The Husband’s Secret, Page 28

  Lauren reappeared with another tray containing three coffee cups. The coffee would be perfect, made exactly the way Rachel liked it: hot with two sugars. Lauren was the perfect daughter-in-law. Rachel was the perfect mother-in-law. All that perfection hiding all that dislike.

  But Lauren had won. New York was her ace. She’d played it. Good on her.

  ‘Where’s Jacob?’ asked Rachel.

  ‘He’s drawing,’ said Lauren as she sat down. She lifted her mug and shot Rob a wry look. ‘Hopefully not on the walls.’

  Rob grinned at her, and Rachel got another glimpse of the private world of their marriage. It seemed like it was a good marriage, as far as marriages went.

  Would Janie have liked Lauren? Would Rachel have been a nice, ordinary, overbearing mother-in-law if Janie had lived? It was impossible to imagine. The world with Lauren in it was so vastly different from the world when Janie had been alive. It seemed impossible that Lauren would still have existed if Janie had lived.

  She looked at Lauren, strands of fair hair escaping from her ponytail. It was nearly the same blonde as Janie’s. Janie’s hair was blonder. Perhaps hers would have got darker as she’d got older.

  Ever since that first morning after Janie died, when she woke up and the horror of what had happened crashed down upon her, Rachel had been obsessively imagining another life running alongside her own, her real life, the one that was stolen from her, the one where Janie was warm in her bed.

  But as the years had gone by it had grown harder and harder to imagine it. Lauren was sitting right in front of her and she was so alive, the blood pumping through her veins, her chest rising and falling.

  ‘You okay, Mum?’ said Rob.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Rachel. She went to reach for her cup of coffee and found that she didn’t have the energy to even lift her arm.

  Sometimes there was the pure, primal pain of grief; and other times there was anger, the frantic desire to claw and hit and kill; and sometimes, like right now, there was just this ordinary, dull sensation, settling itself softly, suffocatingly over her like a heavy fog.

  She was just so damned sad.

  chapter forty-six

  ‘Hello,’ said Felicity.

  Tess smiled at her. She couldn’t help it. It was like the way you automatically say thank you to a police officer who is handing you a speeding ticket you don’t want and can’t afford. She was automatically happy to see Felicity, because she loved her, and she looked so nice, and because a lot had been happening to her over the last few days, and she had so much to tell her.

  In the very next instant she remembered, and the shock and betrayal felt brand new. Tess battled a desire to fly at Felicity, to knock her to the ground and scratch and pummel and bite. But nice, middle-class women like Tess didn’t behave like that, especially not in front of their impressionable small children; so she did nothing except lick her greasy lips from the buttery hot cross buns and move forward in her chair, tugging at the front of her pyjama top.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m sorry for just . . .’ Felicity’s voice disappeared on her. She tried to clear her throat and said huskily, ‘. . . turning up like this. Without calling.’

  ‘Yes, it might have been better if you had called,’ said Lucy. Tess knew her mother was trying her best to look forbidding but she just looked distraught. In spite of all the things she’d said about Felicity, Tess knew that Lucy loved her niece.

  ‘How is your ankle?’ Felicity asked Lucy.

  ‘Is Dad coming too?’ said Liam.

  Tess straightened. Felicity met her eyes and quickly looked away. That’s right. Ask Felicity. Felicity would know what Will’s plans were.

  ‘He’s coming soon,’ Felicity told Liam. ‘I’m not actually staying long. I just wanted to talk to your mum first, about a few things, and then I’ve got to go. I’m, ah, going away, actually.’

  ‘Where to?’ asked Liam.

  ‘I’m going to England,’ said Felicity. ‘I’m going to do this amazing walk. It’s called the coast-to-coast walk. And then I’m going to Spain, and America – well, anyway, I’m going to be away for quite a long time.’

  ‘Are you going to Disneyland?’ asked Liam.

  Tess stared at Felicity. ‘I don’t get it.’ Was Will going with her on some romantic adventure?

  Red painful blotches stained Felicity’s neck. ‘Could you and I talk?’

  Tess stood up. ‘Come on.’

  ‘I’ll come too,’ said Liam.

  ‘No,’ said Tess.

  ‘You stay out here with me, darling,’ said Lucy. ‘Let’s eat chocolate.’

  Tess took Felicity to her old bedroom. It was the only door with a lock. They stood next to her bed, looking at each other. Tess’s heart hammered. She hadn’t realised that you could spend your whole life looking at the people you loved in an oblique, half-hearted way, as if you were deliberately blurring your vision, until something like this happened, and then just looking at that person could be terrifying.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Tess.

  ‘It’s over,’ said Felicity.

  ‘Over?’

  ‘Well, it never got started really. Once you and Liam were gone it just –’

  ‘Wasn’t as thrilling any more?’

  ‘Can I sit down?’ said Felicity. ‘My legs are shaking.’

  Tess’s legs were shaking too.

  She shrugged. ‘Sure. Sit.’

  There was nowhere to sit but the bed or the floor. Felicity sank to the floor. She sat cross-legged with her back against the chest of drawers. Tess sat also, with her back against the bed.

  ‘Still the same rug.’ Felicity put her hand on the blue and white rug.

  ‘Yep.’ Tess looked at Felicity’s slim legs and fine-boned wrists. She thought of the little fat girl who had sat in that exact same position so many times throughout their childhood. Her beautiful green almond eyes shining out from her plump face. Tess had always known there was a fairy princess trapped in there. Perhaps Tess had liked the fact that she was trapped.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ said Tess. For some reason, it just had to be said.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Felicity.

  ‘I wasn’t trying to make a point.’

  ‘I know.’

  They sat in silence for a few moments.

  ‘So tell me,’ said Tess finally.

  ‘He’s not in love with me,’ said Felicity. ‘I don’t think he was ever in love with me. It was a crush. The whole thing was pathetic, really. I knew straightaway. As soon as you and Liam were gone, I knew that nothing was going to happen.’

  ‘But –’ Tess lifted her hands helplessly. She felt a rush of humiliation. The events of the past week all seemed so stupid.

  ‘It wasn’t just a crush for me,’ said Felicity. She lifted her chin. ‘It was real for me. I love him. I’ve loved him for years.’

  ‘Is that right?’ said Tess dully, but it wasn’t a surprise. Not really. Maybe she’d always known it. In fact, maybe she’d even liked the fact that she’d sensed Felicity was in love with Will, because it had made Will seem all the more desirable, and because it had been perfectly safe. There had been no way that Will could have been sexually attracted to Felicity. Had Tess never really seen her cousin at all? Had she been just like everyone else who hadn’t seen past Felicity’s weight?

  She said, ‘But all those years. Spending so much time with us. It must have been horrible.’ It was as though she’d thought that Felicity’s fatness cushioned her feelings, as though she believed that Felicity must surely know and accept that no ordinary man could really love her! And yet Tess would have killed anyone who might have said that out loud.

  ‘It was just how I felt.’ Felicity pleated the fabric of her jeans between her fingers. ‘I knew he just thought of me as a friend. I knew Will liked me. Loved me even, like a sister. It was enough to spend time with him.’

  ‘You should have –’ began Tess.

&nbs
p; ‘What? Told you? How could I tell you? What could you have done except feel sorry for me? What I should have done was gone off and got my own life, instead of just being your faithful fat sidekick.’

  ‘I never thought of you like that!’ Tess was stung.

  ‘I’m not saying you thought of me like that. It was more that I saw myself as your sidekick. As if I wasn’t thin enough to have a real life. But then I lost weight and I started to notice men looking at me. I know as good feminists we’re not meant to like it, being objectified, but when you’ve never experienced it, it’s like, I don’t know, cocaine. I loved it. I felt so powerful. It was like in those movies when the superhero first discovers their powers. And then I thought, I wonder if I could get Will to notice me now, like those other men notice me – and then, well then . . .’

  She stopped. She’d got caught up in the telling of her story and forgotten that it wasn’t really an appropriate one for Tess to hear. Tess had only had a few days of not being able to talk to Felicity, whereas Felicity had all those years of not being able to share the biggest thing on her mind.

  ‘And then he noticed you,’ finished Tess. ‘You tried out your superpowers and they worked.’

  Felicity gave a pretty, self-deprecating shrug. It was funny how all her gestures were different now. Tess was sure she’d never seen that particular shrug before – sort of French and flirty.

  ‘I think Will felt so bad about feeling, you know, a little bit attracted to me, he convinced himself that he was in love with me,’ said Felicity. ‘Once you and Liam were gone, everything changed. I think he lost interest in me the moment you walked out the door.’

  ‘The moment I walked out the door,’ repeated Tess.

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  Felicity lifted her head. ‘It’s true.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  It seemed as though Felicity was trying to absolve Will of all wrongdoing, to imply that he’d been briefly led astray, as if what had happened was no different than the betrayal of a drunken kiss at an office party.

  Tess thought of Will’s dead-white face on Monday evening. He wasn’t that shallow or stupid. His feelings for Felicity had been real enough for him to begin the process of dismantling his whole life.

  It was Liam, she thought. The moment Tess walked out the door with Liam, Will finally understood what he was sacrificing. If there was no child involved, this conversation wouldn’t be taking place. He loved Tess, presumably he did, but right now he was in love with Felicity, and everyone knew which was the more powerful feeling. It wasn’t a fair fight. It was why marriages fell apart. It was why, if you valued your marriage, you kept a barricade around yourself and your feelings and your thoughts. You didn’t let your eyes linger. You didn’t stay for the second drink. You kept the flirting safe. You just didn’t go there. At some point Will had made a choice to look at Felicity with the eyes of a single man. That was the moment he had betrayed Tess.

  ‘Obviously I’m not asking for your forgiveness,’ said Felicity.

  Yes, you are, thought Tess. But you’re not getting it.

  ‘Because I could have done it,’ said Felicity. ‘I want you to know that. For some reason it’s really important to me that you know that I was serious. I felt terrible, but not so terrible that I couldn’t have done it. I could have lived with myself.’

  Tess stared at her, appalled.

  ‘I just want to be totally honest with you,’ said Felicity.

  ‘Thanks, I guess.’

  Felicity dropped her eyes first. ‘Anyway. I thought the best thing would be for me to just leave the country, to get as far away as possible. So you and Will can work things out. He wanted to talk to you first, but I thought it would make more sense if –’

  ‘So where is he now?’ said Tess. There was a strident note to her voice. Felicity’s knowledge of Will’s whereabouts and plans was infuriating. ‘Is he in Sydney? Did you fly up together?’

  ‘Well, yes, we did, but –’ began Felicity.

  ‘That must have been very traumatic for you both. Your last moments together. Did you hold hands on the plane?’

  The flicker in Felicity’s eyes was indisputable.

  ‘You did, didn’t you?’ said Tess. She could just imagine it. The agony. The star-crossed lovers clinging to each other, wondering if they should keep on running, fly to Paris!, or do the right thing, the boring thing. Tess was the boring thing.

  ‘I don’t want him,’ she told Felicity. She couldn’t stand her role as the stodgy, wronged wife. She wanted Felicity to know that there was nothing stodgy about Tess O’Leary. ‘You can have him. Keep him! I’ve been sleeping with Connor Whitby.’

  Felicity’s mouth dropped. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Seriously.’

  Felicity exhaled. ‘Well, Tess, that’s – I don’t know.’ She looked around the room for inspiration and returned her gaze to Tess. ‘Three days ago you said you would not have Liam growing up with divorced parents. You said, you wanted your husband back. You made me feel like the worst person in the world. And now you tell me that you’ve just jumped straight into an affair with an ex-boyfriend, while Will and I, we never even – God!’ She thumped her fist on the side of Tess’s bed, her colour high, her eyes shining with fury.

  The injustice, and perhaps the justice, of Felicity’s words took Tess’s breath away.

  ‘Don’t be so pious.’ She shoved Felicity’s skinny thigh as hard as she could, childishly, like a kid on a bus. It felt strangely good. She did it again, harder. ‘You are the worst person in the world. Do you think I would have even looked at Connor if you and Will hadn’t made your announcement?’

  ‘You didn’t muck about though, did you? Bloody hell, stop hitting me!’

  Tess gave her one final shove and sat back. She had never felt such an overwhelming desire to hit someone before. She had certainly never given in to it. It seemed that all the niceties that made her a socially acceptable grown-up had been stripped away. Last week she was a school mum and a professional. Now she was having sex in hallways and hitting her cousin. What next?

  She took a deep, shaky breath. In the heat of the moment, they called it. She had never realised just how hot the heat of the moment could get.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Felicity. ‘Will wants to work things out, and I’m leaving the country. So do whatever you want to do.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Tess. ‘Thanks very much. Thanks for everything.’ She could feel the anger almost physically draining from her body, leaving her limp and detached.

  There was silence for a moment.

  ‘He wants another baby,’ said Felicity.

  ‘Don’t tell me what he wants.’

  ‘He really wants another baby.’

  ‘And I suppose you would have liked to have given him one,’ said Tess.

  Felicity’s eyes filled. ‘Yes. I’m sorry, but yes.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Felicity. Don’t make me feel bad for you. It’s not fair. Why did you have to fall in love with my husband? Why couldn’t you have fallen in love with someone else’s husband?’

  ‘We never really saw anyone else,’ Felicity laughed as the tears rolled down her face. She wiped the back of her hand across her nose.

  That was true.

  ‘He doesn’t think he can ask you to go through another pregnancy because of how sick you got with Liam,’ said Felicity. ‘But it might not be as bad with a second pregnancy, right? Every pregnancy is different, isn’t it? You should have another baby.’

  ‘Do you really think we’re going to have a baby now and live happily ever after?’ said Tess. ‘A baby doesn’t fix a marriage. Not that I even knew my marriage needed fixing.’

  ‘I know, I just thought –’

  ‘It’s not really because of the sickness that I don’t want a baby,’ she said to Felicity. ‘It’s because of the people.’

  ‘The people?’

  ‘The other mothers, the teachers, the people. I didn’t real
ise that having a child was so social. You’re always talking to people.’

  ‘So what?’ Felicity looked mystified.

  ‘I have this disorder. I did a quiz in a magazine. I have –’ Tess lowered her voice. ‘I have social anxiety.’

  ‘You do not,’ said Felicity dismissively.

  ‘I do so! I did the quiz –’

  ‘You’re seriously diagnosing yourself based on some quiz in a magazine?’

  ‘It was Reader’s Digest, not Cosmopolitan. And it’s true! I can’t stand meeting new people. I get sick. I have heart palpitations. I can’t stand parties.’

  ‘Lots of people don’t like parties. Get over yourself.’

  Tess was taken aback. She had expected hushed pity.

  ‘You’re shy,’ said Felicity. ‘You’re not one of those loud-mouthed extroverts. But people like you. People really like you. Haven’t you ever noticed that? I mean, God, Tess, how could you have had all those boyfriends if you were such a shy, nervy little thing? You had about thirty boyfriends before you were twenty-five.’

  Tess rolled her eyes. ‘I did not.’

  How could she explain to Felicity that her anxiety was like a strange mercurial little pet she was forced to look after? Sometimes it was quiet and pliable, other days it was crazy, running around in circles, yapping in her ear. Besides, dating was different. Dating had its own definite set of rules. She could do dating. A first date with a new man had never been a problem. (As long as he asked her out, of course. She never did the asking.) It was when the man asked her to meet his family and friends that her anxiety reared its freaky little head.

  ‘And by the way, if you really had “social anxiety”, why did you never tell me?’ said Felicity with total confidence that she knew everything there was to know about Tess.