by T M Heron
I look at him blankly.
“She digs up dirt on people,” says Will. “It’s what she does.”
“Someone outside the firm?”
“She works exclusively for us. Just normally in Litigation. She’s only billed four hours for it. It was that easy for her, I guess, compared to her normal stuff.”
“Who? And why wasn’t I consulted?”
“Her name’s Ingrid Claire. You weren’t consulted because you haven’t been around. The cost was marginal, and as it turns out I was right.”
Ingrid Claire. The aloof redhead from the car park. Just hearing her name makes me swallow. I don’t know what it is about this woman. The only two encounters I’ve had with her have left me looking like a prize tool. And we both knew it.
Will is sounding uncharacteristically bolshie. Instinctively I know Ingrid Claire’s findings will be right. She’ll be as capable as she is arrogant. Hence Will’s confidence.
So, the Chief Executive Officer for Ferramo is a coke-addicted user of under-age male prostitutes. It’s the sort of thing you read about. Not the best look for a company that manufactures and distributes surgical products. Potentially terminal for their share price, if it becomes public knowledge. Which inevitably these things do.
It’s not necessary, but I may get Ingrid Claire up for a chat about her investigation.
◆◆◆
Two days later Jo returns to work. Just in time for the weekend. She produces a doctor’s certificate with a look of bovine defiance, but I can tell she’s worried she’s pushed things too far this time. Luckily for her I’ve been preoccupied with work, following the Park Rape Team fallout, my mother, unpleasant dealings with Neville Schuler, enacting a relationship with Ava, wondering how I’m going to engineer bumping into Ingrid, and feeling anxious over not seeing Savannah. I haven’t had too much time to think about Jo.
Luckily for her I’m feeling the exhausted version of calm. “Close the door.”
“I don’t feel comfortable shutting the door.”
“You’ll feel less comfortable leaving it open. Sit down.”
I’d prefer it if she stood. I’m not sure how many seatings of Jo my wingback can take until it prizes apart. “Officially, this is a formal written warning.” I hand Jo a sealed envelope. “And here’s an updated copy of the firm’s policy on confidentiality.”
I’ve decided on a congenial demeanor for the delivery of the first part of this address, as it sets her up nicely for the second.
“What happened with Ms Goodluck at our firm was in a private office, in the presence of clients, during the course of a confidential meeting. It was completely outside your authority to go straight to the police about it. Or to tell anyone else in the firm.”
Jo goes to interject, and I shake my head. “It is undisputable that Bakers had a responsibility to report the incident. However, incidents of that nature should be dealt with by our managing partner, not some attention-hungry EA. It is your job to make my life run more easily, Jo. Not to inject layer upon layer of difficulty into it. It is your job to be mindful of the reputation of this firm. I hate to think how many sections of our code of conduct you’ve flagrantly breached.”
Jo sits very still. She expected something much worse than this. And certainly not delivered in such a benign manner. Perhaps she thinks I’ve had a talking to as well? Too delightful.
“As a result of your little stint, a training session has been conducted by HR for all administrative staff. They’ve all been reminded of their responsibilities, and the appropriate lines of reporting all irregular incidents occurring at Bakers. I’m sure everyone’s aware whose publicity-hungry rampage initiated that training session.”
I give her a warm smile and settle back in my chair. “That’s it, officially.” I lower my voice, adopt a tone as if I’m about to confide something deeply personal. “But here’s what I have to say to you unofficially, so pay close attention.”
I smooth my tie and fold both arms in front of me. “Off the record, you would have to be the most repugnant women who has ever assaulted my senses of sight and sound.”
Jo gasps but I silence her with a raised finger. “It perplexes me deeply, in fact, that I truly can’t think of one justifiable reason why a top-tier firm like Bakers would hire you. Does the anomaly not strike you, when you look at the other EAs? They’re stunning. They could be models. They’re clever. Most of them have degrees. They’re all called names like Lila and Grace and Camille. Your name is Jo! What I’ve always wanted to know is, what the fuck are you doing here in the first place?”
I lock my fingers behind my head and rock back in my chair. “Your days here are numbered. Your chances of promotion or reassignment are now zero. Did you really think you could cross me like that, you stupid bitch?”
Jo makes a small motion, but I charge over her intention like a freight train. “Don’t interrupt me, don’t you dare interrupt me, that was rhetorical. Just know this, Jo. I’m going to find a way to get rid of you. You’ve done your dash and I’ve no intention of going through the monotonous process of formally managing you out. We both know how time-consuming and ultimately futile that would be. So start looking for another job if you want to go gracefully. Just not in work time — or you’ll get another written warning.”
The first real smile I’ve given Jo stretches across my face. “Repeat any of this I’ll deny it. Who’d believe you? I’m about to be partner and you are what you’ve always been, a nobody.”
Jo blinks in disbelief.
“Now, in the meantime, undermine me again and I’ll tear you apart with my bare hands,” I hear myself say. This is too much but I guess it’s the backlash of faking congeniality at the start.
Jo stares at me, mouth open. The pimply flaps of white flesh beneath her upper arms sway in an invisible wind as she extracts herself from the wingback. She stumbles across the room and out the door.
I stretch back in my chair, eyes closed. Sometimes it feels good just to be alive.
◆◆◆
“That looked well managed.” Ingrid Claire stands in the doorway, staring after Jo. Her voice is emotionless, her peculiar, bewitching eyes stony.
I jump, hate her for it, and struggle to find something, anything to say in return. I go to stand up, decide to stay seated, know that we both know I’ve just done this. My heart thumps and I’m fearful she’ll hear it. But I’m determined not to let her let me humiliate myself this time.
“William Foster said you wanted to discuss my findings on Ferramo,” she says.
“I did. Ah, please have a seat,” I manage.
She remains standing. “It’s all there in the report. Very basic, I thought.”
She would have to be the most disagreeable women I’ve ever met but I could look at her all day.
She says nothing but makes a small and probably unconscious impatient gesture, as one might for a retard, while I resent her further.
“I’m thinking this is a truly clumsy build up to your asking me out—”
“What?”
“On a date.”
“Have dinner with me tonight.” The words blab straight out of my mouth out before I can even think, as if by hypnotic suggestion.
“Pass,” says Ingrid.
She walks off. I rub my eyes, cringe, and castigate myself for being so humiliatingly fawning and servile. I cast my mind over what might be done to her by way of retaliation, while knowing that if she walked back with a changed mind I’d be agonizing over a restaurant within seconds.
The rosy glow I’d savored from my little talk to Jo has evaporated. This is all probably something only Savannah can fix.
◆◆◆
I’m wondering if Savannah is jealous of Ingrid as she doesn’t take off any clothes.
Nothing will ever happen between me and Ingrid.
But Savannah must know I harbor hope. She’s so clever, this girl. It’s as if she can see straight into my mind. Like I can with my spastic sister. Only Hele
na doesn’t even have the range of motion to be convulsive. Suddenly I’m grateful she’s a tetraplegic. If she was spastic she’d be even more shame worthy.
And this is the effect Savannah has on me. In this dark time she enables me to dwell on the positives.
The glow of the bourbon emanates through my body. Savannah sits on her bed. Tonight she looks somehow unreachable., When I look at her through my Night Vision Device her face is distant and defiant. As if she’s just argued with someone. She has more in common with Ingrid than she realizes. My erection is so painful I may have to go home and screw Ava.
Suddenly Savannah’s stepfather is filling the lens, his mouth a thin crooked line. He’s a big man who would’ve looked great when he was younger. Now the corporate dinners and boardroom drinks have taken their toll and his hair is totally grey and he has jowls and a gut and probably needs Viagra when he’s with his mistress.
He’s angry. Veins stand out in his forehead as he yells at her. It’s reminiscent of how my own father was when he used to interrogate me as to how my sister plummeted off the pool house roof — and here I am sitting in a pool house. The symmetry.
Savannah’s stepfather proceeds to lose all semblance of control. I can hear him through the double glazing and over the wind. Not words, just noise.
Why would he yell at such a beautiful daughter? Does he not realize how dignified and proper she is? I wish like hell I had a bug in the room to hear what he’s so goddamn upset about.
I’m not sure what’s happening. Savannah rolls up one sleeve and holds out her arm. She’s not crying but she’s not far off. She looks out the window, straight into my eyes, as he’s giving her a Chinese burn.
Sick bastard. It goes on and on. He wrings that graceful twig for an eternity. And an obscene rage builds inside me. My erection has vanished. I want to storm the house and put a violent end to this. Failing that, I want to leave immediately but then she’d have to go through this alone, plus I can’t while he’s there in her room. So I sit, helpless, hipflask resting on my thigh.
Afterwards Savannah walks to her en suite. She ties her hair back, leans over the sink and vomits. Then she props herself against the vanity with her injured wrist under the running tap. Water jettisons off her wrist, rivulets running down the mirror. She doesn’t notice. There’s an air of routine, ritual even, to her demeanor. This incident is not inaugural. Or unusual.
I’m going to fix this for you, Savannah. I’ll give him something to be angry about.
15
If it weren’t for her expectations of companionship, affection and sex I’d be just a little tempted to let Ava stay on. I mean, she has to for now. She’s my alibi for Belinda. And although I haven’t heard from the police, I suspect I’m a suspect. And so the guise of our relationship continues.
But there are also other unanticipated aspects to my current living arrangement that leave me deeply puzzled. When I hear Ava humming away in the kitchen and think about the incredible meal she’ll be cooking it gives me a good feeling. Homemade is always better than order-in.
And when I find my laundry perfectly ironed and folded on my bed it soothes me (offset, unfortunately, by the fact she’ll be sleeping in it with me later). None of the plants have died since she’s been here. When she gives the housekeeper instructions about things I’d never thought of, like polishing the main room table with walnut oil, I feel organized. I like the smell of walnut oil.
Overall, however, Ava is semi-permanent. My sleep has never been worse. The sleeping pills barely touch the surface. Work has always been demanding, but thanks to now having a mother, a girlfriend, a partnership to finalize, and a sleep energy deficit it seems relentless and never-ending. Sometimes, instead of humoring, the clients I feel like setting them on fire.
I’ve been trying to free up time within work to learn as much as I can about RIL as well. I’m spending as much time as humanly possible winning the confidences of my mother. It feels likes months since Mel Kilbride and I have played tennis. Not that Mel has been particularly friendly to me since the Lily’s incident. Not that I have the energy to play tennis. Not that he has the time. Mel is working like a man possessed as well.
◆◆◆
It’s Sunday evening and I’ve just shared a meal of venison ragout and minted potatoes with Mother. We’ve fallen into a routine of catching a Sunday afternoon movie together, and then dinner. After that we play backgammon, which I hate and Mother loves. Or watch TV with Helena, and more often than not Brent, which I hate even more, and Mother loves.
I force myself to do these things because I’m aware Mother desperately needs to feel a sense of family.
The good bit is I stay out there on Sunday nights. A whole eight hours sleep without Ava.
Tonight we’re watching TV. Current affairs. A fire roars in the hearth.
As usual, courtesy of Brent, Helena occupies the best position in the room. He has placed her wheelchair directly in front of the fire. What a waste. It’s not like most of her can feel the warmth.
When I came into the room earlier and found just the two of them together, he was massaging her shoulders. “What the hell are you doing?” I asked, taking a chair as far away from them as possible and trying to stay even tempered. “It’s not proper. There’s no purpose to it. She can’t even feel it.”
“Not at a level you’d recognize,” says Brent, without looking up. Rude bastard. “But it’s still beneficial.”
He moves his hands up to her head and starts running them through her hair. “She can feel this though, can’t you, Dear One?”
I start to feel light-headed. Without taking his hands off her head Brent moves around in front of Helena. They exchange smirks.
I have to be imagining this. She’s not capable of that facial expression. I glance at her. Her eyes are watching me slyly. I’m capable of more than you realize, Brother.
I get up abruptly and leave the room. Behind me I hear them laughing at me. They can’t be laughing. She can’t make that sound either. I stand in my father’s study and try to steady my nerves.
Two facts are becoming more and more apparent and they sicken me. The first is that I can read my sister’s mind. I’m getting better at it, too. She can talk to me. And because it’s not sound I can’t block it out. I’d like to be able to attribute this to some kind of stress syndrome. With all the drama Belinda caused. The reunion with my mother. Living with Ava. But there is a second related fact that has nothing to do with my imagination, or special powers of reading my sister’s mind, or whatever else the hell is going on.
The second fact, which defies all laws that are good and natural, is that Brent and my sister are in a relationship of some nature. Can he read her the way I can? Can she just communicate with anyone she wants to? Or am I going mad from the pressure of it all?
I’m pervaded by a deep self-pity as I recall the trauma of that initial attack in the car park. Trying to justify myself to that bitch Ingrid. No one showing any sympathy. Holding it together for my client meeting. The public humiliation of the rape accusation. The bawling out from Finch. The nagging anxiety while I waited for the police to show. The yawning lack of information as to who Belinda was, and how to contact her.
And now there’s also Savannah to worry about. Or, more correctly, her stepfather.
Mother appears at the study door. “You know, you look a lot like him, like Harry.”
I start to run a hand through my hair and then rip it away as a vision of Brent running his hands through Helena’s hair appears in front of me.
“Mother, what do we know about Brent? He’s in there massaging Helena’s head, of all things. Should they really be left unsupervised?”
Mother laughs. “How protective of you, Big Brother. No, dear, Brent and Helena have been close for years.”
“I’m not comfortable with it. What’s in it for him? I mean, the guy never takes a day off.”
“He enjoys her company. They have a lot in common.”
Hmm. Let me see if I’ve got this right. My tetraplegic sister, who can’t speak and has been in a wheelchair since the age of six, has “a lot in common” with this good-looking, able-bodied, thirty-something guy.
Mother kisses me on the cheek. It’s the first time she’s done this in such a spontaneous manner. “Let’s go and join them for A Day in New Zealand,” she says. “Kylie’s made us pear and mascarpone tarts.”
I’ve gone right off the idea of food and I’m hoping what I’m starting to realize is going on in this house isn’t going to ruin my much-awaited solo Sunday night sleep.
◆◆◆
First thing Monday morning Anthony Hartman slips into my office and closes the door. “Good news. Phillip says they’ve got a guy in custody for the murder of that teacher aide.”
“They can’t have.”
A clumsy admission, but I don’t think Brent went home last night so I got no sleep at Mother’s.
Anthony interprets my shocked response as relief. “It was the guy who found her, Kaleb Perry. The colleague.”
There’s a wry expression on his handsome face. His shirts always look brand-new. Does he only wear them once?
“Nothing ever changes,” he says. “They were having an affair, and she was pregnant. The police found notes from her threatening to tell his wife. He’s already got three kids.”
I sit back in my chair, unclench my jaw, rub my nose with my middle knuckle. “You don’t think that’s a little obvious?”
“What isn’t? Human nature is unbelievably predictable. There’s nothing new under the sun.”
I wish he knew who he was talking to.
“One of her neighbors turned him in. Said he used to come and go all the time. She heard them fighting earlier in the night. Then she saw him leaving.” He pauses. “You think she’d have reported it immediately.”
“Indeed.” Thank Christ she didn’t.
Anthony stands up. “Not a word to anyone. It’s not public knowledge and won’t be for some time. Then the prick will have name suppression. But I thought you’d want to know.”