Less Than Perfect (24 page)

I remember that I'm stark naked under the sheet at the very same moment I realise that Matthew Blake has every intention of getting back into bed with me.

June 2009

I read the headline with immense frustration:
Net Banc completes successful takeover of Metro.

The journalist's predictions three months ago were on the mark, as was David when he said that Net Banc was carnivorous, but given that I've not managed to break into the account both the headline and the fact I guessed this was coming are maddeningly irrelevant.

I pop my head over the partition and see that Zoe is also reading the paper. ‘Zoe, what do you do with people who have cranky auras?'

‘Pardon?'

‘You know, what's the best way to handle cranky bastards?'

‘You mean Jarrod?'

‘No. Harry Dixon – the man's in a completely different league to Jarrod.'

‘Really?' She seems unfazed.

‘Yes,
really
. He must be pulling out his hair at the thought of merging all the systems and I could make his life so much easier, if only he would listen.'

‘Firstly, you need to be calm,' she advises. ‘You're giving off all the wrong signals.'

I shrug with disheartenment. ‘It's just that I have so little else on, and I know that this account would be great for both me
and
him.'

‘And don't call him a cranky bastard. You shouldn't label people like that.'

‘I know, I know. But every time I phone he bites my head off – I can't seem to get past first base.'

‘Maybe you should try a different medium?'

The problem with asking Zoe for advice is that her solution is often slightly bizarre. ‘What?'

‘Verbal clearly isn't his thing. He might respond better to the written word.'

‘Oh. You mean write him a letter?'

‘Maybe. At the very least you'll feel like you're doing something constructive.'

Well, that's not too bizarre at all. Zoe's obviously feeling quite conventional today. As I sit back down my phone beeps with a text. It's from Matthew.

See you tonight. Your place or mine?

Mine!
I send back. Jeanie's away on business and it's a perfect time to have him over.

Hope you're not working too hard
, he adds.

Chance would be a fine thing. I've hit the odd lull with work
before but none lasting this long. Is it me? Have I lost my touch? Or is it the impact of the global financial crisis, as Jeanie, Jarrod and the media would have me believe? I sigh. All I know is that I can only spend so much time in the day reading the newspaper. I open a Word document and begin to type a short letter to Harry, congratulating him on the takeover and reminding him that I'm here if he needs me. Funnily enough, Zoe is right: it does make me feel like I'm doing something both positive and productive.

That night, curled up against Matthew on the sofa watching a legal drama on TV, I find my thoughts wandering back to the situation at work. I can't help but wonder how long Jarrod can hold out. Australian businesses have started to shed employees, it's in the papers every day. How much extra must Zoe and I and the rest of the team sell in order to make our jobs safe?

‘Are you okay?' Matthew asks, perhaps sensing my abstraction.

‘Just worried about work – or the lack of it.'

‘Things are quiet?'

‘That's pretty much an understatement.'

‘Are you going to look for something else?'

I really don't want to entertain the possibility. ‘I've so much invested with Learning Space … I don't think I could get such a good position with another company.'

‘So you're going to ride it out.'

Matthew's attention is totally fixed on me. If there's something wrong, he always wants to know what it is; he never puts a TV show or anything else trivial first. He cares about me,
really
cares; it's evident by how much he worries. He scolds me, gently but
consistently, if I drink too much or eat too little, and for refusing to wear a diabetic identity bracelet. Having witnessed how I weave between cars and zoom through orange traffic lights when we're cycling, he's begged me to stick to bike-paths where my supposedly reckless riding is less likely to get me killed. I'm touched that he worries; it's like having a warm blanket wrapped around me. And I worry about him too: affectionate, mild, normal worry – when I can manage to contain it.

Tonight Matthew's tiredness is showing around his eyes and I realise that his day wasn't so great either.

‘You seem to be pretty quiet tonight as well.'

‘Ah, just a frustrating day at work. None of the kids will talk. It's obvious they know who did it, but they're too scared to say …'

Matthew is still working on the same case. Other things have come and gone in the months in between – a sexual assault, a fatal car accident, a messy and protracted case of domestic abuse – but this case with the brain-damaged teenager is always there in the background, the injustice and unfairness niggling away at him.

‘I don't want to wreck the lives of the kids who did it. I just want them to suffer some consequences, enough to make them stop and think if they're ever in that situation again. If it was my kid, I'd rather he was caught and faced the music. I'd hate it if he got away with something so violent and unprovoked.'

When I first met Matthew I spent many quiet moments wondering why he was single, why he hadn't been snatched up and if he had a major flaw that had yet to reveal itself. I've since learned that he doesn't have a flaw, at least not in himself. His job is his flaw: the unsociable hours, the unpredictability, the bad days which cause him to worry when he should be relaxing in
front of the TV and to toss and turn in bed at night. It's his job that turns women off, not Matthew himself.

I snuggle closer to him. I'm more resilient than other women. I can work around the long hours and last-minute changes of plan. I can handle his bad days at work and he has already demonstrated many times that he can handle mine. He hugs me closer and I ignore the stab of fear that always follows any feelings of happiness or contentment: fear that this relationship won't last; fear that fate, once more, has something terrible in store.

Standing in the reception area, Nicola is juggling; she has apparently graduated from bean bags to balls and she's demonstrating her proficiency to all those who care enough to watch, which is a surprising number of people.

‘Don't you have any work to do?' I ask a little sourly.

‘Yes,' her eyes are cast upwards, ‘but I'm just taking a moment to de-stress.'

‘You're showing off – stop passing it off as something else.'

She allows the balls to fall into her hands. ‘Want to have a go?' she asks provocatively.

‘Don't make me swear at you!'

She grins as though she's won some imaginary battle.

I haven't seen much of Nicola socially in the past few months. She continues to keep her cards close to her chest on David but it's clear they're spending the majority of their free time together. I do manage to catch up with them both in the Mitre after work on Fridays and I've come to like David. He's certainly overly conscious of his image, but he isn't as shallow as first impressions
suggest. He's keenly intelligent, funny in his own droll way and surprisingly obliging; all Nicola has to do is raise one of her black eyebrows and David's already at the bar buying a new round of drinks.

‘Is it a social visit to the training floor this morning?' she asks.

‘Actually, I'm here to get the Telelink feedback surveys for Jarrod.'

‘Ah, so you're Jarrod's lackey now?'

I shrug in reply. The Telelink implementation has been running for a week and I'm assisting in small ways, though staying firmly in the background. To be honest, I'm grateful to Jarrod for allowing me to be involved at any level. ‘I've been –'

I stop short at the sight of a familiar figure making his way in our direction: Derek. He isn't limping, at least not noticeably, and this brings me an instant measure of relief. I raise my head, poised to deliver a civilised greeting, one that will leave the way open for warmer exchanges in the future but won't ask too much of this first meeting since the accident.

He looks through me. ‘Nicola, we're having technical issues in room three …'

Nicola moves quickly and Derek follows without so much as a glance at me.

When I get back to my desk, all I can do is sit and fume: I'm so furious I can't pretend to work. Derek snubbed me. Derek, who I've wined and dined and danced attendance on for the last two years, has just treated me as though I'm some lowly employee he hasn't even met.

My phone rings. I swallow a lump of fury before picking it up. ‘Caitlin O'Reilly speaking.'

‘This is Harry Dixon,' says the clipped voice at the end of the line. ‘So, it's training facilities that you provide …'

‘Yes, yes it is.' I try to collect myself, to put Derek out of my mind and focus on this very unexpected call. ‘We specialise –'

‘I read through the brochures you sent. You have some very high-profile clients.'

‘Yes, we do, across –'

‘And the case studies make interesting reading.'

‘Yes, I –'

‘What I need to know is if you can handle big numbers?' he demands.

‘We have three thousand Telelink employees going through here at the moment.' Finally I'm allowed to finish a sentence, and I get a satisfying sense of revenge from dropping Telelink's name without Derek's knowledge – it's nice to use him, for a change.

‘You'd better come in and see me, then.'

Smiling triumphantly, I put down the phone after arranging a time to meet. I promptly decide to channel all my thoughts and energy towards Harry Dixon, and to do my best to forget about Derek and the immature, vindictive manner in which he snubbed me.

Matthew's sister looks little like him. Sophie is small-boned with a delicate face, her dark hair tied back in a ponytail. Her eyes are blue, but softer, not as intense as Matthew's. She wears jeans and a peasant-style top, her feet clad in silver thongs and her toenails painted with dark-purple varnish.

I've been apprehensive about this meeting, making excuses to put it off until now. From Ben's and Matthew's descriptions, I expected someone older, sadder, but Sophie doesn't look old enough to have a four-year-old son. She also seems genuinely pleased to see me.

‘It's so nice to meet you at last.' She smiles warmly, squeezing my hands in hers. ‘Come through. I thought we'd eat on the balcony – the kitchen is too tiny. Can I get you a drink, Caitlin? A glass of wine? Oh, I almost forgot – you have to be careful about what you drink, don't you?'

‘I can eat or drink most things in moderation, I just have to adjust the insulin accordingly,' I reply, trying to make my tone light and not display how awkward I find it to talk about my diabetes. ‘I'd love a glass of wine, thanks.'

The whole apartment is tiny, not just the kitchen. It's neat and well presented but the lack of space makes it feel constricting and a little dark. The living area, where we're standing, has a small dining table, a two-seater sofa and a TV stand, the furniture plain and inexpensive.

Ben tugs at my arm. ‘Come and see my bedroom.'

I share a smile with Matthew before allowing Ben to pull me away.

‘So, this is where you hang out.' I take in the single bed with the Spider-Man duvet, the bookshelf holding books and toys, and the grey, industrial-looking blinds on the window. ‘It's very tidy in here – much tidier than my room when I was a kid. I shared with my sister, Maeve, and she was very messy.'

‘Mum made me clean up because you were coming,' he admits earnestly. ‘She's been cleaning all morning. For you!'

‘Oh.' I don't know how to respond to such honesty.

Thankfully, Ben's thoughts have already moved elsewhere. ‘Do you want to play something?'

‘Err … what do you want to play?'

‘Car stunts … or meat-eating dinosaurs … or Lego.'

Lego sounds the most harmless. Ben slides out a big tub from under his bed and up-ends it at my feet. Suddenly the room doesn't look quite so tidy and I hope Sophie won't be cross.

‘What will we build?'

‘Let's build a city,' I suggest, getting down on my knees.

We spend a few quiet minutes constructing high-rise buildings on the Lego mat, before Matthew comes to the door with my glass of wine.

‘I see that you've been sucked in.' He smirks.

‘Uncle Matt, can you make a police car for our city?' Ben looks up with big, imploring eyes.

‘Speaking of getting sucked in …' Matthew puts my glass on the bookshelf and joins us down on the floor. He builds a police car and an ambulance, and I build an emergency services headquarters. All three of us are quite absorbed until Sophie calls out that lunch is ready.

The balcony is a decent size and has a pleasant outlook on some nearby Victorian terraces. The pale winter sun is already at the back of the apartment block and it's a little cold, but I imagine it would be lovely sitting out here in summer.

‘I hope the food is okay,' Sophie frets, tucking an escaped wisp of dark hair behind her ear. ‘I didn't know what you could eat, Caitlin, so I kept it light and simple.'

‘It's perfect.' I smile.

Lunch is a salad – chicken, walnut and pear – with an accompanying bowl of chat potatoes. Sophie seems to have given a lot of thought to my dietary requirements as well as, it soon transpires, other aspects of my diabetes.

‘I've noticed that you don't wear an identity bracelet or necklace,' she comments during the meal. ‘If anything happened, how would people know that you're diabetic?'