Three’s a Crowd (16 page)

‘Your father's not all that keen on fish,' Mrs Rourke muttered repeatedly.

‘So, no turkey?'

Catherine finally snapped. ‘No! There is no fucking ham or turkey! There is, however, delicious and frightfully expensive gourmet food that Martin has gone to a lot of trouble to prepare. It's
Scandinavian
!'

Rachel sighed with relief when the doorbell finally rang. ‘That'll be Lexie,' she said, jumping up from the table. She quickly did the rounds, saying her goodbyes while Catherine tottered out to the front door.

‘Lucky you,' said Alice when Rachel got to her. ‘You have a means of escape.'

Rachel laughed nervously and gave her a hug. She wished she could kidnap her, she could only imagine the fun Alice would have at the Dingles'. ‘I'll see you soon, chook. Merry Christmas.'

‘Easy for you to say,' she grumped.

Rachel quickly gathered up her things and hurried to the door.

‘Really,' Catherine was insisting drunkenly, ‘we've got so much food, Lexie, you should come in and have a plate with us.'

‘The kids are in the car –'

‘Bring them in as well,' Catherine slurred, leaning on Lexie's shoulder. ‘I'll go out and have a word to Scott.'

‘No Catherine,' Lexie stopped her. ‘It took us longer to get away from Mum's and we're running a little late. Scott's getting agitated, so –'

‘Ah, tell him to go fuck himself.'

‘Catherine!'

‘You've really got to learn to stand up for yourself and stop taking so much shit from him, Lexie.'

Lexie looked perplexed. ‘But . . . I didn't . . . I don't . . .'

‘We really have to go,' Rachel broke in chirpily. ‘Thanks again, Catherine, it was great.' She gave her a swift, firm hug and a kiss on the cheek. ‘I'll call you next week.'

Then she grabbed Lexie's arm and propelled her down the front steps and up the path to the car.

‘My God, she was so –'

‘Pissed,' Rachel finished for her. ‘It's Catherine's default position at Christmas.'

‘Not just at Christmas,' Lexie muttered.

They walked out past the shorn hedge of grief and Rachel smiled when she saw their car. ‘Ah, look at that! A normal, happy family on Christmas Day, what do you know? I was beginning to think there was no such thing.'

Lexie had a funny look on her face. ‘You think of us as a happy family?'

‘Lexie, you guys are so perfect you belong on a Christmas card.'

She broke into a teary smile. ‘I haven't even wished you a Merry Christmas yet,' she said, hugging Rachel.

Scott tooted the horn lightly and they bent to look at him inside the car. He beckoned impatiently.

‘Should we tell him to go f–'

But Lexie covered Rachel's mouth with her hand.

Walking into the backyard of the Dingles' house in Maroubra was always the highlight of Christmas Day for Rachel, at least for the last few years since she'd been invited to join them. While she was married to Sean they had always called in to Catherine's in the late morning on the way to Christmas lunch with Sean's family, which was an unremarkable but pleasant enough affair. The first Christmas after they separated, Rachel was beginning to feel a little lost. Annie and Tom were going up the coast as usual; and with her brother and his insufferable wife coming down from Queensland, Catherine had decided to pack up her family and head as far as possible in the opposite direction. So much to Alice's horror, they were spending Christmas in Tasmania. There had been a moment's awkward silence when everyone was discussing their plans and it became obvious that Rachel didn't have any.

‘Great! That means you're free to spend Christmas with us!' Lexie had exclaimed happily. Rachel tried to beg off, thinking that was the polite thing to do when the invitation had only been extended out of politeness, but Lexie wouldn't hear of it.

‘My mother adores having extra people at Christmas, you have no idea. And the Dingles, well, to be honest, they wouldn't even notice an extra person. But they'll love having you.'

That year Rachel had experienced possibly the loveliest Christmas of her life, as it turned out. The Tamblyns were delightful, particularly Sally and Keith, who, for the first time in more years than anyone could remember, did not have lunch interrupted to go deliver a baby, and thus declared that Rachel was a good-luck charm and should join them every year for Christmas. And the Dingles were a revelation. They were a big, rowdy bunch who actually seemed to enjoy each other's company. Scott was the youngest of four brothers; there was a Chris, an Adam and a Mitch, Rachel had never quite mastered who was who but they forgave her, seeing as their mum rarely got their names right either. They appeared to love their wives and adore their kids, who ranged from teenagers all the way down to toddlers. Rachel had no way of knowing who belonged to whom because they all mixed together so seamlessly.

‘There's my girl,' Scott's dad, John, greeted her expansively
when they arrived, giving her a big bear hug. ‘Well you just get more beautiful every year, Rachel.'

‘Leave the poor girl alone, Ding,' said Jenny, Scott's mum. ‘She doesn't want an old bloke like you slobbering all over her.'

Rachel adored them, she wished they could adopt her, she wanted to belong to this family. They lived in a post-war brick house perched high on the crest of a hill, with a view to the ocean from the second-storey extension. There was always an absurd amount of food. Rachel was usually too full, but this year she tucked into the turkey and ham like a junkie who'd been deprived of a fix. Beer and wine flowed, everyone sported those ridiculous flimsy paper hats from their Christmas crackers, and sharing the enclosed bad joke was mandatory. It was all set to a soundtrack of sentimental Christmas standards playing on a constant loop through speakers someone had set up on the upstairs balcony, facing out to the yard. At least until one of the teenagers would surreptitiously change the music, the ‘oldies' would eventually notice and Bing Crosby would be promptly reinstated, singing ‘White Christmas' all over again from the start.

Night cricket was another Dingle Christmas tradition, played after dinner, once everyone actually felt capable of standing up. Rachel was always one of the first to get out, she was so bad at ball sports. She definitely blamed that on being an only child. Sitting here watching the Dingles, she couldn't help fantasise about how different her life might have been if she'd had even one sibling. Just to have someone else who shared her genes, her history, her parents . . .

Lexie was bowled out and she came over to sit beside Rachel at the far end of the table. ‘Everything okay?' she asked.

‘Of course,' she assured her. ‘I just love watching them, they have such a good time together. I'm still waiting for Jenny and John to offer to adopt me, you know.'

Lexie looked at her. ‘Have you heard from your mum or dad?'

Rachel shook her head. ‘They're just getting up on their side of the world. They'll probably call soon, leave a message on my answering machine.'

‘Must be hard not having your family close by.'

Rachel didn't want to spoil Lexie's illusions by suggesting
that even if her parents lived in the same street they would never be close.

‘Do you know how lucky you are, Lex? You have two wonderful families.'

‘Actually three,' she corrected her.

‘Of course, what am I saying? You have your own little family as well.'

Lexie gave a faint shake of her head. ‘I do know how lucky I am, Rachel, and frankly it scares me.'

‘Why?'

‘Sometimes I think I have too much, and that something will have to be taken away from me.' She turned to face Rachel. ‘I mean, look at Annie and Tom – the perfect couple, the ideal family. What did they do to deserve what happened to them?'

‘You can't think like that Lexie,' said Rachel. ‘Some people don't “deserve” tragedy, just as some people don't deserve love and happiness, more than others.'

That was her silent dread. She'd dealt with it in therapy, years ago, but she had to keep reminding herself nearly every day. It wasn't some intrinsic personal flaw that made her little more than an afterthought to her parents. She had to believe that, or else what was she supposed to make of her life now? That she was alone because she didn't deserve to be loved, while Catherine deserved to have someone who doted on her hand and foot, no matter how she treated him in return? Or even that Tom deserved to lose his beloved wife?

‘Shit happens,' Rachel went on, ‘and it doesn't discriminate. Do you think some poor kid born in Africa is less deserving than some kid born up the road from here?'

‘But that just makes me all the more worried,' Lexie said, wide-eyed. ‘I don't deserve all this more than that poor child in Africa, and it could all get taken away so easily.'

‘Yeah, it could, but it probably won't,' said Rachel. ‘And worrying about it isn't going to help. You should just enjoy it, Lexie, every moment. And never, ever take it for granted.'

‘Boy, when you say “in the new year”, you don't muck around, do you?' said Rachel as she opened the door to Catherine. It was January 2, Rachel had managed to hold her off until now with vague excuses, hoping she'd drop the internet dating idea altogether. It wasn't much of a strategy, Catherine did not give up easily.

‘Take some of this stuff from me, will you?' she said, dumping a heavy box into Rachel's arms.

‘What is this?' she frowned.

She pushed past Rachel, lugging bags over both shoulders. ‘It's Elvis, the sex god I gave you for Christmas. You left him at my place, and we're going to need him tonight. He's our mascot, remember?'

‘Hmm.' Rachel followed her down the hall into the living room. ‘Did you say “Elvis”? Isn't he supposed to be Javanese?'

Catherine shrugged. ‘I don't know any Javanese. Elvis seemed to suit him.' She looked around. ‘Honestly, Rachel, how do you get the place into such a mess when you're only one person?' She dropped her bags into one of the armchairs and started bustling about, gathering up newspapers which were lying around. ‘Where's your recycling bin?'

‘No, I haven't finished with those,' Rachel protested, coming over to wrest the pile of papers from Catherine's hands.

‘What are you going to do with them?'

‘I still have stuff to read, articles to clip.'

‘You clip articles?'

‘Yeah.' Well, she thought about clipping articles. And sometimes she actually did. Then she didn't know what to do with them.

‘What do you do with them?' Catherine persisted.

Rachel groaned. ‘What's it to you?' She walked over to a corner of the room and dropped the newspapers on the floor in a pile.

Catherine was shaking her head. ‘You're going to turn into one of those old ladies in a house full of junk, stacks of newspapers
and collections of empty jars . . . And cats, you'll have cats everywhere, and the council will come around and impound them.'

Rachel folded her arms. ‘Thanks for that cheery glimpse into my future, Catherine.'

‘Don't worry, I wouldn't actually let any of that happen to you.'

‘Oh, that's so nice, you'll stop council from taking away all my cats?'

Catherine ignored that. ‘We are going to get your life back on track. Starting with putting you out there again,' she added, sliding her laptop out of one of the bags.

‘Why did you bring your computer? We can use mine.'

‘You're still connected to the internet?'

‘Ye-ah!' She said it like it had two syllables and she was a teenage girl. But that's how Catherine made her feel sometimes. ‘I pay my bills, Catherine, I'm not as useless as you seem to think I am.'

‘Okay,' she said, holding her hands up in surrender. ‘Doesn't hurt to have another computer between three of us.'