Set Me Free

by Jennifer Collin

  ‘It doesn’t count. I’m talking about people.’

  ‘I’m committed to you.’

  ‘I’m your sister, you’ve got no choice.’

  ‘Well, I’m committed to Ben.’

  ‘Friends and neighbours don’t count.’ Ben joined in, taking Emily’s side.

  Charlotte furrowed her brow at him.

  ‘Well, I think she’s right,’ he continued. ‘You pick men who aren’t good enough for you. Ones that you’ll get sick of and get rid of in a few weeks or months, if they’re lucky enough to last that long.’

  ‘That’s rich coming from you, Casanova,’ Charlotte retorted.

  Ben had a conga line of women dancing through Bean Drinkin’, all shamelessly fawning over him, desperate for his attention. Tall, good-looking and a master at an espresso machine, he had no trouble finding a date. Maintaining his interest beyond that date was another thing altogether.

  ‘I’m feeling a little picked on here,’ Charlotte said. ‘What have you two been up to in my absence? Dissecting my life?’

  ‘Not at all. This is the first time you’ve come up,’ Emily said.

  ‘Why don’t I believe that?' Charlotte asked, glaring at them both through narrowed eyes. Tired of the scrutiny, she opted to deflect the attention away from herself. ‘So what has come up while I’ve been away then? What’s new?'

  ‘Same old, same old,’ Ben said quickly, shifting in his seat a little and looking towards the queue forming at the counter. Emily blurted out a sudden ‘oomph’ and reached down under the table, glaring at Ben as she did. There was something suspicious about the way they were fidgeting that Charlotte, in her lethargic state, couldn’t quite pinpoint.

  As Charlotte looked docilely between them, Emily jumped up and declared she had to go. She gathered her bag before giving Ben a kiss on the cheek, hissing something in his ear, and then coming around the table to hug her sister. ‘I’ll drop in for lunch and make sure you’re still awake. Bye.’

  She was gone, limping slightly, before Charlotte managed to get her goodbye out. The jetlag had her on a time delay.

  ‘I should get back to work too,’ said Ben, rising just as abruptly.

  ‘Hmm,’ Charlotte murmured, puzzled. Something was certainly amiss, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. Ben switched on the coffee grinder behind the counter and it roared into life, drowning out her unasked questions. Oh well, she'd just have to figure it out later.

  ‘I should get to work too, I guess,’ she said to no one in particular as she dragged herself to her feet. ‘You better keep those coffees coming,’ she called to Ben over the top of the grinder as she weaved her way out of the café. ‘I’ll be back.’

  Chapter two

  Craig Carmichael ran his hand through his cropped hair, leaving several sandy tufts standing up. He loosened his tie and shrugged uncomfortably in his grey, pin-striped suit jacket, wishing he’d left them both in the car. Damn, it was hot out. He rubbed his five o’clock shadow and closed his eyes for a count of three, before pushing open the door of the Evans Gallery with the weariness of a man who had spent the day being harangued and generally told to fuck off. Thankfully, the day was coming to an end, and he was about to have the last of those conversations.

  All in all, it had been a very shit day. Things had started to go sour on his way to the office when that bright yellow Morris had cut him off on Kingsford Smith Drive. After that, the traffic had seemed to conspire against him.

  Things didn’t get any better when he walked into his 9am meeting.

  His boss and late father’s long time business partner, Keith Morgan, was in one of his ball-breaking moods. Almost comically, Keith was the archetypal 1970s Queensland businessman. Now in his late 60’s, he still favoured short-sleeved shirts with ties and shorts with long socks.

  There was nothing comical about him today. Two things were putting Keith on edge: his annual Melbourne Cup garden party scheduled for tomorrow afternoon and the West End community meeting they had booked in for Wednesday night.

  Every year Keith felt obliged to host the Melbourne Cup party, despite grumbling for months before and afterwards about how much it cost him, how everyone was sponging off him and how much of a mess it made of his lawns. His wife Miranda considered the event pivotal to maintaining her social standing and in the interest of a happy marriage, he went along with it, although not quietly.

  Community meetings were another thing Keith went along with, also under audible duress. At Craig’s insistence, Morgan Carmichael Property Developments had a policy of talking directly to the people affected by their proposed infill developments. Consultation with the locals was a known way to minimise resistance. But Keith passionately didn’t give a crap what the community thought and hated doing the meetings for the waste of time he was convinced they were. In fact, he begrudged the whole arm of the business Craig headed up. He was especially riled about Wednesday’s meeting because the West End community in particular, had a long and troubled relationship with developers and their proposals.

  ‘These,’ Keith announced, jabbing the whiteboard at the front of the conference room with his index finger, ‘are our current projects. Does anyone notice anything unusual about this?’ he thundered.

  Accustomed to his habit of asking questions to which he wasn’t looking for an answer, none of the eight men gathered around the table offered a response.

  ‘Five out of the ten of them are bloody infill developments. Most of which have needed the acquisition and demolition of existing property, and consequently, have been dragged out to the point of almost costing us money. Or they have attracted bad press for the company. I’ve just about had enough of this racket, Carmichael,’ he said, going for Craig’s balls first. ‘There’s still plenty of farmland in this state ripe for development. We need to go back to basics, and I say the new suburbs are the sites we should be focusing on. We know they make more money, and they come with a lot less hassle. I have had a gutful of pandering to bloody community groups.’

  ‘So you’ve said before, Keith,’ Craig responded. This was generally the tone of the weekly Director’s meeting whenever a community forum was imminent. ‘And as I’ve said before, hiding away from the locals will only make them more hostile. We need to let them feel like they've been consulted, even if we do disregard what they want.'

  Craig continued before Keith had a chance to jump down his throat. ‘You know, you might also want to ask yourself why half of our current projects are being driven by one division and every other division of the company is just delivering one major. Although,’ he drawled, ‘it’s not really my place to comment on that.' Craig eased back into his chair and listened with satisfaction as the sound of fidgeting filled the room.

  He had to work five times as hard as the other directors to sustain his division, and it was blatantly obvious to anyone who paused for thought that the other five divisional heads were coasting, riding on his success.

  Unfortunately, as Craig well knew, although the apartment market was booming when he established the Infill Development Division at Morgan Carmichael; the wave of success had crested, and they were on the verge of getting dunked in the wash.

  Mark Andrews, always the peacemaker, was quick to add to the discussion. Mark was the head of marketing, and not one of the divisional heads failing to bring in new projects. ‘Keith has a point,’ he said. ‘We aren’t making as much money as we used to. The apartment market has turned to shit. The young and upwardly mobile haven't only stopped buying, they’ve stopped moving out of the family nest. The only ones still in the market are young families with upper middle-class aspirations demanding a McMansion for under $500K. And they’ll live in the middle of nowhere and drive an hour to work every day to have that.’

  Craig had a healthy deference for Mark and his cynical disrespect for his fellow man. It made him brilliant at his job.

  Although he shared Mark’s disdain for humankind, the idealist in Craig hadn’t yet been crushed. He'd grown
up watching his father lead the charge of turning farmland into suburbia, buying up great swathes of property, subdividing the life out of it and selling it with promises of the perfect lifestyle. It never sat comfortably with him.

  After school, he declined the offer to move straight into a well-paid job under his father’s wing and instead insisted on studying town planning. It was there that he discovered a whole world of possibilities that Morgan Carmichael was ignoring, and things began to fall into place. He learnt that the perfect lifestyle came in as many different shapes and sizes as the people living it.

  He also found his true passion in discovering the potential of the forgotten parts of the city. The old factories, warehouses and other disused buildings that littered the inner suburbs captivated him and became his obsession. The promise of realising their hidden potential and concocting the perfect mix of past and present drove him to want to design buildings and neighbourhoods of character and distinction. They were a sharp contrast to the monotony and isolation of the suburbs his father built.

  They’d had a good run with the infill developments. But now, eight years later, the market was slowing. The crusader in him wanted to persevere; however, he was finally willing to admit that if they didn’t make a strategic move soon, they would start to lose money, especially given the rest of the team were riding his coattails. There was some satisfaction to be found in the knowledge that if it weren’t for his accursed infill projects, Morgan Carmichael would have ground to a halt already.

  ‘Too bloody right,’ agreed Keith, referring to Mark’s observations about the market. He proceeded to ball out each of the divisional heads one by one, demanding an explanation for why they weren’t bringing in the goods and turning over the profits. The room quickly filled with a lot of hot air and excuses.

  After an hour of it, Keith had had enough.

  ‘Alright then. This is what we are going to do about it. Craig, no new projects for you – I want you to focus on wrapping up the ones underway. Ditch any new ideas and ones we’re yet to invest in. I want half of your team redirected to helping out the rest of these bozos.’

  Craig interjected. ‘Are you shutting me down?’

  ‘No. You can keep your little hobby. But let me warn you, this bloody Boundary Street development in West End had better work out, or there’ll be hell to pay.’

  Craig’s patience had worn thin. He was working his arse off, and Keith’s amplified attack on his division was unwarranted. He was not going to lie down and take it.

  ‘I’d hardly call fifty per cent of the company’s projects a little hobby,’ he said, leaning forward in his chair and resting his forearms on the edge of the table.

  ‘I need you in other areas, Craig. You need to be bringing in profitable business, not these little macramé projects.’

  ‘These little macramé projects are profitable, Keith.' Well, for now.

  Craig picked the wrong day to push Keith’s buttons. Keith exhaled a long, furious gust of wind. ‘You'd better fucking prove it then, son. If you don’t make sure this Boundary Street development works out, I will shut you down and put you on to something else whether you like it or not.’

  Equally livid, Craig rose to his feet. ‘I’ll tell you what, Keith. If this Boundary Street development doesn’t succeed, I will do you one better. I will leave Morgan Carmichael, and you won’t need to suffer me and my hobbies any longer. But when it does succeed, when it succeeds, you're going to back off and let me run the division how I want. I can assure you, the money will keep rolling in.’

  The silence was deafening as their colleagues passed furtive looks amongst themselves.

  ‘Very well then,’ seethed Keith, glaring at Craig. Turning his attention to the rest of the room, he barked, ‘and the rest of you, sort your shit out.' The men scampered from the room as Craig gave Keith one final glower.

  No sooner had Craig returned to his office, than he took a call from the financier of the now pivotal Boundary Street development. Their financial backers were concerned about the timeframes for the project and needed some movement on it before Christmas. He was pushing Craig to bring forward the planning approvals, which was not something Craig had a lot of control over.

  His stress levels elevating, Craig hung up the phone and asked Margie, his personal assistant, to summon the team together. He broke the news to them that some of them were to be reassigned, and the ones who would remain now had their careers riding on the success of Boundary Street. He studied their reactions. The best people were forming their plans to leave right before his eyes. All of them were pissed off. They were a strong team who were good at their jobs, and they didn’t appreciate having them threatened.

  By lunch time, Craig was beginning to regret his provocation.

  By late afternoon, he found himself in West End talking to angry locals.

  The Evans Gallery was his last stop before he called it a day. It was next to the Vietnamese restaurant, where he’d been called all manner of names, none of which were interpreted by the teenage girl blushing furiously and trying to calm her confused and panicked parents. On the other side was the café called Bean Drinkin’, where the coffee was the finest he’d tasted in a while, but the owner was surly and scowled at him with pure distaste.

  He anticipated more of the same when he entered the gallery. A little golden bell above the door tinkled daintily as he walked in. He noticed two things immediately: the intriguing painting on the wall to his right and the beguiling woman smiling lazily at him from behind a sleek-looking asymmetrical 1960s Danish-styled desk. Unsettled by the pair of slightly smoky grey eyes that came with the lazy smile, he moved directly toward the painting to take it in.

  The canvas was large; it took up almost a quarter of the wall. The image was a view down a narrow alley corralled by stark grey skyscrapers that, thanks to the wash of the paint strokes, appeared to be crumbling. At the end of the alley, a small dog with a broken tail lay beside an old-fashioned dustbin, chewing a small, bright red ball.

  ‘Hi,’ welcomed the woman behind the counter. Her voice was as tired as her eyes and smile, but there was still something smouldering under the surface, like a combusting rain cloud. ‘Can I help you with anything in particular or would you just like to browse?’

  ‘Can you tell me anything about this piece?’ he asked, unwisely. She stood up to join him, swinging her hips as she walked, subtly but hypnotically. This might turn out to be the hardest conversation of them all; particularly given he was struggling to keep his eyes on her face and off those swinging hips. He looked up. Nope, no respite there. Her soft face was just as absorbing.

  ‘This piece is by of one of our regular exhibitors, Emily Evans,’ she told him. ‘The whole exhibition is her work, if you’d like to look around.’

  He did, briefly, though remaining rooted to the spot. He took in a room of stark white walls covered in similar work and noticed a small archway leading to a second, equally simple room, within which he glanced more. Emily Evans appeared to have some talent.

  ‘This is good,’ he said, and meant it. He gazed intently at the picture. It was the safest thing to look at in the room.

  ‘I know. She’s clever isn’t she?' The swinging hips had inched a little closer. There was a distinct tone of pride in her voice.

  ‘Emily Evans,’ he pondered aloud. ‘Any connection to the gallery?’

  ‘She’s my sister. I’m Charlotte Evans, the owner.’

  He turned away from the painting to face Charlotte Evans and watched a fetching pink flush colour her cheeks. He fought a strange impulse to cup her face with his hands to cool it.

  With a degree of resignation, he offered her one to shake. ‘Craig Carmichael.'

  He waited for the penny to drop.

  It didn’t.

  She slid her warm hand into his, giving it a firm shake and then slowly withdrew it, holding his gaze. Heaven help him.

  Failing to bat an eyelid of recognition, Charlotte Evans launched breathlessl
y into her sales pitch. ‘Regretfully this exhibition has sold out. But lucky for you I am connected,’ she smiled coyly, but clumsily and was only more enchanting for it. ‘If you're interested in seeing any of her recent work I can possibly arrange a private viewing. Here, let me get you one of Emily’s cards.’

  She sashayed back across the room and withdrew a bundle of business cards from a desk drawer. ‘Of course, you're also welcome to just have a look around. I’m not usually open on Mondays, so I was planning to close up at five but feel free to linger.’

  Craig accepted the business card and unnecessarily checked his watch. He already knew it was just before 5pm. ‘I will have a quick look around if you don’t mind,’ he said, indicating the second room, into which he was desperate to escape to clear his head. She apparently had no idea who he was. Perhaps she hadn’t taken any notice of the signature at the bottom of the letter. He needed to regroup and come at this again. What was he doing making small talk?

  But Charlotte was making that rather difficult. ‘Let me show you my favourite,’ she whispered conspiratorially and gripping his bicep, led him into the next room, denying him his moment to recover. Oh no, don’t touch me, he thought, but didn’t pull away. She drew him to a smaller piece and thankfully released him.

  The painting was washed like the other, but the streetscape was more Mediterranean and the colours more terracotta. The perspective was similar too, looking down a narrow street this time, rather than an alley. Stained washing was strewn high between the three-storey buildings, fluttering in a breeze.

  ‘Can you see it?’ Charlotte asked him.

  He looked at her and caught his breath at her lopsided smile. This time he wanted to do more than cool her cheeks. Her delicious mouth was within kissing distance. Turning quickly back to the painting, he moved in for a closer look. ‘What am I looking for?’ he asked.

  ‘You’ll know when you see it.’

  And he did. In the basket of a bicycle resting against a wall was a bunch of carefully crafted flowers. The attention to detail was so accurate they couldn’t be mistaken for anything but wildflowers. Fine and delicate with fragile and spindly stems, they were a burst of colour on the otherwise washed out canvas.