The Younger Wife, page 12
They had been supposed to meet the afternoon after Pamela moved into the nursing home. Stephen had moved into the house by then, but there were a few little i’s to dot and t’s to cross. Heather had suggested they change the time of the meeting, but he’d insisted they go ahead, saying he’d need something to take his mind off things.
She arrived just after 3 pm, as agreed, to find Stephen in his sweatpants, drinking a glass of wine.
‘Sorry. Didn’t we . . . did we have a meeting?’
‘Yes. Excuse the informality.’ He gestured to his clothes. ‘I took the day off today. Will you have a glass of wine? I just opened a bottle.’
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Why not?’
They didn’t even pretend to talk about interior design that afternoon. When Heather left a couple of hours and a bottle of wine later, they hugged on the doorstep. And in the morning, when she stepped out of her front door, she found a bunch of flowers. Thank you, said the accompanying card. I needed that.
Three months later, after clinking their glasses in celebration of the new, minimalist house, he kissed her, right in the modern streamlined living room that she’d designed. The living room that was about to become hers.
*
Heather was moving in with Stephen. Moving into a mansion on the beach in the nicest neighbourhood around. She wondered what her parents would say if they knew. ‘Let’s pop the bubbly,’ probably. Heather would’ve liked to. She’d gone back and forth for hours, wondering whether to suggest it to Stephen. It was a special occasion, after all. It would make it more special to celebrate with bubbles. Then again, after her behaviour the other night, she was fairly sure the suggestion wouldn’t be well received.
‘Another box?’ Stephen moaned, gesturing to the one in front of her.
The question was tongue-in-cheek. He was in a wonderful mood. There was no need for him to be helping the men they’d hired to do the move. Heather had hardly brought enough stuff to justify hiring them, in any case. There were her clothes (several boxes of those). Some crockery. Some photographs and memorabilia. And two pieces of furniture – a mid-century modern sideboard that she’d been gifted by a client, and a marble coffee table gifted by another client. The rest of her furniture – her bed, sofa and dining table – was old and didn’t match the house, so she’d donated it to a charity for women in need.
She and Stephen probably could have transported everything in the back of his Porsche in a couple of trips, but that wasn’t how the upper-middle class did things. The upper-middle class hired people to help them pack, take away the things they didn’t need, and unpack again at the other end. In addition to paying them handsomely, Stephen had given the movers a slab of premium beer and instructed her to order pizzas for them. That had been particularly eye-opening. Heather had assumed – from movies and the like – that the more money people had, the worse they treated the staff, but she understood now that wasn’t generally the case. She also understood why. When you were comfortable, you could afford to be magnanimous. Poorer people didn’t help the movers unpack because they were tired from working two jobs. If the movers broke something, poorer people were mad, because they couldn’t afford to replace it. They didn’t order pizza or premium beer for the movers, because when was the last time someone did that for them? It was strange, seeing the world from both sides. Strange, and eye-opening. So few people got to see things from her vantage point. It seemed, to Heather, an awful shame.
‘Will we have pizza too, or shall I order us something else?’ Stephen asked.
‘I’m not sure I feel like pizza,’ she said.
‘Sashimi?’ he suggested.
‘Perfect.’
As Stephen wandered off to order their dinner, Heather leaned back in her chair and admired her things in Stephen’s house. Her elbow had healed now. Apart from a slight yellowish tinge, you wouldn’t even know that the bruise had been there, and Heather’s suspicion that Stephen had been responsible had faded along with it. It had been a trick of the mind, she realised. Seeing women getting roughed up by men was part of Heather’s DNA; of course she’d carry that expectation into her life with Stephen. But she had found a new way of living now. Her old way of thinking was just another thing she’d need to unlearn.
‘Sashimi is on its way,’ Stephen announced. ‘Shall I open some sparkling water?’
Again, she entertained the idea of suggesting a bottle of bubbly. It hovered on the tip of her tongue. Stephen watched her intently for a moment, as if he knew what she was thinking. It scared her sometimes, when he did that. More old thinking, she suspected.
‘You know what?’ he said finally. ‘It’s a special occasion. Why don’t I open a bottle of champagne?’
Suddenly Heather wasn’t scared anymore. Just the opposite. ‘What a good idea,’ she said.
20
RACHEL
As she drove to visit her mum, Rachel was thinking about Darcy. This was nothing new; she’d lain awake half the night thinking about him and she’d probably spend most of the day thinking about him. Yesterday had been a long day. Darcy had clearly been surprised by the fact that she’d destroyed the wedding cake, but he wasn’t noticeably disgusted. In fact, after he’d seen the state of the cake, his mind had seemed completely focused on damage control.
‘I have an idea,’ he said.
Rachel stared at him. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me what I did?’
‘I can see what you did.’
She must have made a face at this, because Darcy held up his hands. ‘Hey, I’m not judging. I have three sisters, I know the deal. When you have your period you can’t be held responsible for what you do. Once, my older sister Suzanne legit bowled me over when I stood in between her and a tub of Ben & Jerry’s. See this scar on my eyebrow? That’s from when Lucy was on the rampage and I was eating some Oreos –’
‘Okay, okay.’ Rachel was happy enough to let him assume it was period-eating for now. She sure as hell didn’t have a better explanation – at least, not one she wanted to reveal to Darcy. ‘So . . . you have an idea?’
She tried to keep the hope out of her voice. She didn’t have high expectations for his plan, but currently it was all she had. And who knew? Maybe Darcy, as well as being preposterously good-looking, was the MacGyver of getting out of work-related troubles.
‘Yes,’ he said, grabbing her arm and leading her out of the house. With no other option, Rachel allowed herself to be led. ‘We’re going to the supermarket.’
‘The supermarket?’ She stopped dead. ‘That cake took me a week to make, Darcy. I don’t have time to bake another one. Besides, I have ingredients here.’
‘We’re not getting ingredients,’ he said, ushering her towards his car. ‘We’re getting cakes.’
‘Cakes? They paid four grand for this cake! You think the bride isn’t going to notice that it’s a supermarket cake?’
‘Of course she won’t. She probably won’t even eat the damn thing.’
He opened the passenger door and waited patiently until she got inside. It was, admittedly, a fair point. So many brides who’d been incredibly finicky about their wedding cake later admitted that they hadn’t even eaten a slice of it. Still.
Darcy shut her door then walked around to the driver’s side and got in. ‘And the guests aren’t exactly going to say, Hey, your wedding cake tasted exactly like Woolies’ chocolate mud, are they?’
‘Even if that’s true . . . it’s the fondant that takes the time,’ Rachel said. ‘And I spent days on the sugar flowers.’
Darcy pointed to the clock on the dash. ‘Sorry, no time for fondant. We’re going to have to get Betty Crocker’s buttercream frosting.’
She gaped at him. ‘Darcy! I cannot give Emily and Peter a Woolies mud cake with Betty Crocker icing.’
He waved his hand, unbothered. ‘You’ll be able to fancy it up. Add some sprinkles?’
‘Sprinkles!’ she cried. ‘And what do I say when they ask: where is the cake we ordered?’
‘I’ll say: This one has your name on it. Do you want me to take it away? Rachel’s away for the weekend, though, so I won’t be able to get you anything else today. They’ll have no choice but to take it. The next day they’ll send you an angry email, you’ll explain that the dim-witted delivery man got the cakes mixed up and offer them a fifty per cent discount, and everyone will be happy.’
It wasn’t a brilliant solution. But it was a solution.
And if she said so herself, she did a pretty good job with the mud cakes and Betty Crocker icing. She’d got the icing the exact shade of the fondant, and decorated it with extra sugar flowers purchased from the specialist cake store. She added fresh flowers as well, and by the time she was finished, the cake didn’t look half bad. Not exactly like the one Emily and Peter had ordered, but pretty close.
And, as luck would have it, the groom had accepted delivery of the cake without noticing anything was amiss (despite having been present for three tastings), and when Rachel had emailed the bride the next morning to apologise for the mix-up, Emily had said the cake was delicious and there was no need for a discount. She also had had many requests from guests who wanted the same cake for their own wedding.
All in all, it was a spectacular save. And not only had Darcy come up with the idea and driven her to the supermarket, he had also stayed with her while she assembled, iced and decorated the cakes, making no mention of the fact that she didn’t seem unwell. When she told him he was welcome to go, he’d merely smiled and said, ‘Nowhere else to be.’ At one point, as she was adding the final layer of icing, she looked up and saw him watching her intently.
‘What?’ she said.
‘I’ve never seen an artist at work before,’ he said. ‘It’s pretty awesome.’
She waited for him to turn it into a joke. He didn’t. She wasn’t sure she believed him, and yet there was something about him standing there that made her feel a little taller.
When she was done, he took the cake to the wedding. He returned afterwards to let her know it had been successfully delivered.
‘I’m not sure how I can thank you,’ she said.
‘Go on a date with me,’ he replied, without missing a beat.
‘Unfortunately,’ she said, ‘I don’t date.’
‘You don’t date?’ His confused expression nearly made her laugh out loud. ‘You mean . . . not at all?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Are you religious?’
‘No.’
It was as if she’d told him she didn’t eat food, but feasted on the spines of lizards instead. ‘Then . . . why?’
‘I just . . . don’t.’
Darcy stared off into space for a minute, as if trying to get his head around this unexpected piece of information. It seemed to take him a while. And then, just when Rachel thought he was going to move on, he straightened. ‘If you don’t date, then why did you agree to go out with me?’
Rachel felt a pulse of shame. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘my sister agreed to the last date. She took my phone.’
‘Your sister?’ A beat of silence. ‘So you didn’t really want to go out with me?’
He looked so stricken, Rachel wondered if it was possible to die of shame.
‘Listen,’ she heard herself say, ‘as I said, I don’t date. But after what you’ve done for me today, I think I can make an exception.’
They’d agreed to have dinner tomorrow night. Just a casual dinner, in a public venue. She avoided asking herself what was the worst that could happen because, well, she didn’t want to go there.
Rather than agonise over it in advance, Rachel decided to focus on her mother.
It always took her a little time to get into the headspace to see her mother. It was just so hard to anticipate what would happen. She had to prepare for the possibility that her mum would be having a bad day. That Mum might not want to see her . . . or would be delighted to see her because she thought Rachel had come to take her home. Once, when Rachel visited, Mum had screamed at her to ‘get the fuck out of my room’. Each day was a fresh, new, heartbreaking challenge. And today, as well as dealing with that new challenge, she was hoping to get some information out of Mum.
She found her in the communal area of the home, flanked by two older ladies who appeared much more on the ball than Pam. One of the ladies held her mother’s hand. The sheer volume of emotion Rachel felt at witnessing this was overwhelming. Gratitude to the lady for her kindness. Sadness for Mum, who had never been particularly tactile, and generally didn’t like anyone to touch her other than her husband and daughters. But Rachel’s new mum didn’t seem to mind the hand-holding. This too made Rachel sad.
Rachel kneeled in front of her mother’s chair. ‘Hello,’ she said, holding back the word ‘Mum’. If it was a bad day, a day when she didn’t remember Rachel, that would just confuse her. But today she perked up a little.
‘Hello there,’ she said.
Rachel scanned her eyes. She definitely saw some lucidity.
‘Would you like to take a walk?’ Rachel asked.
‘Why not?’ Mum said, letting go of the older woman’s hand. Rachel smiled at the woman as she helped her mother to her feet.
‘Where to?’ Mum asked.
‘How about the garden?’
‘Sounds beaut,’ Mum said. ‘Lead the way.’
Rachel felt her heart lift. Beaut was one of Mum’s words. At her fiftieth, two of her friends, Elsa and Mary, had made up a song called ‘Beaut’ and performed it for the crowd while Mary’s husband accompanied them on the guitar. It had been a while since Rachel had heard her say it.
Rachel led Mum to the sensory garden, a lovely space where residents could explore all five senses, including eating the snow peas that grew there. She and Mum sat in the wrought-iron chairs at one end.
‘So,’ Mum said, ‘what’s news?’
This was Mum’s go-to conversation starter of late. Rachel assumed it helped to kick things off without her having to remember her shared history with visitors.
‘I’ve been going through some of your stuff, actually,’ Rachel said. ‘Stuff that you left at home. Dad . . . Stephen gave it to me.’
‘Stephen?’
‘Yes. He found a bunch of things in your wardrobe.’
Rachel trailed off, watching her mother’s face and preparing for disappointment. More than half the time, Mum didn’t even know who Rachel was, so the chances of her remembering shoving a stack of cash into a hot-water bottle were slim to none. Still, there was a tiny part of her that hoped.
‘One of them was a pink hot-water bottle,’ Rachel continued. ‘Pale pink in a knitted cosy.’
Mum looked her in the eye now. ‘Stephen is a sadistic bastard.’
Rachel sighed. Mum had been saying this sort of thing a lot lately. The nurse who supposedly stole her stuff was a ‘witch’. The person in the room beside her was ‘loud as fuck’. Last time Tully visited, Mum apparently called her ‘an irritating little troll’. Rachel had coughed to hide her giggle. Before Mum got sick, Rachel had never heard her use a single swearword.
‘I found money inside the hot-water bottle,’ Rachel continued. ‘A lot of money. Almost a hundred thousand dollars.’
Mum glanced away, not interested in the slightest. It was just so frustrating. Mum had to have had a plan for this money. Otherwise how did she get it? Why did she hide it? Rachel had so many questions. Maybe she should have brought the hot-water bottle to jog her mother’s memory?
‘Actually, I’m looking for someone called Fiona Arthur,’ Rachel said, changing tack. ‘You don’t happen to know her, by any chance?’
Mum’s reaction to this question, unlike the last, was palpable. It was as if the name sent an electric current through her.
Then, just as quickly, Mum’s eyes filled with tears. She dropped her face into her hands. ‘That poor, poor woman,’ she said.
‘Why do you say that?’ Rachel asked. ‘Why is she a poor woman?’
Mum raised her head and looked Rachel right in the eye.
‘Stephen hurt her,’ she said. ‘Stephen hurt that poor woman terribly.’
21
TULLY
‘We’re getting McDonald’s for dinner!’ Tully announced.
The boys, who were strapped into their car seats in the back of her Range Rover, blinked at her in confusion.
‘What’s McDougal’s?’ Locky asked.
Tully understood their bemusement. She had never fed the boys McDonald’s before. They were, after all, upper middle-class preschoolers. They ate bliss balls and drank organic green smoothies and sugar-free cocoa. The one time Locky had been invited to a birthday party at McDonald’s, Tully had fed him before he left and told the birthday boy’s mother that Locky was a coeliac so he couldn’t eat the food. She’d told Locky that the food was really yucky and if he didn’t eat any he could have an extra bliss ball when he got home. What was wrong with her? she wondered now. Too much time? Too much money? Too much choice? Now that all three of those things had been taken away from her, McDonald’s sounded rather good. She could have just about murdered a Big Mac right now, just quietly. She hadn’t eaten one since university!
She and the boys had headed out to give the real estate agent and photographer space at the house. They wanted to get photos in the early evening light, so they could turn on the interior lights and let the ‘buttery yellow spill out into the garden’ (the photographer’s words). Admittedly, the house did look magic. It took her back to the day when she was seven months pregnant with Locky and they’d inspected the house for the first time.
‘This will be the baby’s room,’ Sonny said. ‘And this could be another baby’s room. This could be the playroom . . .’
They’d had so much hope for the future, and the house had represented the start of it. Selling it felt symbolic and, if she was honest, appropriate. Since she’d confessed her secret to Sonny five days ago, he’d been so upset with her. They’d barely said a word to each other. He’d even slept in the spare room, which was a waste of time, since Tully was still sleeping on Miles’s floor (the novelty of the one night in his big-boy bed appeared to have worn off and now he was back to being a stage-five clinger). When she’d told Sonny to come back and sleep in their room, he’d said he just needed some time. He hadn’t been angry – and in a way that made it worse. He was level-headed and calm. It was the kind of mindset with which people made important, binding decisions about their lives.
