The Younger Wife, page 16
‘Did you see how miserable his daughters looked?’ he says. ‘Like they were at a funeral rather than a wedding.’
‘But trying to be supportive of their father,’ another woman adds. ‘Those girls have always adored Stephen.’
The ambulance had parked at the side door of the chapel to avoid the crowds, so no one saw who was ferried away. The family, too, have all disappeared; presumably they are on their way to the hospital as well. As for the guests, no one seems in any great hurry to leave. I suppose they’d planned to be spending the afternoon and evening at the wedding and so have nowhere else to be. One man suggests everyone head to the local pub for drinks and to wait for news together.
Obviously I’m not going to do that, but I’m in no hurry to leave either, now that I’ve had to give my details to the police. That was something I’d hoped to avoid, but the damage is done now. So I stand among the knots of people, trying to look like a concerned friend.
‘I think Pam went for Heather,’ a middle-aged woman in a pink skirt suit says. ‘Yes, she has dementia, but she was always pretty savvy. I mean, who could blame her? The woman was marrying her husband, for God’s sake.’
‘Ex-husband,’ the man standing beside says.
‘How would she know that? She couldn’t possibly have consented to the divorce; she’s not exactly of sound mind, is she?’
‘Which one is it, Daph? Is she savvy, or not of sound mind?’
‘Both!’ Daph sounds indignant. ‘Savvy but not of sound mind. Shut up, Greg.’
‘It could have been one of the daughters,’ Greg says. ‘Trying to take out the wicked new stepmother.’
Greg is enjoying the drama a little too much, and apparently Daph thinks so too because she elbows him in the guts and he makes an oof sound.
‘I hear Rachel made the wedding cake,’ another guy in the same group says. ‘So it won’t be her. If she wanted to kill Heather, she could’ve just poisoned the cake.’
‘But then she would’ve poisoned everyone, you dill.’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘The poor bloke probably had a heart attack,’ Greg says. ‘All that sex with a younger woman . . . gotta be bad for the heart.’
‘Greg!’
‘What? It would be ironic, wouldn’t it? Heart surgeon dies of a heart attack?’
All around me, people are having similar conversations. The consensus is that it was either the bride or groom who was injured. Most people blame Pamela, and it is, I suppose, the logical assumption. She has dementia, she may have got confused or violent. But I don’t think it was Pamela. Not that she wouldn’t have had cause to do it; I myself was certainly tempted, more than once. But I’m starting to think it was the daughter, the one who bakes. She was the glue that held the family together. Walking down the aisle, she looked like she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders, and little wonder after the pressure cooker they’ve all been in this past year. Yes, my money is on her.
30
HEATHER
Heather sat on the edge of the bed with her elbows on her knees, staring at the floor. Her head throbbed, despite the two ibuprofen she’d taken. Stephen must have put her to bed last night, because she didn’t remember how she’d got here. His side of the bed was made, so clearly he’d slept somewhere else, but she knew he was in the house. She could feel him.
She’d packed a small overnight bag – toothbrush, toothpaste, pyjamas, a change of clothes – and it sat at her feet. She had to leave. What choice did she have? The irony was that this was exactly what she wanted to avoid. This was why she’d re-created herself! For a nicer life, yes; a life where she didn’t have to worry about money. But more importantly, for a life where she didn’t have to be afraid in her own home.
She wondered if she should call someone to be here, just in case. But who? She’d never had many friends and she’d lost contact with the few she did have after she started dating Stephen. She was far too ashamed to call her work colleagues for this. And it wasn’t as if she could call Rachel or Tully. She was on her own. Like her mother had been, in the end. It was thinking of her mother that finally got Heather into a standing position. She wasn’t going to be a battered wife, like her mother. She was going to ensure a different fate for herself.
She threw her bag over her shoulder and walked out of the bedroom, down the hall and stairs, and into the living room. Stephen was sitting at the breakfast bar with his back to her.
‘I’m leaving you, Stephen,’ she said.
He turned to face her.
‘Oh my God. What . . . what happened to your face?’
He had a black eye. He also appeared to have a deep scratch under the eye that was bruised.
He blinked slowly. Suddenly her fear of him hurting her seemed ridiculous. In fact, seeing Stephen now, it felt laughable that she’d even had that fear in the first place.
‘Stephen?’
He took off his glasses. That’s when she noticed they weren’t his usual glasses but a spare pair he kept in the bedside table. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m just not sure if you’re joking or not.’
Suddenly Heather wasn’t sure either.
‘You don’t remember what happened last night?’
‘Yes,’ she said, though she was starting to doubt herself. ‘You were upset with me for drinking at the party. We had an argument. I tried to leave, and you grabbed my hair and . . .’
She trailed off, trying to remember. She knew she’d gone down. After that she didn’t remember anything.
Stephen was still looking at her, confused, as if her face were a maths problem he was trying to solve.
‘I don’t know,’ she said finally.
‘Do you want to sit down?’
‘No. Just tell me.’
Stephen nodded. ‘Well, as you say, we came home and we argued. Evidently I got too close to you. I apologise for that. I didn’t realise you were feeling so hemmed in until you shouted for me to move and then punched me.’
‘I punched you?’
Stephen smiled thinly. ‘Knocked the glasses clean off my face. I think that was what caused the scratch.’ He pointed to the mark under his eye. ‘Then you took off. I was going to let you go; you were very upset. Then you slipped. You went down hard and hit your head. I sat with you for a couple of hours down here, in case you were concussed. Eventually I took you upstairs and put you to bed.’
Heather tried to line up this version with her own memory.
‘What did you think happened?’ Stephen asked.
Heather had no idea anymore. ‘I don’t know! I know that we argued, and then I was on the ground. I assumed . . .’ She trailed off.
‘That I did it to you?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted.
He looked, among other things, very sad.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘I . . . I don’t know what I was thinking. I just . . .’ Heather suddenly felt at a loss. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I might be way off,’ he said, after a long pause, ‘but I wonder if this might have something to do with your dad.’
Just like that, an image of her father popped into her head. He was holding her mum by the throat, pressing her against the wall.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think it might.’
Stephen exhaled. He looked like he wanted to reach for her, but then appeared to think better of it. ‘Heather,’ he said, ‘you need to understand that I will never lay a hand on you in violence. I don’t hurt women. I don’t hurt men. I’m a doctor. I have taken an oath to do no harm.’
Heather nodded. How stupid she had been. Of course Stephen would never hurt her. He was a good man. A family man. A doctor! The idea that he would be physically violent was preposterous. She let her bag slide off her shoulder and onto the floor. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Stephen. I feel like I’m going mad.’
‘You’re not going mad,’ he said.
But she must have been. Because if she wasn’t going mad, it meant that Stephen was a monster. A monster who, in the next few months, was going to become her husband.
31
TULLY
Her psychologist was a man. Tully had spent the first fifteen minutes of her appointment marvelling at that, which equated to about fifty dollars. Probably not the best use of their money, especially at the moment. Sonny had made the appointment for her. For the past week he’d been either reading a book, listening to a podcast or watching a documentary about kleptomania. As it turned out, he’d crossed paths with a lot of psychologists when they’d given evidence in court, and apparently Dr Shearer was one of the best.
When Sonny suggested Dr Shearer, Tully had pictured a woman. A forthright woman in her mid-forties with short hair and a well-cut blazer. A lesbian, perhaps. Call me Amanda, she would say, and then she and Tully would exchange small talk about where she’d bought the well-cut blazer. Instead, Tully sat face to face with an older man. He was probably in his late sixties, with a shock of white hair, an open-necked shirt and corduroy trousers. A man who hadn’t, thus far, asked her to call him Alan.
‘Anyway, I think I’ve talked enough for now,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you tell me a little about you?’
‘Well,’ Tully said, ‘as my husband told you, I’ve been shoplifting since I was a little girl . . .’
‘He did tell me that, and I understand that’s what brought you here today, but before we get into the specifics I’d like to know a little backstory. I understand you have two living parents, one sister, is that correct?’
‘Yes,’ Tully said. ‘Although Mum has dementia.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘And Dad is getting remarried soon, to a woman my age.’
‘That must be hard,’ Dr Shearer said sympathetically.
There was something about the sympathy that made Tully want to share more.
She decided Dr Shearer might be all right, even if he was a man.
‘On top of that, my two-year-old son won’t sleep in his big-boy bed and refuses to eat anything he’s touched with his hands!’
It was addictive, Tully realised, getting this stuff off her chest. She was starting to feel positively giddy with it.
‘And my husband lost nearly all of our money in a bad investment!’
Dr Shearer scribbled something on the notepad in front of him. Make them pay upfront, probably. Then he looked up. ‘You certainly have a lot going on. What about support? Who do you turn to for support during all of this?’
‘Sonny, usually. But he’s not speaking to me much these days.’
‘What about your sister? Are you close?’
Tully hesitated. ‘If you’d asked me a few months ago, I’d have said no. But things have been better between us lately. As children, we were super competitive with each other. I wanted to beat her at everything.’
‘Why do you think that was?’ Dr Shearer said.
Tully didn’t know. Suffice to say, she didn’t care about beating Rachel at anything now.
‘Go back to your childhood,’ Dr Shearer said. ‘This stuff is actually very important. What happens in our childhood shapes us – our ability to relate to people, to manage our emotions, to control our impulses. There’ll be a reason you felt competitive with your sister as a child, just as there’ll be a reason that competitiveness has subsided.’
Tully thought harder, trying to unearth some significant childhood memories. Funnily enough, all the ones that presented themselves featured her dad’s voice.
Come on, Tully! You can beat her. She has the strength but you’re faster.
You can ride your bike faster than that. Rachel can do it and she’s younger than you.
Rachel climbed that tree all the way to the top. How high did you climb?
Sure, he’d been a competitive dad, but Tully had been fine with it, because he was usually on her side. Often, during a race, he’d even manoeuvre himself in front of Rachel to slow her down. Once, he even tripped Rachel when it looked like she was going to beat Tully. Later, when Dad was putting her to bed, they’d laughed about it. Tully felt like it was a little secret between them. A few weeks later, though, Tully found she didn’t find it so funny. Because, that time, she could have sworn that her dad tripped her.
32
RACHEL
Rachel was delivering a cake to a client. She liked to do that from time to time – it made her nostalgic for the early days of her business, when she used to personally deliver every item to the client. And there was no doubt she felt a certain spring in her step today. She and Darcy had spent most of the previous few days kissing like teenagers. That was as far as she was ready to take it – which felt embarrassing and strange for a thirty-five-year-old woman. Darcy seemed perfectly happy with the arrangement, so for now Rachel wasn’t going to question herself. She also wasn’t going to question the fact that, after he left this morning, she opened and finished a small block of chocolate.
Where I come from we call that survival.
Today she was delivering a birthday cake in the shape of a football. Rachel had assumed it was for a child until she received the instructions from Nancy, the man’s wife. Please write: Happy 72nd birthday, Jimmy.
‘I take it Jimmy is a football fan?’ Rachel asked, when Nancy arrived at the door. There was, Rachel noticed, no sign of a party underway.
‘He most certainly is,’ Nancy said. ‘He played for the Hawks for twelve years. But that was a long time ago.’
‘No way! I’m a Hawks fan.’
‘Naturally – they’re the best team,’ Nancy said with a wink. She opened the box. ‘Ah, look at this. It’s perfect. He’ll love it.’
‘Are you having a party?’
‘Well, no. Jimmy isn’t a big fan of crowds these days. He has dementia, you see.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
Rachel thought about adding that her mum did too, but she held it back. So often when she told someone about Mum’s dementia they interrupted, desperate for her to know about their mum, their friend, their husband who also had it. Sometimes it was nice to keep the attention on the person who was sharing.
‘We think it was the football,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘So many falls and knocks to the head. I can’t even count the number of times he was in hospital for concussion.’
‘And you think that caused the dementia?’
Nancy shrugged. ‘They don’t know for sure. But there is a proven link between repeated head trauma and dementia later in life.’
‘Really?’ Rachel thought of her mother. The head injuries she had sustained over the years from various trips and falls. I’m so clumsy, Mum always used to say. Always tripping or stumbling on something. ‘I didn’t know that.’
Nancy smiled sadly. ‘You see a lot of these ex-sportspeople developing symptoms in their fifties and sixties. They think they’re invincible when they’re young, but then it turns out they aren’t.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Rachel said, then added, ‘I hope Jimmy enjoys the cake.’
Nancy thanked her again, and then shut the door. But as Rachel made her way back to the car, she realised something. Despite her mother being notorious for clumsiness, Rachel had never seen her stumble. Not once.
33
HEATHER
‘Look, Miles!’ Stephen said. ‘Bluey has come to your party!’
Stephen pointed at Sonny, who was encased in an inflatable dog costume and waving a giant hand at the dozen little party guests, who were exhilarated at Bluey’s arrival. Miles was not exhilarated. He let out a piercing scream and cowered behind Stephen, his little arms wrapped around his grandfather’s knees as he shrieked, ‘No Bluey! No Bluey!’
It was Heather’s very first kids’ birthday party. She’d been looking forward to it. She’d spent days researching the perfect present before deciding on a wooden fire station, complete with fire trucks, firemen and a pole (though now she was wondering if she should have got the Bluey paraphernalia she’d seen at Big W for a quarter of the price).
Pam was at the party too. Stephen had insisted. ‘Why should she miss out on her grandson’s third birthday party?’ he said.
The girls had been less enthusiastic about Pam’s attendance. Tully had worried it might be unsettling for Pam, and Rachel had worried Pam might upset the kids. And, admittedly, there’d been a moment upon arrival when Pam had accused Sonny of stealing her handbag (calling him a ‘shifty son-of-a-bitch’). But now that she’d settled in, Pam did seem to be coping pretty well. When the little children came up to her to show her something or hand her a piece of food they were finished with, she just smiled and patted them on the head.
Heather had to admit the party was more low-key than she’d expected. She’d heard so much about the designer toddler parties people had these days, the ones that looked like they belonged on Pinterest rather than in real life. This, apart from its beautiful setting – Sonny and Tully’s home – was refreshingly simple: a dozen kids running about on the lawn, a man in a dog suit, party games and a piñata (filled with actual lollies rather than nutritious snacks). There was no official party entertainer, no designer goodie bags, no painstaking decorations beyond balloons and a generic cardboard Happy Birthday banner. The food table boasted party pies, sausage rolls, fairy bread and a fruit platter. The only thing faintly fancy about the party was the cake, prepared by Rachel, in the shape of the dog – Bluey.
‘What’s the problem, buddy?’ Stephen said to Miles when the boy continued to scream. ‘I thought you loved Bluey.’
‘No!’ Miles cried. ‘Too big! Bluey go away!’
Tully appeared, directing Sonny to the far end of the garden, and Stephen squatted down in front of Miles. ‘I see what you mean,’ Stephen replied seriously. ‘Then again, you’re pretty big too. You’re three now, don’t forget. And I think you’ve grown a bit taller since I last saw you.’ While he was talking, Stephen swept Miles up and planted the boy on his shoulders. ‘See? Look how tall you are. You’re even taller than Bluey!’
