The Younger Wife, page 7
‘I was in the middle of something and I had to end the call prematurely.’
‘Ah,’ Dad said. ‘She was hoping to arrange lunch with you and Tully. That’s why I stopped by. I want to make sure you and Tully are making an effort.’
Rachel thought about the way she’d hurried Heather off the phone and felt another stab of guilt.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I know these last few years have been a trial. And I know that strange doesn’t even begin to describe what it must feel like to have your father find himself a younger girlfriend while still married to your terribly ill mother. I know this, and I’m sorry. But, Rach, all of this is because of me. I made a decision to pursue a relationship with Heather at this time. Meeting Heather brought me the most joy I’ve had in years, and perhaps because of this I wasn’t as sensitive to what that would be like for you as I should have been. But that’s on me. And I’d hate for you to blame Heather for decisions that really have nothing to do with her.’
‘I don’t blame her, Dad.’
‘You don’t?’
‘No. And of course I’ll have lunch with her. I’ll do it here. I’ll make coq au vin. I’ll call Heather later to tell her.’
Dad looked relieved. ‘That sounds great. Do you think you can rope Tully in?’
‘I can try.’
He smiled. ‘Thanks, sweetie.’
‘No problem,’ she said. ‘And actually . . . since you’re here, there’s something I want to talk to you about,’ she continued.
‘Oh?’
‘You know that stuff you gave me at lunch? The stuff that Mum had stolen?’
‘Yes.’
‘There was a hot-water bottle in there.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘And it had money inside. Quite a lot of money.’
He looked up, cocked an eyebrow. ‘Well,’ he said, after a moment, ‘maybe she was saving up for something. Or stashing it away for a rainy day. How much?’ He speared another piece of cake and put it in his mouth.
‘Almost a hundred thousand.’
Dad choked on his cake. After a moment, he swallowed. ‘A hundred thousand dollars?’
Rachel nodded. ‘I was about to fill it up with boiling water when I saw a fifty-dollar note sticking out the top. Where would Mum have got that kind of money from?’
He was silent for several seconds. ‘Honestly, I have no idea. She would have had to be putting away her housekeeping for her whole life to save that much.’
‘I thought the same thing.’
Dad drifted off into thought for almost a minute. When he finally looked at her, his expression was still just as bewildered.
‘What should I do with the money?’ she asked finally.
Dad picked up his tea. ‘Well, you know the expression: finders keepers.’
‘Oh no. I couldn’t.’
‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘Why couldn’t you?’
Part of his eagerness for her to take it made Rachel wonder if he was the one behind it. It wouldn’t be unlike Dad to try to give her something without having to receive thanks for it. In fact, nothing made him more uncomfortable than being acknowledged for a kindness or good work. At the same time, she always knew when Dad was lying. It was a tic he had – his eyes flickered. Mum had pointed it out once, and she was absolutely right. And there was no tic now.
‘Dad, really it’s too much. Besides, what about Tully? Her name was –’
He held up his hand like a stop sign and Rachel fell silent. Such was the effect a father had on you, even though she was in her thirties. ‘Keep it, Rachel. Tully has plenty of money. If anyone deserves it, it’s you.’ He drained the last of his tea and then stood up. ‘Now, I have to run. You’ll arrange the lunch with Heather?’
‘I said I would, didn’t I?’
He smiled, and made his way to the door.
‘Oh, Dad, one more thing?’ she said, as he stepped over the threshold. ‘There was a note with the money that had Tully’s name on it, and also the name Fiona Arthur. I thought you might know who that was.’
He frowned for a minute, then shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, sweetie, I don’t.’
‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘It was a long shot.’ She shook her head and waved him off. It was only after he was gone that she allowed herself to think about the fact that, when he said he didn’t know Fiona Arthur, Dad’s eyes had flickered.
9
TULLY
Tully stood in the doorway of her mother’s room at the nursing home. She was already exhausted, and she hadn’t even gone inside yet. In the weeks since their barbecue with Rob and Michelle, Tully could recognise she’d been spiralling. Commitments not to steal had been broken almost as soon as they’d been made – first at the supermarket, then the petrol station, then the department store. The self-loathing had been quick to set in each time and she’d ended up stopping at the charity shop on the way home and leaving the items in a pile on the doorstep. At least that way she didn’t have to worry about Sonny finding them. Unfortunately, she couldn’t leave the guilt and shame on the doorstep with the stolen goods, along with her habit, which was slowly taking over her life.
‘Hi, Mum,’ Tully said.
Mum was sitting in the corner chair with a bowl of soup pushed up to her, staring out of the window while the television played quietly. Upon hearing Tully’s voice, she looked over, suspicious. ‘Are you talking to me?’
‘Yes,’ Tully said, walking into the room. ‘It’s me, Tully.’
Tully had introduced herself on arrival the last few times she’d visited. She reasoned that even if Mum did recognise her that day, saving her from searching her mind for her daughter’s name would free up brain space for other things. She’d deteriorated even since Christmas, when Tully and Rachel and Dad had come into the nursing home to have lunch with her. That day, Mum seemed to know who they were, but today, even after Tully called her ‘Mum’, there was no recognition in her mother’s eyes.
If she doesn’t know who you are, don’t push it, Rachel always said. Just pretend you’re a stranger, there for a visit. It upsets her if she thinks she’s supposed to know who you are and she doesn’t. Tully suspected Rachel was right, but she had never been able to do it. This was her mother. She couldn’t pretend she was a random visitor. She wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shout, ‘Look, Mum, it’s me. Tully. Your daughter. You gave birth to me!’
‘Are you here to clean the room?’ Mum said after a moment. She pointed to a feather duster lying on a side table. ‘Someone left this thingy here. Is it yours?’
Mum had a fresh bruise on her temple, Tully noticed, which wasn’t a huge surprise. Mum always had one bruise or another, even before the dementia. She was terribly clumsy, always tripping or stumbling on something, and as her dementia got worse, so too did the falls. Still, Tully made a mental note to ask the nurses about it. She’d watched a documentary about elder abuse and it was worth letting them know that she had noticed.
‘Is it yours?’ Mum repeated.
‘Oh . . . yes. Yes it is.’
Tully picked up the feather duster and Mum turned to her soup. She looked interested in it, even leaning down to smell it, but she didn’t reach for her spoon.
‘What’s for lunch?’ Tully asked.
‘Red watery stuff,’ Mum said. ‘Smells all right.’
Tully nodded doubtfully. ‘What does it taste like?’
A pause. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Why don’t you try it and see?’
‘All right,’ Mum said.
Tully only realised what she was doing a second before it happened. Mum leaned down as if to smell the soup, but instead of sniffing, her mother – the woman who used to sit at the end of the table even when she wasn’t eating, simply to ensure that she and Rachel were using their table manners – lowered her face into the bowl.
‘Oh, Mum, no,’ Tully said, dropping the feather duster.
Mum looked up, startled. She had soup on her chin and her nose. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ Tully said. ‘It’s just . . . may I help you?’
Tully pulled up a chair opposite her mother. She filled the spoon and lifted it to her mum’s mouth, which her mother dutifully opened wide. As strange as it was, there was something lovely about caring for her like this. For so long Tully had felt useless when it came to helping her mother. Now, finally, there was something she could do.
Tully was concentrating so hard on feeding her that she almost missed the fact that Mum was looking at her intently. When Tully finally met her gaze, Mum’s face softened. ‘I know you . . . don’t I?’
Tully nodded, tears welling in her eyes. ‘Yes, Mum,’ she said. ‘You do.’
It was, Tully realised later, the perfect storm. She left the nursing home and went straight to the main street of Armadale, the part with all the shops. She could feel it coming, like the change in the air before a storm. She was like a balloon filling with air. The pressure would grow until it managed to find a release.
When she saw the homewares store, she knew it was the place. It had a double shopfront, which was unusual for this strip, and it was jumbled and chaotic enough to allow Tully to disappear deep into the store, where she wouldn’t be seen. She wouldn’t be watched; Tully never was. She was well presented, upper-middle class, and looked like she had money to spend.
‘Good morning!’ the nicely dressed woman behind the desk said, looking up from the item she was gift-wrapping then immediately down again.
‘Good morning,’ Tully replied brightly.
‘I’m Sophie. If there’s anything I can help you with, just sing out.’
‘Just browsing for now,’ Tully said, plunging into the cosy, cluttered space.
It was still quite shocking to Tully, how easily she played the game. Even as her whole body trembled, she morphed into the role of snobby affluent mother without so much as a thought. She did it on autopilot, the same way she shoved small items into her purse. It was as if she were temporarily inhabited by an alien.
At the back of the room, in a large wicker basket, she spotted a pile of eccentric doorknobs. Tiny little things that would be perfect for a shabby chic bedside table. She fingered one carefully, already feeling her anxiety abate. She never, at any point, decided to take it, no more than she ever decided to breathe. Rather, it was like getting swept up in a hurricane. Her purse was already unzipped when the saleswoman, Sophie, suddenly appeared beside her.
‘I love those doorknobs,’ she said. ‘Did you have a piece of furniture in mind for them?’
The doorknob slipped through Tully’s fingers and went clattering to the ground.
‘Whoops!’ Tully said. ‘I’m a bit jittery today.’
‘I noticed.’ The saleswoman bobbed down to grab it, then continued to hold it in her own hand. Her expression was a little warier now. ‘You live around here, don’t you? I think I’ve seen you with your little boys on the way to the park.’
Tully tried to force herself to smile, to raise her eyebrows with interest, to be the breezy Armadale mother she’d been a few minutes ago. But the skill had deserted her.
‘I noticed because I also have two little boys,’ Sophie said. ‘I bring them in here sometimes, during the school holidays. They stand behind the desk and play shop.’ She smiled. ‘They tell all the customers proudly that it’s their mummy’s shop. It’s so important that our boys are proud of us, don’t you think? I feel like I’m doing my bit for feminism when I make them proud.’
Tully nodded and muttered, ‘Yes, very good.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t catch your name,’ Sophie said.
Tully didn’t want to give the woman her name. She wanted to end this conversation. Leave this shop. She had a bad feeling. But what else could she do? ‘It’s . . . Tully.’
‘Tully,’ Sophie said. ‘That’s pretty. Well, Tully . . . I would hate for your little boys to feel anything other than proud of you. That’s why I’m going to pretend I don’t know what you were about to do with that doorknob.’
Tully smiled in what she hoped was a polite, indignant fashion. ‘Excuse me?’
‘And I’ll pretend I didn’t see you take a candle the last time you were in here. Because I don’t think that would make your boys proud of you.’
Tully’s smile faded.
‘But as I said, I want my boys to be proud of me too, and for that reason, I’m going to have to ask you not to return to my shop. I hope you understand.’
‘Yes,’ Tully said. ‘Yes, I understand.’
And then, because there was nothing else to say, Tully barrelled towards the front door, practically bowling over another customer in her haste to get out of there.
10
HEATHER
Heather sat on Stephen’s bathroom floor nursing a glass of whisky. She’d got home from work an hour ago, poured herself a drink and immediately taken it to the giant ensuite. She’d always found it soothing, drinking in the bathroom. Beyond the privacy the bathroom offered, she liked the way her thoughts felt in there – the coolness of them, the space they had to bounce against the tiled walls.
In a way, it was a tribute to her mother, who used to drink in the bathroom. The first time she saw her do it, Heather was eleven years old. The night before Heather had woken to the sound of her mother crying and her dad shouting. They’d been at a party and Heather had expected them to be gone most of the night, but they’d got home early. It wasn’t even midnight.
‘If you ever embarrass me like that again,’ Dad was saying to her mum, ‘I’m going to kill you. Do you understand?’
Heather had got out of bed and followed the noise as far as the lounge. By then her mum was crying loudly, saying ‘please’ and ‘stop’ in halting bursts. Heather peered around the corner. Mum’s back was against the fridge and Dad was holding her by the throat.
‘It would be so easy,’ he was saying to her, ‘I could just press my thumbs a little harder. Like this . . .’
Her mum made a gagging sound. He’s killing her, Heather thought. My dad is killing my mum. The worst part was that Heather didn’t do anything. She didn’t run to help her. She just stood there, frozen.
After what felt like an eternity, he let go and Mum fell to the ground, gasping for air. Heather heard the sound of her scrabbling away from him on the kitchen floor.
‘So easy,’ her dad repeated.
Heather ran back to her room, but she didn’t fall asleep for hours. In the morning, when she came out of her room, Mum was in the bathroom. The shower was running, but when Heather opened the door she found her Mum sitting on the floor drinking wine straight from the bottle. Her eyes were glassy and tired.
‘Why is the shower running?’ Heather asked.
‘Because when the shower’s running,’ Mum said, not looking at her, ‘he doesn’t come in.’
‘I wanted to check you were all right,’ Heather said, closing the door and sitting beside her. ‘You know . . . after last night.’
Her mum frowned for a second, as if trying to remember what had happened last night. Then her hand rose to the pinkish mark on her neck. ‘Oh.’ She took another sip of wine. ‘I’m fine.’
‘I thought he was going to kill you,’ Heather said.
‘Nah.’ Another sip. ‘He just likes the drama.’
‘But he was strangling you. He said he would kill you.’
Mum held out the bottle to Heather. She took it.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, after Heather took a sip. ‘He’s too fucking chicken.’
But, as it turned out, Mum was wrong.
Since that day, drinking in the bathroom had helped Heather to deal with many things. For example, the baby thing.
She and Stephen had had the discussion the first morning she woke up in Stephen’s bed.
‘I have a tricky subject I’d like to bring up and I think it would be pertinent to bring it up sooner rather than later,’ he’d said.
It was one of the things she loved about him: his forthrightness, his refusal to shy away from difficult discussions. Also, his casual use of words like ‘pertinent’.
‘The fact is, I’m at quite a different life stage from you. As such, I feel it would be irresponsible of me to proceed with you any further – and, to be clear, I very much want to proceed further – without making you aware that I am not interested in having any more children.’
It wasn’t a surprise. Heather understood there weren’t many men in their sixties with adult children who wanted more kids. Some might be willing to go there for the sake of the relationship – but no one wanted it. And it was fine with Heather. Or if not fine, at least it didn’t injure her the way it might have injured a different, more maternal sort of woman. For Heather, it was primarily something she felt intellectually rather than physically or biologically.
‘What do you want?’ he asked.
It was such a middle-class question. People her age spent so much time musing on it. What do I want? What do I want? Heather didn’t bother. After all, it didn’t matter what she wanted. Life happened; you didn’t get to choose it. And sure enough, it had just happened to her again. ‘I want to be with you.’
Stephen accepted that at face value. He didn’t press her on whether she had ever wanted children, or whether this would be a sacrifice. He didn’t want to know and she didn’t want to tell him. She just needed to reframe, that was all. People reframed all the time. People who realised they weren’t going to live a long life. People who lost a loved one, suffered an accident, lost use of a limb. They reframed. And Heather would too. No babies for her. They wouldn’t be part of her journey.
She heard the rumbling of the garage door opening. Stephen was home. She downed the rest of her whisky, left the glass on the counter, and turned on the shower. She’d just stepped out of her clothes and into the stream of water when there was a knock at the door. ‘May I come in?’
Stephen was always wonderfully respectful like that. They hadn’t reached that point in the relationship where they barged into the bathroom when the other was in there demanding to know where the car keys had been left. Heather felt an unexpected pang of yearning to reach that point with Stephen.
