Chapter twelve

‘Hello?’ said Tess warily, looking at her watch, as she picked up her mother’s home phone.

It was nine o’clock at night. Surely it couldn’t be another telemarketer.

‘It’s me.’

It was Felicity. Tess’s stomach cramped. Felicity had been calling all day on her mobile, leaving voicemail messages and texts that Tess left unheard and unread. It felt strange, ignoring Felicity, as if she was forcing herself to do something unnatural.

‘I don’t want to talk to you.’

‘Nothing has happened,’ said Felicity. ‘We still haven’t slept together.’

‘For God’s sake,’ said Tess, and then to her surprise, she laughed. It wasn’t even a bitter laugh. It was a genuine laugh. This was ridiculous. ‘What’s the hold-up?’

But then she caught sight of herself in the mirror above her mother’s dining room table and saw her smile fade, like someone catching on to a cruel trick.

‘All we can think about is you,’ said Felicity. ‘And Liam. The Bedstuff website crashed – anyway, I won’t talk to you about work. I’m at my apartment. Will is at home. He looks like a wreck.’

‘You’re pathetic.’ Tess turned away from her reflection in the mirror. ‘You’re both so pathetic.’

‘I know,’ said Felicity. Her voice was so low, Tess had to press the phone hard against her ear to hear her. ‘I’m a bitch. I’m that woman we hate.’

‘Speak up!’ said Tess irritably.

‘I said I’m a bitch!’ repeated Felicity.

‘Don’t expect any argument from me.’

‘I don’t,’ said Felicity. ‘Of course I don’t.’

There was silence.

‘You want me to be all right with it,’ said Tess. She knew them so well. ‘Don’t you? You want me to make everything all right.’

That was her job. That was her role in their three-way relationship. Will and Felicity were the ones who ranted and raved, who let the clients upset them, who got their feelings hurt by strangers, who thumped the steering wheel and shouted ‘Are you kidding me?’ It was Tess’s job to soothe them, to jolly them along, to do the whole glass is half-full, it will all work out, you’ll feel better in the morning thing. How could they possibly have an affair without her there to help? They needed Tess there to say, ‘It’s not your fault!’

‘I don’t expect that,’ said Felicity. ‘I don’t expect anything from you. Are you all right? Is Liam all right?’

‘We’re fine,’ said Tess. She felt an overwhelming tiredness, and with it came an almost dreamy sense of detachment. These huge swoops of emotion were exhausting. She pulled out one of the dining room table chairs and sat down. ‘Liam is starting at St Angela’s tomorrow.’ Watch me getting on with my life.

‘Tomorrow? What’s the rush?’

‘There’s an Easter egg hunt.’

‘Ah,’ said Felicity. ‘Chocolate. Liam’s kryptonite. He’s not being taught by any of the psychotic nuns who taught us, is he?’

Tess thought: Don’t you CHAT with me, as if everything is normal! But for some reason she went on talking anyway. She was too tired and it was too ingrained in her psyche. She’d chatted to Felicity every day of her life. She was her best friend. She was her only friend.

‘The nuns are all dead,’ she said. ‘But the PE teacher is Connor Whitby. Remember him?’

‘Connor Whitby,’ repeated Felicity. ‘He was that sad, sinister guy you were going out with before we came to Melbourne. But I thought he was an accountant.’

‘He retrained. He wasn’t sinister, was he?’ said Tess. Hadn’t he been perfectly nice? He was the boyfriend who had loved her hands. She remembered that suddenly. How strange. She’d been thinking about him last night, and now he’d reappeared in her life.

‘He was sinister,’ said Felicity definitely. ‘He was really old, too.’

‘He was ten years older than me.’

‘Anyway, I remember there was something creepy about him. I bet he’s even creepier now. There’s something unsavoury about PE teachers, with their tracksuits and whistles and clipboards.’

Tess’s hand tightened around the phone. Felicity’s smugness. She always thought she knew everything, that she was the superior judge of character, that she was more sophisticated and edgy than Tess.

‘So I guess you weren’t in love with Connor Whitby then?’ she said, brittle and bitchy. ‘Will is the first one to take your fancy?’

‘Tess –’

‘Don’t bother,’ she cut her off. Another wave of rage and hurt swelled in her throat. She swallowed. How could this possibly be? She loved them both. She loved them both so much. ‘Is there anything else?’

‘I don’t suppose I could say goodnight to Liam, could I?’ said Felicity in a small, meek voice that didn’t suit her.

‘No,’ said Tess. ‘Anyway, he’s asleep.’ He wasn’t asleep. She’d walked by his bedroom (her father’s old study) just a moment ago and seen him lying in bed playing on his Nintendo DS.

‘Please tell him I said hello,’ said Felicity tremulously, as if she was doing her courageous best in difficult circumstances beyond her control.

Liam adored Felicity. He had a certain dry little chuckle reserved especially for her.

The rage erupted.

‘Sure, I’ll tell him you said hello,’ Tess spat into the phone. ‘And at the same time why don’t I tell him that you’re trying to break up his family? Why don’t I mention that?’

‘Oh God, Tess, I’m so –’ said Felicity.

‘Don’t say you’re sorry. Don’t you dare say you’re sorry one more time. You chose this. You let this happen. You did this. You did this to me. You did this to Liam.’ She was weeping uncontrollably now, like a child, rocking back and forth.

‘Where are you, Tess?’ It was her mother calling from the other end of the house.

Tess sat up immediately and wiped frantically at her wet face with the back of her hand. She didn’t want Lucy to see her crying like this. It was unbearable seeing her own pain reflected in her mother’s face.

She stood. ‘I have to go.’

‘I –’

‘I don’t care if you sleep with Will or not,’ interrupted Tess. ‘Actually, I think you should sleep with him. Get it out of your system. But I will not have Liam growing up with divorced parents. You were there when Mum and Dad split up. You know what it was like for me. That’s why I can’t believe –’

There was a searing pain at the centre of her chest. She pressed her palm to it. Felicity was silent.

‘You’re not going to live happily ever after with him,’ she said. ‘You know that, don’t you? Because I’m prepared to wait this out. I will wait for you to finish with him.’ She took a deep, shaky breath. ‘Have your revolting little affair and then give my husband back.’

7 October 1977: Three teenagers were killed when East German police clashed with protesters demanding ‘Down with the Wall!’ Lucy O’Leary, pregnant with her first child, saw the story on the news and cried and cried. Her twin sister, Mary, who was also pregnant with her first child, rang her the next day and asked if the news was making her cry too. They talked for a while about tragedies happening around the world and then moved on to the far more interesting topic of their babies.

‘I think we’re having boys,’ said Mary. ‘And they’ll be best friends.’

‘More likely they’ll want to kill each other,’ said Lucy.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 593