The Younger Wife, page 18
‘The best bit,’ Stephen had said, ‘is that when the noise becomes too much, we can head down to the beach for a walk or go to the pub for an early dinner, and leave the parents and kids to it.’
Heather couldn’t wait. It would be just like the Christmas she had with Lily’s family when she was younger. Except this time she wouldn’t be the hanger-on, a guest. She would be in the master bedroom. It was her family.
Now she sat on the bathroom floor, but this time, she didn’t have a drink. It was mid-afternoon and Stephen was at the hospital. It was the first chance she’d had to be alone in days. It had been a momentous week. Stephen’s divorce to Pam had been granted. Stephen had been appropriately reflective about it, and even spent the afternoon in the nursing home with Pam the day it came through. He really was hard to fault. That was what made her other thoughts about him so . . . confusing.
There had been an incident the night before. One of the charities that Stephen was on the board of had a cocktail party in the city. Stephen had gone straight to the function after work at the hospital, so Heather had met him there.
On arrival, a man at the door held out a tray of colourful cocktails. Heather had glanced around for Stephen before accepting one, which made her hate herself a little bit. After all, she didn’t need his permission. Drinking a cocktail didn’t mean she had a drinking problem. The only person who had a problem with her drinking was Stephen.
And so, with the cocktail in hand, she made her way across the room. She found Stephen holding court among an eager audience, telling a story about a group of doctors who’d started a flash mob when he was on his way into surgery that morning. Heather caught his eye as she approached and he put his arm out to her.
‘I don’t know if everyone has met Heather, the lady in my life,’ he said proudly.
Heather smiled and waved at the familiar and unfamiliar faces.
Stephen looked happy but his gaze had lingered for a second or two on her glass. For the next two hours, she sipped the same drink, ready to respond to any of his assertions that she was drunk. She hadn’t had anything else to drink. And still the drive home had been tense.
‘I only had one drink, Stephen.’
‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘But you were thinking it. You have your worried face on.’
‘I don’t have my worried face on. I didn’t say anything, Heather. I don’t know why you’re sniping at me like this.’
Sniping? Was she?
When they got home, Stephen went straight to the bathroom for a shower. After a few minutes of stewing on what she’d done, Heather decided to join him. It would be just the thing, she realised, to smooth things over between them. It was steamy in the bathroom, and she couldn’t see very well, but then the shower door opened and Stephen’s arm shot out. Her legs slid out from under her, and she fell, landing hard on the tiles.
‘Are you all right?’ Stephen said, as he picked her up. ‘Did you hurt yourself?’
Heather shook her head, even though her back and legs were throbbing.
‘It’s slippery in here,’ he said, chidingly. ‘That’s why I tried to grab your hand.’
She didn’t even try to argue with his version of events this time. She knew better.
He was right, and she was going mad.
Still.
Heather had been thinking a lot about what Pam said that day at Miles’s party. That Stephen had made her life hell. Just the ramblings of an ill woman, probably. Unless . . . it wasn’t? Heather was almost certain that Stephen was the good guy, the upstanding doctor, the loving husband and father that he seemed. There was only the tiniest doubt in her mind. It was miniscule really. Still, she needed to get to the bottom of it, and fast.
Because her period was late.
37
RACHEL
On Thursday, Rachel received a reply from Fiona Arthur. Or, more accurately, from Fiona’s son Derek, who managed her Facebook account since Fiona was ninety-three now and lived in a nursing home. Derek didn’t know of any connection between his mother and Rachel’s. His mother lived in Far North Queensland, for one thing, and the Astons had neither lived nor holidayed there. Also, she was more than a quarter of a century older than Stephen and Pam. Rachel had to conclude that it wasn’t her Fiona, which was beyond frustrating, because it was starting to feel like Fiona Arthur was Rachel’s last hope for finding out why her mother was hoarding money.
Since she still hadn’t heard back from the other two Fionas, Rachel decided to try her mum again. Ever since Miles’s party she couldn’t stop thinking about how Mum had looked right at Dad and announced he’d made her life hell. Logically, Rachel knew her mother wasn’t in her right mind – indeed, she’d accused Rachel of stealing from her several times – yet, in light of the money she’d found, Rachel thought it was worth trying one more time.
‘Hello there,’ Mum said cheerily when she saw Rachel standing in the doorway.
‘Hello,’ Rachel replied. ‘You look nice today.’
In fact, she didn’t look that great. Her shirt had a soup stain on the front and her fly was undone. But Mum didn’t seem bothered, so Rachel didn’t feel the need to point it out.
She took a seat in the spare chair. Normally she’d lunge straight into small talk about the weather or what she’d been baking – nothing that required too much input from Mum and certainly nothing that required much recollection. Rachel had learned that her mother found this kind of conversation soothing and it usually made for a harmonious visit. But today she couldn’t help herself.
‘Do you know who I am?’ she asked.
Mum looked at her thoughtfully.
‘I’m Rachel,’ she said, when her mother didn’t reply.
‘My daughter’s name is Rachel,’ Mum said. ‘I have two daughters. Rachel and Natalie.’
‘Yes!’ Rachel said. ‘That’s right.’
Mum smiled. ‘Do you know them?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I also know your husband Stephen.’
Mum’s smile stalled.
‘I’ve never liked Stephen much, I must admit,’ Rachel continued, with a sick sensation of betrayal. ‘I always had a funny feeling about him. It’s hard to explain.’
Mum glanced around cagily, then lowered her voice. ‘Who have you been speaking to?’
‘No one.’
‘Because I told Diana to leave it alone. She was always pestering me about Stephen, asking where I got this bruise or that.’
‘Diana Rothschild?’
‘Yes. Pest of a woman.’
Diana Rothschild was one of Mum’s best friends. She’d been a bridesmaid at Mum’s wedding.
‘Diana thought Da— . . . Stephen had given you the bruises?’
‘Yes.’
‘And had he?’
‘Of course not.’
Rachel would have found it reassuring had Mum not looked so confused and frightened.
‘Are you sure, Mum?’ Rachel said. ‘Are you sure Stephen never hurt you?’
Mum shook her head and her gaze slid away from Rachel. A moment later, she looked back. ‘He’s married, you know.’
‘Who?’ Rachel said.
Mum rolled her eyes. ‘Stephen, obviously.’
Rachel took a moment to consider that. ‘Who is Stephen married to?’
Mum leaned in close, lowering her voice, ‘Her name is Fiona Arthur.’
38
TULLY
Tully had always thought that her wedding was the day she reached maximum levels of manic. Even the half a valium she’d taken that day had barely taken the edge off. She’d barely managed to sit still while she had her make-up done and she’d stuttered her way through her vows. But she’d now realised she had a new, hidden, maximum level of anxiety reserved especially for the auction of her beloved home.
If only she had some valium handy today.
Tully had always thought it was a particularly sadistic practice of Australians, selling their homes by public auction. She yearned to be one of those people she saw on the American property shows where a ‘realtor’ passed on an offer that the vendors could choose to accept or reject after thinking it over or sleeping on it. The Australian way seemed unnecessarily savage, both for the buyer and the seller, forcing people to compete to be the winner when the hammer went down.
It was a bright, blue-skied day, and most of their neighbours were milling about the Harrises’ front yard as if it were a garden party. Half the pre-school mums were there in their activewear, with prams and coffee. Men in sportswear were shaking hands with acquaintances they’d encountered unexpectedly. Tully saw a woman from her Pilates class (Celia, whom Tully always referred to behind her back as Snobby Celia) greet a friend with a double air kiss. The friend looked familiar, but Tully couldn’t quite place her. Tully only knew of two seriously interested buyers; everyone else had just come along for a stickybeak. Tully herself had done this very thing at countless auctions. Looking into other people’s homes was a particular pleasure of hers. Often, before bed, she scrolled through realestate.com.au on her iPad just looking at beautiful houses. Sonny called it ‘property porn’. She’d gone to half-a-dozen auctions in her local area, simply because she’d always wanted to see the inside of a particular house, or to get an idea of her own house’s worth. It had felt so normal when she’d done it. Now that she was on the other side, it felt vaguely grotesque.
Tully’s family were all here, and she felt a wave of gratitude for that. Dad had greeted her with a kiss on the head and a handshake for Sonny, and Heather had brought her a tiny rabbit foot for luck. Tully thought it was a sweet gesture but also kind of disgusting – yet she gripped that little foot with all her might.
Rachel had arrived a few minutes ago with freshly brewed coffee for Sonny, camomile tea in a thermos for Tully (because the last thing Tully needed was caffeine while she was so hyped up) and homemade apple cinnamon muffins for everyone (which Tully actually stress-ate, for once). Rachel was garnering even more surreptitious glances than usual, which may have been due to the fact that for the first time in forever she was wearing her hair out. Tully couldn’t stop thinking about what Rachel had told her the last time they talked. She had been raped when she was sixteen. It felt unimaginable that she had been carrying that secret around all these years, never telling a soul. Several times this week, as Tully reflected on it, she became so angry, so utterly furious, that her entire body began to shake. Now though, alongside the horror, Tully felt a wave of hope – that now that Rachel had shared this, maybe she’d have the chance to heal. Maybe they both would?
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said the auctioneer, a good-looking young man in a super-tight navy suit. ‘We are getting ready to kick off the auction!’
The chatter of the guests at the garden party died down.
He went into his spiel about the ‘blue-chip’ area, the good schools, the shops nearby, the proximity to the city and the Botanic Gardens. Tully looked around the lycra-clad crowd. Who was going to bid? she wondered. Around these parts, people did bid on houses while wearing lycra. Around these parts people had the kind of money that meant they could decide to buy a house on a whim on the way to the dog park. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility, at least.
The auctioneer had been quite enthusiastic when he talked about sales prices the first time they chatted. In fact, some of the numbers mentioned would have been enough to wipe out most of their debt and put them back on the path to starting again. But as the open-houses went on, the numbers had grown more and more conservative. By this morning, when they were trying to agree on a reserve, the numbers were looking downright depressing.
‘The market has softened in the past few weeks,’ the real estate agent had said. ‘We need sellers to be realistic.’
‘I understand,’ Tully had said at the same time as Sonny had asked, ‘How realistic?’
The auctioneer’s introductory spiel took a comically long time, leaving Tully to wonder how many of these the guy did per day. Did he ever get the houses mixed up? Or did he refer to all the properties as being located in blue-chip areas with great schools? After an eternity, he finished up by reminding everyone that a house of this calibre didn’t come up very often before asking for opening bids. Tully squeezed the rabbit foot so hard that if it hadn’t been already been detached from the rabbit, it would be now.
The silence was deafening.
The auctioneer had warned them that this would happen. No one ever wanted to make the opening bid, and they’d likely have to offer a vendor bid in order to get things going. And that was exactly how it went. Except the vendor bid didn’t get things moving either.
Tully didn’t dare look at Sonny.
The auctioneer seemed unfazed. He just continued with his spiel like the cocky little fucker he was, throwing in a few words about the marble benchtops, custom cabinetry, double garage and heated swimming pool. But at the end of it, when he called for bids – crickets.
‘Come on,’ Sonny said under his breath, sending Tully’s anxiety into a tailspin. If Sonny was getting anxious, it meant things were bad. Even the cocky, tight-suited auctioneer was looking a little dejected. Then, just when Tully thought her anxiety couldn’t get any worse, she realised where she knew the woman standing by Celia from. She owned the little shop up on High Street . . . Sophie! She was the woman who’d caught Tully stealing from her shop. Tully made the connection a split second before Sophie raised her hand and made a bid on Tully’s house. Not a great bid, mind you. An insultingly low bid, in fact. But fifteen minutes later, it was the bid that bought their house.
Snobby Celia cheered. Sonny swore under his breath. Tully studiously ignored Sophie and focused on smiling and waving at people who traipsed across her front garden and back out onto the street to continue with their mornings.
Irritatingly, Celia was one of the last to leave.
‘My sister Sophie bought your house!’ she said to Tully excitedly. ‘She wasn’t even seriously looking, but when there were no bids she thought, What the hell? I’ll throw my hat into the ring. Lucky for you, I suppose.’
Tully kept the smile pasted onto her face, when on the inside all she could think was: Your sister? Your sister is the lady from the shop? And now she’s bought my house? Tully stared at Celia, trying to read from her face what her sister might have told her. From their brief interaction, Sophie certainly seemed more discreet than Celia. And sisters could have different sensibilities; look at her and Rachel.
‘Well,’ Tully said, ‘I hope she loves it. We had a lot of happy years here.’
‘I’m sure she will,’ Celia said, and then Tully saw it in her eyes. A hardening. A knowing. ‘After all, she got it for a steal.’
39
RACHEL
Rachel had just fed Darcy a dinner of lamb moussaka and salad followed by a traditional Greek dessert of Galaktoboureko and they’d drunk a bottle of red wine. Now they were lying in each other’s arms on a blanket on the floor. Rachel had expected that in this situation she’d be thinking about that day, but as Darcy’s kisses moved from her mouth to her neck, she found it couldn’t be further from her thoughts.
‘Come here,’ Darcy said.
Rachel laughed. ‘I don’t think I could get much closer to you.’
‘Try.’
Rachel did. She was amazed to find that she felt safe. It was just so unexpected. For nearly twenty years, Rachel had equated being in close proximity to men with being powerless and terrified, but this felt . . . different.
‘Can I do . . . this?’ Darcy asked, taking the strap of her top between two fingers and sliding it down her arm.
Rachel nodded. His face was so serious, she felt an odd urge to laugh.
A few moments later, he did the other side. Her top came off, and her bra. She removed Darcy’s shirt. He had the most magnificent pectoral muscles. Wordlessly, they wriggled out of their pants.
‘Do you want to . . .’ He gestured towards the bedroom.
‘No,’ Rachel said. She was afraid that moving would break the spell. ‘Let’s stay here.’
Darcy was tentative to begin with. Rachel didn’t know when the tentative part ended, but she knew it was okay with her. It bore no resemblance to what came before it . . . or anything else. It was like chocolate fondue. Like a mild opiate. The deepest, most intense pleasure. To compare it to what happened on the beach would be ridiculous. Like comparing soft cheese to a car axle. So it was a surprise that afterwards, as she lay with her cheek against Darcy’s chest and his hand running lightly up and down her spine, her mind turned back to the day on the beach.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Darcy asked. She was lying with her head on his chest. They were relaxed and sated and tangled in the blanket.
‘I was just thinking that I . . . I wasted so much time.’
Darcy rolled onto his side and propped himself onto an elbow. ‘Maybe. But we’re here now.’
‘Yes. I guess I’m just kicking myself that I didn’t get here sooner. I didn’t realise how healing it would be, telling someone what happened.’
Darcy stared at her. ‘You mean, you’ve never told anyone? Not even your parents?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It sounds weird, I know.’
‘Not weird. But you must have had a reason. Explain it to me.’
‘Actually, I’m not sure I can. I remember seeing Dad the moment I got home from the attack. I wanted to tell him . . . I was about to. But I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.’
‘Why not?’
‘Lots of people don’t report rape,’ she said. ‘Some statistics say up to ninety per cent of rapes go unreported.’
‘I’ve heard that,’ Darcy said. ‘But I just assumed that meant they weren’t reported to the police, not that they were never spoken of at all.’
