The Paris Wedding, page 26
* * *
By the time blue twilight was dwindling into night, Rachael’s bones hurt. She drove the tractor into the shed and trudged back to the house, tasting grit between her teeth and wondering how long she could stand under a hot shower before falling asleep. Through the kitchen window she saw Tess stirring a pot while the kids ran around the table. Joel, fresh from the shower, took turns to catch them and lift them up above his head.
After her shower, Rachael yawned as she tried to pull a brush through her hair, listening to the shrieks and squeals floating down the hall. Then she heard Tess telling them to be quiet, and the verandah door being opened. Rachael put her brush down as footsteps came down the hall. She turned and there was Sammy standing in the doorway.
Rachael’s fatigue evaporated. Three steps crossed the distance between them, and she crushed Sammy in a hug.
“I was so worried,” she said. “And I’m so sorry.”
Sammy said nothing, but she held on in the same way Rachael remembered doing the night her mother had died.
“Was it Bernie?” Sammy asked finally.
“He told me that a man doesn’t go back on his word.”
Sammy grunted. “How ironic.”
“I was starting to worry you weren’t there at all.”
“Good thing I had the quick-fold tent or I’d never have hidden in time. I didn’t want to talk to anyone.” Sammy held up the creased sheets of paper, a small smile on her lips. “You’re lucky. I might have mistaken this for loo paper.”
“So you read it?”
She dropped the letter onto the bedspread. “You really mean all that stuff about me being as important to you as your mum?”
Rachael nodded.
“Wow.”
“I also meant it when I said I’d tell you everything that happened if you want to hear it.”
Sammy nodded, so Rachael laid out every detail between when Matthew had left her room on the Wednesday night in Paris until the drive to the airport.
“He was already married?” Sammy repeated when Rachael had finished.
Rachael nodded.
“That dirty bastard.” She shook her head. “Not that I’m really surprised. I never liked what he did to you. But you know that already.”
“You were right. I shouldn’t have let him in again.”
Sammy sighed and pulled up the desk chair. “Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Go thinking it’s all your fault. He played his part. Believe me, I understand that. But I wish you’d told me.”
“I wish you’d told me.”
Sammy looked away, then stepped back to the door and closed it. “Shit, what a mess.”
“What are you going to do? Are you really . . . ?”
“Yep.” Sammy tipped her head back, clearly trying not to cry. “I’m terrified, and I have to tell Marty.”
Rachael bit her lip, thinking about everything that had happened in the last weeks. “Do you really want to do that now? You don’t even know what you’re doing yet. How is Marty going to feel about it?”
“I can’t keep it from him.”
“Do you want to stay with him?” Rachael asked softly.
Sammy’s voice was tiny. “Yes. I didn’t know how it was going to work out, but I never wanted to leave him.”
“You can’t take it back once you tell him. I don’t mean that you shouldn’t, just think about what might happen. I wish Matthew had kept his trap shut.”
“It’s not the same thing. How could I possibly let Marty think the baby’s his?”
Rachael sighed. “You don’t know it isn’t. You could get a test done or something.”
A long silence sat heavy between them. Rachael plucked at the bedspread, catching a ragged nail on the coil of an embroidered rose.
Finally, she said, “Is it over with Peter?”
“Yes. He’s worried sick that his business will be affected if people find out. Should have seen that coming. He offered me hush money, can you believe it? I told him to piss off.”
“I can’t believe he’d do that. What a jerk.”
Sammy made a helpless gesture. “And I thought I knew him. I was so insulted. And then I was mad at you. Peter was covering his own arse, and my best friend had left me in the dark. I felt so utterly alone.”
“I know,” Rachael said, tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. “Sammy, I’m so desperately sorry.”
“I know.”
They hugged for a long minute before Sammy stood. “I have to go. You look like you’re about to collapse.”
“Going home?”
“Yeah. I have to. I can only hide out for so long. And if I want to make calls at the waterhole, I have to scramble to the top of the rock pile and hold the phone in the air.” She paused. “I’ll think about what you said, but I have to tell him. Peter might have played his part, but I have to take responsibility for mine.” She scooped up the letter.
Rachael nodded. “I’ll give you a lift back. And remember, I’m here, no matter what.”
She trailed after Sammy through the house, which was now in the midst of the kids’ bath time. Sammy glanced toward the sounds of splashing and laughter, and Rachael wondered if she was thinking about her own child and what the future held.
They drove back to town in relative silence. When Rachael had pulled to the curb just down from Bernie’s place, Sammy paused with her hand on the door catch. “Were you really offered two jobs?”
“Yeah.” Rachael tried to smile. “A magazine editor friend of Antonio’s was looking for an intern. And Bonnie wanted to talk about me helping with some kind of fashion show for charity.”
“Seriously?”
Rachael shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I screwed up, so they’re gone. The internship wouldn’t have paid much anyway, and it’s not like Bonnie’s ever going to talk to me again.”
“True. But what’s the problem with the internship? You could afford to do it, couldn’t you?”
“Umm . . . Antonio was there when Bonnie caught me and Matthew.”
Sammy leaned back in her seat. “So there was something going on with him?”
Rachael pressed a hand to her forehead, awash with regret. She could now barely remember his face across the table from her, or the warmth of his arms around her as Paris glittered all around. All she could recall was feeling like they were at the center of the whole world.
“I think there could have been, but not after what happened. Besides, I don’t know if that’s really what I want. I think journalism was something Matthew thought I should do. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t focus on it.”
Sammy watched her carefully. “Are you happy here, Rach?”
“Oh, I’m fine. Just tired. The plant is always so draining.”
“I should go.” Sammy opened her door.
Rachael reached out to touch her arm. “Good luck.”
After Sammy had vanished down the driveway, Rachael slumped. She was desperately tired, but not exhausted enough to quiet her troubled soul. Sammy was taking responsibility for her actions, coming clean whatever the consequences. Rachael knew she had to make amends too, assuage the shame, or she would never escape it.
She drove home under the gathering night, the stars appearing overhead like tiny eavesdroppers.
Later, as she lay in bed, still restless, an idea drilled a seed into her mind, one that grew as she worked the next day in the tractor cab.
The day the planting finally finished, she knew what she had to do. She told Tess and Joel she would be gone for a day, and early the next morning she fueled the car in Milton and took to the highway.
Chapter 22
The first part of the drive was four hours down the winding highway that passed through Bathurst and then rose up and up through the Blue Mountains. After the climb and descent, the road opened up like a river reaching its delta, and Rachael entered the motorway hell of Sydney. Her plan had been to start early, get there, do what she had to, and be home by five, but the traffic had other ideas. She spent two hours crawling along the first motorway because of a truck accident, or so said a glowing sign that she read twenty times before she crept past it. Once that was done with, she mistook the directions in her GPS, whose maps clearly hadn’t been updated since 2003. Soon she was seeing signs to the airport, which was completely the wrong side of the city.
Another two hours passed in further misadventures, one including an unexpected tunnel, until Rachael was nearly in tears. When she finally saw and crossed the Harbor Bridge heading north, she would have cheered if her mission hadn’t been so cheerless.
Finally, she turned onto a street where heavy brick pillars, manicured hedges, and lush gardens concealed the harborside mansions within. Learning the right address hadn’t been easy; Sammy would have been horrified if she’d known what Rachael had done to get it.
She was hoping—counting on, in fact—that neither Bonnie nor Matthew was home. They were supposed to be on their honeymoon. Rachael tried not to think about how that was going. Was Bonnie pretending nothing had happened? Was Matthew?
The fence at her destination was an orderly row of slender iron spikes, as if a phalanx of soldiers had gone on a tea break and left their spears behind. The grass verge was as plush and spotless as a green rug, silencing Rachael’s steps as she padded from the curb to the gate. Her heart thumped, not least because the rooftops almost looked fortified, as if snipers were targeting her. But she had to do this.
Set into the side of the gate was a security intercom with a camera lens and a single stainless-steel button. She pressed it.
“Name and appointment?” A man’s voice, bored.
“I don’t have one. I just have a package—”
Click.
Rachael waited, but nothing happened. She pushed the button again.
“No access without an appointment,” the man said. “Packages are not received at the house. We call police for repeated—”
“It’s Rachael West.”
Silence, but no click. The man was still listening.
“I want to pay back the money,” Rachael rushed on. “For the trip to Paris. I have it here for Bonnie right now, and I was wondering if I could leave it—”
“No access without an appointment.” Click.
The old Rachael wouldn’t have pressed that button again. Hell, the old Rachael would never have come in the first place. She would have accepted the obstacle and endured it, while wishing that things had gone differently.
Her fingertip blanched as she mashed the button a third time. The new Rachael knew this was the right thing to do, and she was determined to do it, no matter how uncomfortable it made her.
“We call the police for persistent entry attempts without an appointment. Please leave now.” Click.
Rachael fingered the thick packet in her hand. She couldn’t see a mailbox. Should she leave it on top of the intercom and hope someone picked it up and gave it to Bonnie? Knowing her luck, they’d think she was planting some kind of bomb and then she’d be on the national evening news. Wouldn’t that be a fabulous development.
She’d assumed the repayment would be welcome, justified, even necessary. Now, she realized that from the security people’s perspective, she probably looked like just another unwanted caller—a canvasser, admirer, or any other time waster. They probably had a dozen every week.
Embarrassed, she slunk back to her car and drove away. Desperation and conviction had made her foolish. She could have saved herself the trip.
* * *
Rachael didn’t make it home until midnight. She spent the next two days cleaning the planting equipment and doing all the postplant chores. After that, she peeled four notes off the pile she’d intended for Bonnie and sent Joel, Tess, and baby Georgia away for a break, promising to mind Felix and Emily. For once, Tess accepted without a fight.
The next afternoon, Rachael and the kids were trudging back from the waterhole through the freshly planted fields. Well, Rachael was trudging. The kids were running while she called after them to walk in the tramlines and avoid compacting the seed. It was Emily who spotted the glinting windscreen coming up the drive.
When the car came into view it looked distinctly out of place: low-slung, black, and sleek, gliding on flawless suspension even on the rutted driveway. Dragging a dust cloud, it vanished behind the house.
Rachael’s stomach dived. Who was it? Had Bonnie’s security people tracked her all the way back from Sydney? She glanced at the children; they were tired and dirty and needed a bath. Should she tell them to go hide in the shed?
“Who’s that?” asked Emily.
A figure had appeared on the verandah: a tall woman in flowing white trousers and a Prussian blue tank top. Despite the warmth of the afternoon, a cold horror gripped Rachael between her ribs. It could only be Bonnie.
“Let’s go and have some lemonade,” she said bravely, which was enough for the children to find a burst of energy up the hill.
“Hello!” Felix called toward Bonnie as the two of them hurtled into the house, slamming the screen door in their haste to reach the fridge.
Rachael slowed to a stop, knowing how she must look. She was dressed in cutoff shorts, muddy boots, and an old holey tank top, and had three wet towels over her shoulder. She’d raked her hair back into a band and knew the top was all lumpy and the short underneath escaping. Her face was red, and dust clung to her damp legs. Bonnie looked ready for a runway; Rachael was only fit to bed down in a sheep pen.
“Hi,” she said, before an awkward silence. “Do you want to come inside?”
Bonnie glanced toward the house. “Are those your cousins?”
“Niece and nephew. I’m looking after them while my sister and her husband have a break.”
Bonnie shaded her eyes. “Will they be all right by themselves? I’d like to talk to you alone.”
The children didn’t care, especially when Rachael allowed them to put on Toy Story and take the lemonade bottle into the TV room. Tess would never know.
Rachael led Bonnie into the lounge, which seemed so worn and diminished in her presence. For moral support, Rachael sat in her mother’s chair, heedless of how dirty she was. Bonnie seemed to consider before she folded her long legs to sit on the facing couch and tucked her ankles underneath. She’d refused tea, and Rachael noticed the big engagement ring was loose on her finger. She made her own hands into fists to stop herself from chewing her grubby nails.
“I guess you must have heard about my coming to Sydney,” she began. “I wanted—”
“Yes, that’s why I’m here.”
Rachael fell silent.
“I’m a direct person,” Bonnie went on. “That’s how I run my business. So I’ll be direct. How much do you want?”
Rachael blinked. “What?”
“How much do you want? You’ll have to sign a nondisclosure, of course. I told Matthew we should have done this in Paris, but he said the whole thing was his fault.”
Bonnie made it sound as if she was talking about Matthew dropping his socks on the floor instead of his nearly running out on their wedding. It took Rachael an age to realize what she meant.
“I don’t want your money!” she said. “I came to give it back, not ask for it.”
Confusion knitted the space between Bonnie’s perfect brows. “Give it back?”
“I didn’t want you paying for my trip after what happened. Look, I’ll go and get it now.”
Rachael jumped up and made an undignified exit by tripping on the carpet edge. The packet was still in the top drawer in her room, crumpled and looking like a bribe in a cop drama. She managed not to trip on the way back, and held the money out to Bonnie.
“That’s all of it, except a few hundred I gave to my sister. I’ll put that back when I can get to a bank again.”
Slowly, Bonnie took the envelope and folded it in her palm. The confusion lifted, replaced with a small smile. “Richard must have misunderstood. I have to admit I was surprised. I didn’t think you were that kind of person.”
“I’m not,” Rachael said, but softly, because she didn’t feel she had the right to protest anything Bonnie might think of her. She sat down again. “Bonnie, I’m really sorry. I know it doesn’t make it better, but I am.”
Bonnie didn’t meet Rachael’s eyes. The words seemed to glance off her as she gazed out the window. “I suppose I should have come out here years ago,” she said. “Matthew offered enough times. It’s pretty.”
“You should see it next week when the wheat comes up.” Rachael’s voice was rough. Sadness had wedged in her throat like a sharp stone. Her apology had meant nothing. How could it?
Bonnie stood as if she was leaving, then turned back. “He’s my husband, Rachael. He was before we left Sydney. I’m not going to be another celebrity couple divorced after forty-eight hours and give people more reasons to talk about us. I believe in letting people redeem themselves. He can do that. And that’s as much as I’ll say to you about my marriage.”
Rachael was about to apologize again, to say any number of platitudes she’d carefully practiced before going to Sydney, but they all died in her throat. She could see the hurt in Bonnie’s eyes. No matter how much money Bonnie had, how many fancy clothes, she was as vulnerable to love as anyone else. And Matthew was hers now—her love, and her problem, in whatever balance those things would be. Rachael’s time with him had ended long ago, and the moments in Paris had been stolen from some other life that wasn’t hers. She found no peace in the realization, but it did allow her to understand what wouldn’t help.
“I’d say I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she told Bonnie, “but my mother would have said that’s a cop-out, because hurting other people is always the last thing we think of when we’re only thinking of ourselves. And that’s what I was doing. I wanted to believe I could do my life over. But I can’t. I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but I liked you. I still do.”
