The Younger Wife, page 9
‘Shall I put the dressing on, or would you prefer it on the side?’ Rachel asked.
‘Pour it on,’ Heather said at the same time as Tully said, ‘On the side.’
Rachel poured it into a jug. She wished she’d made canapés so she could shove one into Tully’s mouth. It was always feast or famine with Tully. She either didn’t mention the fact that Rachel didn’t date – tiptoeing around the subject as if it were a shameful secret one didn’t discuss – or she just went all out, airing Rachel’s dirty linen for all to see. Or, in this case, for Heather to see.
‘You need to date this man, Rachel,’ Tully said. ‘Seriously. Doesn’t she, Heather?’
‘Well,’ Heather said uncertainly. ‘I don’t know. If she doesn’t date . . . maybe not?’
It wasn’t as if Rachel had never dated. She’d kissed eight boys in her life, though admittedly only two of them were boyfriends – Cameron Fidler and Jason Swift. She’d lost her virginity to Cameron when she was fifteen, and then had sex with him two more times because she’d been told it got better, but it hadn’t, so she’d ended things.
She was sixteen when she started dating Jason, and she’d been hopeful it would be different with him. Certainly, the chemistry between them was different. When they lay around after school, doing homework and reading magazines, the urge to kiss and touch him had been almost overwhelming. And when they stood on his doorstep, or hers, to say goodbye, the pain of having to separate felt almost physical. So when he’d told her his parents were going away for the weekend, she’d acted cool, but inside she was bursting. She started preparations immediately. She had a bikini wax. She bought a new matching bra and underwear set from Bras and Things – black and lacy. She applied fake tan, nail polish and eyelash tint to the appropriate parts of her body. But then, instead of having sex with Jason when his parents went away, she broke up with him.
‘Rachel used to be an amazing cross-country runner,’ Tully was saying now. ‘We used to have guys calling the house all the time, asking if she wanted to’ – Tully drew inverted commas in the air with her fingers – ‘go for a run.’ She laughed. ‘Is that why you quit running, Rach?’ Tully didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Anyway, what was my point? Ah! Darcy. The flirting!’
‘Please, no more about the flirting!’ Rachel opened the drawer and pulled out her good salad servers. To Rachel, love Mum, was engraved into each handle. Mum had given them to her for her twenty-first birthday. Georg Jensen, her mother had said proudly. Acorn pattern. Antique. Rachel had no idea what that meant at the time, but she couldn’t help but catch on to her mum’s enthusiasm and they had remained her favourite salad servers ever since. ‘I’ll talk about anything else. Heather, help me out! What’s news with you?’
‘Actually,’ Heather said, ‘I visited Pam this morning.’
There was a beat of silence. That was not what Rachel expected. Tully went oddly, unnaturally still.
Heather seemed to realise her error and responded by stammering. ‘It’s just . . . the nursing home was on my way here so I . . .’
‘You and Dad went?’ Tully asked after a moment. Her voice sounded funny.
‘Er, no – just me.’
Heather looked very unsure of herself now. Rachel wanted to jump in and say something to ease the tension but she found herself, once again, at a loss. Heather had gone to see Mum? Why would she do that?
‘It probably sounds odd to you,’ Heather said. ‘But I’ve spent quite a bit of time with Pam over the past year and we became – not friends, exactly, but . . . I don’t know.’ Heather’s hands trembled as she continued. ‘Obviously her condition deteriorated a lot over that time, and our conversations became more limited, but when she wasn’t agitated, I found her to be good company. We had some . . . some great chats.’
‘Wow,’ Rachel said. ‘I hadn’t thought about the fact that you actually met Mum. It makes sense that you developed some sort of . . . relationship with her.’
Rachel glanced at Tully, who remained deathly still.
‘What did you and Mum chat about?’ Rachel asked.
‘Cooking, mostly,’ Heather said. ‘I’m a terrible cook. Pam was always asking me what I was having for dinner, and when I said I didn’t know, she’d give me a recipe. Then she’d give it to me again. And again. I can recite her recipe for chicken, lemon and feta pie verbatim.’
‘The chicken, lemon and feta pie?’ Rachel exclaimed. ‘That recipe is meant to be a family secret!’
‘If it helps,’ Heather said, ‘I struggle to fry an egg.’
‘Sorry,’ Tully said, ‘I’m still confused as to why you would want to go see our mum – your boyfriend’s current wife. It’s a bit weird, don’t you think?’
‘Tully –’ Rachel started.
Tully put down her glass – which was nearly empty – and shrugged. ‘I’m just saying, I don’t know why you’d want to.’ She looked at Heather.
‘I guess because I don’t have any family of my own . . .’
‘You want us to be your family?’ Tully finished.
‘Actually, yes,’ Heather said. She looked from Tully to Rachel and sighed. ‘I know how strange it must be, having your dad dating someone while your mum is still alive – not to mention someone so much younger. And I’m so sorry about it, honestly I am. But the fact is, I’m in love with your father. So, yes, I want to be part of his family. And, odd as it sounds, that includes your mum.’
There was something about the simplicity of it, the straightforwardness, that Rachel found compelling, if a little jarring. Even Tully was stunned silent by it. But despite the certainty with which Heather spoke, the hand holding the glass of wine was still shaking.
‘Well,’ Rachel said finally, ‘we want what Dad wants. And if Dad wants you – and he’s made it clear that he does – that means you’re family. Right, Tully?’
Tully shifted in her seat. Her head tilted forward ever so slightly and Rachel decided to take that as a nod.
‘Good,’ Rachel said. ‘Well, then, shall we eat in the courtyard?’
Rachel didn’t wait for a response; she just picked up the potato salad and carried it outside. The other two grabbed a dish each and followed her.
‘Whoops,’ Rachel said as she set down the salad. ‘Forgot the salad servers.’
She returned to the house for the servers, but though she scanned the bench, the table, even the dishwasher, they seemed to have disappeared.
13
HEATHER
You’re not following the rules, Heather, a little voice told her. Stephen had instructed her to talk to Tully about her little boys and to Rachel about baking, and so far she’d done neither. The wine was to blame. She hadn’t intended to drink today. Stephen had been so strange after finding the bottle of whisky under the sink, she’d been determined to prove he had nothing to worry about.
‘What I don’t understand,’ he’d said, ‘is why you would hide it?’
Habit was the answer. Growing up, if anyone left alcohol lying around, it was as good as gone in a matter of minutes. But she couldn’t say that to Stephen. After all, she understood how it must look.
‘I’m fine,’ she’d said to him. ‘In fact, I’m going to go off alcohol for a while.’
She’d brought a bottle of wine today as an offering, but she didn’t intend on drinking any. She amended this to ‘just one glass’, to be polite. Since then Rachel had determinedly kept her glass full, or Tully had. What was she supposed to do?
‘More potatoes?’ Rachel offered.
‘No, thank you,’ Heather said. ‘But they were lovely. All of this is lovely. I’m having a lovely time.’
She’d just said ‘lovely’ three times. She often said words like ‘lovely’ and ‘delightful’ and ‘gorgeous’ when she was around people like Tully and Rachel. The stupid thing was that Heather wasn’t sure if she was having a lovely time or not. On the one hand, she was sitting in a charming courtyard, sipping good wine and eating delicious food. On the other hand, she had a feeling she was on very tenuous ground with these women.
Rachel was easier to like, obviously. Though she was the younger of the sisters, she gave the impression of being older, wiser, calmer. Perhaps it was the fact that she kept her distance, watching from afar, remaining carefully neutral. It had been interesting to hear that she’d cut off all her hair as a teen. What had been more interesting was the flippant way that Tully mentioned it – much like the way Stephen mentioned the fact that Rachel hadn’t ever had a proper relationship. As though they were normal, if quirky, decisions that any person might make, rather than clear signposts of adolescent sexual assault. Growing up, Heather knew a handful of people who’d been sexually assaulted. Radical changes in appearance were commonplace, as were weight gain or loss, retreating from threatening environments and drug abuse. Heather supposed things like this didn’t happen very often to nice middle-class people, so they didn’t know the signs, but even so . . . it seemed a fairly large thing to miss.
‘Have we finished the bottle?’ Tully asked, after trying and failing to fill her glass.
‘I’ll get another one,’ Rachel said. A more perfect hostess had never existed.
As Rachel disappeared into the kitchen, her phone, which was on the table, beeped. Tully glanced down at it and her eyes widened.
‘It’s from him!’ she whispered. ‘Darcy!’
Heather felt a jolt of excitement. ‘What does it say?’
Tully snatched up the phone. ‘It says: What did the cake say to the fork?’ She looked at Heather, her nose screwed up in confusion. ‘What on earth . . .?’
‘It’s a joke!’ Heather whispered, glancing back towards the house. She could see Rachel squatting down in front of a low cupboard. By the time she looked back, Tully was thumbing a reply. ‘What are you doing? You can’t answer him!’
‘I can,’ Tully said, her thumbs moving at an astonishing rate. ‘I told you, Rachel doesn’t go out with men. What we saw earlier was the closest she’s come to flirting since she was sixteen. We need to help her make a move.’ She pressed send, then held up the phone.
Heather blinked. Eat me?
‘I panicked!’ Tully cried. ‘I’m not good under pressure.’
‘Give me the phone,’ Heather demanded. She thought for a minute, then typed: Do you want a piece of me? She showed it to Tully, who nodded enthusiastically. Heather pressed send.
Almost immediately three dots appeared.
‘Are you girls okay with rosé?’ Rachel called from inside. ‘I haven’t got any more chardonnay.’
‘Fine!’ they called in unison, as a message appeared on the screen.
Even though I love your cakes . . . it said, I would never dessert you.
Heather and Tully chuckled.
‘What’s so funny?’ Rachel asked, coming outside with the bottle of rosé. ‘Sorry, I can’t find – why have you got my phone?’
Heather dropped it, just as it beeped again. She couldn’t help it; she looked at the screen.
If you’re enjoying my sweet jokes, you’re going to love my savoury ones. I can tell you all about them over dinner . . . maybe tomorrow night? It was followed by a winking emoji.
Rachel grabbed the phone and paled. ‘What did you do?’ Frantically she scrolled back through the texts. After a second, she looked up. ‘Eat me?’
‘Sorry,’ Tully said. ‘I wrote that.’
Rachel sat down heavily in her wrought-iron chair and filled her glass to the top. ‘I can’t believe you did this.’
Tully looked suitably sheepish. ‘Are you free tomorrow?’
‘No,’ Rachel said. ‘As it happens, I’m not.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘None of your business.’
‘She’s not doing anything,’ Tully said to Heather.
‘I am!’
‘Are not.’
Heather watched the back-and-forth interestedly. It was funny. During the last lunch, it had seemed to her that the sisters were not particularly close. Today, perhaps because of the wine, or maybe because talking about Darcy felt vaguely adolescent, she saw an intimacy that she hadn’t seen before. And despite Rachel’s protestations, she got the feeling that she might be losing some of her reluctance.
‘Look,’ Rachel said, ‘we don’t even know him. He’s probably a serial killer or something.’
‘Who cares?’ Tully cried.
Rachel rolled her eyes, but there was a hint of a smile on her face. Heather took another sip of her drink as the phone lit up again. All three women screamed.
I could do the next night? he wrote. Or the night after that.
‘See?’ Rachel said. ‘He doesn’t have plans for the next three nights! He’s definitely a serial killer.’
‘You could meet in a public place, if you’re worried about the serial killer thing,’ Tully suggested. ‘I could even come to the restaurant in dark glasses and hide behind a menu so I can make sure everything is above board.’
Rachel appeared to be wavering. Whether it was because of Tully’s suggestions or not, it was hard to tell. ‘It’s not a good idea,’ she said. ‘Yes, he’s good-looking, but he’s got to have issues. Why else would he have been unemployed for so long? Besides, we work together.’
‘Actually,’ Tully corrected, ‘he works for you. If things don’t work out you can sack him. It’s not as if you can’t find another person to deliver your cream buns!’
‘Pretty sure that’s illegal.’
‘Again,’ Tully said, exasperated, ‘who cares?’ She grabbed the phone out of Rachel’s hand, thumbed, Tomorrow night works, and handed it back. ‘There. Now let’s move on to the next stage of the day, which is drinking to calm your nerves.’ Tully refilled their glasses all the way to the top. ‘Look at that,’ she said. ‘We’ve gone through another bottle.’
‘There’s plenty more inside,’ Rachel said, and Tully and Heather cheered.
Maybe Stephen’s daughters were her kind of people after all?
Heather was drunk. The most marvellous part about it was that Rachel and Tully were too. The comfort of being around drunk people when you were also drunk was not to be underestimated. Heather was sinking into the pleasure of it, really enjoying it, when the air was pierced by a very annoying noise. ‘What is that?’ Heather said.
The three women looked around, at first in that dopey, half-interested way, but when it continued, with more desperation.
‘It’s my phone,’ Tully said when she realised. ‘Where is the damn thing?’
Heather was already out of her seat. She followed the ringtone into a Gucci handbag. She dug past some salad servers, a single patent-leather shoe and an expensive-looking candle, still in its box, before clasping her hand around the phone. It was funny; she’d imagined Tully’s bag would be just so, but it was an unholy mess.
‘Here it is!’ she cried, and Tully claimed the phone and accepted the FaceTime.
‘Hi, babe,’ she said as a face appeared on the screen.
‘Uh-oh. Babe? Does this mean you’re drunk?’
Heather glanced at the screen and recognised Tully’s husband Sonny from a photo she’d seen at Stephen’s house. He looked faintly amused.
‘That’s right, babe,’ Tully said, laughing. It was hard to match up this Tully with the uptight Tully from the other day. Even from a few hours ago. Her whole body was loose and relaxed.
‘I take it this means I am your Uber driver this evening?’
Evening? Heather looked around. Sure enough, the sky was starting to darken. It felt like only a few minutes ago that Rachel had cleared the dishes away and produced the most delicious sponge cake Heather had ever tasted. Now, even the sponge remains had been cleared away and the picked-over remains of a magnificent cheese platter lay on the table before them.
‘Only if you give me a five-star rating,’ Tully said.
‘Promise not to vomit in my car and we have a deal.’
Due to her proximity to Tully, Heather had no choice but to eavesdrop. But she felt like she was witnessing something very personal. Tully was drunk. Sonny thought it was funny. He was offering to give her a ride home. No one was yelling or getting into fight. It was like something out of a TV show.
‘Can I get you anything else, Heather?’ Rachel asked, as Tully continued chatting to Sonny. ‘Tea? Coffee?’
‘There’s nothing else I could possibly want,’ Heather replied. ‘Honestly, I’ve never known a host to be as considerate as you are.’
Rachel waved the compliment away but she looked pleased. ‘I love to make people feel comfortable and welcome. And to feed them, obviously. It’s a bit of an obsession of mine.’
Heather picked up her wineglass and took a long sip before returning it to the table. ‘I went to high school with a girl who had an obsession with feeding people. She used to bring homemade cakes and slices to school nearly every day.’
Rachel was looking at her intently.
‘After high school, I heard through a friend that the girl had been sexually assaulted by her uncle during high school. Apparently baking was her escape – almost like therapy. If she was stressed or angry or upset, the only thing that could calm her down was cooking. And it didn’t hurt that the weight she gained made her a little less attractive to her uncle.’
Rachel was still looking at her, but her face had become a little grey. It was all the confirmation Heather needed that her suspicions about Rachel were true. It made her wonder about the Aston family, ostensibly so close, and yet completely blind to something Heather had been able to extract in a couple of minutes, using a made-up example about a girl from school.
‘All right, Uber driver,’ Tully was saying. ‘You can pick me up. But don’t be late or your rating is ruined!’ She laughed and hung up the phone. ‘My ride’s on its way.’
‘What about you?’ Rachel asked Heather. ‘Should I call Dad? You won’t be able to drive home now, will you?’
Heather was definitely too drunk to drive. But thankfully she wasn’t so drunk she thought calling Stephen was a good idea. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I thought maybe we could hang out for a bit longer. Maybe open another bottle?’
