Chapter 23

I felt guilty when I met Chaz. We said "hello," and went inside. When we were sitting by a window and had some beers I said: "Look, I'm sorry. Mona pointed out that the phone, email and the auto made further proximity silly."

"It's okay. I'm on edge too."

"So, what did you call about?"

"I want two weeks leave."

"Don't you have any vacation? Use it!"

"Don't I need a reason?"

"Not to take accrued vacation. Anyway, where are you going?"

"Singapore. Michiko wants to visit her parents while we can still travel."

"Makes sense. When would you go?"

"As soon as we can. I'll check out the available flights this afternoon. Optimum would be to leave here on a Saturday and return Sunday or Monday. That would give us a full week there."

"Okay. But if you want, Mona can do the Web scanning and the phoning. You are my assistant director, after all."

"Ri-i-ight." The waiter was hovering, so we ordered.

"Now. How serious is Michiko about moving?"

"Very. And she's right. We couldn't cope with four of us in our place. Why?"

"Well, I drove around on my way here. There's a nice place on College Road. But I don't know what you think you can afford. I don't even know what we can afford. I just let it sit in Weena's hands. I've got enough to do without thinking about houses and mortgages and such."

"Did you talk to Sue?"

"Yes. I'm going over there on Wednesday afternoon. Want to come along?"

"You think it'll be okay with them?"

"You mean those giant ants in New Mexico?"

Chaz laughed. "No, the them at Channel Seven.

"I'm sure they'll be happy. I want you to do program three or four."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. I mentioned the water problems up the coast to them as a possible topic."

"That'll stir up the developers."

"It's good for them. They're too greedy, no matter how you look at it. Would you excuse me? I need to call Weena."

"Go ahead."

I autodialled home. "Hey! I thought you'd be home. How'd it go? Really? Well, I'm at lunch with Chaz. On my way here, I passed a house on Rokeby Road. Right. The estate agent is ... Right. I thought you might want to drive past after lunch. Yes. I'll be going back to my office. By the way, there's a place on College Road I've mentioned to Chaz. Okay. I'll try to be home before five. SciTech tomorrow. Bye."

"You're going to get me in trouble," Chaz said.

"What?"

"Telling Weena about that house means that Michiko will know about it by the time I get home."

"So pre-empt it by calling yourself."

"That's why you're the boss." He pulled out his mobile and called. "You said College Road?" I nodded.

"Hey," he said. "I'm at lunch with Gordy and he said he'd passed a house on College Road with a 'For Sale' sign on it. Maybe you and Rachel could drive past and get the agent's name and number. Right. Yes, he said to take the vacation time. Okay. Love you."

I looked at him. "You know what the girls are going to do."

"Of course. But you never thought we'd be in charge, did you?"

"No. Not at all." We both laughed. "Want coffee?"

"Yes, but then I've got to get back to Floreat."

"We still need to talk about staffing. If you're actually going to be assistant director, you can hire another technical person. You never did replace Watkins."

"Yes I did! Not having him upped our productivity." We both laughed again. "But we could use a lab type. Maybe water and soil analyses. I'll call a meeting."

"Let me know Wednesday. Come over before noon. We'll lunch and then go to Seven."

"Sounds like a deal." We finished our coffee, I paid and we left.

When I got home, Patrick was very excited. "We saw the new house, daddy!"

"You saw 'a' house, not 'the' house."

"No! Our new house. Mummy drove us there. She called a man and he came and we went in and Mummy asked about how much and he said something and she said something and we came home. It's got no furniture." He ran out of steam.

I looked at Weena. "Is there an alternate version?"

"Yes. After you called we drove over to Rokeby. The house looked nice, so I called the number on the sign. The agent said five or ten minutes. The house is unoccupied. Patrick and I looked about. The garden is nice, but unkempt. There's a two-car garage. When the agent arrived we went inside. It looks okay, smells dusty — not musty. Old-fashioned kitchen. The asking price is one-point-two million. I told him that was silly, took his card and we came home. While we were in the car, Patrick said we were moving there."