Just for Fun

by Rosalind James

  “I’m not joking, Nico,” Koti insisted. “Sit up and read this.”

  Nic realized his seriousness at last. He sat up, a cold dread suddenly filling him. “Is it Zack?” he demanded. “Emma?”

  “In a manner of speaking. Not hurt,” Koti went on hastily as Nic paled. “Just . . . just read it, cuz.”

  “Bloody hell,” Nic said when he saw the headline. He continued to curse softly as he finished the article. Looked up at Koti furiously, finally at a loss for words.

  “She’s touched a nerve with that,” his roomie said with sympathy. “Heaps of comments too.”

  Nic gave his terse opinion of what everyone could do with their comments.

  “Not true, I take it,” Koti said.

  Nic rubbed a thumb over the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Nah. Not true. But how am I meant to prove it?”

  “Somebody’s had a whack at it for you,” Koti said. He swiveled the laptop around, clicked a few times. “She must be a hell of a girl. That took some nerve.”

  “Oh, no,” Nic groaned. “Emma.” A photo of her looking pretty and defiant. And plenty of quotes. She really had thrown herself in there.

  “Nic and I had a short relationship when we were both very young,” he read. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to let him know at the time that that relationship had resulted in a child. He didn’t find out, in fact, until this year, when he was already engaged to Claudia. But as soon as he discovered it—and I mean the day after he discovered it—he was involved. He’s acknowledged paternity of our son, he’s paid the full maintenance every month since, and he’s set up a schedule of visitation which he’s kept to. I have no idea why Mrs. Parker would say the things she has. But I want to state for the record that Nic has done everything he should have done, everything he could have done, for his son.”

  He scrolled down, read the rest. “In response to the allegations of an ongoing relationship between herself and Wilkinson, Ms. Martens responded, ‘We were not romantically involved while Nic was engaged to Claudia.’ She refused further comment on the subject.”

  “That’s something Kate would do,” Koti mused when Nic looked up again. “Not many women would come out swinging like that, though, without thinking about what kind of abuse they were letting themselves in for.”

  “She looks like a fluffy little kitten,” Nic said. “But she’s got the heart of a lion.”

  “That’s mana,” Koti agreed. “Good on her.”

  “I need to ring her,” Nic realized. “This happened, when?” He checked the first article again. “Yesterday. Bloody hell. I need to talk to her.”

  “Coming down for breakfast?” Koti asked.

  “Tell them I’ll be down in a minute. I need to do this first.”

  After ten her time, he realized. “Hi,” he said when she answered. “Am I waking you up?”

  Her laugh was shaky. “Not exactly. I’m so glad to hear your voice. It’s been . . . a hard day.”

  “Aw, Emma,” he pleaded. “Don’t cry. Come on, sweetheart. Don’t cry.”

  “Can’t help it,” he heard through the sobs. “Give me a minute, OK?”

  “Has it really been bad?” he asked when she’d got herself under control again. “Your family?”

  “No,” she said, her voice a bit snuffly still. “It’s all right. Lucy, my parents . . . Did you see what your dad said?”

  “Oh, no,” he groaned. “What did he say? Do I want to hear this?”

  “It’s not like that. It’s good. Are you online? Look for it. I’ll wait.”

  “Did you find it?” she asked after a minute.

  “Yeh. Hang on. I’m reading.” Short and sweet, he saw. “‘Nic’s never been anything but a credit to us,’ the elder Wilkinson asserted. “I trust him to do what’s right, because that’s how he was raised. I know this is all bollocks, because I know my son. And my grandson. I don’t know what Claudia’s mum’s on about. And that’s all I have to say.’”

  “Well, that’s set them right,” he said with a smile.

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “He’s on your side. No doubt about that.”

  “I’d better ring them too, this morning,” he decided. “Nah, too late now. Tonight, then. Crikey, what a bloody cock-up. But talking of people who’re on my side, what you did? I appreciate it, but you shouldn’t have. You don’t have to fight my battles.”

  “Of course I do. What did you expect? I’m not going to let people say those kinds of things about you. Why would Claudia’s mum even say that, though? It’s all over. I don’t get it.”

  “I don’t know,” he said, almost as perplexed as she was. “I can’t believe that’s what Claudia told her. I guess it’s how she twisted what she heard. She was so wrapped up in it all—the wedding, the publicity, the whole ‘glamour couple’ thing. She had a scrapbook, you know? Like you did with Zack, that baby book. But instead, it was full of all Claudia’s press clippings, the adverts we did together. She’d got herself so invested. That was her career, being glamorous Claudia’s mum. And now, all the World Cup publicity, thinking about what might have been . . .”

  “She needed somebody to blame,” Emma finished.

  “Reckon she did. At least until Claudia marries a politician. Or becomes one herself. Only a matter of time. And I need to say something else,” he went on, serious now. “There’s nothing in the rest of what she said either. About my being—whatever the hell it was. ‘Popular with the ladies.’ I don’t spread anything around. I hope you know that.”

  “I do,” she said, and he heard the catch in her voice. “But it helps to have you tell me.”

  He grimaced. “That’s it, isn’t it. How do you prove you didn’t do something? Because if it were true, I’d say the same thing, wouldn’t I? But it’s not. I promise it’s not.”

  “I know it’s not,” she assured him again. “You don’t need to worry about me. I didn’t believe it. I never doubted you.”

  He sat a moment in silence, feeling shaken and humbled by her faith in him, especially given his disastrously poor performance the last time around. He’d been wracking his brain for a way to reassure her, and hadn’t been able to come up with a single thing. It was such a relief to know he didn’t have to. He wished he knew how to tell her that, but he couldn’t think of what to say. The phone just didn’t work well enough, he thought in frustration. He needed to see her, and hold her. To be able to show her how he felt.

  “How’s Zack?” he asked at last, abandoning the attempt to express himself. “Least she didn’t name him. Be thankful for small blessings, I guess.”

  “He doesn’t know. I didn’t see any point in telling him. It’s over, I hope. And oh!” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe I haven’t said! Congratulations on your win.”

  He laughed a bit in grateful relief. “Yeh. The win. It was nice, at the time.”

  Chapter 37

  School holidays had been shifted about to accommodate the semifinals and final of the World Cup, to Emma’s amusement. Only in New Zealand. Zack would be off this week and next. Which meant that when Nic came home next week, they could spend some time with him. Maybe she could arrange a day or two off herself, she thought as she was hurrying Zack through the Monday morning routine before dropping him at the childcare center. She’d heard from 2nd Hemisphere again, and late November was looking like a real possibility. If Roger was annoyed, well, maybe it didn’t matter quite so much. Not if she could finally, mercifully, look forward to the day she could quit this job.

  She’d thought it would be easier to keep working there, now that she was looking at the possibility of leaving. To her surprise, the opposite was true. One foot, it seemed, was already out the door, with the rest of her longing to follow. Especially today. Anything Elizabeth’s article hadn’t accomplished, she knew, her own picture and defense of Nic would have finished off. She’d be Topic A today, even amongst an office full of engineers.

  Well, that was just too bad, she told herself bracingly. Because she need
ed her paycheck, and so did Zack. She walked into the office at her usual time, headed straight for her desk without saying hello to anyone, and immediately switched on her computer and pulled up the Emirates Building revisions. Let someone take issue with that.

  Her self-imposed Zone of Isolation did its business, and she worked through the morning undisturbed. Until her mobile rang, just before noon. Lucy.

  “Can you talk?” her sister asked.

  “If it’s important. I’m trying to get these drawings done.”

  “You didn’t see, then.”

  “What didn’t I see?” Emma was getting alarmed now. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, man. I hate to tell you, Em. But . . . go look, online. It’s the Herald again. And then ring me back.”

  Nic Wilkinson’s double life . . . Or is it a hat trick?

  Emma skimmed down the story, past a photo of a buxom young woman with a glass in her hand. Down to the pertinent paragraph.

  “. . . I don’t usually do this kind of thing,” Ms. Soames, a vivacious brunette, said. “But when I first met Nic at post-match party a couple years ago, he needed somebody to talk to. That’s all it was, at first. His girlfriend didn’t really understand the pressure he was under, he told me. We ended up talking all night. He was so unhappy, and so grateful to have somebody who understood him and was willing to listen. He just wanted to be comforted. He appreciated that so much. And ever since, we’ve had something really special. He comes to see me whenever the team’s in Wellington. I don’t think he has anyone in his life who loves him for who he is, not the way I do.”

  The phone rang again as she read the final lines. Lucy. Of course. “So did you see it?” her sister asked impatiently.

  “Yeah. Hang on.” She walked out of the office with her mobile. Out into the passageway. “Yeah, I saw it.”

  “I hope you aren’t going to start excusing him again,” Lucy warned. “Even you can’t find a way out of this.”

  “I don’t know what I think,” Emma admitted. “Nic just swore to me—just yesterday—that he doesn’t cheat. And what Claudia’s mum said, the other stuff, I know that wasn’t true. If it’d been up to Nic, Claudia would’ve come along every time we were together. So if that was a lie, why wouldn’t this be?”

  “This girl’s just lying, then?” Lucy said. “Come on, Em. You don’t really believe that.”

  “I don’t know what I believe,” Emma said, more firmly this time. “And I’m not going to decide. Not until I talk to Nic.”

  “And when will that be?” Lucy demanded.

  “Well, not now. It’s . . . almost midnight there. And I have to go back to work. I’ll ring him tonight, when I can talk, and he can too. I have to go.”

  “Em . . .”

  “I have to go, Luce.”

  The thought of walking back into the office, past the desks full of men who would, she knew, have read both stories, made her quail. No hope for it, though. She’d have to face them sometime. Back to the drawings, she told herself fiercely. She could do this.

  It was even harder than she’d imagined. Because there was Ryan, standing near her desk, talking to Sean. Her colleague looked at her with some sympathy, but Ryan openly smirked as she walked by. Whatever Nic had said to him, it had kept him quiet these past months. But there was no question he was enjoying her discomfiture now. She ignored him and opened her document again, feeling sick inside.

  A trip to the gym at lunchtime helped, as always. At least nobody in her class knew her name, or who she was. She was just another body to them. She’d go back to work. Finish the Emirates drawings. Go home and ring Nic.

  Another call on her mobile, though, soon after she’d got back to her desk, put an end to those plans. Zack’s childcare center. Oh, no. Not today.

  “Hi, Emma.” It was Zoe, the center’s director, sounding a bit harassed. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to come get Zack.”

  “Is he ill? What does he have? How bad?”

  “He isn’t ill,” Zoe hastened to say. “It’s not that at all. But he’s been fighting, and you know that’s not on.”

  “Fighting? Zack?” Emma couldn’t have been more surprised. “How? Why?”

  “What was in the paper yesterday,” Zoe said reluctantly. “And this morning as well, I hear. A couple of the boys said some things. I gather that Zack felt he had to defend his . . . his father. It would have been better if you’d told me about this, so I could have looked out for it. As it was, I didn’t know anything till one of the aides explained it to me. I don’t read the Herald.”

  “Sorry,” was all Emma could think of to say. She opened her desk drawer, pulled out her purse. Hastily saved her document and began the process of shutting down her computer. “Is he hurt? Is anyone else hurt?”

  “Nobody’s badly injured,” Zoe said. “A few scratches and bruises, that’s all. But it’s a center policy that we don’t allow fighting. He’ll have to go home and cool off. I’m talking to the other parents as well. It wasn’t unprovoked, and I don’t anticipate serious consequences. But you’ll need to impress upon Zack that no matter the provocation, fighting isn’t allowed. And he’ll need to make some apologies. But we can discuss it more when you bring him in tomorrow. Just now, you have a very unhappy little boy, and I think it’s best if you take him home and get him calmed down before we go any further.”

  Emma was already on her feet, on her way to Roger’s desk. He was in the midst of a discussion with one of the project managers, and Emma waited, shifting from one foot to the other, until they’d finished. Roger didn’t cut it short, kept her waiting a good five minutes. Turned to her at last. “Yes?”

  “I need to leave,” she said abruptly. “For the day, that is. I need to collect Zack from childcare. I’ll be back in the morning, maybe a bit late.”

  “You have a deadline,” he said sharply.

  “Sorry. He can’t stay there, and I need to go.”

  “I could write you up for this,” he threatened.

  “Why? Because my kid has an emergency?” All the frustrations and injustices of the past two days boiled over into rage. “All right. I’ll tell you I have an emergency. I have an emergency, and I need to leave. I’ll finish the Emirates revisions first thing in the morning. It’ll take me two more hours max. It’s an internal deadline, and you know it.”

  “You need to watch your tone,” he said, bristling.

  “And you need to watch yours,” she snapped. “Because I have the legal right to use my sickness benefit for myself or my child. Anything else is discrimination, and it’s illegal. And my son needs me, and I’m leaving.”

  She left him gaping after her, and didn’t look back.

  She drove as fast as she dared, cursing the distance, the traffic across the Harbour Bridge. Pulled into the carpark at last and hurried into the center’s office.

  “Hi,” she told Zoe distractedly. “I got here as quickly as I could. Where’s Zack?”

  Zoe looked at her in surprise. “I thought you’d already got him.”

  “What?” Emma felt the unease rising like a cold tide. “What do you mean?”

  “No worries,” Zoe said hurriedly. “He must have got confused and gone back to the room. I came back in and he wasn’t here, so I assumed you’d collected him. Let’s go have a look.”

  Emma tried to calm her racing heart as she walked down the hallway with Zoe. They stuck their heads into the big activity room. Empty.

  “The big kids must be playing in the back,” Zoe decided. Another walk out to the enclosed play yard, full of boys and girls running, swinging from overhead bars on the play structure, going down the slides. But no Zack.

  “Let me just ask,” Zoe said, looking a fraction less calm. Emma kept searching the crowd of moving children, turning to look around her. Assuring herself that she’d see her son at any moment.

  Zoe came back with the lead teacher, concern clear on both their faces. “Joan says he didn’t come back after she took hi
m to the office,” Zoe said. “That she told him to wait there for you. Nobody else could have collected him, I take it.”

  “No,” Emma said. Her voice sounded as if it were coming from someplace far away, and the fear was like a tangible being, sitting on her chest, clawing at her.

  Zoe nodded, still maintaining her calm demeanor. “Come on back to the office. We’ll have the teachers take a look round the center. He can’t have gone far. He’ll just be hiding, maybe. Afraid he’s in trouble, and not wanting to face you. That can happen, you know. We’ll find him, I’m sure of it.”

  Back to the little office again. Zoe ringing the other teachers as Emma fidgeted in her visitor’s chair, frantically trying to think of something—anything—she could do to find her son. She wanted to get up and run through the center searching for him, but she forced herself to stay where she was. He’s here, she assured herself over and over. He’s hiding, and he’s here.

  Ten minutes? Fifteen? of Zoe taking calls, before the director turned to Emma with a sigh. “That’s everyplace searched, and no sign of him. I’m afraid we have to assume he’s left the center. The most likely thing is that he would have walked home. I’ll go with you, and we’ll drive the route.”

  “He wouldn’t do that, though,” Emma protested. “He doesn’t have a key, and he wouldn’t do it.”

  “Children do funny things when they’re upset,” Zoe said. “Running home can seem perfectly logical to a six-year-old, even though you or I wouldn’t consider it. Let’s just have a check for him, before we do anything else.”

  “Like ring the police, you mean. We need to do that right now. We’re wasting time here.”

  “Let’s check first,” Zoe coaxed. “He could be sitting outside your front door this minute.”

  “No,” Emma said. Her hands were gripping the arms of the chair, and she’d lost the battle with the fear that consumed her. “No. Ring the police now. They can see if he’s at the flat. They can check more quickly than you and I can.”