The Thousand Smiles of Nicholas Goring (13 page)

"Were you driving at the time?"

"Yeah."

Robin thought that was hilarious. "Oh right, it's such a big secret he just blurts it out as soon as he sets foot in another country … Which is why I don't believe you, Nicholas, with all your ‘This too shall pass'. As if it ever passed for you. And David never quite got over Denise either – did you?"

Dave cast him a wink via the mirror. "Yeah, maybe not."

Nicholas was still looking a bit pinched around the mouth. "How did you know?" he asked Robin when he could get a word in edgewise.

"Well … when I was young, I spent most of my life paying attention to you, didn't I? And there you were, spending most of your life paying attention to Frank."

"God! I tried so hard to be discreet. For his sake, you know? I never wanted to get him into trouble."

"It's all right," Robin said. "I don't think anyone else knew. Or didn't take it seriously, if they caught a hint. Except Simon, of course."

Nicholas shifted to sit back properly in his seat, as if he needed the support. "Simon knew?" He glanced at Dave –

And Dave confirmed this with a nod. "Simon knew."

"Oh God. Well. I suppose Simon always knew everything that was going on, didn't he?"

"Pretty much," Robin and Dave chorused – and then shared another laugh.

Poor Nicholas had just had his world rocked. But it didn't take him too long to rally. "All right, then. You have some good examples to follow, don't you, Robin? You treat Chloe as well as I treated you. As well as Denise treated David. Maybe not quite as well as Frank treated me," Nicholas added with a nostalgic kick to his smile. "You do that, and chances are she'll remember this last week as the happiest idyll of her life – at least until she meets the guy or girl who'll love her back." Nicholas's hand slipped over to rest warmly on Dave's thigh. "And then you'll have stood her in good stead, because her heart will still be whole, and her own to give."

Robin was gaping in wonder at all this. Eventually he blurted, "Nicholas? I do love you, you know."

Nicholas turned to smile at him with wistful whimsy. "I know, my dear. And I love you, too."

Despite which, Nicholas was soon back to bothering over Robin. "Did you hear him referring to Chloe as a kid?" he demanded of Dave once they were home, and closed bedroom doors separated them from Robin. "And Monica – who's two years younger than him – referred to him and Chloe as kids! I mean, that really was the most perfect week, don't get me wrong, but wouldn't you have expected him to befriend the older of the pair?"

"Aren't girls meant to grow up quicker than boys?" asked Dave. "At least, that's what I was always told. Maybe it was just cos Denise was always smarter than me, though."

Nicholas offered him a brief sympathetic smile, but was not diverted. "Monica was quite mature for her age, I suppose, and there's no denying Robin tends towards the opposite."

Dave emptied their bag of dirty clothes into the laundry hamper. "Maybe you could try taking him a little more seriously, Nicholas. Robin can seem like a different person when you're not around. When he's with you … it's almost like he reverts to the eleven-year-old boy you used to know back when you were living in England."

"Oh … I hadn't thought of that." Nicholas sat on the edge of the bed. "Oh yes, I see. I, uh … I know I get a bit giddy and drop at least a decade of intelligence when I'm with my father."

That made Dave laugh. "Giddy, yes. I reckon it's one of the reasons he adores you. But no one would ever call you unintelligent!"

Nicholas favoured Dave with a warm glowing smile – but then reverted to the topic of Robin with an irritable shrug. "Do you know, I'd almost started to think that the gap year was a good idea? I was beginning to think he wasn't ready yet – not for an intense course like PPE, anyway."

"Not that I know anything about the course, but I bet he's ready. He's clever, like you are – and I'm sure he knows his own mind, Nicholas."

But that led directly back to the question of Robin's sexuality, and it seemed Nicholas wasn't ready to talk sense about that yet.

There was a knock on the front door a couple of days later. Dave went to answer it, having no idea who it might be as they weren't expecting anyone. He opened the door to discover two men on the patio who didn't seem to be selling religion or a new energy plan. One of them was a white man with a sun-browned face, and the other Asian, perhaps Chinese – both of them middle-aged and wearing suits. "Can I help you?" Dave asked, having even less of an idea about what they wanted.

"Mr David Goring Taylor … ?" asked the white man.

"Yes."

"My name is Harvey. Fred Harvey. I represent the Reddy Eight mining company." He paused, and lifted a brow.

Dave's gut plummeted. "Oh. I see."

"Yes. I believe you've had some dealings already with a Mr Walinski, whose services have been retained by Reddy Eight." When he didn't receive a reply, Harvey indicated his companion, who stood a step beyond his right shoulder. "This is Mr Teng, who represents one of our major investors."

Teng respectfully inclined his head in greeting, so Dave did likewise – but he didn't make a move to open the screen-door, and he said in rather hard tones, "You come to my home … ?"

Harvey grimaced in what might pass as an apologetic expression. "If Taylor Outback Tours had a shopfront or office, I would have met you there. But it doesn't."

"And you couldn't have called first?"

"Would you have agreed to meet us?"

It was Dave's turn to grimace in acknowledgement. "Guess I might have put you off."

"But we need to talk," Harvey implacably continued. "Don't we?"

Dave weighed this up, but he concluded – as he supposed he must – that he should probably get this over with. "All right." He unlocked the screen-door, and swung it open. "Come in, then," he said ungraciously.

"Thank you," said Harvey. Teng offered another polite nod as he passed.

Dave didn't let them any further than the lounge room – which he and Nicholas used, though it was the most formal room of the house, such as it was. Of course Nicholas came through from the family room as soon as he realised they had guests, so Dave did the introductions. "This is my husband, Nicholas. Nicholas, this is Fred Harvey from the mining company, and Mr Teng from their investors."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Nicholas smoothly replied, being the polite Englishman he still was – though Dave noted he didn't offer to shake hands with either man, nor did he offer their guests tea or coffee. "Would you care to sit down?"

Once they were all seated, each pair facing the other across the coffee table, Fred Harvey said, "I'll get right to the point, then."

"Please do," said Nicholas.

"I think we all know why Mr Teng and I are here. It seems, based on a very small sample, that there is a source of hematite out west of Cunnamulla. My company, Reddy Eight, naturally has an interest in that. But before this goes any further, we need to assess what's actually there." Harvey left a pause, but no one leapt in to either agree or disagree. "All right, then. It's not a difficult process to prove that enough volume of the stuff exists to make it worth our while to move in – or to prove that there
isn't
enough, if that's the case. I suspect it's in all our interests to at least establish that much."

Dave slowly took that in. Eventually he asked, "So, just to clarify, you don't even know for sure yet whether there's actually enough there to be worth mining?"

"That's correct, yes."

"And if there isn't … ?"

Harvey lifted his hands palm-out. "Your problem goes away."

Dave huffed a breath in surprise. "Okay, so what do you know about my ‘problem', as you call it?"

Harvey took a moment with that, but then said, "We understand that there's some kind of … problem in accessing the site. That you're the only one who knows the way in." He shifted, betraying a moment's uncertainty. "To be honest, no one can explain to me exactly why that is."

Which drew another huff from Dave. "Not sure I can exactly explain that, either. But," he added, "that's not the whole story."

"No. There's a Dreamtime site out there, and songlines," Harvey said to Dave. Then he turned to Nicholas to add, "Not to mention vulnerable flora and fauna."

"Okay," said Dave. "So whether you understand or not, you've got to know I'll do anything I need to do to protect that place, and the things that live there."

"I respect that," said Harvey. "I do."

"Okay …" Dave repeated, knowing he sounded unconvinced.

"So why are you here?" Nicholas asked.

Harvey shifted forward a little, and said very directly to Dave, "We want to offer you a finder's fee, of sorts, if you'll lead Mr Walinski and a small team – geologists, surveyors – to the location of that hematite."

Dave stared back at him for a long moment, before glancing at Nicholas.

"Reddy Eight is in a position to be … generous. Very generous."

"I'm not the kind of bloke who can be bribed or bought," Dave said, though without much umbrage.

"I respect that as well," Harvey smoothly replied. "I'm discussing a service that you can provide us, and fair recompense for it."

"I've already got all I need," Dave said, with another glance at Nicholas. "Though you probably already know that," he added with a bite to his tone. God only knew what kind of access a moneyed-up mining company had to individual financial records let alone more personal stuff.

"I understand, Mr Goring Taylor."

"And a lot of the locals are keen to have you out there. You don't need to deal with me to set that up."

"But it seems we need you to help find the place."

Dave ignored that for the moment. "And you'll need to be dealing with the Murri, because it's all going to end up as part of their reserve. If you're talking recompense, they're the ones who should have it."

"I admire your principles, Mr Goring Taylor. If you would prefer us to make a donation to the Aboriginal reserve rather than pay you a fee, that would be fine with us, and of course a certain percentage of jobs would be offered first to anyone in that community. Whatever you might think, Reddy Eight is not interested in destruction or desecration, but in cleanly extracting a resource that ultimately we all benefit from – and not only our friends in China," Harvey said with a nod to Teng. "Over half the weight of your Toyota Land Cruiser is due to the steel in it, you know."

Dave's reaction this time went beyond a huff; it was more like a bark of humourless laughter. "Now you're really getting personal!"

Harvey shrugged in something like an apology. "I only wanted to make a point, not cross any lines."

"All right." Dave took a long moment to consider, but he didn't figure anything had really changed. He looked at Nicholas again, but apparently Nicholas was trusting Dave to know what was right to say and do, just as Charlie was trusting Dave, and Thursday and his mob as well. Dave sighed. "Well," he finally said, "it's not that I'll never help, but I'm not ready to help yet. I need to make sure the Dreaming site will be safe. Once I'm sure of that, and I'm sure it's what most of the locals want, then I'll do whatever needs to be done. But not right now, and probably not real soon, either."

"Thank you, Mr Goring Taylor." Harvey stood, and offered his hand.

"Well, don't thank me yet," Dave said. But he also stood, and he shook the man's hand – and then Teng's as well.

"Thank you, sir," said Mr Teng, in an accent that mingled China and Australia.

"Right," said Dave. And he saw them to the door.

Once they were gone, Dave locked up again, and sank back against the door wondering what the hell would be thrown at him next. All he had to deal with immediately, however, was Nicholas stepping close, and lifting a gentle hand to cup Dave's face. "You were brilliant," Nicholas said.

"I wasn't. I'll try to be good enough, anyway."

"You're
bloody brilliant
," his husband insisted – and he pressed close for a full-on kiss as if that would prove it.

The next day that Nicholas went in to the uni, Dave drove Robin in to join Nicholas for lunch, and then the three of them went to talk with Lisa Munroe. Dave hadn't met her before, but could immediately see what had Robin interested. Anyone who had a taste for Nicholas could hardly fail to appreciate her tall lean figure and long face: the first impression of their likeness was almost uncanny. But she wore her dark hair in a thick plait, and her pointed chin was her prettiest feature while with Nicholas it was his plump pink lips. And Dave soon decided that while she had a lovely dimpled grin, it couldn't compete with Nicholas's range of smiles.

Robin was obviously still besotted – though, while he wasn't playing it cool, he seemed more thoughtful than starry-eyed now. Dave contemplated the situation while Lisa and Nicholas compared notes on their half-completed nomination forms for listing protected wildlife. Being bisexual himself made it easy enough for Dave to understand Robin being romantically inclined towards both genders. It was more difficult to get his head around the notion of not wanting to have sex with someone he was in love with – actually
not even wanting to
as opposed to not being able to for whatever reason. But Dave figured that if Robin was happy that way, there was no point in wanting him to be unhappy. What the odds were of Robin eventually meeting someone likewise inclined, and the two of them both falling in love … well, Dave didn't like to think. But surely it
was
possible. And in the meantime, there was … studying and working and eventually becoming prime minister, not to mention family and friends and all the other good things in life.

It must have seemed a bit weird for Lisa and Nicholas to finally look up from her computer and find both Robin and Dave in a reverie. Especially Dave, who was hardly known for being a thinker of any kind, let alone a deep one. Lisa laughed, and asked, "Solving the meaning of life, are we?"

Robin blushed – and Dave didn't have anything on his mind that he particularly wanted to share, so he glanced around in desperation, and as luck would have it the relevant paperwork was right there on Lisa's desk. "Just having a ponder on the Nature Conservation Act," he asserted, knowing that he probably wasn't fooling anyone.