at school, he was steady and responsible, and never for a moment did he complain about his destiny to take over Dangerfield & Dunn when my father retired. I used to ask him if he didn’t want to do something else with his life, to have some fun, but Michael never liked taking risks. He joined the firm as soon as he left university and seemed perfectly happy to go into the office every day. Ironic, really.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because it was going in to the office that killed him. It was a hit-and-run accident. He’d been working late-of course-and it was dark, but he was using the zebra crossing, because Michael always did the right thing. It wasn’t his fault that joyriders don’t always stop at pedestrian crossings, or that he just happened to be crossing the road as they came round the corner.’
Guy sighed and shook his head. ‘He was killed outright.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Without thinking, Lucy laid her hand over his, where it was resting on his thigh, and Guy turned it so that their palms met and their fingers entwined.
‘My parents were never the same again,’ he told her. ‘My father had a heart attack only months later and left my mother all on her own. They had a very strong marriage, and Ma has been bereft ever since. She retreated into her shell and, whenever she’s difficult, I remind myself of what she’s still suffering.’
The lazy good humour was so much a part of Guy that it was almost a shock to realise that he had tragedy in his background. She had just assumed that his light-heartedness came from a charmed life, but she had been wrong, Lucy realised with compunction. Guy might be privileged in lots of ways, but there was clearly much more to him than she had thought. He was clearly far from the playboy she had dismissed him as in Australia. It had only taken a day at Dangerfield & Dunn to realise that the staff there held him in respect.
Perhaps she was going to have to change some of her assumptions about him, thought Lucy.
Her fingers tightened around his in unspoken sympathy. ‘What about you?’ she asked, thinking that he had lost as much as his mother. ‘Were you and Michael close?’
Guy shook his head. ‘Michael was nearly ten years older than me. I looked up to him, but it was too wide a gap for us ever to be really close. Still, he was my brother.’
He fell silent for a moment and Lucy wondered if he were even aware that they were holding hands.
‘Ten years is a big gap,’ she commented, not sure what else to say, and Guy glanced at her.
‘I think I was a “mistake”,’ he said, and she was relieved to see the glinting smile reappear. ‘Michael was too kind ever to say so, but I worked it out for myself. Even as a small boy I could see that he was all my parents needed. Michael was destined for the family firm, and there was nothing left for me to do but be difficult. It wasn’t that I was jealous of him-at least, I don’t think I was,’ he added with scrupulous honesty. ‘I didn’t want Michael’s life in the bank. I wanted adventure, excitement, something
‘Hence the rodeo riding?’
He smiled an acknowledgement of her memory. ‘Yes, that was an early ambition, but falling off a few horses at Wirrindago soon knocked that one out of me! I conformed enough to go to university, but then I dropped out and bummed around the world for a while, surfing, sailing, skiing, white water rafting…doing anything that took my fancy. I was a free spirit like you once!’
‘That can’t have gone down very well with your parents,’ said Lucy, burningly aware of the warmth and strength of the fingers curled around hers.
‘They were appalled at the waste of my expensive education, and I don’t blame them,’ said Guy. ‘They couldn’t understand why I wasn’t more like Michael, when I’d had all the advantages he had had, but I just wanted to have a good time, and I did. I can’t say I regret it at all, although I suspect I did hurt my parents more than I thought. I was pretty selfish.’
‘And then Michael died?’
‘And then Michael died,’ he agreed, his voice carefully expressionless. ‘And then my father, and then there was only me to take over.’
Lucy’s eyes rested on his profile. ‘That must have been hard,’ she said quietly.
Guy shrugged off her sympathy. ‘I felt sorry enough for myself at the time. The last thing I wanted was to settle down and spend my life being second best, but it would have seemed as if I were letting Pa and Michael down if I didn’t, so I hung up my surfboard and came home to knuckle down and do what I could for my mother. And you’ll never guess what happened…’
‘What?’
‘I found I loved it!’ The familiar, heart-shaking smile gleamed in the dim light. ‘It’s not catching a wave but investment banking is all about taking risks, and making money has got an excitement all of its own. The last thing I expected was to enjoy myself, but I must have absorbed more from the old man than I thought I had.
‘Not that it’s been all that easy,’ he went on. ‘I’ve had a struggle with some of the older members of the board, who were used to thinking of me as the young, irresponsible one. It’s over four years since I took over, and it’s only now that they’re starting to accept me. It’s the same with Ma in lots of ways,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘In her mind, I’m still the wild one.’
Lucy nodded. ‘Like Meredith is still the sensible one and I’m still the irresponsible one. Do you think we can ever change the way our families think of us?’
‘Probably not,’ said Guy, ‘but we can change the way we think of ourselves.’ Looking down, he seemed to realise suddenly that their hands were still linked and he disentangled his fingers from hers with a faint smile. ‘We can try, anyway.’
Lucy’s hand felt cold and uncomfortable on its own. Not knowing what else to do with it, she set it on her lap like a parcel and stared down at it, half expecting to see it glowing from the way it throbbed and tingled. Afraid that it would start twitching at any minute, she clamped her other hand over it to keep it still as she thought about what Guy had said.
‘Is that what my challenge is about?’ she asked slowly, and Guy turned his head to look into her face.
‘If you want it to be,’ he said.
Lucy’s first couple of weeks at Dangerfield & Dunn passed so quickly that she was quite surprised to find herself in a packed City bar one Friday night, celebrating the end of a fort-night’s employment. Always envious of Lucy’s travels, Meg had been very sympathetic about Lucy having to adjust to office life.
‘It can’t be much fun after working on a cattle station,’ she said, raising her voice to be heard as they fought their way to a table. She had the bottle while Lucy held their glasses high to avoid spilling them as they pushed through the crowd. ‘Aren’t you bored?’
‘The funny thing is, I’m not,’ said Lucy slowly, setting the glasses on the table.
She had expected to be. Guy’s challenge had been to get the job in the first place, and she herself had vowed that she would make a success of it, but it hadn’t occurred to her that she might actually enjoy it. If anything, she had pictured herself pining for the outback, and sticking steadfastly to her vow in spite of it. As things had turned out, she had been too busy to pine.
‘I thought being a receptionist would be really dull,’ she told Meg. ‘I thought it would mean just sitting behind a desk all day, filing my nails, but there’s much more to it than that.’
She pushed Meg’s glass across to her. ‘It’s surprising how many different people come through the doors every day and the different things they need to know. Sometimes it’s just a question of pointing them in the right direction, but at others they need more practical help. We get a lot of overseas visitors and they often ask for advice about how to get to different parts of London, or how to go about booking something.
‘In fact, we seem to be the advice centre for everyone. It’s amazing the information Imogen has at her fingertips! How to book theatre tickets, where to get help for everything from a stubbed toe to a divorce, who to talk to about what in the bank, where’s the nearest place you can buy mascara-I had that just the other day!- booking taxis…’
She faltered to a halt as she found herself fixed by Meg’s accusing stare. ‘What?’
‘You sound as if you’re enjoying it!’
Lucy didn’t do nine-to-five and commuting with the rest of them. She was the friend they all relied on to work for wacky organisations, the one who was prepared to pack her bags and move on, who reminded them that it was still possible to chuck it all in if only they dared. For Lucy to take to working in a bank, however temporarily, felt almost like a betrayal to Meg.
‘Well…’ Lucy was well aware of how uncharacteristically she was behaving at the moment and she ran her finger round the rim of her glass a little uneasily. ‘I suppose I like dealing with people, and there’s more scope than
