The Younger Wife, page 19
Darcy spoke gently, without judgement. And yet Rachel found herself feeling defensive. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘My instincts told me to leave it, okay?’
Darcy had a strange look on his face. He shifted on the blanket, conspicuously silent after all his questions.
‘What?’ Rachel said. ‘You think I was wrong not to say anything?’
‘Look,’ Darcy said carefully. ‘I would never presume to know what was right or wrong for another person, particularly a woman who had been raped.’
‘But . . .?’
‘But,’ he said, ‘you say you have a close, loving family. So I guess I’m wondering why your instinct was to hide the truth from your dad.’
And that was the moment Rachel started wondering the same thing.
40
TULLY
Tully should have seen it coming.
It had been a stressful week. Since the day of the auction she’d been in a bit of a downward spiral. The fact that Snobby Celia knew about her shoplifting meant it might as well have been written in the sky. Yesterday at Pilates, the room had gone silent when Tully walked in. And the moment she walked out at the end of the class, the whispers started up again. Tully could have survived the whispers at Pilates – after all, once her membership expired she couldn’t afford to renew it anyway – but a few of the ladies from Pilates were also pre-school mothers, and a day later the whispers were happening there as well. Tully understood. A few months ago Tully would have delighted in this kind of scandal herself. How fast things could change.
On top of all this, her relationship with Sonny was still on shaky ground. The fifty-odd thousand dollars she’d given him had gone some distance towards smoothing this ground, but the fact that their house hadn’t fetched the price they’d been hoping for served to undo most of this good. Add to this the fact that Dad had set a wedding date with Heather, and that Tully had taken up permanent residence on Miles’s floor during the evening hours and, suffice to say, there were a lot of emotions swirling in her mind when she was in the baking aisle at the supermarket.
This, she presumed, was what brought on the urge to take the bottle of vanilla extract. Whatever it was, as soon as her fingers closed around the smooth glass bottle, everything else faded away. Her handbag sat in the basket in the front of her trolley in the spot where the boys sat if they were with her. It would be so easy. She just needed to lean forward as if about to put the bottle in the trolley but drop it into her bag instead, like she’d done so many times before.
After her last session with Dr Shearer, Tully had started on SSRIs, as well as a drug called naltrexone, which supposedly helped to control impulse-based behaviour. Fat lot of good it was doing her. Beyond that, she’d been given some ‘exercises’ to do if she found herself in this situation. The first was the most ridiculous of them all. Breathe. Good one, doc, she’d wanted to say. She needed to shoplift in order to breathe, that was the whole point! She didn’t tell Dr Shearer this, that would be rude. Who was she to point out that the technique he’d spent his whole life studying was useless? Instead she’d just nodded and smiled . . . even muttered, Breathe! What a wonderful idea.
The next step was to remove herself from temptation. This was important, apparently. Don’t remove the temptation, the psychologist had said. Remove yourself.
It won’t be easy. In fact, it will feel entirely unnatural, he’d warned. It might mean leaving the store. It might mean starting a conversation with someone when you least feel like it. It might mean drawing attention to yourself. Inviting attention. A circuit breaker, so to speak.
The pressure inside her was building. Tully tried reminding herself of the guilt she would feel afterwards. Lately, the guilt had become even more debilitating than the urge itself. Not to mention the terror of getting caught. After the incident at the department store, the police had put a note on her record, which meant that if she was caught shoplifting again, she would be prosecuted. She imagined having to tell Sonny she’d been caught. She imagined the boys finding out. Their friends’ parents gossiping about it.
Her grip tightened on the bottle as she held it over her bag. Then, at the last minute, she dropped it onto the floor, hard.
‘Whoops,’ Tully said as it smashed into pieces.
Three women nearby looked away from the shelves to the broken bottle. One of them was a woman about Tully’s age with twin toddlers strapped into a double pram and a newborn dangling from a pouch on her chest. ‘Oh, phew,’ she said. ‘I thought one of my kids did it!’
‘Me too,’ muttered another woman, whose little boy kept kicking a ball despite her begging for him to stop.
‘I’ll call an attendant,’ said the third, a helpful woman in her seventies, carrying just a small basket.
All of them smiled at each other. And Tully felt something, a tiny thing, release in her.
‘Thank you,’ Tully said. ‘That would be a great help.’
She couldn’t wait to tell Dr Shearer.
41
RACHEL
Rachel stood on her father’s doorstep holding a box of red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. She knew Dad wouldn’t be home; he always cycled on Saturday afternoons. That was why she’d chosen this time.
Heather looked surprised when she answered the door.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Hi, Rachel.’
‘I brought cupcakes,’ she said brightly, opening the box. ‘To celebrate you setting the wedding date.’
Heather was wearing jeans with a hoodie that belonged to Dad and she looked tired, as if she’d just woken up. ‘That’s very sweet of you, but your dad isn’t home. He’s gone cycling.’
‘That’s okay,’ Rachel said. ‘You and I can hang out.’
‘Oh,’ Heather said. ‘All right. Well . . . why don’t you come on in.’
Rachel followed Heather into the kitchen and took a seat at the counter. The place was immaculately clean, apart from a half-drunk bottle of wine on the counter, probably from the night before.
‘Cup of tea?’ Heather said.
‘That would be lovely,’ Rachel replied.
Heather wandered around the kitchen, opening two cupboards before finding the correct one. There was definitely something off about her. She rubbed her stomach absently while she waited for the kettle to boil.
‘Are you feeling all right?’ Rachel asked.
‘Fine,’ Heather said. She got out the teabags. ‘Regular tea or herbal?’
‘Regular,’ Rachel said. ‘With a splash of milk. Have you done any wedding planning?’
Heather looked up, pausing from the tea-making for a second. She seemed apologetic. ‘Listen, I’m sorry about how we announced setting the date. It must have seemed very insensitive, us bringing it up straight after the auction.’
‘You didn’t bring it up,’ Rachel said. ‘It was Dad.’
‘Well, yes.’ She smiled. ‘But I did tell him it wasn’t the best idea.’
Rachel feigned a grimace. ‘I bet he didn’t like that. He doesn’t like to be told, does he?’
Heather looked uncertain. ‘Well . . .’
‘I imagine he was pretty angry about what Mum said at Miles’s party too. About making his life hell?’
Heather put the teabags in the mugs. ‘That was a bit weird, wasn’t it?’
‘I thought so. And it’s not the first time Mum’s said it, either. She keeps saying things like that – about Dad hurting her.’
‘Really?’
Rachel nodded. ‘I mean, she’s not in her right mind, clearly. I would totally discount it, if not for . . .’ Rachel trailed off.
Heather was watching her intently now. ‘If not for what?’
‘If not for the hot-water bottle.’
The kettle boiled but Heather ignored it. ‘The hot-water bottle?’
‘Didn’t Dad tell you? I found a hot-water bottle stuffed with cash in with Mum’s things. Nearly a hundred grand! No one knows where she got it. If she had been putting it away, she must have saved for ages.’
‘She stashed a hundred thousand dollars in a hot-water bottle?’
‘I know, right? I’ve been scratching my head over it. But then, after Miles’s party, I wondered . . .’ Rachel trailed off again.
‘Wondered what?’
Rachel closed her eyes. ‘I don’t know. I’m probably way off. But she said Dad made her life hell. Maybe she was going to use the money to leave him?’
‘You think?’
Rachel shrugged. ‘It seems bizarre to Tully and me, as we’ve never seen any evidence of him being cruel to her. But I guess things can happen in private? Behind closed doors?’
Heather had paled a shade or two. Her hand touched her stomach again and Rachel started to worry she might be sick.
‘Anyway, I’m not worried,’ Rachel continued. ‘If Dad was cruel to Mum, it’s not the kind of thing that’s a one-off. So, if Dad happened to be some kind of abusive monster, you’d definitely know about it, right?’
‘Right,’ Heather said softly.
‘And Dad has never . . . hurt you, right?’
Heather paused. She placed her hands on the counter then dropped them back to her sides.
‘Heather?’
But it was too late. Rachel had wanted a firm, decisive no. A quick no. She hadn’t realised how much she had wanted it until that very second. ‘No,’ Heather said finally. ‘Of course he hasn’t.’
Rachel wanted to be reassured by the answer. The problem was, the pause had said it all.
42
HEATHER
Heather had gone back and forth on what she was doing. Back. Forth. Back. Forth. The proverbial pendulum. She was fairly certain this was a bad idea. She’d been working so hard to keep herself together, and a meeting like this could definitely push her over the edge. At the same time, since her visit from Rachel, she had become increasingly desperate to get to the bottom of things. And she knew of only one person who could help her do that.
The drive took over an hour, and after that she underwent the extensive process of being scanned, searched and directed to leave valuables in a locker. By the time she moved into the visiting area, she was already exhausted. There were about a dozen men in the room, which was about the same size as a high school classroom. Also like a high school classroom, each man sat at a small desk, and the desks were spaced about a metre or so apart.
It took Heather a moment to locate him in the room, and when she did, she did a double take. He looked so much older. Smaller too. Admittedly it had been nearly a decade since she’d last laid eyes on her dad, and he’d spent the entirety of that time in prison, which she imagined would age a person. He was almost completely bald now. His liver-spotted head was misshapen and ugly. Wiry grey hairs grew out of the V of flesh that was exposed at the collar of his shirt. It helped her nerves a little, seeing him look so pathetic. Had he always looked like this? Or was it just his freedom that had made him look so terrifying?
He whistled when he saw her. ‘La-di-da . . . look at you.’
She wondered what he meant. Heather had dressed down, in jeans, a black turtleneck jumper and sneakers. It was astonishing to her that he could think she looked fancy. Maybe it was just his trademark way of insulting her without actually insulting her.
‘Look at you,’ she replied neutrally, sitting down.
She hadn’t contacted her father since the night he killed her mother. She’d been living in Melbourne for a few years by then, and hadn’t seen either of them for months. In fact, the last time she’d seen her mum, she’d been drinking on the floor of the bathroom. Not wine anymore; she’d moved on to gin. Her dad had been the same. Heather (and her mother, clearly) had given up hoping that things would ever be different. ‘It’s just your father,’ she would say, when Heather asked her about it. ‘He just gets funny sometimes.’ So when Heather received the 3 am phone call to tell her that her mother had died by strangulation, she didn’t feel shock. Why should she? Her father had been promising he’d do it for years.
For a while, she thought she might have to go to court to give evidence, but in the end she didn’t have to. So, she hadn’t gone to court, she hadn’t gone to the prison, hadn’t even picked up the phone. As far as she was concerned, it was convenient that her father was locked up – she wanted to leave that part of her life behind. If only that had been possible.
‘I was surprised to hear you were visiting,’ he said.
‘Not as surprised as me.’
He laughed at this heartily, even as Heather remained stony-faced.
‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’ he asked, extending his legs out in front of him and crossing them at the ankle. He sounded chipper, upbeat. As if, by visiting, she’d finally cracked, just as he’d always known she would.
‘I wanted to ask you something,’ she said, since they didn’t have time to waste. They had twelve minutes from start to finish; the guards had been very specific about that. No time for getting reacquainted.
That was fine by Heather. Fine by her dad too, it seemed. ‘Shoot.’
‘Why did you beat Mum?’
‘Ah.’ He smiled. ‘So it’s one of those visits.’
Heather felt the first tingles of impending rage.
‘I didn’t know you were such a cliché, Heather. I thought you were more interesting than that. Been to see a therapist, have you? They said you needed to confront me? I think that’s wise. I was telling your mother for years you needed therapy.’
Heather snorted. ‘Yes. Because of you!’
‘Yes, well, maybe you’re right,’ he agreed, spitting on the floor.
Heather stared at him. ‘Were you always this vile?’
He grinned, catching the eye of another inmate and offering him an eyeroll. Heather wondered what she was doing here. Then she remembered.
‘I am writing an article about abusive relationships,’ she said, as she’d planned. She knew her dad would like that; he enjoyed notoriety. ‘You won’t be surprised to hear that you feature quite heavily.’
His grin extended.
‘I’m looking for insights into what makes a man abusive. What brings on a violent episode? What do they tell themselves to justify it? Did you ever just deny that you did it at all?’
This flummoxed him a little. Perhaps she’d used too many big words. But he appeared to be considering her questions. She guessed no one had asked him anything so specific about himself in years.
‘Well, let’s see,’ he said, after several seconds. ‘Why was I violent? I was violent because I wasn’t appreciated. I worked hard to provide for you and your mother – a bit of gratitude would have gone a long way. Your mother was always making a fool of me. Running off with other blokes. Getting drunk and flirting. That made me wild.’
It took every ounce of self-control Heather had not to pull his argument apart, starting with the fact that he’d never worked a day in his life, unless picking up unemployment benefits was a job. As for her mother running off with other blokes, Heather wasn’t sure if this was true or not, but it was certainly something he’d always said. If it bothered him so much, you’d have thought he might have left her, but instead he stuck around, just flinging the accusation at her whenever they argued.
‘As for denying it, that would have been futile – your mother wasn’t likely to forget what I’d done.’
‘Did you ever try to make out that Mum had caused her own injuries?’
That stopped him for a moment. But only a moment. ‘Well . . . in a way, she did cause them. Like I said, your mother asked for it. She made a fool of me. Got off with half the neighbourhood, did you know that?’
Even as he said it, his blue eyes flashed. It sent a chill through Heather.
Suddenly, the idea that she could ever have got anything useful out of him felt utterly ridiculous. Stephen and her dad were in different leagues. Stephen was smart, sophisticated. Her father was a buffoon. Even if they did have violence in common – if – it was ridiculous to think that the reason for it would be similar. It had been a mistake coming here.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘That was . . . helpful. I think it’s time I was going.’
‘Fine by me,’ he said, though he seemed a little less cheery now. He probably hadn’t had a visitor for a while. ‘Though this visit was novel, I’ll admit. Something to break up the day.’
‘I’m glad you enjoyed it,’ Heather said with a thick layer of sarcasm.
She made eye contact with the guard, who stood and walked slowly towards them. At the last moment, she looked back at her dad.
‘How can you tell if a man is violent?’ she asked.
‘Ah,’ he said, grinning again. ‘Got a new fella, do you?’
The guard reached the table. ‘You can exit via that door,’ he said, pointing to the door through which Heather had entered. ‘You come with me,’ he said to her dad.
As the guard led him away, her father twisted so she could see his face. ‘There’s one way to know for sure,’ he called over his shoulder.
‘What is it?’ Heather asked.
‘Provoke him.’
And then the heavy door slammed shut between them.
43
RACHEL
I know who Pamela Aston is. I used to be married to her husband Stephen.
Rachel was making brownies when she saw the name Fiona Arthur appear on her phone’s screen. Even then, it took a few minutes for her to absorb it. It had been a few weeks since she’d reached out to the three Fiona Arthurs via Facebook, and she’d all but given up hope of ever hearing anything more than: Sorry, I think you have the wrong person.
Now, she picked up the phone and read the message again.
I used to be married to her husband Stephen.
Immediately Rachel recalled her conversation with her mother. Wasn’t that what she’d said? That Dad used to be married to a woman called Fiona Arthur? But if that was the case, why hadn’t Dad ever mentioned it?
It didn’t make sense. They weren’t exactly a conservative family; Rachel and Tully would have coped with an ex-wife. Lots of Mum and Dad’s friends had divorced and remarried – heck, Rachel’s schoolfriend Georgia’s parents had divorced, married other people and then got back together. Mum and Dad had laughed about that (most people did, including Georgia’s parents). So why would Dad hide Fiona’s very existence?
