The Favour

by Rebecca Freeborn

She intentionally didn’t answer the question about the cleaning. He could work that one out for himself.

  Then there was a noise from outside her room, and fear shot through her before she remembered that Quinn had stayed over last night.

  There was a knock on the door and it opened a crack. ‘Are you decent?’

  ‘Decently hungover,’ Hannah groaned.

  Quinn laughed and opened the door wider. She still had the purple dress on, but Hannah could see she’d removed her bra at some point. Her make-up was smeared across her face, but she still looked about a million times better than Hannah felt.

  ‘How are you not dead?’ Hannah said.

  ‘Practice. You not feeling great?’

  Hannah moaned. ‘I feel like I’m going to die.’

  ‘You won’t.’ Quinn crossed the room and slid into the bed beside her. ‘Want me to make you a coffee?’

  The thought made Hannah’s stomach flop over. ‘I can’t do it. Not yet.’

  ‘I was going through my phone contacts,’ Quinn said. ‘I’ve still got Jess’s number. Do you think I should message her?’

  Hannah studied her friend’s face on the pillow beside her. Her blue eyes were bleary and, up close, Hannah could see the fine lines around them. But she was beautiful in her hope, and Hannah didn’t want to be the one to take that from her. ‘Why don’t we look her up on Facebook or LinkedIn first, see where she’s working, that sort of thing? It might be a bit confronting if you come right out and ask her straight away.’

  Quinn chewed her lip, clearly wanting to get the whole thing moving straight away. ‘I’ve already found her on Facebook,’ she admitted. ‘I didn’t think of LinkedIn, though. Good idea.’

  Hannah rolled onto her back. ‘I’ll lend you some of my clothes to wear when we get up. They’re mum clothes, though. I don’t really own anything hot anymore.’

  ‘You looked hot last night.’

  ‘Not compared to you. You were dynamite.’

  ‘Hannah, you’re a goddess. Seriously, you could have anyone.’

  Hannah laughed. ‘If Ethan and I ever broke up, I think I’d rather stay single. Much simpler.’

  ‘But wouldn’t you miss the sex, at least?’

  ‘Nah.’ She looked sideways at Quinn. ‘Much more efficient and effective to do it on my own.’

  Quinn chuckled. ‘Sounds like you’ve given this some thought.’

  ‘Of course I have. Doesn’t mean I want to do it.’

  They lay in silence for a few minutes. Hannah’s eyes started to droop again, so that when Quinn spoke, she jolted awake.

  ‘Last night was the second time you’ve mentioned Harris in a few days. I know I kind of brought it up the other day, but we haven’t talked about that in years. What’s got you thinking about him again?’

  Hannah considered the question. ‘A couple of things. I saw his wife just before Christmas and it brought a lot of things back. Especially the guilt. She didn’t deserve any of that. And what happened to you, of course. I know it’s completely different, but the world-falling-apart bit is consistent.’

  ‘And the friendship.’ Quinn’s hand found Hannah’s under the quilt. ‘Thanks for being there for me.’

  ‘Thanks for what you did for me. I don’t talk about it because of my own guilt, not because I don’t appreciate the way you came through for me.’

  Quinn squeezed her hand. ‘You don’t need to feel guilty about it. I’m just as much to blame.’

  Hannah’s head rolled to the side to look at her friend. ‘Yeah, but you weren’t the one who killed him.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  QUINN

  They didn’t get out of Hannah’s bed until midday. Quinn could tell that Hannah was still feeling terrible, so she made them coffee and her signature hangover cure.

  ‘Toast with Vegemite and fresh tomato,’ she said as she handed the plate to her friend.

  ‘This looks amazing,’ Hannah said. ‘But I’m not sure if I can do it.’

  ‘Trust me. Have one bite and see how you feel. Then another. If you finish it, I guarantee it’ll work. Or you might spew. Either way, you’ll feel better than you do now.’

  Hannah gave her a sideways look. ‘You’re not filling me with optimism.’

  They sat beside each other on the couch, eating in silence. Quinn picked up her phone and searched for Jess on LinkedIn. There she was: Jessica Marchetta. Seeing her professional photo made Quinn remember more about her. She was attractive in that sharp kind of way, with her short, dark hair and alabaster skin, quietly brilliant but with a distinct fuck-off vibe that Quinn had always admired.

  She scanned Jess’s details and discovered that Hannah’s suspicions had been correct. Jess worked for one of the small agencies, and she wasn’t even in a senior role. Someone like her should’ve been running an agency like that by now. The position she held was practically entry-level.

  She sent Jess a request to connect and typed out a message:

  Hey Jess, how are you doing? Miss you at work – all the smart women end up leaving! Would love to catch up for coffee one day if you’re free. Cheers, Quinn.

  She was desperate to say something more, but she knew Hannah was right. If someone she’d worked with ages ago had messaged her and asked her whether she’d been sexually assaulted, she would’ve run a mile. She threw her phone down on the couch beside her and grabbed the remote control from the coffee table they were resting their feet on.

  ‘I do feel slightly better,’ Hannah ventured as Quinn flicked through the channels.

  ‘Told you.’

  ‘Not enough to perform star jumps, but at least I’ll be able to deal with the kids when they get home.’

  Melancholy swelled in Quinn’s belly. This time with Hannah had felt almost the way it used to back in their uni days, when it’d seemed like they were the only two people on earth, and the idea of going back to her apartment alone felt like the end of something unexpected and special. All she wanted was to keep it going as long as possible. She stared at the TV, which had landed on a documentary about an Adelaide Symphony Orchestra conductor. She drained the last of her coffee as they watched.

  ‘Weird question,’ she said. ‘Do you believe in conductors?’

  Hannah gave her an amused glance. ‘Like believe they exist, or believe they actually contribute anything?’

  ‘The second one.’

  ‘I must admit I’ve always been a bit dubious.’

  ‘I reckon I could pull it off,’ Quinn said. ‘Like, what do they actually do?’

  ‘The musicians probably aren’t even paying any attention to them while they’re up there, waving their little sticks around.’

  ‘Theatrical stick shit,’ Quinn declared.

  Hannah laughed out loud. ‘They always look kind of pompous, like they’re compensating for the fact that they’re not doing something cooler.’

  ‘Like playing an actual instrument.’

  ‘Can’t play an instrument.’ Hannah was almost crying with laughter now. ‘But I can feel the music through my stick.’

  ‘Sure, we’ve all felt the music through a stick before. But seriously, get a real job, bro.’

  ‘Oh my god.’ Hannah was clutching her belly. ‘I can’t stop laughing.’

  ‘I’d like to test their relevance one day. Walk up behind them during a performance and give them a bit of a shove. See what happens.’

  ‘I’m gonna be sick if you don’t stop.’

  ‘Nah, you won’t. But you’ll still be laughing about this tomorrow.’

  Quinn watched with pleasure as Hannah wiped the tears from her face and slumped against the cushions in exhaustion. ‘What time are Ethan and the kids getting home?’

  ‘Ethan just texted me to say they’re on their way. So about an hour, I guess.’

  ‘I should probably get out of here before they get back.’ Quinn stood up. ‘They’ll be sick of the sight of me by now.’

  ‘Oh. OK.’ Hannah looked as disappointed as Quinn
felt. ‘I’ll drive you. Just let me have a quick shower.’

  When she’d left the room, Quinn picked up her phone again. No response from Jess yet, but that was hardly surprising given it was New Year’s Day. As she scrolled through Facebook, wondering whether it’d be too much to send her a friend request, she got a message on Tinder. A little current trilled through her as she saw Patrick’s name.

  How did you go yesterday?

  She hadn’t expected to hear from him again, but seeing his name now gave her an unexpected lift. But he wasn’t even her type, and she didn’t form attachments with men. So she decided just to ignore his message. There was no point drawing things out.

  But she couldn’t stop thinking about him while she waited for Hannah to finish in the bathroom. This guy must be some kind of voodoo fucking shaman, to keep her mind on him like this. Or, more likely, she was just hung up on him because he’d rejected her advances. Quinn was used to getting her own way.

  It was another two days before Jess replied to Quinn’s message. Quinn had almost given up on hearing from her at all, let alone convincing her to meet up for a coffee, but now there she was, sitting at a table outside a cafe on The Parade in Norwood. Quinn had implied that she wanted to speak to her about something important, and now, as Jess watched her approach with a nervous smile, Quinn was worried she was springing this on her too quickly.

  ‘Hi, Quinn!’ Jess stood up to greet her and they air-kissed awkwardly.

  ‘Are you on leave too?’ Quinn asked as she took a seat at the table.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve got the whole month off,’ Jess said, resuming her own seat. ‘The agency is super quiet over January, so we were all encouraged to come back in February – which of course means I use up my whole year of leave in one go.’ She shrugged. ‘The pitfalls of working for a small agency, I guess.’

  Quinn was tempted to use this as a segue to launch straight into the reason for the meeting, but she clawed back the urge. ‘Do you want a coffee? My shout.’

  ‘Um, sure. I’ll have a flat white, thanks.’

  Quinn checked her phone as she waited at the counter inside. After determining to cut ties with Patrick, she’d ended up responding to his message, and they’d been chatting for the last few days. She’d told this stranger things she hadn’t told – couldn’t tell – her own family, and every time she saw his name pop up on her screen she’d get this warm feeling inside that scared and thrilled her in equal measure. Part of her wanted to go back to Carrickalinga, find him and seduce him. Get this silly infatuation over with. But at the same time, it was kind of nice to have someone who was interested in talking to her, getting to know her, rather than just trying to get in her pants – even if she would quite like him in there.

  Jess smiled up at her as she returned to the table outside. ‘So, what’ve you been up to, Quinn? It’s nice to see you again. I always enjoyed working with you.’

  ‘Me too.’ Quinn clasped her hands together. ‘Why did you leave the agency? You were kicking all sorts of arse, and then out of the blue you just … left.’

  Jess couldn’t maintain her gaze. ‘I felt like it was time to move on.’

  The time was now. ‘Did it have anything to do with Simon Mandalay, by any chance?’

  Jess started and almost knocked over the glass of water in front of her. She was about to speak when their coffees came out, and they maintained an awkward silence until the waiter had gone back inside the cafe. ‘I didn’t think there was anywhere left for me to go at Big Sky,’ Jess said.

  ‘You could’ve gone all the way to the top.’

  She looked at her hands. ‘I don’t know about that.’

  Quinn steeled herself. ‘Can I tell you something?’

  Jess’s eyes were large with uncertainty, but she waited until Quinn spoke.

  ‘On Christmas Eve, when everyone else had left, Simon came into my office and he raped me,’ she said. Jess raised a hand to her mouth. ‘I reported it to the police, but it looks like they don’t have enough evidence to charge him. I thought maybe if I could find someone else he’d done this to, I’d have a chance of making him pay for what he did to me.’

  Jess turned her gaze towards the string of pedestrians strolling up the footpath, pausing to look in shop windows or duck into cafes for takeaway coffees. Quinn waited, but Jess didn’t speak, so she went on.

  ‘There have been others who’ve come and gone from the agency over the last few years. I have no way of knowing whether or not this high turnover is a coincidence, but what I do know is that they were all women, and I intend to find out why they left.’

  She took a sip of her coffee and waited for Jess to respond. The other woman sat in silence for a long time, her eyes still fixed on the streetscape. Then, haltingly, she began to speak.

  ‘It all seemed harmless in the beginning. He’d compliment me on a campaign and touch my arm. He’d say he was organising after-work drinks, but then it’d just be me and him. It happened so gradually that I thought I was imagining things, so when he asked me one night to stay late to work on a campaign with him, I didn’t even think twice. I was flattered, to be honest. I was only in a junior role, and I convinced myself that the attention meant he saw something in me, that I was capable of advancing in the agency.

  ‘We were pretty much finished and I was running through the campaign strategy with him when he kissed me. I pulled away straight away and apologised – I don’t know why, it was just an impulse – but he was really insistent. He said we were a great team and that’s why we had such good chemistry. When I told him I wanted to keep things professional, he started getting rough. I tried to leave, but he grabbed my arm and yanked me back to him, and told me he’d been wanting to … well, you know … he wanted to do it on the boardroom table. So he …’ She stopped.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Quinn said. ‘You don’t have to tell me the details.’

  A tear fell to her cheek and Jess swiped it away with the back of her wrist. ‘He told me if I went to the police, they’d never believe me. He said I’d been flirting with him nonstop and he knew I wanted it. He said it was just a bit of harmless fun between friends.’

  Quinn’s whole body turned cold to hear Jess repeat the same words Simon had said to her. Then the chill was extinguished by a burning, raging fire; the realisation that it wasn’t just her. She hadn’t been responsible. All this time, despite what Hannah had said over and over, she had believed that she’d brought it on herself, that she’d finally lost the ruthless game she’d played with him for years. She’d accepted a fraction of the blame, rationalising it in her head as if it had been a car accident and she was making an insurance claim. It gave her a heady sense of power to be able to shift all of that blame onto him.

  ‘I knew there was something there.’ Jess’s voice wavered. ‘I knew he was flirting with me, and I let him do it, let him think I might be interested. I let my ambition and my ego get in the way of my judgement.’

  Quinn shook her head. ‘It wasn’t your fault. He just wanted you to believe it was.’

  ‘Well, it worked. I resigned the next day. I didn’t want to go near him again, so I didn’t get a reference. I had to start again at a much smaller agency. I know in hindsight that it wasn’t my fault, but at the time all I could think was that I’d made it happen, and maybe there’s a part of me that still believes that.’

  ‘I assume you never went to the police?’

  ‘No. I was too ashamed, and I didn’t think anyone would believe me. Now it’s too late.’

  Quinn rotated her coffee cup around and around in its saucer. ‘Yeah, about that.’

  ‘You want me to tell them what he did to me, don’t you?’ Her hands twisted together. ‘I’m not sure if I can.’

  ‘You’d rather he got away with it?’

  ‘I’m not as tough as you are. I can’t relive all of that.’

  Desperation rose inside Quinn. ‘We already know he’s done it to two of us. There could be more.’

  ‘I ca
n’t go back. I’ve moved on with my life now.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t! I have to go back to work in a few days, and I can’t run away from this!’

  ‘Like I did,’ Jess said.

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’ Quinn forced her emotions down. ‘Look, I know this is hard. Believe me, I know. If you won’t do it for me or for yourself, do it for the women who are working there now. They’re like you: young, bright, ambitious. How long do you think it’s going to be before he rapes one of them?’

  Only Jess’s eyes revealed the war going on inside her. ‘Can I think about it?’

  Quinn had hoped to walk away from here with a guarantee, with someone who would stand beside her and give strength to her own story. But she couldn’t force Jess to do what she wanted. That would have to be enough, for now.

  ‘Of course. Take the time you need.’

  Another message from Patrick the next day gave Quinn the distraction she needed from thinking about Jess. He was coming to town to pick up some pavers and wanted to know if she was interested in catching up for a drink.

  Yes, Quinn was interested, but also a little annoyed at herself for feeling like a teenager with a crush every time she got a message from him. Maybe if she saw him again, she’d realise he wasn’t that big a deal. She’d be cured of all these silly feelings, then she could forget about him and move on.

  He was waiting for her at a small table in the front bar of the Kent Town Hotel. His smile split his face as he saw her approach, and Quinn’s belly fluttered. Oh, for god’s sake.

  ‘Hi.’ She tried to sound casual, but when he stood up and kissed her on the cheek, she was almost undone. ‘Got your pavers, then?’

  He grinned. ‘Yep. Can I actually buy you a drink this time?’

  Quinn flushed with uncharacteristic embarrassment. ‘Sure. Glass of riesling, please.’

  She sat down at the table and eyed him as he stood at the bar, his sandy hair curling over his tanned neck. His broad shoulders strained against his navy polo shirt. When he turned to come back with their drinks, she busied herself looking at her phone so he wouldn’t know she’d been watching him.