A heatwave sailed in from the desert that night. Lisa tried to sleep, but her body felt heavy and sticky like Play-doh. She thrashed her sheets onto the floor.
Roasting inside his new fur coat, Mojo watched over her from the end of the bed. Sometime after midnight, she felt him thump on the floor and creep away. She checked her phone. Nothing from Scott.
Not long after, she heard an unmistakable tapping on her bedroom door. Jake. She toyed with the idea of letting him in, but it would be the same old routine—unless Belle had taught him some new tricks. A vision of the first-class air tickets to New York hovered over the bed like a delectable pastry. Maybe, with counselling, she’d learn to trust him again. They could talk about it in the morning. She screwed her earplugs in deeper and rolled over.
Soon after dawn, she slipped into her kimono and flung the balcony doors open. A hot breeze licked over her. She slammed the doors and pulled the curtains, before bundling up the sheets and smoothing fresh, cool ones onto the bed.
Downstairs, a note from Portia sat under a glass on the kitchen table. ‘Gone 2 Melbourne with Zack. He’s got aircon xxxx.’
Kiwi flapped on her perch and squawked to be let outside. The cockatoo sailed out the door to the orchard as if it was perfectly normal to take to the skies in 40-degree heat. Meanwhile, Mojo lay as stiff and lifeless as a museum specimen on the flagstones.
Lisa’s throat was dry, and her eyes felt like poached eggs after the pan had boiled dry. Yet the day had barely started. She filled a glass of water.
‘You’re looking lovely,’ Jake said, suddenly appearing at her elbow.
She sensed him leaning towards her and on his toes for a kiss. She raised the glass to her lips. It was the perfect barrier.
Freshly shaved, Jake smelt of moss and was wearing a black T-shirt with ‘STAY CLASSY’ across the front. ‘Look what I found,’ he said, turning their old photo album in his hand.
Jake made plunger coffee for them both and carried it on a tray out to the veranda. The sofa was still lying on its side like a dead animal. He sat on the top of the steps and beckoned her to join him. Side by side they pored over the album, chuckling at the sight of their younger selves radiating desire under the Fijian sun. His thigh pressed against hers, almost imperceptibly to begin with. When the pressure became more insistent, she eased away from him. Then he rested his hand on her lap as they cooed over Ted’s baby photos. She lifted his hand and gently placed it on his knee as they ooed over Portia in a pram.
‘I meant what I said last night,’ Jake said, closing the book and leaning towards her lips. ‘Lisa, will you remarry me?’
They were interrupted by the thrumming of tyres on the driveway.
‘Jeeezuz!’ he groaned.
A lime-green Golf trundled to a halt in front of them. Maxine emerged wearing a red paisley caftan and a broad-brimmed hat to match.
‘Look what the wind blew in!’ Lisa said.
‘Isn’t this heat awful?’ Maxine said, tearing off her sunglasses and striding up the steps. ‘I’ve been watching your temperatures. Always two degrees hotter out here.’ She stopped on the second step and stiffened. ‘What’s he doing here?’
Animosity hovered like gun smoke between the two.
‘Just extending my stay a little,’ Jake said.
Lisa invited Maxine into Alexander’s room while Jake scurried away to make another plunger of coffee.
‘That has to be the most exhausting funeral I’ve ever been to,’ Maxine sighed, staring into her compact mirror and shaping her mouth into a scarlet wound.
‘Aunt Caroline would have approved.’
Maxine lowered herself into an armchair while Jake appeared with coffee and biscuits. ‘Guess you’ll be going ahead with the spa pool and everything now,’ she said.
Jake took a mug and perched on the ottoman under the window.
‘Pigs would sprout feathers,’ Lisa said, taking a wistful chomp of a Tim Tam.
Maxine straightened in her chair. ‘Didn’t you tell her?’ she hissed at Jake.
Jake shifted uncomfortably.
‘About what?’ Lisa asked.
‘Our session at the lawyer’s office,’ Maxine said, flashing a lightning bolt of rage at Jake. ‘His lordship here pushed his way in. I tried to stop him but he convinced the lawyer he was representing you and the kids.’
Jake crossed his ankles and shrugged. ‘I only did it because you were rushing back to Castlemaine with your pants on fire,’ he said to Lisa.
Maxine bristled like an echidna.
‘Tell her!’
Jake took a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped his neck. ‘Turns out your Aunt Caroline was loaded,’ he said.
An image of Aunt Caroline wrapping Christmas presents in last year’s paper sprang to Lisa’s mind. ‘But she collected rubber bands,’ she said.
‘Go on,’ Maxine said, dangerously close to pouncing on Jake and throttling him.
Jake cleared his throat. ‘Apparently some old earl was very “fond” of her back in the thirties,’ he said. ‘He left her a fortune.’
Lisa licked the chocolate off her thumb. ‘Good on her. She was a master of secrets. Or, in this case, a mistress . . .’
‘Really, Lisa, you can be so naïve!’ Maxine slammed her mug on the table. ‘Aunt Caroline never spent the dosh. She kept it in her post office savings account. And now she’s left it to us.’
‘You and me . . .?’ Lisa asked carefully, in case the ‘us’ meant just Maxine and Gordon.
‘We’re wealthy now,’ Maxine said. ‘You and I can do what we bloody like.’
Lisa sank into a long silence.
‘And while we’re here, you can tell her your other news,’ Maxine said finally, fixing Jake with a lethal glare.
Jake arranged his hands in the prayer position and sandwiched them between his knees. ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you my investments—I mean our investments—in the Tongan quinoa industry went down the toilet. On top of everything else, well . . .’
‘Tell her!’ Maxine snapped.
Jake shifted his weight on his buttocks. ‘I had to file for bankruptcy.’
Maxine pursed her lips with satisfaction. ‘I sat next to that little floozy of his the night before the wedding,’ Maxine said. ‘She told me everything.’
Lisa felt giddy with shock. Jake had his faults, but he’d always been sensible with money. ‘You lost everything?’ she asked him.
He nodded and stared down at his lap.
Why had he bought first-class tickets when he was on the bones of his backside? The pieces began to turn and click together like glass inside a kaleidoscope. ‘So the only reason you were so keen for us to get back together was because Aunt Caroline left me a pile of dough?’
He stood up, brushed his trousers down and headed for the door. But his exit was blocked by a mass of vegetation. An enormous bush of red bottlebrush and orange eucalyptus flowers filled the door frame.
Visible below the outrageous bouquet was a pair of well-worn work boots, size 13.