The Find by Kathy Page

Author:Kathy Page
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McArthur & Company Publishing Limited
Published: 2010-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

21

— ♦ —

BECAUSE ANNA WAS AWAY, the Swenson team came over with two litres of red wine. People set their chairs to claim space around the fire, and then stood by Scott’s kitchen area with drinks and plates in their hands while he cooked their sausages and sipped wine from an enamel mug.

After the meal, Swenson stretched out, feet reaching to the fire, hands above his head, looked around, and grinned:

‘While the cat’s way, eh.’ People laughed. ‘How’re you getting on over here?’ Everyone waited for Jason, acting director in Anna’s absence, to respond:

‘It’s tough shale, and we’re being cautious, but pretty good.’

‘I guess you’re going to have to make very good time,’ Swenson said, ‘if you’re to get everything out of here before we go back into that cliff. We’ve got an engineer on the case and he’s very positive — there’s no overhang. We’ll use tiny charges, but there’s always a theoretical risk of some degree of collapse. So for health and safety purposes you’ll need to be offsite as well when we go in… Has Anna said anything about that?’

‘Charges?’ Lin asked.

‘Maybe you could make sure she’s fully aware...’

‘Sure,’ Jason said.

‘Good man,’ Mike told him. ‘Don’t forget. And look, there’s no need to stay over here. You’re welcome any time to come over and see how we’re setting it all up.’

He shifted in his chair then and focused his attention on Greta. Scott, opposite, watched them. He knew how Anna would see all this.

‘USC?’ Swenson was saying. ‘You must be working with Alexei Goodman? Old colleague of mine. What’s your thesis topic?’

‘You’re very quiet tonight,’ Lin said as she sat down next to Scott. It was almost dark.

‘Well, you know, I don’t really speak this language,’ Scott told her. Her laugh was a tiny rustle, a gasp beside him.

‘So you must learn. I learned English at school. This is only vocabulary…’

‘I’m more interested in people,’ he said.

‘Difficult!’ she told him. ‘Even so, if this is their language, you will have to speak it.’

Mike topped up Greta’s glass with the last of the wine. He wrote something down for her, leaned in close as he handed over the scrap of paper. She smiled across at him: nothing too hard to understand there, it seemed to Scott.

Marilyn, Scott’s replacement on the reception desk at the Mountain View, looked Anna in the eye and said she was sorry, but there were no other rooms available, just 221, the room Anna had specifically asked not to be given. Marilyn placed the key on the counter between them, and waited for Anna to give in.

Just a room, she told herself. It had been used by others since the night she lay there sleepless in the aftermath of hitting Mike. It had been vacuumed and polished, changed. She was avoiding anger (expressing it, at least) and she wanted more than anything to settle on a real bed and call Lesley and Vik. So she took the key and let herself in.

‘How’s your monster?’ Lesley asked.

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