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Being Sleek is tomorrow, so I get an early night. Without the aid of medication. Fabienne is going to kick things off again, but this time I want to be there.
When I arrive at the Vinci centre, Alister is already waiting. Hasn’t he seen enough? I winged it last time, didn’t I?
The sight of him sets my senses aflutter. I really am a schoolgirl around him – running away one minute, swooning the next. After that second kiss, I’m worried he’s going to pull me behind the nearest damask curtain and I’ll abandon the workshop to join in. I’ve never felt like this before – this interconnectedness on a carnal level. It’s like a kind of music caressing my skin until it burns. It was never like this with Andrew. When I was sixteen he seduced me with his will, conned me that control was love. He cryovacked my schoolgirl heart and now it’s starting to thaw.
It makes me think of another schoolgirl – Fleur. The one who’s cryovacked forever. Is that why Alister is attracted to me? My lack of sophistication reminds him of her? It’s enough to ring the alarm bells again. But how do I turn back from here?
Being Sleek has an extra edge to it today, inspired by my awareness of the man at the back of the room. The participants pick up on the buzz, and at the end of the day no-one wants to go. While they stay, I don’t have to face Alister, so I call for wine and canapés. By the time everyone leaves – including Fabienne, who makes a discreet exit – it’s late. Just the staff remain, doing a final tidy up.
Alister has said nothing all day. Now he walks up and takes my elbow, then steers me towards the stairs and onto the street. I don’t know where he’s staying, but I’m about to find out. Unless something happens to change the course of history.
It does.
Its name is Andrew.
I shouldn’t have answered the phone. But when I see it’s Judy, I do.
“Thank God, Selkie,” she says. “I thought I mightn’t get you.” Her voice is strange. Husky and desperate.
“What? What’s he done?”
“There’s been...a fire.”
“I don’t understand.”
Beside me, Alister’s face has gone from passionate to pissed off to perturbed. My legs have gone shaky so he’s pulled me onto a street bench.
“It’s gone, Selkie. The Beach Road house. It’s...a pile of ash.”
“But it’s been there for a hundred years. Why would it...burn down now?’
“Old weatherboard – it happens. The police are investigating, but it could be as simple as an electrical fault.”
Something fizzes in my brain. “We had the house rewired.”
“Something else then. I’m sorry, Selkie. It’s not my preferred way to solve a property settlement.”
“There’s...still the block of land,” I stammer.
“Yes. And less to quibble over, so he shouldn’t object to fifty-fifty. Plus the insurance.”
The insurance. It’s happening too fast and my head is spinning. She suggests I call the insurance company, but it’s not yet daytime in Sydney.
“Where was he...when the fire broke out?”
“Far away.”
“Of course.”
“Fire investigators will go over it, Selkie. With a fine toothcomb. The insurance won’t pay until they’re satisfied. If they’ve got questions and they don’t pay, then you’ve lost your equity in the house.”
“And I get to visit Andrew in prison.”
We haven’t said it yet, but we both know. Me, because I’m psychic and my skin’s been prickling with heat all day. Judy, because she’s got a nose for ex-husbands with a penchant for revenge. It’s Andrew’s final act of retribution. He only ever wanted a house near the beach, any house; but I was the one who slaved my guts out trying to turn it into a home. Destroying what I created makes for the ultimate payback. If he can get away with it.
Alister walks me to Fabienne’s, knowing our evening has gone up in smoke. Fabienne is staying with a friend, so he pours two glasses of wine and finds bread and cheese in the fridge. I haven’t got the stomach for it. I keep remembering the heat on my skin all day, how I thought it was Alister. Judy’s call has created a greater sense of loss than the pile of cinders that used to be my home.
I know he’ll go if I ask him to, but I need his company. When I fall asleep on the sofa, he covers me with a blanket and makes a bed for himself on the other couch – as I discover when I wake around midnight after a disturbing dream.
A cat was on fire. It raced along the top of a paling fence, turned its blazing eyes on me, then disappeared. I’ve never liked cats, but I know someone who adores them. Juliet’s been posting images of the tiny kittens she’s been hiding under Andrew’s floorboards. The dream makes me check in with her on Facebook, but she hasn’t posted anything since the fire.
I look at the clock, then call the insurer in Sydney. I keep things like policy numbers in my Dropbox files, but when I give them the number I find Andrew’s got the drop on me.
“He’s cancelled our joint policy and taken out a new one in his name only,” I tell Judy when I call her back.
Something in her voice changes – the suspicion she was suppressing for my sake. “Did he now? Did they say when?”
“They wouldn’t tell me any more because I’m not on the policy.”
“Clever,” she says. “When the fire’s deemed an accident, the insurer will pay him the full amount.”
“But it’s my house too.”
“You’ll have to sue him for it.”
***
When daylight steals into the room, neither of us is very good company. We’ve spent our first night together on separate sofas, fully clothed, and with Andrew haunting the space between us – a wraith with ash on his face.
Without a word Alister scrambles eggs, while I keep seeing the pile of embers where my house used to be. The ultimate symbol of my homelessness. I’d already said goodbye to it when I won the green card and ran away, but its destruction – and my suspicions – have rekindled the emotion of giving it up. This morning it feels like Andrew has finally claimed victory over me.
After a silent breakfast, I see Alister to the door.
“Please don’t leave town without telling me,” he says, giving me a platonic hug.
“I’m not going anywhere till the seminars are over.”
Another week. Then what?
“I thought you might jump on the next plane to Sydney.”
“No. What about you? When do you go back to London?”
“I’m finished in London. With business. Pleasure is another matter.”
His apartment. The one with two bedrooms. Perfect to consolidate our new sleeping arrangements.
“Or there’s New York,” he says. “Davina flies out in a day or two.”
It might have been fun, a few days together in either city. But the fire has burnt our fingers.
Derek phones. When I tell him the news, he’s in no doubt about who’s been playing with matches. “Torching the house – that’s ruthless even for a troglodyte like him. But it’s hard to disguise arson. Those investigators know all the tricks.”
“Judy was talking about an electrical fault, but all the cabling’s new.” And something about that’s bothering me.
“They’ll find where it started – which room, which piece of furniture. Then they’ll know.” He pauses before adding, “It’s tough that the house is gone, Selkie, but...it cuts another cord with Andrew, doesn’t it?”
“Burning down my house and pocketing all the insurance money? Yep, he’s cut the cord all right and set me adrift with nothing, DD. Nothing to show for eighteen years of oppression.”
“I know, but sometimes bad things have a good side, that’s all I’m saying.”
I say goodbye to Derek, and cry until I’m done. I no longer own a house with Andrew Tabrett. It’s hard to walk out on all those years with someone, even if he’s destroying you. I got away from him, but the house where I never belonged was shackling me to Andrew. Because the walls were smeared with my essence?
Until we reached a property settlement, it was always there, mocking my search for home. Burning it down was the final card up his sleeve, but Derek’s right. He’s set me free. Haggling over insurance money and a vacant block of land might keep me dangling on his leash, but for me there’s no emotion any more. Now it’s just about money.