Chapter 5
Concentration
The following day there was a call put through to her office, and the receptionist had an unusually reserved tone in her voice. “Amelia, there’s a call for you; it’s Arthur.”
Clearing her throat, Amelia took a deep breath before replying. “Ok, put him through.”
It was difficult to explain the instant anxiousness that simple name imparted. The man was a towering personality that could wither a seasoned leader with a few well placed words. When he entered a room everybody knew instantly and when he called for silence in a crowd, there was never so much as a whisper. That he was calling her again filled her with dread; whatever he asked of her, there could be no mistakes, she’d have to get it exactly right.
While she was very proud of some of the progress she’d made in this difficult period, she didn’t want to come to Arthur’s attention. Nothing was good enough for this man and there was a long long line of casualties in his wake. Beyond that, Richard would be livid if he knew Arthur was talking to her directly.
“Arthur, hi.” She hoped her voice didn’t come across as whiny.
There was a moment's pause before he replied, his voice deep and gravelly. “Amelia, I’ve just been shown the new designs; I think they’re very forward.”
Amelia wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not. She also wasn’t sure how he’d managed to get hold of them, she’d only shown Adam and Richard. She realised they’d been left in the small meeting room adjacent to her office. Someone must have seen and described them to him; or maybe it had been Richard, she couldn’t imagine Adam having any need to speak with Arthur.
“You sound a little hesitant.” Amelia collected herself and replied before the gap in conversation became uncomfortable.
He took a moment before he replied. “No, I think they’re good, but I want to talk to you about where you’re going with these, and I want to know what else you’re up to.”
Unsure of what to say, she replied inanely. “Oh.”
“Next Tuesday at seven pm, I’ll have Amanda tell you where.” There was no note of request in his tone, and Amelia suspected that if she was scheduled for surgery on that night, he’d probably expect her to postpone it. As a concession that perhaps even for him the summons needed clarification, he continued, “Amelia, I’m not being critical of what you’ve done, I just want to get a sense of where your head is at.”
Amelia was still uneasy. “Um, sure, whatever you need.”
The line went dead. She held the receiver in front of her for a moment and stared at it. There was a lot that was extremely strange here. More and more she had the sense that Arthur was far more involved in Havesheld than his “retirement” suggested. What that meant for Richard, she couldn’t be sure. Also peculiar was the comment about location. She knew that the Arnold side of the family had several houses in and around Melbourne, and in the course of her life she thought she’d been to all of them. That Amanda Bingham, Arthur’s and now Richard’s personal assistant, would tell Amelia where she was to go, suggested that it wasn’t a location she knew. It also, perhaps, gave some indication as to who was feeding Arthur information.
Leaning back in her chair, Amelia’s thoughts ventured in many directions. There was clearly opportunity for her here, and a cold and giddy lust swept over her. In a flight of ambitious fancy she wondered if one day she might lead Havesheld. Perhaps Arthur was grooming her, he certainly couldn’t be happy with what James had done to the company under Richard’s stewardship.
She pursed her lips and whispered to herself, “I’ll have to keep everything I do completely innocent and open until the time is right.” Then she folded her arms and thought of Ethan, thought of what he’d taken from her, and how at this moment he was probably half drunk on his yacht in the Whitsunday passage. She pictured who he was probably with. A vicious anger swept through her. “Why can’t I show him what he’s missed?”
On her way down the corridor Amelia passed Adam’s office and paused. For a moment she weighed up whether she should talk to him, or more particularly, whether she could trust him. Despite all the years they'd worked together, and though they’d become closer in recent months, he was still largely unknown to her. A very calm and measured personality, he’d become much more prominent since escaping James’s fast-food brash management yoke. He’d played a very low-key role in the organisation, even though he was an Arnold. Perhaps that was because he was from a distant part of the family.
When Amelia tapped on the door frame, Adam took some time to look up from his screen and focus on her from above thin rimmed, rectangular reading glasses. Silence ensued until he finally prompted her. “And?”
“Do you know where Richard is?”
Adam leaned back in his leather chair and crossed his arms. “With Rachel, Noumea I think, they’ve chartered a yacht for the week.” He gave her a penetrating look. “Why?”
Amelia ignored the question. “I wasn’t paying all that much attention to how he ran the place with James. Has he always been like this?”
“Not always, but there have been hints of it from the moment he took over from Arthur. It’s escalated certainly, and he seemed to always eat whatever James was feeding him which fuelled it I suppose.” He leaned forward again. “What are you getting at, Amelia?”
She weighed up how much to tell him; she didn't want to reveal her intentions. “I just had an out of the blue call from Arthur. He wants to sit down with me and talk about the ranges I’m working on.”
Adam raised his eyebrows. “Be careful.”
Frowning, Amelia came into his office and sat down stiffly on the couch to the left of his desk. “Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know what’s going on with Arthur, but I know he’s been out of getting directly involved here for years. If he’s weighing in again, that means there’s going to be a brouhaha with Richard and I’d stay right away from it if I was you.” He gave her a mischievous smile. “That is of course unless you have, shall we call them, aspirations.”
She was ready for that likelihood and kept her expression completely straight. “I just want to do some good ranges and get the damn things sold. That’s it.”
Adam spread his hands. “You can’t ignore him, so talk to him about that and nothing else.”
Amelia stood, and smiled at him warmly. “That’s what I’ll do then.” She left the room without further comment, fully prepared to follow that advice. For now.
Over the next week, she thought little of Jared. The fundamental mystery of his identity was solved, and the attention she was under at head office moved the unassuming young man from her thoughts. Towards the middle of the week, though, she began to recall the strange appointment, and slowly, steadily, Jared regained prominence in her mind.
By Thursday afternoon she was looking at her watch every fifteen minutes, and by four she began to wind up everything she was working on. As the sun began to dip below the tall buildings behind her, she shut down her computer, and very quietly slunk out through reception.
There was an excitement building within her as she drove towards Kensington, and it took her a few moments to realise that it was as much about wondering if he’d appear than her interest in talking to him again. She resolved quickly that if he did turn up she’d spend less time with him than their last meeting. It had been tiring for her to drag every sentence out of him.
Exiting the congested main thoroughfares she quickly weaved through the tiny streets and could see the IGA in the distance. As agreed she did a slow u-turn and pulled up exactly where she’d dropped him off last time. Glancing at