Love or Money (11 page)

Clamping her jaw shut, Erin collected her mother and headed for the car. Todd followed.

‘Hi Erin,' Andy smiled as they took a table at the near-empty restaurant. ‘Great to see you.'

‘So glad you're here,' Erin said. ‘We have a medical emergency on our hands.' She waved towards Todd. ‘I think something quick and Australian would work best.'

‘Got it,' Andy grinned. ‘Rump steak, well done. Fries with a dash of tomato sauce. Salad on the side.' Todd allowed himself a tired smile. ‘And for the — other young lady?' Andy waited while Helen flicked through the menu.

‘Combination short soup,' she said eventually.

‘Thank you, madam. And your usual, Erin?' Andy asked.

‘Of course,' she said.

Every time the restaurant door opened, Erin peeked towards it, bracing herself for Hamish's entry. His reaction when he saw her with Todd and her mother didn't bear thinking about. Seconds after their meals were served, he walked in. He spotted Erin and came over.

‘My lawyer, Hamish Bourke,' she said, aiming to keep the meeting brief and lightweight. ‘Hamish, this is my mother, Helen Spenser, and Todd Archer — a — a friend of Mother's.' Todd's eyebrows twitched, but he said nothing. The two men stared at each other, each suspicious of what might lie behind Erin's lightweight introductions.

‘Sorry. I interrupted your dinner.' Hamish backed away. ‘Have a great weekend in sunny Luna Bay, folks.' He strolled to a table at the other end of the restaurant. From the corner of her eye, Erin noticed that he sat where he could keep their table in his sights. He finished his meal quickly and paid his bill. But as he opened the door to leave, he flicked a private smile towards her.

Next morning the unlikely threesome gathered on the veranda to plan their day. Helen apologised, saying she felt tired, had better head back to bed, try to catch up on her sleep. Erin brought her mother tea and cereal with a generous serve of daughterly love. As Erin sat by the bed, they heard Todd shuffling towards the door.

‘Why don't you and Todd go into town — let him treat you to a gourmet breakfast?' Helen said. ‘He wouldn't want to eat anything plain and healthy. That cute little café?'

‘Sarah's Super Sandwiches. I'll suggest it to Todd,' Erin said, exiting her mother's room before Todd barged in and destroyed their closeness. There was no option but for her to take Todd to a Sarah's breakfast — as a twosome. Later, there'd be the awkward question of how to pass the rest of the day with Todd. She'd play that difficult shot later.

They beat the late rush to Sarah's and took an outside table with a view of the ocean. Mercifully, Sarah's eggs benedict and coffee passed Todd's fussy evaluation. He paid the bill and beckoned to Erin. As they stepped out through the café door, he slid an arm round her waist. Before she could brush it away, Hamish, arriving for his morning coffee, almost bumped into them. She saw his eyebrows flicker, his gaze take in Todd's wayward arm. Then he smiled at them — a businesslike, formal smile.

‘Morning, Erin. Mr — Archer. Lovely day.' He waved an arm towards the hills. ‘Have you thought about doing the district tour?' He vanished through the café door as Erin pushed Todd's arm away.

‘We should take Hamish's advice, do the tour,' she said. ‘Give Mother some space. The drive down must have drained her. She looked exhausted this morning.'

‘Fine. What's the tour, then?' Todd asked, not bothering to mask his bored expression.

She pointed to the highest peak on the range. ‘Up to the lookout, then back to Luna Bay by another route. A circuit. It'll take a couple of hours.' She looked into his face. ‘And I trust you to keep your hands to yourself, Todd.'

‘Okay,' Todd shrugged. ‘By the way, on the drive down Helen asked me to give you my professional opinion on handling your inheritance. It'll be helpful if I get the big picture — the locality and all that.'

‘Sure you can afford to waste a few hours of your precious time?' Erin asked.

‘Fine,' Todd said. ‘I already told you, I have to make an objective appraisal of your assets before I can give you my professional advice.'

The Porsche wound its way up through primeval forest. They reached the summit with its endless views of the coast. Todd walked around the parking space, silent, absorbed. As they headed back to Luna Bay, he lit up.

‘Fantastic! Thousands of hectares of millable eucalyptus. I have a client who'd die for this.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Asaka Chemical. Specialise in woodchips. My new Japanese client. Looking for new sites for woodchip mills.'

‘You don't mean —'

‘Forests like this are hard to come by, Eri. And getting harder by the minute. Wow! I feel like Columbus discovering America.'

‘But…the forest is — special.' Erin could hardly believe him. ‘It's…I think it might be a national park or something.'

‘I'll check that out on Monday. But there's already a woodchip mill working down the coast at Eden. Only a few hours from here. A good sign.' Erin drove back stunned into silence. If Todd realised his dream and the forest was trashed, it would be her fault.

Back home, she disappeared to the kitchen to cook the Saturday night dinner she'd planned for days, leaving her mother and Todd to talk. After a good meal, her mother, sensing tension between Todd and Erin, managed the after-dinner socialising with skills Erin didn't know she had. Still, it was a relief when, around ten, Todd stood.

‘We leave early tomorrow. Must beat the traffic. But before we go, Erin, walk me around the property. First thing tomorrow. My appraisal, remember.'

At seven next morning, Todd wheeled Erin towards the garden. ‘Get rid of the place,' he snarled as he eyed the weather-beaten cottage. ‘The garden too. It's an eyesore. A bulldozer could take care of house and garden in a couple of hours. Leave the building site level and clean. Then a prospective buyer could stand here and look out to sea. Create his very own development in his mind's eye. Nothing like a dream to make a guy reach for his chequebook.'

‘But…Grandma Spenser. She put her heart and soul into this place for nearly forty years.' Erin reflected on the hours she'd spent with the old woman as they tended her flower garden, harvested the fresh vegetables they'd eat for dinner. Lately, Erin had come to prefer fresh produce in place of the over-sprayed, chemically fertilised stuff that filled supermarkets. She had her grandmother to thank for that.

‘Grandma Spenser is dead and gone, Eri.' Todd faced her, hands on hips, as they stood in the old rose garden. ‘Let's get real. I'll keep it simple, so even you can understand it.' He spoke slowly, as if talking to a five-year-old. ‘You are going to sell the property. You must aim to get as much money for it as you possibly can. That means you have to make it as attractive to the buyer as you possibly can. And a pile of rotting weatherboards is not attractive. I rest my case.'

Minutes later, Erin hugged her mother and helped her into Todd's Porsche. As the car disappeared towards the highway, she threw her hands in the air and shouted — a happy squeal of relief.

Over the next few days, Erin ordered herself to get organised. She pushed aside Todd's soulless advice to bulldoze the cottage and garden. Sure, she'd sell the place soon, but the ghost of her grandmother still walked beside her every time she visited the garden. Bulldozing it was unthinkable. She'd press on with her plans to restore it, knowing she'd never manage to recover its original perfection.

After a couple of mornings, Erin found she actually liked gardening. She enjoyed each minute she spent pulling the weeds strangling the flowering plants. As she worked, she basked in the background music of birdsong, and the perfume of the lavender bushes bordering the garden. She bought bulbs that would create a show when spring livened up the soil — daffodils, jonquils, freesias, tulips — knowing she'd never see their glory. This odd, suddenly blossoming urge to garden came from her grandmother's genes. She wouldn't fight it.

She planted a border of bright yellow and blue pansies round a circular patch in the middle of what had once been a lawn. Soon she must buy a mower and retrieve that lawn. Her grandmother had played tag with her there, chasing her round and round the flower bed until the two of them fell into a giggling heap. Sometimes the old woman would serve an afternoon snack in the garden — homemade chocolate brownies, still warm from the wood-fired oven. Erin could almost smell them as she weeded. Often, they'd eat them as they sat on a swinging seat under the big shady flame tree in a corner of the yard. Now, that seat hung forlornly by one rope. She must buy some new rope and fix it.

Erin eased into the therapy of working outdoors in the fresh mornings, then hitting the computer in the afternoons. It helped that she took time out for a wakeup coffee and lunch at Sarah's. The forget-about-Hamish plan seemed to be working at last. One bright day, with the sea so blue it almost hurt her eyes, she logged a whole afternoon at her computer without thinking of him once.

A few evenings later, on a whim, she checked out the dog-eared phone directory for Hamish's home address. To her surprise, it was there. He hadn't bothered to organise an unlisted number, like most professional people did these days. She thought about driving there. It would be good therapy — help to clear up some of the mysteries she'd wrapped round him. If she peeled away those layers, she'd see just another human being underneath, complete with off-days and his fair share of human failings.

What kind of life did he live with his weird partner, Honey? She probably wouldn't bother to keep a garden — her zero contribution to the Landcare day had hinted at that. Seeing Hamish's house might lay bare the boring suburban side of the man and perhaps cure Erin of the puppy-love attack she must get over soon.

After lunch the next day, she found herself driving to his street, knowing Hamish would be buried in his office. She spotted his house, cruised by slowly. The modest little place of newly painted green weatherboard was clean and tidy and sported a freshly mowed lawn, and a rotary clothesline twirling a load of laundry in the back garden. It told her nothing she didn't know already. Hamish was an organised guy who kept his place tidy. She turned at the end of the dead-end street and headed back.

As she drove slowly past the house for a second look, her eye caught a movement. A little boy, crying, alone, ran towards the gate, wrestled with the catch. It was Dwayne. She stopped. The child spotted the car and waved, crying loud enough for her to hear him through her car's closed windows. He needed help. She parked and ran to him. He looked up and choked back his crying.

‘Erin!' he sobbed. She smiled down at him, amazed again that he remembered her name. ‘Mummy's gone away.' He dissolved into tears again. His red eyes, his tear-stained face, told her he'd been crying for a while.

‘Erin's come to help you,' she said. What had triggered that weird impulse? Raised an only child by a single mother, she knew zilch about caring for toddlers. Dwayne's tears stopped. She opened the gate and scooped him off the ground, held him close. He sniffed, coughed, fighting to control his tears. Then she caught the smell, the soggy feeling in the palm of her hand as she supported his bottom. His pants needed urgent attention.

‘We'll go inside and get you some clean pants,' she smiled, not having the faintest idea how to go about such a chore. She walked to the front door, still carrying him. It was locked. She tried the back door, found it locked too. How could this have happened? He watched her as she tried the doorknob.

‘The door went bang,' he said. ‘I ran outside, then it went bang.' Perhaps while he'd been alone in the house, he'd found he could turn the door knob. Then, as he'd cracked the secret of opening it and escaped outside, maybe the wind had blown it shut. He'd have been scared, alone, desperate. Erin knocked hard on the door, praying that Honey would be inside — reading, perhaps taking a nap, unaware that Dwayne had learned to open the door by himself. No one answered. She walked to the front door, knocked again. The house stood silent. There was no one there. Panic welled inside her. She looked across to the neighbours' houses — left, right, then across the street. There must be a kindly soul somewhere who knew the little boy, knew the basics of caring for him. Might even have babysat him occasionally. The circle of houses smiled back at her, silent, benign. She had no option but to take Dwayne with her.

‘Erin's going to take you for a lovely ride,' she beamed, feeling sick inside.

She spread her beach towel on the back seat, sat him on it, threaded a seatbelt round him. ‘Would you like an icecream?'

‘Yes,' he said, sniffing back tears again. ‘A pink one. With chocolate.'

‘We'll see,' she said. She drove carefully to Hamish's office, then unpacked Dwayne. ‘We'll say hello to Daddy, then get you an icecream,' she tried. He smiled, eased himself into her arms as she slid him onto the footpath.

‘Oh no! Not again.' Jenny Receptionist frowned as she took in the scene. ‘That woman. It happened last week. One of the neighbours brought the poor little mite in. About this time of the afternoon, it was. Seems Honey had gone off to the pub while he had his afternoon nap. Then she got totally out of it.' She rubbed the toddler's messy hair as he stood beside her, looking up into her eyes. ‘It's disgusting. There ought to be a law. It's a good thing Hamish is out this afternoon. Gone over to Pembroke to see the Council people. Some Greenie thing or other. Told me to expect him back around five.'

‘I think Dwayne's pants need changing,' Erin said.

‘They do.' Jenny's quick glance identified her as an expert. ‘Poor little guy. He's toilet-trained, but like any of us, he can lose it in a crisis. Could you pop over to the store and grab a pack of disposable nappies?'