Set Me Free (5 page)

Craig’s
day was turning out as bad as yesterday’s. Given the way that one had ended, he
might have had some hope that things would improve. But remorse was a terrible
thing, and it was holding hope at bay. The guilt of his early morning flight
from Charlotte Evans’s bed, sans confession of his business interests, was
weighing heavily on him. He was all but snarling his way through the annual
Morgan Carmichael Melbourne Cup Garden Party. Then again, Craig feeling surly wasn’t
so unusual at this kind of thing.

Charlotte had
fallen asleep purring like a kitten. Somewhere during the night she transformed
into something else and her loud, drawn out snore eventually woke him at dawn. He
might have been repulsed, but after the incredible sex, he found it cute.

No sooner had he
checked his phone to see what time it was, than the thing burst to life,
heralding the start of another day trying to keep Keith off his back. He
switched it off without answering, turned to watch Charlotte sleep and indulged
himself in a few moments more of peace. He’d slept like a baby and for the
first time in years had actually woken up rested.

Charlotte shifted
beside him but didn’t wake. As much as he would have loved to let her sleep,
admiring her while she did, he had to get going and get himself sorted out for
work. Lying naked beside her was scrambling his brain.

Regretfully, he
gave her a gentle shake.  

When she didn’t
respond, he shook her some more but still she refused to rouse. His phone
started up again, so he climbed out of bed and took it in her kitchen.

‘Craig
Carmichael,’ he answered, automatically.

‘Where the bloody
hell are you?’ barked Keith. ‘Never mind,’ he continued without pause. ‘I need
you to get out to the Lakes site with Mitchell. These bloody jokers wouldn’t
know how to manage a tradie if he was biting them on the arse. The bloody
plumbing subcontractor is refusing to start on the site because he thinks it’s
not ready. Can you get down there and sort it out?’

‘Is there a reason
that Mitchell can’t sort it out himself?  It’s his project.’

‘Yes, because
Mitchell is an incompetent twat as you bloody well know,’ Keith snapped. ‘Now
where the bloody hell are you, so Mitch can pick you up on the way.'

Under normal
circumstances, Craig might have enjoyed something akin to schadenfreude. Keith
needed him to clean up someone else’s mess, again. But after the argument
they’d had yesterday, this morning he just felt exploited.

‘Don’t bother. I’ll
meet him at the office.'

‘Right, and once
you’ve sorted that out I need you at my place to help me get this bloody
Melbourne Cup thing set up. I swear, this will be the last of these bloody
garden parties if I have anything to do with it.'

Keith hung up, and
Craig hastily dressed. He paused one last time to try and wake Charlotte. It
was now or never. Charlotte, however, remained utterly unresponsive.

His phone buzzed
again, this time with a text message from Mitch, offering to pick him up. There
was no way Craig was being picked up from here or anywhere near West End. Cursing,
he texted Mitch back to say he’d be there in a minute, and raced out the door
without looking back.

It took two hours
of negotiating to bring the plumbers around and get them to agree to start work.
Once it was sorted, he drove home and showered and changed, then made his way
to Keith’s. A clear head and a clean suit were essential to working the afternoon’s
crowd. He hadn’t felt particularly silver-tongued in yesterday’s clothes while
arguing with tradies about drainage trenches.  

The sweeping
grounds of Keith Morgan’s Hamilton estate provided a magnificent venue for the Melbourne
Cup party. Terraced lawns arced gently uphill from the back of the house,
creating the perfect amphitheatre for the event. A large cinema screen set up
on the edge of the expansive back patio televised the live broadcast of the horse
races.

Although business
had been slowing for Morgan Carmichael, attendance was high this year. All of
the usual suspects and more, were sampling the delights of Miranda Morgan’s
best caterers. The champagne was flowing freely. The shrieking laughter of intoxicated
wealthy women, and the guffawing of rich, fat, smug men filled the humid afternoon.

Craig was working
hard, sweating in his black Armani suit. His tie was off, and his shirt was
unbuttoned slightly, in an attempt to get some air circulating across his chest.
A subtle sheen of perspiration glistened there instead.

The scene before
him was one he’d grown up with but, much like Keith, he’d really rather be
somewhere else. He moved from client to client, making small talk, and staying
sober. The drunker the guests got, the harder it was to feign interest in their
self-important narratives of their fantastically exorbitant business deals. The
real estate agents were bragging about how much property they’d been turning
over. The financiers chuckled gleefully about how much profit they were making.

Craig couldn’t
wait for the main race to start, at least then he would have three minutes of
peace.

His grandmother
suddenly appeared at his side, the feather of her lilac fascinator tickling his
ear. She wore a classic Chanel suit, also in lilac. Nana Gwen was always one to
intimidate those around her with her quiet sophistication. She’d been
intimidating him all his life, but less so since his parents died. Since then,
she’d also been looking out for him.

‘Wipe that look of
your face, darling,’ she said. ‘Your impatience is showing.’

Craig ran a hand
through his hair. ‘Thanks, Nana.' He forced himself to smile broadly. ‘How’s
that?’

‘Better. Your
father used to love these afternoons,’ she mused.

‘I guess I’m
different to him in that way then.’

‘In lots of ways,
darling. You need a holiday, Craig. I can see the stress all over you from that
spiky bit of hair sticking up to the lump in your shoes where your toes are
curled. When was the last time you got away?’

Craig tried to
recall. It would have been the weekend he went to the Gold Coast with Lauren. The
one where he’d fielded calls from Keith all weekend and Lauren had dumped him
in the car on the way home. ‘I need a man who is present when I am lying naked
beside him,’ she’d complained. When was that?  Three months ago?  No, it was
summer and stinking hot so it must have been February.

‘I had a weekend
away about ten months ago,’ he said.

She gave him a
look. ‘I mean a real holiday, darling.’

‘The company
getaway is coming up. I’ll be in the Whitsundays in a few weeks,’ he offered,
referring to Morgan Carmichael’s Christmas getaway.

‘That doesn’t
count,’ berated Nana Gwen. ‘Every year you spend that weekend running around ensuring
everyone else is amused. Sometimes I think the only reason Keith still consents
to that holiday is so he can watch you run yourself ragged. It costs him a
fortune, and he’s so tight, it’s hard to fathom why you’re still doing it.'

It had been years
since Craig had taken a true holiday. He’d done his share of backpacking
through university, which gave him enough experience to talk credibly about
having seen the world, but that had been a long time ago. Two years after he
established his division in Morgan Carmichael, he’d forced himself to take a
break, convinced he not only deserved it, but needed it to stay on top of his
game.

When he got back to
work, he’d found one of his key projects had been cancelled and he was never offered
an adequate explanation as to why. Taking a holiday was suddenly not a priority
and, alarmingly, a risk. So he worked and worked, and focused on making sure he
wouldn’t be undermined again.

Although he didn’t
think it was need of a holiday that was causing him stress, he humoured his nana.

‘Who would I take on
a holiday anyway, Nana?’ he asked.

‘How about me?’
she teased. ‘Or Cassie,’ she suggested as Keith’s daughter ambled over to join
them. In sharp contrast to Nana Gwen, Cassie was neither intimidating nor
sophisticated. Her bottle-blonde hair gave her a slightly washed out look,
which she thought to contrast with bright red lipstick. Her equally red
Collette Dinnigan dress, all soft lace and intricate embroidery, was dripping
off her ungraciously. One of the straps kept dropping off her shoulder, and she
was tugging it roughly back into place at regular intervals. Craig supposed she
was sexy in a trashy kind of way, but she paled in comparison to someone like
Charlotte Evans.

Oh Cassie, he
thought, as he did every time he saw her. She looked every bit of the emotional
wreck she was. Not that she considered herself as such, but Craig had known her
all his life and the happy-go-lucky kid he used to climb trees and dig up worms
with, was long gone. Cassie Morgan never really emerged from her years of teen
angst and she still carried on today like a spoilt child playing at being a
grown-up.

In her early
twenties, she'd declared herself a performance artist and changed her name to
Cassette. Although as far as Craig knew, Cassie had never actually been paid
for a performance, nor had she ever been specifically asked to perform. Her ‘performances’
generally consisted of impromptu combinations of bad poetry and movement, which
Craig hesitated to call dance. More often than not, her stage was busy
footpaths or shopping malls, where she terrified unassuming shoppers. She was
also quite fond of popping up in bizarre costumes at pubs and clubs and all
kinds of cultural events.

Not this kind of
event though. Keith might keep a roof over her head and food in her fridge, but
she'd never dare perform at one of these functions.

‘What about me?’
Cassie asked, snatching a sparkling wine off a passing tray.

‘You could take my
workaholic grandson for a holiday,’ replied Nana Gwen.

‘Urgh. No way. That
would mean trekking through a jungle or something exhausting like that. I’d
much rather bask in the sun in the middle of the Pacific, and I know how tetchy
Craig gets on the beach. That would
not
be a holiday.’

‘Well I guess that
leaves me then,’ said Nana Gwen. ‘I’ll leave you to think about where you’re
going to take me then, shall I?’ she said as she drifted off to chat to someone
across the lawn.

Craig turned to
Cassie. ‘Having a good time?’ he asked.

‘As always,’ she
grinned. Unlike him, she was the perfect heir of property money. No one else
could have carved out their own little niche of eccentricity like Cassie. This
crowd would have ridiculed anyone else for their free-spirited lifestyle, but
Cassette was indulged by the money end of town because her surname was Morgan.  

‘And you look as
miserable as always,’ she remarked to Craig. ‘No wait a moment, you actually
look more miserable than usual. What’s the matter?  Someone broken your heart? 
Oh no. No, it couldn’t be that. You’d actually have to have a relationship with
someone for that.’

‘Knock it off,
Cassie.'

They were
interrupted by one of the agents Craig had been working with on the north side
of town. By the look in his eye, he’d come over to salivate over Cassie, but he
did so under the pretence of talking business with Craig. Craig caught Cassie
looking furtively for an escape. He stepped deliberately but discretely on her
foot, their private signal for ‘you must stay here with me.' She complied, it
was a lifelong pact neither of them had ever broken, and for the duration of
the boring conversation that unfolded, he cherished her for her honour.

When the race was
announced Craig hung back, as Cassie, the realtor and the rest of the crowd
drifted off towards the cinema screen. There was much excited chatter as the
horses were shut into their gates.

As they galloped
around the track, he watched the swarm on the Hamilton hillside whooping and
cheering. He wondered how much money had been parted with this afternoon from
this group alone. Probably enough to feed a starving African nation.

Then the race was
over, and some people were shouting for joy while others were shaking their
heads in mock despair. Others still, were looking a little pale. All of them
immediately got back to the business of drinking and schmoozing.

Much later that
night, the guests had thinned, and only the very drunk and very important
remained. Craig was helping clean up while Keith was having closed-door
discussions inside the house. He'd just interrupted the north side realtor
kissing someone’s daughter up against a tree in the far corner of the yard. ‘Time
to move on folks,’ he said, giving the realtor a convivial slap on the back
with camaraderie he didn’t feel.

Cassie was
following him around the backyard with her heels swinging from her fingertips, chatting
away with only a faint slur. She really could hold her bubbles.

‘You know you
don’t have to do this,’ she said, gesturing to the plastic bag in Craig’s hand.
‘Daddy pays the groundskeeper to clean up.’

‘I know, but it
keeps me busy and out of the way.’

Cassie didn’t
press any further but moved on to gossip. ‘Did you see Mrs Armitage eyeing off
Charles Thompson?  Silly old bird. As if someone that hot would even look twice
at a leathery old bat like that.’