Selling the Drama (41 page)

He was good with that. Iris had a tendency
towards dramatics that grated on him at the best of times.

"We could sleep here tonight if they deliver
today," he suggested, only half joking.

Bree squealed with excitement, jumping up
and down on the spot, clapping her hands. "Yes!"

Charlotte shook her head at him, heading out
of the room wordlessly. Toby looked at Ashley and Bree with a wide
grin. "What do you say kids, will we gang up on Mummy so we can all
sleep here tonight? I'll get McDonalds for tea," he bribed them
openly. "With sundaes." The deal maker. "And cokes." Just in case
they were unclear on the importance of this mission.

Toby was on court circuit in Mount Isa,
which is how he found himself sitting in The Isa Hotel on a Tuesday
evening, looking over the shoulder of Patrick - his dinner
companion who was also the legal aide solicitor he was working with
here in town, to a table on the far side of the room. Seated at
that table was Royce, accompanied by a woman who looked as though
she were a similar age to Charlotte, and two young boys, twins by
the looks of it, around about Ashley's age if Toby was to hazard a
guess. He stared at the table, as yet unseen by its occupants, well
aware of how stunned he must look to Patrick right now, but
seriously, he could hardly believe his eyes. In all of his
imaginings, he had not factored in a new family. Another woman,
most definitely, but a whole entire family? Fuck no.

Dragging his gaze away, he put down his fork
and picked up his napkin, wiping his mouth before balling it up.
"Can you excuse me for a minute? I just need to pop over and have a
word to someone I know that I haven't seen for a long time."

"Sure, no worries." Patrick gave him a
nod.

Toby rose to his feet and strode across the
room, coming to stop at the table Royce was occupying. The woman
noticed him first, looking up at him with a questioning smile. Toby
took note of her, the short blond hair, her face devoid of the
usual lines associated with age. He had been right, she was young.
Royce looked up then, noticing her attention was elsewhere, and he
paled, visibly, right before Toby. Within seconds he looked like
death. Toby stared at him, taking in the way his face had aged
since they had last seen each other. He looked so much older than
the woman beside him; it was almost comical, to Toby anyway.

"It's been a long time, Royce." Toby kept
his tone even, deliberately not thinking about Charlotte, about
Iris, and about their pain. He needed to be careful here. For their
sakes.

Royce nodded to him. "Toby. What brings you
out this way?" His voice sounded rattled; he was clearly nervous if
his shaking hands were anything to go by.

"Work." He smiled generously at the woman,
less warmly at Royce. "I'm a Barrister. Just out here for a few
days. Crime occurs everywhere," he added, glancing down at the
woman's hand, taking note of the wedding band encircling her
finger. Bastard. He really had not banked on ever being found. And
to think, he had not been all that far from home in the end.

Royce looked away, realising no doubt the
connection Toby had just made. The woman looked over at Royce, a
small frown on her face, before glancing back up at Toby. She held
out her hand to him. "I'm Melissa. How do you know Royce?" she
asked pleasantly.

Toby took her hand in his, shaking it
warmly. "Through a mutual acquaintance." He did not want to hurt
this woman with the truth, nor these little boys. They were looking
up at him with identical faces, both blond like their mother, with
bright blue eyes. He smiled at them. Still, he could cut a little
without exposing too much. "How old are you two? I have a son who's
seven."

"We're six," one of them answered, the other
nodding beside him as though verifying the stated age.

Royce cleared his throat. "You're married
then?"

Toby looked back at him, knowing
instinctively what Royce was really asking. "Not yet. Engaged. But
my fiancée and I have four kids; we've kind of done things
backwards. Not like you, I see." He nodded to Melissa with a
knowing smile.

Royce blanched once again, clearly nearly
shitting himself. "So, you ended up with that same girl you used to
go around with, all those years ago?"

The anger slammed into him and he knew he
needed to leave the building at once. The gall, the absolute
fucking gall. He wanted to scream at Royce, take him by the throat
and shake him. Instead, he just nodded, smiling once more. "Yes,
Charlotte. I'm surprised you remembered her. I hadn't thought she
made all that much of an impression on you. Listen, I've got to get
back to my companion, we've got a lot of work to do." He reached
into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, grabbing out one of his
contact cards to pass to Royce. "Give me a call? I'd love to catch
up for a drink, for old times' sake." He turned his gaze to
Melissa. "I wouldn't want to bore you with our old stories. Lovely
to meet you. And you, boys. Royce," he said, backing away from the
table. Royce nodded to him, the card held loosely within his
fingers. Toby turned, walking away without a backward glance.

Royce called him the next day, asking if he
was available to meet up for a drink at some stage. He said he had
the day off work so he could fit in with whatever time suited
Toby.

"I'm not meeting with you in a public
place," Toby stated. "I'm staying at the Red Earth Hotel. You can
come up to my room at five thirty. I'll let them know at reception
to send you up." He ended the call then, not giving Royce any room
to negotiate on their meeting.

Toby would be a liar if he said he was not
nervous. Not with the idea of meeting Royce and having it out with
him. No, it was from the knowledge he now had, and the further
knowledge he may be about to gain. He would need to weigh it all
up, and decide what, if anything, he was going to tell Charlotte
and Iris. Royce knocked on his door at five thirty three, punctual
to a fault. Toby let him in without a word, gesturing for him to
take a seat in one of the two small armchairs in the room. They sat
side by side, the chairs angled slightly to face each other,
neither of them saying anything. Toby waited him out, not
interested in the slightest about making this easier on him.

"Are you going to tell Iris?" Royce
eventually asked.

"I'm not sure yet what I'm going to tell
anyone," Toby replied. "But, you're married to both of them? Am I
correct?"

A pause. "Yes."

"How'd you manage that?"

Another pause. Then, "I have two legal
names."

"You know what, I'm going to treat you like
any other criminal I deal with. I ask a question, you answer. Just
like this. I don't want any emotional shit, just the facts at this
point. Okay?" Toby looked at Royce evenly, waiting on his response.
He did not intend to explore the whole bigamy issue any further
today. He seriously did not want to know. The less of that, the
better. But there were other things he did want to know. He wanted
to be able to make sense within his own mind of the situation
before heading home to Charlotte and Iris.

"Why did you leave?"

"I needed to get away."

"Answer the question, Royce. People take a
holiday when they need to get away. Why did you leave without a
trace and never contact your wife and daughter again?" Toby waited
while Royce stared down at the carpet.

"It's complicated."

"Try me. I've probably heard worse."

Royce took a deep breath, then let it out in
a noisy exhale while rubbing his hands over his face. "Iris is a
very hard person to live with. I'd had enough. Once I made the
decision to go, a clean break seemed like the best idea."

"And Charlotte?"

"She had you."

Toby stared at him, his anger peaking once
more. Yet some of this was directed at himself, because he had
failed Charlotte at a time when she had no longer had her father to
lean on. And Royce, in turn, had failed him, by not being there for
him to lean on when he did not know his arse from his elbow while
navigating his way around his relationship with Charlotte in the
early years of them living together.

"Well, guess what? I wasn't enough. She
wanted you. She still does." Toby shook his head then, not wanting
to get into the whole topic of Charlotte and her feelings of grief
and disappointment, with Royce right now. "Anyway, back to the
questions. It's been established that you're a selfish son of a
bitch, no point dwelling on that. You came straight out here?"

"Yes. I got a job in the mine. Lived alone
for a few years. Then I met Melissa and we got married-"

"Yeah, I saw the happy family postcard last
night," Toby interrupted. He got up and walked across to the
window, standing before it, the sight of the mine stack right in
view. He could not get over how the mine existed right in the
middle of the town, dead centre, right there, to be seen from all
viewpoints. Glaring and in your face; a bit like this situation he
was finding himself in with Royce right now.

"What are you limping for?" Royce asked from
behind him.

"I have only one leg," Toby threw out, over
his shoulder.

"What do you mean?"

Turning, he lifted the leg of his pants,
showing part of his prosthetic limb. "I had a car accident. They
cut it off below the knee. I limp at the end of each day because it
fucking hurts."

Leaning back against the window sill, he
stared at Royce, thinking on what to do here. There were so many
factors to consider. Would knowing where he was and what he was
doing out here really change things for Iris and Charlotte in a
positive way? Toby highly doubted it. And then, there was the issue
of him being married to both Iris and Melissa. He could go to jail.
It was unlikely Iris would just let that go. And she shouldn't
necessarily have to. It was a shitty thing for Royce to have done.
Bold in a way that Toby could never have foreseen.

"How is Charlotte?" Royce ventured.

"I'm asking the questions, not you."

"You two have four kids?" Royce
persisted.

"You don't get to ask about my family. Don't
push me, or I'll call the police. Your comfortable little life out
here all hinges now on my cooperation. Do not piss me off."

"I can see you in a court room. I always
could, but now, seeing you like this, I can picture it perfectly.
You have the arrogance that's needed. The whole, 'my shit doesn't
stink', aura about you." Royce shook his head then, and laughed
without humour. "You were part of the problem. The reason it all
went south with Iris."

"Shut the fuck up." Toby wanted him to stop.
Just stop talking so he could think on what he was going to do. But
there he was, sitting there talking, words that Toby did not want
to hear, yet could not help but listen to, spilling forth.

"She had to go and get you. There was no
stopping her. I watched you carefully, and I was surprised by how
you'd turned out. I didn't expect you to be who you were. I thought
you would be more like him. I mean, you are like him, arrogant,
nearly identical to look at, but you're not like him deep inside.
Twisted and wrong. So I relaxed, went with the flow about you and
Charlotte. I figured you had your head screwed on right; that you
were ambitious enough to make something out of yourself and look
after her. I knew she'd never want for anything, not with all the
money you had coming your way. And you seemed to love her, even if
you were a bit oblivious to her at times. But after you two left
for uni, I saw what not having you around did to Iris. She wilted.
Because you were gone. Not Charlotte; but you. And that was when I
knew. And I couldn't handle it. That after all the years that had
passed, after all our years of marriage and having a child of our
own, for her, it was still all about him."

Toby stared at Royce, a feeling developing
inside of him that was akin to shock. Yet, even as he registered
the feeling, he didn't yet know what it was that he was about to be
shocked by. He didn't even know why he felt this way, but he knew
Royce was about to blow a certain section of his world apart, and
he was going to keep on talking whether Toby wanted to hear what he
had to say or not. Royce had the floor and he was making the most
out of it.

"You didn't know I knew your dad, did
you?"

Toby shook his head, unable to form any
words, his anxiety peaking within to the point of illness. His own
father was the last person he wanted to hear about. Ever.

"I grew up in Victoria. In the same town as
your dad. Same school, same sports, same friends, same holidays. We
met these two girls, one year, when we were sixteen. Holidays back
then used to be going to the beach in a caravan. You'd sleep in the
annex, bum around the beach all day, party at night. Start all over
again. So like I said, we met these two girls, absolutely gorgeous,
both of them. Of course, they were all over your father in no time.
He was arrogant enough to string them both along. It was always the
way. I didn't know at the time, because it was just one summer, and
then we went home and so did they; I never thought we'd see them
again. But Iris turned up a few months later, having hiked it out
by herself on a bus, pregnant, insisting the baby was your dad's.
He didn't want a baby, didn't want a girlfriend; he was going to be
a doctor and he had no room for anyone, no matter how pretty they
were, changing his plans. He gave her money for an abortion and
sent her packing." Royce paused then, looking at Toby carefully.
"What kind of arsehole does that?"

Toby swallowed deeply, bile rising up his
throat. Indeed, what kind of arsehole would do such a thing? Was
life not entirely ironic at the most inconvenient times? You fight
so hard to not be like someone. So hard. The fucking irony.