O, Fortuna

Chapter 2

Grace had never flown in any sort of aircraft before and contrary to the horror stories her aunt and cousins were fond of telling of their travels, she found flying rather exhilarating, even with turbulence the jet had experienced over the Northern Territory. With the changing colours of the landscape below, the ochres of the desert that steadily became green and lush as the flight closed in on the east coast of the continent, Grace found herself entertaining notions of future journeys all too easily.

She had never spent the night in a hotel room alone either, ordered room service, raided the minibar or watched porn on pay per view so her first evening in Brisbane was a full one without her need to venture too far. She was rather drunk by the time the movie came to an end, giggling inanely to herself at the contrived circumstances the protagonists found themselves in. She had turned the television off with remote and was poised to indulge in a spa bath when her mobile rang and though certain enough she would not like the conversation she was about to have, answered it never the less. It was her father.

"Where the hell are you?" he asked, without preface or pleasantries "Your mother and I have been trying to call you at home for two hours." Grace sank into the plush upholstery of the arm chair near the window before responding

"Not at home, clearly. What's going on?"

"We want you to come around for dinner. To talk." As disagreeable as his tone and the demand he was making was, it was the closest thing to civility as Grace had had from her father in weeks. Still, there was no getting around the fact that "talk" was his code for “get lectured” or bullied into something - Grace did not have to think too hard about what - or the fact she was on the other side of the country.

"Well, I'm not going to be able to make it" she told him, yawning "I'm otherwise engaged."

"Make yourself available then. You owe your family that much."

Emboldened by minibar liquor and distance, Grace snorted in laughter

"How was it you came to that conclusion exactly? Owe the family?"

"You know what I mean" her father intoned brusquely "All of that money, Grace, you don't have a right to all of it."

"We none of us had right to any of it at all" Grace fired back "but June made her choice and put it in my hands." Her father was eager to argue his point but his daughter, who had never dared contradict or interrupt him before in her life, stood her ground "And as such, it's my decision as to what happens with it. Hounding me, ordering me about, insulting me is not going to convince me to be charitable when the time comes to start making decision so" Grace sighed heavily "you and everyone else in the family is going to let me be a while, give me time to recall what your good points are. Understand?"

There was a long silence down the line, followed by the hang-up beeps and feeling deflated in the aftermath of her tirade, Grace rubbed her eyes, not for the first time considering selling everything and giving all the money away to charity to spite all the family's pretensions and expectations. They would all hate her for it but Grace would feel better knowing that a lot of people who were starving, displaced by war or natural disasters, who needed help with their day to day lives or were struggling with health problems might find some comfort in difficult circumstances.

She could not see anyone amongst her family that fit the criteria of needy though Grace now had to wonder, with the removal of easy financing from June, whether cracks might begin to appear. She had noted that Uncle Hayden had borrowed a great deal and Grace assumed that was for his business; Aunt Alison had borrowed every few years and to Grace's reckoning, the occasions coincided with Alison's holidays overseas and while Grace had been obligated to pay for her own university degree, her father suddenly “found” money to extend the garage, which he had need for when he purchased his new, rather prodigiously-sized boat.