Chapter 4

It was valuable advice and we talked for a few minutes longer before I took the phone through to her mother and returned to the living room. I was still replaying the conversation when Danita came back through with my phone.

“You all right? You look like you’ve just discovered something.”

“I’m not sure,” I fiddled with the phone.

“Do you want a word of advice from an older woman?”

“Play your cards face up. Lamara isn’t homophobic, in fact I’d say she’s probably more bisexual than anything else but she hates secrets. Don’t hide your agenda, if you like her then say it to her face, she may not always respond the way you expect but she’ll go away and think about what you say and come back with her own take on it.”

“I almost feel as if she’s out of my league.”

“Don’t say that about yourself,” she sat down opposite me and put her hand between her legs.

“I was a bit like that myself, their father, Brett left me when my youngest, Yolanda was only two. He left me for a much younger woman and here was me, with three girls, trying to juggle my job with child rearing and somewhere along the line a hope that I might find some other guy. It took me years to realise that my self worth couldn’t be dependant on another person’s approval.”

“I see it a lot in my line of work, I’m a doctor and I’ve got people coming into my surgery for their physical ailments but along the way they’ll unload about their partners, some of it is quite personal and all too often they’re so locked into their partner’s life that they can’t envisage a life without the other person.”

“It’s something I’ve tried to pass onto my daughters, the need to make your own mark. I’m with a man now but I’m also very much aware that if something happens between us I can’t be left there with my head in my hands.”

Another time, another place I might have nodded and come up with an appropriate reply but I guess because of the increased workload I merely let out a sigh and I must have looked tired because she leaned forward to study me intently.

“I understand about trying to keep a good work and leisure balance, I’m a doctor and it’s easy to go home and find yourself worrying about a patient you saw today. It’s another thing I passed onto my daughters, close the door on work when you open the front door, police officers have a reputation for burning the candle at both ends,” she ran a finger along the edge of the coffee table.

“What’re you doing this Sunday afternoon?”

“Um, nothing, so far.”

“Would you like to come to a barbecue at my house? Yolanda will be there along with my partner, Ron. It isn’t much to be honest, we’ll have some food, a few drinks and just relax,” she eyed me for a moment, “and later on we’ll call Lamara and Gisette from home. Bring Milo with you as well, there’s plenty of room in the yard and he can run around to his heart’s content.”

“I don’t,” I stopped, “okay, I’ll come, as long as I’m not getting under anyone’s feet.”

“I’m sure you won’t,” she smiled, “now sit and drink your coffee while I finish preparing dinner, it won’t be long.”

I’m not saying that I have mother issues but I sat on that couch for the next half an hour while she cooked dinner. I couldn’t remember the last time my mum made me a meal, we’re like ships in the night. She’s very involved with her bingo and other activities, and I’ve got two other siblings who take up more of her time. I almost felt guilty, like I should be helping her and when she brought it through to me I thought it was the best dinner I’d seen in a long time.

“It’s just leftover vegetables and some rice, I’ll have to do a little shop for her before she comes back,” she glanced at the television, “now let me get this right,” she thumbed the remote and then picked up another remote.

“That’s the one, she backs up her pictures onto the cloud, so we can see what she’s been up to.”

It felt slightly surreal sitting in Lamara’s house eating her food and looking at pictures she’d taken just yesterday, churches, piazzas, statues, they were all there and because she was on holiday with her sister there were plenty of pictures of Lamara looking very relaxed.

I took a lot away from that dinner with her mother. I needed to slow down and smell the flowers, and now I think about it, just turning up every night to walk Milo was forcing me to slow down and take time out for me. Another thing I took away was the importance of finding a good work and leisure time balance, and lastly I needed to adjust my wardrobe. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t always in trousers, it’s just that outside of work I tended to stay in trousers and so that week I made a decision to make incremental changes.

Thus, when I turned up at Danita’s home in Eltham I was wearing a flowery dress that had caught my eye in an op shop. Okay, it wasn’t totally my idea, in one of the pictures I saw on Lamara’s web roll, she was wearing a similar dress but it was a healthy start and Danita was certainly impressed with my outfit.

“You’ll find what works, don’t be afraid to experiment.”

Experiment was a good word to describe the whole situation with Lamara, here was me, dog sitting and as yet there had been no hint that Lamara would even accommodate my desires and by then I was developing a crush on her. Subscribing to her Instagram feed had given me an opportunity to see Lamara at leisure, she had a love of coffee and red wine, just not in the same glass! She had a fascination with old buildings and in many of the pictures or selfies, she was touching a wall or a bannister. It touched something I’d long wanted to do, travel more. The last time I went on an overseas trip it was to Bali.

That next week saw me implement some more changes in my work/life balance, the first of which concerned my habit of skipping meal breaks. It’s a common practice in the police force to either skip meal breaks or have something on the run, now and then some duty sergeant tries to lay down the law but it’s like sticking your fingers in a leaking dyke, you can’t be everywhere at once.

Another change was something my mother had done for a few years, I started a gratitude diary where you list things you are grateful for that day, I admit I overdid it the first day or two and then slacked off midway through the week but by the end of the week I was starting to get it. Out of that came another list, things I’d always wanted to do. Travel was at the top of the list but there were other more achievable goals like learning to ride a horse, learning another language and oddly enough, painting ceramic figurines. An old girlfriend had been into that in a big way and I’d always admired her ‘little people.’

These may seem like small changes but for years I’d been burning the candle at both ends, binging out on leisure when I got the luxury of a few days off and trying to cram as much activity into the time off as possible and wearing myself out.

The upshot of this was that I was so focused on my new routine that I completely forgot the day she was coming back and actually turned up on my day off to walk Milo to find Danita’s car in the drive and excited barking coming from inside instead of the backyard. When Danita opened the front door there was a momentary pause before she inclined her head.

“I wondered who he was barking at, um Lamara is in bed, sleeping off her jet lag. She got back six hours ago and it was straight to bed.”

“I completely lost track of days.”

“She would have texted you but her phone was running low on charge, she said to tell you that she’ll contact you tomorrow, you’re coming around for dinner, apparently.”

“I didn’t know that,” I replied, “but now that I know I’ll um make sure I’m not working overtime.”

“If you are, she’ll understand. She knows how it is with the police, she used to date one a few years ago.”

“Yeah she mentioned that before, but we’re just friends.”

“But you’d like to be more,” she replied.

I opened my mouth to say something and thought better of it and shut it again.

“Look it’s not my place to say anything but I will give you a piece of advice. Be up front if you do fancy my daughter, she works with people who barter their suffering for a living and some of the stories she comes out with are heart rending but she’s also very aware that what a people say and do are two entirely different things. When she comes home at night she literally closes the door on her work life because if she let her clients in they’d drain her, not so much in a spiteful way, it’s their neediness that causes them to hold on tighter.”

“I’ll keep that in mind but we’re just friends.”

“What happens between you two is entirely up to you,” she glanced over her shoulder as Milo stepped into view, “and on that note I have to walk Milo,” she took a step back.

“Keep it simple, start out with promises you know you can keep. She gets enough of promises in the dark at work.”

It was all very mysterious and yet whilst there were hints that she might dip her toes I wasn’t taking anything for granted, I tend to err on the side of caution. One thing that did cause me a little concern the following day was the news that whilst Mylene had helped us with our inquiries she wouldn’t be getting the red carpet treatment after all. I understood it on one level, his ex lawyer was providing us with a wealth of information in exchange for a completely new identity.

“Look the best we can do is pass the hat around,” my boss suggested when I raised the topic, “but I don’t hold the purse strings.”

It was weighing on my mind that evening as I pulled into Lamara’s driveway. My timing was impeccable, she’d literally just come home and was unloading the boot. Our eyes met and she raised her hand in greeting.

“Hey, you must be psychic.”

“More like good luck, which is more than I can say for some people.”

“Oh?” Lamara closed the boot, “which people?”

“Mylene,” I replied and as we walked to the front door I gave her the thirty second summary.

“I’m pissed off, I thought we could offer her more than that.”

“Well she gave you names that will probably lead to a conviction but she’s a small fish in a big pool and you need to protect your star witness.”

“I did say we could help.”

“And that’s a trait you have to work on,” she glanced at me, “can you unlock the door, please?”

I took the keys from her and unlocked the door.

“I learned that a long long time ago,” she went on as I followed her into the house.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep. When I was just starting out with the department I had a client with some real needs, she had a disabled child and a charge sheet a mile long. I honestly thought we could help her stay out of jail and help her keep her child but I failed on both accounts. The DPP managed to get her sent to prison on money laundering despite her very robust defence and she lost custody of her child. I was gutted at the time, I saw it as a personal failure but a colleague helped me through the fog that had enveloped me. I learned then that you can’t make wild promises, you can promise to try your best but if it doesn’t work out then you have to take it on the chin and walk away, take the good with the bad and try to learn something from it.”

She put the shopping bags on the bench.

“At the end of the day you’re not responsible for Mylene or her kid, I’m not even responsible. She’s made bad choices and she’s paid the price but ultimately the only person who can help Mylene is Mylene. She’s like a lot of us, she’s her own worst enemy and while you or I can lead her to water we can’t make her drink it.”

It was a familiar proverb and one I’d certainly used before. Lamara was taking things out of bags, I could hear Milo scratching at the French doors.

“Could you let Milo in, please?”

Milo can racing through the living room, his claws trying to find purchase on the wooden flooring, by the time I got through to the kitchen he was lying on his back and doing his fish out of water thing. Lamara looked up as she rubbed his belly.

“This is why I love dogs so much, they’re uncomplicated and loyal, all you have to do is feed and water them,” she rose and fluffed out her hair, “if only people could be like that.”

“I’ve thought of getting a dog but my workload has always put me off.”

“That’s just an excuse, my workload is pretty impressive but I can still manage to walk Milo and spend time with him. Don’t complicate things, believe me, they’ll get complicated all by themselves without any help from us.”

“I may have to get a dog now, I’ll miss my walks with Milo.”

“Good, we’ll make that our first date,” she turned to the bench again.

“So you’re not disappointed with me?”

“There’s that word again,” she scrunched another plastic bag up and stuffed it into a fabric bag container dangling from a hook on one of the cupboard doors.

“I’m disappointed in a lot of things, the fact that our government interns refugees in another country because they’re frightened of the right wing press, our part in an illegal war in the Middle East that has fuelled the refugee crisis. I’m disappointed that I missed out on Madonna tickets because I didn’t get onto the website fast enough, fuck I’m disappointed in a lot of things but I know you tried to fast track this and for a little while it looked like you might take it over the line,” she turned and put her back against the bench.