Candlesight. Michael Liddy
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expect?” Leaving the question unanswered, Adam continued. “Amelia, who did this? I know it didn’t come out of your little design group.”
She regarded him for a moment, before finally deciding to be forthcoming. “I’m not exactly sure. Ted claims he came up with it, but he doesn’t have it in him. There’s a young guy there I think may have had something to do with it, but I’m not sure.”
Adam frowned. “Why?”
She forced her eyes and distant thoughts back into focus. “Ted doesn’t know and I’m sure the only reason we have these is because I snuck in there the other night and spread out the range on the cutting table together with a brief.” Amelia spread her hands slightly. “Someone saw it and came up with this.” She pursed her lips. “While I was still in the closed office with Ted, this guy was watching. I’ve got a hunch he wanted to know how his designs went over.”
Folding his arms, Adam suggested, “Ted could have gotten help.”
Amelia shook her head. “Hasn’t before. Every time I take something in there, he gives me a few throw away comments and then refuses to do anything else.” She breathed deeply. “This is someone else’s doing. He wouldn’t ask for help himself, so it has to be someone around that strange little place in there.”
Nodding, Adam gave her a smile. “The shoemaker's elf?” He shrugged. “Well, what does it matter? One of these every now and again can only help us. Who cares who did it?” He fixed her with a level gaze. “Unless, of course, that person leaves.”
She spread her arms. “That’s the thing I don’t get though; someone with this talent, surely they’d want to do something with it? None of them leave, they’ve all been there for years.” She resolved to keep it to herself that she had ideas about who it was.
Adam pursed his lips. “Not everyone wants to do things with what they have. Laziness, apathy, fear of rejection, inferiority complexes; take your pick.”
“Could be. Just seems to me to be a terrible waste.”
As he walked away, Adam threw a final comment back down the corridor. “Not a complete waste though; we have Coremade, and we have what’s in your hands there.”
Later that night, as she sat in her darkened apartment and stared out over the rippling ocean, her thoughts kept trailing back to this unassuming young man. The gas fire cast a softly rippling array of shadows over the ceiling, while eight stories below, a spattering of cars swept calmly along the road, their head and tail lights smothered by a light fog. The scene calmed her. Taking another sip of the shiraz in her hand she tried again to question why this still commanded her attention.
There was definitely some agitation over Ted’s claiming authorship of the drawings and his pompous arrogance certainly riled her, but there was something else. In that brief exchange of glances with the man, she’d seen something, an energy that was completely at odds with his position, appearance and demeanour. Then there was the likelihood that he was the person that startled her at the factory. What on earth had he been doing in those dark empty rooms?
She stood up and walked towards the floor to ceiling glass and peered down at the beach. “I’m going to talk to you, my friend. I want to know what you’re about.”
Deciding that it was best not to provoke Ted any further, or make a scene in front of a person so obviously intent on remaining obscure, Amelia decided to approach Jared after work at the factory. It would still be before dusk, and it was an open, public street, she felt comfortable that it would be safe.
Resolved now she drained the last dregs from the glass and walked across the room to the softly illuminated kitchen. Placing the glass down on the black granite her thoughts gravitated the warming successes she’d had over the last months. How she’d overcome impasses, solved problems and even come to the attention of the company’s implacable patriarch. After the debilitating years of her marriage and its disintegration, that insidious sense of failure, it was intoxicating ito feel vital and purposeful again.
“I can do this.” The words were a whisper, but they held a deeply forceful longing. Amelia couldn’t explain why this almost euphoria of ambition had gripped her, but it had taken hold; it had given her purpose and she wouldn’t turn from the course it had set her upon.
Chapter 4
Meeting
It was three the following afternoon before Amelia had a quiet moment to recall what she intended to do. Judging that everything on the desk sheet in front of her and littered through her email inbox could wait, Amelia purposefully shut down her computer and reached for her bag. Thankfully nobody interrupted her rapid passage to the elevator.
As she drove towards Kensington, rare bouts of nervousness gripping her spasmodically, she thought about what she was going to say, playing over in her mind any number of possible opening conversations. She pulled up slowly to the vantage point she’d chosen; from the opposite side of the street to the factory she had a clear view of the entry door and the side street. Amelia realised she had no idea of how this was going to play out.
A few minutes past four a spattering of figures filed out of the building, walking off to the tram stop around the corner. Those that drove filtered out in an orderly manner, and Amelia peered intently into the cabin of each car as it passed. As she expected (or hoped) there was no sign of the man she was seeking.
The numbers quickly thinned and the street became quiet. Slowly the last of the workers disappeared around the corner at the end of the street and all was quiet again. Every few minutes a car would sweep past, but otherwise the streetscape efficiently banished any signs of life and activity from its domain.
Concerned that she might have missed something, Amelia recalled the drifting groups of people that had exited the building. She shook her head. “He wasn’t there.” Looking towards the silent shell of the factory, she scowled. “What are you doing in there?”
The sun had just started to dip below line of houses to her right, casting deep shadows across the street. Soon it would be dark, and she wasn’t confronting anybody in the dwindling light; that was just asking for trouble. She’d wait until 4:45pm, and if he hadn’t come out by then, she’d have too wait until another day or think of some other way.
Just as Amelia was about to start the engine, the chill air in the cabin becoming unpleasant, a solitary figure emerged from the side street. Wearing the same light fawn jacket she’d seen the other night, there could be no doubting now that this was the man she’d seen.
His gait was hunched and unassuming, a shuffling, plodding stride that was aimless and without energy. She could tell now that he was quite thin and a little under medium height. He wore dark blue jeans and navy cross trainers, and now had a woollen beanie pulled down over his forehead and ears.
Amelia watched in fascination as he made his way along the sidewalk, hands deep in his jacket pockets. She had trouble reconciling his nondescript presentation with the person who’d created the drawings sitting on the seat next to her.
He rounded the corner, and Amelia assumed he headed for the tram stop. She’d have to follow the tram and watch for him leaving.
Starting the car, she pulled out slowly and made for the corner, allowing him enough time to reach the stop a hundred metres or so from the intersection. That would give her enough distance to pull over and wait. Turning into the larger street, she was surprised to see him in the distance, well past the tram stop. There was a small strip of shops and, crawling slowly forward, Amelia passed the man just as he entered a small supermarket.
Pulling up a little further down, Amelia took a deep breath and then reached resolutely for the door handle. She approached the IGA store, her heart pounding, and started as the automatic doors slid open. There was a sprinkling of people within and nobody turned to appraise her as she entered. Passing through the turnstiles she reached down for a hand basket and peered furtively down