The Crone's Stone Page 7

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  “Okay! No need to push.”

  This was not the gleeful arrival I’d fantasised about often during long, lonely periods at school. Until I got to my room. Two humongous blurs galloped forwards, yowling with joy. They knocked me flat on the threshold. Bea’s hunting cats, Vovo and Cherish. This was more like it!

  “Puddytats!”

  We tussled with a flurry of licking steel-brush tongues, batting paws the size of hubcaps and purrs, as I scrubbed their broad heads. These were no ordinary felines, but some extremely rare breed Bea had imported from lands obscure to take care of the rodents common in our old building. My least tolerable phobia – I could not stand rats.

  But Vovo and Cherish were more than up to the task, overkill actually. Nearly the size of tigers, they had wise yellow eyes and black silky pelts. Their claws could easily disembowel a wild boar. They were my most consistent, adored, playful childhood friends.

  “Okay, kitties. Let me up.”

  I sat and felt Hugo’s presence behind me in the doorway. An assassin. Oh, it was simply too silly! The prankster messed with my already muddled head. Cherish bared his teeth. Vovo hissed, the fur at her neck rigid. I’d had no idea they were such excellent judges of character. I decided not to believe ‘anything and everything’ he said.

  I surveyed the cream and chocolate extravagance of my room, a magazine-perfect space minus Chablis. No more dorms that smelled of wet wool, desperation and other people’s feet. No more evading the barracudas cruising the school in search of prey. No more Mallory and Chad and their pet vulture, Bird.

  My gaze roved appreciatively over rows of shopping bags and shoeboxes from designer boutiques lining one long wall beside my built-in wardrobe. As well as the new clothes, Mrs Paget celebrated my arrival with bowls of hot pink orchids on my nightstand and desk. She was a brilliant gardener, although like many of the other mysteries of my existence, I’d never actually seen the hothouse where this occurred.

  The excitement of my homecoming finally overcame the weirdness, but before I could revel in it, something tucked in the far corner near the ensuite snagged attention. “No way!” A made-up cot was plonked in a cleared space where my reading chair had been. “I absolutely draw the line. I don’t care if you’re a Terminator. You are not sleeping in here with me!”

  Hugo chuckled again, only this time it was genuine. That he was capable of proper mirth came as a shock. I craned up at him to see shoulders the span of the Harbour Bridge jiggling, as if I was the butt of the most hilarious joke.

  “Bea!” I bawled at the top of my lungs, any delight at my homecoming disintegrating by the second. “Beeaaaa!”

  His laughter lessened the intimidation of a military knife strapped at his thigh, in case the gun didn’t suffice. “This will be fun. Like a sleepover.”

  “Oh, now you’re using your words?” I said waspishly.

  “I’ll let you paint my toenails. We can do the quizzes in the Cosmopolitan.” He laughed until tears stained his cheeks.

  “Honestly, Winsome,” Bea reprimanded as she squeezed her way past Hugo. She stepped over me and went to lay a thick white towel on the end of his bed. She fluffed my pillows and used the remote to close the motorised blinds, dimming the brightness of my bedside lamps. “You are behaving like an infant. The gun will be stored in a lock box, if that is your concern. I fail to appreciate the joke, Hugo.”

  That made two of us. He gathered his composure, swatting moisture from his cheeks, while I wore my best denied toddler pout from where I sat cross-legged on the floor. “Sorry, Ma’am.”

  “You may wish to rise from there, Winsome, please. You’ll create a bottleneck for Fortescue, who’s bringing along your tea presently.”

  Good! At least they’d all be stuck in the hall until I moved. And where did my concerns even begin to begin? Perhaps Bea worried if she left a loaded gun close by I might shoot Hugo. It was a fair observation. As her promises were probably as reliable as her answers to any of my dozens of questions, I gave up. Scraping together my remaining shreds of dignity, I hauled myself upright, smoothed my rumpled shirt and said with a righteous huff, “Thank you, Aunt Bea. But food won’t be necessary.” Lucky I’d eaten those nuts. “Unless the courtesy of an explanation is forthcoming, I’m going to bed.” I would formulate a counter tactic in the morning.

  I startled awake to muffled city sounds and the whine of the blinds. “Ahh, you’re awake, Winsome. Excellent!” I peered blearily at Fortescue, who placed the remote in its holder by the window across from my bedhead, balancing a breakfast tray one-handed and eyeing me with a raised brow in expectation.

  “Things must be real slow if that’s how you define excellent.” I flung an arm across my face to block the morning sunshine, but it was all too bright, painting the inside of my lids a throbbing red. Worming beneath deluxe Egyptian cotton, I threw the sheet over my head and groped for a pillow to plonk on top.

  “Now, now, Mistress Winsome. Carpe diem and all that! We have a full programme to get through, not the least of which is properly welcoming you home.” A teacup tinkled against silverware as the platter was set down. I’d already caught a delicious waft of strawberries. “Out you come.”

  “I hold grave fears for my retinas. The sun in Austria’s a candle compared to Sydney’s spotlight.”

  “I am sorry for your distress, Mistress Winsome.” He had an aggravating way of ignoring my melodrama. “However, it is difficult to catch your meaning mumbled from under layers of goosedown.”

  “A guilt trip this early?” I mumbled some more.

  Fortescue bustled around noisily, pretending to tidy non-existent mess. “It is almost 9 am. Come along, now. Peanuts and sodium hardly make for sufficient nourishment over almost two days.”

  My traitor stomach growled loudly. Besides, he’d wear me down with professional cheer and slamming wardrobe doors as he packed away my new clothes. I wriggled from my sheet-bound womb in defeat. At least Hugo was nowhere to be seen. I guessed he was off polishing his pistol or bruising iron in the gymnasium I’d never used in the sub-basement. I sat up, my hair probably resembling that of an electrocuted yeti, and groaned on sighting the garment bags draped over Fortescue’s arm.

  “I can’t believe Aunt Bea dobbed me in for the nuts. Please tell me that is not evening wear.”

  “Of course it is. Judge Smith is holding an art showing tonight at his penthouse. You will attend with your aunt, chaperoned by Hugo. Your breakfast is served, Mistress Winsome.” Fortescue flourished a white linen napkin, draping it across my doonahed lap. “I see your fondness for the Australian colloquial has reached rock bottom?”

  I treated this as a rhetorical question. My vocabulary was a topic I ignored with a studiousness rarely applied to homework. Along with the subject of nutrition. The only food endorsed by my minders was so organic it originated steaming fresh from the compost heap and tasted as appealing.

  “Would a hug before breakfast be too much to ask, Fortescue?”

  “Changing the subject?” He smiled tightly, reaching in for an arm-lock that was so brief it rivalled a nerve impulse. I hadn’t even removed my hands from the bedclothes before he snapped back to attention. “Very wily, Mistress Winsome.”

  “I’ve learned from the best.” One day, I’d scratch that impenetrable outer coating of his and catch a glimpse of the real human being underneath.

  “I have a full range of summer-wear for your perusal. Winter woollens will render an unbecoming baked look. Shall I take the liberty of laying something out, Mistress Winsome?”

  “Thanks! I really can’t understand how I managed to avoid nudity without your assistance at boarding school.”

  “Oh, dear. Sarcasm – the province of the intellectually stifled. It is beneath you.”

  “Yes, well, stifled intellect aside. Please, for the love of all that’s normal cease with the ‘Mistress’. I might be tempted to slip into black leather with spikes and purchase a knotted whip. And Fortescue?”

 
“Yes, Mistress Winsome?” he inquired earnestly.

  I grinned. “If you force me to ask one more time, I’m turning the tables and addressing you as Jerome. Maybe, J-Dawg or Big J. It’d be the perfect title when you accompany me to the S&M shop to help pick out my new studded doggy collar.”

  Fortescue’s mouth twitched at the corner. He tilted his shiny, bald head and regarded me with what I chose to interpret as affection. I wondered idly if he used a buffer of some kind.

  “9.30 am sharp, then … Winnie. It is very good to have you home.”

  “It is very good to be home.” Good, but baffling.

  He reversed his perfectly groomed and lanky frame out the door, making walking backward seem as natural as any other direction. I’d tried it and ended up with a collection of bruises. Fortescue reminded me greatly of the man who played wheelchair-bound Professor Xavier from the X-men movies, only with less actor’s whimsy and better mobility. I reached over to collect the tray from my bedside table and deposit it on my knees, enthusiastically attacking strawberries and yoghurt. While I slurped freshly squeezed juice, I dwelled not so enthusiastically on the coming night’s torment.

  Chaperoned by Godzilla, how quaint! What an utter spectacle the judge’s party would be. And based on previous experience, getting out of going was as likely as world peace. The single saving grace was Vegas’ guaranteed absence, which saved me