A Case For Trust

by Gracie MacGregor

  ‘Thanks, Pip. Couldn’t have done it without you and your encyclopaedic knowledge of Australian flora. Which I’ll be telling everybody in my speech, just as soon as our latecomer arrives.’

  Pippa had already registered Lucy’s absence. ‘I wondered. But I’m glad she’s coming, Justin. She’ll be so proud of you. And you can finally show her the wattle tree—I think it’s my favourite image. I can see now why Lucy wanted wattle in her bouquet …’

  She trailed off as she registered Justin’s suddenly taut stance, his locked jaw, his face grimly free of emotion. ‘Lucy’s not coming. She’s not even in the country. I got an email from her in response to my invitation for tonight. She was in Singapore, en route to London. She’s got herself a European work visa and a job as in-house counsel at Barclays. We won’t be seeing Lucy again.’

  ‘Oh, Justin!’ Eleanor and Pippa exclaimed in dismayed unison, Eleanor squeezing her son’s waist, Pippa gripping his hand.

  ‘It’s not necessarily forever, darling,’ Eleanor entreated. ‘And anyway, you can always follow her. You always said you’d like to work in Europe.’

  Justin brushed off his mother’s concern with a nod and a shrug, and with what Pippa privately assessed was two parts stubbornness, eight parts bravura. ‘You’re right, I have always wanted that. I’d have to requalify under the British system, but it’s not out of the question. Perhaps I will. Later. Philippa, stop looking at me like my puppy’s just died. I’m fine. I’m not giving up on Lucy just yet, but you’ve said all along she needs time, so that’s what I’m going to give her. Speaking of time, where the hell is Matt?’

  Pippa’s fingers clenched uncontrollably in Justin’s and she evaded his sharp look, scanning the crowds with what she hoped looked like calm indifference and speaking with what she tried to make a casual inflection. ‘Matt? I haven’t seen him. Isn’t he in Sydney?’

  ‘He’s come back for the opening tonight. At least, he’s supposed to have come back.’ Justin was scrolling through the text messages on his phone. ‘Yep. He should have been here half an hour ago. Maybe his flight was delayed. I guess I’ll go and find a quiet spot to ring him and see how far away he is.’

  Pippa gripped his sleeve urgently. ‘Justin, before you go: I just wanted to say thank you for the invitation, and I’m sorry I can’t stay—’

  ‘You’re leaving?’ This time it was Eleanor and Justin speaking in unison, their frowns mirror images of each other.

  ‘I’m not well. I’m sorry. I think I caught sunstroke yesterday. I’ve been battling it all day, and with the heat and the crowds … I’m sorry. But I really must go.’

  ‘But I haven’t made my speech yet!’ Justin’s woebegone wail sounded much as Pippa imagined it had when he’d been a toddler deprived of a favourite toy. She reached up and pressed a kiss against his cheek.

  ‘You don’t need me here for your speech. I’d rather slip away now before you start.’

  Justin kissed her briefly on the forehead. ‘Hope you feel better soon.’

  He turned away, and Pippa turned in the opposite direction, towards the door, but her elbow was grasped in surprisingly firm fingers. ‘Philippa, are you avoiding Matt?’ Eleanor’s tone was kind but distinctly disapproving.

  ‘Avoiding Matt? Why would I avoid Matt?’ She tried to control the breathlessness but knew from Eleanor’s face she wasn’t fooled.

  ‘He mentioned this morning you hadn’t returned his calls the last couple of days. I know the two of you have been getting … close. I wondered if he’d upset you in some way.’

  She had to get away. She couldn’t have this conversation, not with his mother. She pinned a bright smile on her face.

  ‘No, of course he hasn’t upset me. I’ve just been very busy, I’m afraid. And we’re not close; not that way. Matt was probably just trying to ring me about a business matter.’

  ‘Don’t hurt him, Philippa.’ The kindness was still there, but there was also a cold maternal steel in Eleanor’s dark eyes, so much like her son’s Pippa wondered how she’d never seen it before. She was startled into silence for a moment before she remembered, and had to choke down the hysterics that threatened to bubble out of her gullet. Her? Hurt Matt? Her incredulity must have shown, despite her attempts to dampen it.

  ‘I know he appears impervious, he likes to pretend he has no human feelings to be damaged, but it’s a shell, Philippa. He’s trying to protect himself. For years he’s refused to allow himself to care about anybody. But with you, he’s different. He cares. And that makes him vulnerable. So please, don’t hurt him. I’m not sure he could recover from it.’

  Rage battled with despair and temporarily helped Pippa reassert her brittle control. She respected Eleanor. Liked her. Trusted her. Had hoped they might become friends. In one single statement, Eleanor had reminded Pippa of the thing she couldn’t, must never, forget: Eleanor was Matt’s mother. A Mason. Her first allegiance would always be to her son. And her son was set on destroying Pippa. She sucked resolve into her spine and professional hauteur into her features.

  ‘I assure you, Eleanor, I’m the last person on earth who could hurt Matt. You don’t need to worry. And now I really must go.’

  She almost made it. Got as far as the heavy, swinging chrome-and-glass door, only to see Matt trotting up the front steps on the other side of it, still in his dark business suit but tieless, with his snowy white shirt unbuttoned at the throat. Desire, pain, terror, fury, all collided somewhere in the centre of her chest and coagulated in the base of her throat. She spun about, blocked by the solid wall of chattering, champagne-swilling society. There was nowhere for her to go, and with a sinking inevitability she felt him, smelt him, his heat and musk and irrepressible, close-harnessed energy beside her. His hands moved towards her waist and she feinted, dodged down and around, intent on escaping him, eyes fixed on the taxi she could see still paused at the entrance, ignoring his harsh, ‘Philippa! Wait!’, shoving the door open and almost tumbling down the stairs as she avoided his clasp. She was vaguely conscious of people on the concourse staring at her, somebody moving towards her. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting in that cab.

  She slammed the door as Matt reached the bottom step, ordered, ‘City, please,’ as the driver pulled away, and watched, heart racing, as Matt stopped at the bottom of the stairs, threw his hands in the air in frustration and yelled something Pippa couldn’t hear. She was still craning, still watching, still not quite believing she’d made her escape, as the cab took a sharp left and Matt disappeared from view.

  ***

  She couldn’t stay in the house.

  Pippa knew it was only a matter of time before Matt arrived. Like an automaton, even as her mind panicked her body slipped into action, packing a small tote with a change of clothes, preparing a flask of hot tea and another of soft drink, stashing packets of muesli bars, pieces of fruit, the half loaf of bread in the bag with the clothes. She stopped abruptly in the middle of the kitchen: what the hell was she doing? What the hell was she thinking?

  She wasn’t thinking, that was the point. Didn’t need to think. Escaping the house, escaping the danger was a reflex, an automatic response she hadn’t had to call on in more than a decade, but still, was ingrained as deeply in her system as the times table. It was only a matter of time before Matt arrived, and she didn’t plan on being there when he did. She ran through the mental list again. Clothes, food, hot drink. Running shoes. Blanket. Keys, wallet, mobile. She locked the windows and doors then ran out to her ute, flinging her kit onto the front seat and pulling out of the driveway and into the street with no clear idea where she was going.

  Where could she go? She had friends, sure, but none were close. Or not close enough, anyway, to turn up on their doorstep like some fugitive from the law. Her foot eased on the pedal. What the hell was she doing? Matt wasn’t her father. He’d never shown violence. And even if he had, he had no rights. No rights to her, no rights to her property. If he showed up—when he showed up—she
could insist he leave. She could call the police if he didn’t. Why the hell was she letting him force her out of her own home?

  Pippa pulled the car over to the side of the road and rested her head on the steering wheel. If she’d ever doubted the impact Matt Mason had had on her, here it was: she was fleeing him with the same dread she and her mother had so many times fled her father. And for what? She was in no physical danger, she was quite sure of that. So why was she running away?

  It’s not your body that’s at risk. It’s your heart, remember? You don’t want him to know. You don’t want to look at him and see just how he’s played you. You don’t want to see that contempt when he realises he doesn’t have to pretend any more, when he realises he’s won.

  You don’t want him to see you love him, in spite of it all.

  And because she knew she couldn’t hide it, couldn’t hide herself or her perplexing, disastrous love, she couldn’t go home. Couldn’t be where he would find her. The towers of Mt Coot-tha blinked cheerily to the west. Why not? She couldn’t afford a hotel, not with the current parlous state of her finances, and it wouldn’t be the first time she’d slept in the ute. There was a lay by on the mountain where lovers stopped to look out over the city lights. It was regularly patrolled by police. It wouldn’t be comfortable, and she’d probably have to identify and explain herself to every patrol during the night, but it was safe. She slipped the car into gear and drove off, to spend the second night in a row somewhere other than her own bed.

  ***

  Justin was seeing off the last of his guests and Matt wandered idly about the gallery, hands stuffed in his pockets, perusing a bunch of photographs. Eleanor had headed off in a taxi a few minutes ago, and he’d lied when she’d asked him had he seen Philippa. He didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he didn’t need his mother interfering before he’d worked it out.

  The nagging feelings he’d had when she hadn’t answered his phone calls or texts had coalesced with her panicked departure. She hadn’t even spoken to him. Not a word. The last time he’d seen her—Saturday morning, looking dishevelled and delectable after their long and passionate night of loving—there’d been no clue anything was wrong. They’d played phone-tag Sunday and Monday, he’d been too busy to call her Tuesday while he tried to hurry the negotiations along so he could get back early for Justin’s mysterious function, but he’d called her repeatedly yesterday and today and she’d not responded once. Maddening, fickle, unpredictable bloody woman!

  Except she wasn’t. Not usually. And that worried him more than anything.

  He clenched his fingers again around the small, hard case in his pocket. He’d been carrying it around since Sunday, flipping it open in private moments to check again that it was right. Right for her, for Philippa. It was the most impulsive thing he could remember doing since he’d skipped an exam in his final year at high school to go to the races with his Uncle Jack. The bawling-out he’d got from his father over that episode, his mother’s silent but pained disappointment, had cured him of impetuous follies.

  But he’d been thinking of Philippa since he left her, thinking of how she made him feel, thinking of how she made him hope, and when he’d seen the ring in a jeweller’s shop in the Queen Victoria Building on Sunday, he’d known. More certainly than he’d ever known anything before her, he’d known he wanted her forever. For good times and bad. For all of it.

  So when Justin insisted Matt had to be home on Thursday night instead of Friday, he hadn’t taken much persuading. All he’d had to decide was whether he’d ask her Thursday night, after whatever it was Justin had cooked up, or Friday night, on their date. Their first date. He’d chafed at the delay when the first plane couldn’t take off and had to be replaced; had had to forcibly restrain himself from pushing to the head of the long taxi queue when he’d landed in Brisbane; had urged the taxi driver to hurry up even knowing the man was already driving at the speed limit. By the time they’d arrived at the gallery, he’d known: he didn’t want to wait. He was going to ask her tonight.

  And then he’d seen her coming towards him, felt the wallop in his guts and his groin he always felt when he saw her, had reached for her with all the love he felt for her—and she’d run. She’d run away from him. She’d got in his own bloody cab and driven away. Justin had hustled him in off the footpath and then made a speech which was largely a blur. Something about a competition. Something about a mentor. Something about Philippa, Philippa helping Justin. Matt had made no sense of any of it. His mind had been too busy trying to make sense of Philippa leaving. Eleanor had found him and stared at him with that penetrating gaze that always suggested she’d discovered the erotic poetry he’d penned as a pimply teenager and hidden under his mattress. She’d asked if he’d seen Philippa and he’d lied, and shortly after she’d left.

  Now he wandered around the gallery wondering what the hell he was doing here. He squinted at a photograph, trying to work out what the devil it was. Stepped back for a better perspective; skimmed the accompanying description and tripped over the name of the photographer. Shit. It was Justin’s name. Justin’s work. He moved to the next image and checked the description. Also Justin’s. Moved on. Frame after frame, it was all Justin’s.

  Some of it wasn’t bad. For a barrister.

  As if he’d heard the silent, backhanded praise, his brother clapped him on the shoulder and handed him a glass of flat champagne. He didn’t bother tasting it; it was bad enough when it had fizz.

  ‘Thanks for coming back, Matt. It meant a lot to me.’

  ‘You might have at least let on what I was coming back for. How long have you been doing this?’ Matt gestured at the photos with the glass, slopping a little over the rim. He offloaded it on a nearby table.

  ‘A couple of months. It’s kind of therapy. Philippa told me I had to find an interest of my own, something that didn’t involve family or Lucy or work. This is what I ended up with.’

  ‘It’s not bad.’

  ‘I’m not giving up my day job.’

  ‘No. But it’s not bad. Philippa told you to do it?’

  ‘Well, not this specifically. But yes. It was one of her conditions for counselling me: I had to leave Lucy alone for a while, leave women alone for a while, and find some other outlet for my … energies.’

  ‘You didn’t have to leave Philippa alone though?’

  Justin heaved an exaggerated sigh. ‘Mate, I’ve told you: there is nothing between Philippa and me. The road is clear. Always has been.’

  ‘You gave me the idea, a few times, that wasn’t the case.’

  Justin shrugged. ‘Old habits die hard. It was obvious from the beginning you fancied her. Should have seen the look on your face the first time you saw her. You looked like you’d been poleaxed. The next thing I know, you’ve got her out in the carpark in the dark, looking like she’s your idea of breakfast, lunch and dinner. You know I can’t just let you have everything you want so easily. I’d be failing in my duty as your younger brother to help build your character.’

  ‘I thought she’d split you up, you and Lucy.’

  Justin sighed again, and this time the sigh was real. ‘The only person who split Lucy and me up was me. I was an idiot. A complete bloody tool, if you must know. The way I felt about Lucy scared the bejesus out of me. She gave me an ultimatum—stop screwing around or she’d leave me for good. I didn’t want her seeing anybody else so I proposed to her. It was an impulse—’ Matt fingered the box in his pocket again—’ but as soon as I asked her, I knew it was right. I promised her I’d never so much as look at another woman again, and she agreed to marry me.’

  ‘And what went wrong?’

  ‘I hit on Philippa.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I hit on her. I don’t know what I was thinking. I didn’t even want her that badly. I mean, she’s pretty and everything, and she’s an absolutely brilliant person when you get to know her, but she’s really not my type. I’d been feeling a bit … trapped, I suppose,
a bit weird about the fact I’d never sleep with any other woman but Lucy. Anyway, Philippa sent me packing. I was terrified she was going to tell Lucy, but she didn’t; she just suggested we needed some pre-marriage counselling. I was so relieved, I knew I’d got away with it and it had given me enough of a fright that I knew I wouldn’t do it again—wouldn’t cheat, I mean—so I said I didn’t need counselling. And then Lucy said she wouldn’t marry me if we didn’t have counselling, and it all kind of went south from there. And she called it off.’

  ‘Lucy called it off?’

  ‘Yep. I think she knew something had happened, even though Philippa didn’t say anything. She said she couldn’t trust me and wouldn’t marry me, and that was that.’

  ‘But you kept on seeing Philippa?’

  ‘She was coaching me, trying to help me get Lucy back. And for a while there, I thought it was going to work, but then it all went to shit at Mum’s party. My fault again. And now Lucy’s up and moved to London, and here I stand, a sore, sorry excuse for a lawyer with a nasty habit of hiding in bushes taking pictures, which will no doubt get me into a lot of trouble in my later years.’

  Justin was trying to laugh off his misery, but Matt had had years of practice reading his siblings’ feelings. He half-slapped, half-rubbed his younger brother’s back. ‘Will you go after her?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think she wants me to. But I’ll tell you this much: if I do, and I get her back again, I won’t ever let her go. That stupid old cliché about not knowing what you’ve got until it’s gone is absolutely true.’

  ‘That’s why it’s a cliché.’

  ‘And what about you, big brother mine? What’s going on with you and Philippa? You going to nail her, or what?’

  Matt pushed away, sympathy turning abruptly to ire. ‘Don’t be so bloody crude, Justin.’

  His brother raised one lazy eyebrow. ‘You’re only saying that because you already have, am I right? Of course I’m right. That’s why you’ve been so antsy thinking I was chasing her. Is it serious?’