The End of Cuthbert Close

by Cassie Hamer

  Talia nodded slowly. ‘I think that’s a great idea. That quiche you made was really delicious.’

  Beth looked at her sideways. Covering for her mother, perhaps?

  ‘I’m glad you think so.’ Beth clasped the steering wheel. ‘Not everyone thinks it’s such a great idea.’

  ‘You mean Mum?’ Talia was looking out the window, which meant Beth couldn’t read her expression. ‘Don’t worry about her. She’s very competitive.’

  Beth gave an uncertain laugh. ‘I’m not worried. Your mum has nothing to fear from us. No pills or powders, I promise.’

  The car was quiet again.

  ‘I don’t think she likes this place,’ said Talia, still staring out the window. ‘She doesn’t seem to like the people.’ Beth felt Talia’s gaze turn on her. ‘Except for your husband. He’s helped us a lot.’

  ‘That’s my Max,’ said Beth. ‘Always helping.’

  ‘He’s really helpful,’ said Talia, in a voice that was disapproving, the same tone she’d used about her mother going to the pub.

  Beth kept her eyes on the road while her stomach rose into her mouth. ‘Is there something you’re trying to tell me, Talia?’

  The girl paused. ‘Nope. No.’ Now, her voice was airy. ‘He’s just a really friendly guy. That’s all. Reminds me a bit of my dad, actually.’

  ‘Oh, really. I’d like to meet him,’ said Beth, the wheels of her brain struggling to turn under the weight of her hangover.

  ‘He’s amazing,’ said Talia. ‘Seriously, he’s the best. He’ll be here soon, I promise.’

  They were at the pool now. Talia unclicked her belt and got out of the car, the door still open.

  ‘Thanks so much for the lift.’

  ‘Hey, Talia, just before you go, would you mind sending me your mum’s phone number? I think I should let her know that I gave you a lift today, and it might be handy for the future. We can carpool, maybe.’ Beth squeezed her thighs together. She hated lying to the poor child, but it was only a half-lie. She really did want to text Charlie, but she also needed to know if she was the woman that Max was texting.

  ‘Sure. I’ll text it to you. What’s your number?’ Talia produced her phone and Beth recited her number. A second later, her phone buzzed.

  ‘Thanks, sweetie, and good luck today.’

  She waited until Talia was out of sight before quickly tapping her phone to bring up the messages.

  Sucking in a breath, she opened the contact card and her eyes raced over the numbers. She read them once, then again.

  It wasn’t her. Max wasn’t texting Charlie Devine.

  Relief swept over her, but it was as brief as a breeze because Talia was back and tapping at the window. Beth nearly dropped her phone.

  ‘I forgot to say – don’t worry if it takes Mum a while to respond. She’s got a new phone and a new number and she’s still working out how to use it.’

  A new phone number? Why would she get a new number?

  ‘Thanks, sweetie … When did she get the new phone? Recently?’

  Talia gave her a strange look. ‘Uh … I don’t know. Maybe yesterday?’

  ‘Okay, hon … well, thanks for letting me know.’

  Beth wound up the window and gave her a friendly toot of farewell. Damn! Now she couldn’t check for sure if it was Charlie who Max was messaging, and she’d also promised to text the woman to tell her about giving Talia a lift to the carnival, and god knows how she would react to that.

  With a feeling of dread settling uneasily over her nausea, Beth started typing.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Alex’s fingers paused over the keyboard as she reread the email to her boss.

  Hello Martin,

  Could you spare a few minutes this afternoon to catch up? It won’t take long, but it’s quite important. Twenty minutes at the most.

  Best, Alex

  Her hand quivered over the send button.

  ‘Knock-knock.’ Brianna stood at the door to Alex’s office, looking particularly svelte and gorgeous as she leant casually against the handle. ‘Partners would like a quick word.’

  ‘I’ll be one minute.’ Alex’s finger rested on the mouse. To send or not to send.

  She pressed send, took a breath and waited for Brianna to leave before standing to zip up her skirt all the way. Walking to the conference room, she felt a flutter of nerves. It wasn’t unusual for the partners to ask for an informal update on a matter during their regular Wednesday morning meeting, but still, Alex had the sense of having been summonsed to the principal’s office. Again.

  She paused at the door to the conference room and tapped lightly.

  ‘Come in,’ came the sonorous voice of Rex Macauley, managing partner and founder of Macauley Partners. Alex stepped timidly into the room and ten pairs of eyes swivelled towards her, all but two belonging to men over the age of fifty.

  ‘Alex, thank you for coming,’ boomed Rex.

  ‘Of course. How can I help?’

  ‘Sit, sit.’ He motioned to the empty chair at the end of the boardroom table. That was strange. He never asked her to sit during the partners’ meeting. Seats at the conference table were for partners only. Underlings gave their updates and skedaddled.

  ‘Oh, I’m happy to stand … Really.’ Alex was flustered. She didn’t want to sit, and because of the tightness of her skirt around the little bean in her stomach, it wasn’t actually possible. Unless she wanted to crack a rib.

  ‘Alex, sit.’ This time it was a command. She sat and felt her waistband crush her middle.

  Sorry, baby.

  She tried to catch Martin’s eye to see if he could convey some inkling of what was going on, but he was studiously fiddling with some papers and refusing to glance in her direction.

  What was going on?

  Oh god. Had she made some grievous error in her work? She’d heard of one poor junior solicitor being called to the conference room, on Valentine’s Day last year, only to be sacked on the spot for misuse of the company credit card. There’d been a security guard at the door, ready to escort her off the premises. She wasn’t even allowed to return to her desk to collect the huge bunch of roses that had been sent by her wildly successful property-developer boyfriend.

  ‘Would you like a tea? Coffee?’ Rex gestured to the cups and saucers on the table.

  This was getting seriously weird. Alex felt panic rising in her throat. Why were they being so nice to her? The partners weren’t nice. They were tough and brilliant and hardworking. But nice certainly wasn’t part of the job description. Perhaps there’d been a tragedy? Were they softening her up for some really terrible news? Not about her job but about something else far more important. Had someone died? Was it James? No. Even the partners weren’t cruel or cowardly enough to deliver tragic news as some kind of group therapy session.

  Rex cleared his throat. Alex gripped her chair.

  ‘I still the remember the day you started with us, Alex. Twelve years ago, when the firm was a third the size of what it is now. You marched into our offices and declared to me that you would be the best solicitor this firm had ever seen.’

  A couple of the partners chuckled.

  Christ, was that really what she’d said? What a brazen little upstart! How had she not been fired on the spot, or at least killed by all the other talented solicitors already working at the firm? They must have hated her. Then again, that confident (and naive) young woman would never have quivered before the partners, feeling an urgent need for the toilet. That woman would have squared her shoulders and stuck out her chin.

  ‘A bold, but perhaps not entirely inaccurate, prediction.’ Alex laughed and locked eyes with the managing director. She straightened in her chair and felt the button that was securing her skirt’s zipper go pop.

  Great. Now she couldn’t stand up or her skirt would fall off.

  Rex clasped his fingers. ‘For some time now, the firm has been thinking about taking on a new partner. Some fresh blood, you might say.’ He gave a
knowing look to the other partners at the table. ‘We want someone with integrity, someone who excels in managing client relationships and, moreover, someone who puts the firm first.’

  The partners murmured in agreement.

  Alex flexed her fingers and clenched them again as Rex droned on about the importance of renewal and generational change and a few other corporate buzzwords like open kimono and synergies and blue-sky thinking. Words that had inspired her and Brianna to think up a new game, Buzzword Bingo, where they passed the minutes in particularly boring meetings by counting up the number of times a particular client or partner used them. Rex was a renowned offender.

  ‘So, Alex … Alex?’ Rex rested his elbows on the conference table.

  ‘Yes, sorry, Rex.’

  ‘Tell us your thoughts.’ He sat back.

  ‘Well, ah …’

  ‘What value could you add to Macauley’s stable of partners?’

  ‘Wait, what? Me?’

  Rex tilted his head in amusement. ‘Yes, Alexandra. We want you to join us as a full partner in the firm.’

  Her mind went blank

  ‘Well, uh, obviously I’m very flattered,’ Alex began. The partners around the table nodded encouragingly. Martin was trying to smile but managed to look more like a squirrel trying to crack open a nut.

  ‘It’s a huge honour to be invited into such esteemed company.’ More head nodding. Alex rotated slightly on the chair and it creaked loudly. ‘I’m, ah … quite overwhelmed, actually.’ If only her parents could see her now. The mere thought of them made her eyes grow hot. Surely they’d be proud? It might take a bit of explaining, the significance of becoming a partner, but if she told them the salary, they’d soon get it.

  Alex sat still. ‘Rex, you have an incredible memory, and you are quite correct in saying that when I came to Macauley all the way from little old Perth it was my ambition to become the youngest female partner ever appointed at the firm.’

  But I was young and highly ambitious and didn’t have children back then …

  ‘In those days, the firm took up only half of this floor and I knew everyone’s name, from the receptionist to the mail-room clerks.’

  And now it’s a sprawling, three-level corporate beast where the office Christmas party involves me getting drunk at the bar, with Brianna holding my hand and the two of us turning to each other every five minutes to say, ‘Who are these people?’

  ‘The growth in this company is testament to you, Rex, and the commitment of all the partners. It’s astonishing, really. Quite an example.’

  Half of you are divorced. Most of you have children you never see. You have houses you never get to enjoy. But you do have money. Piles and piles of it. This is definitely what I want. To never have to worry about money ever again. To buy a smart little unit for Mum and Dad. To clear my mortgage.

  ‘Thank you, Alex. We understand this is a critical step. No doubt you have many questions, which Martin will be happy to answer, and we’ll have paperwork drawn up over the next few weeks for you to sign. But can I be the first to say—’ Rex stood. ‘Welcome to the family.’ He started applauding, and one by one, all the partners followed suit until Alex was the only one not standing or applauding. Now they were walking over to her, to shake hands. Oh bugger, she would have to stand up and shake hands and god knows what was going to happen to her skirt.

  My stomach’s about to explode. My younger son is turning into a sociopath. I desperately need to cut down my work hours. But this is actually everything I’ve ever wanted.

  With uncertainty, Alex rose to her feet and as she went to shake hands with Rex, she felt her skirt sliding down.

  She was about to be exposed.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  For the eighty-second time that day, the starter’s gun fired and for the eightieth time that day, Beth jumped. Hell, as she’d discovered, wasn’t full of fire and criminals. It was packed with teens in swimsuits, smelt of chlorine, sounded like continuous gunfire and tasted of fermented peaches.

  Hell, in other words, was fronting up to a school swimming carnival with a gigantic Bellini-triggered hangover.

  ‘You look like you could do with this.’ Marianna Hardacre, mum to one of Chloe’s best friends, pressed a coffee into her hands.

  ‘Thank you so much. You’re a life-saver,’ said Beth, resisting the urge to kiss Marianna violently on the lips. She could murder a coffee. She could hug it. But first she would drink it. Scull it, in fact. She brought the cup to her lips, closed her eyes and drank, and drank.

  ‘Mrs Chandler! Mrs Chandler! Are you ready?’

  Beth opened her eyes to find she was getting an icy glare from Miss Liu. ‘We cannot begin the race until all marshals are ready. Are you?’

  Yes, ma’am. Beth nodded. The young sports teacher was frighteningly efficient. She blew the whistle and Beth’s head pounded in sync with the piercing noise. The painkillers really should have kicked in by now. She’d taken two Panadol before leaving home, and followed up at 10 am with two Nurofen – a terrific little tip she’d learnt from a GP when Chloe was five years old, running a temp of nearly 40 degrees and limp as a sock. Alternate, the doctor advised. Controls the pain far more effectively.

  Why wasn’t it working? Bloody swimming. Damn Chloe for being so good at it. Why couldn’t she be average, like Marianna’s lovely little Mia, who nearly drowned over the 50 metre freestyle but was a complete dynamo on the netball court. Netball was so easy. No pre-dawn starts. No endless squads. And no starter’s gun.

  Bang.

  Beth jolted and stood to attention. The girls’ 50 metre butterfly was underway. A thrashing mess of arms and mermaid-kicking legs made its way steadily down the pool. Her job was to identify the second place getter, pass them a red stick and direct them to the appropriate area to collect their ribbon.

  Queen of Number Twos.

  Last year, Miss Liu had put her on the marshalling desk to record the results – a position of some responsibility that Beth felt was a small acknowledgement of her capabilities and length of service. This morning, she’d been ten minutes late to the volunteer briefing, which had earned her a demotion into giving out second place sticks to kids who either seemed delightfully surprised by their placing, or bitterly disappointed about not winning

  Get used to it, she wanted to warn them. Life is full of second places.

  The race was over. She issued the stick to a bedraggled little girl who looked up at her with her yellow cap and foggy goggles like a tiny exhausted Martian.

  ‘Well done, sweetie. Over to the marshalling area for your ribbon.’ Beth offered a hand, but the shriek of Miss Liu’s whistle in her ear made her startle enough to let go, which sent the little girl tumbling back into the water. The loudhailer squealed.

  ‘Attention all volunteers: There is to be no interference with swimmers until they have cleared the pool. IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?’

  Miss Liu glared and dropped the megaphone back to her side. Another ear-splitting whistle signalled the swimmers to get out.

  ‘Sorry,’ whispered Beth, as her little second placer swam limply over and under the lane ropes to the side of the pool.

  Beth felt a tap on her shoulder. Please, not Miss Liu.

  ‘Mum, can I have three dollars to get a donut.’ Chloe put her hand out. Next to her was Talia Devine.

  ‘Oh, hello again, Talia. Enjoying the carnival so far?’

  ‘I’m a hopeless swimmer.’ Talia grinned. ‘Not like Chloe.’

  ‘Mum, can I have the money? Talia’s going to the tuckshop too.’

  ‘For a donut as well?’ Beth winked conspiratorially as Talia smiled broadly. ‘I won’t tell.’ Poor child, having to sneak around. So what if she ate a pastry every once in a while? It wouldn’t kill her. After eight years of nutrition studies, the sum total of Beth’s knowledge could be boiled down to one fairly simple piece of advice. Everything in moderation. No fads, no fasts. No silly diets. Especially not for children.

  ‘Girls, you
really shouldn’t be here. If Miss Liu sees you she’ll be very cross.’ Beth stepped sideways to shield Talia and Chloe from the hawk-eyed sports mistress.

  ‘Then just give us the money. Quickly.’ Chloe jutted out her hand again.

  ‘Chloe, manners,’ Beth admonished, reaching into her pocket. ‘Are you sure you should eat before you’ve finished all your races? You might get a stitch.’

  Chloe made a face and crinkled her nose, which carried a stripe of green zinc – the colour of her team. ‘Please. I’m starved. I barely had any food because you were asleep this morning.’

  Beth shifted uncomfortably. Chloe was like a heat-seeking missile when it came to locating her mother’s guilt button.

  ‘I’ll faint if I don’t eat and that’s worse than getting a stitch.’

  ‘All right.’ She felt too liable and too tired to fight. ‘Here you go.’ She handed over the coins. ‘Can you get one for me too?’

  She hadn’t eaten a kiosk donut in twenty years, but it was exactly what she felt like. Her headache was starting to ease, but her stomach was still dreadfully queasy.

  ‘Thanks, Mum. You’re the best.’ Chloe trotted off, followed by Talia. ‘And Dad’s here,’ she called over her shoulder.

  ‘Wait. What? Where?’ called Beth.

  BANG!

  Sweet jesus. Another race. And now her phone was buzzing. She set her coffee cup down.

  ‘No food or drinks on the pool deck,’ barked Miss Liu, swiping the cup from under Beth’s feet.

  ‘Sorry,’ she offered, and waited for the teacher to stomp away before discreetly answering her phone.

  ‘Hello,’ she whispered.

  ‘Beth. Are you okay? I can barely hear you. Just wanted to check you were all right? I came over this morning to make sure you’d got home safely but the kids said you were still in bed.’

  Cara. Her voice full of concern.

  Beth felt a flicker of irritation. One sleep-in and suddenly everyone assumed there was something tragically wrong with her.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said curtly to Cara. ‘I don’t know why everyone’s being so dramatic. I slept in. I’m allowed to, aren’t I?’