Heller's Girlfriend (14 page)

There was one on the corner of
the block and we parked ourselves in a corner booth and stayed
there for the next few hours, drinking steadily, talking about what
we should have done to stop Patricia leaving with her husband. I
was extremely pissed by then and knew it was time to head home when
I stood up to go to the bathroom and stumbled over my own feet,
landing in Bick’s lap.

“Well, hello gorgeous,” he
slurred, and put his arms around me.

“Hello, gorgeous yourself,” I
slurred back and leaned forward to kiss him on the mouth. His eyes
widened in surprise, but he took advantage of the situation and
kissed me back. I pulled away and tried to focus on him.

“You’re cute. You have beautiful
eyes,” I observed, though I could have sworn at that moment that he
had four of them.

I looked around guiltily, almost
expecting to see Will materialise at the table. It would be hard to
explain this away to him, so I gave Bick another drunken kiss
before staggering off to the bathroom. When I returned he was
resting with his head back on the booth chair, eyes shut.

I swayed in front of him. “I
gotta go home, Bickley Barnes. I’m a little bit drunk.”

“Me too, Matilda Chalmers. I’m
well and truly pissed.”

I took out my mobile and it took
me a few minutes to find Heller’s number, as my eyes refused to
focus properly for some reason. His phone rang and rang and then I
heard the diverting call noise. The call was picked up and I heard
Daniel’s sleepy voice on the end.

“Tilly?”

“Daniel? Where’s Heller? I want
him to come and pick me up now.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“I might have had one or two. I
had a horrible day.”

“Heller’s not here. He’s out for
the evening.”

“Damn!”

“I’ll come and pick you up.”

“Can you give my friend a lift
home too?”

He sighed patiently. “Sure, why
not? I was only sleeping anyway.”

“Thanks, darling boy.”

I told him our location, and we
went outside to sit on the low brick fence surrounding the front of
the pub to wait in the cool night air for his arrival. I had almost
fallen asleep leaning on Bick’s shoulder when Daniel pulled up in
one of Heller’s personal 4WDs. Bick shook me awake. I couldn’t
think where I was for a second, until Daniel stepped out of the
vehicle and came over to help me into the front seat.

“Danny darling! I love you!” I
exclaimed happily and threw my arms around him, giving him a huge
inebriated and affectionate hug.

“Tilly,” he tutted in mild
irritation, disentangling himself and trying to guide me to the
front seat.

“Bick, this is my best friend in
the whole world, Daniel. And Daniel, this is one of my new best
friends, Bick,” I slurred drowsily.

“Hi Bick. Are you as drunk as
her, because I’m not sure I can carry you into your house?”

“Pretty bad, Daniel, but not as
bad as her. She was matching me drink for drink.”

“She’s a shocker, isn’t
she?”

“I can hear you, you know,” I
complained crossly, but sat patiently while Daniel fastened my
seatbelt for me. Bick managed to fasten his own.

Daniel drove off and I tried to
tell him about what had happened during the day, with much
backtracking to fill in important details I’d left out, repeating
myself frequently, Bick interrupting every few seconds. Daniel
patiently sat through all those incoherent ramblings and deposited
Bick at the modern apartment block where he was paying off an
exorbitant mortgage on a small flat. I waved to him as we drove
away, then closed my eyes and slept (or snored as Daniel rudely
insisted afterwards), all the way home.

Chapter 10

Poor Daniel had a terrible time
trying to rouse me and help me up the stairs to my flat. Halfway
there, I insisted on us both sitting on the stairs so that I could
drape myself all over him and tell him, a little tearfully, how
much I loved him and what a great person he was. For five minutes
he good-heartedly endured my drunken endearments, before
encouraging me to stand up again and resume the trek upstairs.

When we finally made it to my
flat, I slumped on my bed fully clothed, still wearing my boots. I
was ready to fall asleep immediately, but Daniel managed to make me
swallow some paracetamol and drink some water, leaving a bottle of
it on my bedside table. He moved me into the recovery position,
pulled off my boots, kissed me goodnight, and left me to sleep it
off. I woke once during the night and barely made it to the
bathroom in time to vomit profusely, most of which even made it
into the bowl. I splashed cold water on my face, drank some more
water, fighting to keep it down, and flopped back into bed,
groaning in misery.

The next time I woke up I didn’t
feel any better, especially when I unglued my eyelids to find
Heller standing by my bed looking down at me, reproach stamped all
over his face.

“Go away,” I moaned and rolled
over, pulling a pillow over my head so I didn’t have to look at
him.

“You’ve been exceedingly
foolish, Matilda.”

“Just let me die in peace
without any lectures. That’s all I ask. My last wish,” I mumbled,
my voice smothered by the pillow. He pulled it off my face.

“Why would you try to match
drinks with a man?”

“It seemed like a really good
idea last night. I wanted to forget my terrible day and I wanted to
show Bick how tough I am.”

“He wouldn’t think you were so
tough if he could see you now, would he?”

I tried to shake my head in
agreement, but it was pounding too much to move. Heller sat on the
bed and stroked my hair gently. It was very soothing.

“I can’t help feeling that this
is a call for attention. You don’t like me seeing Vanessa and
you’re behaving badly to get my attention. You don’t have to do
that,” he said kindly.

I sat up abruptly, ignoring my
throbbing brain and churning stomach. I pointed to the door. “Get
out now! And take your crappy – and for your information extremely
inaccurate – cheap psychology with you. I couldn’t give a shit who
you’re screwing and if you think this is about you, then you are
even more of an arrogant jerk than I originally thought!”

He shook his head sadly. “You’re
so angry all the time lately, Matilda. I’ll go, but just think
about what I’ve said. It might help you deal with your strong
emotions next time.”

“
Get out!
” I screamed and
he left.

I fell back onto the bed and for
no reason at all started crying. I didn’t bother trying to stop and
let the tears flow until I was exhausted and dehydrated. I greedily
gulped a whole three glasses of water, took some more paracetamol
and went back to sleep for a few more hours. I didn’t start feeling
even remotely human until the early evening when I sprawled on my
lounge watching some brainless TV quiz show that pitted adults
against young children. It was all my few surviving brain cells
could cope with at the moment. Even then, the kids were whooping my
sorry butt in answering the questions correctly.

I’d ignored all the knocks on my
door during the day, but now there was a loud, angry knock that
demanded a response. I opened the door cautiously and groaned out
loud when I saw Farrell standing there, looking mighty pissed
off.

“You’re five minutes late,
Chalmers,” he barked angrily.

“I don’t feel like it tonight,”
I grumped and tried to shut the door on him. He stuck his foot in
the way and grabbed me around the wrist.

“I don’t care what you feel
like.”

“Let me go! I feel sick.”

“I don’t give a shit. There are
no excuses in my gym. If you’re not there in five minutes I’m going
to drag you down there by your hair.”

“Bastard,” I muttered to
myself.

“What did you say?”

“I said I’m coming. Okay? Keep
your hair on.”

I was down there in
three-and-a-half minutes. He showed me no mercy. I had to stop once
to throw up again in the gym toilet. I stood at the basin splashing
water on my face, clammy and even paler than normal, when he barged
in and ordered me back for more punishment.

“I hate you,” I said sullenly,
as he made me redo a manoeuvre for the tenth time.

“Good! I don’t want you to like
me. I wouldn’t want to be the kind of person that you would like
anyway,” he retorted.

“What the hell is that supposed
to mean?”

“Whatever the hell it
means.”

“You’re a fucking arsehole.”

“And you’re a fucking
princess.”

Despite myself, my lips twitched
with laughter. His did as well and we contemplated each other for a
moment. His eyes were incredible – I’d never seen anything like
them.

“Can we get back to it now,
please?” he eventually asked.

“Sorry for being such a jerk,” I
said, and paid close and careful attention to his tuition for the
rest of the lesson. I hadn’t shown him much courtesy tonight
despite the fact that he was giving up his time to teach me
valuable skills. I was ashamed of my bad behaviour. When the
torture finally ended, I shook his hand again and thanked him
sincerely for his time and skill. He looked embarrassed and gruffly
brushed my thanks aside.

“See you next time, Mr Farrell,
and I promise I’ll be on time.”

“Next time, Chalmers.”

“Tilly.”

“Chalmers.”

I rolled my eyes and made sure
the gym was tidy before heading back upstairs for a much-needed
shower. Before I hit the sack, I rang Dixie. It had been ages since
I’d seen her and I decided that with Will away at a conference, we
should have a girly weekend together. All on me. She was excited at
the thought and agreed instantly. I rang up one of the city’s more
ritzy hotels and booked us a twin room for the Saturday night with
an early check-in and a late check-out.

As I drifted off to sleep that
night I thought about all the fun things we would do together. We
would visit the spa of course, eat at the hotel’s restaurants,
maybe do some shopping, laze in its indoor pool and go wild in its
nightclub. It would cost me a small fortune, but I didn’t care. I
didn’t have anything else to spend my salary on anyway.

The next morning I was back to
my normal self and hit the gym even though I’d had a good workout
with Farrell the previous evening. When I made it to the office,
Daniel was already there, deftly entering data into the monthly
accounts. I went to him and kissed him on the cheek. He looked up
and smiled.

“Thanks for getting me home
safely, my lovely Danny. You’re a champ. I wasn’t fit for human
company yesterday.”

“Glad to see you’re still
breathing. Man, were you pissed!”

“I’m
never
doing that
again. Ever!”

“Until the next time anyway,” he
grinned. I grinned back sheepishly. He knew me far too well. “So
your friend is an evil Select man?”

“He’s not evil. He’s very
sweet.”

“And very good-looking.”

“Oh, so you noticed that, did
you?”

He smiled enigmatically. I could
not get him to confirm his sexual preference, no matter how hard I
tried. In retaliation, I ruffled his hair, once again ruining his
fashionable hairdo.

“Go away, Tilly,” he
remonstrated mildly, trying to smooth it back down with one hand
and continue typing with the other. I laughed and sauntered over to
my desk.

Niq came in then and I went over
to sit next to him for a while, going through his schoolwork,
checking that he wasn’t cutting any corners. He’d been
home-schooled through distance education since Heller had taken him
in, not being able to settle at a normal school after a very
neglectful and turbulent childhood. He was a good kid and I loved
him dearly, gratified to see that he had indeed been working very
hard. Before I left him to go back to my desk, I ruffled his hair
as well, wrecking his carefully sculpted Goth hairdo.

“Tilly! Will you stop doing
that?” he complained loudly, hands on his hair trying to repair the
damage.

I laughed. “You two are divas
when it comes to your hair,” I teased.

“Let’s get her,” Daniel
suggested to Niq with a wicked grin. They both jumped up and ran
towards me, pushing me into my chair, pulling my long hair from its
ponytail and tousling it mercilessly with their hands. I screamed
and laughed and begged them to stop, attempting to simultaneously
fend them off with my hands and feet and protect my hair. When they
finally did stop we all looked up to find Heller standing there
watching us, his face expressionless, before he walked into his
office.

Niq and Daniel laughed
uncontrollably at my hair and I put my hands up to feel that it was
incredibly messy and dishevelled. I took out the compact mirror I
kept in my drawer to assess the damage. My hair was now
big
,
1980s big, and I could have landed a role in
Dynasty
with no
trouble.

“You’ll both pay for this,” I
threatened and spent the next ten minutes trying to comb the knots
out. When I was done, I slicked it back into its ponytail and poked
my tongue out at them. “I’m not going to make you dinner tonight
now.” They groaned in disappointment, but not too loudly because
they knew I’d change my mind by the time dinner rolled around.

My mobile rang. It was Corella
giving me an update. Patricia had been charged with her husband’s
murder and would make her first court appearance, a committal
hearing, in a week’s time. She was still preternaturally calm and
tranquil. I hoped her blanket of peace kept her going through the
whole court case. I hung up and remembered that Bick and I had to
go to the police station to give our statements. I was about to
ring him, when my phone rang again and coincidentally it was
him.

“Hey, BB,” I answered.

“Hey, TC. How did you pull up
after the other night?”