‘A what now?’ I laughed.
‘Proposition,’ he said slowly. ‘Sorry. Proposition.’
‘That sounds better.’
‘Business, purely business.’ Pink with embarrassment, he spun on his heel and walked away.
The chance at a new contact was great, even with a bumbling start. I glanced over at Oliver, who gave me an absent-minded thumbs-up from his spot behind the coffee machine. He had a small harem of women around him. No huge surprise there – he was beautiful to look at, a minor celebrity, and could make a decent coffee. Bypassing Louis, one of our staff, I collected the last of the cake stands, and was cut off by a half-drunk woman and her phone shoved in my face. She slurred a few broken words, told me her taxi was here, and vanished.
Another request for a business card had me occupied for a brief few moments. It had been one of many distractions throughout the day and, when I turned back towards the coffee station, Oliver had moved. Two junior staff behind the counter looked run off their feet, sweat beading on foreheads and damp hair, simply trying to keep up with requests. They may have been getting praise for their skills, but there was no escaping that Oliver was now sitting at one of the tables surrounded by businessmen. And none of them seemed interested in congratulating anyone but him.
They laughed, they joked, they piled into frame for selfies, and grabbed autographs on discarded menus. It was something else to watch Oliver surrounded by admirers, the way he changed.
‘Lucy, a round of coffees over here, will you?’
I looked around at the empty seats, the coffee machine being cleaned by two staff who were about ready to pass out.
‘Are you busy?’ I asked.
Thunder rolled across his face. I grinned. Tittering, sniggering laughter floated up from conversations not meant for my ears, and I concentrated on what I needed to do, which was sort out staff and make sure everything was organised so that they got to leave on time.
‘Oliver?’ I called.
A hand was held up to silence me. Now I was beyond angry. We as a team had worked our arses off all day to make sure this went off without a hitch. Problems were solved, mistakes covered up, and all the while Oliver had spent more time networking than working. Sure, he was the head of the company – I got that. But to take the glory, only muck in when it suited, and then to order coffee like we were there to cater to him?
It wasn’t until I began clearing the last of the tables that something flipped. I got closer to the table and offered Oliver a look that he might best have described as blind fury. They were all in the midst of a discussion about the best cheese regions, Oliver offering to host a dinner party should anyone feel like joining him in France. So much for resurrecting his marriage with proclamations of not wanting to leave me again.
All the while, I was tied up in knots under the notion of professionalism.
When eventually he managed to clear out his circle of admirers, he waltzed across to clean up the last half-dozen remaining plates and cups. The table was gone before he’d managed to fold the tablecloth in half.
‘Are you quite right?’ I asked. ‘Inviting everyone to France?’
‘Lucy, I can explain.’
‘Oliver, we’re at work.’
‘No, Luce, I want to talk to you.’
‘No, Oliver. Work. You have staff who need to be sent home, I’m cleaning up, and I doubt it would be a good look for me to throttle you in front of everyone.’
‘It’s not like that.’
‘What it is like is that I don’t want to hear it. I’ve had enough excuses for the day. You’ve spent all day slacking off, leaving everyone else to cover for you. I feel like I’m drowning, trying to work out things you haven’t yet told me. So much for being hands-on. Oh, no, wait, you are hands-on, organising trips to France. I’m going to finish with the cake stands, and I am going home. You’ll be fine without me for clean-up?’
‘We will.’
I tossed my apron on the nearest patch of dirt and walked away. I didn’t look back, and didn’t question what I was doing. I just left.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
On my way home, I’d stopped at McDonald’s for a cheeseburger, and the bottle shop for what would later become sleeping aids. I considered checking in on Zoe. By rights, Peter should have told her. He should have been begging for forgiveness. Perhaps it was best I stayed out of that. I’d been gone so long that, by the time I pulled up at Murray’s, it was a hive of activity.
I ripped the keys from the ignition, lucky not to break them, threw the door open wide, slammed it shut again, and stormed a trail up the driveway towards the side entrance. Oliver, who was busy tapping away at his phone in a nervous panic, spotted me. He rushed outside to meet me, moving so quickly, he slid to a stop in the gravel. Dust puffed up by his feet.
I cut him off with a finger in the air. ‘I don’t want to hear it.’
‘Can you let me explain?’
‘How dare you!’ I shouted. ‘You think there’s an explanation for that?’
‘Lucy, listen.’ He held out a hand, more a red rag than a calming influence.
‘Listen to what, Oliver? More lies?’ I sneered. ‘Because that’s what this all is, isn’t it?’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s not.’
Just inside the door was our diary. It contained all my cake orders, any catering enquiries and general notes. I had no cakes for three weeks, though I had planned to start making Christmas cakes and pies to order. I could do that at home if I were desperate.
‘How dare you waltz back into my life, Oliver, claim to still be in love with me, and then do that? How? Because I’m not seeing a correlation between love and that. Doing that. Talking to me like that. Ignoring me, all of us when we need help.’
He stood still. ‘I have nothing, Luce. I’m sorry.’
‘Do you have any idea how it felt to be me? The one person I should be able to rely on basically told me to pack up and walk away.’
‘Well, I do have a fairly solid idea, actually, because I had to watch that goon drape himself all over you at that bloody wedding,’ he snapped. ‘So, yes, yes I do.’
‘Oh, here we go. Is this payback? Is that what this is? Goddamn it, Oliver, you are so bloody unforgiving.’
‘I told you I didn’t have to forgive you for anything,’ he shouted. ‘I made it very clear that I was happy to move on from that.’
‘Really? Because this doesn’t sound like moving on. This sounds like dredging up old shit. I have worked my arse off in here to get everything right. I have stumbled and tripped, but I have come back. I can’t afford for anything to go wrong. This job is all I have, and all you have done is criticise when things go wrong, and steal the limelight when they go right.’
‘What?’ he shrieked. ‘I have not.’
‘Yes, you have. Nothing is as good as it is in France. The butter’s not right, the salt is different, the meat, the wine. Everything that was good enough for you three years ago is suddenly bottom of the barrel, how very dare we expect the wonderful Oliver Murray to partake in eating such mundanities.’
‘Are you jealous, Lucy?’
‘Jealous of you? No. I have never been jealous of you. I have been excited for your success, even if it came at the cost of me.’
‘And whose fault is that? Because I wasn’t the one who cut phones off, placed blocks on social media, and refused to converse. I didn’t want to lose you, Lucy. I made that very clear.’ He slammed a finger down into his palm. ‘Very clear, from the beginning, that it was my wish to keep this going. You cut me off. You did this, not me. This is your fault. All of this.’
‘What did you expect me to do? Huh? My husband picked his career over me. Fame, over me,’ I shouted, much to the amusement of our staff. ‘Add to that your whole “I wish I’d never met you” spiel.’
‘For God’s sake, Lucy, I didn’t pick fame over you. I went to progress my career. I begged you to come with me, but you are so bloody stubborn that ev
eryone else is wrong and you are right, even if you’re the one who pulled the trigger. Because heaven forbid someone else act on their hopes and dreams. If you don’t want it, it apparently doesn’t exist.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘No, it’s not bullshit. I called your brother. He hung up on me. I called your parents. They wouldn’t give me any information. I tried for months after that phone call to get hold of you, Lucy. I wanted to apologise. I didn’t leave because I didn’t love you. I still loved you. I love you still now. I need you, and I am working my arse off to try and fix us, but you will not budge.’
‘So, what was that today? Walking over the top of staff, when they needed guidance and help. Climbing over me to take the accolades. Something to help fix me? Make me, us, more resilient?’
He threw his head back. ‘Lucy, no. They just … happened in the moment. I am sorry. I’m sure it looked a lot more harmful than it was meant to be.’
I laughed. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Please don’t do this to me.’ He closed his eyes like he was in pain.
‘You know what? I’m over it. I have worked my arse off, only for you to take credit. You have a meltdown because you forgot your cards, but that was my fault. Someone congratulates you on the centrepiece cake today, and you don’t say “Oh, you should say that to Lucy – she created it”, instead you said, “Thanks, yeah, it’s great, we worked hard on that”. It’s all the Oliver show. It’s all about you. Fuck you, Oliver. Enjoy your cheese trip to France.’
‘At least I can meet people halfway. All you’ve done is slam doors and storm off when it gets too hard.’
‘Well, how’s this for storming off?’ I pulled my jacket off and tossed it towards him. ‘I want that divorce. I’m done. I’ll drop the paperwork into town tomorrow.’
The door rattled behind me. I wasn’t sure what I expected any more, but perhaps I thought Oliver might try and follow. When he didn’t, the feeling was neither happy nor sad, and I was too exhausted to try and peg things into any other holes.
After everything, I needed time alone to think. I locked the front door, placed a record on the turntable, and slid into a piping hot bath. I wanted to scrub until all the layers of the emotional onion had peeled away. But I couldn’t quite slough the feeling that the day wasn’t done. I was still worried about Zoe, and about what she would be currently going through. A few hours later, after an afternoon tea of toasted sandwiches and leftover cake, once my annoyance at Oliver wore down to an annoying throb, she was all I could think about.
I had to go and see if she was okay.
I stood outside her house for ten minutes, just watching. Peter’s car wasn’t there. The garden was perfectly manicured, and a tiny child’s bike lay on its side by the front door. Solar garden lights were beginning to flicker to dull life. It was the picture of family happiness, except peeling back those layers made it seem like a complete charade.
‘Luce?’ Zoe appeared at the front door. I turned to face her. ‘Are you okay?’
‘No,’ I sobbed.
The door closed quietly behind her and she walked towards me, wrapping her cardigan around her. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Do you think I could come in?’ I asked. ‘Please?’
‘Of course.’ She couldn’t have waved me inside quicker if she tried.
Her kids looked at me like I’d grown a second head as I shuffled through the entry, by the kitchen, and out into the alfresco entertaining area. Zoe pulled the door shut quietly behind her, a bag of crisps snaffled on her way through.
‘I need to talk to you about something that happened today.’ I wiped at my eyes.
‘What did he do to you?’
‘No, it’s not me. Is Peter home?’
‘No, no, he’s not come home yet; he says he’s …’ She glanced around me, into the house, as if he might materialise.
‘I saw him today, Zoe.’
‘At the morning tea? He mentioned running into you in a text.’
‘Hell.’ I took a deep breath in. ‘I don’t know how to tell you this.’
She smiled. ‘Just say it.’
‘I saw them together today.’
‘Who?’
‘Peter, and the girl from the restaurant that night. I caught them … you know.’
The moment I said it, the second her face changed, I wanted to take it back. If I were in her position, I would want to know, I would. But the storm that crossed her face told me she didn’t want to know or hear about it – despite her months of meltdowns and suspicions.
‘How dare you, Lucy.’ She shoved my shoulder. It was only half-hearted, but it was enough.
‘What?’ I coughed out a lump in my throat.
‘You just turn up and drop that? What, you’re not happy with your own shitty marriage, so you need to ruin mine, too?’
‘That’s not what this is about,’ I blubbered, rubbing at wet eyes. ‘I caught him today. I saw him. You needed to know.’
‘I asked him specifically and he said nothing was going on. He assured me.’ She was so calm it was scary.
‘You’ve had your suspicions for months,’ I said. ‘I know what I saw.’
‘I doubt it. You’re confused over who you saw. It wasn’t him.’
‘Zoe, please listen to me.’
‘Leave.’ She turned away. ‘Now. Go.’
‘Zoe?’
‘And don’t come back.’
For all my supposed bravado, that moment was like being knocked off a building. I was done with today, with confrontation, with people, and with me. I walked home and closed the door on the world.
The first time I’d lost Oliver, home had felt scattered, suddenly broken into uneven pieces. This time, it was exhausting to consider being alone again. I sank into bed, wrapped my bedsheets around me like a burrito, and cried. My phone rang constantly, an equidistant mixture of Oliver and Zoe, no doubt desperate to continue her earlier tirade. I was doing a poor enough job of looking after me, let alone dealing with anyone else. Sick of lying awake and hoping I’d drift off to sleep, I packed an overnight bag and left. I needed some time to think.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Besides being one of the few people left in my recently shrinking circle of friends, Patrick was probably the very person I could expect to give me blunt, honest advice. As a teenager, he’d packed up and moved interstate, much to the disgrace of his parents, who’d hoped he’d take over the family business. He trained as an electrician, again against his parents’ wishes, though eventually he came home, got a trade in building, and the rest is history. On top of that, a particularly nasty divorce almost two years ago.
I took the scenic route to Apollo Bay, along the Great Ocean Road, behind campervans and tourists, nervous drivers, and overflowing buses. Occasionally, I’d get lucky and the vehicle in front would pull into the slip to take photos of koalas, or the charred remains of last year’s bushfires. Mostly, it was a slow crawl along the ocean. When, eventually, I pulled up outside his house, he was still working, but on his own place for a change.
He ran a plane across the balustrade of his deck. I craned my neck to watch him. He was seemingly unaware he had an audience. Though the drive out had felt like hours, it had barely ticked over six-thirty moments before I pulled up in his driveway. The sun was hanging low in the sky; birds dipped and soared with the salty breeze.
‘Thanks to the power of genetics,’ he ran a hand across his work, ‘I have two eyes. I can see you perving on my late-thirties, child-free, dadbod physique.’
‘What can I say? It’s the perfect example.’
‘But if you continue to stand directly underneath me, all the genetics in the world won’t save you when you get splinters in your eye. Also, I’ve got drinks. Front door’s open, help yourself.’
‘I thought you didn’t drink.’
‘Calm down, I didn’t say it was alcoholic.’ He flashed a cocky grin.
The last time I’d seen his house, it was nothing mo
re than framework on a blustery summer afternoon. Patrick had been three minutes from a heat-induced meltdown, and I was looking for company after Oliver had left. Thrust me to the sky and call me Simba, the circle of life had brought me back here again.
As I trounced up the stairs, overnight bag swinging wildly under its weight, I felt more like the sullen, insolent teenager than a friend coming to merely get her head straight and shoot the breeze for a few days.
Set in the side of a hill, Patrick’s two-storey bachelor pad was either the stuff of nightmares, or architectural wet dreams. The driveway was at an angle I hadn’t seen since the last time I attempted heels, but the balcony overlooked the ocean, so it was a beautiful pay-off. The interior was sharp lines and piles of books on architecture and design, with the odd classic thrown in for fun. Benches were devoid of anything, to the point it looked like a display home. That was Patrick, though, neat to a fault.
He met me as I walked into the kitchen, arms already lost to the chill of the refrigerator.
‘We’re on the hard stuff today. Do you want full-fat cola, or do you want cordial?’
‘Nothing stronger?’ I asked.
‘Nothing that’ll make you feel any better, nope.’
He had a point. I took a dewy can of cola, dropped my bag by the dining table, and stepped out onto the new balcony. There were views for miles: a gently lapping beach the next block down on our right, undulating forest-covered hills to the left, and the brown dirt blotches of progress as more blocks of land were ripped up for houses.
‘He already knows you’re here, so you know.’ A wicker egg-chair creaked under Patrick as he sat down.
I flopped down next to him, crashed my can into his, and yawned. ‘Thanks.’
‘Welcome.’
The drive out had given me more than enough time to think about things. Running didn’t feel like it was helping, though I did want a few days out to think about everything that had happened.
Patrick stretched out beside me, his ankle cracking as he rolled it about. ‘You want to talk about it?’
‘I don’t know. I’m still trying to process what happened.’
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