Each Way Bet (7 page)

Eventually, as the taut silence stretched uncomfortably around them, Jack got up and started clearing the table. This was made a lot easier by the fact no crockery had been used. Instead, all Jack needed to do was collect the various oil- and sauce-splattered pieces of paper and scrunch them. Megan immediately jumped up to help her father, and this seemed to break the spell. The chatter, muted at first but quickly settling back into its usual rhythm, flowed once more and Jack turned and gave Emily a rueful grin as he carried the sauce-splattered butcher’s paper over to the bin. He really was rather good looking, Emily realised with surprise, a bit bear-like and shambly – but good looking all the same. She wondered how long it would take him to find someone else if Jill really did leave. Because it
never
took men as long to re-partner as women – no doubt something to do with supply and demand.

‘So I guess we should do something about those then?’ Jack ran his hands through his hair, which left it sticking up in small blond spikes once more, as he stared at the three boxes sitting by the table. ‘They won’t unpack themselves. Unfortunately.’

‘What’s in them?’ asked Emily curiously, getting up and taking her soggy paper over to the bin. She noticed, with considerable surprise, that despite the use of paper, the sink seemed to have refilled itself with dirty dishes. A
lot
of dirty dishes.

‘The Melbourne Cup stuff, I suppose,’ said Jack morosely.

‘Oh! Melbourne Cup!’ Emily, forgetting all about the magically replenishing dishes in the sink, looked across at him with her hand on her mouth. ‘God – sorry! I was supposed to tell you that it’s not at Corinne’s now. That Will’s father has –’

‘Had an accident,’ interrupted Jack with a wry smile. ‘I know. That’s who I met at the door earlier – well, not Will’s father obviously. Will himself, with the boxes. And he filled me in. Stupid old bugger. So I gather we’ve now inherited hosting duties.’

‘What?’ Megan looked over at her father with surprise. ‘You mean, we’re, like, having it here then?’

‘Seems that way. Lucky us.’

‘Totally!’

‘Lucky uth!’

‘Cool,’ agreed Matt with a nod. ‘No Auntie Corinne.’

‘And
those
piano recitals,’ Kate added, rolling her eyes meaningfully.

‘Anyway,’ said her father, running his hands through his hair again and looking around at the state of the family room, ‘what it does mean is some work tonight cleaning up this place. And unpacking these boxes your aunt, um, kindly sent over.’

‘Want me to help?’ Megan flipped her plait over her shoulder and picked up a box before waiting for an answer. Without moving an inch, Kate sneered at her sister’s helpfulness and leant back, arms folded across her skinny black chest in a clear message of non-involvement. To Emily’s surprise, Matt came straight over to assist and hefted another box up next to Megan’s. But then, while his father was opening up the lid, he
skilfully sidled out of the room and disappeared up the passage. Totally oblivious to the fact that his son had just escaped, Jack peered inside the box.

‘Good god! Have a look at this lot!’

Emily came over and dutifully looked inside but by then Jack had already started emptying out the items, one by one.

‘Flapjack! Carpet bowls! A motorised horseracing game!’

‘Look, Dad.’ Megan held out a sheaf of papers from her box. ‘Lists of instructions, schedules of events, and she’s even printed out this year’s horse quizzes!’

‘Excellent!’ said Jack, ignoring the paperwork. ‘She’s sent over the crown and anchor stuff. The day may yet be saved!’

‘Score one for Corinne!’ Emily said happily.

‘Yum! Fairy-cakes!’

They all stopped what they were doing and looked over at Cricket, who had crawled under the table to open up the third box. And, sitting with her legs crossed and a huge smile on her face, she was surrounded by food. Food everywhere: fairy-cakes, assorted nuts, bags of corn chips and pretzels, several tubs of dip, even what looked like a speckled mud-brick but might have been a cling-wrapped date loaf. From the midst of the abundance, Cricket grinned up at them and then turned her attention back to the box. She pulled out a large blue-lidded Tupperware container and, pushing the fairy-cakes roughly off her lap, started to try to wrest it open.

‘Halt!’ yelled her father.

‘What?’ asked Cricket with astonishment. ‘Why?’

‘Because it all has to be put away, that’s why. Preferably intact.’

‘I’ll do it.’ Emily bobbed down and started repacking the box haphazardly. She had a brief but strenuous wrestling contest with Cricket over the Tupperware container that held, as they all saw when the lid finally flew off, a large quantity of
mince. Emily thought it looked very similar to the rejected meal that she had assembled earlier.

‘Cool, looks like tacos tomorrow!’ Megan said.

‘Yum, yum, bubble gum.’ Cricket handed Emily the lid and then scrambled out from under the table to assist her father with his unpacking. ‘Look! Prizes! Yay – a thlinky!’

On her way to the kitchen area with the food box cradled against her chest, Emily paused and turned to see exactly what a thlinky was. Obligingly, Cricket held it up and waggled it in her direction.

‘Thee?’ She bounced a metallic spiralled contraption off the edge of the table. ‘
This
is what I want! I’d
love
a thlinky!’

‘Slinky, Cricket,’ said her father distractedly, frowning at a poster featuring several horses leaping over a row of beer stubbies, ‘with an s.
Sss
-linky. Enunciate.’

‘Just what I said.’ Cricket gave him a look obviously reserved for complete morons. ‘Thlinky.’

Emily continued over to the island bench where she dumped the box with a sigh of relief. Then she fetched her scotch and looked at the sink, still overflowing with dirty crockery, and at the benches, which were littered with lunch-boxes, sauce bottles, food scraps, a pile of junk mail and a set of tiny pots containing a variety of sickly looking herbs. She took a sip of the scotch and, turning, leant against the bench to survey the family room. And that was twice as bad. Dust, clutter, and even an incredibly ugly china cow whose enormous salmon-pink udder had one teat that looked like it was giving everyone the finger. All in all, the house was a mess. In fact, she decided suddenly, whatever it was that Jill spent her days doing, it obviously wasn’t housework.

She sighed and, leaving aside the surroundings for the time being, surveyed her temporarily inherited family. Matt had not reappeared since his earlier escape and, despite a methodical
thump-thump of music emanating from the direction of his room, his absence did not seem to have been noticed by the rest of the family. Kate, while not bothering to actually disappear, was nevertheless not what one could call a participant. Although Emily did notice that she had moved slightly closer to the action and seemed quite interested in what was going on. However, anytime either her father or her elder sister looked up, she would quickly transfer her gaze and refold her arms emphatically.

Megan was the exact opposite. Thoroughly involved and thoroughly helpful, she had already neatly stacked the paperwork on the table, and was now arranging the games and the prizes in separate piles. Next to Megan, Jack was still pulling things out of his box, running his hands through his hair every few minutes and groaning. Cricket had vanished back under the table and, surrounded by crumbs, was eating several fairy-cakes and playing with her thlinky.

Emily took another sip of scotch and then chewed her lip worriedly, because nobody, including Jack, seemed to be taking control and nobody at all was acting like part of a team. Instead each person simply did exactly what he or she felt like, with little of the order and organisation that Emily was used to. She suddenly had a horrible suspicion that was where Jill usually came into the equation, and someone was going to have to fill the gap if anything at all was going to be accomplished here tonight. And she had an even more horrible feeling that that someone was going to have to be her.

Jill was sitting in the stadium at the local netball courts, watching Megan’s team trounce their opposition, when Adrian
Ludekens, whom she hadn’t seen since they had been in English class together in Form 6, sat down next to her and plonked his hand on her knee. She slapped the hand away automatically and frowned at Adrian, who still seemed exactly the same as he had twenty years ago – thin, spotty and sporting an Adam’s apple that looked like it would be more at home nestled amongst the Alps. Not that she’d known him particularly well even in high school – all they’d ever shared was a speaking part in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, and she’d been so mesmerised by the continual movement of his Adam’s apple she had forgotten all her lines.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said huskily, putting his hand straight back onto her knee. ‘Did you give up on me, darling?’

‘Um, no. Not really,’ Jill mumbled, knocking the hand away again and staring fixedly down at the netball court so that he would take the hint. Then, for good measure, she crossed her legs. Unfortunately, a split second before she did so, Adrian put his hand back on her knee, which meant that his hand was now trapped between her upper right knee and the inside of her left thigh. Obviously delighted at this turn of events, he began to massage her bare flesh with gusto. Jill shrieked and jumped to her feet but, just as she turned to give Adrian a piece of her mind, Megan scored a goal on the court below and everyone in the stadium started to applaud. So Jill joined in, clapping and cheering until Megan and her team-mates ran up the wrought-iron spiral staircase at the end of the court and disappeared into the house that Jill grew up in. Then Jill sat down again – right on Adrian’s lap, as he had used the intervening minutes to sidle across and position himself perfectly. And this time there was no escape as he quickly wrapped his arms around her waist and held her tight.

Immensely surprised by his actions
and
the fact that suddenly she didn’t seem to be wearing anything except knickers,
Jill was just about to start shrieking again when she realised that it actually felt quite nice. So instead she decided to pretend to be asleep. That way not only would whatever happened not be her fault, but she wouldn’t have to look at his spotty face or his Adam’s apple while it happened, either. A win-win situation. Delighted with this plan, she stretched languidly and inched a little closer to him.

Adrian responded to this tacit invitation with a rather restrained eagerness. Instead of leaping straight to third base, he began an oddly sensual little body exploration around her waist and hip region, massaging and stroking and generally setting her on fire. Jill moaned and, while so doing, managed to wake herself up enough to realise several things. One was that the likelihood of Adrian Ludekens being in her bed giving her a massage was extremely remote, and the second was that whatever it was that had gotten into Jack, she thoroughly approved. Accordingly, still keeping her eyes closed, she arched her back and sighed invitingly. Jack immediately leant over, nibbled her ear and, as his warm breath sent shivers up her spine, slid his hand up past her ribcage to cup her right breast.

It was this cupping that caused Jill to realise a third thing – a rather
important
third thing. And that was that the hand now cupping her right breast was not, strictly speaking, Jack’s. It wasn’t big enough, for one thing, and the fingers were longer and more, well, dextrous. For a split second after this realisation, Jill froze, her heart thumping so loudly she was sure the hand would have to start vibrating with her shock. Then, as she realised it obviously wasn’t going anywhere unless she actually
did
something, Jill opened her eyes and, at the sight of the large, dark, vaguely masculine but distinctly unfamiliar shape looming over her, shrieked in panic and shot over to the far side of the bed so quickly that she tumbled straight over the edge and, grabbing frantically at the sheet, hit the floor with an almighty thump.

Silence followed this. An uncanny silence that, as it continued, seemed to pulsate around her palpably. Jill used the silence to try to gather her thoughts – and the sheet, which she carefully, and noiselessly, wrapped around her so a trifle less bare flesh was on display. She also managed to work out that (a) the intruder was closer to Emily’s phone than she was, (b) the intruder was also closer to the bedroom door than she was, and (c) there was no way she would be able to outrun him whilst wrapped in a king-size bedsheet – unless he was in a wheelchair, which was unlikely as he must have been able to get up the stairs in the first place.

She took several deep and relatively silent breaths to steady herself and then made a quick bargain with God. Something along the lines of: if you let me get out of here in one piece, then I will never think again about leaving my husband or my children or even the pets, and I will stay in my own little suburb where I’m supposed to be and never, ever leave again. Because straying from home was obviously why whatever was happening was happening. Sort of like Little Red Riding Hood – except more mature, and less picnic orientated, and without the red cloak, or any other clothing for that matter bar a pair of turquoise cotton knickers. Jill took another deep breath and prayed for God to send a message that she had been heard.

And the lights went on. Abruptly and emphatically, and with a sudden brightness that made Jill gasp and hunker down even further into her sheet. As she could still see the overhead light from her position, and it definitely wasn’t lit, she guessed that the lamp on the other side of the bed had just been turned on. Speculating that this action was the precipitator to some sort of attack which was now imminent, she took a deep breath and prepared to defend herself. But the seconds dragged by, once more, with no further action. After what seemed like an hour,
but was probably only about three minutes, Jill decided enough was enough, and that she was not going to play this torturous cat and mouse game anymore. Accordingly, she tensed her muscles and prepared for a dash to the door.