Losing the plot, p.13
Losing the Plot, page 13
‘Spaghetti bolognaise again?’
‘We haven’t had it for at least ten days. How was swimming? And school? And where’s my kiss?’
Lachie gave her a cursory peck on the cheek. ‘It sucked.’
‘Which? Swimming or school?’
‘Both.’
‘Why?’
Lachie’s face contorted as he struggled not to respond honestly. ‘Dunno. I’m starving. Can I have a packet of chips?’
‘No, you can have a banana. It must have sucked for some reason.’ Lachie looked like he was holding in a secret that was in danger of making him burst, but all he said was: ‘Nuh.’
Vanessa frowned.
‘Hey,’ said Joy from the table, ‘how about giving your nan some of that sugar?’
She tapped her cheek. Lachie kissed Joy too and she slapped him on the bum and it evolved into a playful tussle.
But Vanessa was feeling a little unsettled as she put Daisy’s bowl on the floor. Why had school and swimming sucked? And, more importantly, why wouldn’t Lachie tell her why? Lachie was a voluble chatterbox who couldn’t resist sharing exactly what was on his mind whether other people wanted to hear it or not. Vanessa had always treasured this quality in her youngest son and hoped that he would retain it as he entered his teens, when everyone knew that boys became notoriously non-verbal.
‘Why did swimming and school suck?’ she persisted.
‘Can I have a chocolate biscuit?’
‘No, you can have a banana or nothing, dinner’s in fifteen minutes.’ She looked around in search of her oldest son. ‘Where’s Jackson?’
‘I think he’s tired,’ said Lachie, who was one of the least gifted liars in the world. ‘He wanted to go straight to bed.’
Vanessa and Joy exchanged a look and Vanessa headed for the door.
Joy pushed her chair away from the table. ‘I’ll put the pasta on.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’
Vanessa strode to Jackson’s bedroom with Daisy at her heels.
She stopped at the door and knocked. ‘Jackson? Sweetheart? Are you all right?’
‘Yeah,’ called Jackson from inside, adding a loud yawn for good measure. ‘I’m just not hungry. Think I’ll go straight to bed. ’Night.’ Not hungry? This was a kid who ate half a loaf of bread within ten minutes of coming home from school and then hassled her about dinner.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘No, everything’s sweet. See you tomorrow.’
‘Jackson …’ Vanessa tried to open the door but there was something pushed up against it. Her pulse started to race. ‘Jackson! I want you to get this thing away from the door and open it right now.’
‘I want to sleep.’
‘I don’t believe you. Open the door.’
Daisy picked up on the stress in Vanessa’s voice and started barking. Lachie and Joy appeared from the kitchen, drawn by the kerfuffle.
‘Open this door now!’
‘You’d better open it—Mum’s going mental for real now,’ Lachie called to his brother.
There was silence for a few beats and then they all heard something heavy being dragged away from the door. Vanessa burst through in time to see Jackson jumping back into bed and pulling his Collingwood doona up over his head.
‘Sweetheart, what’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ he said from under the doona. ‘’Night.’
‘’Night,’ Lachie replied unhelpfully.
Vanessa tried to pull back the doona but Jackson clung to it. Daisy leaped onto the bed and tried to lick his face.
‘Daisy, get off me!’
What was going on? Vanessa exchanged an anxious look with Joy and then reached over and yanked the doona free, finally revealing Jackson. He tried to turn his face to the window, but she pulled him back around, then gasped. Jackson’s left eye was black and swollen, and there were purple bruises on his arms. Her baby!
‘Jackson! What happened?’
‘I fell over.’
‘No, you didn’t. You don’t get a black eye like that from falling over.’
‘I did,’ the poor kid insisted.
Vanessa turned to Lachie. ‘Lachie?’
Lachie looked like he was about to burst.
‘You shut up,’ Jackson warned, but he was too late. The dam broke.
‘A kid in year eight said you were a psycho, so Jackson pulverised him,’ Lachie said in a rush.
‘What?!’
‘That’s crap! I just tripped.’
‘Everyone’s been bullying him on the bus. They reckon you’re mental. Jackson’s been, like, spewing every morning before school, and when Ryan Derrickson said you were a psycho, he lost it and punched his lights out.’
‘Shut up!’
‘And then all these other kids started beating up Jackson too, and they were saying, “Rooney’s mum’s a psycho!” and Hamish Mushin Snapchatted that video of Jackson on the swing and he wrote: Little Jackson Rooney just shit his pants.’
A wave of guilt washed over Vanessa and threatened to knock her off her feet. She sank down onto the bed. ‘Oh, sweetheart …’
‘It’s okay,’ Jackson mumbled.
‘It’s not okay. I’m so sorry I didn’t know any of this.’ She hugged Jackson tight, ignoring his protests, and held out her hand to Lachie. ‘Lachie? Is this happening to you too?’
‘Some kids try,’ said Lachie, puffing up his chest, ‘but I just say, “My mum’s going to get fifty million bucks, so you can get stuffed!”’
Vanessa felt a surge of relief. Lachie was much more resilient than Jackson but, even so, the fact that he’d been forced to fend off bullies made her feel wretched.
‘I want to have a talk with Jackson,’ she said, giving Lachie a kiss. ‘I’ll be out in a minute, okay?’
‘Okay.’
Joy took Lachie’s hand. ‘Come on, gorgeous, I reckon you can have that packet of chips after all.’ She winked.
‘Yes!’
‘And Daisy, I’ve got a treat for you too,’ said Joy, and Daisy trotted after them eagerly. Joy pulled the door closed, leaving Vanessa and Jackson alone.
Where to start? Vanessa wondered.
‘You’ve been vomiting before you go to school?’
‘Only once or twice,’ Jackson said unconvincingly. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does!’ Vanessa took his hand and, thank heavens, he let her hold it. ‘Yours and Lachie’s happiness is the most important thing in the world to me.’
But it occurred to her with a stab of shame that she hadn’t been behaving that way. She’d been so preoccupied with her silly fantasies about Marcus Stafford that she hadn’t even noticed her kids were suffering. A good mother would have been on to it, but Vanessa had taken her eye off the ball.
This couldn’t go on.
MARCUS
Marcus was accustomed to masking his feelings with a tactical smile, but he found himself overtly alarmed.
‘You want to what?’ he asked.
Vanessa shifted uncomfortably. Her large blue eyes were apologetic. ‘I’m sorry for wasting your valuable time, but I want to call off the case.’
She was biting her lip and there was something strangely endearing about that, although it didn’t make her announcement any less concerning. Where had this come from? Why now, when Marcus had Charlotte squirming on a hook?
‘But why would you do that?’
Vanessa hesitated, and he saw her eyes moisten. ‘I know we thought the media exposure would be one of our most effective tools, but the whole country thinks I’m a loony—I mean, mentally ill—not that there’s anything wrong with that if I was, but I’m not. And my boys are paying too high a price.’ She actually started crying then. ‘I’m sorry …’
‘No, don’t be.’ Marcus leaped to his feet. He went to sit beside her and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. He vaguely wondered how long it had been there; he always used tissues. He gave it to her.
‘Thank you.’
She blew her nose and then dabbed at her tears. Marcus could sense that this was no premeditated performance intended to melt his heart or put him at a disadvantage. Vanessa Rooney was devoid of womanly guile, and he found himself disarmed.
‘What do you mean, your boys are paying too high a price?’
She lifted his hanky away from her nose, revealing a quaint smattering of freckles that he’d somehow missed before.
‘They’re being bullied. Especially Jackson, my oldest.’
Marcus framed his face sympathetically and made an all-purpose ‘tsk’ sound.
‘He’s very sensitive, and he’s so stressed that he’s been vomiting before school, and I didn’t notice because I was too busy thinking about, um, the case. And now he’s got a black eye and God knows what emotional injuries, and it’s all because of me.’
Marcus took a moment. It was vital that he couch things in terms she’d find ethically acceptable, but he knew from many years of experience that even the noblest of intentions crumbled in the face of the dollar.
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Vanessa. Boys can be brutes. But you have to remember that while the bullying will be temporary, the benefits you’ll be able to bring to their lives from winning this case will be permanent. You stand to be awarded a lot of money.’
‘I don’t care about that,’ Vanessa replied, giving a very credible impression of someone who actually didn’t. ‘I mean, of course I’d like the money. Who wouldn’t? But not at the expense of my kids’ emotional health.’
Marcus refrained from pointing out that with money like that she could afford the best child psychiatrists, so surely a bit of emotional damage was worth sustaining in the short-term?
‘Dave hasn’t lodged our defence to Charlotte’s counterclaim yet,’ she continued, ‘so I think it’s best that I pull out now, before we’re in too deep.’
Her voice was quavering but her tone was unwavering. She meant this. She was prepared to throw away hundreds of thousands of dollars for her sons’ sake, and Marcus found himself robbed of the deadliest weapon in his arsenal. He was suddenly acutely aware of her soft breasts rising and falling beneath her mass-produced jumper, and her shapely thighs pressed against the chair. There was a wayward thread on the knee of her jeans, and he had to resist a sudden and startling impulse to bite it off with his teeth.
‘Vanessa, I hear what you’re saying, but if you pull out now there’s a very good chance the court will order you to pay Charlotte’s legal costs.’
That clearly rattled her, but she rallied. ‘Well, I guess that’s a chance I’ll have to take.’
If there was one thing that Marcus never misplaced, it was his vocabulary, but suddenly he couldn’t locate so much as a word. He watched mutely as she picked up a large cooler bag off the floor and lifted it onto his desk. Her face was aflame.
‘I feel terrible about wasting your time, and I’m sorry I can’t afford to pay you yet. I know how busy you are, and a man living on his own …’ As she started unzipping the bag, her voice climbed a few octaves with embarrassment. ‘I hope you won’t think this is silly, but I’ve made you some comfort meals for the cold weather.’
While Marcus watched, dumbstruck, she pulled out plastic containers full of food.
‘This is osso bucco, and this is spaghetti bolognaise. These are my salmon patties—they’re the boys’ favourite. And this is lasagne and this one’s a chicken and spinach—’ She suddenly stopped mid-sentence. ‘I’m sorry, this is dumb. You don’t want these.’
‘Yes, I do,’ he assured her, and he realised he wanted them very much. ‘I don’t know what to say. Thank you. This is the most thoughtful thing a client has ever done for me.’
And it was, indubitably. The most thoughtful, the most stupefyingly unsophisticated and the most utterly charming thing he could remember. He smiled into Vanessa’s eyes. There was a single tear caught in an eyelash and he found himself transfixed.
‘You’re welcome.’ She blushed. ‘I was cooking for the boys anyway. They love their food.’
Her boys again. Clearly Vanessa Rooney’s world began and ended with her sons. Marcus wondered how it would feel to bathe in the glow of Vanessa’s love.
‘You can keep the cooler bag; we’ve got too many. My mum buys a new one for her bubbles every time she goes to Coles. I’m like, “Mum, you’ve already got about seven of these—where am I supposed to store them?” And she’s like, “Oh, I didn’t realise I had that many,” and, anyway …’ She trailed off self-consciously. She was delightful.
Marcus grabbed a permanent marker from his pencil holder and scrawled Property of Marcus Stafford—Hands Off! with a skull-and-crossbones on the back of an affidavit. He taped it to the cooler bag.
‘Now nobody else will dare to touch this before I take it home.’
Vanessa giggled and it gratified him.
‘I’m going to put this in the fridge, and then why don’t I grab us a coffee?’
‘That would be lovely, thanks. I might go to the, um … ?’
‘Down the corridor, second door on the left.’
‘Thanks.’
Marcus used his time in the kitchen to regain his equilibrium. This case had seemed like a lay-down misère, even with Graham Goetze, Champion of Efoki Villagers, acting as Charlotte’s counsel. Marcus was sure Graham must have taken the case to get under his skin—not quite so saintly after all! But on the upside, Graham’s involvement would add to the piquancy of his win. The only thing he hadn’t factored in was a client who was prepared to forfeit public vindication and a bucketful of money in favour of her sons’ wellbeing. Vanessa Rooney, an unanticipated and surprisingly attractive stumbling block. But there was no way he’d allow her to drop the case.
He’d just arrived back with the coffees when she returned from the bathroom. Her nose was still red and shiny—she hadn’t bothered to reapply her makeup, and he found that strangely enchanting. She smiled shyly and held out his hanky, a scrunched-up snotty ball.
‘I’m sure you’ll be wanting this back now,’ she joked.
He laughed and her cheeks flushed pink.
‘Just kidding. I’ll take it home and wash it first.’
‘Keep it,’ he said with a smile. ‘It’s yours.’ And he wrapped his hand around hers and gently closed it around the hanky.
She gave a tiny jump at his touch, and the pinkness spread to her ears.
Marcus leaned in close. ‘Vanessa, I’m sorry your boys are being bullied, but aren’t your boys the very reason you should stick with this litigation? You’ve been grossly wronged, and I’d argue that you owe it to your sons to model courage in the face of adversity. Surely it’s best for them if you stand strong and prove your integrity?’
She looked tortured, which only added to her beguiling air of vulnerability.
‘I’d love to do that,’ she said eventually, ‘but it kills me seeing Jackson so upset. It’s not fair that he has to defend me—and what about the long-term effects?’
‘I understand,’ said Marcus understandingly. His eyes drifted down to the soft curve of her hips. ‘But what if I could divert the negative attention away from you and onto Charlotte?’
She brightened briefly but then looked dubious. ‘That’d be amazing—but how?’
‘I have my means. Rendall’s almost finished drafting our defence, so why don’t I release the hounds on her in the meantime?’
Vanessa was starting to look hopeful now, and it lit up her whole face. ‘What kinds of hounds are you referring to?’
‘Hairy hounds with very big teeth. If I can guarantee that Charlotte will bear the brunt of the storm and you and your boys will be yesterday’s news, will you proceed with the case?’
She hesitated a moment, then raised her chin. ‘Yes. I will.’
Marcus resisted an urge to kiss her. ‘Consider it done.’
DAVE
As the Redbacks jogged around the freezing oval, Dave was squinting at Vanessa’s phone.
‘Can you believe it?’ she said jubilantly. ‘It just popped up five minutes ago.’ She read aloud: ‘In a damaging new twist in the breach of copyright scandal engulfing bestselling novelist Charlotte Lancaster, the HuffPost has learned that in 1997 Ms Lancaster was expelled from the exclusive Manhattan Young Ladies Academy for copying another student’s essay.’
Dave whistled through his teeth. ‘You’re kidding? This is excellent.’
‘Yeah, and it gets better: Former classmate Melissa Chastain confirmed that Ms Lancaster copied her essay. She told the HuffPost, “Charlotte was notorious for stealing everything, including other people’s boyfriends.”’
‘Excellent,’ Dave repeated. ‘I’m not sure the boyfriends are relevant, but—’
‘Shhh, there’s more.’
‘What, steak knives?’ he quipped, but Vanessa wasn’t listening.
‘The HuffPost has also learned that Ms Lancaster was twice arrested for shoplifting at the exclusive Bergdorf Goodman department store in Midtown Manhattan. It’s believed her father, prominent mining executive Chip Lancaster, intervened to avoid a conviction being recorded.’
Dave’s eyes widened. This was manna from heaven for them. But how had the HuffPost got hold of it?
‘Marcus leaked this to take the attention off me and the boys,’ Vanessa explained.
Dave was taken aback. ‘I didn’t think a barrister was allowed to do that.’
‘Well, he didn’t do it himself; somebody else did.’
‘On his behalf?’
‘You’re missing the point: it’s all true, and it’s great for our case, isn’t it?’
Dave couldn’t help but agree, and somehow that cheered him and depressed him all at once. ‘Yeah, it is. You’re right. I’m still not certain it’s ethical, but Stafford sure knows how to pack a punch.’
‘Yeah, he’s incredible.’
Dave regarded Vanessa’s pretty face, all pink and vibrant beneath her striped beanie. It was great to see her so stoked about Stafford’s efforts, and he wanted her to feel proud of him too. ‘I’ve finished drafting the defence,’ he announced, feeling like a kid trying to get a favourite teacher’s attention. He may as well have been waving his hand in the air. ‘Miss Rooney, pick me!’
