Age of Consent

by Victoria Gordon

  ‘Oh no. I’ve been working here for the last fortnight,’ she said. And a moment later determined that they’d arrived the same day on different aircraft.

  ‘Quite a surprise, I must say. I thought you were pretty firmly entrenched,’ Geoff remarked after going off to buy each of them a drink before they ordered lunch. ‘What made you pick Adelaide, of all places?’

  ‘About the same as you. This is where the job was,’ Helen smiled. ‘And from the look on your face I gather you’re not exactly enamoured of the place.’

  ‘It isn’t Hobart,’ he replied. ‘But it’s all right, I suppose. And with only a month more to get through, I think I’ll cope okay ... especially now.’

  There’d be no prizes for guessing what he meant, Helen thought. But allowed him to continue his campaign anyway. She did enjoy his company, even if he’d have bored her sufficiently by the time he had to return to Hobart that she knew she wouldn’t be sorry to see him go.

  They made a date for dinner the next evening, and during the next three weeks Helen saw a good deal of the tall, blond salesman.

  He was pleasant, easy, undemanding company, content in Helen’s presence not only because he liked her, but because he was genuinely — surprising to Helen — lonely away from his own home city.

  Looking at it, it wasn’t surprising Geoff had proven so successful in Tasmania, where he’d spent his lifetime gathering contacts and learning the life-style from the ground up. But it was surprising to see that the confidence which was so evident on his home ground seemed to fade rapidly when he was in unfamiliar surroundings.

  He never seemed to stop talking about Tasmania, and by inference his presence was a continual reminder of her own visit ... and of Dane Curtis.

  Then, in the week before Geoff was due to return to Hobart, in the week Helen knew she’d be hard-put to divert him from a determined effort to convince her to go with him, there was another reminder of Dane, one she knew would be less easy to cope with.

  It was Geoff that pointed out the advertisement to her, expressing his surprise that she hadn’t seen it before him. ‘Don’t you even read your own paper?’ he asked. ‘I’m surprised at you missing this, anyway.’

  This was an advertisement about Dane’s visit the next week as part of a round-Australia tour to promote his latest published book. It wasn’t the one he’d finished just before her departure, Helen knew, but the one before that, only now emerging from the year-long gestation in publishers’ and printers’ and proof-readers’ hands.

  Helen felt her heart lurch at the sight of his photograph, felt her throat constrict as her eyes took in the list of shops where he’d be available to sign copies of the book.

  And of course he’d be giving press interviews as well; for one joyous instant Helen was supremely grateful that her job was at the sub-editors’ desk, and not on the street as a reporter.

  ‘I’m almost sorry I’ll miss it,’ Geoff mused. ‘It would be a great hoot to drop into one of those bookshops and beard the lion in his den, I reckon. Dane hates the publicity part of his work so much. He never does it in Hobart, probably only does it here on the mainland because he can be sure of not running into people he knows.’

  ‘Ah, but Marina will be in her element,’ Helen muttered, as much to herself as to Geoff. And wondered at the queer look he shot her upon hearing the comment, then passed it off as surprise that she’d so blithely mentioned the name of the woman who’d won the increasingly-famous author.

  They were on their way to lunch when the conversation took place, and Geoff seemed strangely pre-occupied throughout the meal. But he waited until they were dawdling over coffee to bring up the subject again,

  ‘Why did you th ink Marina Cole would be involved in this publicity gimmick?’ he asked without preamble, causing Helen to lean back in surprise. And he didn’t wait for a reply, but continued, ‘Is she something to do with why you’re here ... why you left Hobart?’

  ‘Not really,’ Helen lied. ‘I got this job and I came, that’s all. But surely she’d be with Dane on a trip like this ... wouldn’t she?’

  ‘I sure as hell can’t imagine why,’ was the astonishing reply. And then, with a candour and perceptiveness quite unexpected from Geoff, ‘And she was involved in your leaving, wasn’t she? I don’t know how, but somehow. And probably somehow not very nice, at that.’

  ‘I’ve already said that she wasn’t. What do you want, a sworn affidavit?’

  ‘What I want,’ he said with a grin, ‘is now — I see — quite impossible.’

  ‘And just what is that supposed to mean?’ Helen asked, now genuinely puzzled. This wasn’t the easygoing, comfortable Geoff Jones she thought she knew. There was a hardness to him now, a sharpness she’d never realised existed.

  Then he grinned. ‘Let’s just say that I’d rather foolishly entertained some ... ambitions ... that I see now I shouldn’t even have considered. Hell, I must have been blind. It’s Dane, isn’t it? Always has been ... probably always will be.’

  Helen said nothing. She couldn’t deny it, and was damned if she’d admit it aloud, even to herself She’d spent too many lonely nights trying to convince herself otherwise.

  Geoff, unfortunately, wasn’t to be put off by mere silence. ‘Helen, we’ve had some great times and I think we’re good friends, so I’m not trying to rub your nose in this, believe me,’ he said. ‘But if you let that bitch Marina con you into leaving Hobart, you were dumb ... really dumb. Whatever she said to you, or did, she was lying; I can guarantee you that. That woman doesn’t know what the truth is. And if she told you she had Dane all wrapped up and ready for shipping, forget it!’

  He paused then, dramatically, deliberately, before continuing. ‘I’ve already seen that you don’t read your own paper, and you obviously haven’t been following the Mercury, either, or you’d have seen the paragraph last week in the society pages about our Marina running off with some wealthy British yachtsman.’

  Helen sat in stunned silence, unwilling to admit the rush of hope his comment had sent through her. And when she finally did speak, it was in flat tones of denial, unfeeling and totally noncommittal.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t see what any of this has to do with me.’ And she meant it. Apart from the sharp stab of satisfaction at hearing how Dane might himself have been betrayed ...

  ‘Well, you just keep telling yourself that,’ Geoff said, and then, finally, thankfully, dropped the subject. And as the day of Dane’s arrival in Adelaide drew nearer, Helen wished desperately that she could do the same.

  It served him right, she told herself, to have had Marina desert him for somebody else. If someone as non-astute as Geoff could so accurately judge her character, then Dane had nobody but himself to blame if he’d let the brunette lead him down the proverbial garden path.

  Helen had dinner with Geoff the evening before he flew back to Hobart, and enjoyed the evening immensely. Mostly, she decided, because he neither mentioned Dane nor Marina, and because he’d returned to being his usual, carefree, uncomplicated self. He flirted unashamedly with her, indifferent to her refusal to take him seriously, and when he kissed her good night it was the asexual kiss of an older brother.

  She didn’t get to see him off at the airport; at the very moment his plane departed, Helen was standing flustered and astonished in her editor’s office.

  ‘Me? No, I’m sorry but I couldn’t possibly,’ she managed to splutter after the initial shock of his request had worn off.

  ‘I can’t imagine why not. You do know the man; in fact he was among the references you gave. Why the hell shouldn’t you interview him? Really, Helen, I’m not asking for some flamboyant exposé, just an interview in a bit more depth than anybody else is going to be able to manage.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but no, I can’t,’ she repeated. ‘We’re old friends, and it would be just impossible. Besides, I’m sure you realise that there’s nobody harder to interview than another journalist, and ... well ... because we’re friends it
would be even worse. I wouldn’t get you a better story; I’d be lucky to get you any story at all.’

  ‘Is there something personal between you two that I don’t know about? Is that it?’

  Damn the man for his perceptiveness, she thought. And replied, ‘No ... or rather yes! We’re ... old friends, as I said. And we used to work together, that’s all.’

  ‘And you were staying with him when this job came up.’ He didn’t need to ask, Helen realised. He knew!

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted, determined to admit no more than she must, and above all not to give in to this horrendous request. She just couldn’t.

  The editor wasn’t so easily dismissed. ‘You were staying with him ... five, six weeks ago. And now you don’t even want to see him. That’s strange, isn’t it?’

  ‘I didn’t say I didn’t want to see him,’ Helen cried. ‘I said I didn’t want to be sent out to interview him, which is vastly different. And I won’t interview him; I’m sorry but I just couldn’t because it wouldn’t work. Please don’t try to make any more of it than that.’

  ‘I see.’ He took a moment to stoke up his pipe, all the time dissecting Helen with eyes that revealed far too much knowledge for her own taste. ‘Do I take it then that you will be seeing him while he’s in Adelaide?’

  ‘No!’ It was out before she even thought, and she had to scramble both verbally and mentally to talk herself out of the comer. ‘I — that is — I don’t know. I’m just not sure.’

  ‘But of course you haven’t got a specific reason not to see him.’

  ‘Not really, no. Except that I know he doesn’t really like the publicity aspect of things; it might embarrass him to be forced into dealing with ... with somebody he knows.’

  ‘Forced?’ He laughed, the sound somehow grating in the quiet of the editorial office. ‘My dear Helen, it will be a frosty Friday in hell before Dane Curtis is forced into anything he doesn’t want to do. As I’m sure you well know. And the purpose of the exercise, may I remind you, is to promote his latest book. Nobody’s forcing him, except perhaps his publishers, and even they wouldn’t be sending him out on the publicity trail if he didn’t want to go.’

  ‘That isn’t the point,’ Helen replied, staunchly determined. She would not be coerced into interviewing Dane. She wouldn’t go to see him, she wouldn’t even buy his damned book. He was out of her life now and he could stay there.

  ‘All right, it isn’t the point. And if you want to refuse, I suppose I can’t force you, because you’re just as stubborn as Dane,’ the editor finally conceded. Then smiled, as if that gesture alone could alleviate the suffocating feeling his proposal had surrounded Helen with.

  ‘But even if you won’t be seeing him’ — and he raised one hand in a gesture to stop her interrupting — I certainly will, because he and I are both old friends, too. Which leads to the obvious question — are you here? Do you exist? Or do you want to stay ... well, let’s call it in hiding, until he’s left town?’

  ‘I .. . oh, let’s face it; I’d rather not meet him, if that’s what you mean,’ Helen finally admitted. ‘But I’m not in hiding’, I’d just rather, well, not see him. Is that so awful?’

  ‘Nope! Not so long as I know. And you might as well know that I won’t lie to him, either. All our little talk does is ensure that I won’t volunteer anything. If he wants to know about you, he’ll have to ask.’ Then his attitude softened, becoming almost paternal. ‘Tell me, my dear, does he even know you’re in Adelaide?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Helen said, ‘I don’t think so, not that it matters. But thank you for taking this attitude; I mean that. I’m just sorry I couldn’t be more cooperative, but...’

  ‘But, as you said, it wouldn’t have made for a very good interview,’ her editor said gently, smiling his acceptance. ‘And don’t worry; I’ll try not to dump you in it when I see Dane. Good journalists are too hard to find.’

  Helen left the office on shaky legs, and spent a sleepless night wondering what to do the next day. She didn’t want to see Dane; she told herself that. And kept telling herself even as she strolled hesitantly towards the bookshop where she knew he’d be during her lunch break. Surely, she thought, there’d be a crowd, at least enough people for her to lose herself among them, ensure he wouldn’t see her.

  And what could it matter? There were no feelings for her; there obviously never had been. You didn’t betray somebody you cared for, she told herself, and certainly not in the way he’d betrayed her. Something personal she might have understood, but to mess with somebody’s career ... that was unforgivable.

  She actually got to within a few steps of the shop before her courage failed her, before she turned and retreated in a shambling run, half-blinded by tears of frustration as she returned to her office and hid in the masses of work that cluttered her desk.

  That evening, she dined alone in a strange restaurant to avoid being home alone, then took in a movie. It was nearly midnight when the taxi deposited her at the flat, and she was groggy with nervous tension and the sleeplessness of the night before.

  But the grogginess evaporated when a shadowy but familiar figure stepped forward to hand her out of the taxi, that hand remaining like a handcuff on her wrist.

  ‘Damned well time you got home,’ said Dane Curtis. ‘We’ll talk upstairs, young Helen.’

  As he half dragged her into the entryway to the flat, Helen muttered a scathing deprecation against her new editor, only to have Dane laugh almost boyishly, although not releasing her wrist.

  ‘You misjudge the man, Helen,’ he chuckled. ‘He lied, and lied and damned near ruined dinner with the bulldust he was spreading, but no, it wasn’t our friendly neighbourhood editor who told me. He lied, but he forgot to clue in his staff; a typical mistake. Not that it mattered, really. I knew you were somewhere in Adelaide, and I’d have found you sooner or later, too.’

  They entered Helen’s flat, Dane reaching out in autocratic fashion for the key and Helen mutely, almost blindly, putting it into his hand. Once inside, he locked and bolted the door, turned to take Helen’s coat, then directed her to the sofa with a gentle but distinct shove as his eyes prowled the room as if looking for burglars.

  Helen sat silent. He looked so ... so angry. As if he were ready to kick out at something ... her? And so forbidding, despite his chuckle at telling her the editor hadn’t betrayed her confidence after all.

  ‘Sit. Stay,’ he said as if speaking to Molly; and she did ... sitting like a statue while he stalked through the small, tidy flat, opening closets, poking in drawers, everything but look under the bed.

  And when he returned, his eyes were like ice chips as he stood like some barbaric statue himself, staring down at Helen in icy wrath.

  ‘All right,’ he said grimly, ‘So where the hell’s that damned Geoff Jones? Or has the rotten little bastard run out on you already?’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Helen sat and stared up at him, totally unnerved by the glare of genuine anger in his frosty eyes. And when she finally did manage a reply, it emerged in a squeak of tremulous protest.

  ‘He’s in Hobart, I presume. Where would you expect him to be?’

  Dane sneered, his lip curling in angry contempt. ‘Here, of course. So he has already abandoned you, has he? Well I’m hardly surprised, except at you getting involved with him in the first place. Damn it, Helen, I thought you had better taste.’

  ‘Better taste? What in God’s green earth are you on about?’ she cried. ‘And why should Geoff be abandoning me? You don’t make any sense at all.’

  ‘Oh don’t I? Well I suppose to you I don’t, seeing you’re pretty good at abandoning people yourself,’ Dane snapped, eyes blazing, the muscles at his jaw fairly snapping with his anger. ‘And I suppose next you’ll be telling me you aren’t pregnant, either.’

  ‘Well I should certainly hope I’m not,’ Helen shouted, her own grey eyes now wide with righteous indignation. ‘And if I were, it certainly wouldn’t be Geoff’s fault.’


  ‘The hell you say!’ Dane stepped forward, one fist raised in a gesture so frighteningly dangerous that Helen flinched back against the bolster of the settee. ‘Bloody hell, woman ... how many men did you manage to seduce in Tasmania? And if he isn’t the father, what’s the logic of running away with him? Go ahead, answer that one?’

  ‘Answer it? How can I answer it? I don’t even know what you’re talking about,’ Helen screamed. ‘And why the hell should I answer anything to you? You’re a fine one to be making accusations, no matter how bloody ridiculous they are.’

  ‘Ridiculous? I don’t think there’s anything bloody ridiculous about it,’ Dane ranted. ‘I talk to you one night, during which I might remind you there was a distinct admission that you were pregnant and that indeed I knew the father, and the very next day you run off with that tow-headed little twit, leaving me a totally incomprehensible letter, you spend damned near six weeks shacked up with him here in Adelaide and you’ve got the nerve to say I’m being ridiculous?’

  ‘I have not!’

  ‘You did so! You just said my accusations were ridiculous.’

  ‘Well, they are! But I didn’t shack up with Geoff Jones or anybody else here in Adelaide. How dare you even suggest such a thing.’

  ‘Oh, come on ... you both left the same morning, taking care to leave Tassie on separate planes, of course. But you left together and you arrived here together and you’ve been together ever since. Until today, at least. What happened? Did Geoffy-baby find out I was coming to town and run for cover? He’d better have, because when I get my hands on him, he’ll wish he’d never been born.’

  Helen couldn’t believe it. She’d seen Dane angry before, but he wasn’t a violent person; never had been. And to see him now so strung-out that the slightest physical gesture might turn him into a fighter ... it was just as well Geoff Jones wasn’t here. And what logic to explain that he had, in fact, only ever set foot in this flat once! And on that occasion he’d had a cup of coffee, behaved himself impeccably, and left without the slightest problem.