by Ber Carroll
‘What’s happening while you’re away on the course?’ His tone was narky, as if she was taking an inconvenient holiday rather than partaking in a firm-sponsored programme.
‘I’ve delegated everything – with the exception of the SDS enterprise agreement, which I should be able to keep tabs on while I’m away.’
‘Delegated to whom?’ His eyes narrowed behind the oversized glasses.
‘Graham, Sandra and Joe – I have the work plan here.’ Her tone was calm; she was used to dealing with his moods.
‘I hope we can contact you if we need to,’ he sniped as he picked up the work plan.
‘Not during the day,’ she said, ‘and most of the evenings will be taken up with assignments. But I’ll be available between five and six – we’re meant to use that hour to wind down . . .’ Her voice faded away to a cynical smile, as if the idea of winding down was a big joke.
Neil made a sound that was close to a snort, his way of letting her know that he still wasn’t happy.
‘I suppose it will be a trial run for when you’re overseas.’
‘Exactly.’
He started to dissect the work plan, and the next fifteen minutes were taken up with his petty criticisms. Katie sat through it, biting her tongue. Now was not the time to let two years of frustration show.
She was standing up to leave when she said, ‘By the way, Claudine will be out for a few weeks. Her son is in hospital.’
‘How many weeks?’ Neil frowned.
Katie had to stop herself from saying, Shouldn’t you be asking what is wrong with her son?
‘About six,’ she replied casually, downplaying the fact that six was more likely to be the minimum than the maximum.
‘How many weeks’ leave does she have outstanding?’
Katie had her facts prepared. ‘There are five weeks of combined sick and annual leave on the payroll system.’
He snorted again and resumed reading the contract he had been defacing when she walked in.
His reaction to Claudine’s unfortunate news was exactly as Katie had expected. Neil was generally indifferent to those who didn’t further his interests in some way. Katie was his one and only anomaly. He had paved the way for her and turned partnership from a dream into a reachable goal. She never dared to analyse why.
It was a long day, spent mostly at her desk. She called it quits at seven-thirty and started the walk home. Elizabeth Street was dark and quiet, Town Hall brighter and busier. Passing by the entrance to the train station, she thought of Claudine. She had intended to call her earlier but billing in six-minute units afforded little time to stop and be human. She took out her mobile and placed the belated call.
‘How is he?’ she asked when Claudine answered.
‘Bored already,’ she sighed. ‘I don’t know how he’ll last six weeks of this – or how I’ll last, for that matter!’
‘It’s probably after visiting hours, but would a new face help relieve the boredom?’
‘Absolutely. Just tell them you’re family.’
Katie walked into the ward thirty minutes later and asked the tired-looking staff nurse where she could find Ethan Myers.
‘Down the corridor. Last room.’
Katie followed her instructions, her runners squeaking on the linoleum floor, the sounds of beeping machines and crying children echoing in the dim light Inside the last room she found that each bed was sectioned off by an old-fashioned floral curtain.
‘Claudine?’ she whispered.
A silhouette rose from behind one of the curtains and created a small opening for Katie to enter through.
‘Come in,’ said Claudine. ‘We’re just watching TV.’
Ethan was lying on his back, his legs suspended from two metal tracks.
Six weeks like that, she thought as she looked at the thick spiral of bandages on each leg. He’ll go crazy.
She became aware that his dark eyes were waiting for her to speak.
‘I’m Katie,’ she said.
‘I know,’ was his answer. ‘You’re Mum’s boss.’
‘Looks like you’re going to be stuck here for a while, mate.’
‘Six weeks. I’m already going loopy.’
‘You should be thankful that you’re getting out of here at all,’ Claudine pointed out. ‘Two nights ago we thought you’d be a vegetable for the rest of your life.’
Katie thought that Claudine was being harsh.
She cocked her head. ‘You’d make a good turnip.’
‘No, that’s boring,’ Ethan grinned. ‘I’m more of a broccoli head.’
They giggled but Claudine stayed straight-faced, their sense of the ridiculous lost on her.
Katie turned her eyes to the small TV that had more static than picture.
‘At least you can become a couch potato.’
He didn’t laugh. ‘All the TVs in here are ancient – and they don’t have any DVD players . . .’
‘Would a DVD player make things better?’ she asked more seriously.
‘Yeah. I could watch movies!’
His small face was so wistful that she felt a tug at her heart.
Even though Katie hadn’t even heard of Ethan Myers two days ago, he somehow managed to occupy her thoughts disproportionately. All through the taxi ride home, her restless sleep and at work the next day, Ethan’s plight nagged away at her. He was such a bright spark. But would his sense of humour be killed by six long weeks of confinement, eating, sleeping, even bathing in that same bed?
Mid-morning, right in the middle of a complex letter of advice, she decided she would buy him the DVD player. Once the decision was made, she was able to concentrate. But by lunchtime she was dragging her heels again because she remembered the ancient TV.
Maybe a portable DVD player would be a better option.
It would be expensive but worth it. Besides, she owed Claudine for her loyalty and hard work. Decision made, Katie got on with the letter but it wasn’t long before she stalled once more. She realised that she couldn’t possibly give Ethan a portable DVD player while the other kids looked on with envy.
How many kids in the ward? Twenty? Thirty?
Her phone rang, interrupting the calculations going on in her head. It was Graham, one of the graduates.
‘I’m struggling with that research you asked me to do,’ he said. ‘Can I come and see you?’
‘Yeah, come around.’
She spent the next few hours poring over the relevant legislation and precedents with Graham. When he left, she finished the letter of advice she’d been working on earlier. Her phone rang again. Then she went to a meeting. Work consumed her thoughts once more. Ethan Myers had retreated.
Katie crammed in as much work as possible over the next week, trying to make up for the impact the residential course would have on her billability. The only break she allowed herself was a lunch with Annie and baby Zack.
‘We need to go somewhere that has space for the pram,’ said Annie when Katie met her outside the building, ‘and somewhere that isn’t too quiet – so he can’t be heard if he screams.’
From the welcoming smile on Zack’s cherubic face, it was hard to believe that he ever screamed or that he woke almost hourly during the night. Katie ruffled his golden hair.
‘We don’t need to go to a café. We can just have a sandwich in the park,’ she suggested.
Annie was so relieved that she looked ready to cry.
They bought some sandwiches at a nearby bistro and crossed the road to Hyde Park. Katie towered over Annie as they walked under the green canopy of trees. At school they had been called Little and Large. Despite their physical differences, their personalities were very similar. Over the years their curiosity had got them into all sorts of mischief and their tempers had fuelled the most extreme arguments, with Jean or Rose sometimes having to pull them apart.
Now Annie wearily lifted Zack out of the pram and Katie held out her arms.
‘Let me play with him while you eat.’
/> Annie handed him over and he gave Katie another cute smile.
‘I think your mother is lying,’ she said, tickling him under the chin. ‘You’re too gorgeous to be causing all this trouble.’
‘Street angel, home devil,’ Annie remarked wryly as she unwrapped her sandwich. ‘Speaking of devils, handsome ones, guess who I ran into last week?’
‘Who?’
‘Danny Concertino.’
‘Ooooh, Zack,’ Katie lifted him so they were eye to eye, ‘your mummy’s first love.’
‘He had three squabbling kids in tow.’
‘See, you would have been worse off.’
‘I’d be certifiable, that’s what I’d be,’ Annie laughed. ‘I can’t cope with one.’
‘Zack, your mummy wants you and only you . . .’
Zack was rapt with the dogs, the birds and the clouds rolling across the sky.
Annie was a little more relaxed when she said goodbye.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said, knowing that Katie was concerned. ‘I’m just a slow learner – sooner or later I’ll get the hang of this mothering business.’
Before Katie knew it, it was Sunday again.
‘Mum? Dad?’ she called as she opened the front door of her parents’ house.
‘We’re out the back,’ Rose called in reply.
Katie joined them on the deck. They sat side by side on the lounge, both reading different parts of the same newspaper.
‘Hard at work, I see,’ Katie commented.
‘It is Sunday,’ Rose returned. ‘Some of us relax at the weekend.’
‘Where’s Stephen?’ Katie kicked off her shoes. The wood was deliciously warm under her bare feet, the deck a suntrap even in the winter.
‘He’s not coming for lunch this week,’ Rose replied. ‘He’s got something else on – a new girlfriend, I think.’
‘Let’s hope she’s nicer than the last one.’ Stephen had a habit of picking women who were totally wrong for him: insensitive to his sensitivity, vacuous to his intelligence, obsessive about superficialities. They wanted to fix his posture, his voice, his wit, so that he was less like himself and more like a stock-standard boyfriend. ‘Finished with that part, Dad?’ Katie asked, nodding towards the business section of the paper.
‘Never read it,’ he said as he handed it over.
Katie flicked through the pages. It was important to keep up to date with what was happening in the wider world of business. Her clients expected opinions on matters other than the law.
‘There’s a big match on tonight,’ Frankie commented from the depths of the sports section. ‘The Wallabies versus Ireland.’
‘Are you staying up to watch it?’ asked Katie.
‘Of course I am,’ he replied as if it was perfectly normal to watch a rugby game at midnight. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘No – I’ve an early start tomorrow.’
The Hunter Valley, famous for its wineries, was a two-hour drive from Sydney and she’d have to be on the road by 6 am.
Ten minutes were whittled away before Katie became aware that Frankie was starting to fidget. She knew what he was working up to even before the words came out of his mouth.
‘Did you get your money back on those tickets?’
‘No,’ she said casually. ‘I haven’t called the travel agent yet.’
She saw him frown out of the corner of her eye. ‘Surely the sooner you call, the better chance you have?’
She turned over the page before she answered. ‘I was hoping I could talk you two around.’
Rose looked up. ‘There’s no “talking around”. We don’t want to go.’
‘Why?’ Katie met her mother’s gaze.
‘It’s too long a journey . . .’
‘Come on, Mum. I know you’d have a ball. All the family, your old friends!’
Rose seemed to be unable to provide a response.
‘Did something happen there? Is that why you don’t want to go back?’
Rose jumped to her feet, her face flushed. ‘For heaven’s sake, Katie! We don’t want to go and that’s that.’
She marched off to the kitchen, where pots and pans clashed as she made an early start on lunch.
Frankie shook his head at his daughter, as if she had sorely disappointed him. ‘Let it drop, Katie. Go in now and say sorry to her. And cancel the tickets without any more fuss, that’s a good girl.’
Chapter 5
‘Mum, is my nana alive?’
There was a silence. ‘No, love.’
Katie quite deliberately lulled her mother into a false sense of security by letting a few seconds pass before asking the next question.
‘How about my other nana? Nana Horgan?’
Another silence was followed by a reluctant reply. ‘Yes, she’s alive, but she’s very old.’
‘We should phone her,’ Katie suggested as if the idea had occurred to her that very moment. ‘She must be lonely.’
More seconds ticked by. Rose looked as if she was scrambling for an answer.
‘She has no phone, love.’
‘No phone?’ Katie’s eyes widened in disbelief. However, she was quick to think of an alternative. ‘Well, what if we phoned her neighbours and asked them to go get her?’
‘She’s too old, she can’t leave the house.’
Katie thought about this for a while. ‘Does Dad write to her at all?’
Rose didn’t answer.
‘Mum?’
‘Yes, he does – when he gets the time.’
Rose was starting to sound annoyed but Katie pressed on regardless.
‘How about aunties and uncles? Do I have any of those?’
‘Don’t you have plenty? Uncle Alexander, Auntie Jean –’
‘But they aren’t real aunties and uncles.’
‘They’d be very hurt if they heard you say that, Katie Horgan.’
Once again, Katie didn’t heed the warning in her mother’s voice.
‘I’m going to write to Nana Horgan,’ she decided. ‘I’ll put my letter in with Dad’s next one. She’d love to hear from me. I’m sure she doesn’t have any other grandchildren who live so far away –’
Rose cut her off. ‘Katie, set the table for dinner, please.’
‘But I’m talking to you about something important.’
‘I don’t want to have to tell your father that you were cheeky,’ said Rose, her tone very sharp by now.
‘I’m not being cheeky.’ Katie’s seven-year-old face flared red at the sheer injustice of the accusation. ‘And I don’t want any stupid dinner.’
When Frankie came home from work, she was lying across her bed, sulking.
‘You’ve been upsetting your mother,’ he said, his expression resigned.
‘She’s been upsetting me!’ Katie declared.
‘Let it drop, Katie,’ he sighed as he sat on the bed. ‘Go in now and say sorry to her. That’s a good girl.’
Chapter 6
Katie backed her Audi A3 out of the poky garage where it spent most of its time. She much preferred to walk to work than be stuck in the car, crawling through gridlocked traffic. But she liked driving on the open road and she put her foot down when she reached the start of the freeway. The speedometer quickly climbed to just above the speed limit. She overtook the first rush of cars and then settled back into the left lane.
The Audi effortlessly ate the kilometres as she half listened to a morning show on the radio. Outside, the sky gradually turned a perfect winter blue and the sun glinted off the roofs of the cars ahead. The freeway forged on through dense bush and dried-up creeks. Eventually the radio lost its reception and Katie turned it off. Silence filled the car. Her head felt clear and alert. It seemed like the right time to think of Rose and the memories that had started to surface after yesterday’s brief altercation.
Katie had apologised, Rose had forgiven her and the rest of the afternoon had been amicable and uneventful. Much later in the evening, as Katie packed the clothes she would need
while she was away, a light switched on in her head. For the first time she saw a common theme in the blurred memories of her childhood. She realised that many of her apologies and Rose’s absolutions had related to the same thing: Ireland. Katie’s curiosity had always clashed with her mother’s reluctance to impart information. During her teens she became preoccupied with clothes and boys and the arguments fizzled away. Now the tickets had brought about their first quarrel in years and inadvertently turned the clock back. With an adult’s hindsight, it seemed obvious that something had happened to Rose in Ireland. What could be so bad? Some argument with the family? Couldn’t Rose see that forty years would surely bury the hatchet?
Katie had her best ideas when she was smoking, and her hand fumbled to find her cigarette box on the dash. Keeping her eyes on the road, she lifted the flap, extracted a cigarette and slid it between her lips. Her lighter was next. She glanced down at the positioning of the flame. It took only the briefest second, yet when she looked at the road again it was too late.
She had sailed past the first police officer. The second was up ahead and waving her down.
As she braked, she glanced down at the speedometer: one hundred and twenty and dropping quickly. What had it been two hundred metres back where the first officer had his camera?
Damn. Damn. Damn.
She eventually came to a stop and rolled down the window.
A young freckled face looked in at her. ‘Good morning, miss. Are you aware of the speed you were travelling?’
‘A hundred and twenty?’ she asked hopefully.
‘One hundred and twenty-eight.’ His expression was grave. ‘Are you aware of the speed limit?’
‘A hundred and ten,’ she replied and took a drag of her cigarette. It was going to be a hefty fine.
‘Can I see your licence?’
‘Sure.’ Katie looked around for her handbag. It wasn’t on the back seat – she must have thrown it in with her other luggage. ‘My bag must be in the boot. Can I get out?’
He moved away from the door and she opened it cautiously. Cars whizzed by at ferocious speeds and a wild wind billowed in their wake. Holding down her A-line skirt, Katie walked to the rear of the car. Thankfully, her handbag was in the boot and not left behind at home. Popping her cigarette into her mouth, she peered into the junk-filled depths of the bag. The exact location of her black leather wallet was not obvious. She moved a few things around but still no joy.