So Far Into You (8 page)

‘Compared to what I do?' She cut him off.

‘It's only one step from a prostitute, Remy. And a baby bloody step at that.' He didn't like it. He didn't like one bit of it, and there wasn't much use pretending otherwise. ‘There are other ways to get money, like a loan from a bank. Did you ever think of doing that?'

‘You find me the bank that will loan a twenty-three-year-old girl who hasn't held a job more than six months, and her unskilled mother, any money. We don't have any savings. We don't have any collateral except Mum's crapped out Nissan.'

‘What bills are we talking about here exactly? I get the impression we're talking about more than a utilities bill, or the rent?'

She pinched the knee of her pants. ‘It's not about paying bills, so much.'

‘Are you in debt, Remy? You and your mum?' The urge to look after her gripped him. ‘You could ask for an advance on salary. We've done that before when staff members have been experiencing hardship. It's no big deal.'

‘I bet you have a policy for it.'

He did, but damned if he was confirming that right now. ‘You need to ask your manager for an advance. I think we advance up to two weeks' pay. Greg Trimble brings the request to the board or to me. Depending on what the problem is, we might be able to do more than two weeks.'

Her shoulders did this little jump when he said two weeks', like she found it funny. ‘Thanks for the offer, Seth. But we're fine.'

‘What kind of debt are we talking about here, Remy?'

‘It's nothing. Don't worry. I'm used to looking after myself.' She picked up the pages of the itinerary she'd knocked off the couch earlier and sneaked a peak. ‘Charles de Gaulle?'

Changing the subject.
‘That's in Paris.'

‘I know where Charles de Gaulle airport is.'

‘Sorry.' He kicked himself yet again, for being a patronising arse. Seth sucked in a breath. ‘When I get back from Bordeaux—how about we go out and have that coffee for real. I'd like to get to know you properly. Start again.'

‘There's still the workplace memo.' She pinched the seam of her work pants. ‘I don't see how we can—'

‘That memo is there to discourage personal relationships between staff where they might endanger a safe workplace. A few years ago one of the cellarhands crashed a forklift and knocked a stack of oak barrels. It just missed crushing another worker, and this was because he was flirting with a girl from cellar door and he wasn't paying attention.' Seth pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘We know we can't tell our staff who they can and can't'—he'd been about to say
fall in love with,
but he changed it to: ‘see.'

‘
Hell and Tommy.
No wonder they call it the no bonking in the barrel hall policy.'

He laughed. ‘Hell and Tommy. Where does that come from?'

‘My father used to say it. It's about the only thing I kept of him.' She smiled, with her mouth but not with her eyes. A small, sad smile and seeing it, something inside him broke. He wasn't sure it was a part that could be fixed.

‘Don't be sad, Rem.' If he kissed her again, could he kiss that sadness away?

Remy was on her feet,
moving,
stealing his heart. He didn't want to meet her halfway, because she was so very lovely to watch walk across the room, but her hands came out and he reached for them, and he was about to hug her tight to his chest when the handle of his office door rattled and they sprang apart.

‘Seth? Are you there?'

‘I didn't lock it,' Remy muttered, patting at her tangled hair.

‘Seth?' The handle moved and the door was pushed open. His mother stepped into the room, twisting to her left to grope for the switch to the overhead lights.

‘Don't switch the—' Light stung his eyes. ‘Never mind.'

Ailsa's gaze flicked over Remy like she wasn't there. ‘I thought you were driving to Perth tonight, Seth?'

Remy cleared her throat and said, ‘I was just leaving. Thank you for that discussion, Mr Lasrey, it's very helpful. I feel a lot clearer about the policy now. Goodnight.' She turned to his mother: ‘Goodnight, Mrs Lasrey.'

Remy ducked around his mother and fled.

Ailsa sat heavily on the cushions of his couch and wiggled her shoulders. ‘She's left me a warm spot.'

‘What did you want, Ailsa?'

‘I
knew
that girl was trouble. What are you thinking? Have you lost your mind? What would your brother think?'

‘She's not with Blake.'

‘That doesn't mean I want her to switch her attention to you.' She recrossed her legs. ‘Please will you invite Helene to visit for a few weeks after Bordeaux? That will stop tongues wagging. Or start them. Depending on how you want to look at it.'

‘I'm not inviting Helene anywhere.'

He stonewalled her glare for a while and it was Ailsa who spoke first. ‘Have you said anything else to Blake about this surfing thing?'

‘Not since I saw him Sunday morning.'

‘Well, he's just been up at the big house and he says it's definite. He's going to try out for the qualifying tour.'

‘Did you wish him luck?'

‘
Luck?
'

Seth shrugged. ‘He's doing it whether you approve or not.'

‘No I didn't wish him
luck
.' Ailsa had sat forward, now she relaxed into the cushions. ‘At least, darling, I've still got you.'

‘That's something else I'll be putting on the agenda for next board meeting.'

‘What is?' She rocked forward again.

‘I want to take some time off.'

‘Excellent. I told you, you work too hard.'

‘Extended time off. Four months maybe. The summer.'

‘The summer? Are you serious? You're nearly thirty, not sixty. You're in the prime of your life. I can't believe this: first Blake throws it in, then you, all in the one night. Sometimes I wonder why I even bothered starting this business. When Joseph and I were thirty we—'

‘—Planted the cabernet block by hand … I know. You've told me.' He and Blake had heard the Joseph-and-Ailsa-plant-the-vineyard-all-by-themselves bedtime story like some kids got read
The Cat In The Hat.

‘It's that girl, isn't it? I can see it on your face. I wish Blake
had
slept with her and be done with it. He'd have her out of his system and
you
wouldn't want her if you knew Blake got there first.'

His voice cracked across the room. ‘That's enough, Mother. I plan on seeing a whole lot more of Remy when I get back from Bordeaux. If she'll let me.'

‘If she'll let you?' Ailsa swallowed a brittle laugh. ‘Of course she'll let you.'

Seth rubbed his jaw. ‘If, by some great stretch of the imagination, she doesn't run a mile from my family, get it through your head: I
like
the girl. I like her a lot.'

‘You don't
like
girls like her, Seth. They're bed warmers at best. Underlay, not the quilt. She's not marriage material. Her father's a drunk.'

‘Her father
was
a drunk. He's dead. And who said anything about
marriage?
'

‘No one did. But I know you, darling.' She smiled at him without showing any teeth, and then she stood up to leave. ‘Blake's not the marrying type, but you are and you can bet she knows it.'

‘I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that, Mother.' He couldn't let her get away with saying something like that. ‘But that's the last time you insult Remy in my hearing. She's important.'

‘And I'm not? This company's not? You only just met her, Seth!'

‘What's that got to do with anything? I've known you my whole life and all you're doing right now is pissing me off.'

‘Seth!' Ailsa cried, as her knees crumpled. She sat back hard on the couch, on the verge of tears. ‘How can you speak to me like that?'

‘Look, Mum.' He softened his tone but he wasn't about to apologise. Ailsa's meddling had to stop. He and Blake weren't kids anymore. ‘The last thing Dad said to me before he died wasn't about working longer, or working harder or earning more money. He said: do what makes me happy. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a lot to do and I still haven't packed.'

He knew Ailsa wanted to have the last word—she was a master at that. Her mouth twisted. Her chest rose as she puffed herself up, but what came out was a whimper, not a roar. ‘Well then, I guess there's nothing else for me to do but say goodnight. Have a safe trip.'

‘I will. See you in a fortnight.'

Chapter 6

Remy drove home after fleeing Seth's office, detouring to the chemist for some cold and flu tablets on the way. The encounter with Seth had distracted her from her sore throat, but the chill evening air outside the winery freshened her cough and it was proving hard to stop.

Lexie was at work, but there was a plate of lasagne in the fridge and all Remy had to do was heat it up. Not that she felt like eating.

She was washing her dinner dishes when the phone rang in her work bag, and such was her rush to get to it before it flipped to message bank she bashed her hip on the table hard enough to send the packet of flu tablets skittering to the floor.

Then the screen lit with Seth's name and she forgot the pain. Remy picked up. ‘Hi.'

‘Hey. I rang to apologise for my mother.'

‘A wise woman told me once you never should apologise for what someone else does,' she said.

‘Who was that?'

‘Meryl Streep in some movie.'

‘Meryl is a very wise woman.'

They were quiet, just breathing, until Remy said, ‘Where are you? What time is the flight?'

‘I'm just the other side of Bunbury. It leaves Perth at 11.10 tonight.'

‘When do you get back?'

‘Two weeks. I'm back late on the Tuesday night.'

It felt like forever. Remy gripped the phone as if it might slip through her fingers. Like
he
might slip through her fingers.

‘Remy?'

‘Yes?'

‘Whatever is going on with this money you owe, or your mum owes? Whatever it is that you think you can't tell me. I'd help you. I'd be there for you. You know that, right?'

It choked her up. It really, honestly, choked her up and it wasn't just that her throat was getting worse, or that her head felt thick and foggy. What did you say to that?

‘Thank you.' It was trite. There were no words that could convey what she felt. In the last few days, Seth had made her feel less alone and Remy didn't feel like that often. She and her mother had been fighting an uphill battle for such a long time.

‘I mean it, Rem.'

‘I know you do. But we're fine. Mum and I … we'll find our way through it. It helps though. Just the thought you care, that's enough.'

She couldn't tell him about Doug Mulvraney. Not on the phone. Mulvraney had eyes and ears everywhere and she wouldn't put it past him to know people who could trace such a call. If she was honest with herself—and she always tried to be—it was more than that. So far Seth didn't seem to care about her father's reputation, or her paltry finances, or the fact that she lived in a house that was falling down around her ears. But she'd seen his face when she admitted to the phone sex work:
a bloody baby step from prostitution.
Would knowing she owed money to scum like Doug Mulvraney be the final straw?

She wasn't ready to find that out. Not yet.

‘Honestly, we'll be fine, Seth. It's just a short-term deficit kind of thing. A hitch in the cashflow. Another couple of months and we'll be through it.' She hoped that was true. She hoped she sounded convincing.

Maybe she did, because Seth said, ‘When I get back, I'm going to prove to you that you can trust me, okay? But in the meantime, sweetheart, you sound like you should take it easy. That voice doesn't sound good.'

Sweetheart.
‘I'm okay. It's just a sniffle. I think getting soaked on Saturday is catching up with me.'

‘You should take tomorrow off.'

‘Is that the boss speaking?'

‘It's me, Remy. It's always me when I'm talking to you.'

***

It took a long time before Remy could fall asleep that night. She woke feeling lousy and she had to drag herself through the next morning, blowing her nose every five minutes.

Her mother said she should call in sick—even offered to phone in for her—but Remy didn't want to give anyone at Lasrey any reason to question her work ethic. Not after Ailsa burst in on them last night. Not with Seth away.

Greg Trimble rostered her to spray the cabernet for powdery mildew. It was a job she normally enjoyed, but today the noise of the quad-bike made her head ache, and time and again her mind turned to Seth—how he was, what he was thinking—and frustratingly, maddeningly, how amazing it had felt to be pinned by him to his office wall.

Seth wouldn't have needed Sixty Seconds to prove his point last night. If they'd played the game for real, he'd barely have needed six.

***

‘Canasta.' Grinning, Allan Dale laid his cards on the lunchroom table. Remy and the other three players sitting with him groaned.

Remy was tallying the values of what she carried in her hand, when Rina Stein burst into the lunchroom like a boxer coming out at the bell. ‘There you are, Greg! There's something wrong with the vines by the driveway.'

Greg put his cards on the table. He had a broad, leathery face and a sunglasses tan that made him look like a brown panda. He'd been at Lasrey for more than a decade and the staff who'd been there long enough, and dared, called him Pops. Remy hadn't been there long enough and Rina didn't dare.

‘Whaddaya mean something's wrong?' Greg said.

‘They're spotty-looking. They've got no vigour. They just don't look happy, dammit.'