Catch (11 page)

The vision dancing in his head was causing undue straining in his pants.
 
"You don't play fair."

"But you're so much fun."

"How about 7.30 and I'll show you exactly how much fun I really can be."

"Sounds great.
 
I'll look forward to it."

"Oh, so will I."
 
She had no idea how much.
 
A thought crossed his mind. "What about Gina?"

"She's out for the night, so you don't have to worry about the entire office knowing where you are.
 
We've talked and she's going to keep her mouth shut as long as you're nice to her."

"Sounds like bribery to me."

"Yup.
 
You have a problem with that?"

"Suppose not."

"Good.
 
Hey, I'd better go.
 
I'll look forward to seeing all of you later."

Oh, how she turned him on.
 

Tamsen hung up and found to her horror and surprise she was trembling.
 
She'd spent ages hoping he'd ring while tormenting herself with should-I-shouldn't-I arguments as to whether she should ring him and now they'd spoken she couldn't control the shaking.
 
It was ridiculous.
 
She was breaking all of her own rules.
 
Sex practically on the first date though she’d told Gina it was their third.
 
She'd only just met the man - who was she trying to kid?

Tamsen checked the small charge she'd just released into the aquarium at her local doctor's surgery.
 
"Some days I think it would be nice just to come back as a fish, you know, little fella.
 
Swimming round all day, not a care in the world, being fed on time, everything you could possibly need on tap."
 

She traced her finger along the glass, reassured when the fish followed it.
 
She loved playing games with her fish. She'd sat for hours like this as a child, escaping into a fantasy world, being the little mermaid swimming with her fish friends.
 
They’d been easier to get along with than the people in her life at the time.
 
She still spent more time talking to animals, plants and trees than she did real people.

After stripping the office battledress and changing into his workout gear, Matt stretched in anticipation of the endorphin rush from the workout to come.
 
Life improved in staggering bounds when you let it, he mused.
 
Work was as bleak as ever, but light had entered the dim darkness of his world in the form of the effervescent Tamsen.
 
How he'd overlooked such a beautiful creature was beyond him.
 
A sparkling gem cast upon the sands of his analytical life, a gift of unprecedented proportions from the gods themselves.

A surprising knock on the front door interrupted his decadent rumination.
 

"Mother!
 
What are you doing here?"

"I've come to sort you and Angie out.
 
Now hurry up and get my bags from the taxi.
 
I've paid the poor man, but he couldn't get down your dreadful driveway for all that soil and rubbish.
 
It's no wonder Angie up and walked out. What are you up to this time?"

"She didn't walk out, Mother - I asked her to leave, remember?"
 
Why did his mother have to choose now to arrive?
 
"And I don't need sorting out," he added as an afterthought.
 

Matt ran his hands through his hair; it was no use trying to argue anything out with Marguerite when she was in this frame of mind.
 
Like the dutiful son, he headed out to relieve the poor taxi driver.
 
One look at his face confirmed the man's suffering.
 
It was a long drive from the airport.

Two huge suitcases, testament to his mother's inability to travel light, perched precariously on a pile of ponga logs.
 
He so did not need this; he wanted to have a workout and then get to Tamsen.

He hauled the suitcases down the drive and up the stairs, wondering if the guest room was fit for guests.
 
He knew from bitter experience that any suggestion she go to a hotel would fall on deaf ears.
 
He was stuck with her for the duration.

"Okay, Mother, so what have I done to deserve the honor of your company?"

She threw him a look that would have served Medusa well.
 
"You know exactly what you've done, Matthew.
 
You've called off an engagement to possibly the most eligible young lady in the country and I want to know what happened."

In a foul mood, Matt stowed the suitcases in the barely passable guest room and trudged off to the lounge.
 
It was apparent his workout wasn't going to happen; now he fixed his intentions on saving the evening with Tamsen.
 
He sat down heavily on the couch and waited for his mother to join him.

Marguerite was old-school society.
 
Having spent her life supporting his father in his business dealings, all she knew were cocktail parties, dinner parties, and being seen at the right places with the right people.
 
It was a life he had been brought up to emulate and one he saw as devoid of soul. Since his father passed away, Matt felt increasingly responsible for Marguerite.
 
But he drew the line at Angie. As far as he was concerned, he'd narrowly missed marrying his own mother and no way was he going to reconsider, no matter how much pressure was brought to bear.

Taking a look at his mother perched on the window seat in his living room, not a single hair out of place, turned out in the latest Dior fashion for the season, he had a surge of gratitude at the thought of fleeing into the arms of Tamsen.

"I'm sorry, Mother, but I've got a dinner engagement and I'm due there in just under an hour." He was reduced to lying and that disturbed him.
 
"I don't have time to talk about Angie, and to be perfectly frank I don't think it’s any of your business.
 
As far as I'm concerned I've had a lucky escape and that's the end of it."

"Well, Matthew, that's where I think you're wrong.
 
You've never made a single responsible decision in your life without help from your father and me."

"That's bollocks and you know it!"
 
Her words stung his skin.
 
"You wasted your time coming over. I don't need you to run my life.
 
You should be in Sydney with your charity cronies, where you're needed."
 
He stood up to leave; the conversation was on a fast track to nowhere.

"Don't think you can just walk away without discussing this with me, young man."
 
His mother's tone was terse and he had a familiar feeling in his gut. The one he used to get as a child, when he knew he'd let his mother down.
 

It took all his strength and will to head for the shower. "I told you, I'm going out for dinner, and I suggest you don't wait up because it'll be late when I get back."

"And what am I going to do for dinner?"

"Mother, you got yourself all the way here from Sydney without an invitation. I'm sure you can organize yourself a little dinner."

With that he bolted for his bedroom, out of earshot, so he could pretend she wasn't there.

Standing under the stinging hot water of the shower, feeling insignificant and unloved, barely aware of the pounding water, Matt tried to remind himself he was a thirty-year-old man not a sixteen-year-old boy.
 
What his mother thought about the way he wanted to live his life was his mother's problem, not his.
 
Yet Marguerite's cold, harsh words sucked the warmth and heat of the entire universe from his body and left him again longing to escape from his own home.

Marguerite couldn't keep her sticky fingers out of his life. Whatever possessed him to think taking a job with a firm back in New Zealand would put enough space between him and his family?
 
Clearly the Tasman Sea wasn't a large enough body of water to keep his meddling mother out.
 
He'd also had a naïve belief that being in another country would mean his father's influence would go unnoticed and he could make his own way in the world. But even after death, the old boy network still ground into action.
 
It appalled him sometimes, the way business worked.

Toweling off, Matt located his most worn and comfortable jeans in the dresser. Gratitude that he could go and spend the evening with someone who seemed not to care about who he was, or where he came from, or what he did for a living gave him some comfort.
 

Then it hit him, with the thunderous power of a punch, something his mother said about the decisions he’d made in his life.
 
He never even wanted to be a bloody lawyer.
 
He'd simply been told, as far back as he could remember, that he would be one.
 
"We need a lawyer in the family, Matthew. You're intelligent, a straight A student, so that's what you'll be."
 

With only one leg in his jeans, Matt had to sit down, overtaken by a sudden rush of nausea.
 
Had he ever really worked out what he wanted for his life?

Tamsen found herself dithering in the kitchen, half out of her mind with worry.
 
Whatever had possessed her to invite Matt over for dinner?
 
For a start, the larder remained bare, no matter how many times she looked in it.
 
It was official, there was next to nothing in the house to eat. Next she pulled the freezer door open, destroying her vain hope that the quarter loaf of multigrain bread and freezer-burned fish fingers, both of which had been a permanent fixture for as long as she could remember, had miraculously done a 21
st
century impression of the loaves and fishes and turned themselves into a gourmet meal.

"No such luck, eh, Azriel."
 
Tamsen picked up the purring black ball of fluff, who affectionately nuzzled her under the chin.
 
She adored the feeling of his purr, his vibration rattling through her throat.
 

Azriel's love was what Tamsen called "cupboard love" because
he wanted feeding, but nevertheless she enjoyed the furry adoration.
 
Cat food was one of the few things they did have a ready supply of - neither she nor Gina were prepared to risk the wrath of the affectionate stray who'd adopted them shortly after they moved in.

Tamsen pulled a packet out of the pantry and Azriel weaved precariously between her feet as she covered the small distance to his bowl.

"Well, at least you're not going to starve, are you, boy?"
 
She tipped the revolting goop into his bowl. "If only Matt was this easy to feed."
 
She gave him his ritual stroke as he settled to eat, his back arching to meet her hand.
 

Maybe Matt was this easy to feed - she could order something in.
 
Besides, it wasn't her culinary talents that interested him.

Tamsen turned her attention to the bathroom, checking for at least the fifth time that it had been scrubbed clean.
 
A suitable number of candles were in place to provoke the right mood, and the aromatherapy burner sat ready and armed with water and essential oils.
 
Tamsen had settled on rose and patchoulli. She’d dripped a couple of drops of each into the water on top of the burner, and even without the flame the water was warm enough for the oils to begin their magical work of permeating the room.
 

Feeling like a temptress laying an elaborate trap, Tamsen stood at her wardrobe debating what to wear, a nasty sensation of déjà vu surrounding her.

"This is ridiculous," she said to Azriel who sat cleaning himself on the bed.

It was time to just be herself.
 
If Matt didn't like the real Tamsen, best she find out early.
 
Decision made, Tamsen wrestled her pale-green Indian silk dress from the wardrobe - the one her mother insisted made her look like some Taiwanese harlot - and slipped it on.
 
To hell with the world, she thought as a sense of ease came over her.
 
She dabbed musk oil on her pulse points and hung her favorite piece of jade at her throat, the smooth stone heavy, cool and comforting.

Azriel stopped washing himself, took one look at her and smiled the way cats do.

"Well, I'm glad you approve, Azriel."
 

He resumed washing himself, oblivious now to anything except taking care of his own needs.
 
Tamsen studied him through the mirror on her dressing table; she could learn a lot from that cat.
 
She turned her mind to applying a light dusting of makeup - just enough to not look pale, but not so much she ended up looking like the creature from the black lagoon when she got in warm water.
 
Oh, the trials of being a woman.

"Be grateful you're a male, Azzie.
 
I think I'll come back as a man-cat next time."
 

He settled down, cocooned in amongst crumpled, dirty clothing at the end of her bed, sleeping off dinner.
 
What a life, she thought.

Matt knocked at the door of apartment 4C, a bottle of wine in his hand - his compromise, having resisted the urge to stop at the pub to medicate his emotions.
 
He'd almost had to push Marguerite aside to get out the door.
 
The gall of the woman.
 
Thinking he'd cancel his plans just because she'd arrived unannounced.

He'd fumed most of the way over, a sense of injustice creating havoc in his guts.
 
Anxiety and conflict had always cut a direct path to his digestive system.
 
He was tormented by far too many unhappy memories of raging cases of diarrhea, or hours spent puking for no apparent reason. It had taken him years to work out the root cause of his illness was unresolved conflict - and now, he thought ruefully, it lay in wait for him at home.
 
He shuddered.