Heart of the Outback (9 page)

“Marvellous. Bloody marvellous,” he whispered in her ear. “You’re radiant and,” he let his admiration show, “you looked terrific in the spotlight.”

It took another hour for the remaining awards to be presented and then the crowd started to thin out. Well-wishers hovered around the Nicholson, Drew and Carlyle table. A photographer and journalist from the
Daily Telegraph
took relevant details and after what seemed an eternity, the hullabaloo began to ease.

“I’ve just been talking to a freelance journo, Sue Williams. She wants to do a profile on you for one of those career women’s magazines,” Aden said as he eased himself into the chair next to Francey. “It’d be good publicity for the firm, and for you.”

She smiled her agreement at him. “When?”

“The sooner the better.” He grinned back. “How do you feel?”

She shook her head, her long drop earrings swayed against her neck and the tendrils of loose hair fluttered. “I still don’t believe it. Even though my name’s on the plaque and everything. I really didn’t think … I mean, I thought it would probably go to someone more established, with more experience.”

“You deserved it, Francey. Your designs have been like a breath of fresh air for our company — visually and financially. Now, just wait and see, rank and file architects will be copying your every move.” His grin turned a touch cynical. “Mark my words. In about twelve months you’ll see variation copycat developments springing up all over Sydney.”

“I don’t mind. Isn’t it good to be a trendsetter?”

“Of course,” he agreed, “I think more champagne is required. I haven’t had the opportunity to toast your success properly.”

“That’s nice, Aden, but as soon as I can get away, I want to go tell my parents.”

“Isn’t it a bit late for them?”

She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. This,” she patted the plaque affectionately, “is worth waking them up for.”

“Very well. As soon as we decently can, we’ll get away.”

An hour and two glasses of champagne later, the crowd had thinned to the hardened stayers and Francey was still mentally pinching herself that she hadn’t dreamt it. She’d have to make sure the attention didn’t go to her head, Francey thought to herself as people stopped by on the way out to congratulate her. Two architects, one from Transfield, even dared to whisper something about a job offer.
She wasn’t interested. Loyalty was important to her and she was happy with Nicholson, Drew and Carlyle. Aden had seen her creative potential and had let her run with it.

“We’d better call it a night,” Aden finally said. His gaze studied Francey’s flushed face, her sparkling eyes. “Not that I really think either of us will do too much productive work tomorrow.”

“You’re probably right.”

“I’ll see you home.”

“There’s no need. I’m getting a taxi to Glebe.”

“I haven’t got my car so we’ll share a taxi. Is that acceptable,
Miss Independence
?”

Aden shook his head in the way she had come to know as meaning he was bound and determined to have his way. Secretly, and because the champagne had mellowed her defences a little, she was pleased that he wanted to see her safely home. “Sure. Perfectly acceptable.”

Twenty minutes later the taxi deposited them outside the Spinetti’s fruit shop on Glebe Point Road.

“Thanks, Aden. See you tomorrow.” No, that wasn’t right, she decided, it was already tomorrow. “Umm, in the morning.”

Aden looked around, there were lots of shadows around this part of the street, hiding places. “I’ll see you to your front door.” He saw her expression and added quickly, “Don’t argue with me.” As he got out he poked his head back in the taxi’s half open window. “Here’s twenty dollars on account. Wait for me.”

For once Francey didn’t argue. They walked down the narrow alley sprinkled with graffiti which ran between the fruit shop and the butcher’s shop.
Halfway down there were three steps, an alcove and then the Spinetti’s front door with a low wattage globe burning.

Aden’s gallantry made an impression on Francey, and she felt obliged to ask him in for coffee and to meet her parents.

“Love to.”

Francey settled Aden into her father’s favourite chair and then went upstairs to tell her parents the news. Ten minutes later a sleepy-eyed Carlo came down in his dressing-gown to give her boss a thorough once-over while Lucia and Francey bustled about in the kitchen.

This was where Francey Spinetti grew up. As Aden traded bland conversation with Carlo Spinetti, his gaze roamed about the room. Pieces of furniture were crowded into every available space. He noted the patterned wallpaper, heavy, dark colours and as he inhaled he could smell the faint fragrance of furniture polish mingling with the aromas of cooking. Italian, no doubt. Maybe cannelloni or fettuccine. Fresh flowers: daisies, carnations and something green rested in a vase on the dinner table. A stack of photographs of different sizes and shapes sat on the mantelpiece over a wooden fireplace. A large photograph, a black and white seascape, stark, the aftermath of a storm, hung on the wall above a china cabinet.

Carlo caught Aden’s attention when he said, “Francey took that picture. She is a good photographer, you know.”

Aden smiled. “It’s a great shot. I didn’t know photography was her hobby, Mr Spinetti. It seems your daughter has talents other than being a fine architect.”

“Sì.”
Carlo’s voice was proud. “She could be a professional if she wanted to be.”

When Francey and Lucia returned to the living room with a loaded tray her parents insisted that she give them a blow-by-blow description of what had happened at the dinner. As she did so she handed Aden his coffee and sat on the lounge opposite him.

“Tonight was wonderful,” she told her parents as she sipped. “Now I know what it’s like to be a princess. All that fussing. It’s nice.”

“Gone to your head, hey?” Aden queried. Even under her father’s watchful gaze he found it hard to keep his eyes off her; it had been that way all evening. She had been a big hit and even his two partners had finally seen her in a new light. He knew he wouldn’t have any more trouble from them when he pushed future projects in her direction.

“Not for long, I’ll be back to normal tomorrow,” she promised.

“It’s wonderful,
cara
,” Lucia enthused. “I can hardly wait for morning so I can call Josie and the family, and Guiseppe in Dubbo, and tell them our daughter is famous.”

Francey laughed and shook her head. “Not exactly famous, Mamma,” then, her eyes sparkling, she added, “not yet.”

Carlo grunted disapprovingly at his wife. “You are not to spend the whole morning on the phone, Lucia. There will be too much work to do in the shop.”

Lucia’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, Carlo, you are always the slave driver. So what if the work takes a little longer to get through. Our Francey, it shows that all the study and the work she’s done has been to
some purpose. Your father and I are so very proud of you.” And in her enthusiasm, Lucia jumped up and gave her daughter yet another exuberant hug. “It is very good, is it not, Mr Nicholson?”

“Yes, it is. Please, call me Aden.” He already knew Francey had worked her way through university because her parents hadn’t been able to pay for her tuition and books. One day they’d been at a business lunch and she’d said she had a good deal of compassion for waitresses because she’d been one herself. He also knew she had worked as a housemaid at one of the hotels in the city.

They spent a half-hour in the Spinetti’s living room, until Carlo’s persistent yawning caused Francey and Aden to be on their way.

In the taxi, on the way to Potts Point, Aden became consumed by what had been niggling at him for some time. He had to know. Office gossip! His secretary, Marg, said Francey had a thing about men, that she liked to keep them at arms length or even further. Aden prided himself on being a practical man and what was the point in harbouring a dream if there was no chance it could come to fruition?

“The partners wondered why your boyfriend, someone special, wasn’t with you tonight.”

“Did they?”

He decided to come clean. “Well, actually, it was me. I wondered why.”

She didn’t hesitate. “I don’t have anyone special in my life right now, Aden. I haven’t for a long time.”

It took a moment for him to digest that and then he said quietly, “I see.” Although he didn’t really, and he longed to ask why. That Francey Spinetti didn’t
have a man in her life made no sense at all. She was too lovely for members of the opposite sex not to be interested in her. But he was glad no-one was at present. Damned glad.

“One day I’ll tell you why.”

He jumped at that. “Why not now?”

She shook her head at him and gave him a slow slightly mysterious smile. “Because it’s late and it’s a long story. Besides,” the taxi pulled up outside her apartment block, “the meter is ticking over.”

He wanted to say to hell with the taxi meter, however, he knew her nature well enough to know that she, not he, would choose the time of the telling. “I look forward to it.”

After he’d seen her to the door and she was safely ensconced in her apartment, she leant against the closed front door and mentally recapped the evening. First place.
Recognition.
Again she shook her head at the wonder of it. And then at the wonder of Aden. For a second or two she had thought he would kiss her goodnight, but he had hesitated and the moment had been lost. A pity. Still, recalling the way he had looked at her all evening sent a shiver through her, a feeling she hadn’t had since, she sighed, way back then. It was early days yet.

“W
here’s CJ?” Shellie Kirkby, bringing a loaded breakfast tray out to the patio table on the screened-in verandah of the Murrundi Downs homestead, asked Natalie deWitt-Ambrose.

“In his study. Talking to a journo, I believe,” Natalie said as she dried herself. When at home she swam regularly before breakfast in the pool which was visible from the high verandah.

A two metre hedge of green conifers ran around three sides of the pool and the tennis court, for privacy and protection from wind and dust storms. Past the hedge and the profusion of mostly native shrubs in the landscaped garden lay the beginning of CJ’s vast cattle station, now just one of his business interests. The land beyond the range of the bore water sprinklers was reddish-brown, the grass yellow and sparse even though there had been unusually good rain recently.

“They seem pretty thick at the moment, CJ and this journo.” As she spoke Natalie slid into a silk robe and knotted it around her waist before sitting on one of the cushioned cane chairs. “God knows what mischief the two of them are concocting. Probably some politician or big name about to bite the dust.” For a tall woman Natalie had small hands and feet. She deftly finger-combed her boyishly short platinum-dyed hair back off her face. On many the style looked harsh but it suited her striking, sharp features and olive skin.

“Don’t CJ and Les have a business meeting with that sea cat company in Cairns today?” Shellie asked in the servile manner she’d grown into over the years as she poured Natalie a glass of freshly pulped pineapple juice.

“They’d better have. This afternoon, I think. I plan to cadge a lift to Cairns so I can drive up to Port Douglas. I want to check on how my art gallery in Macrossan Street is shaping up.” Her tone hardened. “I don’t trust the bloody builder. I reckon he’s screwing me. Dollar-wise, that is.”

That wasn’t the only reason Natalie was anxious to reach Cairns. She had planned a rendezvous with a certain person, but she had no intention of mentioning with whom. It would shock Aunt Shellie too much. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Shellie shake her head. Her stepaunt didn’t like the way she spoke, so when CJ wasn’t around to berate her for her common tongue she quite enjoyed seeing Shellie squirm. In fact, her lips twitched slightly as she thought about it, she enjoyed making lots of people squirm.

Grey eyes sighted Les Westcott coming from the direction of the jackeroos’ bunkhouse at the rear of
the homestead. A fine layer of dust lifted as his boots scuffed the earth. She licked her lips and then let them stretch wide across perfect teeth. Natalie liked to see Les squirm too, only it was harder to achieve because of his laconic manner and perennial poker face. Still, she chuckled inwardly, in the past she’d managed to get him going a few times.

“Morning all,” Les greeted the two women as he removed his hat and dropped it onto an empty chair. “I’m so hungry I could eat a —”

“Horse,” the women said in unison.

Natalie laughed, the sound a touch brittle. “God, you’re so predictable. You make the same comment every morning, no matter what’s served for breakfast.”

He shrugged and stared at her. “So I’m a creature of habit. That’s not a crime, yet, is it?”

Shellie could almost physically feel the tension between the younger people. Everyone at Murrundi Downs knew they’d had a falling out over something and, where once they’d been good buddies, now they could barely speak civilly to each other. “No, it’s not, Les,” she acknowledged his question. “What would you like?”

“A bit of everything, Shellie. You know me.”

“I have to go to Cairns. Okay to grab a seat on the plane, Les?”

“Sure, it’s big enough.”

Les Westcott just managed to disguise his annoyance. That’s all he needed. A two hour plus plane flight with Natalie rabbiting on in his and CJ’s ears. He wouldn’t mind if her conversation didn’t centre so much on herself or her damned art galleries. The Ambrose heir, he grudgingly admitted, had
become quite the successful businesswoman. Six years ago CJ had loaned her the money to set up an art gallery in Brisbane and since then she had successfully developed galleries in Noosa, Cairns and now Port Douglas. In fairness though and to her credit and everyone’s surprise, she’d insisted on paying the original loan back to her stepfather, with interest.

Thinking of the flight ahead he decided on an extra hearty breakfast to fortify himself so he added two extra rashers of bacon and a third slice of toast to his plate. “Takeoff time is zero nine hundred hours.”