Insecure (16 page)

“Jacinta,” said Henry. “When you're ready.”

She stood, looked down the table. She'd already lost Malcolm. Henry would vote with his conscience, she had to win the rest.

She started by reminding them of the bank's slogan: Bank for Life. And their customer promise; a charter of expectations customers could be guaranteed of, none of which suggested being made jobless, and homeless. She went on to propose there were ways of working to put services in place to prevent financial catastrophe affecting their customers.

Malcolm interrupted three times. The first to laugh, “Change the bloody slogan then, if that's the problem.” The second to say no bank was responsible for people's idiocy with money and the third to force Henry's hand.

“I'd remind you the only tangible tie between us and this criminal is that he chose an event we sponsor to unleash his evil,” he said.

“Why do you think he didn't bomb a train station?” Constance said.

“I have no cause to think anything about him, other than the fact he's now a bad debt.”

“For which we have ample insurance,” Jacinta sighed.

Henry gave her a weary smile. “I believe we've done what you wanted, discussed the issue. What are you proposing?”

She outlined her formal proposal, which began with developing a broader program to identify at risk customers and provide a soft landing for them. She suggested getting out on front foot of the issue by briefing journalists on the connection with Kincaid and the subsequent change of policy and procedure, and ended with a proposal to double the sponsorship money provided to the marathon organisers to rebuild community faith in the event.

When she sat there was silence.

Constance broke it. “I like it. It's smart business.”

“Mr Chairman, I'd ask that Jacinta leaves the room so we can discuss this and make our final decision,” said Malcolm. He didn't look at Henry, he looked at her like she was dirt he wanted to scrape from the bottom of his thousand dollar shoes.

Henry frowned. Jacinta wasn't a board member, but as an executive director she attended all the meetings. Not once had she been asked to leave, though it was a legitimate request. She looked to Henry. He had little choice but to comply or to fight Malcolm over it. He'd comply because her issue with Malcolm was a sideshow, not the real issue. This was it. She wasn't going to get her weekend to lobby.

“As you like, Malcolm. Jacinta, thank you,” said Henry.

Dismissed she gathered her papers, her phone and tablet PC. “Thank you for your time.”

“This is personal for you, isn't it?” said Constance.

Jacinta hugged her gear to her chest. “I think it's personal for Kincaid's wife and kids, for the families of the people he killed and hurt. I think Wentworth is in a position to do what we can not to be a trigger point for people to suffer from financial ruin. If that's personal then, yes, it's personal.”

“How does that impact you if we vote to continue business as usual?” she asked.

“We don't need to—”

“I think we do, Henry,” Constance said.

Jacinta had barely slept all week and eaten only because Mel put meals in front of her. She'd known this would be a tough time before this issue even surfaced. She'd told Mace that, watched him take it onboard and worry it like a torn piece of clothing and been relieved when he showed he was willing to live with the rip if he wanted to see her again.

But this was beyond tough. This was the reason any thoughts of Mace came second and second was a long way back in the queue. This was the type of challenge she relished and it was deeply personal. She'd tipped her savings into how personal, but none of them needed to know about the victims' fund; it might work against her by convincing them she was trying to extend her private motivation to corporate ends.

She wasn't sure if that was because she'd seen the dust and destruction, felt the tremor, heard the savage zip of the body bags and watched them try to scrub blood from the pavement outside her door or not. But she knew this was a hard line. One she'd have trouble crossing if they voted against the changes she proposed.

“I will obviously respect the board's wishes.” She'd accept them and keep pushing behind the scenes for change. It wasn't ideal but it wasn't defeat either.

On the way out the door she chanced a look in Malcolm's direction. He was glaring right back and what she saw on his face put a flare of panic in her chest. She'd lost as surely as she breathed, as surely as she longed to lie in Mace's arms to recapture the intimacy of their weekend, and as surely as she knew he'd be sacrificed to her ambition.

And then Malcolm spoke. “Henry.” He kept his eyes on her; he smiled, a hungry cannibal. He said, “I'd like Tom to start coming to these meetings,” and she knew she was about to be sacrificed too.

Mace lost it when the priest appeared. Dillon had to get between them and the shouting woke Buster. Her eyes flickered, opened, then widened. She didn't know where she was.

“I'm here, Buster, look at me, I'm here.” He took her hand, dry and cool while the rest of her was fevered, and she focused; her raspy breathing steadying. Dillon was backing the priest with his offer of last rites out. It was pneumonia, not a death sentence.

“You're in the hospital, you'll be fine, but if you try to talk, I'll have Dillon sit on you.”

Dillon laughed. He went around the bed to her other side and took her hand. “Hey, sexy. You gave us a fright.” Buster's eyes shifted, she smiled.

Mace adjusted her pillows then smoothed her hair back. She was propped up to help her breathing. She was also in a hospital gown, which she'd hate.

“No talking. Save your breath. I've brought you a clean nightie from home. The nurses will help you with it later.”

She was so pale it was as though he could see every vein running beneath the surface of her face; every thread of her life winding over her features. The sunspots she detested were stripped of their pigment, and her wrinkles had fallen away into the pillow. She looked almost young, but so fragile she made it hard for him to breathe. He'd thought Jacinta was fragile, so slender, tiny compared to him, he'd had no idea what fragile was until he'd watched Buster loaded into the back of an ambulance. He looked across at Dillon. Not once since he'd arrived had he mentioned their deadline for Anderson Abbott.

Mace had every intention of meeting it. He could work from anywhere. He could stay with Buster, or if they booted him out, set up in the canteen or the local Maccas, if it came to it. He'd start as soon as she went back to sleep.

Dillon was telling Buster a story about the car he wanted to buy. He was blathering on; he was nervous too, filling the silence made big by Buster's crackling breaths. She meant a lot to him as well. Her house had been his safe haven against careless parents and an older brother who beat up on him till Mace got big enough to suggest he stop, and mad enough to show him what was behind his suggestion.

They both sat in Buster's kitchen, eating home baked cupcakes, bruised and bloody that day, but triumphant too. All she'd said was, “I hope the other fellow looks worse.”

They were fourteen. Dillon hadn't yet conquered the asthma that made him scrawny and got him picked on and Mace was already more comfortable with his own company, working up his loner persona even then. But they stuck with each other, two misfits, two dreamers.

This time triumph needed brains, not brawn, and it would be all the sweeter after all the years they'd plotted, speculated and prodded each other to convert fantasy into capability.

Buster stayed awake until visiting hours were over, and when she slept they went to the canteen and sat amongst the boiled cabbage smells. Mace wrote. Dillon edited, which consisted of him rejecting every answer Mace crafted to the template Anderson had provided. They tried it the other way around. Mace talked and Dillon wrote and it was still no good.

Dillon pushed his laptop aside. “You're fried.”

He was, there was no way around it. Mace couldn't get his thoughts to settle. He needed sleep and a decent meal, and for Buster to be safely back at St Ags.

“We've got tomorrow. We'll be fresher then. She'll have been on the medication for longer, she'll be better. It'll be easier,” said Dillon.

They packed it in. Mace went back to sit with Buster and Dillon went home. But in the morning it was no easier. Buster had a bad night, not able to rest, her breath coming in wet, choked rattles. Mace was hypnotised by them, by the fear they'd stop. He didn't sleep. He hung on each of her ragged inhales with his fists clenched.

He wasn't ready to let Buster go. She wasn't that old. His mother had been young when she'd had him, young still when she died. Buster's body was broken, but her memory was intact, her thinking just as sharp as ever. It wasn't time for her to go.

Was it cruel to want her to live for longer, locked in the prison of her Parkinson's? Probably. What did she want? He had only the slimmest idea. He'd always managed to shut her down when she wanted to talk about the future. He'd been so good at ignoring it she'd made the arrangements to move to St Ags without him. She'd simply told him that's what she wanted because it had become too hard for him to work his two jobs and care for her at home.

Was he being selfish wanting her to stay with him? She lived in one room in what was effectively a hospice. God's freaking waiting room. No one at St Ags came home for good. She could do almost nothing for herself anymore except beat him at scrabble, every time.

But if she could hold on, they were developing new treatments. If he could get the finance, he could afford to renovate a little at home, hire a private nurse maybe, make her more comfortable, have her closer. She could at least live out her days in her own home. They'd talked about this before and ended up with St Ags. This time he'd insist.

Buster was in no state to talk, and when Dillon arrived, Mace was in no state to work. He did anyway, knowing what his brain was chucking on the page was worse than garbage. Dillon never said a word and that made it worse.

“Get me one more day.”

Dillon sucked on a chopstick dunked in leftover soy sauce from the dumplings they'd had for lunch. “Yep.”

“Seriously, I'll make myself sleep tonight. I'll ditch work. I've got all of Monday.”

“Okay.”

“What, just yep, okay?”

“What do you want me to say, dude? I don't think good old AA will give us an extension. I don't know if you'll be any more with it tomorrow. Buster is dying, Mace. You know that, and—”

“She's not fucking dying. They changed the medication this morning. She'll be better.”

“She doesn't want to get better.”

Mace shoved against the table and it barked on the floor. “You can't fucking say that.”

“Shhh, keep your voice down.” Dillon pushed the table back into place. “You're scaring the fish.”

“If you can't wish the best for her you should go, man.”

“I love Buster, almost as much as you do. But she's miserable. You have to be able to see that.”

“She's not. She has her books and music, her favourite TV shows.”

“She can't dress herself, or walk around freely. She can't feed herself. When did Buster ever sit still? She was always busy. This can't be how she wants to live.”

“But there are new—”

“Dude.”

Mace dropped his head into his hands.
Fuck
.

“Maybe it's best this way.”

He wasn't ready to lose her, not now, not when he wanted her to see he could be successful after indulging him so long on his various crusades to teach himself, to follow a dream. But that wasn't going to happen either unless Anderson Abbott was a decent guy. “Let's just get through this.”

“Here's the thing. I spoke to Anderson already. Monday morning is a hard deadline. The Summers-Denby investment committee is making a selection of potential ventures. If we don't have our stuff done, it won't go in the investment pack.”

“What does that mean? That's just admin. We can print it off ourselves and drive it around to their freaking homes if we have to.”

“No, we can't.”

“So that's it.”

Dillon stabbed the chopstick through a foam coffee cup. “That's it.”

“That committee must meet again. It can't be the only time.”

“I don't know.” He stabbed a second chopstick through it. “We'd have to be invited to resubmit.”

“You couldn't tell me this before.”

“Mace, you haven't slept for days, you look like a corpse they should put back in a drawer in the morgue. Buster is dying. I didn't know what the fuck to tell you.”

“I'm not giving her up.”

“If we give them less than the best, that'll screw us just as surely, maybe worse.”

“I'm not giving this up.”

Dillon stabbed a third chopstick through the cup. He kept his eyes down. “We got lucky. We can get lucky again.” He didn't believe that for one minute and neither did Mace.

“I'm going home to have a shower, change. I'll work from here tonight. Come back in the morning and see what I've got. If you don't think it's good enough, well, I don't know. I can try to sleep with someone who lives next door to another venture capitalist.”

“Or maybe just this same woman again.”

That didn't seem likely. It was already another lifetime ago. “Will you stay with Buster till I get back?”

Dillon stood the cup on its tripod legs. “Modern art. Buster would approve. Of course I will.”

Mace went home. He showered and shaved. He put the washing machine on to wash Buster's underwear, her nighties and blouses, the things she'd need when she got back to St Ags. He drove back to the hospital where Buster looked brighter. She was watching an old episode of
Mad Men
with Dillon. She was going to be all right. Even the doctor was pleased.