Her unveiled motivation is hair-raising.
Justin grins and looks at me, when he should be looking at her. ‘Not yet,’ he says.
Lord!
I’m still analysing his comment when Constable Wentworth appears and says, ‘Right, which one of you is Kate’s husband?’ He has a clipboard and pen poised to record official details.
It’s one of those unexpected moments when I’m sideswiped. Grace stops the playful flirting and looks crushed for me as the officer’s question cuts deep. Emotion I’ve buried, repeatedly, gushes to the surface again, white hot.
Justin steps back as if to distance himself and Hugh steps forward, beside me, his arm briefly touching mine. No physical jolts at his touch. Just a much-needed sense of understanding and solidarity.
‘Did the dispatcher not tell you?’ I ask, clearing the emotion from my throat. ‘My husband died.’
It’s a line I’ve delivered countless times, but it still sounds like fiction escaping my mouth. I’ve become good at disguising the grief in my voice. Good at managing other people’s discomfort when they ask about my partner, or query what Cameron does for a living. Once, on a work trip in Sydney, when an Uber driver asked about my husband, I pretended he was still alive.
‘He’s an English professor,’ I’d said, luxuriating in the present tense. ‘And a great dad. He loves to cook. He makes this incredible Thai chicken dish . . .’
‘The grenade is no doubt a defused battlefield souvenir,’ Hugh is saying beside me. ‘Cameron was careful. He would have made sure it passed every regulation.’
He can’t have seen the tears that have sprung into my eyes during his defence, and I know he doesn’t need to. The earlier teasing is over now and we’re a united front. Hugh tunes in to my emotions like he’s conducting a symphony. The nuanced tones. The look on my face. Even the way something takes my breath away. I swear he knows what I’m about to feel before I do. Like right now, when I really don’t want to explain Cam’s death to a stranger for the millionth time.
‘Thanks for calling this one in,’ one of the military members says, while his colleague carries the grenade down my front steps.
‘We’ve examined it,’ the officer says as she walks past with the weapon in hand. ‘You’re right, it’s not live, but in the wrong hands it could provoke a serious terrorist scare. They’ll take it up to a base near Sydney for safe destruction. I’m sorry about your husband.’
‘So am I,’ Justin says, the thrill from our twilight weapons raid drained right out of him. ‘Kate, I’m really sorry.’
I don’t want the new guy pitying me. I don’t want anyone doing that. I just wish this conversation would change direction by magic.
‘You going to stand around playing CSI all night, or read that paperwork?’ Hugh asks on cue. ‘Can’t wing this one, Kate. You’re leading the presentation.’
Work. A safe topic.
‘You know I’m on top of this,’ I say, even though right now I most certainly am not on top of it. Not any of it. He’d be alarmed if he knew how out of control I really feel – about everything.
‘Thanks for coming,’ I say, exhausted. It’s a general thank you to all assembled. Thanks for coming to my show.
‘Come on, Charlie. Let’s pack your bag for your sleepover at Nanna’s!’ Grace says, taking his hand. This is the part where he normally gets clingy. But as he turns to go with Grace, he shoots Justin a massive smile. Grace, in turn, shoots me a knowing look that’s meant to be private, but that the entire viewing public can’t possibly misinterpret.
‘Work trip,’ I explain to Justin. ‘Shall we rain-check that welcome drink for when I get back?’
He taps me playfully on the arm. ‘You can tell me all about your passion for ornithology.’
Hugh snorts.
I have no words.
Then Justin glances deliberately at Hugh before he leans forward, puts a hand confidently on my waist and brushes my cheek with a kiss. I’m getting intoxicating notes of hard physical labour and Giorgio Armani, a scent that lingers even after he breaks away and walks across the road to his house, carrying my attention with him.
‘See you in the morning then,’ Hugh says beside me.
When I don’t respond, he snaps his fingers in front of my eyes and says, ‘Hey, Lara Croft!’
I return to him with a mental thud. ‘Paperwork.’ Boring. ‘Got it.’
I really need this mini holiday from All The Things. All the things except work, of course. And Hugh, who comes with that territory. And who, now I finally look at him, is staring at me as if I’ve just handed Justin a rose on The Bachelorette.
5
At four in the morning, I make an executive decision to give up on sleep altogether. I was still taking notes on the briefing papers at two, and now the whole project is making me nervous. It’s an ambitious fundraising campaign to attract donors for scholarships in the university’s climate change research programs. My idea. A cinematic film showcasing the achievements of our alumni scientists, interwoven with words by the university’s preeminent writers and poets, set to a piece of music composed by a grad student in the music school after the summer bushfires a few years ago. I want to send donors the message that we’re in this together. Arts. Science. All of us. And the university is bigger than the sum of its parts.
Hugh thought the idea was beautiful. He backed me a hundred per cent. Sank a large chunk of our fundraising budget into this one campaign. And now his belief in me is giving me the heebie jeebies.
‘It’s a feel-good story,’ I’d argued late one Friday afternoon after the rest of our team had bolted to happy hour at a bar in NewActon. ‘But if we can’t demonstrate a direct boost to donations, I’m worried it will be your head that rolls.’
‘You’re shaping a bang-for-buck appeal that aligns with the university’s strategic objectives. You’ve brought several faculties into the spotlight on a global water-cooler topic. Give them cold hard science and pull at their humanity. What’s not to love, Kate?’
But now, in the hours before dawn, it all seems too complicated. After I toss and turn about work for a while, I can’t move on from the idea that I’ve had one of Cam’s treasured possessions seized from the house for destruction. I imagine it being blown to smithereens, over and over. Symbolic of our tragedy.
I roll over in bed again and, as if to cheer itself up a bit, my mind ambles across the road. I tell myself it’s not disrespecting Cam’s memory to invent an imaginary little bedtime story involving my new neighbour and the fascination he develops in me, not in spite of my bumbling single-mother-widowhood but because of it. Yes. I make him that sort of man. Attracted to the flaws. The history. The stretch marks and scars plastered on my body and soul. I almost drift off in a kaleidoscope of muscles and king-size beds and explosives and mind-boggling actuarial maths. In my fantasy, Justin doesn’t leave just when I need him most. Not like Cam.