So Far Into You (28 page)

‘She told you that?'

‘I found a photograph in an album. It was one of Lexie's. Rem didn't know who the bloke was, but it was Dad. I'm sure.'

‘Joseph loved her,' she said, so softly he wasn't sure she'd said anything at all. ‘We were engaged when Lexie came to Margaret River, but we hadn't got married yet. He was going to break it off with me. My parents had already picked out the land they were going to buy us for the vineyard. If your dad left me, he wouldn't have got anything. He'd never have had the chance to set up his own winery.'

‘So he chose you? Not Lexie?'

She shook her head at him without really seeing him. ‘I went to see Lexie after her shift finished one day—she was working at the hospital. I asked her if she really wanted to see Joseph rot in a dead-end teaching job if he married her, never doing what he loved because they would never have been able to afford it. I asked if she was prepared for him to end up resenting the ground she walked on when I could give him everything he'd ever dreamed of. I told her if she loved Joseph, she'd see what choice was best for him. She'd let him go.'

‘And she did?'

‘She did. The problem was, Joseph wanted the vineyard every bit as much as he wanted Lexie, and she didn't fight for him. She didn't have as much fight in her as her daughter did, that's for sure.'

‘As her daughter does,' Seth corrected, trying to imagine how Remy had felt facing off against his mother in the boardroom years ago. She was a formidable woman and Remy had been just a girl. A very scared girl with a big debt hanging over her head who thought she'd killed a vineyard and was about to lose her job.

Ailsa sighed, but she was committed to her story now and the brandy had warmed her up. ‘Joseph went on a binge a few years later when Wayne and Lexie got engaged. He almost left us then. I threatened him with everything: losing you boys, losing the winery. He loved you kids, of course. He just never loved me.'

Seth looked at his mother and tried to conjure feelings of warmth. It was damn hard.

He could only ever remember his father looking at her with the type of resigned tolerance thirty-odd years of marriage to a woman like Ailsa must bring. He wondered if Joe ever looked at Ailsa the way he looked at Remy now? He doubted it. But they must have been happy enough? They had two sons, the business, each other. ‘Dad wouldn't have stayed with you all those years if he didn't want to be there.'

‘Yes he would, if it got him his vineyard.' Her eyes turned flat and hard. ‘Do you know that he had affairs? The first one was with the bit of fluff we had managing cellar door. She's the reason I pushed so hard to get that workplace policy in place.'

‘This is all in the past, and Dad's not here to defend himself. If it's true, I'm sorry he hurt you that way.'

‘What do you mean
if
it's true, Seth? Of course it's true.'

‘You've told so many lies I don't think you know the truth.'

‘Anything I've ever done, I've done because I love you. You and Blake. All I ever did is try to look out for you. Rina does that too.'

‘What's Rina got to do with it?'

‘Rina understands where the company is vulnerable. She helps me watch out for it.'

Riddles.
‘We don't need looking out for. We never did. I've lived and breathed Lasrey since I left school. It's all I've ever done, and it's made you a nice retirement income. Better than nice. Maybe now it's time to give some of it back.'

The comment shocked her so much, her feet slid off the ottoman. ‘Give what back? Give it to whom?'

‘Give back to the community. We can afford to bump up our sponsorship programs. We can do more than just increase the amount of vineyard assets we hold.'

Ailsa picked up the copy of
Country Life
and thumbed the cheque inside it. There was a set to her chin that he recognised well.

Seth strode to the open window and took a deep breath of air infused with salt and sea, so much nicer than Ailsa's stuffy sitting room. Behind him, Ailsa said: ‘A journalist rang me asking about you and that girl. She knew Remy worked for us once. She knew about the vineyard incident.'

‘I know. I was with Remy when they did the story.' He turned back into the room to meet his mother's eyes. There was a smugness about her expression that triggered his next thought. ‘You tipped the press.'

‘No darling,' Ailsa smiled.

‘Then who?'

‘Rina.'

‘Bullshit.'

‘Rina does whatever I ask. She always has.'

Seth searched for any sign of a lie on Ailsa's face, but couldn't see it. His mother was certain of Rina's support. Sure of it.

‘You asked Rina to go to the media?' Seth demanded. ‘Why?'

‘They were digging for dirt on you and Remy. They would have found out the gory details eventually—or plain made it up. Rina told them the truth.'

‘All media commentary comes through the CEO's office, Mother. You know that. It's part of our board policy.'

‘Darling, you're right. I forgot. Think of it as an oversight.'

‘Oversight?' Seth gave up trying to find any semblance of warmth for his mother. He had none, and he hadn't had any for a very long time. ‘Has it ever crossed your mind that it might be nice to have a couple of grandkids running around this place? Little people who might carry on the Lasrey name?'

Ailsa sprang forward. ‘Oh, dear God. Please tell me you haven't got her pregnant already!'

Christ.
‘She's not pregnant.'

‘That's alright then.' She settled again. ‘That would be just like her. That's how they trap men like you. First the baby. Then the ring. Then half the house.'

Seth was at Ailsa's feet in a flash, snapping up the
Country Life,
extracting Remy's cheque.

‘What are you doing?' Ailsa stammered. ‘Don't!'

Seth tore the cheque in half in front of her eyes. ‘You never thought you'd see that money again, Mother, so you won't ever miss it. I know someone who can use it and who needs it, far more than you ever did.'

He ripped again, then a third and fourth time, and dropped the fluttering pieces on the floor. Not putting past Ailsa to somehow cobble the pieces with tape or glue, he kept a couple segments in his fingers.

‘Have you gone completely mad?' Ailsa said.

‘You say all the decisions you made were for me and Blake; well, that's bullshit. Everything you've done, you've done for yourself.'

‘You've got it all wrong,' Ailsa called as he left the room. ‘I never—'

Seth let himself out of the apartment.

***

Seth started the car, pulled into traffic and felt better with every revolution those tyres made on the road.

Years ago he'd told Ailsa that no man ever went to his grave wishing he'd spent another hour at work. Life was too short to put up with his mother's crap.

He rang Remy as he drove south. With the phone on hands-free, he replayed the conversation with Ailsa for her benefit while sunset crept over the dunes separating the freeway from the coast. He edited the nastiest parts but even so, Remy's snorts, sighs, and sounds of disbelief said it all.

‘No wonder she wanted me gone,' Remy said when Seth told her about Joe loving Lexie. ‘Every time she looked at me, any time she saw my name on the staff board or in the files, she would have been reminded of my mother. When I stuffed up the vineyard spray that day I gave her the excuse she needed.'

‘I'm so through with that woman,' Seth said. ‘Tomorrow I'll call our lawyers and see what I need to do to restructure the company without Ailsa in it. There's Rina too. She's in this up to her neck.'

‘It's sad, Seth. That's all I feel.'

‘Yeah.' He pictured Ailsa's face as he'd dropped the pieces of torn-up cheque on her carpet. She hadn't been sad. She'd been livid. ‘Let's talk about something else.'

‘Okay, well … have you seen the news today?' Remy asked. ‘Jennie Grey's story was on television here tonight.'

‘I didn't see it. I've been in the air and then with Mother. What happened?'

‘It was a good story, really. The promo spun me out a bit though. They were talking about how ours was a love story involving two brothers, and then the microphone cut to Blake on the beach and he said: “Yeah, my brother totally stole her from me.”'

‘Shit,' Seth groaned. ‘I'll shove Blake's surfboard down his throat.'

‘Well, what you don't see until the story runs in full is that Blake actually says: “Yeah, my brother totally stole her from me” … and then he laughs like it's a huge joke and says: “nah, not really. Remy and I were only ever good friends. I saw her first though. I'm not ever gonna let him forget that.”'

‘I still think I might kill him,' Seth muttered.

‘The last thing he told them was that he'd always thought you and I would be great for each other,' Remy teased.

‘Okay. I'll let him live.'

They talked about the week ahead. Remy had plans to hire a bobcat to level the backyard so she could make a start on laying pavers. Occhy's rent money had gone toward the load of paving sand she'd need, and the bobcat.

‘Why don't you wait till I get back? I can help.'

‘Can you drive a bobcat?'

‘Not really, but I can push a wheelbarrow and I can level sand.'

‘Well
I
can drive a bobcat. Zac knows a guy who can get me a bobcat for a few hours on the cheap. If it pans out, I'll have the job done by the time you get back.'

‘Sounds good.' He checked the clock on the dashboard. They'd been talking for a solid hour and the time flew. He'd have to hang up soon though, his battery was running low.

‘Hey,' she said. ‘I meant to tell you and I've kept forgetting: I found out why Breeze is being such a bitch to Occhy.'

‘Why?'

‘She's in heat.'

Seth couldn't say anything for a few seconds, but he could picture how Remy had probably blushed. ‘What does that entail, exactly?'

‘It entails a bloody big pain in the arse. It means I have to keep her and Occhy separate for up to a fortnight if we don't want little American Staffies in a couple of months. I've never been through it when I've had another dog on the property.'

‘And we don't want little American Staffies?' He added the question mark, just in case she had her heart set on puppies.

‘We don't,' Remy said super-firmly. ‘I'm too young to be a grandma.'

‘Well, I'm probably old enough to be a granddad, but whatever you want to do is fine by me.'

‘So, I'll have to chain Occhy up outside the gate. I don't have any other way to keep them separate. But I don't like the idea of keeping him on the chain.'

‘Chain him up at night maybe, but leave him off in the day. He won't go anywhere if there's a bitch in heat right under his nose. Poor horny old dog.'

They talked some more then said goodnight. Seth drove with the moon outside his passenger window, full and milky in the sky. He followed it through Bunbury and Busselton and it was high by the time he drove up the gravel driveway into the log cabin that, other than Remy's cottage, was the only other place he'd ever thought of as home.

Chapter 26

‘This looks excellent,' Remy said late the next day, hands on hips, surveying the newly-laid pavers.

They'd been hard at it, she and Zac, but the effort was all worth it. Now there was a nice neat paved edge running along the back of the cottage, separating garden from house. She had room to put a bench there with pots either side, and she could move her outdoor table out into the middle of the pavers rather than where it had been all this time, shoved up hard against the wall.

She had all that space over near the fence to do something with too, now that there were no longer stacks of brick pavers making the place ugly. Maybe a pizza oven or an outdoor fire pit. Remy closed her eyes. She could see Lexie and Bernie in the garden this spring, colour all around.

All she had left to do was get a section of brickwork fixed where age had crumbled the corner of the cottage under the gutter. After that, it would be perfect. If anyone deserved a wedding day of perfection—second time around, surrounded by the people she loved—it was Lexie.

The best thing about today had been spending it with Zac. She'd hardly seen him since he'd busted Seth kissing her on the verandah. Zac didn't drop by anymore with eggs or the mail and she'd missed him. She didn't have enough friends in her life to lose them over something silly as that.

When Seth got back, she would take Zac up on that beer, get him over. It'd be fun.

Remy went into the house for two stubbies of Pale Ale and returned, handing one to Zac. ‘Thanks for helping me out.'

‘That's cool. I wasn't doing much. It looks good.'

‘We did it heaps faster than if I'd tried to do it all by myself.'

‘You don't have to do everything by yourself you know, Rem. There are people around who'll always lend a hand to help.'

‘Yeah. I know. I don't like asking. You know me.'

Remy dragged a couple of her deckchairs out into the middle of the new paving and they both sat.

Breeze was with them, looking disgruntled. Occhilupo wasn't particularly happy either, having been banished to the other side of the gate for the last twenty-four hours. Both dogs had been whining on and off for most of the day, which had made the noise of the bobcat engine a relief because it drowned them out.

‘Did you ever sort out that trouble with the carpenter about your roof?' Zac asked.

‘Nope. I let it go. I didn't want to have to talk to him about it. I just wanted it to go away.'

‘Sometimes with bullies, you get to the point where you have to stand up to them to get them to fuck orf,' Zac said.