Murfey's Law (2 page)

Another brightly coloured cocktail arrived courtesy of Sara, red faced and puffing. She sat down beside Lori and handed her what looked like a little lime milkshake.

‘Wherever I end up going for this ... hic, oh pardon me! ... enforced break I want you to keep me regularly updated on the office goings-on ok?’ Lori frowned at the bright purple monkey that was clinging to the rim of her glass. It looked odd, just hanging there by itself. There were no other adornments on her drink, no straws, no umbrellas, nothing. Just the monkey. And just on her glass.

Too tipsy to think anything more of it, she picked it off and downed the drink in a couple of gulps. Screwing up her face she shuddered and pushed the glass away. Yuk! That one tasted like it had gone off.

‘It's not enforced as you put it Birdy, it's just unplanned. I know you don't do spontaneity, but maybe just once you should give it a try. Your life has barely changed in the last god knows how long, and you said yourself you needed a new beginning.’

‘I don't think I actually specified a new beginning,’ Lori argued.

‘No need for the defenshive.’ Sara held on to her best friend's face and spoke slowly, if a little slurred. ‘Your job will shtill be here when you get back, I would just be more delightful, no wait...delighted for you if you found shomething new.’

‘Ok, ok, I hear you, loud and clear.’ Lori gave Sara the thumbs up and, as a result of her own deteriorating coordination, nearly poked herself in the eye.

‘Good. And if you want to stay up to date with all the latest office gosship then maybe you should read 'More than Curious George's' blog.’ Sara burst in to fits of giggles almost knocking the glasses on the table flying.

‘George has a blog?’ Lori replied.

‘Oh my god Birdy! You are so far out of touch with the world. If you didn't spend all your time at work actually working then you would have known he has one of the most popular blogs in the whole universe!’ With little control Sara swooshed her arms through the air and beckoned for him to come join them.

Pulling out a tablet from the soft leather satchel he kept slung across his shoulder George squeezed himself between the tables and sat beside Lori. Why did gay men always look and smell so good she wondered as wafts of Gucci struck her.

‘Here, take a look Miss James.’ Giving her his most charming smile, George handed her the device.

As she held it, he tapped the screen several times, sliding his fingers this way and that until the blog loaded and Lori was greeted with a full frontal shot of naked George. Only a carefully placed comments button kept her from dropping the tablet.

‘Jesus!’ She instantly felt her cheeks colour.

‘Don't be such a prude.’ He gently smacked her arm.

Reading just a few of his most recent posts Lori could see why he had become so popular. His writing was both creative and intelligent. The blog provided a humorous insight into the life of a gay man working in a relatively mundane nine to five office job. Several members of Hunter & Hunter were named and she shuddered at the thought of what he may have said about her. Oblivion was probably the best policy for her to adopt.

‘I have a fabulous idea, lets book you a holiday!’ George commandeered the screen, and began tapping away again. Sara had clearly told him about their earlier conversation. ‘Where do you want to go?’

‘Sydneeey!’ Sara roared despite only sitting on the other side of Lori and barely two feet away from George.

‘Perfect!’ He tapped faster.

‘Woah! Hang on a minute.’ Lori tried to diffuse their fervour.

‘There's no time to hang on, the next flight leaves in less than twelve hours.’ George pointed at the screen to emphasise the urgency. Sara clapped with excitement.

‘You two must have completely lost your minds. There is no way I can go jumping on a plane to Australia right now, these things take time to plan.’ Lori held her head in her hands. She couldn't believe she'd had enough to drink to be making her feel this giddy. She thought she had paced herself quite well throughout the evening and was only on around her sixth drink, yet her head was spinning as though it was a good way in to double figures. Added to that, there was a weird taste in her mouth and her tongue seemed to have pins and needles.

‘Oh come on Miss James,’ George implored, ‘for once in your life do something a little wild and crazy.’

The pins and needles appeared to be spreading to other areas of her body, and even though it felt as though Lori was losing control over her limbs, it wasn't an entirely unpleasant tingling. Despite desperately wanting to fight their ridiculous idea, the buzzing inside her was building to a such a crescendo that she could hardly resist the urge to yell, ‘YES YES YES!’

Yes? Did she actually shout that out loud? By George and Sara's reactions she must have done, the pair launched themselves onto her and squeezed and squealed like a pair of teenage girls. Sara threw herself forward so enthusiastically that she knocked Lori on top of George. In one swift movement he grasped her hair and pulled her into a fierce kiss. It lasted merely a couple of seconds, though long enough for the tingling to detonate inside her like fireworks, causing her entire body to spasm in a sort of orgasmic ripple from her finger tips to her toes.

She jumped off as quickly as she'd been thrown on, ‘Shit! George!’

He exploded with peals of laughter. ‘You have no idea how long I've been wanting to do that Miss James.’ George clambered to his feet and brushed himself off.

‘But, but...’ Lori couldn't speak.

‘Oh don't panic, I'm still gay, and I certainly don't have any romantic feelings towards you, it was just a little social experiment.’ George chuckled and patted her arm.

‘Material for your blog I presume?’ Lori was utterly mortified, until this evening she had never even given him a second look. Standing here now she too had no feelings towards him other than derision. What the hell had just happened to her? She grabbed her belongings and shot out of the bar into the freezing night air, chiding herself for having not gone home earlier. This was exactly the reason why she didn't like to drink.

Wrapping herself in her coat Lori reached into her pockets for her gloves, her left hand met something hard and spiky. Pulling it out she stared at her palm in the glare of a street light.

‘Birdy wait!’ Sara exited the bar a minute after Lori, shoes in hand, and ran down the pavement to catch her up.

‘What the hell is this fucking thing supposed to symbolise?’ Vitriol sprayed from Lori's mouth and she waved the gaudy little monkey from earlier in front of Sara's face. She realised now why her glass had been the only one to have it. It was a marker.

‘Oh god, I'm so sorry Birdy, it was a mistake. It wasn't meant for you I promise.’ Sara's face teemed with tears.

‘How could you? You were meant to be my best friend,’ Lori spat.

Sara dropped to her knees on the pavement and sobbed just as Max appeared in the hotel doorway and began walking towards them. ‘What on earth are you two doing down there?’ He called out.

Crouched down to Sara's height Lori whispered fiercely, ‘You spiked my drink! Didn't you?’

‘You don't understand,’ Sara bawled.

‘You're absolutely right I don't understand. I never thought you'd do something like this to me. You know everything about me, about my past. Everything. You know how I feel about this kind of shit. I can't believe I totally misunderstood our friendship,’ Lori seethed.

‘I'm s...s...sorry,’ Sara stammered through the tears.

Max had almost reached them.

‘I'm sorry too. I'm sorry... but I quit.’ She stood up, turned and quickly walked away without once looking back.

Fiercely determined not to cry Lori ducked behind a set of railings and down the stone steps leading to the underground train station. She stood staring at the digital display for what felt like an age. The airport train left every hour, on the hour, all through the night. If she went home right now, she could be packed and back on the platform before the next one departed.

Pulling out her phone Lori worked her way through the enormous network of contacts she had amassed over a number of years and stabbed at the buttons. The other end picked up after three rings.

‘Hello? Yes, I wonder if you can help me. My dad just died and I need to get to Sydney on the next available flight.’

The air smelt warm as Lori stood on the side of the road where the taxi had just dropped her off. The tarmac warmed the soles of her bare feet, and a giant raindrop plopped onto her face. It offered little relief from the clammy evening air. An almost full moon flickered on and off like a faulty light globe as big heavy black clouds blew across the sky. The only noise came from a distant roll of thunder and the rustle of the leaves in the trees as the wind twisted and tangled around her. She had absolutely no idea what time it was, her senses were arguing back and forth between breakfast and bedtime.

As she stood in front of it, the house looked a little odd, not the normal kind of residence she would have expected for a beach house. A large old glass fronted notice board hung on the wall to the left of the front door, a stack of newspapers sat in a wire rack and a blackboard swung back and forth advertising 'Ice Creams Sold Here'.

She was fairly certain the address had said number twenty-three. Each and every word of the short and shocking letter was literally burnt into her memory, but perhaps she had made a mistake? Relying on her memory alone when making wildly rash and intoxicated decisions in the middle of the night probably wasn't likely to yield perfect results. Still, she didn't for a second regret unceremoniously burning the letter, it had been incredibly cathartic, and in doing so, guaranteed she couldn't spend night after night dissecting her father's every word.

Leaving her case in the road Lori walked tentatively along the tarmac. To her right the next house displayed its numbers in swirly words, Twenty One. Padding back past her case to the left of the house was a narrow walkway leading off into the dark. Further left still the next house had a bizarre metal man letterbox with the number twenty-five hammered into his chest.

Well, Lori reasoned with herself, maybe she'd remembered the street name incorrectly, or worse still, completely the wrong village. Judging by her recent run of bad luck it was entirely possible that she was wrong on all counts. Either way, this couldn't be her father's house. The more Lori stared at it the more certain she became, this place was definitely a shop.

From her roadside vantage there didn't appear to be much movement inside, however, the lights were on so hopefully it was still open. Murfey's Beach hadn't seemed that big a settlement from the back seat of the taxi, surely the village shopkeeper would know everyone in the local area, and could help her find where she was meant to go.

‘Hello?’ Lori called out as she pushed open the spring loaded front screen door.

She was spot on, just inside and to her right was an old wooden counter, its shelves were filled with prehistoric looking sweets. On top of it sat a cash register. There was very little room between this and a newspaper rack, reaching from floor to ceiling, on her left. The place smelt as old as it looked. Lori dragged her case through the doorway and past the counter beside which a rusty old freezer whirred and clunked. Peering through its glass top she saw ice creams and lollies sharing space with what looked suspiciously like fish bait.
              Beyond the freezer the shop opened out to a large, almost empty, space. A few wooden shelves and a couple of upright refrigerators half filled with essential groceries were pushed up against the walls.

There was a scratching noise coming from behind a door located between the shelves of tinned fruit and sanitary products.

‘Hello? Anybody home?’ Lori tried again.

This time the scratching stopped and someone responded. ‘Lorikeet is that you?’

‘Umm, yes,’ Lori replied hesitantly. She was a little taken aback, her father must have spoken about her to the shopkeeper. Until the bombshell letter had arrived she had presumed he'd completely forgotten she even existed, let alone admitted it to anyone else. Still, at least this confirmed that she was in the right village.

The door opened and a very rotund, older woman squeezed through, Lori guessed her to be in her mid-sixties at least. Wider than she was tall, she puffed out her big cheeks and clapped her hands together.

‘How absolutely wonderful it is to meet you at last.’ She stepped forward and hugged Lori around the waist.

Lori wriggled free of the woman's grasp. She was clearly not from this planet, the henna red hair and wiry grey roots were the giveaway. ‘I'm sorry but I have no idea who you are,’ Lori spoke truthfully.

‘Oh! I thought you said your name was Lorikeet?’ The woman frowned in confusion.

‘It is, well it's Lori actually.’ She smiled so as not to seem entirely rude. ‘I'm afraid I still don't know who you are.’

The woman laughed. She had a ridiculously girlish giggle, totally not befitting her physique. ‘Oh boy, that smile, you really are Jack's daughter, aren't you? I'm Jenny your father's... well actually, your neighbour now, and I've been looking after this for you.’ She wafted the air with her arms.

Grabbing her case for support Lori tried to focus on the floor beneath her feet as it rolled and swirled like a bad hallucination. She had been expecting the woman to say her father's house was next door, but no. This... there were no words for it, this place was his 'beautiful little house by the beach' as he'd worded it?

Lori recalled something in the letter referring to a neighbour who would look after the place for as long as was necessary, until she was willing and able to come and claim it, but even with the wildest imagination she would never have expected that to mean anything more than perhaps opening and closing windows to air, or watering a plant or two. What on earth had she walked in to? She silently chided herself for making such a rash, and now clearly very foolish, decision. This was proof in itself that, although it may seem mundane, boring even, the way she lived her life was a safe bet, and there was nothing wrong with that. Only now, thanks to her father's selfish unloading of his guilty conscience, her innocuous life no longer existed.

Perhaps sensing Lori's torment, the woman continued softly, ‘I did tell him he should have explained exactly what you were getting in to but he said you never would have come if you'd known, and I can see from your face he was right.’

‘How the fuck would he know a single thing about me?’ Bile rose in Lori's throat.

‘I understand how this must have come as a bit of a surprise.’ Jenny seemed unfazed by Lori's anger.

‘A bit of a surprise? Are you kidding me? I'll tell you what is a bit of a 'surprise',’ Lori pinched the air with imaginary speech marks, ‘the fact that my delinquent father, for some reason unknown even to himself probably, had the audacity to think he had absolutely any idea what I would or wouldn't do. I mean for Christ's sake, the last time we spoke I was still in primary school.’

She knew how ridiculous she sounded, considering her father had been absolutely right about her, she never would have come out here if she'd known, but anybody could have guessed that about her. The point was, Lori hated the fact he thought he knew anything about her at all. There wasn't really much she could do, she couldn't go back to London, back to her old job, she was still way too angry and hurt by what had happened the night before she left. A holiday was exactly what she needed, yet it also felt so wrong to be here. Tired and frustrated, her throat ached and her eyes stung.

‘Oh sweetheart! You must be exhausted. You've been travelling for lord knows how long, and all this is far too much to take in right now. Let me fix you up a little something to eat and I'll give you a whistle-stop tour so you can go to bed and get some rest. We'll go over it all properly tomorrow, ok?’ Jenny placed her hands in Lori's and led her through the back door from which she'd appeared.

From what she could see, the rest of the house looked pretty much in the same condition as the shop. The lighting was very dim, partly because her eyes were so sore, and probably bloodshot, and partly because of the age of the electrics. It didn't really matter to Lori that she couldn't see much of what Jenny was enthusiastically pointing out, as she doubted she would miss anything substantially important to know right now. Key items of note, for which Lori made sure she was fully alert, were the location of the toilet and the bed. There was something about someone called Bob and something about the shop needing to be opened early, but as Jenny also offered to unlock and let Lori lie in she tuned out and ignored the details. Finishing her tea and hot buttered toast Lori said her goodbyes to Jenny.

Outside, the air was thick and sticky, moisture clung to Lori's skin in little beads of perspiration. Despite its slightly suffocating quality she felt strangely comforted by the warmth it wrapped her in. Jenny had mentioned that it had been a particularly warm and wet Spring and that she had high hopes for the Summer, which begins on the first of December. Tomorrow. A crack of lightning lit up the sky and the random raindrops from earlier turned torrential in a matter of seconds. The relief from the humidity was instant.

‘Thanks for the tour Jenny, I'm sorry I was so unhinged tonight, once I've figured out what I'm going to do with the place I'll feel better I'm sure,’ Lori called out over the deluge to Jenny who cautiously ran across the driveway turning left down the front path of number twenty-one.

‘Don't you worry about it love, everything will come out in the wash as my mother used to say. Or was it my grandmother? Oh, anyway... now remember, you needn't set an alarm for the morning, I'll just pop over and open up and then the customers will look...’ A roll of thunder carried her voice and the end of the sentence away with it.

‘They'll look what?’ Lori stepped forward to the edge of the verandah and swung off one of the upright posts. Leaning out as far as she could without getting wet she tried to catch what she'd just missed but it was too late, Jenny's front door slammed shut.

Swinging herself around the post she overshot the turn and spun in a full circle, flinging the remainder of her tea over the fence that separated the shop from the walkway beside it. Whoops! Time for bed I think, Lori thought to herself.

Back inside she flicked the light switch off, sending both the verandah and the shop into darkness. As she pulled the screen door to and latched it, something across the street caught her eye. Another fork of lightning lit up the entire street and in that split second Lori could see that directly opposite the shop, on the other side of the road, sat a police car. A silhouette inside leant forward, started the engine and carefully drove away.

Lori pulled the wooden front door off its catch and shut it tight against the elements. Desperate to lie down she headed out the back and up the stairs. Too tired for the usual rituals she just unhooked her bra and pulled it out through the arm of her vest top, flinging it onto the floor at the same time as she flung herself onto the bed.

Woken by what she thought was a crashing sound Lori rubbed her eyes and realigned the pillows after a fitful sleep. The storm had only abated about an hour ago. It hadn't kept her awake as such, just given her something to listen to as she lay fighting the feeling that she should be up eating lunch. Hearing the noise again her mind filled with thoughts of the roof caving in and so she forced herself to get up and go investigate. Rolling out of bed Lori stumbled over to the window to survey the outside for anything that looked as though it belonged on the house.

‘Holy crap!’ Her hand flew to her mouth and she pressed her forehead against the window pane. Unsure she was really seeing what she thought she was, she rubbed her eyes. Nope, despite jet lagged vision and early dawn light it was definitely still there. Stretching to the horizon where the sun had not quite yet broken through, a choppy blue-green sea filled her view. It wasn't just there in the distance, it was right
 at the bottom of the garden. She pulled on a sweatshirt and shorts and went to investigate.

Below the bedroom, through an archway at the back of the shop, Lori found a huge empty room that she didn't recall seeing the night before. On the back wall, in the middle of a row of windows, half shuttered half bare, was a door. She wriggled free the various rusting bolts and chains holding it shut and stepped outside onto a huge weathered deck which itself jutted out onto an overgrown lawn. The only furniture decorating it was a solitary chair. Beautifully handcrafted, she presumed, and stained the same colour, it almost blended into the decking. She ran her hand over the silky smooth wood, her fingers caressing the knots.

Lori felt something strange. Putting it down to hunger she patted her stomach even though it hadn't made a sound.

A short set of steps led down from the deck into a sandy path stretching through the grass to where the lawn ended abruptly. From here Lori could feel the sea spray on her face as the wind whipped up each crashing wave hitting a platform of rocks below her. The noise it made was what she had heard from the bedroom, but had presumed was the house falling apart.