by Dean Mayes
James Fitzner had facilitated Hayden’s wife getting some important events and seemed engaged in helping her advance her career as a goto event planner among the political and corporate set. Despite this, Hayden couldn’t help but think James was a bit full of himself.
“Her people-management skills are impeccable. I’ve watched her work the room all night. She has them eating out of her palm,” James continued. “She’d be a great spin doctor. Even the Premier has shown an interest.”
“I’ll bet he has,” Hayden intoned. He raised his glass to hide his distaste as James nudged Hayden’s elbow in an attempt to put him at ease.
James stepped in closer and pointed in the direction of the tables off to their right.
Following his finger, Hayden searched the crowd until he spied a tall, elegant figure holding court in the centre of a group of men and women. Hayden studied her up and down. Her aqua-coloured gown hugged a svelte, athletic body. Her copper hair was pinned so that it fell down her neck and back like a curling wave. Twinkling droplets of stone hung from her ears, catching the light and sparkling against her cheeks.
That face.
High cheekbones, full and shining lips projecting a magnetic and effortless smile. Large, piercing eyes focused on each individual in turn, drawing them into the conversation and holding them as though every person was important, as if she were speaking to them and them alone.
Bernadette Magnion commanded their attention effortlessly. She was as skilled a listener as she was a communicator. A woman dedicated to her craft.
As Hayden continued to watch, Bernadette turned her face in his direction. Her jaw stiffened as she politely excused herself. She glided through the crowd towards Hayden and James, pausing to signal to a young woman, someone she knew. That woman, dressed in a black cocktail dress, black stockings, and heels, manoeuvred in behind Bernadette, armed with a tablet computer. Its light splashed over her face and reflected in the glasses she wore underneath a severe fringe.
Bernadette stopped before both men and first offered her hand to James. She regarded her husband with muted disappointment before leaning in to give him a quick peck on the cheek.
“You’re late,” she said curtly, standing back to examine him in the low light.
In an instant, Hayden felt reduced to the size of a pea. There was little doubt she was disappointed with what she saw. His appearance paled in comparison to those around him, including James. His suit was far from perfect. His trousers were rumpled and, despite the dim light, Bernadette somehow spotted watermarks at his ankles.
“Jesus, Hayden. Did you ride here through all that rain?” she complained out of the corner of her mouth.
“Yes,” Hayden confessed.
Stifling a scoff, Bernadette shook her head. “Couldn’t you have taken a taxi?” she countered.
Hayden blinked as though the question was preposterous. “Not really.”
An uncomfortable quiet descended over the trio as James downed his beer and glanced over at the awkward, but cute, young assistant behind them.
Hayden twitched and swapped his glass from one hand to the other. “I was running late,” he explained, apology in his voice. “And I didn’t want to be any later. If I’d rung for a taxi, I would have to wait and it would have been worse than it already is.”
Bernadette’s rancour seemed to release and, for a moment, a sympathetic flicker registered. She tilted her head. “Would you like something to eat? You must be hungry.”
“A little,” Hayden lied. He was famished.
She turned to the young woman behind her. “Amanda, could you take care of that?”
Amanda Rischmiller, Bernadette’s PA, signalled to a waitress who passed in their vicinity, armed with a tray.
Hayden hesitated as the waitress approached. He reached out for a seafood hors d’oeuvre and popped the morsel into his mouth. He shivered in momentary gratitude. It tasted good—better than he thought it would—and his stomach responded accordingly. He went back in for a second and a third, until he noticed Bernadette’s flat stare.
Hayden, his mouth full, projected a silent thank-you at the waitress as she turned away and disappeared into the crowd. He cast his gaze out and across the room and noted several people making their way towards the raised stage as the band was winding up their current song.
Through the crowd, a woman attired in a ridiculously expensive-looking ball gown glided towards them. She came up behind Bernadette and tapped her shoulder.
“Speeches are about to take place. You’re up, darling.”
Bernadette regarded both men with a flash of nervousness. “Gotta go and MC,” she said, reaching into her clutch and plucking out a piece of paper. “Wish me luck.”
James stepped forward and planted a kiss on her cheek.
“Luck,” he offered, while Hayden struggled to swallow the morsel of food so he could kiss her himself.
Bernadette gestured towards Hayden for the benefit of the new arrival.
“Celeste Warren—my husband, Hayden Luschcombe. Hayden—Celeste.”
She turned on her heel, ushering her PA before her.
Amanda managed to turn in Hayden’s direction. “Hi, Hayden,” she called back. “And, ah, bye, Hayden.”
Hayden waved, swallowing the last of his mouthful as he watched Bernadette float towards the stage. James slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, mate. She understands.”
Celeste studied Hayden diffidently before offering her hand.
“Hayden Luschcombe. Are you related to the Leabrook Luschcombes?”
Hayden’s response was deadpan. “No.”
Celeste appeared taken aback. “Oh. Surely you are. There aren’t that many Luschcombes in Adelaide.”
“No,” Hayden repeated. “My family is from Victoria. Country Victoria.”
Celeste suddenly grimaced, as if she’d stepped on a rotten egg. Realizing he was still holding her hand, she withdrew it. Her eyes scanned him up and down. “Oh.” Her distaste was evident. “Victoria. How extraordinary.”
James could barely conceal a grin as he observed the exchange, which only served to agitate Hayden further.
“Tell me,” he began, locking eyes with Celeste. “That perfume you’re wearing, is it sandalwood?”
Celeste’s brow furrowed, greeting Hayden’s question with confusion, before she quickly assembled a veneer of charm—of being impressed, even. “Not quite,” she replied smoothly. “It’s arudesh flower. It’s Middle Eastern. Do you like it?”
“My mistake, sorry. I wondered whether it was pheromones,” Hayden responded. “Androstenone 5 has a sandalwood odour. Faintly urine-like, actually. It’s the pheromone associated with the onset of the menstrual cycle.”
While James stifled the urge to choke on his beer, Celeste gasped. Her eyes bulged and she recoiled from the two men in disgust. Diners at a nearby table turned in their direction, unsure whether to laugh or be horrified.
Without skipping a beat, Hayden addressed James, shedding just a little of his antipathy. “Thank you for the beer.”
He turned away, his eyes going to the stage and Bernadette, who had just stepped up to take her place near a podium. She was looking at him. Her glare was unmistakable. Around him, people from all corners of the room began returning to their seats.
Without a designated table of his own, Hayden made his way across the room towards an empty club chair near the bar, and moved it as far into the corner as he could.
SOMETIME LATER, BERNADETTE MOVED THROUGH the crowd, searching for her husband. Frustration gathered in the muscles of her jaw as she clenched it, but she had to stifle her annoyance each time someone stepped forward to offer their congratulations or to engage her in conversation.
Even as she tilted her head coquettishly, she fumed.
Where is he?!
Turning in the direction of the bar, she scanned the patrons there until her eyes fell across a figure seated way over to the side, almost concealed from view. Tho
ugh hunched over in his chair, the form was unmistakable.
It was Hayden.
And he was sound asleep.
Bernadette strode over until she came to a stop several feet away from him. Planting her hands on her hips, she glared at him.
Amanda wheeled into view around a pair of men engaged in a lively debate, almost crashing into Bernadette but managing to prevent anything more catastrophic than upending her glasses, which had slipped to the end of her nose.
Bernadette clenched her fingers against her sides as Amanda stepped out from behind her and blinked at Hayden. Her features filled with sympathy for him, while Bernadette continued to glower.
She exhaled in frustration. “Call him a taxi, Amanda. Get him out of here before anybody else sees him.”
Amanda pushed her glasses back into place as she took out her phone and began dialling. Bernadette shook her head at her sleeping husband, then turned away.
Amanda blinked. “Do I wake him?” she called after Bernadette.
“Just deal with him.” Bernadette waved dismissively.
“Oh dear,” Amanda croaked.
~ Chapter 2 ~
A CYLINDRICAL LENGTH OF TIMBER SPUN IN THE CLAMPS OF A SMALL WOOD LATHE. AN ELECTRIC MOTOR HUMMED A soothing refrain, which lulled the single occupant of the small garage. Armed with a slender chisel, Hayden considered the timber before him.
Adjusting his stance, he wiped his brow, comparing the bulbs and curves he had fashioned into the surface of the spinning timber with a reference photograph he had secured to the window in front of him.
Glancing over his shoulder, he regarded the subject of the photograph—a nineteenth-century Spanish mahogany elbow chair. He’d bought it for Bernadette as a birthday gift last year, with the intention of restoring it to its original splendour. It stood forlornly in the corner of the shed, resting on two supporting lengths of wood. Hayden had removed its front legs, the undamaged left leg serving as his study piece. The right leg was broken. All that remained was a splintered ruin.
While impressed with the style of the chair, Bernadette had doubted he would ever get around to repairing it. To her, it was just another one of his unfinished hobby pieces, samples of which either hung from the rafters in the garage or were shoved into corners. His propensity towards collecting things was a source of frustration, if not exasperation, so far as Bernadette was concerned.
Hayden had already replaced the moth-eaten fleur-de-lis seat fabric with a modern cream material that complemented the rich mahogany. He’d spent hours, here and there, rubbing back the wood and fixing dozens of little imperfections on its surface. The timber now sported a beautiful sheen. All he needed to do was repair the damaged leg to return it to its full glory.
Leaning in, Hayden touched the chisel to a cast-iron rest and moved the sharpened end inward until it touched a valley on the timber’s surface. A delicate ribbon of wood curled outward, dropping over the edge of the tool rest and falling to the floor. He worked the timber, drawing back from the lathe to check his work. After several minutes, he set the chisel down and lifted his goggles. He thumbed the power switch on the lathe and leaned in to compare the two pieces.
He was hopeful.
He felt behind him for the metal surface of a motor vehicle and found it. He sat down on the dropped-down tray of his classic 1948 FX Holden utility.
For someone who wasn’t usually enamoured with shining objects, the Holden was, perhaps, playing against Hayden’s type. Featuring shining burgundy paintwork and polished chrome, the classic Holden had been owned by an elderly gentleman who had spent a good portion of his retirement restoring it, or so Hayden had been told. He had snapped up the vehicle at an estate auction.
For Hayden, it was less a quirky indulgence than it was a practical mode of transport, enabling him to travel into the rural areas of South Australia on his antique-furniture hunts. The rear tray was spacious enough to carry several items, if the mood took him.
By contrast, the vehicle beside it—an extravagant yellow Audi coupe—was Berni to a tee. Though they had purchased it together, Hayden rarely drove it. With his tall frame, he felt cramped behind the wheel, despite what the dealer had said about it being endlessly adjustable. He didn’t mind. He had his Holden. Hayden was happy for Bernadette to cruise around town, impressing all and sundry in her sphere of influence and looking beautiful doing it.
Hayden picked up a piece of sandpaper and smoothed the area he had been working on, then released the chair’s leg from the clamps. He inspected the reference photograph. Despite the obvious difference in wood colour, it would take only a few dozen coats of stain to make the newly turned leg nearly identical to the existing one.
Hayden had been around wood lathes for much of his life, although he had only recently taken up woodcraft again. Until they’d purchased the house, Hayden and Bernadette had never been in a position to stretch out, as it were, having rented small semi-detached dwellings or inner-city apartments. This was the first time Hayden had owned any sort of space in which to indulge in this pastime.
He dropped to his haunches and opened the door of a small bar fridge tucked under the workbench and retrieved a beer. As he rose and twisted the cap, he glanced to his right.
Pinned to a corkboard on the adjacent wall was a small black-and-white photograph.
A young boy, no older than eight or nine, stood before a machine, enormous by comparison. A pair of protective muscular arms surrounded the boy, though the face of the owner of those arms was cut from view, save for the tip of a nose and the rim of a pair of spectacles. The man’s hands held the boy’s as they perched over a wood lathe. The photograph captured a moment between a father and son, working together at the machine to craft something from the timber before them. Hayden held the beer bottle up to the photograph in a salute.
“I did it, Russell.”
It was Saturday afternoon and it had been a good six hours since Berni had left him at their usual breakfast haunt, a chic café along King William Road, near their house. In an effort to make up for his tardiness last night, Hayden had suggested they grab a bite to eat, thinking he’d try to apologise.
It was going well—at least, he’d thought it was going well. But Bernadette’s phone had run hot as she fielded calls from Amanda, who was “intelligence gathering” on her behalf in the hopes of finding out how the Trident executives thought the dinner had gone. James had also called out of the blue, saying he needed to touch base with Bernadette and Amanda at their Halifax Street office, because of some major development.
Before Hayden realised it, Bernadette had gathered up her things and declared she had to go. He’d protested and they’d argued, attracting the attention of other diners as Hayden tried to convince her to at least finish her breakfast. The damage was done. Bernadette berated him, once again, for his lack of understanding, and she’d left him and her half-eaten egg-white omelette at the café.
Hayden couldn’t even remember if he’d apologised.
He took some small comfort in the knowledge Berni would be home eventually. She always came home eventually.
He’d left his phone in the house on the kitchen bench, resisting the temptation to call her. Hayden had learned, whenever these complications came up, to give Bernadette her space. As he took a swig of his beer, however, he experienced a note of sadness. A precious Saturday had been lost because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
He set the bottle down, hung his goggles on a hook behind him and appraised the chair. He took the newly turned leg and hunched down, lining up the peg at the top of the leg with a corresponding hole in the armrest. With a gentle push, he sleeved it into place.
Satisfied, Hayden hoisted the chair in his arm, grabbed the beer bottle and manoeuvred out to a shady spot on the manicured lawn of the back garden to set the chair down onto a canvas sheet, on which sat a can of wood stain and a paintbrush.
Regarding the clear afternoon sky, Hayden reasoned the conditions were perfect to get at least
a couple of coats done while the light was good and there were no clouds in sight. He cast a cursory glance across to the house, through the large windows of the living room.
No signs of life inside.
He shrugged, setting to work applying careful coats of stain to the chair.
BY LATE AFTERNOON, HAYDEN HAD set the brush aside, grabbed up another beer, and flopped down on the grass. He admired his handiwork. The leg blended almost perfectly with the rest of the chair.
From the interior of the house came the sounds of movement. A closing door. Keys dropped onto a bench. He was aware of her before he saw her.
Bernadette emerged from the house and stepped out onto the deck, studying him as she crossed the lawn. The afternoon breeze lingered about the hem of her flowing summer dress, lifting the material and revealing her perfect, tanned legs. She stopped a few feet away and regarded the chair, keeping her expression neutral.
Crossing his legs, Hayden glanced up at her. “What do you think?”
Bernadette shrugged indifferently. “You finished it?”
“Thought I better get my act together and stop putting it off. Your birthday was months ago, after all.” His gaze drifted down to the bottle. “Sorry—about this morning,” he offered. “And about last night.”
Bernadette’s expression softened. She closed the remaining distance between them and sat down beside him, stretching out her long legs and wiggling her toes. She reached across to pluck the beer bottle from his hand.
“We finished the debrief. James has almost got us into a great position with our tender.”
Hayden watched as she sipped his beer.
Bernadette tilted her head sideways. She pointed the bottle at the chair.
“Those legs don’t match.”
Hayden frowned. “What do you mean, the legs don’t match?”
“They don’t. See?” Handing the bottle to Hayden, Bernadette stood and went over to the chair. She ran her finger down the original leg, caressing three symmetrical bulbs in the timber. She repeated the action with the newly repaired leg, which sported only two.