by Huston, Judy
CHAPTER TEN
“Apparently she’d always lived hand to mouth. Anything was better than nothing. She said she wanted to kill me so Shane would get the insurance money and the house.”
Hearing herself repeat the words Leigh had spat out in the kitchen the previous night, Dimity could still hardly believe them.
“And somewhere down the track, something similar would have happened to Shane,” said Josh.
“I hadn’t thought of that.” Dimity gave him a horrified look.
“Don’t. It’s all over.”
Josh had arrived early as arranged, and she and Shane had accompanied him to the police station where they all gave statements. After taking Shane home they were now, at Dimity’s insistence, on their way to work in Josh’s car.
“She followed me in Shane’s car that night when I was walking Bert, and tried to run me down. She gambled that I wouldn’t recognise the car if she had the headlights on full blast. And Shane didn’t hear the car leave because he was at the computer with his earphones on.”
“Quite a risk,” said Josh. “But she’s not rational.”
“She pretended my brakes were faulty in case she had a chance to tamper with them. She knew from working at the service station how the puncture would cause problems, but she was smart enough to wait for a chance to do it away from home.”
Dimity stared unseeingly at the city buildings they were passing.
“When Shane asked her to pick him up at the reception and told her where my car was so she could meet him there, she grabbed a skewer from the kitchen on the off chance she’d have time to do it.”
She sounded more indignant than fearful, Josh was glad to hear.
“One thing I can’t work out,” he said, “is why there wasn’t any damage to Shane’s car when she rammed you that night at Shenanigans.”
“So that’s why you were prowling around his car.” Dimity gave the ghost of a chortle. “Believe it or not, that first accident was genuine. Leigh had nothing to do with it, but it started her thinking. Remember she and Shane were in town the day I went to the interview at the hotel? She said she spotted me crossing the street and wished she could push me under a bus. That’s when she really decided to go after me.”
Turning into the hotel parking basement, Josh eased the car into its spot and took her hand. “I’m sorry I worried you with my suspicions about Shane. I should have thought more laterally.”
She tried to smile and failed dismally, but returned the pressure of his hand.
“As you said, you don’t know him as well as I do.”
He lifted her hand to his lips, then pressed it against his cheek.
“And at the risk of repeating myself, you don’t have to come to work today.”
Dimity shook her head.
“I’d rather have something to take my mind off it,” she said, seeing again in her mind the nightmare picture of Josh and Shane struggling to hold Leigh until the police arrived.
Josh put a protective arm around her shoulders as they made their way to the stairs. “Shane looked as if he was still in shock. How’s he taking it?”
“He’s horrified that he was fooled by her, but the thing that upset him most was the fact that Leigh had been trying to hurt me.” Dimity pondered her late night talk with Shane. “As far as I can see, he was staying with her more out of habit than anything. This made him see her as she is.”
“Tough way for it to happen.”
Almost immediately, Josh had to leave for a workshop he had agreed to run at the convention.
“I’ll buy you a coffee when it’s finished,” he said. “And I can miss most of the other sessions today. Gail can hold the fort.”
Dimity forced a smile, grateful for his understanding. Since the events of last night, she had never felt so close to him.
She passed the time with some desultory typing. Amanda left for morning tea but she stayed, expecting Josh any minute. When she thought she heard him, she glanced up.
It was Gail, looking important with a black folder.
“Tell Amanda I left this for her,” she commanded. “I imagine Josh is glad he won’t have to cover for you any more after Friday,” she added, casting a withering eye over Dimity’s desk.
“I beg your pardon?”
Gail gave her a scornful look.
“Everyone knows he’s had to work late most days to make good your mistakes.”
While Dimity struggled to find her voice, the phone rang in Josh’s office. Gail walked in and picked it up. When she emerged, the malicious smile on her thin lips reminded Dimity of a cat fresh from enjoying a bowl of top quality cream.
“Ready for coffee?” said Josh, walking in.
Dimity was on her feet immediately, picking up her handbag.
“There’s a message on your desk, Josh,” Gail said.
“Thanks. I’ll check it when I get back.”
“She left her name.” Gail’s smile was impossibly sweet. “Maddison.”
Josh jerked back as if a cobra had launched itself at him.
“Maddison?” His expression was a combination of shock, consternation and – incredibly – what looked like absolute embarrassment.
“Maddison,” confirmed Gail. “She said she was your wife,” she added loudly and clearly.
Swivelling on her heel, she threw a gloating look at Dimity and walked out.
Dimity waited for Josh to deny it.
To laugh, take her in his arms and make everything right again.
A lifetime seemed to pass while she stood there, waiting.
“Dimity–” Josh broke the silence at last. She turned her head slowly and saw the admission in his eyes.
“Wife?”
His breath hissed inward.
“I was going to tell you.”
For the first time she understood what a mist of rage was. Beyond its haze, she could see him only indistinctly. Blood boiled through her body, threatening to surge upwards and explode out the top of her head.
She had to get out of there.
Somehow she was in the corridor, her feet rushing her towards the lift. She jabbed the ‘down’ arrow but suddenly couldn’t bear to wait. Turning blindly towards the stairs, she collided with Josh.
“Dim, I’m sorry. Please listen.”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me.”
“Of course I do. Please believe me, I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“Of course you have.” Dimity tried to focus on him. “Tell me one thing. Was that woman your wife?”
“Yes!” The word exploded in the hallway. Amanda, on her way back from morning tea, skirted around them, eyeing him apprehensively. “But it’s no big deal–”
“Of course not.” Dimity was suddenly icily calm. “And your wife feels that way too?”
The lift door opened. She stepped in.
“For God’s sake!” Josh’s voice was rougher than she had ever heard it. “She’s in Canada. We’re not–”
The door slid shut on his words.
She was halfway across the foyer when her phone rang. Seeing Josh’s name she snapped it into answer mode and began speaking immediately.
“Look, Josh, let’s get something clear. I appreciate very much what you did for me last night but that’s where it ends. I don’t care if your wife’s in Canada or Siberia or Bullamakanka, married men aren’t my scene. And by the way,” she went on, disregarding whatever he was trying to say, “don’t expect me back at work. As I’m apparently causing problems you have to cover for, I know you won’t miss me.”
As she took a breath, his voice cut in.
“You have to listen to me. I’m not letting you go like this.”
“You don’t have the option.” Her tone was glacial. “I’m letting you go!”
She cut off the call. Her fingers shook only slightly as she keyed in a number.
“Sandy,” she said when her friend answered, “can I still get on that flight to Queensland with you this afte
rnoon?”
****
She had cried her heart out only twice before, and on each of those occasions she’d had to do it alone. When her mother was killed, she had wanted to seem strong for her father. When her father died, she’d needed to be strong for Shane. But now, while she wept for this new loss, she at least had Sandra to comfort her.
When she had no more tears left, she sat on the balcony of their twelfth floor hotel suite on Queensland’s Gold Coast, staring drearily at the magnificent view of blue ocean and white sandy beaches.
“I suppose he was just amusing himself with me,” she said, when Sandra emerged onto the balcony with a mug of freshly made coffee for her. “She’s probably coming out here to join him.”
“It doesn’t look good,” Sandra admitted, pushing a box of tissues along the low table in front of Dimity to make room for the mug.
“And he had the nerve to be angry!” Dimity recalled yet again the scene in the corridor that she had described to Sandra during the flight. “I’ve never seen him like that.”
“Do you think he’s been waiting for the right time to tell you? He was hinting about something, wasn’t he?”
Dimity took a sip of coffee without tasting it. “How hard is it to say ‘I’m married’?”
“Could be very hard if he’s worried about the reaction.” Sandra grinned. “You can be pretty scary, sometimes.”
“As if he’d be scared of me!”
“Don’t underestimate yourself. Did he talk much at all about his life in Canada?”
“Not a lot. More about his childhood than anything.”
Sandra glanced at her watch.
“I have to go to a workshop. Will you be all right?”
Dimity nodded.
“Thanks for listening. Sorry I’m such a wet blanket.”
Sandra bent down and hugged her.
“Don’t be an idiot. I’ll take you out to lunch when I get back.”
Left alone, Dimity stared unseeingly at the ocean. Her mobile was turned off. Even Shane didn’t yet know where she was staying. She didn’t want contact with anyone except Sandy while she tried to make sense of what had happened.
This was different from the times when she had felt angry with Josh on the surface while knowing that the essential bond between them remained strong. Now, beneath the hurt and the anger, there was nothing but a terrible emptiness.
It was an emptiness born of the realisation that the place in his heart she had begun to think was hers had belonged all the time to someone else.
She was appalled at how much she minded the thought of another woman being loved by him, sharing intimacies with him.
The terrible irony was that it had taken this awareness of loss to make her understand how much she loved and wanted him. Even more terrible was the fact that she had recognised it when she heard Gail say the words ‘your wife’ to him.
Without knowing it, she had been imagining herself as his wife. Hearing the role accorded to someone else had hurt her more than she could have believed.
For two days she left the suite only when Sandra virtually dragged her out for meals that she ate with no appetite, hardly noticing the holiday crowds around them. At night she lay awake, paced, stared at whatever was on television, turned the pages of books and magazines – anything that helped in any way to distract her from the excruciating heartache inside her.
This stabbing, relentless anguish, so real it seemed physical, was something she had never experienced. The intensity of her desire for Josh was such that she could hardly restrain herself from contacting him, demanding an explanation that would put things right.
But that was not possible. He had left her with nowhere to go and only pain for company.
On the second night she rang Shane, feeling guilty on top of everything else for having abandoned him so soon after the revelation of Leigh’s murderous intentions.
He sounded calm and resolute.
“I probably needed something like this to make me get my tail into gear,” he said. “I’ve sponged off you long enough. It’s time I started looking after myself.”
“What are you going to do?” The alarm in Dimity’s voice made him laugh.
“Nothing drastic. I’m moving into a furnished flat in town tomorrow. I’ll be able to walk to the Global from there. Malcolm wants me to start work on Thursday.”
“Will you be able to manage on your own?” Illogically, now he was doing what she had wished he would, Dimity felt even more abandoned. “You know I’ll be there for you if you need anything.”
“I know that. I’ve always known it. But it’s going to work both ways now. We’ll be there for each other.”
Her little brother could still surprise her. Perhaps she had been in danger of stifling him when he really needed to be liberated. By running away, she had inadvertently given him the space he needed for some rapid growing up.
The hardest part of rearing children is knowing when to let them go.
She didn’t blame her father for making her feel responsible for Shane, and she never would. But now it was time to let him go.
And now she knew that Josh loved someone else, she also had to let him go.
Dimity swallowed.
“Of course we will,” she said into the phone. “So it sounds as if you’ve been busy.”
“Flat out.” Shane paused. “Josh came round last night.”
Her heart gave a sickening lurch.
“Really?”
“He was checking that we were okay. I told him you’d gone to Queensland. He hasn’t been in touch?”
“I’ve had my phone off. Needed to chill out. We’ll be back on Saturday. I’ll come and play big sister, make sure I approve of your living conditions.” Chattering on, she steered him away from the one subject she most wanted to talk about.
She was starting to say goodbye when he suddenly cut in.
“There’s one problem–”
“What?”
“Pets aren’t allowed at the flat. If I pay you for Bert’s food, do you mind keeping him for a while?”
When the call ended, Dimity was smiling for the first time in days. Some things never changed.
****
After they returned from Queensland on Saturday morning, Sandra drove Dimity to town to collect her newly repaired car. With a rather tentative foot testing the brake pedal, Dimity then headed home to unpack and throw her washing in the machine.
Delighted to have company again, Bert was even more elated with an early meal and a long walk around the neighbourhood. Much to his disappointment, however, they didn’t venture onto the reserve.
It was early evening when Dimity, now more confident with the car, returned to town to visit Shane in his small but comfortable flat, an easy walking distance from the hotel.
Somewhat to her surprise he seemed to be having no problem working with Malcolm.
“Maybe he’s more a man’s man,” she wondered aloud. “Although he certainly doesn’t appeal to J– some men.”
“He’d like to be a ladies’ man but he said he’d have to settle down. His fiancée read him the riot act about playing around.” Shane chuckled, apparently not noticing her mid-sentence stumble.
“I don’t like her chances. But you seem to be thriving on the work. I’ve never seen you look better.” There was also, Dimity thought, watching him make coffee for them in his tiny kitchenette after her tour of inspection, a hint of new maturity about him.
“Wish I could say the same for you. You look as if you’ve had too many nights out on the town while you were away.”
“How did you guess?” She forced a laugh so patently artificial it drew a perturbed glance from Shane.
“Are you going to keep on with the temping?” he asked when they sat down with their coffee.
“No way!” Dimity grimaced at the thought. “I’m going to see a financial adviser next week to make plans for getting my gallery off the ground.”
“Good idea. I wish I’d given
you more support when you first started talking about it.”
“It wasn’t the right time.” She smiled, feeling slightly guilty for not telling him she had decided about the financial adviser only thirty seconds ago.
Seeing Shane settled had somehow marked a new chapter in her life. It was time to move on.
Or so she told herself.
“Josh said he’d be going back to Sydney when the convention ended yesterday. Did he get in touch before he went?” Shane asked with apparent casualness.
The world stopped for an instant.
He’d left. Now there was no chance she would ever see him again.
Which was how it had to be, of course.
“Not that I know of.” She matched Shane’s offhand tone. “I’ll catch up with messages later.”
Shane took her out to dinner and they talked about their respective futures while the pain continued to twist like a knife inside her.
For someone who’d been so recently betrayed, Shane seemed to have recovered quickly. She wished she could say the same about herself.
****
No matter how bleak her mood, how cheerless her circumstances, she had always been able to paint. Thankfully, this still applied. After another near-sleepless night she spent Sunday in her studio, working until early afternoon on a bushland scene in which a flock of brightly coloured rosellas camouflaged themselves among the sun-dappled leaves of an enormous gum tree.
It was going well, she thought, eyeing the result with detached interest when she finally decided to call it a day. Hard work definitely helped. It hadn’t cured her misery but it had muted it.
The important thing was to keep going.
She walked Bert and, when she returned, scoured his kennel and swept the veranda. Before darkness fell she had also weeded the garden, cleaned the new kitchen window that had been replaced while she was away, and vacuumed and washed the car. Finding some home-made pumpkin soup Shane had left in the freezer, she put it in the microwave to defrost.
Maybe she should watch something on television while waiting for the soup. But that would mean going into the living room, because she hadn’t yet returned the television to the back room.