Saving from Monkeys (25 page)

"I think there's a gully just down there," he nodded in the direction he meant, "I reckon that'd be the place to let her fly."

I nodded, and then with a quick glance down at where the tops of my thighs were bound tightly together by the bandage dress, held my hands up to him.

"Next time
I'm
dressing as the idiot, and you can go as the slut," I complained as he hauled me to my feet.

He paused in the act of brushing some of the dust off my legs for me and said pointedly,
"Here's hoping there isn't a next time." As I conceded this point, he gave a tug on the hand he was still holding and led me down off the path towards the dip in the land that he'd spotted. The ground was uneven, and I was glad of his steadying grip as we made our way to the lip of the little cliff. Peering down, I could see that a little creek snaked its way through the small valley.

I looked up at Elliot, and then he nodded sharply and I put the rock into the rubber, while he kept a tight hold of the handle, and pulled back as hard as I could.

"Ready?" I asked, feeling the stone beginning to dig into my fingers, but not prepared to let it go until I knew it was time.

"This is the last one, right?" He said thickly, and I felt his hand clench in mine. "Not sure how many more of these goodbyes I can take."

"Last one," I promised. "You good to go?"

"Let her rip."

And so I did, releasing the elastic and sending the stone and flower flying. The bright gold of the flower contrasted with the grey browns of the bush and, in that moment, it was her, Nan, through and through. A sparkle of pure quality in amongst the mundane.

Elliot lowered the slingshot and we stood together and watched the flower break away from the stone holding it down and drift onto the creek. It rested gently on the surface of the water, and then floated away and out of sight.

~*~

Hours later
, I stood in the little guest room I'd been assigned, folding my clothes and neatly stacking them into my bag. It was a far cry from how I'd originally packed, when it'd been done in a whirl and a frenzy back at uni. It was a bit of a mind trip thinking about how different things were now than they had been then so, honestly, I was doing my best not to.

For this reason, when I first heard the light knock, I was happy for a distraction. I
turned, expecting to see Elliot, but it was mum standing there.

"Hey
, hon," she smiled an awkward smile, "you doing OK?"

Was I? I had absolutely no idea.
I hedged my bets. "Quite possibly."

"And Elliot?"

Twisting the jumper I was holding round in my hands, I tried to think of how to answer that one. Was there a word that summed up supreme, gut-wrenching grief and bitterness, mixed with a fledgling glimmer of peace and acceptance? If there was, I didn't know it, so I shrugged again and replied, "He's doing…pretty much as you'd expect." I dumped the jumper into the bag and forced a pinched smile onto my face that almost perfectly matched hers. "Do you need help cleaning up downstairs?"

The funeral had ejected its mystery guests into the Sinclair house and the reception had been in full swing when Elliot and I had eventually returned. I'd left Elliot with Jonah and joined my mum in the kitchen, pouring drinks and distributing finger foods, relieved to be kept busy and be of some service, even if that service was to Elliot's cold-hearted mother.

That was over now, though and I'd taken the opportunity to head upstairs and get myself packed and ready to go. I couldn't see that Elliot was going to want to hang around at his parents’ house a moment longer than necessary and I was also pretty eager to return to uni. More than anything we needed to get back to normalcy, to a place where Nan's absence wasn't so keenly felt.

"No, it's all done," Mum said. "I just wanted to have a word."

I refused to let my heart sink at this. I'd had a pretty explicit demonstration over the past week of what it meant to
really
have issues with your family, and there was no way I wanted things to get 'Sinclair bad' between my mum and me. The least I owed her was 'a word'.

"If the word's 'chocolate' I'll be yours forever." I abandoned my packing, plopping myself down the bed and patting the mattress next to me.

My mum seemed to take that as the peace offering I'd intended it to be, and the line of her shoulders relaxed slightly. "You're already mine forever." She sank down beside me and patted my knee.

I relaxed then too, leaning my head against her shoulder.
"Horrible day," I muttered, breathing in her familiar, comforting smell. "Horrible, horrible day."

She nodded and we lapsed into silence. It was a lovely 'things are going to be alright' kind of moment, but it ended all too soon as she cleared her throat and began to speak.

"I know you and Elliot will be heading back to uni soon, and I want to clear things up between us before you go. That first day-" She broke off to shake her head presumably at the memory of how badly that conversation had gone. "It became about Elliot and that wasn't my intention. What I wanted to say was about you."

Oh goodie, that could only bode well. I pulled away so I could see her expression and was supremely unsurprised to see that she looked troubled.

"I didn't mean to say that you were like me." Mum reached up to smooth back some of my hair, her fingers roughened through years spent elbow deep in moisture sucking cleaning chemicals. "I know you're not. You're so much smarter, braver and more confident than I was at your age."

"At my age you had me clinging to your ankles," I pointed out, ashamed of myself, but already frustrated with the direction the conversation was going. "You were raising me, going off to work, and basically being super-human. Trust me, you win the 'at your age' game."

"Don't romanticise that time, Rox." She was suddenly sharp. "I was miserable, and so were you. I never want you to live like that, and I'm so
angry
at myself that I couldn't,
can't
, give you more."

"You gave me heaps, and I don't need more!" I objected, but she wasn't listening.

"My savings, the money that I was so proud of, they were a drop in the ocean, I know that. I thought that that money would get you further, but -" She broke off and pressed her lips together in a thin line and I felt a painfully sharp spike of unease at the top of my spine.

Not the money
, I thought fiercely,
please don't talk to me about the money
.

"But if I can't give you actual cash, then I can at least give you some advice." Her voice was now firm, her gaze on me steady. Oh yeah, we were deep in 'I'm your mum, so you better listen to me' territory.

"There are people who think that money doesn't matter," she continued as I watched her warily, "but those are the ones who have always had it. Don't think you can measure yourself up to them; right now you can't and I don't want you going crazy trying. Money
is
important. It's vitally important. But, by the same token, you need to know that there are limits to its importance and what you should do to get it."

I was relieved that we seemed to be talking about money in general, not the money she'd paid to the uni for my accommodation. All that remained now was to give the pearl of wisdom I'd just been handed a tap and a bit of a shake to try and figure out what it was.

"Sooo..." I said slowly, "what you're saying is...don't be a stripper?"

There was a pause, a pause I was totally used to. It was the 'what did she just say?' pause and, frankly, I expected better from my own mother.

"No, Rox, that's not what I mean." She sighed after a couple of seconds, and I felt like doing a bit of sighing myself as I said,

"I don't know what you
do
mean, then."

"I mean, look at this house," Mum gestured round at the plain, but somehow still
expensive, guestroom. "Look what money's done to this family. Mrs Sinclair thinks it's the only thing that matters, whilst Nan, bless her heart, thought it didn't matter at all and was happy to sponge off her daughter. Elliot watched all of that happen and now he doesn't know whether he should be the rich playboy, or cast it all off. It breaks my heart how confused that kid is, and I don't want that for you. I'm worried that I've given you mixed messages and-"

"Oh
, Mum." I shook my head. "That is so not even..." I got the message now. It was the curse of staff who worked so closely around the upper echelons. You simultaneously are and aren't part of their world and, yeah, it could get confusing sometimes.

Maybe M
um thought all my work at uni was in aid of becoming like the Sinclairs, of getting to be legitimately part of their world, but she was so very wrong. I didn't want what they had. I wanted
better
. Not
more
, mind you, just better.

"I'm not going to be a stripper, I'm not going to be some Scrooge-like miser, and I'm not going to be a possession-less nomad," I promised her. "There's got to be safe ground in amongst all that, and I'm going to find it and set up permanent camp."

She tipped her head back and, for a moment, her eyes seemed to become wet. Then she blinked a couple of times and her face was a picture of relief. "That's good, sweetheart, I'm going to hold you to that."

I was glad she was feeling better about the whole thing, but now
I
was the one swamped with unease. My mum was already so concerned she hadn't done right by me, how was she going to be if she ever found out what I suspected about the savings she'd paid my uni? It was so
not
the time to get into it, though, so I forced myself to look as pleased by the upshot of our chat as she did.

We hugged as a sort of full stop to the conversation, and then separated. Mum headed for the door and I stood on unsteady legs to continue packing.

"He's lucky, you know." I looked round as mum spoke again. "Elliot, he's lucky to have you looking out for him," she explained. "I don't know what's going on with you two, and I don't really want to know," she added as she saw me opening my mouth to protest. "Just...be careful."

And, with the air suddenly thick with what I construed as an unspoken 'don't let him knock you up and ruin everything' vibe, she was gone.

Gah! I puffed out a heavy breath and glared down at the bag. How stupid was it that I'd spent years distrusting Elliot with my mum telling me off for it, and now things had been reversed? It was disorientating and on top of Nan passing away...

So, yeah, when I heard the door click open again, I just plain lost my temper.

"Seriously mum, we've been over this now. I'm not going to be a pregnant stripper," I pretty much shouted.

"Good to know."

And that wasn't my mum. Monkeys.

----------

His head throbbed, his throat felt scratchy and his knuckles pounded their desire to hit something. He basically felt raw, inside and out, but she still managed to make him smile. He propped his hip against the doorway and watched as she slowly turned around, her cheeks red.

"Pregnant stripper?"
He asked and she folded her arms.

"I'm finishing uni this year," she said, in a poor attempt at nonchalance. "Mum and I were just going through my options."

"Pregnant stripper?" He repeated.

"
Don't be snob, Sinclair," she said sharply. "For some people that's a perfectly valid career choice."

"But not for you?" He questioned innocently, and her eyes narrowed.

"I've weighed it up and decided no."

How she still managed to sound haughty, despite the complete nonsense she was talking, was one of her gifts, he decided.
One of her rare, insane gifts.

He held up his hands to show he thought she was nuts, but was letting it go, and started to walk towards her.
"I was coming to ask if you were OK with leaving tonight." He looked over at her packed bag and felt a little tug at his lips. "I guess that's a yes?"

She let out a disbelieving laugh. "That's a
hell
yes. This week has been...," she flicked her eyes, still red and sore looking, over at him. "Well you know what it's been."

"Yeah."
He really did. "So let's get out of here."

He leant past her to grab her bag, but she put a hand next to his on the handle and tugged it back slightly.
"Just hang about a sec," she said, and something in her voice made him go very still and eye her warily as she added, "Before we go, I need to do something."

"Yeah?"
He asked, wondering what weapon she had hidden in her bag this time. "What's that?"

"I need to talk to your mum."

Well,
shit
.

Chapter 15
– The Sinclair Charity Case and the World Record Attempt

Elliot had gone through a lot of pain over the past week so I was more than relieved to see that my announcement that I needed to see his mum hadn't
hurt
him exactly. He looked more like he had the day I'd slapped him in the face with the slice of salami; surprised, but essentially uninjured.

I could see his mouth beginning to form a 'w', though, that I could only assume was going to head a 'what' or a 'why'. As I had to save
all my verbal prowess for my upcoming stoush with his mum, I held up a restraining hand.

"Just let me do this," I said quickly, already feeling my nerve starting to slip away. "And then I'm all yours."

I was in such a flap thinking about what I was going to say to Mrs Sinclair that, for a moment, I didn't notice what I'd said. When I did I let out a muted squawk. "To take back to uni, I mean," I clarified quickly.

I went to turn away, but as I did
so, I found myself suddenly reconsidering my need to explain what I'd meant. With the hideousness of Nan dying, things had got jumbled between Elliot and me, but it wasn't a
bad
jumble by any means. There'd been kisses and sex, very good kisses and sex, but 'I'm all yours' was still weird.
Right
...?

"Rox..."
I'm pretty sure Elliot could hear my brain whirring as I tried to piece together where we stood and I could hear everything
he
was thinking in return in that one word. It was deep stuff. Still, I didn't have time for deep just then, and anything with Elliot was going to be tinged with uncertainty until I'd talked to Mrs Sinclair, so I shook my head.

"Nope, no 'Rox...' until I've talked to your mum." And then I skedaddled out into the corridor before I did something completely ridiculous like curl my fingers through his flop of hair and lean up to kiss him.

Perhaps proximity was the problem when it came to Elliot because, as I walked away from him, and towards his mum's office, the strange jitteriness (what Abi would no doubt have called 'bounciness') faded. Maybe it was something to do with just having suffered through the worst week of my life, but what would previously have absolutely terrified me felt more like a boring sort of chore. Like a trip to the bank that you have to make before you get to go out with your friends.

The great big secret Elliot had and that I was sure Mrs Sinclair knew about? I was just going to clear it up, and let it go. Like my mum said, I couldn't let it drive me mad.
With this in mind, I raised my hand and knocked on the door to the office, only feeling the tiniest chill of dread.

"Yes?" I heard Mrs Sinclair reply and I took a deep breath. This was it.

I turned the handle, and peeked round the door cautiously, ready to back off if Mrs Sinclair had someone in with her or something. She was alone, though, sitting at the massive, shiny desk just as she had been on the day Elliot and I had arrived.

"Mrs Sinclair
, do you…um, do you have a minute?" I asked hesitantly.

She looked faintly surprised, but gestured me in, and I shut the door behind myself before walking over and standing before her.

"Take a seat." I don't think she meant it to come out as an order, but it was far from a polite invitation and my movements were stiff as I did as she instructed. "So, what can I do for you?" She asked, at exactly the same time as I said,

"I'm really sorry about your mum."

She smiled tightly. "Yes, I know you are."

Earlier in the day I'd seen her reveal just a little bit of herself as Elliot had stormed out of the church, but there were no chinks in her armour now. I wasn't sure if that made what I had to say easier or harder.

I twisted my hands in my lap, wondering how I was supposed to start. It didn't bode well for the career in commerce I was hoping for if I couldn't even get through an opening statement. The thought of my future was all I needed to give my backbone a brace and I blurted out, "It's about the money."

Mrs Sinclair had gone back to tapping away at her computer as I'd sat there in silence, but now she directed her gaze back at me.
"And what money is that?" She asked carefully and I knew, scary as she was, there was a lot I could learn from Elliot's mum about negotiation. She wasn't prepared to state her position until she knew the lie of the land.

"I'm not sure of the specifics," I admitted, even as I worked hard to keep my voice as neutral as hers. "But I suspect there's been some sort of…
arrangement
made regarding my accommodation, and I want it clarified." It was a mature sentence, and I was proud of it, even if my hands had started to tremble.

"A few months ago," I continued, "I found out about the, um, situation, but then I…forgot."
Monkeys, getting black out drunk and sleeping with the son of the person you were trying to have a serious conversation with really didn't put you on the best footing. Still, I persevered, "Elliot seems to think he can't talk to me about it, but I think I can guess what happened."

"Which is?" Mrs Sinclair asked, sounding only half interested.

"Elliot asked you to give money to our university on my behalf, money that augments what my mum is paying out of her savings." My face was hot with embarrassment, but there it was, the words spoken out loud at last.

With a deep breath, I managed to add, "I think my mum's money wasn't enough for my accommodation and that Elliot and you knew that from the start and compensated accordingly."

It had been talking to Abi that had planted the idea in my head. Explaining how Elliot had forced that holiday on my mum all those years ago, and then Abi pointing out how he'd tried to make things better for me with that trip to Papua New Guinea…it just made sense.

My theory was that I'd somehow found out that not
all the money was coming from Mum and flown over to Elliot's in a rage. How I'd got from there to naked in his bed was still a mystery, but after the past couple of months, not as much of a mystery as it had once been.

I was sure I was right for two reasons. Firstly, I don't think I'd ever really trusted my mum's ability to save enough for my uni accommodation. And, secondly, it was so
Elliot
to see a problem and try to fix it with money.

I realised, as I sat there feeling like a naughty kid at the Principal's office, that, despite being convinced I was right, I was actually really hoping that Mrs Sinclair would shake her head and say that no such
thing had occurred. It would’ve set me back to square one with regards to what
had
happened the night Elliot and I had slept together, but I suddenly wouldn't have minded that so much.

"Your university is my alma mater you know," Mrs Sinclair, picked up her pen and flipped open a file next to her to make a couple of marks, the conversation obviously far from riveting for her. "I went through the Business school, like you're doing. I still have plenty of contacts there; the Chancellor is on one of my boards."

I swallowed a heavy lump of dismay at this, but she didn't seem to notice the profound effect her words were having on me as she continued, "I'm sure you know by now that Elliot has decided to avoid any serious commitment to his future. It would be nice for someone from this house to achieve something at my old school."

So there it
was, a cool, calm admission. There was no denying this woman was fiercely intelligent. There was nothing in her words that held her accountable, but she'd said all she needed to say, regardless.

"I wish you hadn't done it," I said thickly, once I found myself able to force the words out. "I appreciate that maybe you provided me with the opportunity for an education I couldn't otherwise afford, but…" I dug my nails into my palms as my voice cracked. It wasn't tears that were clogging my throat this time
, though, it was humiliation.

"But," I repeated after a moment, "
it makes me feel like my achievements don't really belong to me. And what about my mum? She thinks she's done this, paid for me to have the future I want. It's taken her whole life for her to put aside for me; she would be devastated to think it didn't mean anything after all."

"So don't tell her." Mrs Sinclair flipped the file closed again and looked across the desk at me, completely composed.

Wow. I admit it, even after all these years seeing her being so cold-hearted, I was taken aback by her complete dismissal of my concerns. She obviously saw this as she sighed and put her pen down on the desktop with a sharp little click, before fixing me with a steady look. I finally had her complete attention and it was absolutely terrifying.

"Roxanne, you have a good head on your shoulders," she began and I was still so busy trying not to shrink under her gaze that it took me a moment to register the compliment. "You did your work here competently and thoroughly and I appreciate that that can't
always have been easy with Elliot and his friends around. You're a hard worker, and you were accepted into university entirely on your own merit. Any arrangement external to that may just be something you have to accept. It's not other people's responsibility to make your scruples their paramount concern."

Mind.
Blown.

Everything in me wanted to disagree, but I was initially too thrown by her logic to protest. It was a strange concept, that money paid on my behalf was none of my business, but it was clear that Mrs Sinclair absolutely believed it.
There was so much to this woman, a lot of it bad, but some of it just plain hardcore.

Some instincts were not easily ignored, however, and so, even as I reeled, I managed to grind out,
"I want to pay back the money."

Intense moment over, Mrs Sinclair smiled slightly and picked her pen back up. "Of course you do."

"But," I clenched my fists tight as I added, "maybe it'd be a good idea not to say anything to my mum about it."

"That's up to you." She'd turned her gaze back to her computer, her response the vague one you received from people no longer paying any attention to you.

"So, how much do I owe?" I pressed, worried the audience was over and I hadn't sorted anything out. "Is there a payment plan we can set up, or…?"

I trailed off as she looked over at me her expression sharp once more. "Your end of this bargain is to complete your degree," she said, her voice suddenly hard. "I won't discuss this anymore with you until then."

I had so many questions to ask, everything was still so frustratingly up in the air, but I'd clearly just been dismissed. Getting awkwardly to my feet I realised this was the time that a normal person would thank Mrs Sinclair, but that was just not something I could bring myself to do. Nor, I suspected, would it be something she'd appreciate. So I walked silently to the door, and was just about to leave when she said, "Could you get Elliot to come and see me, please?"

I nodded, but felt a little stir of guilt in my stomach. I hoped I hadn't just dropped him in it with her. Maybe she'd told him not to tell me about the money, probably to avoid a
conversation like the one we'd just had which she'd seemed to find incredibly tedious. It would certainly go some way in explaining why he'd refused to talk to me about it.

This probably should’
ve made me feel better about his secrecy, but somehow, it didn't. The problem was that, even if Mrs Sinclair
had
told Elliot that he couldn't tell me about her paying for some of my uni expenses, I still hated that he hadn't. Maybe it was stupid and unfair, especially after Mrs Sinclair had made it so perfectly clear that nobody owed me anything in this world, but I couldn't help it. I was mad at him. Nothing like the fury I'd felt that night when we'd kissed and then he'd still refused to tell me what was going on, but still a sharp little niggle.

There was going to be no opportunity to privately examine this niggle further, however, as opening the door revealed Elliot to be standing just on the other side.

"Well, hey there eavesdropper," I said uncomfortably, rocking back on my heels. I wasn't sure how much he'd heard, and with Mrs Sinclair just on the other side of the door, I didn't want to go into it immediately so I quickly added, "Your mum wants to see you."

"I heard." His jaw was tight and his eyes held that distant look they always did whenever the big mystery between us came up. God, was he still going to be weird about it even after it was all in the open? How annoying.

I really needed him not to be going into strange Elliot mode again, not after what had just been revealed and the long car ride ahead of us, so I found myself saying, "Hey," and reaching up to poke the tip of his nose. He blinked in surprise and I added, "You're my ride home, so don't go getting grounded or anything."

He raised an eyebrow and I was pleased to see that my words and nose prod had at least burnt off his detached fog, even if he still didn't look exactly happy.
In the disinterested tones of someone actually very much interested, he asked, "I'm still your chauffeur of choice then?"

I snorted. "You're my
only
choice," I pointed out, reddening as I suddenly viewed those words from a different perspective.