“I’ll help,” Hetty volunteered, returning from the kitchen.
“Thanks, Mum.” Lexie abandoned the receipts, grabbed her purse from the table and headed for the front door. She yelled over her shoulder, “I’ll be back.”
Hetty took a seat at the table and gazed expectantly at Rafe. “What would you like me to do?”
Rafe scanned the slips of paper in his hand and shook his head. Lexie had put receipts from different years in the same envelope. “You could start sorting these by year.”
Murphy was doing the rounds of the living room, sniffing at every chair. Yin watched him through slitted green eyes from the arm of the couch. “Murphy, here.” The dog trotted over and lay at his feet under the table.
Hetty started separating the receipts into piles. “I don’t mind telling you the family has been worried about Lexie’s finances. Ever since she quit teaching to paint full-time she’s had trouble making ends meet. But she refuses to accept help. She says she made the decision to be an artist, and she’s willing to live with the consequences. It’s nice of you to come to her house and do this for her.”
“It’s my job.” He wondered if he should mention that Lexie would likely cop a fine. He felt bad about that—
Not his problem. Feeling sorry for the taxpayer was how he’d gotten into trouble over his last audit.
He heard Lexie return for another box. A moment later he heard her car start.
Rafe called up the spreadsheet onto the screen. He pulled a calculator out of his briefcase and began entering numbers. When he’d done all he could, he reached for an envelope and began sorting. There were receipts for the hairdresser (not deductible), art gallery entry (deductible), a car battery (debatable)—
“Do you live locally?” Hetty asked.
“Sassafras, up in the Dandenongs. But I’m booked into a bed and breakfast just down the road.”
“Myrna Bailey’s, right?” She waited for him to nod then went on, “Do you have family?”
Rafe suppressed a sigh. What was it about middle-aged women that they had to know everything about a person? That they couldn’t sit at the same table without making conversation. “My parents live in Western Victoria, in Horsham. I have a sister in Brisbane.”
“Do your parents farm?”
It was a natural enough question given the location but he hated answering it. His parents, Darryl and Ellen, had moved to the country years ago, after Darryl’s accident, because it was cheaper than the city. Rafe always wanted to explain that although his father was in a wheelchair, there’d been a time when he’d had bigger dreams.
“No, my father has a home-based business repairing clocks and watches.” He should go see them. It had been months since he’d last been out there.
Rafe continued sifting through Lexie’s receipts. He came across an application form for an artist’s society. He noted down the amount of annual dues and saw she’d filled in her birth date.
Before he could censor himself, he blurted, “Is Lexie really thirty-eight years old?”
“Yes,” Hetty said. “It was her birthday last month.”
Twelve years older than him. He’d figured she was older but not by that much.
“She looks a lot younger.”
“It’s the yoga and the meditation,” Hetty said. “Plus she has a naturally serene disposition. Nothing bothers her.”
“The portrait she’s painting is bothering her.”
“Well, yes,” Hetty conceded.
Rafe sat back in his chair, still staring at the year Lexie was born. She could have easily passed for thirty. If that was the result of meditation and yoga maybe he ought to take it up. Or not.
Twelve years.
He added the art society annual dues to the column. Afternoon sun shone through the crystals hanging from the window frame, making rainbows on his page of numbers. There seemed to be crystals everywhere in the house. He’d noticed them in the kitchen, too. From below the table, Murphy snored.
“Do you have a wife or girlfriend?” Hetty asked.
Rafe stifled another sigh. “Never married. No girlfriend at present.”
“You’re young yet,” she said comfortably. “There’s plenty of time to marry and have children.”
The other thing about middle-aged women was, they wanted to marry a guy off and tie him down with kids before he’d had a chance to enjoy life. What was up with that?
He stabbed at the keypad on his calculator. “How are you doing with the sorting?”
“Don’t you like kids?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said, you have plenty of time to marry and have kids,” Hetty recapped patiently, as she dealt out receipts like playing cards at a bridge game. “You didn’t reply. So then I asked, don’t you like children?”
How did she get child-hater from silence? There’d been nothing to say in response to her statement so he hadn’t bothered with meaningless chatter. “Kids are fine, I guess. As long as they’re other people’s.”
Tamsin, his ex-girlfriend, had made him gun-shy. They’d been together nearly a year when she’d gotten clucky. Then he’d discovered she’d “accidentally” forgotten to take her birth control pills and the huge fight that ensued had killed their relationship. Fortunately, she hadn’t got pregnant.
Feeling Hetty’s gaze on him, he could sense the questions forming in her mind. “I’ve got plans, okay? I’m not ready to get married or have children. Maybe in ten years I’ll think about it. But first I want to start my own fishing charter business.”
“That’s interesting,” she said, leaning forward, chin on her palm. “When are you going to do that?”
“Next year, if all goes well.” Then he pointedly began entering numbers into his calculator. He’d had enough soul baring for one day. And he’d jeopardize his job if he didn’t do this audit properly.
Hetty went back to sorting receipts. The only sound was the clicking of the keys as Rafe entered data.
After a few minutes her hands stilled. Out of the blue she said, “I’ve lost touch with my husband.” She stared at the receipts in her hand.
Fresh pain stabbed his stomach. Now she expected him to ask her questions. News flash! He wasn’t a woman. Hell. Why did she have to look so unhappy? “What happened?” he asked heavily.
“We grew apart when we weren’t looking,” she said, launching into what was sure to be a long-winded explanation. “We’d been up and down for six months or more, ever since we retired. Then I went away to Queensland for a yoga retreat. He didn’t like that. Now that I’m back, well, he doesn’t seem to need me anymore.”
She paused, apparently waiting for another response.
“Has he said he doesn’t need you?” Rafe asked gruffly. “Sometimes women read stuff into things that guys don’t mean.”
“No, but—”
“Did he tell you to leave?”
“I told you, I left him. I share the blame, I do.” She waved a veined hand weighted with silver rings. “But I’m ready to try again. Only he has a whole new life and there doesn’t seem to be any place in it for me.” Her large gray eyes swam with tears. “He doesn’t care if I’m here or not. He won’t talk to me, barely looks at me. Forty years of marriage and