2. Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Warm air and rowdy voices hit like a tidal wave as Harry pushed the pub door open.
“I don’t know why I let you talk me into this,” Alison kept her voice low, trying to force her shoulders down from around her ears. “I’ve got better wine at home.”
“Yes, my dear,” he agreed. “But you don’t have this. ” He swept his arm out, encompassing the busy pub. It was a Friday night in Gold Hill and The Barrow was packed with people. Alison stuck close to Harry’s side, surveying the seething mass of humanity.
In one corner was a hen’s party - based on the tiaras, pink sashes and penis straws - and in the other, what looked like a work function: men in suits and no ties, women in pencil skirts, cheeks flushed with wine. The other tables were filled with couples and small groups, some dressed to the nines and others in jeans and flannels. The couches by the fire were draped with a group of attractive young people, laughing and bickering over some kind of board game as if they were at home in their very own living room. Gold Hill’s main pub was an eclectic mix; Alison already wanted to leave.
“Precisely my point,” she muttered as Harry forged ahead to the bar, leaving her to drag her heels after him, shrugging out of her coat in the close heat of the room.
“Darling!” Harry exclaimed at the bartender, a rugged, bearded white man who beamed at him, leaning across the bar to accept Harry’s effusive cheek kisses. “You saucy thing, how on earth did you end up here?”
“Must be fate.” The bartender batted his eyelashes. “That and the country boy I married.”
“ Married!” Harry gasped. “Not monogamous, surely?”
“Afraid so.” The man grinned. “Wouldn’t you be?” He inclined his head towards the open kitchen where a muscular Mediterranean man barked orders at his staff, wiping sweat off his heavy brow. Harry mimed a faint, his hand to his thoroughly greying temple.
“How intensely prosaic of you,” he said. “You’re practically heterosexual. Speaking of stuffy-” he remembered her presence. “This is my friend, Alison. She’s horribly posh but extremely pretty so I’ve towed her out of the house hoping her glow will cast me in a better light. Is it working?”
“No one is that beautiful,” Alison butted in and both men laughed. “Lovely to meet you.” She reached her hand across the bar to shake. The bartender took hold of her fingers and tugged her close, leaning over to kiss her cheek. Alison’s face went hot. She was touched so rarely these days that the casual greeting felt almost unbearably intimate, his beard scratching against her skin.
“Josh,” the man introduced himself. “We’re fully booked tonight, I’m afraid, but I’ll boss some folks away to get you two a table.” They watched as he smiled with intense charm at a young couple sharing a small table near the fire and entirely ignoring each other for their phones. Whatever he said clearly took them by surprise, but they hopped up happily enough and walked in the direction he pointed, out the back toward the raucous beer garden. “Free tequila shots,” he explained as he quickly ushered Harry and Alison over, wiping the table. “Same here?”
“Yes please!” Harry said with enthusiasm as he hopped up onto the high stool with an agility that belied his age.
“Absolutely not,” Alison said simultaneously, sitting upright opposite him. “Just a glass of pinot noir, thank you.”
“We could have drank that at home,” Harry said disapprovingly, as Josh headed back to pour their drinks .
“Yes, we could, ” Alison sighed. “Yet here we are.”
“Amongst the great unwashed?” he teased her, blue eyes twinkling.
“You know what I mean,” she replied. She thanked Josh as he placed an extremely generous pour of wine before her with a wink. “I hate being around this many people. It doesn’t feel remotely safe.”
“Darling girl.” Harry pulled her hand into his on top of the table like they were an old married couple. “They already know where you are,” he reminded her. “Your cover is shot, you told me that a fortnight ago.”
She had. She’d called him, panicked and crying after the confrontation at the lake, barely able to breathe. Gold Hill was supposed to be her safe haven, the one place she could hide. She’d been packing up, ready to leave, when Harry had arrived, all the way from Melbourne, and argued her into staying.
“Yes, but-”
“But nothing,” he said firmly. “You can’t run forever. They know you’re here and you’re still standing. Aren’t you?”
“When people find out- ”
“People know, ” he told her. “They already know. You’re not exactly easy to hide, my love, what with all this,” he gestured vaguely at her frequently photographed face, “and all the media.” She swallowed, trying not to panic, wondering if there were eyes on her even now, and he squeezed her hand. “We’re in a tiny little country town; there’s probably not a man or a dog who hasn’t heard the story by now and clearly, no one cares. It’s honestly rather self-indulgent of you to keep hiding out in your huge house like some kind of Frankenstein’s monster. Have you ever been tested for narcissism?”
Alison spluttered a laugh, just as he’d intended.
“It’s not like chlamydia,” she told him. “They can’t just swab your cheek for it.”
“It’s not your cheek they swab, darling. If they have then I think you’ve been doing it wrong.”
“Yes, actually, I know.”
Harry looked up, with chagrin. When it turned out your spouse of eighteen years wasn’t, in fact, monogamous like you’d been led to believe, all kinds of indignities followed. Like Alison’s first STI screen since her twenties. Thankfully negative, but her jaw still clenched as she recalled it, even almost five years after the fact. Harry held her gaze and for a minute it looked like he was about to say something sympathetic .
“Do you have those results with you? It’d make a hell of a pick-up line.”
“Harry, I swear to god-”
“Oh, come on! You could have your pick of all these rugged farmers, you lucky thing. Just swan up to any one of them and say whatever it is posh people say when they hit on people.” He lay his hand on her arm and gazed at her deeply. “ I have buckets of money and my vagina speaks fluent French.”
“I’m leaving.”
“Only because you don’t want me to see that you’re laughing.”
“My vagina is speechless actually, right now.”
“That happens around me a lot.”
A short shriek rang out and Alison’s head snapped up. It was hard not to be hypervigilant in crowded places, despite Harry’s assurances, but she quickly ascertained that it was a shriek of merriment, from the collection of friends on the twin couches by the fireplace. The shriek had come from an attractive Indian woman in the middle of the pack, who was now arguing with the softly-padded, pale-skinned man across from her, her eyes sparkling as she made her loud point. The blonde white woman next to her threw back her head with laughter and Alison felt her own head go light.
It was Hope, the girl from the lake. Alison could see her in her memory: the warmth of her lips, shockingly unexpected against Alison’s cheek as she’d materialised out of nowhere; the easy way she’d extricated Alison from her unhappy encounter on the jetty; the confusion in her eyes at Alison’s behaviour and her steadfast insistence at wanting to see Alison safe.
Alison had been rude, she knew that, but in her defence, Hope, whoever she was, had behaved strangely, convincingly pretending to be her friend and inserting herself into a risky situation to protect a complete stranger. None of it made sense.
She watched Hope now, curious. At the lake she’d been distantly aware that the woman who’d come to her rescue was young and pretty and blonde, but now, without fear chasing her every thought, she could see that she was gorgeous. She was effortlessly casual, long tousled locks, a splash of red lip, and that’s all it took. Hope used her friend’s shoulder to push herself up and head to the bar and Alison tracked her movements. She wore a loose, creamy white t-shirt and a denim mini-skirt. With her skin now bared, Alison saw that tattoos spilled the entire length of Hope’s left arm. She fought the urge to roll her eyes.
She re-examined the little group. There were five of them, all attractive, all very clearly extremely hip. Suddenly their laughter felt derisive, their little cluster a clique. She wondered, with a trace of discomfort, what kind of television they watched .
“Friend of yours?” Harry’s voice broke into her thoughts. He followed her gaze to the bar where she’d been staring, watching Hope smile and chat with Josh while he poured the pitcher of beer she’d ordered.
“No.” She made herself turn away. “Just… that’s the girl who came to my rescue at the lake,” she told him, her voice low as if the other patrons were listening in.
“ That’s who rescued you?” Harry stared blatantly at Hope and Alison fought the urge to kick him under the table. “That little blonde bombshell?”
“…Yes.” Alison couldn’t argue against the categorisation. Not when Hope was crossing the pub before them, her smooth, colourful arm flexed under the weight of the beer jug, her casual t-shirt doing nothing to disguise her curves, and a slight sway to her hips as she moved.
She recalled the young woman’s easy confidence as she flicked back her hair and smiled guilelessly at Jimmy Jenkins on the lakeshore and realised now where she got her self-assurance from. Hope was stupidly gorgeous and horribly cool. She had known perfectly well how to wield her power, even over a man like Jimmy. It would be as instinctive as breathing for a girl like that.
“Interesting,” Harry said, watching Alison’s face .
“What is?”
“You neglected to mention your rescuer was a young, nubile Aphrodite.”
“Harry! Have some respect for god’s sake,” she hissed. “You sound like a lecherous old man. She went out of her way to help me, and I can promise you that at the time it didn’t matter one bit what she looked like.”
“Mm. Adds nuance to the story though. A bit of intriguing… colour.”
Thankfully Josh arrived to refresh their drinks and catch up with Harry, so he didn’t harp on about her encounter with the woman now reclining on the couch by the fire, eyes bright with laughter as she hung out with her cool friends. Alison realised she was staring again. Blonde bombshell. That was exactly the phrase the more salivating press stories had used about Estella Grant. For a second the room swam and she forced her gaze out across the pub again.
The after-work crowd had drifted closer to their side of the room. They were looser now, rowdy with drink. Alison watched them, curious about a world she barely remembered. Long days behind a desk, spending more time around your colleagues than you did your own family. She knew the archetypes. That woman there was the office gossip; the way she held court over the corner booth made her power clear. That guy was the mousy nerd, but tonight, full of drink, he felt like a king. That guy on the perimeter… Alison straightened her spine as she watched him. That guy was the office sleaze.
He was attentively watching one of the young women, clearly worse for wear, too much to drink, not enough to eat. Alison watched with growing distaste as he got a little too close, and the young woman laughingly pushed at his chest, her movements ineffectual. He didn’t move away, his hand on her lower back now. He spoke into her ear and she shook her head, but he laughed, and physically towed her to the bar. Alison went rigid when she realised he was buying the visibly drunk young woman more to drink.
She turned to tell Josh, but he’d disappeared. Harry was laughing with another solidly built man, his bright blue eyes full of flirtation. Alison whipped her head back towards the scene at the bar. The younger bartender wasn’t paying attention, too focused on the crowd around him to make note that the two double shot vodka sodas he’d just poured were both being stacked in front of an already wobbly young woman. Alison was gripped with indecision. Everything in her body told her that what was happening was wrong, but on another level it all seemed so normal. Young people, getting drunk, having fun. Right? Right?
A colourful gleaming arm reached in and a woman’s hand delicately swiped one drink, and then the other. Hope smilingly ignored the office sleaze who looked startled, and saved her warmth for the young woman, tugging her away and hauling her in to sit next to her friends. As Alison watched, she poured the girl a big glass of water from the jug on the table and popped it in her hand, chatting to her easily and gesturing at her to drink, all sisterly energy and laughter. Then, Hope was on her feet. Josh had reappeared and whatever the young woman told him quickly resulted in the office sleaze being tapped on the shoulder and marched sharply out the door.
Now Alison really couldn’t stop staring.