The Husband’s Secret, Page 20

  ‘But that was all such a very long time ago,’ said Virginia.

  ‘Yes. Although it must be so distressing for Rachel,’ said Cecilia. ‘Not knowing. Not knowing what happened.’

  Their eyes locked across the table. This time Virginia didn’t look away. Cecilia could see tiny particles of orange face powder embedded in the drawstring of wrinkles around Virginia’s mouth. Outside the house she could hear the soft midweek sounds of her neighbourhood: the chatter of cockatoos, the twitter of sparrows, the far-off buzz of someone’s leaf blower, the slam of a car door.

  ‘Although it wouldn’t really change anything, would it? It wouldn’t bring Janie back.’ Virginia patted Cecilia’s arm. ‘You’ve got enough on your mind without worrying about that. Your family comes first. Your husband and your daughters. They come first.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ began Cecilia and stopped abruptly. The message was loud and clear. The taint of sin was all through her house. It smelled like sesame oil.

  Virginia smiled sweetly and picked up the coconut lemon slice again between her fingertips. ‘I don’t need to tell you this, do I? You’re a mother. You’d do anything for your children, just like I’d do anything for mine.’

  chapter twenty-seven

  The school day was nearly over and Rachel was busy typing up the school newsletter, her fingers moving rapidly over the keyboard. Sushi is now available at the tuckshop. Healthy and yummy! More volunteers are needed to cover library books. Don’t forget the ‘Eggscellent’ Easter Bonnet Parade tomorrow! Connor Whitby has been charged with the murder of Rachel Crowley’s daughter. Hooray! Our warmest wishes to Rachel. Applications now open for the position of PE teacher.

  Her little finger hit the delete key. Delete. Delete.

  Her mobile phone buzzed and vibrated on the desk next to her computer and she snatched it up.

  ‘Mrs Crowley, it’s Rodney Bellach.’

  ‘Rodney,’ said Rachel. ‘Do you have good news for me?’

  ‘Well. Not – well, I just wanted to let you know that I’ve given the tape to a good mate at the Unsolved Homicide Team,’ said Rodney. He sounded stilted, as if he’d carefully scripted his words before he picked up the phone. ‘So it’s absolutely in the right hands.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Rachel. ‘That’s a start! They’ll reopen the case!’

  ‘Well, Mrs Crowley, the thing is, Janie’s case isn’t closed, ’ said Rodney. ‘It’s still open. When the coroner returns an open finding, as they did with Janie, as you know – well, it stays open. So what I’m saying is the boys will take a look at the tape. They’ll certainly look at it.’

  ‘And they’ll interview Connor again?’ said Rachel. She pressed the phone hard against her ear.

  ‘I guess that’s a possibility,’ said Rodney. ‘But please don’t get your hopes up too high, Mrs Crowley. Please don’t.’

  The disappointment felt personal, as if she was being told she’d failed some test. She wasn’t good enough. She’d failed to help her daughter. She’d failed her again.

  ‘But look, that’s just my opinion. The new guys are younger and smarter than me. Someone from the Unsolved Homicide Team will call you this week and let you know what they think.’

  As she put down the phone and returned to the computer, Rachel felt her eyes blur. She realised she’d had a warm sense of anticipation all day, as if finding the tape was going to set in motion a series of events that would lead to something wonderful, almost as if she’d thought the tape was going to bring Janie back. An infantile part of her mind had never accepted that her daughter could be murdered. Surely one day some respectable authority figure would take charge and put it right. Maybe God was the reasonable, respectable figure she’d always assumed was going to step in. Could she really have been that deluded? Even subconsciously?

  God didn’t care. God didn’t care less. God gave Connor Whitby free will, and Connor used that free will to strangle Janie.

  Rachel pushed her chair back from her desk and looked out the window at the schoolyard. She had a bird’s eye view from up here and could see everything that was going on. It was nearly school pick-up time. Parents were scattered about the place: little groups of mums deep in conversation, the occasional father lurking in the background, checking his email on his mobile phone. She watched one of the fathers quickly step aside for someone in a wheelchair. It was Lucy O’Leary. Her daughter Tess was pushing the chair. As Rachel watched, Tess bent down to hear something that her mother said, and threw back her head and laughed. There was something quietly subversive about those two.

  You could become friends with your grown-up daughter in way that didn’t seem possible with your grown-up son. That was what Connor took away from Rachel: all the future relationships she could have had with Janie.

  I am not the first mother to lose a child, Rachel kept telling herself that first year. I am not the first. I will not be the last.

  It made no difference, of course.

  The buzzer went for the end of the school day, and seconds later the children tumbled out of their classrooms. There was that familiar afternoon babble of childish voices: laughing, shouting, crying. Rachel saw the little O’Leary boy run to his grandmother’s wheelchair. He nearly tripped because he was using both hands to awkwardly carry a giant cardboard construction covered in aluminium foil. Tess bent down next to her mother’s wheelchair and all three of them examined whatever it was – a spaceship perhaps? No doubt it was Trudy Applebee’s doing. Forget the syllabus. If Trudy decided Year 1 was making spaceships that day, so it would be. Lauren and Rob were going to end up staying in New York. Jacob would have an American accent. He’d eat pancakes for breakfast. Rachel would never see him run out of his school carrying something covered in aluminium foil. The police wouldn’t do anything with the video tape. They’d put it on file. They probably didn’t even have a VCR to watch it on.

  Rachel turned back to her computer screen and let her hands splay limply on the keys. She’d been waiting twenty-eight years for something that was never going to happen.

  chapter twenty-eight

  It had been a mistake suggesting a drink. What had she been thinking? The bar was crowded with young, beautiful drunk people. Tess kept staring at them. They all looked like high school students to her, who should have been at home studying, not out on a school night, shrieking and squawking. Connor had found them a table, which was lucky, but it was right next to a row of flashing, beeping poker machines and it was clear from the panicked concentration on Connor’s face each time she spoke that he was having difficulty hearing her. Tess sipped a glass of not especially good wine and felt her head begin to ache. Her legs were sore after that long walk up the hill from Cecilia’s place. She did that one Body Combat class with Felicity on Tuesday nights, but she couldn’t seem to manage to fit in any other time for exercise in between work and school and all of Liam’s activities. She remembered suddenly that she’d just paid one hundred and ninety dollars for a martial arts course that Liam was meant to have started in Melbourne today. Shit, shit, shit.

  What was she doing here anyway? She’d forgotten how bad Sydney bars were compared to Melbourne. That’s why there wasn’t anyone over thirty in this place. If you were a grown-up living on the North Shore you had to do your drinking at home and be tucked up in bed by ten o’clock.

  She missed Melbourne. She missed Will. She missed Felicity. She missed her life.

  Connor leaned forward. ‘Liam has pretty good hand-eye coordination,’ he shouted. For God’s sake, was this a parent-teacher conference now?

  When Tess had picked Liam up from school this afternoon, he’d seemed elated and hadn’t mentioned anything about Will or Felicity. Instead, he’d talked nonstop about how he was definitely the best at the Easter egg hunt, and how he’d shared some of his eggs with Polly Fitzpatrick, who was going to have this amazing pirate party and everyone in the class was invited, and how he’d done this really fun game with a parachute on the oval, and there wa
s an Easter hat parade on the next day, and their teacher was going to dress up like an Easter egg! Tess didn’t know if it was just the novelty factor or the chocolate high that was making him so happy, but for now at least Liam was definitely not missing his old life.

  ‘Did you miss Marcus?’ she’d asked him.

  ‘Not really,’ Liam had answered. ‘Marcus was pretty mean.’

  He’d refused help making his Easter hat and had made his own weird and wonderful creation out of an old straw hat of Lucy’s incorporating fake flowers and a toy rabbit. Then he’d eaten all his dinner, sung in the bath and been sound asleep by seven-thirty pm. Whatever happened, he wasn’t going back to that school in Melbourne.

  ‘He gets it from his father,’ sighed Tess. ‘The good hand-eye coordination.’ She took a big mouthful of the bad wine. Will would never take her anywhere like this. He knew all the best bars in Melbourne: tiny, stylish, soft-lit bars where he’d sit across the table from her and they’d talk. The conversation never faltered. They still made each other laugh. They went out every couple of months. Just the two of them. Saw a show or had dinner. Wasn’t that what you were meant to do? To invest in your marriage with nice, regular ‘date nights’? (She couldn’t stand that phrase.)

  Felicity took care of Liam when they went out. They always had a drink with her when they got home, and told her about their night. Sometimes, if it was too late, she stayed the night and they all had breakfast together in the morning.

  Yes, Felicity had been an integral part of date night.

  Did she lie in the spare bedroom wishing she was in Tess’s place? Had Tess’s behaviour been unwittingly, yet unspeakably, cruel to Felicity?

  ‘What’s that?’ Connor leaned forward, squinting at her.

  ‘He gets it –’

  ‘Booya!’ There was an explosion of noise around one of the poker machines.

  ‘You bitch, you total bitch!’ One of the pretty young girls (‘skanky’ Felicity would have described her) slapped her friend’s back while a torrent of coins cascaded from the machine.

  ‘Booya, booya, booya!’ A broad-chested young man pummelling his chest like a gorilla lurched sideways against Tess.

  ‘Watch it, mate,’ said Connor.

  ‘Man, I’m so sorry! We just won –’ The boy turned around and his face lit up. ‘Mr Whitby! Hey guys, this is my primary school PE teacher! He was like the best PE teacher ever.’ He stuck out his hand and Connor stood and shook it, shooting a rueful look at Tess.

  ‘How the hell are you, Mr Whitby?’ The boy shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and shook his head as he looked at Connor, seemingly overcome with a sort of paternal emotion.

  ‘I’m good, Daniel,’ said Connor. ‘How are you?’

  The boy was suddenly struck by an astonishing thought. ‘You know what? I’m going to buy you a drink, Mr Whitby. It would be my fucking pleasure. Seriously. Excuse my language. I may be intoxicated. What are you drinking, Mr Whitby?’

  ‘You know what, Daniel, that would have been great, but we were actually just leaving.’

  Connor held out his hand to Tess and she automatically picked up her bag, got to her feet and took it, as naturally as if they’d been in a relationship for years.

  ‘Is this Mrs Whitby?’ The boy looked Tess up and down, entranced. He turned to Connor and gave him a big sly wink and a thumbs-up gesture. He turned to Tess. ‘Mrs Whitby. Your husband is a legend. An absolute legend. He taught me, like, long jump, and hockey, and cricket, and, and, like every sport in the fucking universe, and you know, I look athletic, I know, and I am, but it might surprise you to learn that I’m not that coordinated, but Mr Whitby, he –’

  ‘Gotto go, mate.’ Connor clapped the boy on the shoulder. ‘It was good seeing you.’

  ‘Oh, likewise, man. Likewise.’

  Connor led Tess out of the bar and into the wonderfully quiet night air.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was just losing my mind in there. I think I’m going deaf. And then, a drunk ex-student offering to buy me drinks . . . Jeez. So, it looks like I’m still holding your hand.’

  ‘It looks like you are.’

  What are you doing, Tess O’Leary? But she didn’t let go. If Will could fall in love with Felicity, if Felicity could fall in love with Will, she could spend a few moments holding hands with an ex-boyfriend. Why not?

  ‘I remember that I always loved your hands,’ said Connor. He cleared this throat. ‘I guess that’s bordering on inappropriate.’

  ‘Oh well,’ said Tess.

  He moved his thumb so gently across her knuckle it was almost imperceptible.

  She had forgotten this: the way your senses exploded and your pulse raced, as if you were properly awake after a long sleep. She had forgotten the thrill, the desire, the melting sensation. It just wasn’t possible after ten years of marriage. Everyone knew that. It was part of the deal. She’d accepted the deal. It had never been a problem. She hadn’t even known she’d missed it. If she ever thought about it, it felt childish, silly – ‘sparks flying’ – whatever, who cares, she had a child to care for, a business to run. But, my God, she’d forgotten the power of it. How nothing else felt important. This was what Will had been experiencing with Felicity while Tess was busy with mundane married life.

  Connor increased the pressure of his thumb just fractionally, and Tess felt a shot of desire.

  Maybe the only reason Tess had never cheated on Will was because she’d never had the opportunity. Actually, she’d never cheated on any of her boyfriends. Her sexual history was unimpeachable. She’d never had a one-night stand with an inappropriate boy, never drunkenly kissed someone else’s boyfriend, never woken up with a single regret. She’d always done the right thing. Why? For what? Who cared?

  Tess kept her eyes on Connor’s thumb and watched hypnotised and astonished, as it ever so gently grazed her knuckle.

  June 1987, Berlin: The US president Ronald Reagan spoke in West Berlin and said, ‘General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalisation. Come here to this gate! Mr Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

  In June 1987, Sydney: Andrew and Lucy O’Leary spoke quietly across their kitchen table, while their ten-year-old daughter slept upstairs. ‘It’s not that I can’t forgive you,’ said Andrew. ‘It’s that I don’t care. I don’t even care.’

  ‘I only did it to make you look at me,’ said Lucy. But Andrew’s eyes were already looking past her, at the door.

  chapter twenty-nine

  ‘How come we’re not having lamb?’ asked Polly. ‘We always have a lamb roast when Daddy comes home.’ She poked her fork discontentedly at the piece of overcooked fish on her plate.

  ‘Why did you cook fish for dinner?’ said Isabel to Cecilia. ‘Dad hates fish.’

  ‘I don’t hate fish,’ said John-Paul.

  ‘You do so,’ said Esther.

  ‘Well, okay, it’s not my favourite,’ said John-Paul. ‘But this is actually very nice.’

  ‘Um, it’s not actually very nice.’ Polly put down her fork and sighed.

  ‘Polly Fitzpatrick, where are your manners?’ said John-Paul. ‘Your mother went to all the trouble of cooking this –’

  ‘Don’t,’ Cecilia held up her hand.

  There was silence around the table for a moment as everyone waited for her to say something else. She put down her fork and had a large mouthful of her wine.

  ‘I thought you gave up wine for Lent,’ said Isabel.

  ‘Changed my mind,’ said Cecilia.

  ‘You can’t just change your mind!’ Polly was scandalised.

  ‘Did everybody have a good day today?’ asked John-Paul.

  ‘This house smells of sesame oil,’ said Esther, sniffing.

  ‘Yeah, I thought we were having sesame chicken,’ said Isabel.

  ‘Fish is brain food,’ said John-Paul. ‘It makes us smart.’

  ‘So why aren’t E
skimos like the smartest people in the world?’ said Esther.

  ‘Maybe they are,’ said John-Paul.

  ‘This fish tastes really bad,’ said Polly.

  ‘Has an Eskimo ever won the Nobel Prize?’ asked Esther.

  ‘It does taste a bit funny, Mum,’ said Isabel.

  Cecilia stood up and began clearing their full plates away. Her daughters looked stunned. ‘You can all have toast.’

  ‘It’s fine!’ protested John-Paul, holding on to the edge of his plate with his fingertips. ‘I was quite enjoying it.’

  Cecilia pulled his plate away. ‘No, you weren’t.’ She avoided his eyes. She hadn’t made eye contact with him since he got home. If she behaved normally, if she let life just continue on, wasn’t she condoning it? Accepting it? Betraying Rachel Crowley’s daughter?

  Except wasn’t that exactly what she’d already decided to do? To do nothing? So what difference did it make if she was cold towards John-Paul? Did she really think that made a difference?

  Don’t worry, Rachel, I’m being so mean to your daughter’s murderer. No lamb roast for him! No sirree!

  Her glass was empty again. Gosh. That went down fast. She took the bottle of wine from the fridge and refilled it to the very brim.

  Tess and Connor lay on their backs, breathing raggedly.

  ‘Well,’ said Connor finally.

  ‘Well indeed,’ said Tess.

  ‘We seem to be in the hallway,’ said Connor.

  ‘We do seem to be.’

  ‘I was trying to get us to the living room at least,’ said Connor.

  ‘It seems like a very nice hallway,’ said Tess. ‘Not that I can see all that much.’