Three’s a Crowd (48 page)

Rachel jumped off the bus as soon as the doors swished open. She was so late. It had been an incredibly busy day at work; one of the juniors had called in sick – probably hungover – so they'd been run off their feet all day, which meant cleaning up also took longer. By Rachel's calculations, she should have been home and in the shower already around the time she was just getting on the bus. And then disaster struck, literally – they were majorly held up by an accident that happened almost right in front of them. Fortunately no one was seriously hurt, but they were blocked in, the driver couldn't detour, so they had no choice but to wait until tow-trucks arrived to clear the cars out of the way. Rachel considered getting off and walking the last few blocks, but it turned out the driver was some kind of OH&S nazi, and he refused to open the doors while the bus was in the middle of the road, despite the fact there was no through traffic with the road completely blocked by the accident.

Tom kept messaging to find out what was taking her so long, and he even offered to come and get her, but she messaged back that it was no use, he wouldn't be able to get through either. She had toyed with the idea of going straight to Lexie's, but she'd promised to bring a potato salad and it was waiting in her fridge at home, and she really needed a shower and a change of clothes. By the time she'd done all that, and waited for another bus to Clovelly, she was very late, and quite breathless when she finally knocked on the Dingles' front door.

‘Hi,' Lexie said when she opened it. She looked a little flat, not her usual ebullient self. Rachel hoped she wasn't cranky with her for being so late.

‘I'm really sorry I'm so late –'

‘Don't worry about it,' Lexie dismissed. ‘I got your message, you poor thing, stuck on the bus all that time.'

‘I brought the salad,' Rachel offered, holding it up.

‘Thanks for that,' she sighed wearily, taking the bowl from Rachel and leading her down the hall. ‘The house is a mess, please don't look at the bathroom especially. I did manage to
clean the toilet when I came home. I asked Scott if he'd done that at least, and you know what he said? That it looked all right to him.'

Rachel gave her an encouraging smile. ‘I'm sure everything's fine, Lexie. Besides, we're all here to see each other, not to inspect the house.'

Lexie walked around the bench into the kitchen. ‘Scott's barely lifted a finger. The most he managed was to get to the butcher's.'

‘He didn't work again today?' asked Rachel.

‘No, I had to, he seems to have gone into semi-retirement.' Lexie picked up a knife to resume chopping vegetables. ‘Scott assured me he'd handle everything, then I get a call at four – four o'clock this afternoon, Rachel – to say he was just leaving his parents' place and he'd only have time to get to the butcher's, could I pick up salad stuff, bread rolls . . . everything!' She waved the knife in the air.

Rachel had never seen Lexie like this.

‘He knows better than anyone what the café's like on a Saturday afternoon. Josh, bless him, offered to finish closing or I never would have got out of there. And then I come home and the place is a shambles, nothing's been cleaned, and Riley's rearranged the living room and made tunnels and cubbies out of the sofa cushions and blankets that he's dragged from the linen cupboard. But Scott's completely oblivious; he's got stuff spread from one end of the kitchen to the other, making a special “rub” for the meat that he'd read about and wanted to try.' She actually growled. This time she slammed the knife down onto the chopping board, right through the middle of a cucumber. Rachel couldn't help think she was imagining it was something else.

‘Would you like some help, Lexie?' she asked tentatively.

‘No, you've been working all day too,' said Lexie. ‘What are you drinking? Let me get you a glass.' She turned around to the cupboards behind her.

Rachel drew out a bottle of wine from the cooler bag she'd brought, and Lexie set a glass down in front of her.

‘You're going to need to catch up to that lot out there,' she said, cocking her head towards the back garden. ‘Scott's drinking beer like it's going out of style, after being sick all week. Of
course, Catherine's having no trouble keeping up with him, she's already half-tanked.'

‘I know she had some unexpected news last week, it's probably thrown her a bit,' Rachel offered in an attempt to calm things over, but Lexie didn't even seem to take it in.

‘And Martin, well he's in the doldrums, big time, I don't know what's going on there. The whole night is turning into a disaster. It was supposed to make Tom feel included. He probably wishes we hadn't bothered.'

‘I'm sure he doesn't feel that way, Lexie.'

‘You should go outside, he'll be happy to see your face, I reckon.'

Rachel hesitated. ‘Are you sure I can't help somehow?'

‘You'll help most if you go out and make nice with Tom.'

She should be able to manage that.

Rachel picked up her glass and wandered out through the playroom and into the small backyard, where the four of them were sitting in a half-circle. Tom's face lit up when she appeared and he leaped out of his seat.

‘Hey, Rach, it's great to see you,' he said, throwing his arms around her. ‘It's really great to see you,' he muttered in her ear. ‘You have no idea.'

Rachel pulled back from him. ‘It's nice to see you too, Tom. How have you been?'

‘Good, really good,' he said. ‘You look fantastic, Rachel, what have you been doing with yourself?'

‘Yeah, you do look great,' said Scott expansively, standing up to greet her with a kiss.

‘I should come here more often,' Rachel remarked. ‘All these compliments. I blame working in the juice bar, it's like an enforced detox. I seem to live on carrots and celery and watermelon.'

‘Well, it certainly agrees with you,' said Tom, gazing at her with a kind of proud glint in his eye. Don't overdo it, Tom.

‘Oh stop,' she joked, ‘you're going to make me blush.'

‘Then her face goes all red and blotchy,' Catherine broke in, standing up to join them. ‘She's not so pretty then, let me tell you.'

‘Hi there, Martin,' Rachel said, craning to see around Catherine, who was standing right in front of him. ‘How are you?'

‘Don't ask, he's likely to tell you,' said Catherine, linking her arm through Rachel's. ‘I'm just borrowing her for a sec, boys, girl-talk,' she said, drawing her away.

‘Okay,' said Rachel uncertainly. ‘But can I just grab a chair? My feet are killing me.'

‘No, I'd rather stand,' Catherine said, dragging her down to the back fence. ‘Every time I sit down Mia thinks it's an invitation to climb all over me,' she grimaced. ‘She's like a cat – you know how they always go for the one person in the room who doesn't like cats?'

Rachel wanted to get whatever this was over with so she could sit down. ‘What did you want to talk about?' she prompted Catherine.

‘James showed up at my office yesterday, just like that, unannounced and uninvited.'

She had obviously been drinking heavily, her speech was so slurred that ‘unannounced and uninvited' had proved quite a challenge to get her tongue around.

‘Has he found out about Alice?' Rachel asked.

‘I don't think so. I don't think he has any idea, quite frankly.'

‘Then what did he want?'

‘It was weird,' said Catherine. ‘He said he felt like we had unfinished business.'

‘That is weird. Did he explain himself?'

‘Not exactly,' she said. ‘He told me he was upset way back then, but that he did come and look for me at school after a few weeks, but he couldn't find me.'

‘That must have been after you'd left,' said Rachel. ‘But why is he telling you all this now?'

‘That's what I don't get.'

‘And you're sure he knows nothing about Alice?'

‘He doesn't seem to,' she said. ‘Unless he's playing some kind of sick game.'

Rachel looked at her. ‘What are you going to do?'

Catherine sighed. ‘I don't know.'

‘But you have to do something,' said Rachel. ‘Don't you?'

‘Do I?'

She nodded. ‘It's all going to come out eventually. I don't know
why he's making a move now, but you're going to have to find out what he's up to, or at least what he knows, and you're going to have to prepare Alice.'

‘You're probably right. I'm just not sure in what order.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, if I confront him and reveal all, and he starts making demands, then I'll be forced to tell Alice, and what if she baulks at the idea of meeting her father? But if I tell her first, and he doesn't want to know about her, then she gets rejected.'

Rachel thought about it. ‘Catherine, when you take custody cases to court, what's the underlying philosophy, the bottom line for the judge in making their decision?'

‘The needs of the child, always.'

‘There's your answer,' said Rachel simply. ‘James can make all the demands he wants, but it's ultimately up to Alice. You have to talk to her first.'

Catherine raised an eyebrow. ‘You're getting smart in your old age,' she remarked. ‘Where's your Matthew by the way, wasn't tonight all about meeting him?'

Rachel blinked, gathering her thoughts. ‘No, I haven't even had the chance to tell Lexie about him, so I couldn't just show up with him, and besides, he was busy, and anyway then Tom would be the odd one out –'

‘Okay, okay,' said Catherine. ‘I suppose we'll meet the phantom boyfriend eventually.'

Interesting choice of words.

They wandered back up the yard to join the others. Catherine raised her glass. ‘Martin, my glass is empty.'

‘That's nice, dear,' he replied without looking at her.

‘Miserable sod,' she muttered.

‘Can I get you a drink, Catherine?' Tom offered.

‘Well, aren't you the gentleman?' she returned. She went to pass him her glass, but changed her mind. ‘Oh never mind. I have to go to the bathroom anyway.' She tottered off inside, a little unsteadily.

Rachel looked up at Tom. ‘Where's Hannah tonight?'

‘Actually, a friend called her this afternoon and asked her over for the night, so seeing as Sophie and Alice weren't going to be here, I let her go.'

‘Oh? Where are they?'

‘They're both going to an under eighteens dance party. Catherine approved, so I figured it must be okay.'

Rachel nodded. ‘I've heard those under eighteen events are really well supervised. I'm sure she'll be quite safe.' She paused to sip her wine. ‘So you're on your own tonight?'

‘Yeah . . .' He dropped his voice. ‘Do you think anyone would notice if we disappeared next door for half an hour?'

‘That's a good one, Tom,' she laughed loudly.

‘What's so funny?' said Scott, looking over at them.

‘Just a joke I heard at work,' said Tom. ‘It's not really worth repeating.' He placed an arm lightly around Rachel's shoulders. ‘You know Rach, she's easily amused.'

She elbowed him.

Lexie appeared at the back door. ‘Scott, now that Rachel's here we really should get the barbecue going.'

‘I'll just finish my beer,' he said, raising it.

‘Do you need a hand with anything, Lexie?' Tom asked.

‘No, Tom, thanks.' She glared at her husband. ‘I think the kids should be put to bed before the adults eat, Scott.'

‘Do you want me to cook the barbecue or deal with the kids?' he returned evenly.

‘Either one would do,' she sniped.

‘Soon as I finish my beer, love,' he repeated.

Tom and Rachel glanced awkwardly at each other.

Lexie sighed loudly. ‘Riley, Mia, inside now!'

It was at least another hour before they were all seated at the table inside. The food was delicious, the wine flowing, but the atmosphere was strained to say the least. Rachel was not sure how their plan was going; she had a feeling she and Tom could have slow danced naked on the table and it would have gone unnoticed tonight, so wrapped up was everybody else in their own dramas. Still, she was quite enjoying Tom's attention, and the flirting was fun. She even felt a little smug, considering everyone else at the table seemed to be at each other's throats. But she also couldn't help a niggling doubt that once their private
little bubble burst they wouldn't be any different. She wanted to believe they would, but it had been a bit of a jolt to witness Lexie and Scott going hammer and tongs at each other tonight. It reminded her uncomfortably of her own childhood. No one ever seemed to stay happy. Tom and Annie were almost the only happy couple she knew, but who knows what might have happened to them? They were frozen in time now, like a legend – the last happy couple left in the eastern suburbs. How was Rachel ever going to compete with that?

‘Funny thing is,' Lexie was saying, waving a wineglass as she spoke, ‘Scott seems to think the house cleans itself, and the clothes wash themselves. I don't know what he thinks I've been doing with myself all this time.'

‘It's what I've been trying to tell you, Lexie,' said Catherine. ‘It's not a valued job. No one takes it seriously. You might as well have a cleaner doing it, for all the thanks you get.'

‘Catherine's an expert on hired help,' Martin piped in. ‘She hasn't lifted a finger around the house as long as I've known her.'

‘But see, Lexie does it all so much better than I ever could,' said Scott. ‘And it turns out that now she can even run the café better than me. Apparently I've been doing it wrong all these years.'