by Toni Jordan
After my father and Ruby and Aunt Ava and Uncle Syd retire, the six of us kids sit for a while in the drawingroom among the gilded mirrors and the ancient rugs of animal skins. These old chairs are not comfortable so Sam is lying lengthways on the couch, smoking a cigar. He dislodges the antimacassars with his feet and they crumple on the floor. Greta and Beau sprawl in front of the fire. Anders and Julius each have a tub Chesterfield, and I lie on the daybed and we sip balloon glasses of my father’s cognac and talk of stings past and future and of the glory days of our childhood, those times when my father and Ruby and Ava and Syd would come home in the old Mercedes all glamour and furs and throw cash in the air for us children to collect like leaves.
Or the nights we would pile in the cars and drive to the city, to the restaurant of a friend of Uncle Syd’s, and we would take a private diningroom at the back and eat oysters and lobster, even the littlest of us, and wear bibs and wipe our mouths on them and our parents would let us drink lemonade out of champagne glasses so we could toast their success.
As the night becomes colder Julius feeds the fire with dried apple wood. Now we are reminiscing about the wonderful times we had on holidays when we were children. One, my favourite, was a driving holiday along the coast with just my father and Ruby and Sam and me. We were free and the days were warm and long and my father would let us kids pick the next day’s destination from a map he kept folded in the glove compartment. We spent our days picnicking from a huge wicker basket or fishing or listening to my father’s stories about our family’s heritage or walking along the beach. At night we slept under the stars.
Tonight we have stayed up too late with all these memories, and on the way up the stairs to our bedrooms we tiptoe drunkenly and whisper so as not to wake our sleeping parents. On the landing, Sam puts his hand on my shoulder.
‘It’s a nice little return, your scientist caper,’ he says. ‘Good job, Della.’
I watch Sam tumble into his room and sag on the unmade bed without closing the door or taking off his shoes, then I turn to go up another flight to my attic bedroom. The window looks west towards the city; I stand under the tilt of the roof and rest the crown of my head on the low ceiling. I close my eyes.
These are my father’s words, I know. It is precisely what he said earlier tonight. For the last few years it seems that all my jobs have been small ones. Safe. Modest. I have not celebrated with champagne or lobster, not for many months. There was no needle in Sam’s voice yet still I feel it. Good job, Della, on your nice little return.
In the morning I sleep in, my head fuzzy from the cognac and the late night. On waking my hair is curly and even redder. No one in my father’s family has hair like this. It must come from my mother’s side; it takes the serious business of the day to straighten it and calm the colour. I have missed breakfast. By the time I hobble to the kitchen, still in my dressing gown and slippers, the kippers are long finished and the eggs are poached and eaten and everything is cleared away. On the stove there is a small pot of porridge wrapped in a tea-towel. This I know is meant for me.
I have just picked up my spoon when a head peeks around the corner: wide white smile, soft blond fringe. Even from here I can see his dimple. His expression is a fraction too cheery for this time of the morning.
‘Good morning princess,’ he says.
I take a deep breath. ‘Timothy. What a surprise.’
He frowns. ‘Really? I’ve been looking for you. I’ve dropped around several times, left messages with the cousins.’
‘You’re right. It’s not really a surprise.’
‘Are you busy? Because I’ve been wanting to talk to you.’ Timothy pulls out a chair and sits beside me at the long pine table. He is dressed for work: short-sleeved, crisp ironed shirt, the top pocket filled with pens, navy trousers. His BlackBerry in a holster on his belt. He is bright-eyed, bushy-tailed. I am bushy-eyed and bright-nothinged. His face is solemn; his fingers drum the table. ‘It’s important,’ he says.
I lean across the table, rearrange the bowl and the salt and pepper grinders. I take the napkin off my lap and fold it carefully.
‘Porridge? It’s still warm. I can sprinkle some brown sugar on top.’
‘No thank you, Del. No porridge.’ He fumbles on the table top towards my hand.
‘Then how about some tea?’ I jump to my feet, chair grating on the tiles, and pull my dressing gown tighter around me. ‘Ruby would never forgive me if I had a guest and didn’t offer them any tea. Or juice? There’s probably fresh juice left over from breakfast. You’ve been up for hours I bet. You must be ready for a break.’
For a moment his eyebrows go up, but then he shakes his head. ‘No thanks. No juice. I just want to talk to you.’
I open the fridge door and pull out a flat white plate. ‘Ooh, look. There’s pancakes.’
‘No, no, I don’t want anything. I’ve already eaten breakfast, hours ago. Deliveries come early, you know, it’s not office hours, my line of work. Wait, pancakes? What kind?’
I poke them through the plastic wrap. ‘Blueberry.’
He nods, and I busy myself heating some butter in a cast iron pan, chatting aimlessly about whatever comes into my head: the last of the summer blueberries, sealed in glass jars in the pantry; my Aunt Ava, who seems to survive only on desserts and claims not to have eaten anything green since 1979; whether home-made butter tastes better than store-bought. He wants to talk to me. I’ve suspected this for some weeks now, ever since I woke up early one morning in his bed in the bungalow at the back of his parents’ house to find him staring down at me, gooey eyed. I am just setting down the plate of pancakes when he takes my arm and guides me into a chair.
‘Della,’ he says, and I hold my breath but he gestures across the room. ‘That old fridge. It’s on its last legs. Let me get you a nice new one. Double-doored. Titanium. Ice dispenser. Still in the carton. Make life much easier for your father at cocktail time.’
I exhale. ‘That’s it? That’s what you wanted to talk to me about?’
‘Ah, no.’
‘Timothy.’ I rub my fist against my temple, then pick up the tea towel and bustle around with dishes in the sink. I don’t look at him when I speak. ‘We have a good arrangement. We’ve had a good arrangement for a while now. Fun. No strings. Don’t spoil it.’
‘I’m not trying to spoil it,’ he says. ‘I’m trying to make it better.’
He stands, but just then my mobile phone sounds from the pocket of my dressing gown. I mutter an apology, move back toward the sink. Before I answer, I know it’s Daniel Metcalf.
It is fatal to sleep with a mark. Despite his intimations and teasing, my father knows that this is perhaps the only unbreakable rule. In our business, it’s true, a certain element of the lure is essential. A heightening of tension. Some might call this a seduction but it is not. It is many things: the building of a connection between a man and a woman that forms the basis of trust; the exchange of money for intimacy, which is worth more and is rarer; and the sleight of hand that shifts the mark’s focus from the mechanics of money to the hint of promise.
But to sleep with a man and vanish with his pride as well as his money is the surest path to disaster. I must live somewhere. I cannot entirely disappear, and there is the family to consider. The mark must not feel so bereft that he wants to destroy me, not so burned or so proprietorial that he will spend his (usually ample) resources on tracking me down. That line cannot be crossed.
Meeting men is not easy in my line of work. There’s an entire conversation to be had when you meet someone new, about who you are and what you do. I could lie, of course. But then it would all become rather like work.
Timothy is trustworthy. He is from a reliable family, the son of my father’s friend Felix the Fence. He is attractive in a boyish, earnest sort of way. We often played together as children, not usually at his house with deliveries and pallet jacks and customers coming and going but here, around the apple trees with Sam and the cousins. Our arra
ngement has been good for both of us, but I have an idea it is coming to an end.
‘I hope I haven’t caught you in the middle of chasing some wild animal,’ Daniel says.
I picture him cradling the phone in his hand, the shiny metal lined up along the white scar on his palm.
Timothy is alert now, swivelled around, leaning on the back of the chair with his chin resting in his hands. ‘Daniel?’ he mouths. ‘Who’s Daniel?’
I look at Timothy, the frown between his eyebrows, dumpling cheeks squeezing his eyes almost closed. I jerk my head towards the kitchen door and turn away as best I can. ‘Actually I’m at home, catching up on some dull paperwork without any student interruptions.’
The next thing I know Timothy is standing beside me; he is pretending to rinse his hands in the sink but his head is on an angle, his ear close to the phone. For a moment I tell myself that I care for him very much as a life-long friend, that he feels anxious and awkward and that I must be gentle. In fact I’d like to stick his eavesdropping head under the tap. I move to the other side of the kitchen and turn my back.
‘Perhaps I can distract you,’ Daniel says. ‘Ella, look. I’ve been thinking about your tiger. Perhaps insanity is contagious. Let’s sit down, have a coffee. Discuss it.’
Discuss it. This is not good. I’ve spoken to the other successful applicants; it does not work this way. This is a delaying tactic. By the next day or two I should have the cheque, feel it in my hand.
‘Daniel, look.’ I sigh, more resignation than despair. Ella look, he says, so Daniel look, I say. Mirroring his words from my mouth is an age-old trick to build rapport, used by everyone from desperate car salesmen to gold-medallioned Lotharios. Age-old, clichéd, yet it works. ‘I’ve been trying to get someone interested in this idea for years. I’ve missed out on more grants than you’d believe. I know there are a lot of worthy projects around. If this is your way of saying you’ve awarded it to somebody else, just tell me. I’m a big girl.’
I feel two fingers coaxing their way along my spine, sliding down the silk of my night gown. Timothy’s arm slides around my waist and I can feel his mouth on my other ear. I fight the urge to shake my arm like a fly has alighted on it, and cup my hand around the phone. I try to concentrate.
‘I’m sure you are,’ Daniel says. ‘It’s not that at all. In fact I’ve been thinking over the terms of the trust. I’ve been busy lately, with stuff of my own. I’ve been neglectful. I didn’t realise that this is the thirtieth anniversary of my parents’ first awarding the prize. I’m thinking now I should mark it with something really special. To honour them.’
‘Della,’ Timothy breathes. ‘You know how I feel about you.’
I frown and bend my head toward the phone. ‘What a lovely gesture. Are you thinking of a plaque?’
‘I need to talk to you,’ says Timothy. ‘About our future.’
‘I’m thinking of increasing the amount,’ says Daniel. ‘Dramatically.’
My head jerks up—I can’t help it. ‘That certainly would be dramatic.’ How much money in a millionaire’s ‘dramatically’, I wonder.
‘I’m not normally insistent,’ says Timothy. ‘Normally I’m very patient. But sometimes a little caveman is required. I want you to know I’m not afraid to be forceful, to get what I want.’
I shake my head at him. ‘Go away,’ I mouth.
‘Della. I really wish you’d listen,’ he says. ‘It’s very hard to be forceful when you won’t hang up.’
Daniel is speaking but I can’t hear him. ‘Will you shut up? Just shut up.’
‘Sorry?’ says Daniel.
‘Not you. One of my colleagues.’
‘So, me? You want me to shut up? And I’m,’ Timothy makes imaginary quote marks in the air, ‘a “colleague”.’ He stomps back to the sink and leans against it. ‘You’re making me feel like I’m not as important as whoever’s on the phone.’
‘Clearly I’ve called at a bad time,’ Daniel says. ‘But I’d need to discuss this with you. Face to face.’
I wave my hand at Timothy, the kind of pacifying sweeps you offer a crying child. ‘I see. Professor Carmichael too?’
‘No, Ella. Not Carmichael. Just you and me. I’m feeling quite a connection to your project. I’m intrigued. I’m thinking something more personal.’
‘Personal,’ I say.
‘Personal?’ says Timothy.
‘Let’s get together this afternoon, at the university. What time are you free?’
My mind goes blank for an instant, and when I look up Timothy is in front of me, hands on his hips, mischievous smile on his face. ‘You know, when we were kids, you could never resist it when I tickled you. Whenever you were tickled, you’d cave straight away.’
I back away and mouth ‘don’t you dare’, but he’s already giggling and he makes a sudden grab for my ribs. I hold the phone with one shoulder. With both hands I grab Timothy’s ears and pull hard until he squeals. He drops to his knees.
‘Ella?’ Daniel says. ‘Are you there? Are you all right?’
‘Yes, fine. I’m fine. I’m just checking my diary,’ I say. ‘It… squeals. It’s a squealing diary.’
‘A squealing diary,’ Daniel says. ‘Of course.’
‘This afternoon, this afternoon.’ I mentally run my virtual finger down the appointment column of my imaginary squealing diary, then I let go of Timothy’s ears and with one hand grab his nose tight between my thumb and forefinger. He groans. I hold the phone again. ‘I’m so sorry. I just can’t do it. I’ve got my hands full.’
‘Monday morning, then. I’ll come to your office, at the university. I want to see the biologist in her natural habitat. You’re in the Zoology Department, right? What’s your room number?’
I let go of the nose; Timothy sinks to the floor. ‘My room number is…now, is it 216 or 316?’ I say. ‘Actually maybe it’s 361. I’m terrible with numbers. They’ve just moved us all around in there. I used to have a window looking over the garden. Now I’m in a broom cupboard.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll ask at reception. I’ll see you Monday at ten, Ella.’
Under seventy-two hours. It’s too tight. I open my mouth again but he has gone and the phone is cold in my hand. Then I look down to see Timothy on his back on the kitchen floor, holding his nose, looking like he’s about to cry.
‘That was completely unnecessary,’ he says. ‘You might have broken my nose. I was trying to be playful.’ I bend over and offer a hand, intending to help him up, but he goes on. ‘A squealing diary, Della?’ he says. ‘Nice one. Classy.’ So instead I kick him in the ribs.
‘And that,’ I say, ‘is for messing with a defenceless girl with one brother and three male cousins. For God’s sake, Timothy. That was a mark. I’m working. What on earth has got into you?’
‘Sam said you’d like it. Be playful and persistent, he said. Women like that. Act like George Clooney, he said.’
I should have recognised Sam’s sticky fingerprints on this. ‘Timothy. Trusting Sam for advice about women? Just don’t, please.’
Timothy grumbles to his feet, prodding his nose with one finger. He picks up his BlackBerry, which has fallen from the holster, and holds it to his ear. ‘And anyway, I know a mark when I hear it. I heard the way you said “personal”. That didn’t sound like a mark to me.’
‘I’m reeling him in, you idiot. He’s super rich. This one could be worth a fortune.’
He drapes one arm over my shoulder. ‘And that’s another thing I admire about you Della. You never give up. You just keep trying. Just because you’ve had a few years where the deals have been smallish. It’s been a bit…lean, recently, I know. You don’t let it get you down.’
‘Smallish? Lean?’ Bloody Sam again, blabbing my business all over south-eastern Australia. ‘What would you know about big deals anyway, Timothy? Half the things you sell get change from a hundred.’
‘There’s no use getting snippy about it,’ Timothy says. He pats my shoulder. ‘But maybe i
t’s worth handing this one over to Sam. You know, if the mark really is as rich as you say. Handball it to the full-forward.’
‘Sammy, a full-forward?’ I say. ‘Half backward more like it. And if you don’t get out of here right now, I’m going to shove that phone where it will never be seen again.’
‘Threats, eh?’ He smiles like a Labrador. ‘I know what’s really going on. It’s Freudian. You can’t keep your hands off me. Besides, what are you going to do? Run mini-scams forever? Until you’re a little old lady, panhandling other pensioners for their small change? In the next year or two I’ll be taking over Dad’s business. I’ve got big plans, Del. Big. Together we could really make it into something. Maybe it’s time you thought about settling down.’
I may be a smallish woman wearing nothing but my pyjamas but when Timothy sees the look on my face, he runs. In the hall, he passes my father.
‘Hello, Mr Gilmore. Goodbye, Mr Gilmore,’ he says as he runs.
‘Timothy, dear boy,’ my father says. ‘We don’t see enough of you these days. Will you be staying for lunch?’ He turns his head as Timothy bolts past. ‘That’s a “no”, I expect.’
‘Just keep running,’ I yell after Timothy, and then I hear the long sequence of clicks that tells me the front door is opening, ‘if you know what’s good for you. Keep running and don’t stop.’
I walk up the stairs and on the landing I kick open the door to Sam’s room hard so it crashes against the wall. He is lying on the bed on his stomach, shirt off, headphones on, practising a new signature upside down on a white pad with blue lines. A waste of time. There’s no need for it anymore, not with the quality of the scanners we have. But Sam shares with my father a nostalgia for the old days of the pen-and-ink man, and signatures are Sam’s speciality.
His room is a disaster as usual: bed unmade, three old safes in a jumble in a corner, stamps and inks for making government documents, papers piled up in various states of senility, assorted dumbbells for his incessant flexing and preening. In the middle of the room is a pile of basketball clothes from last night’s game and a pair of exhausted runners. It stinks to high heaven in here.