‘Iknow.But given the circumstances and what’s at stake, it would be smart to have an age-appropriate woman next to you. Someone who looks real and relatable.’ She paused for a split second. ‘And it’s not so bad you know.’
‘What isn’t?’
‘Falling in love,’ said Rhona. ‘You shouldn’t block it out forever, Mo. You’re missing out.’
Mo laid the palm of his hand over his heart, safe behind its bony cage, anchored by a deep knowing that giving it to someone just wasn’t something he could ever do. ‘Hmm, well, you never know. I heard a pig flew once.’
‘Hilarious,’ Rhona deadpanned. ‘Okay, I have to go. I’ll send you the meeting details for the morning, and we’re seeing you tomorrow night for dinner, yes?’
‘Wouldn’t miss it.’
Rhona ended the call and Mo cast his eyes around the room. The plants looked like shit. He pushed himself off the couch, grabbed the ridiculous flamingo-shaped watering can Mav had given him for his birthday, and carted it to the kitchen to fill it with water. One by one, he watered the plants, all of them chosen for their ability to be resurrected from the brink of death when he forgot to water them for days on end: peace lilies, a monstera that was threatening to take over the world, and a devil’s ivy that he’d trained to creep over the top of the kitchen doorway.
The fire was crackling enthusiastically now, its glow giving the room a feeling of safety and comfort. Mo took a stick of incense from the box he kept on the mantel. He held it to the base of the fire and watched as it caught, gently blowing the baby flame out to let the scent of nag champa fill the room. His mum had burnt it on her good days and the smell of it still filled him with a sense of home. It was one of the only things from his childhood he wanted to hold onto.
He slumped back into the green couch. Mum. All of this, it all came back to her. The wave of the memory started to engulf him and he knew he was powerless to stop it, so he closed his eyes and braced for the impact.
He’d thought she was asleep at first. She often was, so seeing her prostrate across the bed was nothing unusual. It wasn’t strange to him that he’d had to grill the fish fingers so that he and Mav could eat, nor that it was him who tucked his little brother into bed that night instead of her. She’d been dead for seventeen hours before he’d realised that she wasn’t just asleep.
The facts of that day had haunted him every hour of his life since. That maybe, had he noticed earlier, he could have done something to help her. That he’d watchedBlinky Billwith Mav in the room right next to their mother’s cooling corpse. That she had taken her last breath while little Mav was playing on his own in the front yard and Mo was at school.
It didn’t matter that he was so successful now, that he lived in a beautiful home, that he’d played to millions of people all around the world. None of that meant shit. Because deep inside, away from all the bright lights and celebrity ra-ra, he was still that eleven-yearold kid, watching from the doorway as the paramedic zipped up the bag, knowing it was all his fault.
Chapter Seventeen
NETTA
The cold was really starting to bite by the time Netta passed the Diana Memorial Playground, but the kids playing there didn’t seem to notice the weather. The parents of the older ones stood huddled in coats on the perimeter, staring balefully into the distance or absorbed by their phones. The parents of the younger ones watched over the sandpit, negotiated swing set politics, and, in one case, executed an awkward rescue mission to retrieve a little guy stuck halfway up the pirate ship’s mast.
She gazed through the fence at the joyously chaotic scene before her. Kids everywhere, smiles and snot and silliness, crying and shouting, laughing and cuddling. She loved it all. It felt treacherous, pathetic even, to admit it, but she knew the hardest part of breaking up with Pete was that she’d probably also broken up with the possibility of ever having a little nuclear family of her own.
She swallowed hard against the unwelcome lump growing in her throat and rallied. She didn’t need Pete to have a baby. She didn’t need a partner at all. That would just be putting her dream in someone else’s hands, instead of taking care of it herself. She smiled, comforted by the thought that her man ban didn’t necessarily have to mean a baby ban too.
‘The Queen!’
An elderly woman waving at her from a park bench caught Netta’s eye.
‘You’re staying in The Queen suite, aren’t you? At The Royal Crown?’ The woman was dressed in an ankle-length houndstooth coat teamed with a fur-trimmed hat, her make-up meticulous. A small dog was nestled in her handbag. ‘I’m Audrey,’ she said, extending her leather-gloved hand. ‘I’m staying in the ground-floor suite and spied you leaving this morning.’
‘Oh, yes, The Queen—that’s me!’ Netta stepped closer to accept Audrey’s handshake. ‘I’m Netta.’
Audrey shuffled over and patted the seat beside her. Netta sat down, flinching at the growl emanating from Audrey’s handbag.
‘Don’t mind Fletcher. He’s all bark and no bite,’ Audrey said. ‘Now, call me a busybody if you will, but I simply have to have the gossip!’
Netta’s heart sank faster than a brick in a bath. Audrey had recognised her—she’d want the dirt on Mitch. She braced herself against the lead filling her belly and scrambled for a response. She’d known it would happen sooner or later. Why hadn’t she practised what she’d say when it did?
‘I saw that dishy rock star, Morrison Maplestone, coming down the stairs this morning when I was on my way back from morning tea,’ whispered Audrey conspiratorially. ‘And seeing as there’s only one suite up there, I can only assume he was there to seeyou, my dear.’
Relief flooded Netta’s body. Not Mitch. Morrison! ‘Oh! Ah, yes, he was,’ she said. ‘But nothing juicy, he just had to grab something and then he left. No gossip, really.’
Audrey’s eyebrows disappeared under the fur trim of her hat. ‘Is that so?’
Netta nodded.
Audrey grinned, her whole face lit up with a look of delicious curiosity. ‘I’m intrigued about what you had that he wanted to grab.’
Netta mimed zipping her lips. ‘Just something of his that he needed back. Definitely none of my body parts, if that’s what you’re insinuating.’
