Age of Consent Read online

  Helen tried to ignore the truth of the sarcasm. ‘Well what, then? Surely you’re not looking for a secretary.’

  The chuckle became a laugh. ‘I lied,’ he said. ‘Your typing is worse than your cooking, even, presuming, of course, that anybody would dignify it by actually calling it typing.’ And he laughed again at the gasp that statement provoked.

  Then there was silence, a silence which Helen attempted to use wisely, shifting her mind back through their conversation for a hint.

  ‘Chauffeur?’

  ‘The way you drive? Not on your life. I value my tired old bones too much for that, thanks.’

  ‘You’re not being very helpful.’

  ‘I’m not trying to be.’

  ‘Well then you’ll have to change, because I honestly can’t guess. Especially after you’ve rejected almost every potential virtue I have remaining.’

  He sighed, then spoke in a deliberately soft, enticing voice. ‘Maybe I just want you for my mistress. You’re still not bad looking.’

  Helen giggled. It was an old line, used even when Vivian was alive, and her response was always the same.

  ‘You’re too old and not rich enough, and besides ...’ she halted there with a gasp, realising how hurtful it would be to continue, how hurtful it must be anyway. Vivian wouldn’t approve. That was the clincher in the reply, and she’d said it without speaking the words, without thinking.

  ‘Oh Dane, I’m so sorry,’ Helen cried. ‘I just didn’t think.’

  ‘Forget it. Besides, now she might very well approve, although the rest still holds good. You’re too young and I’m not rich enough,’ he responded, no hint of pain in his voice. But it was there, Helen knew. Despite his hazing, he’d loved his wife beyond all imagining, and probably, almost certainly, loved her memory equally.

  ‘All right,’ she said, ‘but I do wish you’d be serious for a change. This call must be costing you a fortune and I ... I still don’t know why you called.’

  ‘Because I worry about you. You know that,’ he replied. ‘And because you’re such a bad liar, I now know what I called to find out. Things are getting close to rock bottom, eh?’

  ‘I’ll survive,’ she replied quickly, hoping the words would cover the instinctive catch in her throat at his accuracy.

  ‘Be easier down here. Why not fly down for a holiday and take some time to straighten yourself out?’

  He’d said it so casually that anyone else might have been fooled, but Helen knew Dane Curtis better than that. Still, she paused to think before replying.

  ‘I thought we agreed a long time ago that I should learn to fly on my own?’ she replied cautiously, half expecting a sarcastic reply concerning how poorly she’d managed.

  ‘What does that have to do with the price of beer?’ he replied. Casual ... gentle ... too casual.

  ‘Enough that you should know I couldn’t possibly come down there to sponge off you,’ she replied. ‘Not even if I wanted to.’

  ‘If you wanted to, I damned well wouldn’t let you,’ he growled. ‘And if you were that desperate, I wouldn’t have ‘phoned; I’d have come up to collect you personally.’

  Which, Helen realised only too well, he very well would have. Only then it wouldn’t have been a case of sponging, but one of being whipped back into shape the hard way. Dane was a firm believer in the theory that friends didn’t have to be polite, and indeed often shouldn’t be. He’d levelled some harsh truisms at her in the past, and wouldn’t hesitate to do so again.

  ‘Well I’m not that desperate, although I have to admit I’m getting close,’ she responded, already easing back from the brink through the simple knowledge that somebody out there really cared. Somebody special, important, and secure enough in their relationship to be totally straight with her.

  ‘So why not come? Sure as hell there’s nothing there to hold you, or is there?’ And now there was that probing stiletto in his voice, undisguised and irrefutable.

  ‘And do what?’ she replied, half angry again. ‘There hasn’t been a journo’s job advertised from Tasmania in nearly a year, you don’t want me to cook, or clean, or type, or ... well, you know. Some of which, by the way, is really very unfair, because since you last remember I’ve learned to cook quite well and my housekeeping is at least as good as yours.’

  ‘But your typing’s still no good; I’ve got the proof of that,’ he said, tactfully ignoring the final possibility, to Helen’s great relief. ‘Besides, I’m offering you a rest, not a new career. But, if you insist on something useful to do, there’s plenty of work here. Provided you haven’t forgotten how.’

  ‘Forgotten how? What on earth are you talking about?’ she demanded, curious now, but angry because she knew only too well she was curious only because he was arranging things that way.

  ‘Work, my child. Good, honest, out-of-doors stuff, like feeding the chooks and the ducks and the geese, and slopping the hogs, and herding the goats.’

  He paused momentarily at her honest gasp of amazement, then continued with a hint of chuckle still burbling in his voice. ‘Of course I wouldn’t dare let you loose with a chain saw, but maybe I can get one of the neighbour’s little kids to teach you to drive the tractor. And you ought to know all about lambing and such, having been raised with it...’

  Helen’s laugh, almost hysterical with relief, cut him off there. ‘You want me to be a farm-hand!’ she cried, not sure whether to laugh or cry.

  Dane’s voice, when she’d sobered sufficiently to allow him a reply, was totally nonplussed. ‘I believe,’ he said pompously — deliberately so — ‘the proper term is jillaroo.’

  She laughed again, finding the whole idea so absurd, so ludicrous, so ... tempting, despite her certainty that Dane was joking.

  ‘Jillaroos get horses to ride,’ she said then. ‘Do I get a horse?’

  ‘Well ... sort of,’ and for the first time she realised there was a tentative note in that familiar voice. And a hint that he just might be serious, too.

  ‘What does that mean?’ she demanded. ‘You do know what a horse is? Four legs? A thing you put a saddle on? For riding?’

  ‘Don’t be cheeky.’ But there was that faint note of hesitation. Only Helen was now caught up in the game, and although she felt it, should have been warned, she couldn’t resist a snappy reply.

  ‘Not cheeky, just checking the facts — like you taught me,’ she replied. She still wasn’t sure if he was being serious, and really thought it quite unlikely, but still ... ‘And that’s the facts; I want something to ride. Doesn’t have to be a flash Arabian or anything, but something at least fit to throw a saddle on. That, or no deal!’

  ‘Done!’ And it was so quick, so definite, that she found herself holding her breath, waiting for the trap to spring. But all he said next was, ‘I’ll pick you up at the airport.’

  And he hung up.

  Helen sat for a moment, holding the humming receiver in her suddenly-nerveless fingers and wondering if that insane conversation had really occurred. And if it had, was there anything to it? Or was he just playing silly games?

  No, she decided, putting down the receiver in the same instant. Dane wouldn’t play games like that. Never would he involve himself in anything hurtful. And yet ... what?

  Rising, she strode into the bathroom and stood staring idly into the mirror, her imagination toying at the transformation which would be required to return her to a simple country-girl image, It was difficult, after nearly six years in the cities.

  Facing her was a tastefully, if not expensively dressed figure, not a bad figure by most standards, either. She wasn’t what anyone would call really slim, but the youthful pudginess had given way to a reasonable shapeliness. Good legs, anyway. Her hair was her real nemesis. Medium-length, the colour of good bush honey, it looked really nice only when she could spend the time to keep it so, but the once she’d cut it short, the result had been disastrous with her features.

  Wide-set grey eyes above a nose that carried a narrow, hi
gh bridge — the result of falling off a horse when she was younger — dark, reasonably shaped eyebrows, slightly pudgy cheeks and the wide, even- toothed smile that she knew was her main saving grace. When she smiled, her entire face lit up, according to Dane and one or two others favoured with that smile.

  Small-breasted, but not unreasonably so, and with a tidy, narrow waist. And below that, the one aspect of her figure she’d give almost anything to change and probably never could.

  Dane had once called it her ‘horsewoman’s rump’ and had laughingly chided her for being born a hundred years too late. ‘In the last century, love, you’d have been the envy of all the high-class ladies, with a built-in bustle like that,’ he’d said, and taken the sting out of the remark by adding, ‘and damned few women today could match the way you look in a skirt.’

  It was years ago he’d said that, and at the time it had hurt more deeply than she’d realised. Only when she’d come to terms with herself, had grown up somewhat, and when she’d finally realised that he really did find it attractive, had Helen got over the hurt.

  Nowadays she merely dressed to minimise the effect, unconsciously choosing her clothes with a taste that was maturing as she did. Only when she wore a bikini did that aspect of her figure give her cause for concern.

  ‘And in jeans,’ she muttered, with a rueful grimace at the image in the mirror. She was now as slim as she’d ever been, thanks to the enforced diet of worry and being too often out of work, but in jeans she’d still appear broader in the beam than she preferred.

  Tailored slacks? Not on the farm, Helen chuckled. It might be all very well in the movies, but she knew farm life as it really was, and jeans were the only practical garb. Especially in Tasmania, and more especially after nearly four years in sub-tropical Queensland.

  She shivered at the thought, once again wondering if Dane had really been serious. Worse, what if he hadn’t? That would leave her squarely behind the eight-ball again, with no home, no car, no money ...

  ‘Money!’ She gasped out the word as realisation struck. How could he meet her at the plane? She didn’t have enough money to get to the airport, much less fly to Hobart. Even to use her bank credit card would mean getting in deeper than she dared.

  Her first impulse was to ‘phone him back immediately, but she first had to find her diary with his telephone number in it. Then she thought better of ‘phoning; having offered her a place to stay and something to keep her occupied, perhaps he’d be put out at being asked to pay the freight as well.

  And suddenly, despite the recentness of their conversation, despite the warmth in his voice, the feelings he’d transmitted across the miles between them, Helen had second thoughts. How might he have changed, now that Vivian was gone? Did he really want her to come, or was he simply reacting to some half-felt obligation?

  Maybe he did want her for a mistress. No, he would have said so, had that been the case, surely. During her younger years, neither he nor Vivian had spared bluntness when it came to helping her steer a course through life.

  She could still remember the one night they’d all got stuck into the wine — herself, particularly — and trotted out their own moral standards for consideration. Not as an example, certainly not as something to be forced upon her or anyone else, but as a legitimate subject for discussion between adults.

  She could still remember Dane saying: ‘Virginity is a state of mind. Whether you have a sexual relationship with somebody isn’t what’s important; it’s how you feel while you’re about it. If it’s the right thing to do for that time and that place and that person, great. But if it isn’t ... and you let yourself get pushed into something that cheapens you in your own estimation, then it’s wrong,’

  ‘But what about love?’ she’d asked. ‘And ... and don’t most men want their wives to be virgins?’

  ‘In western society, I think only the insecure ones, whether they admit it or not,’ Vivian had replied. ‘Other societies, of course, are different, sometimes radically so.’

  ‘And love is a state of mind, too,’ Dane had continued. ‘I love Vivian ... I love you ... hell, I love half a dozen women I could name, but that’s quite different than whether I want to take them to bed. I could name another half a dozen I’d love to take to bed ... once, maybe ... but love them? Not on your life.’

  Helen remembered looking at Vivian with horror at that statement. She was only twenty, then, and couldn’t fathom the older woman’s bland comprehension of such a statement. But Vivian had been smiling, a deep, fathomless smile of total security. And Dane had continued.

  ‘I’ll give you an analogy you should be easily able to understand,’ he’d said. ‘Visualise the farmer, driving to town in his battered old utility. He passes a car showroom, and there’s this beautiful, low, slinky sports car sitting there. He stops for a look and the salesman asks if he’d like to take it for a drive. So he does. And he enjoys it immensely, but when the salesman starts trying to deal, what does the farmer say? “Not much good for my life-style, mate. Nice to drive it once, though.” ’

  And he laughed at Helen’s initial bewilderment and the sudden grin when the logic struck her.

  ‘Now to me’ ... and he named one of the more decorative ladies of their unanimous acquaintance ... ‘is a sports car when what I need — and have — is a paddock ute.’ And he’d laughed at Vivian’s mock attempt to take offence at the analogy. But then he turned deadly serious in continuing.

  ‘But for her sake, I just hope there’s somebody out there who feels exactly the opposite, because if she never finds the man who’s right for her, she’ll go on being a sports car until her wheels fall off, and that would be a waste.’

  And there was a sadness in his voice, then, that was mirrored in Helen’s when she’d replied, ‘But you’d still like to drive it — once?’

  ‘If I didn’t have more important things to do,’ he’d replied, and she’d known, as Vivian had known, that he wasn’t being evasive. He was stating a fact, as he saw it. His car-testing days were over. And he didn’t really miss them, either.

  ‘But where does that leave me?’ she’d asked. ‘Am I a ... a what? I can’t really see myself as a Jaguar XKE, somehow.’

  They’d all laughed at that, but it had been Dane who’d replied.

  ‘When you’re older, you’ll be a damned fine family sedan,’ he’d said. ‘Correction, luxury family sedan. And probably a one-owner job.’

  ‘Thank you ... I think,’ she’d replied. And she had thought about it, later. Several times, usually under duress. What had surprised her most was how effective the word picture had become; it was very difficult indeed for an amorous young man to hustle her into bed when her mind was conjuring up visions of her wheels falling off.

  But that was in the early years. Later, dating, she remembered, from her twenty-second birthday party, it was another of Dane’s comments that had kept her in control when every aspect of her physical being urged surrender. She would never forget the night for another reason, either. It was when a man she thought was hers became engaged to her best friend from school, and she would have cried herself right out of the party but for Dane saying, ‘What the hell? You haven’t lost a thing. Listen, love. When you find somebody who loves you as much as I do, then grab him, if you love him as much back. But don’t waste your time mucking about with the tiddlers.’

  And she’d taken a second look, from the safety of his arms as they danced, and realised he was right. And realised that she hadn’t loved Peter, she’d only wanted him, and she’d laughed in Dane’s ear, ‘He wasn’t much of a car anyway.’

  ‘Underpowered, clutch slipping and bald tyres,’ he’d chuckled in reply, but it had been Vivian’s sotto-voiced, ‘definitely an economy model,’ that had capped the evening, driving away every cloud of despondency for the rest of the evening.

  Helen chuckled in glee as she wondered how Dane would categorise Bryce, During their rare encounters over the years since that birthday, she’d introduced him
to several eligible suitors without getting past the economy car level. Except once, when they’d met unexpectedly at a press club function in Canberra.

  Helen had been escorted by a tall, dark, very charming radio personality, a man Dane knew and ... she thought ... liked. Fate had put them at the same table, and the two men had been more than friendly throughout the evening. She had been rapt, until ... leaving the table for the final dance of the evening, she’d heard Dane mutter to Vivian, ‘How’d we go, driving the Birdsville Track in a 120Y?’

  Her handsome escort’s advances later that evening had been stirring, but when it came to the crunch they stirred only laughter at the mental image of his wheels falling off. He hadn’t asked her out again, and Helen wasn’t overly sorry.

  Pulling her mind back to the present, Helen laughed at the memory, then resumed her earlier search for the diary while cursing herself for being so disorganised.

  She would have to call him back, she reasoned, even though the thought of having to borrow her fare was frankly repugnant. The fact that Dane would realise that didn’t make it any better. Still, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d borrowed money from him, always being scrupulous about repaying the loans on time.

  ‘So at least my credit rating’s okay, although having to ‘phone long-distance — collect — to borrow money isn’t my idea of the way to go about it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tells me to go jump,’ she muttered to herself. ‘And I wouldn’t blame him if he did.’

  She finally found her diary, in, as she might have expected, the absolute last place she would have thought to look, and was about to pick up the telephone when it began to ring.

  Answering it, she sat in astonished silence as the airline representative explained that there was a direct flight from the Gold Coast to Hobart on Saturday, and that if it were suitable, she would find her tickets waiting when she arrived at the airport.