Matilda Next Door - Kelly Hunter Page 0,4
There’s a deadlock on it, and it’s the red key. There’s one more security panel just inside the door. The passcode for that is 3381.’
‘Hey, Wirralong’s postcode! You nostalgic softie.’
‘Lies, all lies.’
Gotcha, she thought with a grin. Because Henry Church of the genius IQ didn’t do unnecessary comments unless his defences were starting to crumble. Maybe there was hope for their friendship yet.
‘You’ll need to set the apartment alarm whenever you go out, and disarm it whenever you come in,’ he continued.
‘Yeah, to deter all those people in 3B from slipping across the hall and stealing the silverware. Why exactly do you need so much security? No, wait. I’m sure there’s a fabulous statistical answer that will come to me eventually.’
‘I was going to say that the flat came fully furnished and the artwork on the walls is expensive,’ he offered dryly. ‘But you do you.’
‘I will be the embodiment of security consciousness.’
He reached for a tart, his second so far, because he’d wolfed one down while she was making the coffee. She met his gaze and he smiled, caught out and bashful, and suddenly he was the boy she remembered of old. Not always oddly aloof and serious, no. Once cracked, with his gooey soft centre on show, Henry Church could make her feel like the luckiest girl in the world.
‘I know you’ll try.’ His eyes were warm rather than disapproving. ‘I also know how much trouble I had adapting to the lock-it-all-up mentality when I first got over there. Len has two spare sets of keys waiting for you if you forget and leave them inside, and the Brownlows in 3B have another spare. They know you’re coming.’
‘You are so sweet. Have another tart.’
‘Do you want me to have to start chopping firewood for little old ladies in order to maintain optimum buff?’
‘Wouldn’t hurt to sort out your grandparents’ winter wood pile while you’re here. It’d be helpful.’
‘Please tell me you don’t chop firewood for them too.’
‘I don’t. Your grandfather buys it split these days, but there are always some that won’t quite fit. He does still split those. It’s a matter of pride for him and a safety concern for everyone else. He’s not getting any younger.’
His smile faded. The intensity of his gaze increased. ‘I can afford to put a manager and housekeeper in place if need be.’
‘Soon would be good.’
‘That bad?’
‘It’s not your grandfather, so much as your grandmother. Dementia’s awful, and it’s starting with her, and your grandfather’s a saint but we worry about him too. How worn down he’s been of late. See if you can get him to take a break.’
‘I’ll visit more.’
‘So you say.’ She didn’t believe him. He’d been eighteen the first time he left and twenty-one the first time he returned home, with a freshly minted doctorate from Oxford under his belt. Undergrad and postgrad studies in three years of non-stop work, with a plum job predicting future disasters waiting for him when he returned. She’d been so damn pleased to see him. Followed him around like a lamb.
His grandfather had been so proud of him.
Bethany had been herself. Even if she had been proud that her grandson had made something of himself outside of Wirralong, God help her if she’d ever let it show. ‘I’m sorry. I know it’s not great when you come home.’
‘How come you never left?’
And that could have been an innocent question, but probably wasn’t. Return fire when under attack. He’d taught her that. Silly Tilly and Mad Henry against the world. Except Mad Henry had conquered the world without her and for all her quiet pride in recent achievements, she’d yet to conquer a damn thing.
‘Oh, you know me. I blow every chance I get.’ There was the cooking school in Melbourne that took her money and closed its doors before she ever got there. The photography competition win and awards event in Sydney that she’d even bought a dress for, and then part of the National Park behind the farm had gone up in smoke and it had been all hands on deck for that. Not enough marks to go to university and no real interest in doing so. These days she did online courses and diplomas in everything from landscape gardening to animal husbandry, from genetics for dummies to beginner astronomy. And always, in the background, the cooking she loved. ‘Apparently self-sabotage is my thing.’ She didn’t like the look he was giving her. Because somewhere along the way it had