tomorrow after this funeral. I don’t know if we can afford to keep our house. I have no idea what’s ahead for us. I know it’s likely to be bad for … a while. But I’m hoping it won’t be bad forever.
“It’s nearly time to go,” I say.
I turn off the iron and peel Edie’s dress off the ironing board. Ollie appears right beside me and gently tugs at my necklace. “That was Mum’s, wasn’t it?”
I nod. I’d been wearing it every day since Diana died. Ollie turns it over in his fingers. “I remember seeing it around Mum’s neck when I was little. She said it symbolized strength.”
We both look down at it. “It’s a shame she didn’t give it to Nettie.”
We’re quiet for a moment, staring down at the necklace. Then Ollie lets it fall back to my chest. “Maybe she knew Nettie wasn’t strong enough to wear it.”
64
Lucy
Ten years later …
“Lucy? Abdul Javid is here for his interview. Is Ollie here?”
I glance at my watch. “He must be running late, Ghezala. I’ll come out.”
“Okay. I’m going home now. Have a good evening.”
I hang up the phone and pull on my suit jacket. When I don’t have interviews on I often wear leggings and a T-shirt around the office, part of the perks of running your own business—but today Ollie and I have had back-to-back interviews all day. Our office is a short drive from our home, in a run-down old town house not far from where Ghezala used to live. A lot of new refugees settle in this area, which makes it convenient for them and cheap for us. Ollie and I each have offices (formerly bedrooms) and Ghezala’s office is in the old living room. On the days Ghezala comes in, she brings in food for us to share in the living room. She has a playpen set up as well, for those days when her youngest isn’t in day care.
Ghezala has five children now. Hakem is making enough money that she doesn’t need to work anymore, but as well as being on the board of Diana’s charity she comes in to help us all the time—translating, making the candidates comfortable, helping explain cultural differences. She was the one who approached us a few months after Diana’s death. She’d heard about the business we wanted to start and she was aware of a sizable pool of money that Diana had bequeathed that was designated for “ventures deemed by the board to be in the interests of the charity.”
Our business fits this criteria.
I step into the hallway and shake the hand of a very tall man, his skin as black as burnt wood.
“Mr. Javid?” I say.
“Mrs. Goodwin?”
“Please. Call me Lucy.”
“Then you must call me Abdul.”
Abdul smiles a brilliant white smile. Apart from the trouser legs of his suit, which are several inches too short, he is very presentable. Abdul was a project manager for a major construction group in Afghanistan. He arrived in Australia four months ago and has been working as a night cleaner at the local hospital while trying to find work.
“Come in, Abdul. Ollie, my partner, will join us in a moment.”
“Did someone say my name?”
Ollie clambers through the back door, dressed in a shirt with jeans. The days of his shiny tight suits are long gone. Now, Ollie does a lot of his interviews via Skype so he can be found dressed smartly from the waist up and wearing God-knows-what from the waist down. He works hard, harder even than he did for Eamon. He is always running late, his paperwork is never done, but he’s also more alive than I’ve ever seen him. He spends hours with the candidates, doing whatever it takes to get them ready for an interview.
I do most of the work with our organizations, finding jobs where there aren’t any, and opening the minds of decision makers at big companies, making them take on someone who perhaps doesn’t fit their ideal.
“Just give them an interview,” has become my catch cry. “One interview.” More often than not, that one interview gets our client the job. Like Ollie, I live for that now. As a team, we’ve become passionate about making sure everyone gets a go. I like to think that we get that from Diana, and that she would be proud of us.
Ollie and Eamon’s business declared bankruptcy shortly after Diana’s death. Eamon was investigated for misappropriating company funds, and was found guilty of fraud. Ollie never regained any of the money Eamon had stolen from him but he had taken some satisfaction from the fact that Eamon spent six months in prison (and that Eamon’s young girlfriend Bella had left him for an Iron Man, and last we heard they were writing a Paleo cookbook together).
We take a seat at the round table, and Abdul tells us about his time in Australia. He explains the difficulties he’s had finding work. Some has to do with his English, and Ollie jumps in to say that we’ll help him with that.
“We can help you with anything,” he says. “English lessons, intercultural relations, mentoring.”
After Nettie’s death, Ollie threw himself into the business with such vigor I wondered if it was healthy. He’d lost his parents and his sister all within a year and he needed to heal. It took me a while to see how healing this business actually was for him.
We don’t see Patrick anymore. We sent Christmas cards for the first couple of years but once he remarried (apparently to a woman who is the heiress to a very nice fortune stemming from her late father’s packaging business) and became the father of twin boys, we let the contact drop. Ollie still found it especially difficult.
“It’s not fair. All Nettie wanted was to be a mother. If she hadn’t had fertility issues, she—and Mum—would still be alive.”
Maybe that was true, maybe it wasn’t. The fact was, the kids and I were his family and honestly, being around each other all day long, it had never felt more true.
“Okay,” I say to Abdul. “Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself?”
The agency has been a huge success, in terms of the candidates we’ve been able to place, particularly with organizations that formerly would never have looked at candidates without Australian experience. And yet, we may never again own a house. We live in a rental not far from our office, near the industrial part of town. The kids’ school is rough, diverse and wonderful, with people from all walks of life. Every day after school, the kids are here at the office doing their homework or playing with Ghezala’s kids. Diana would have loved every bit of it (and how Tom would have been befuddled). I think that is what fuels Ollie’s drive for the whole thing. Everyone, no matter how old they are, wants their mother’s approval. And EVERYONE, no matter who they are, wants their mother-in-law’s.
I glance up at Diana’s final letter. Once the investigation into Diana’s death was over, the police had handed it over to us. Now it was framed on the wall of my office, one of my most cherished possesions.
I could have written more, but in the end, there’s really only two pieces of wisdom worth leaving behind. I worked hard for everything I ever cared about. And nothing I ever cared about cost a single cent.
Mum
Such lessons are hard-learned. But now, we’ve learned them.
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