the future.’
‘So why theatre?’
‘First I volunteered with a travelling children’s puppet show. I’d like to say I knew when I was three, but I actually fell into it. I needed a job and there was an opening to travel with them. I applied and the rest, as they say, was history. It wasn’t until much later that I decided to have a career in theatre.’
‘That’s a bit like the Ron de Vue story.’
Lexi’s heart jumped into her mouth. Could Mark have found out about the Draven? Play it cool, girl. Whatever you do, don’t tip his hand. ‘In what way?’
‘He started out on the farm. Then the war. Ended up in films. I don’t think he ever intended to be a successful actor.’
She hadn’t noticed it before, but now she could see the parallel. Another reason she needed to deliver a cracking production of Larrikin. ‘Happens to a lot of people,’ she said noncommittally.
‘I bet your parents are proud of you.’
‘No.’ Lexi shook her head emphatically. ‘My parents have been critical of my choices ever since they found out I had an older boyfriend when I was fifteen and still at school.’ An understatement if ever she’d made one. ‘At first, I tried to mend the relationship, but it became clear immediately, it wasn’t fixable. Their choice, not mine. I could be Prime Minister and I still wouldn’t be good enough.’
‘No way,’ Mark whistled through his teeth. ‘They were right in that we were too young to be in a serious relationship. Especially you.’ He laid his hand over hers on the rail. ‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again if I need to. If I’d known your age, I wouldn’t have gone there. We were young, and we made a mistake. It’s not like it never played out that way in hundreds of country towns along the coast.’ He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. ‘Move on, people.’
Lexi’s smile was bittersweet. ‘It’s not me you have to convince. It’s my parents. It doesn’t help that I ditched school a few weeks after we broke up and hitched a ride around Australia in a combi van with a guy called Tomas, here from Germany on a working visa. You were the entrée and Tomas was the main. My parents hated both courses they’d been served, and they’ve never gotten over it.’
Mark stared at her as though he’d never seen her before. ‘I had no idea that’s what happened.’ He paused, and she could almost see the questions whirling through his head. ‘What was dessert?’
‘Dessert?’
‘If you served them two unexpected relationships as their first course and meal, what did you follow that up with?’
The million-dollar question.
Actually, I had a baby when I was sixteen and he died soon after birth and no-one knows that except the people I met up there.
‘Nothing specific.’ Her parents knew few details of her partial circumnavigation of Australia, or how she’d become involved with Project Hope, a puppet theatre for sick and dying children. Just that she’d left home with a tourist, had taken a low-paying job in a travelling theatre while she was staying in Cairns and then a few years later, she’d left the troupe for a job in Brachen.
She could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen them since she left on that journey—their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary celebration, her grandmother’s funeral, a week after she made director at Rivervue.
Each time, she’d been the one to instigate it. Each time, she’d left with a bad taste in her mouth.
‘They’ve got a deep resentment, which started when they found out their daughter was an individual with the ability to make her own choices and also her fair share of mistakes. Maybe, if I’d knuckled down and followed their rules, it might have been different, but nothing I do now will ever be able to erase what happened. So, I moved on.’
‘Jeez.’ He stared at her for the longest time. ‘I fought tooth and nail to get some sort of access to Emma after her mother took her, then blocked me. Then I did get access, and that unexpectedly became full custody. I’ve tried to have Skye in Emma’s life, and it’s Skye who’s refusing. Seeing what I see, I can’t imagine anyone deliberately doing this to their child. It’s heartbreaking.’ He took her hand and held it. ‘It’s wrong.’
Lexi swallowed hard. ‘Everyone who makes a decision makes it with the best of intention. My parents are working within that. I lied to them. And to them, that was unforgivable. I think it was my grandmother and their church controlling my mother, and when you add that extra layer of learned societal expectation into it, it makes sense. Alexis Spencer-Davis was meant to be a teacher or a nurse, or maybe a housewife. Lexi Spencer is a glorified actress. That’s what they see, and it was never in their game plan.’
‘
You are not a glorified actress. You’re a creative director, theatre manager, set builder, puppeteer, playwright—you name it and you can throw your hand in the ring to do it. It’s an impressive skill set, and even more so when you realise your history.’ He turned her towards him. ‘And you’re not a liar. I’ve got firsthand experience with a manipulative liar, and that isn’t you. You didn’t specifically lie to me about your age, you just didn’t give the information.’ He dropped his hands and turned to the river. ‘You were fifteen. I was seventeen. We were kids. Everyone does things they wish they didn’t when they were kids. It’s how we learn.’
Lexi’s eyes started to burn.
She was a liar, but guilt at what she’d done kept her silent.
This was the conversation they should have had all those years ago. The one forbidden by both sets of parents. Mark’s parents trying to protect their son and his all-important internship. Her parents horrified their young well-behaved daughter had fallen to the wild side. And caught in the middle were the two lovers, who were told that one day they’d think they were lucky their relationship had been broken off before anything else happened.
Lexi smiled at Mark through her tears. ‘Oh, I learned, alright.’
Mark stared down at her. ‘Me too. I’m sorry. Sorry I didn’t stand up for you. For us. I didn’t realise how controlling my father was, and how important status was to him. That internship meant the world to him and he spent the duration of it ensuring I didn’t mess up. It was as though he guarded my opportunities, because he never had them.’
‘Same. In hindsight, I’m sure my parents wanted better for me. I didn’t see that at the time, and I was angry and upset and I threw what was left of my relationship with them away when I got into that combi and let Tomas drive me away. I beat myself up over that for a long time, but you know, I don’t do that anymore.’
‘We’ve all made mistakes.’ Mark wrapped her in his arms.
She yearned to lean in.
Instead she stayed rigid in his embrace. But the warmth of his body, the scent of him awoke feelings long dormant. Her heart won the battle and she stopped fighting and relaxed into the hug. Ever since Mark reappeared in her life, and she’d gotten to know him again, she’d wanted this. Known it was wrong, and wanted it anyway.
