Nine Days by Toni Jordan Read Free Book Online Page B

back. It’s in front of me. They’ve done a beautiful job. Polished wood trim, set in green velvet. Just like we discussed.’
    ‘You haven’t even taken it yet. Have you.’
    At the lights, I look over to a bovine woman in the next car. She is staring straight ahead, chewing her cud, hair a colour unknown in nature. She doesn’t notice me. Whenthe lights change, she pulls in front of me with the oblivious insouciance of the entitled. ‘Not as such,’ I say.
    In the background I can hear shop noises: the soft voices of calm people speaking, a knocking sound, metal sliding against metal. ‘I told you I’d do it. I told you I’d cycle over in my lunch hour and pick it up and then ride over to the framer’s.’
    ‘And I told you it’s easier if I did it. I have a fossil-fuelburning vehicle and no regard for the level of pollution I generate.’
    ‘If you haven’t taken it to the framer’s yet, you can just read the year on the shilling.’
    There’s nothing for it. I explain, almost accurately, about my difficult client and her predilection for nicking stuff and the trials of my life in general.
    ‘I see,’ she says, and I’ve known her my entire life so I know exactly what
I see
means. ‘It’s obvious what needs to be done.’
    ‘What?’ I pull over into a side street off Glenferrie Road, take the phone out of the clasp and press it to my ear. I brace myself.
    ‘Violet is a troubled name. Bad feng shui. It’s too close to “violent”. She should change it. Maybe Viv, Viv’s a nice name. Vivian. Sounds like vivacious. Then she can keep her initials. Except if her last name ends with an oh en. Vivian Morrison. Vivian Davidson. That wouldn’t work. Vanessa would be OK. Another fun name. Risqué. Vanessa the undresser.’
    ‘Wow. Thanks. Could we focus on the coin for now and leave the issue-solving to me? I’m trained. I’m the professional.’
    ‘Are you absolutely sure she’s taken it? It’s not somewhere under your desk?’
    I can feel my lips tighten, my eyes narrow. She means,
you’ve knocked it off the desk without noticing.
She thinks my spatial awareness is so poor that my brain doesn’t know what my hip is doing. That I’m a bumbling, fumbling, bumper of shelves, an elbower of glasses, a jostler of knicknacks. Clumsy. I lean back on the headrest. I want a new car, with bench seats and fins and a wheel big enough to steer the
QEII.
Why is everything in my life so tiny and mean?
    ‘Oh. My. God. You’re right. As usual. It’s fallen under my desk. I’m a complete idiot who doesn’t even know if she’s had a priceless family heirloom stolen out from under her nose. It’s a miracle I’m still alive because with my IQ, I could have forgotten to breathe by now.’ I contemplate putting on my hazard lights.
Warning! Approach driver at your own risk!
‘Do you know the year of the coin or don’t you?’
    ‘I still don’t understand why you—’ She shrieks like something bit her. ‘Stanzi. Oh no.’
    ‘Oh no,
what?’
    ‘You can’t just replace it with another coin. It belongs to Dad. It’s got to be that exact one.’
    ‘Charlotte. It’s just a coin. I’ll find another one from the same year in one of those shops in Flinders Lane.’ Silence. ‘Charlotte? Charlie?’
    ‘You will absolutely not be replacing it.’
    For God’s sake. How did I come to be related to the karma police? ‘Look. He’ll never know.’
    ‘That’s not the point. How can you not see that’s not the point?’
    ‘It’s a unit of currency formerly in common circulation. It’snot the Ark of the Covenant. They made millions of them. Their own mothers couldn’t tell them apart.’
    Then she lands the killer blow. ‘I’m very disappointed,’ she says, and I can imagine the corners of her eyes drooping. Considering the ‘very’, her lips might have gone too.
    ‘All right, all right. I’ll go around to Vivian’s place. Violet’s. I’ll get it back.’
    ‘Stanzi. If it’s a different