The Soulmate, page 15
Dev’s will is one of the most straightforward I’ve done for a while. It almost makes me wonder why he’s bothering. Of course, my official position is that everyone needs a will. Official because that’s how I make money, but also because that’s how I live my own life.
I made my first will when I was twenty. I did it myself, online – bequeathing my clothes, my car and my five thousand dollars in savings to Kat. I’d also outlined my wishes for my funeral. Back then I’d wanted ‘Stayin’ Alive’ by the Bee Gees played at my funeral – I thought it would be ironic and make everyone smile. I’d amended that and most other things in my will since.
‘Assets?’ I say, when Dev slides into the booth opposite me. I hold my fingers over the keyboard of my laptop.
Dev is single, never married, no dependents. He owns The Pantry (with a hefty mortgage), his car, an apartment in Melbourne which is currently rented out. He has a modest amount of savings. I doubt we’ll need the full hour, even with all the interruptions. I’ve already decided I won’t charge him. Besides the free food this is bound to get me, I’ve learned that Dev is the mouthpiece for this entire area. If he sings my praises, it will spread like wildfire. And if everyone he talks to brings me straightforward wills like this, it will be money for jam.
‘In the event of your death, what are your wishes for The Pantry?’ I ask. ‘For example, you could have the business sold and the proceeds released to the estate, you could close it down, you could nominate someone to run it and the profits could be held in trust by the estate.’
‘It can be sold,’ he says. ‘Everything can be sold.’ A middle-aged woman in activewear enters and he waves at her. ‘Marg! We have raspberry and white chocolate muffins still warm from the oven.’
Marg groans. ‘I’ve just been for a six-kilometre walk!’ She orders the muffin.
‘And who will be your beneficiaries?’ I ask, when I have Dev’s attention again.
‘My brother, Sunny.’
I make a note of it, then look up. A pair of young women at the next table are watching us. Dev must have noticed too because he looks over at them. ‘Another coffee, Steph? Takeaway cup?’
Steph laughs in a way that makes me think she might fancy Dev. I consider him with fresh eyes. He’s not bad-looking. Medium height and build. Russet-coloured skin and a killer watt smile. His most attractive feature, perhaps, is the way he pays attention to people and loves to give them what they want.
Dev calls out Steph’s order to Gisele at the counter and then looks at me.
‘And you, Pippa? Another coffee?’
‘I’m fine. I’ve had too much caffeine already today. I’m a bit jittery.’
‘A chamomile tea for Pippa,’ he calls to Gisele. ‘For the jitters.’
‘Would you like to be buried or cremated?’ I ask.
He shrugs. ‘I don’t care.’
‘Funeral arrangements?’
Another shrug. ‘Whatever is easiest and cheapest.’
There’s something about his simplicity that I find humbling. I think about my own wishes. To be cremated, mingled with Gabe’s ashes and sprinkled over the lawn at the Botanic Gardens where we met and married. It felt so romantic when we decided. Now it feels silly.
‘What about a letter of wishes?’ I ask finally.
He raises his eyebrows and shakes his head to indicate he doesn’t know what I’m talking about.
‘It’s for things that don’t fit neatly into a will. For example, someone might include something such as I’d like my children to maintain an interest in the family business, or My wife can keep living in the house until her death and then it reverts to the estate, or I’d like “Stayin’ Alive” played at my funeral.’
He laughs, and once again I find myself admiring his face.
‘Put that in my letter,’ he says.
‘What?’
‘“Stayin’ Alive”. I like it. Ironic.’
‘I know, right?’
My chamomile tea arrives as he laughs again.
He’s done the unthinkable, I realise. I am relaxed. For several minutes I haven’t thought about Gabe, about Amanda or Max Cameron. I haven’t worried about the police, or the future. He really is good at this.
I sit back in my booth and lift the tea to my lips. I’ve just taken a sip when Max Cameron walks in.
46
AMANDA
AFTER
It’s satisfying to watch the moment Pippa notices Max enter the cafe. It’s as if she’s seen a ghost. She seems the type who’d be good at concealing her emotions – heaven knows, with a husband like hers you’d have to be – but at the sight of Max, her face drains of all colour.
Max hasn’t seen her yet. He’s come in to order a coffee. There’s a Nespresso machine at our Portsea house – not that Max would even try to use it. He’d already come to The Pantry last night to collect some dinner. Classic Max; once he is on to a good thing, he sticks to it.
What’s your plan, Max? I ask him silently.
He’s dressed in his version of casual – a pair of chinos, a white shirt, a navy V-neck jumper – but instead of wearing boat shoes he’s wearing his sneakers. He must be planning to do some walking. He’s been to the Gerards’ street last night and then again this morning, but he failed to persuade the neighbours to reveal Gabe’s address. Perhaps he’s headed to the trail behind the Gerards’ house, the one that leads to The Drop? That’s how I located them too. Any local person can tell you where The Drop is. Once you’re there, only two, maybe three houses have a direct view of it. I’d planned to try each of them, but I hadn’t had to. Gabe came to me! I suspect that he wouldn’t do that for Max, however.
‘Just a large flat white to go,’ Max says to the young man who greets him at the counter. ‘Also, I’m wondering if you could help me.’
The helpful man at the counter gives Max all the info he needs about The Drop, including a travel brochure with a map on which he draws a circle. Max is most grateful and when he pays for the coffee he adds a generous tip. He has no idea that Pippa Gerard is sitting just metres away from him. While he waits for his coffee, she gathers up her laptop and slips out the side door.
47
AMANDA
BEFORE
The funny thing was, in a way the Arthur Spriggs situation brought Max and I closer. We had survived an ordeal together. Faced a battle and won. We each knew the other cared and could be trusted. And it was then, after fifteen years of marriage, that our story began in earnest. More than just money. More than fidelity. More than just a transaction. It terrified me as much as it exhilarated me.
After that, Max came home for dinner on time. On the weekends, we went out, just the two of us – to movies and dinners and art galleries. We went on holidays – a resort in Bora Bora, a hike through Tasmania. For Max’s fiftieth birthday, we took the trip of a lifetime to Africa. We went on safari in Tanzania in an open-top bus, we ‘glamped’ in luxurious tents under the stars. We sat by the pool in Zanzibar. We picked out a tanzanite stone from a jeweller, and Max had it made into a necklace for me. I took photographs that would later win awards.
It felt like a honeymoon. It was the longest I’d spent with Max since we’d been married. The longest I’d spent with him ever.
‘Amanda,’ he said one night. We were lying on our plush camping mattress, talking in the early evening. ‘I was wondering. Do you still worry about me finding another woman? I know that early on in our marriage it was a concern of yours. I hope you don’t worry about that still.’
‘No,’ I said, realising it had been a long time since I’d thought about this. ‘I don’t.’
The day was fading, and the tent was bathed in a gorgeous soft light. It occurred to me that it was, perhaps, the perfect moment to tell him I loved him. I was fairly sure, after all this time, that my feelings were reciprocated. And yet, even as I opened my mouth, something kept me from projecting the words.
Love had never served Max or me. Max had lost his mother and his brother – the ones he loved most. And I’d watched love slowly destroy my mother. Maybe the key to our marriage was that we didn’t make loud proclamations? Maybe, for us, love was something to be whispered. Or, perhaps, never spoken of at all.
48
PIPPA
NOW
‘Sorry!’ I say to the car that screeches to a halt, narrowly missing me as I dart across the street without looking. Then, like a fool, I offer a wave.
The driver throws me a murderous glare as she drives away. I don’t blame her. I’d do the same thing if a pedestrian ran out in front of my car. But getting hit by a car was preferable to running into Max Cameron.
I’m shaking as I jog home through the back streets. I don’t think Max saw me, but I certainly didn’t look back once I got out of there. I didn’t tell Dev I was leaving either. He’ll probably think I’m nuts. I’ll have to tell him something came up. We were almost done anyway.
At home, I enter via the back door. I need to call Gabe; I need to warn him that Max is in town, at the cafe. It wouldn’t be unusual for Gabe to turn up there at this time of day to grab some lunch.
I pull out my phone.
‘Hi, darling.’
I shouldn’t be startled to find Mum in my kitchen. There always seems to be one family member or another here at any given time. For the first time in a long while, I feel a flush of irritation at this. ‘Hi, Mum. What are you doing here?’
‘I was just at the shops, and I picked up some things to make soup for you and the family,’ she says. ‘Then I thought I might as well just make it here.’
She’s already got out a knife and cutting board and is chopping an onion. Groceries are strewn all over the counter and she’s wearing my apron.
‘Great.’
But it’s not great. I can’t call Gabe with Mum here. I look at my phone, wondering if I should send him a text.
‘I’m glad you’re home,’ Mum says, as I sink into an armchair. ‘I’ve been meaning to check in with you.’
I want, more than anything, to hear Gabe’s voice. I want him to tell me that everything is going to be fine. I open a new message. But what do I write? The sound of Mum chopping is an annoying distraction, stopping me from being able to figure it out.
Chop. Chop, chop.
‘Pip?’
Maybe I could text. Something like: Max is here. I saw him at The Pantry.
Chop. Chop, chop.
Maybe I should include the time he was there? I look at my watch.
The chopping stops. ‘Pip!’
Mum’s voice cuts through the noise in my head. I look up from my phone. ‘Yes?’
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Fine. Why?’
She puts down the knife, and sighs. ‘Because I spoke to Kat.’ She gives me a motherly, all-knowing look. ‘She said that you seemed a little . . . off.’ She wipes her hands on her apron, then comes and sits on the couch. ‘What’s going on?’
It’s a dangerous question. One that can induce tears in the calmest, most stable of people. Obviously no one would accuse me of being either right now.
‘It’s just the stress of the last few days, I suppose,’ I say. ‘Even the girls haven’t been themselves. Did I tell you Asha was asking about the woman on the cliff? She asked if the woman was in heaven with her mum.’
Mum winces. ‘It’s a tough thing to understand at her age.’ She’s quiet a moment. ‘Is that all it is?’
I look out the window, across the grass. A bit of police tape still clings to the moonah tree at The Drop. ‘No – it’s this house,’ I say, with more fire than I intended. ‘I knew it was a bad idea to move here, with the cliff right there. I wish I’d put my foot down.’
Mum watches me steadily. ‘So, it’s the house that’s bothering you?’
‘Yes.’ Something feels childish about the way I say it, and I can’t meet her eye. ‘I thought when we moved away, we’d have some peace. Thanks to this house, the drama has just moved somewhere new.’
‘Ah,’ she says. It’s a loaded ‘ah’. I can tell that she’s holding something back.
‘What?’
‘It’s just, you and Gabe have lived in a few houses now,’ she says carefully. ‘And you’ve had your fair share of drama at each one.’
‘So?’
‘So . . . are you sure it’s the house?’ She waits a moment. When I don’t respond, she continues. ‘Because if it were me, I’d be asking if it was something else causing your problems.’
I look at her and see something in her gaze. An opinion that she’d never allowed herself to vocalise, lest she be an interfering mother.
‘Like what?’
Mum opens her mouth to respond at the same moment my phone starts to ring. It’s Gabe.
‘Sorry, Mum,’ I say. ‘I have to get this.’
I pick up the phone and Mum returns to the kitchen. She seems to be chopping even more aggressively than before.
49
PIPPA
THEN
‘Gabe, there’s a package for you,’ I called from the front door.
Both girls were at my feet, delighted by the unexpected interruption to our day. Admittedly, it wasn’t so unexpected lately. The UPS man was becoming our new best friend. The packages had started arriving a few months earlier. Bizarre purchases like old bottles of wine and sporting memorabilia arrived on our doorstep daily, some of them eye-wateringly expensive. Gabe always had an explanation – it was going to appreciate in value, or he needed it for some complicated reason I couldn’t quite grasp.
Last week, it was a set of bikes for the family. A nice idea, except he’d ordered six of them and there were four of us (only two of whom could ride bikes). He’d brushed off the mistake, but a few days ago I sat him down and told him I was worried about the amount he was spending on things we didn’t really need. He promised me he’d curb the online shopping. And yet, here we were.
‘Ah,’ Gabe said, when he joined me at the door. ‘That’ll be the new porch light.’
My heart sank. In addition to online shopping, Gabe’s other recent obsession was fixing things around the house: things which, in many cases, were not even broken. First it was an apparently drippy tap. Then there was the hole in the roof that was allowing in the possums (possums that I never saw or heard). Now, it was the light on the front porch – a sensor light, which I found quite helpful, but which for some reason Gabe couldn’t stand.
‘I might just swap it out now,’ he said. ‘It’s been driving me mad.’
‘No. Not electrics, Gabe, it’s too dangerous. I’ll call the electrician.’
‘We don’t need an electrician to change out a light, Pip!’ he said, kissing my forehead. ‘It won’t take me a minute to sort it out.’
His confidence was persuasive. Maybe he was right and it was no big deal. After all, what did I know about changing lights? Besides, I had two toddlers at my heels who wanted lunch.
‘All right, if you’re sure.’
There were worse things than having a husband who was handy, I told myself as I made toasted sandwiches. Some women would kill to have a husband who did things around the house.
The sandwiches were nearly done when the electricity cut out. From the kitchen at the back of the house, I heard the unmistakable thud of a body hitting the ground.
I’d never run so fast in my life.
When I reached the front porch, the ladder was on its side and so was Gabe, several metres away. He blinked at me dumbly for several seconds. Then he began to laugh.
I didn’t understand it. He’d had the ADHD diagnosis. He was taking his medication. But Gabe was spiralling again. I could feel it in my bones.
50
AMANDA
BEFORE
I came home one night from dinner with some girlfriends to find the gates open and several cars parked in our driveway. They were not the prestige cars owned by most of our friends. There was a Mazda, a Subaru and a hotted-up 1975 Ford Falcon with tinted windows – this last I recognised as belonging to Baz. It was unusual for our security guard to park in the driveway. Even though it had been years since Arthur Spriggs’s men had invaded our home, unexpected guests still made me nervous. I called Max from my car.
‘I’m in the driveway,’ I said, when he picked up. ‘Everything okay?’
‘Fine. I’ve just got a few colleagues here for a meeting.’
Max sounded distracted, though not alarmed. It reassured me, even though Max rarely held business meetings at home after hours. Then again, things had been busy now that NewZ was trying to enter the streaming sphere. It was a big undertaking which had been the focus of the past couple of years and had involved some late nights at work. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that Max might need to bring work home – but, still, it seemed odd.
The house was quiet when I let myself inside and I assumed Max and his colleagues were in Max’s office. By this time, I’d become quite good at snooping, so I slipped into my study which abutted the office and put my ear to the wall.
‘How the hell did you even develop a relationship with this contact?’ I heard Max bellow, so loud that I could hear him quite clearly.
‘The usual ways,’ came the softer, but not feeble, response. I recognised the voice as belonging to Gabe Gerard. ‘I know it was unorthodox, but you said to find the money wherever we could.’
‘Great. Did you look in dumpsters too?’
‘Max, could we just focus on –’
But Max wasn’t listening. ‘How did this get through compliance, Mei?’
‘I red-flagged it when I vetted it.’ It was a young woman’s voice now. ‘I couldn’t verify the funds; they came from multiple holding companies on the Cayman Islands. I said it was suspicious.’
‘So how did it get through? Who signed off on it?’
‘You did.’ Gabe’s voice is smaller now.
