The Near Miss (23 page)

‘Headhunted,' whispered Anna disbelievingly. Her husband was still on his one-year contract, after which he would have to fight his way out of the movie-making scrap heap.

‘Can we come into the studio, watch them filming?'

‘I
always
thought she had some special quality about her,' said Verity. ‘Such a
nice
person.'

The women finished their coffees and left Grace to work. She watched them set off down the street, handbags on shoulders, heads tilting back and forth as they talked. She wondered what they were saying. Opposite her café was the ice-cream shop where Lotte had made her mad dash into the future, running towards danger and friendship and a brand-new life, trailing everyone behind her. It had been the worst moment of Grace's life, the absolute worst. And yet. Sometimes the worst moments were portals into whole new worlds. She went back to writing.
Taurus. Sometimes the worst moments can be portals into whole new worlds . . .

Grace took Lotte to buy her father a birthday present. She remembered how long Tom could take to open a present from either herself or Lotte. How he would get down and sniff it like a dog, then he would stretch his tongue into a point and lick along the edge of it, his expression quizzical, Lotte helpless with giggles, nearly wetting herself. Then he would shake it for ages, peer at it, knock at it,
rub it against his cheek questioningly, until both Lotte and Grace were begging him, Open it! And whatever it was, he would almost collapse on the floor with gratitude. It was the always
best
present he had ever had. Always his favourite birthday ever. They were always the best two girls Nature had ever made. His girls.

Who would Tom spend his birthday with this year? she wondered.

‘I want to buy Daddy this.' In the two-dollar shop, Lotte brought Grace a plastic sleeve thing, filled with blue liquid and two black spiders which floated inside it. You apparently could wear it on your wrist, and roll it up and down your arm a little. It was the ugliest and most useless thing Grace had ever seen. This shop smelled so fiercely of the chemicals used to make all this plastic crap that it actually hurt the back of her throat to breathe. She looked at the thing doubtfully. Was it maybe a spectacularly awful masturbation device? Lotte grabbed handfuls of her mother's shirt, where it sat over her belly, and jumped up and down. The spiders on her wrist jiggled about in their blue pool. ‘Oh please, Mum! It's so beautiful! He'll love it!'

Grace sighed and opened her wallet.

She stopped to buy printing paper from the newsagent and a radio muttered away behind the counter as she paid. ‘The two armed criminals known as Cat and Pirate . . . police say they have had some very strong leads . . . just announced a $30,000 reward for further information . . . Held up a store manager who hours later had a heart attack . . . In a 3YPA exclusive, we can reveal that that store manager has passed away . . . police say these criminals are very dangerous and could now be charged with manslaughter . . . Victorian police have come under fire for their inability to catch the two criminals, who have been wanted and on the loose now for eight months . . .'

‘Useless druggies,' said the newsagent, passing Grace her change.

‘Oh, yes,' said Grace absently, glancing again at the newspapers. Romy. It was
unbelievable. Front page. This story that began at her dining table was now unfolding in the national news. Thirty thousand dollars! That was a lot of money. A lot. Anybody might start to reconsider their loyalties for that amount of money. Not that Grace had any loyalties, to either of them.

Van had dropped by once, a week or two back, when she was at home with the children. Melody had apparently texted him their new address. Grace had been half-heartedly weeding Melody's vegetable garden when she heard the front doorbell ring. When she reached the door, there was no one there. She returned to the back yard and a man sat in the rusted outdoor setting, a hood pulled up over his head, hanging down to shield his eyes. She started, and then realised who it was.

‘Oh. Yes?' she said primly.

‘I'm a friend of Melody's,' said his voice, from the depth of the hood.

‘I know who you are,' she said scornfully. ‘You need a better disguise than that. Melody's not here.'

He glanced at her quickly, through sunglasses. ‘When will she be back?' he said in a low voice.

‘Later.' Grace said, stony-eyed.

‘Can I see Skipper?'

Grace narrowed her eyes at him and called to Skip, who ran out to her. She whisked him up onto her hip and held him so tight that he wriggled.

‘Hey, mate.' Van drew closer, tucked the boy's small hand into his own. He pushed back the hood and lifted the glasses to reveal bloodshot eyes.

‘Hi, Van.' Skipper looked pleasantly surprised, if a little shy.

‘Do you want to come for a ride with Vanny?' He reached out towards Skip, his fingers slipping under the little armpits, and Grace jumped backwards, shocked.

‘No!' she shouted. The last person she had seen ride off with this man had ended up as a front-page news story.

‘Steady on—'

‘Leave! Right now.'

‘Honey, I was just dropping in to say hi—'

‘My mobile is in my pocket and I can press one button to reach emergency, and have police here in two minutes,' she hissed, slipping her hand into her pocket. Her mobile was inside, on the charger. She formed a fist around a packet of mint-flavoured chewing gum.

Van pulled his hood up, and shot her a menacing look. But he melted away and Grace made the children play inside for the rest of the week.

Eddy put on his coat and stopped at the door of Alf Tankhouse's office. Alf had fully recovered from being abandoned by his wife, and a framed picture of his new girlfriend sat beside another of his children. He held down his job as Risk, Routing and Co's company attorney with ease, while building his share and property portfolio on the side.

‘She looks nice,' said Eddy, touching the girlfriend's photo. ‘Nice eyes.'

Eddy raised his eyebrows wickedly. ‘She is sooo nice. I can't tell you. The
nice
things she does.'

‘Okay,' said Eddy hastily. He had never been comfortable with blokey disclosure about the intimate details of women in bed. For himself, he had been flat out for the past week with finding excuses for Laura
not
to come home with him, despite going out with her every second night, and going almost insane with lust. Romy was sleeping in his spare room, something he had not quite mentioned to Laura. He was losing sleep at night, lying there thinking of Laura while Romy got up every hour to go to the toilet. Once, Romy had paused outside Eddy's bedroom door, in the silent hours of the night, while Eddy lay in the room that had been theirs. He held his breath and listened for her footsteps to move on. What would he do if she came in, and laid her body down beside him? Her
pregnant
body. There was a part of him that wanted to touch that round belly, to feel Romy hard in the place where she had always been soft. And maybe to feel her heart soft, where it had for so long been hard.

But he knew now that Romy's vulnerability was his own. He had fallen in love with Romy in need, and Romy in need was back again. He must not weaken.

‘Have you got a minute?' he asked Alf.

‘Steady Eddy, never fear. My minute is yours. What can I do you for? Are those bastards
paying what you're worth yet?'

Eddy stepped into the office, glancing over his shoulder as he did. ‘Well. I just wanted to ask you a question. It's not work-related, but—'

‘Women? Shares? Law? Shoot away.'

‘I've got this mate called Tom; an inventor. He's invented this thing, it's a solar panel made out of old plastic bottles. You can build it into a roof.'

‘Phew. Sounds like a gold mine. Or a piece of crap.'

‘I'm meeting him in a few minutes and we're going to meet with a potential buyer. A big buyer. He wanted me to come, because . . .' Eddy paused. He wasn't quite sure why Tom had wanted him to come, and he shrugged to finish the sentence. ‘Because, you know. He's a mate. Company. Anyway, I'm meant to be in that Jefferson meeting at two, and I was wondering whether you could make up some excuse and cover for me? Tell them I got called away.'

‘Sure, sure. But does your mate have a lawyer? Who's the potential?'

‘Universal Materials Incorporated.'

‘Oh, fuck.
Tell
me he's got a lawyer.
Tell
me he's not going to meet with UMI without a lawyer. Button, they'll eat him for breakfast.'

‘Well, I think it's early stages.'

‘Show them you mean business. Bring a top-flight contracts man.' Tank swung into his coat and adjusted his cufflinks. ‘In fact, bring
me
. Marion can tell the Jefferson people we were both called out at short notice.'

‘Err . . .' Eddy trailed out after Tank, who was already at his secretary's desk, issuing orders. ‘It's just, um, Tom wasn't really expecting . . . Tom may not want . . .' They were already in the lift and Alf punched the ground-floor button with the side of his fist.

‘Sweet. That Jefferson meeting was going to be a snooze anyway. This sounds like fun.'

‘Um . . . I'm just a bit . . . Tom might be feeling a bit . . . confidential about it.'

‘I
am
confidential — and to you, I'm free. You're telling me this man is about to sign a valuable business contract, yes?'

‘Er, uh, well, hopefully . . .' Probably not, reflected Eddy, and Alf would be wasting his precious time, and standing up the valued Jefferson clients, and probably pissing Tom off, too.

‘And does he have a lawyer?'

‘Er, uh, no. Not that I know of.'

‘Then he needs one.'

They arrived at the offices of UMI only a few minutes before the meeting was due to start, and Eddy hastily explained who Alf was to Tom, and Tom looked bewildered, but shrugged and said okay, a lawyer might be good, and handed over some documents which Alf coolly flicked through in the remaining thirty seconds. Then the door opened and they were welcomed into a boardroom. Eddy's heart was racing, on Tom's behalf. They sat, Alf, Tom and Eddy, looking, he realised, like a cohesive, well-dressed team of young men; men from the generation about to take power, the ones starting to run companies and invent things and take the driving seat of the world. No one would guess that Tom was sleeping in a filthy warehouse, or that Eddy had been living alongside pizza boxes and beer cans and the regrets of a failed relationship, or that Alf, all white shirt-front and strong jaw, had only come on board five minutes ago.

Opposite them sat three more men, another reason why it was good Alf had come. They weren't outnumbered. One of them proceeded to deliver a brain-numbing speech to Tom about the merits of the panels, what they hoped to do with them, how far around the world they could be
sold, how they could be a boon to parts of the third world. Tom looked dazed, and the man opposite him leaned forward.

‘To get to the point, we are willing to offer you three million dollars for your invention.'

The atmosphere in the room changed. There was silence and Tom paled. He looked like he might burst into tears. He opened his mouth to speak.

Alf cut through him.

‘That would be a deposit on national rights only, surely?'

‘Worldwide, of course. Total rights. It's a generous price.'

Alf chuckled, as if highly amused. ‘And royalties?'

‘This generous offer would buy those out.'

Tom opened his mouth again, and Alf put his hand on his shoulder and spoke over him.

‘I would advise my client not to accept.'

Tom stared at him in horror, and Alf stood. ‘Could we have a few minutes alone, gentlemen?'

‘Of course.' A secretary showed them into an adjoining room and closed the door.

Tom snapped at Alf. ‘My
client?
Mate, no offence, but I don't think we need you here.'

‘
Au contraire
, you most certainly do.'

‘No, I don't think I do, actually. I'm about to make three million dollars. Piss off.'

‘I will, if you're sure you want to sell your invention for a twentieth, or possibly a fiftieth of what it's worth.'

‘How the fuck would you know what it's worth? Do you even know what it is?'

‘Yeah. Eddy told me; I read your little prospectus. But, to be honest, I don't even need to know what it is. If this is UMI's first offer, they'll fully expect you to come back and ask for a
better one. And if your invention is any bloody good at all, you won't sell it outright, you'll hang out for royalties. No inventor with any brain would give up their royalties. I would suggest you come back with a proposal for twenty million, Australia and New Zealand rights only,
plus
a ten percent take in every unit that's sold for the rest of its commercial life.'

‘They're not going to give me that!'

‘How do you know until you ask? I think they will at least go away and think about it. They'll have to take it to their board, they can't just dismiss it.'

‘I don't want to wait around for weeks.'

‘Days, mate, if not hours.'

‘I don't want to wait for
one
hour.'

‘Jesus, what are you, a businessman or a kid wanting an ice cream?'

‘Mate, just hold off on the fucking insults.'

‘Seriously. How long have you been working on this thing — a year? And you don't want to wait a few days to get potentially millions more out of them?

‘Bird in the hand . . .'

‘Forget that shit. You have kids, right?'

‘What's that got to do with anything?'

‘A lot. So what, two, three kids?'

‘One.'

‘You could hand her an income for life, long after you're dead. Cheques arriving quarterly, to remind her of Daddy, right up to when she's an old lady. She'll pass those onto her children, and it will be your legacy. Alternatively, you could lose half of what you get in tax, pay off your mortgage on some suburban house, and go back to your job as a wage slave. Big deal, so what.
Your choice.'

Tom looked at Eddy. Eddy sighed. He wanted to say,
I know, I know, he's an arrogant moron, but he's also really, really smart, and he's right, you should have brought a lawyer to something like this, and he may actually be in the ballpark here . . .
He did his best to convey this with raised eyebrows and rueful glances, which Tom, by the disheartened set of his sagging shoulders, seemed to reluctantly get.

‘But if we ask for more, don't we risk losing the whole deal?'

Tank shrugged. ‘Hard to say. But if you've been trying to invent machines, I'm guessing you're not a man to shy away from a risk.'

‘Okay, okay. Let me think.' Tom shook his head and rubbed his forehead. ‘You really think there's a chance in hell they might go for that? They won't just laugh us out of the place?'

‘I think there's a good chance that the actions of the next few minutes will determine whether you merely repay your debts, or become a millionaire.'

‘Or whether you lose the whole deal,' murmured Eddy. He was, after all, a risk analyst. But no one heard him.

Tom stared at Alf and took a deep breath. ‘Okay. Okay. Do it.'

Eddy sat in the back seat of Tank's car and held the phone to his ear. Laura had to shout above a gaggle of four-year-olds.

‘Where are you?' she said.

‘I'm with a couple of friends. We're just driving out to a pub in the country.'

‘You've finished work already?'

Eddy watched the suburbs flash past, thinning out to the country. ‘We finished a bit early.
I'm actually with Tom, er, Lotte's dad. He's had an offer on his invention and he's . . . well, it's a waiting game now.' Too complicated to explain that the firm members had asked for a night to consider his request, and that Alf had, on leaving, insisted on taking Tom to a pub where he could get pissed and wait out the night under Alf's watchful eye, without caving in. Eddy could hear Alf right now demanding Tom hand over his mobile phone.

‘Sounds exciting,' said Laura. ‘Well, here in the Possum group we're experiencing tactile sensations; exploring the different feelings of wet, dry, furry, gooey, sticky, warm, and cold.' There was no mistaking the playful note in her voice. ‘It's fun.'

‘Goodness. It does sound . . . fun.' He was suddenly weak with desire, and joy that she felt safe enough with him to sound so suggestive. They had had a few dinners out, one movie, and he had spent one Sunday helping her paint a set for the end-of-year concert. The rest of the time he could hardly stop thinking about her.

‘Facilitates brain connections, they say.'

‘Oh! I was just thinking my brain felt a bit disconnected. Could we maybe . . .?'

‘Mmm?'

‘Could I see you tonight?'

‘Aren't you en route to the country?'

‘I could— Damn. Actually I think Tom needs me. I can't leave.' He was worried Tom and Alf might rip each other to shreds if left alone. ‘Why don't you jump in a taxi, come out to Healesville and meet us for dinner?'

‘Or I could meet you back at your place?'

Oh my God. Was she hinting that . . .
Dammit
, Romy was at his place. He tried to match her suggestive tone. ‘Well maybe if we have a drink it will be better to stay in a
hotel
.' God,
when
was
Romy going to move out? She was only meant to have been there briefly; he hadn't even told anyone she was there.