On the Right Track Read online

  It takes a moment to register that a woman who looks vaguely familiar is hovering at Tor’s side. She has dark glossy hair, big brown eyes, and a dress with a plunging neckline. Tor must know she’s waiting to speak to him but he keeps hold of my hand. I kick him under the table, and tug. Finally he releases me and turns to the woman.

  She touches his shoulder. ‘Tor. It’s been a while. Couldn’t leave without saying hello.’

  He smiles and gets to his feet. They kiss on alternating cheeks. One, two, three.

  ‘Sarah,’ he says. ‘It’s good to see you.’

  Sarah. She’s Sarah Adams, Angelina’s actress friend. The one who told Angelina that Tor shied away from commitment but was amazing in bed. Absolutely amazing.

  She glances at me. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’ she says.

  I’m so jittery I have to stand. ‘You’re not interrupting. We’re leaving too.’

  Tor frowns. ‘Golden,’ he says, ‘Sarah Adams. Sarah, Golden Saunders.’

  Sarah has a lovely smile. ‘Angie’s sister?’ she says. ‘I should have guessed. Your hair is glorious too.’

  There’s a scraping of chairs as the other people who were sitting at the large table get to their feet. A number of them look our way. Their expressions are curious, speculative.

  And then it hits me. Tor has been doing his job, showing people he has a personal interest in me. When he plays golf with Alessandro he can say I’d like Golden to accompany me to Bowral. I took her out to dinner last week. I’m interested in her.

  Another woman approaches. She taps Tor on the chest with her index finger. Her nail is painted a soft shell pink. It’s neatly shaped.

  ‘Hello, stranger,’ she says.

  She’s older than Sarah. Her grey jersey dress clings to her curves. She has an intelligent, confident, professional look. Perhaps she’s one of Tor’s lawyer lovers?

  She turns to me and holds out her hand. ‘Leigh Pritchard. I don’t think we’ve met.’

  ‘I’m Golden Saunders.’ I look around, desperately thinking up something to say. ‘It’s nice here, isn’t it?’

  ‘The desserts are sublime. I recommend the crème brûlée. We’ve shared that on more than one occasion, haven’t we, Tor?’

  She’s not being deliberately unkind. She’s merely stating a fact. She’s been here with Tor; they enjoyed their dessert. I feel awkward, jealous and used. But that’s my problem, not hers.

  Tor nods abruptly. ‘Goodnight, Leigh.’

  She’s not at all offended. She taps his chest again, and then smiles at me. There’s a mischievous expression in her eyes.

  ‘Have a fantastic night,’ she says. ‘But then, how could you not?’

  These women think I’m a member of their club. They believe I know the rules for the games that Tor plays.

  ‘Golden?’ Tor says, when Leigh has walked away. ‘Please sit. We’ll order dessert.’

  I reach under the table and pick up my bag. ‘There’s no need. People have noticed us. That’s what this was all about, wasn’t it? It’s why we came all the way into the city.’

  ‘I said sit.’

  ‘I can book an Uber to take me home if you want to stay longer.’ I open my bag. ‘I should pay more than half because you didn’t drink anything.’

  ‘For fuck’s …’ He spins on his heel and I follow him to the front desk. As he pays the bill I focus on a flower arrangement of white lilies and native grasses, and repress an urge to burst into tears. I should never have allowed my skin to grow warm and my heart to beat faster when he took my hand. Not when the purpose, the meaning of tonight, was simply to shore up the lies that he’ll tell.

  We’ve barely left the carpark before I unzip my boots and curl my legs up under me. I don’t want to talk. And I don’t want to think about Sarah, or Leigh, or the other actresses and lawyers and human rights activists Tor has slept with.

  I feel like I’ve only just put my head against the seat when I feel his hand on my arm.

  ‘Golden, wake up.’ He’s squatting outside the passenger door. The car light is on. Even so, his face is in shadow.

  ‘I wasn’t asleep, I was dozing.’

  ‘You’re home. Put your boots on.’

  I yawn and stretch. My dress is up around my thighs and I pull it down. I speak through another yawn.

  ‘Is Leigh a lawyer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought she looked like one.’

  Maybe he’s in a hurry. I’m zipping up one of my boots when he picks up the other one and reaches for my leg. I’m too sleepy to resist so I sit back and watch him. His fringe falls over his forehead. It’s my left boot, which will be why he takes such care when he angles my foot and lower leg into it, and slowly zips it up. I wonder whether he feels the scar tissue through my tights.

  ‘Tor?’

  He doesn’t look up. ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘We don’t have to see each other again, do we? Before Bowral?’

  His hands still for a moment. But he doesn’t get angry like I thought he might. His voice is even.

  ‘I’m away for most of next week. Garcia and I are playing golf on Sunday. I’ll let you know what’s happening after that.’ He straightens. ‘Can you stand?’

  When I step outside the car he takes my arm. His touch warms me from the inside out, and wakes me up a little.

  A possum screeches and we turn towards the sound. It’s a young ringtail, scampering over the ground towards the ghost gum. The night is cloudless and the trunk and branches glow pearly white, just like the sails of the Opera House. The possum, dark grey except for its white-tipped tail, climbs up the trunk and darts along a branch before disappearing into the leaves.

  ‘That’s a ghost gum,’ I say quietly. ‘Corymbia dallachiana. It’s Dad’s tree. You hardly ever see them this far south but somehow it’s thriving. Grandpa and I put Dad’s ashes in the soil when we planted it.’

  Tor swears under his breath as he lets go of my arm. He runs a hand around the back of his neck before shoving both hands into his pockets. ‘I have to get back to Bondi, Golden. That’s the way it has to be.’

  Why does he say that? Do I look pathetic? Like the baby zebra his brother described, one with a broken fetlock? I probably only mentioned the ghost gum because I drank the expensive champagne. And I was sleepy.

  I walk towards the house. When I reach the porch I turn. Tor hasn’t moved. He’s watching me.

  My words ring out in the still night air. ‘It’s not like I asked you to stay.’

  CHAPTER

  29

  Eric calls early on Monday morning.

  ‘Emily fears the weather will be too warm for you to enjoy your birthday present by the time you receive it. We’d like to see you for dinner. Saturday night at seven?’ He clears his throat. ‘Come early, so we can discuss the Lilydale land.’

  I hear a car on the driveway, my first client of the day. ‘My home, you mean?’

  ‘Are you available?’

  Eric and I will have to talk sometime, because I can’t tolerate him threatening to sell every time he’s displeased with me. Mum’s involvement worries me too. Seeing Eric on Saturday would give me five days to sort out my finances.

  ‘I’ll be there at six.’

  It takes a couple of hours to get to Clovelly because it’s pouring with rain. But the delays give me the chance to practise exactly what I’ll say to Eric. I’ll be considered and rational. I’ll state my case clearly and precisely. I’ll behave like Leah Pritchard—Tor’s lawyer lover—would.

  Eric opens the door as I run through the rain to the porch, and waits as I remove my boots.

  ‘Where is your umbrella?’

  ‘It wasn’t worth putting it up. I parked right out the front.’

  He pecks my cheek and takes me into his study. ‘Thank you for coming out in this awful weather. Your mother is in the kitchen with Angelina. I’m sure they’ll be out shortly. And a warning. Emily has invited Tor and Nate.’

  I brush
raindrops from my jumper sleeves, and tighten the band around my ponytail. ‘We’d better hurry up, then.’

  He turns to the window and peers through the gap between the curtains. ‘You can’t possibly drive home tonight; the roads to Lilydale might flood. You’ll have to stay.’

  ‘I’d prefer to sleep in my own bed.’

  When I was at boarding school, one of the sounds I missed the most was rain falling on the corrugated iron roof at home. It flows over the tops of the gutters—they’re always clogged with leaves—and splashes onto the ground outside my window.

  ‘You have your own bed here,’ Eric says.

  The dapple-grey pony frieze Mum’s designer stuck to the walls after my accident was taken down as soon as I’d left Clovelly for Grasmere. The room became the spare room, decorated in burgundy and beige. In the en suite bathroom, there are rows of little bottles like you get in hotels.

  ‘I’ll be fine to get back to Lilydale.’

  Eric turns away from the window. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Lilydale.’

  ‘Can I go first?’

  He frowns. ‘Very well.’

  I’m so anxious to get my words out that they run together. ‘This morning I transferred a little over ten thousand dollars into your bank account. You can check, it’ll be there by Monday. That amount brings me up to date with this year’s interest, and some capital. And I’ve arranged to get a personal loan from the bank, so you’ll have the money I owe you for the past five years by December.’

  Eric’s gaze focuses somewhere to the right of my shoulder. ‘That’s all very well, Golden, but what about next year and subsequent years? You can hardly take out personal loans annually. Not without giving the bank some sort of security.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that as well. I’ve only ever taken on public hospital referrals, but a number of my children will go to school next year, or they don’t need me anymore. I’ll accept private clients, and public speaking and drama students—those who can afford to pay more. It will increase my income substantially.’

  ‘And this is your plan in perpetuity?’

  ‘It’s not like I have a choice. I want to demonstrate I’m doing my best to settle things between us.’

  Eric’s colour is high. ‘Settling things between us is all very well, but have you taken your mother’s feelings into account?’

  I attempt a smile. ‘I’m hoping you’ll be able to convince Mum that getting me out of Lilydale isn’t going to achieve anything, except to make me more difficult.’

  ‘Sit down, Golden.’

  I do as Eric says. He sits on the other side of the desk, and takes a notepad out of his top drawer.

  ‘This is too little, too late,’ he says. ‘I’ve had an offer.’

  I’m not sure I could speak even if I knew what to say. So I watch silently as he draws diagrams and tells me things I already know. My land adjoins a National Park and has a creek running through it, meaning its development is subject to numerous restrictions.

  ‘As a result of this,’ he says, ‘the land can’t be subdivided, and the house can’t be extended, which means the property is worth surprisingly little. The only realistic buyer is the National Parks body, and they’re extremely interested in purchasing it.’ He smiles encouragingly. ‘That would please your grandfather, wouldn’t it, Golden? Having his trees in a national park?’

  ‘Please, Eric. I’ll pay you back. I’ve been late in my payments but I’ve just explained how things will be different from now—’

  He raises his hand. ‘The decision has been made.’

  The decision has been made. These are the words Eric uses when he lets whoever he’s having an argument with know that, as far as he’s concerned, the argument is over.

  ‘You can’t do this.’

  ‘It’s for the best.’

  ‘But …’ I lower my voice. ‘The house and garden, let me keep those. Maybe the stables and yard.’

  ‘Make a clean break, Golden. Pay off your debts, and start fresh with something else.’

  Swallowing isn’t enough anymore. Hot fat tears roll down my cheeks. When I lean forward they splash on my hands. I wipe them on my jeans and swipe at my nose with my jumper sleeve. Eric, his face even more flushed now, is looking everywhere but at me. I talk through my tears.

  ‘I have a small life, Eric. And I like it like that. The home I grew up in, my sister, my work. I told you I’ve been to the bank. I could ask for more money. You can sell the paddocks and the stable block and yard and I’ll keep the rest. That way I won’t owe you anything.’

  ‘National Parks wants all or nothing.’

  ‘They’ll bulldoze the house.’

  ‘I imagine that would happen, yes.’

  ‘Please change your mind.’

  ‘Your mother is set on this course.’ He straightens his pens. ‘And not without justification. Your grandfather was in debt to me because of mistakes made by him and your father. If Tor’s investigation hasn’t brought that home to you, I don’t know what will. I should never have given responsibility for the loan to you after your grandfather’s death. You work hard, Golden, I appreciate that. Even so, you only have the capacity to pay interest—at less than the commercial rate—and a minimal amount of capital. I’d be doing you a wrong turn, standing by while you take out a personal loan. You’re young, too young to be burdened by the debts that you have.’

  ‘So you won’t help me?’

  ‘No.’

  He stands and walks back to the window. ‘I’ll tell National Parks that you will need time to find yourself somewhere to live, to make alternative arrangements with your clients. You’ll have to deal with your horses. I’ll give you six months. How does that sound?’

  There’s a giant sob lodged deep in my chest. I’m determined not to let it out but I can’t get any words past it. Eric is a blur as I run past him out of his office. I wrench the front door open. The rain falls in horizontal sheets. I pull on my riding boots, dry on the porch. But by the time I reach the gate they’re as sodden as the rest of my clothes. My hair whips around my face until it’s so wet it sticks like cobwebs to my skin. Rivulets of water run inside my jumper and trickle down my back.

  Thrashing rain, roaring winds, pounding white-capped waves. I watch and listen to the gums in the park on the foreshore, how the branches sway and creak. I should be afraid but I’m not. Nothing can hurt me out here.

  Car headlights cast oddly shaped shadows over the sand. It’s barely drizzling now and the wind has died down. Two car doors slam. Nate’s tread is steady and sure-footed. He’s an American quarter horse. Tor’s stride is longer. He’s light on his feet—a thoroughbred colt.

  Nate sits close to me on the wet timber bench. Tor stands on my other side. The three of us look straight ahead and watch the waves crash onto the sand. When I break the silence my voice is low-pitched.

  ‘Go away.’

  ‘You’re a drowned rat,’ Nate says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

  Nate is forced to let me go when I stand. ‘Leave me. I don’t want to talk. Tell Angelina I’m fine, I’ll come back soon.’

  Tor mutters ‘For fuck’s sake’ under his breath. Out loud he says, ‘I’ll walk you to the house.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s taken an hour to find you,’ he says. ‘I’m not prepared to lose you again.’

  ‘I wasn’t lost.’

  ‘We didn’t know that,’ Nate says. ‘Eric was worried. Angelina is beside herself and Tor—’

  He motions that Nate should shut up. Then he turns to me. ‘Eric told us what you talked about, what he plans to do.’

  ‘Sell my home? You know one of the excuses he used when he threatened it last time, don’t you? You told him about Grandpa’s folders.’

  Tor rubs the back of his neck. ‘I had to establish their bona fides. And explain why I didn’t have access to them earlier.’

  ‘Right. Of course you did. Not that it matters now anyway. The damage is done.’

/>   ‘This is what upset you at his office, wasn’t it? You didn’t think to tell me about it then, weeks ago, when I could have reasoned with him?’

  ‘It wouldn’t have made a difference.’

  ‘I’ll speak to him again.’

  ‘He’ll calm down,’ Nate says. ‘That’s what fathers do, right?’

  ‘No!’ I pace up and down in front of them, my arms wrapped tightly around my body. ‘No.’ It’s the only word I seem to be able to get out. ‘No.’

  ‘Golden,’ Nate says, ‘let’s get you back to the house.’

  He looks at me like I’m a little sister who desperately needs a hug. Tor’s face is set. A few months ago I might have thought it expressionless but I’m better at reading him now. His fringe is pushed back. He must have been running his fingers through it. That’s what he does when he’s impatient, or frustrated, or concerned. There’s a tiny line above his right eyebrow that only appears when he’s trying not to frown. His jaw isn’t clenched but it’s tight; he’s tense around the mouth. His eyes are ironbark grey.

  He speaks quietly. ‘Eric threatened to do this in February as well. He didn’t go through with it then.’

  ‘This is different. My mother’s involved. He won’t cross her, not over me.’

  We stare at each other. I wish this really were his fault. I could add it to the list of all the reasons I should hate him.

  It’s only a few hundred metres back to the house. By the time I reach the gate the BMW is parked on the footpath. Tor and Nate lean against the bonnet, deep in conversation. Angelina comes flying down the steps from the porch and grabs me. Left cheek, right cheek, left cheek, right. The way we kissed as children. She puts her arm around my shoulders and guides me up the path.

  Mum stands at Angelina’s bedroom door. Her hair and make-up are perfect. ‘Eric has your interests at heart, darling,’ she says.

  ‘Isn’t it enough that they’re dead?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘I want nothing to do with either of you.’

  I brush past her, pulling Angelina behind me and slamming the door. Then I lean against it and squeeze my eyes shut. I hear Ange move quietly around her room. When I open my eyes she’s standing in front of me, wringing her hands together.