The Tea Chest Page 2

  He ran his hand over his shaved head. ‘I guess as far as marriage problems go, it’s a good one to have.’

  But she knew more was bothering him. Things he didn’t really want to say.

  ‘Let’s talk about money,’ she said, getting straight to the point. ‘If we wind up the company now, everything will be sold off and we’ll get a good—a very good—payout. That’s undeniable. Is that what you want?’

  ‘Think about what we could do with that money. We could travel. Together. All four of us. It could set us up comfortably for years to come. You’d have the freedom to stay home and I could finally put the hours into my clinic.’

  ‘I . . .’ She paused, searching for the right words. ‘I don’t know that I want to stay home. The Tea Chest is more than a job for me.’

  Mark stood and began to pace.

  ‘Mark, love, think what might happen if I do go to London. This is an amazing opportunity to take the company to a whole new level. The financial rewards in five years time could be beyond our wildest dreams. Think about the doors that would be open to us then. It could set us up for the rest of our lives.’

  ‘Or,’ he said calmly, ‘this London shop that is currently draining money from the company every day while it sits waiting for someone to move it forward could be a huge bust, and when the company is wound up at a later date the payout for us would be much less.’

  Kate took a deep breath. Of course she’d considered that.

  ‘I think we should take what we’ve got now, thank our lucky stars, and move on. Judy wants out now and she won’t wait for a buyer,’ Mark said.

  Judy. The thorn in her side. ‘Why is she so stubborn? Why won’t she wait for a buyer for her share?’

  He shrugged. The cloud shifted again and he squinted against the sun.

  ‘It’s not just about money for me,’ Kate said. ‘It’s about me having the chance to do something I never thought I would do, to make something bigger for me, us and our children. The Tea Chest could be their legacy one day. It’s about me following and honouring my passions—something I know you believe in.’

  That got him. He straightened. And for a second she was thrown back a decade to their days as newlyweds when they lay on a blanket under a gum tree and talked of their dreams and values. The days when taking risks and doing what made you happy were far more important than financial security.

  She asked the question she needed him to answer. ‘Don’t you think I can do it?’

  He rubbed his forehead, thinking. ‘I think we have different skill sets and your strengths lie as an artist, a visionary, a dreamer and designer. And . . .’ He held up a hand to silence her protest. ‘And you’ve said that yourself.’

  That got her. It was true. Hadn’t she declared over and over that business wasn’t her thing? Hadn’t that been why she’d jumped at the chance to work at The Tea Chest? All she had to do was be her creative, gifted self and someone else could worry about the finances.

  The door opened and James’s tear-streaked face appeared. ‘Can we go now?’

  Mark cleared his throat. ‘What’s wrong, buddy?’ He reached out a hand towards his five-year-old son.

  ‘Keats stood on my head.’

  ‘I did not,’ shouted Keats from inside. ‘It was an accident. I was climbing down from my bed.’

  ‘And he called me a toe.’ James went on, indignation set in his freckled face.

  ‘No I didn’t,’ Keats called from the kitchen, his voice laden with eight-year-old big-brother superiority. ‘I called you a toad.’

  Mark rubbed James’s back and kissed him on the top of his head. ‘You need some shoes before we can go,’ he said. Kate tried to smile at him reassuringly. James nodded and disappeared inside.

  Nothing could pull on her heartstrings like the little men in her life. They were her world. Of course they were. You couldn’t create a life, nurture it, watch it grow and develop its potential without this being so. And that was exactly where she was with The Tea Chest. She was arguably just as much a part of that company as Simone had been. They’d come together and created new life. She may not have had the skills to be a mother when she became pregnant, but she’d learned. She’d educated herself, lost many hours sleep and gave it everything she had. Surely she could do it again.

  ‘We used to say we valued doing what we loved above all else,’ she said.

  ‘True. But maybe there are different types of happiness and you just need to choose one version and stick to it.’

  There was possibly some truth in that. But which version should she choose: one with a known guarantee or one with unlimited potential?

  Leila wore her best navy suit. It was a surprisingly hot day for May and she would rather have taken off the jacket. But this was no time to be distracted by trivial things like comfort. She was heading to the human resources department of Strahan Engineering. And she was about to lose her job.

  People she passed in the corridor moved away from her like she was bad luck.

  Yesterday seemed a lifetime ago. A lifetime since she’d lost her mind. A lifetime since Lucas had ushered her into the elevator and down to the ground floor and out to the courtyard of the common room. A lifetime since he’d told her to go home and that he’d phone her later. An age since she’d received first his phone call and then the call from Maryanne, requesting a formal meeting at eleven o’clock the next day to discuss The Incident.

  Now, she ignored the sweat pouring from her armpits, ignored Eric the Humping Dog as he sneered in satisfaction at her from beneath his carefully groomed goatee, ignored the acrobatics in her belly in honour of her impending sacking, and knocked on Maryanne’s door. There was a pause in the murmur of voices from behind the wooden facade, then a voice called, ‘Come in.’

  Three of them sat at a round table.

  There was Maryanne, the human resources manager of the whole company. There was Carol, the human resources manager of Leila’s division. Carol and Leila were certainly well acquainted, if not particularly friendly. Leila had put in enough complaints in the past for Carol to grimace when she saw Leila coming towards her office. And there was Ernie, her manager. He smiled but she wasn’t sure why.

  ‘Thank you for coming, Leila,’ Maryanne said. She mispronounced Leila’s name as Leela and jolly little Ernie helpfully corrected it to Layla, which Maryanne ignored. ‘Take a seat.’ She shuffled papers on the desk and clicked her pen twice.

  ‘How are you?’ she said, and Leila was sure the question was only driven by a professional duty of care rather than her actual desire to know, an impression reinforced by the fact that Maryanne looked away as soon as she’d asked the question and made a mark on the paper in front of her.

  Ask the employee how they feel: tick.

  ‘Fine,’ Leila said, eyeing Ernie carefully. If anyone was going to fight for Leila’s job it would be him. He liked her. He believed in her. He gave her glowing annual performance reviews. He listened to her complaints and empathised whole-heartedly. Bought her vodka after work.

  But he never did anything to solve the problems.

  She ground her teeth, looking at his sticky-out ears and neatly brushed hair.

  She knew that beneath his easygoing, approachable, everybody’s-friend demeanour, he was simply weak. He was a salesman—saying whatever he needed to in order to leave a meeting looking like the good guy. He could talk anyone into anything. He knew the jargon and twisted it around and around to say the same thing ten different ways until he wore the person down. And he was a master at taking credit for other people’s work. Including hers.

  Ernie’s gift of the gab could be useful. But that all depended on whose side he was on today and who he needed to impress to get another bonus.

  ‘Why don’t you start by telling us about yesterday,’ Maryanne said. ‘I’m just going to take some notes while you talk.’

  I’ll bet you are.

  In a company like this, documentation ruled. Everyone focused on documenting so they
never actually had to go ahead and make changes.

  Where should she start? She was sick of having men look at her tits. She was sick of wanker men being promoted just because they could yell louder. She was bored to tears with reading engineering data. She was sick of the dirty splotches on the wall next to her cubicle. She was sick of seeing Eric the Humping Dog climbing everything that moved, including the photocopier. She was sick to death of eating lunch at her desk and rarely feeling sunshine on her body.

  What could she possibly say that hadn’t already been said and documented before? But even with all of that she knew she could never justify physically attacking someone.

  ‘What can I say?’

  The three exchanged glances.

  She turned to face Carol, vaguely hoping for some support. After all, Carol had heard it all before. But Carol turned her pointy features away and looked down at her notes. She wasn’t on Leila’s side.

  Ernie was her only chance now.

  ‘I cracked. Lost it. Temporary insanity.’ Her heart rate accelerated to full speed. Her palms sprang leaks. Her chest tightened.

  These days, all she had to do was imagine Carter’s pushed-up face, whining voice and thinning hair and she snapped. She was permanently angry. Constantly ready to attack or be attacked. Blind rage was her response to everything.

  No paper in the copy machine. Printers jamming. Idiot men. Too much work. Not enough work. Rage. Rage. Rage. All the same. She’d turned into a version of herself she would never have thought possible.

  Now, this meeting was pushing her over the edge. She could feel her body twitching, ready to run.

  ‘Could you please hurry up and fire me?’

  Eric spoke then, using his appeasing voice. ‘Leila, you know I think the world of your work ethic and abilities.’

  Don’t cry, don’t cry.

  ‘But it’s obvious to everyone here—’ he pointed to the thick folder full of Leila’s complaints sitting in front of Carol ‘—that you’ve been unhappy for some time. Would you agree?’

  She looked to the ceiling, not blinking, biting her lip.

  ‘We’d rather not terminate your position,’ Maryanne said plainly, tapping her pen.

  Of course they wouldn’t. That would open up a whole world of paperwork hurt.

  ‘But you will if I don’t resign?’

  ‘We want what’s best for you,’ Eric said—the smiling assassin.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You can take some time to consider your position and your options,’ Maryanne said.

  She could take time but, regrettably, the outcome would be the same. She’d sealed her fate the second the heel of her hand had connected with Carter’s pasty body. Her life here at Strahan was over. At least she could choose to leave on her own terms.

  ‘Don’t bother. I quit.’ And Leila Morton, senior editor, team leader and woman-with-a-future, walked out the door and out of the building into the great unknown.

  Wincing, Elizabeth fought her way free of a tangled mess of sheets and picked up the hotel room’s phone. She had a killer hangover.

  ‘Greetings from miserable London.’

  Obviously, Victoria had spoken to John.

  ‘So you’ve heard,’ Elizabeth said. ‘News travels fast to the other side of the world.’

  ‘Yes. The episode on the bridge freaked us all out a bit. I was nervous about calling. I didn’t know what state you’d be in.’

  Elizabeth sat upright, then instantly regretted it as the room spun violently.

  She remembered the choppers and television crews flying overhead. She remembered the flashing lights as the traffic stopped on the Story Bridge. The sound of the police as they shouted at her through the megaphone.

  Step away from the edge.

  ‘How do you know about that?’ she asked shakily.

  ‘John called us. And the clip’s on YouTube.’

  ‘Marvellous.’ She heard the click of the lighter as Victoria lit a cigarette. ‘Are you at home? Do Mum and Dad let you smoke in the house?’

  ‘Yes. And no. I’m outside. I said I’d call you. Mum was all flappy about it and Dad was all throat-cleary. What the hell were you doing on the bridge anyway?’ she said. ‘I don’t believe for a second you were going to jump.’

  Elizabeth pulled herself from the bed, crossed the floor, and closed the door to the bathroom. She sat down gingerly on the edge of the cool bath. Something about the solid whiteness helped ease the spinning.

  ‘What do you think I was doing on the bridge?’

  There was a pause. ‘Honestly, I’m not sure. I spoke to John, you know.’

  Elizabeth waited to feel something in response to her husband’s name. But there was nothing.

  ‘He said he’s been calling you.’

  ‘I threw my phone out the window of the taxi last night. How’d you find me anyway?’

  ‘You used his credit card to check into the hotel. Apparently, the staff were a little unnerved by your appearance and had your home contact details. Rather than calling the police they called John.’

  ‘Oh.’ Elizabeth caught sight of herself in the bathroom mirror. She looked frightful. Swollen eyes and puffy face. Long, frizzy brown hair. And that bloody cream chemise. She wanted to rip it off.

  And right there was another problem: she had no clothes.

  ‘You might as well tell me what the knob had to say,’ she sighed.

  ‘That it was all his fault you wanted to kill yourself. That he was a cheating dog. That he had a whole other family in Japan.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to kill myself.’

  ‘Then what were you doing?’

  ‘Just thinking.’ Elizabeth ran a hand through her hair, working out knots with her fingers and gradually smoothing it down. ‘I must have lost track of time. The next thing I knew I was surrounded and people were shrieking and pointing. Apparently you can’t stand on the edge of a bridge in your nightwear without people taking it the wrong way.’

  ‘It’s exciting, though, isn’t it? Your husband is this whole other person and you didn’t even know. It’s like Jamie Lee Curtis and Arnold Schwarzenegger in that film.’

  ‘True Lies.’

  ‘Yes. Just like that.’

  ‘Except not funny. Not funny at all. And not sexy, no. No seduction scene in a hotel room. No ballroom dancing. No international travel. No adventure and mystique. Just a complete tosser who left me for a second wife and two kids and a career as a karaoke king.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Apparently he’s a popular white-man personality. Something equivalent to being the winner of one of our reality television shows . . . like The Biggest Loser or something.’ She stood up to pace the room, stepping carefully so as not to set off the spinning again. ‘You know what? Japanese tourists used to stop us and ask for photos. I just thought they were being, you know, Japanese, with their cameras. But now I realise it’s because they knew him.’

  ‘Oh, Lizzie, all this time you were married to a famous person.’

  ‘He didn’t tell you the rest, did he?’ Elizabeth said.

  ‘There’s more?’ Victoria had never liked John. And at this moment Elizabeth wasn’t sure if that made her angry or grateful.

  ‘He had a vasectomy.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Years ago. He said once he’d had the kids in Japan he knew that was it for him. Besides, he couldn’t afford any more.’ She laughed, the way people laughed at inappropriate moments, like at funerals, or after accidentally handing your husband a glass of apple cider vinegar instead of apple juice, which she’d quite like to do now.

  ‘Isn’t that a hoot? I thought he was making business trips back and forth to Japan to develop property and invest money in complexes and he was really taking his sons to the zoo and to football games.’ She screwed up her face. ‘If they even do that sort of thing there.

  ‘He watched me go through all that pain. Month after month and all the while he’s shooting blanks.’ Sh
e grabbed a neatly folded plush white towel, ripped it off the rack and threw it against the wall.

  ‘So is this it for me now?’ Elizabeth’s voice twisted. ‘I’m thirty-one. Why can’t I have the husband and the baby? It doesn’t seem so unreasonable. Quite normal, really.’ Her legs shook and she reached for the edge of the basin.

  Victoria was speaking, saying things that were supposed to be calming, interspersed with fierce denunciations of the dick-head husband, and a few scathing remarks about Australia too. Elizabeth found it hard to follow.

  ‘What should I do?’ she interrupted. ‘I can’t go home. I thought he loved me.’

  ‘Tell me, what’s one thing, just one thing, I can do to help right now?’

  What could she do? Her sister was on the other side of the world and was a bit hopeless, really.

  But right at this moment Victoria was all she had.

  She clawed at the chemise that slithered around her body. ‘I’ve got no clothes,’ she whimpered. ‘I’ve got no clothes and I can’t go home.’

  The next few hours rolled on and around Elizabeth like some horrid dream she was sure would end any moment. But it didn’t.

  Victoria had gone and done the one sensible thing she could have done from her post in London. She’d called her workmate, Annie—solid, reliable, friendly, calm Annie. Like a Shire horse.

  Elizabeth fell into her strong arms at the door of the hotel and wept on her shoulder.

  ‘This is such terrible news for you,’ Annie said.

  She led Elizabeth gently back to the bed and presented her with a bag of clothes, freshly bought from Myer and smelling of clean, air-conditioned new beginnings.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’ Elizabeth sniffed.

  ‘I’m at a client meeting,’ Annie grinned. ‘You’re my client. How am I doing?’

  ‘Great, thank you. You’re just the person I need.’ She felt her face crumple. ‘You must think I’m such a fool.’

  ‘No. Absolutely not. The only fool in this story is that tosspot husband of yours who couldn’t see what he had in you. Wanker.’