‘Ivy!’
Against his palm, Angus felt Ivy tense.
At the bar, only a few metres away, sat a seriously glamorous blonde. Her hair tumbled in generous waves over one shoulder, and beside her was a significantly less glamorous man.
Ivy appeared struck dumb, and didn’t move a millimetre as the pair approached them.
‘It’s been months!’ the blonde exclaimed. ‘How are you?’
‘I—uh—’ Ivy began, and then went silent, simply sending him a panicky glance. Her body was moving now. She was trembling.
Immediately Angus slid his hand from her back to her waist, and tugged her gently against him. Even now, when he shouldn’t, he noticed how naturally she fitted against him. And how soft and warm her body felt.
‘I’m Angus Barlow,’ he said to the couple, offering his free hand.
Then for the next three minutes he scrounged every last ounce of charm he possessed to conduct the most trivial of conversations, while Ivy managed the occasional nod and single-word response. And then he politely excused them, and escorted Ivy outside as quickly as their legs would carry them.
Outside, the night was cool against his skin. His arm was still around Ivy, and in the cold it seemed illogical to remove it, given the flimsiness of her dress.
He was still walking briskly, keen to put as much space between himself and the bar, when Ivy came to an abrupt stop and disentangled herself from him.
‘Where are you going?’ she said.
Angus paused. His car was parked in the opposite direction.
‘I have no idea,’ he said.
And amongst all that had happened tonight, those four little words were suddenly hilarious, and he burst into a harsh bark of laughter.
A moment later, Ivy joined in, and they both stood together on the footpath, cackling away just like those women having dinner.
When they both fell silent, Ivy looked up at him again.
No wobbles this time, just direct, real Ivy.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
Ivy listened half-heartedly to her sisters’ enthusiastic gossip. They sat across from her, their finished breakfast plates pushed aside. To her left sat Ivy’s mother, nursing a mug full of cappuccino.
Around them, Sunday morning at the exclusive beachside café was a buzz of activity. Ivy found herself picking up random snippets of conversation: the waiter two tables to her right repeating an order; an older man complaining at the lateness of his grandson; and from somewhere behind her a high-pitched: Really? followed by raucous laughter.
Their table abutted a wall of bi-fold windows, their louvred glass panes opened to welcome the salty breeze. Beneath them, keen sunbathers lay on brightly coloured towels in an irregular patchwork. It was an unusually warm October day, and Cottesloe Beach was, it seemed, the place to be.
It had worked out perfectly, really. Her family—just Mila, April and her mother—had dinner every second Sunday. But this weekend she’d suggested breakfast instead, so here they were.
The weather would be perfect for it! she’d said.
And everyone agreed.
As lies went, it was very much the whitest of them, but it still sat so uncomfortably. All to avoid refusing a glass of wine.
She was so close to her sisters, as different as they were. Mila, with her chocolate-brown curls and brilliant smile, was the baby, and the family artist. Never much interested in study, she’d barely finished high school before beginning a string of courses at TAFE—jewellery design, dress making, and a few others that Ivy had long forgotten. But then she’d started—and this time finished—a pottery course, and that was it. Mila had found her calling. Now she had her own studio, with a shop front for her work out the front, and space for her to teach out the back. Quiet, but opinionated and wise, Mila could always be counted on to see through the crap in any situation.
Then there was April. Beautiful, clever but flighty, she’d been the real rebel. She’d partied through uni, and still partied now. She’d completed her Environmental Science degree—chosen for its not so subtle dig at the way her family had made their fortune—but, apart from a few internships, hadn’t settled into full-time work. April brought sunshine wherever she went—always the first to smile and the first with a kind word.
And there she was. Ivy. The eldest by three years, she’d followed the script exactly as her mother had hoped: a diligent student throughout school. A top student at university, all the way through to her masters. Then straight to work for the family company, working her way up, just as her mother had, with, of course, a healthy dose of expected nepotism.
But Ivy knew she deserved her position at Molyneux Mining. She’d worked her butt off to get there.
So, yes. In contrast to her arty sister, and her partying sister, there she was: studious, perfect daughter Ivy. Mila and April even gave her well-deserved needling for it.
But, of course, it had never been entirely true.
Ivy knew that. Her mother knew that. But no one else did.
Her mother had fixed her mistakes of more than a decade ago.
Unfortunately, Ivy was no closer to fixing her latest mistake.
She just needed time.
She would tell them about her pregnancy. Soon.
Just not today.
‘Earth to Ivy?’ April was grinning at her, fun sparkling in her gaze. ‘You still with us?’
Ivy blinked, and forced a smile. ‘Sorry. Just thinking about an email I have to write when I get home for the Bullah Bullah Downs project.’
In unison, her sisters groaned.
‘I was just saying that I saw Holly at the shops yesterday,’ April said, with a grin. ‘She had some very interesting news.’
Ivy went perfectly still, pasting on a faux smile. She had the fleeting, horrifying thought that somehow she’d forgotten blurting out the news of her pregnancy to Holly as she’d exited the bar on Thursday night.
‘Apparently,’ April continued, ‘you were with a rather hot guy?’
So Evan hadn’t told April she’d asked for Angus’s number. She could barely remember the vague, somehow work-related excuse she’d given her brother in law, but apparently it had been plausible.
‘Oh, he was a blind date,’ Ivy said, with a dismissive smile. ‘He was nice enough, but it was a bit of a disaster, really.’ That was true, in a way. ‘No spark, you know?’
Definitely a lie.
The conversation moved on, her mum and sisters familiar enough with her occasional forays into dating to accept what she’d said.
But Ivy remained silent, quietly furious with herself.
She couldn’t have news of her pregnancy leaked until she was one hundred per cent prepared, and gossipy speculation about her and Angus would not help that cause.
She needed to be more careful.
And more importantly, she really needed to fix this.
Soon.
* * *
‘Gus! How are you, mate?’
Angus finished the last two repetitions of the set, then swivelled on the seat of the leg press to grab his towel. Cam Dunstall wore his own towel