Three’s a Crowd (8 page)

He opened one eye. ‘What are you doing?'

‘I don't want you to choke in your sleep.'

He sighed heavily, patting her leg. ‘I love you, Rachel. Have I ever told you that?'

‘Yes, you have,' she said, lifting his head to slide his tie out. She tossed it aside and started to undo the buttons on his shirt.

‘I've always loved you, Rachel.'

‘Mm.'

‘We used to be best friends, what happened?'

‘I left the country and you found your soul mate.'

‘Oh yeah.'

She undid the buttons on the cuff of his sleeves and then started on his belt buckle.

‘Rachel, are you going to have your way with me?'

She laughed. ‘I don't think you'd be up to it, Tommy boy.'

He smiled, his eyes closed, as she tugged to loosen the belt.

‘Be gentle,' he sighed.

Rachel removed his belt and stepped back onto the floor, crouching down to take off his shoes. This was not the first time she'd had to perform this particular service for Tom, though it had been a while. Back at Rainbow Street it had been a semi-regular occurrence, getting Tom into bed after a big night; but then, he'd been known to do the same for her on occasion. She peeled off his socks and tossed them aside, straightening up again to look down at him. His eyes were closed, but he wasn't snoring yet. She probably should try and get his shirt off at least, make him more comfortable. She grabbed his wrists and pulled him up to sit, but he couldn't hold himself up, so Rachel quickly dropped to one knee as he slumped forwards, his head landing heavily on her shoulder. She eased his shirt down his back and then started to wrestle one arm out of its sleeve.

‘Hey, Tom, can you work with me here?'

He bent his elbow and yanked his arm out and then Rachel was able to slide the shirt off the other arm and let it drop to the floor. And that's when she realised he was sobbing. He brought his arms around her, clinging to her. Rachel didn't move, her back was hurting and her leg was shoved awkwardly against the bed base, but she just held him, stroking his head from time to time, murmuring reassurance. Eventually his sobs subsided and he lurched back to lie flat on the bed.

‘Fuck,' he sighed. ‘I'm sorry.'

Rachel got up, a little stiff and creaky, and perched on the side of the bed. ‘Are you okay?'

‘I guess not.' He met her eyes then, taking hold of her hand. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘Would you shoosh already.'

‘Rach,' he said. ‘Can I ask you something?'

She squeezed his hand. ‘Anything.'

He took a breath. ‘Do you think you could stay?'

‘Tom –'

‘I'm not coming on to you, I just don't want to sleep alone, I hate it.'

‘Tom,' she winced, ‘I can't, not with the girls here, it wouldn't be appropriate.'

‘I thought you and I didn't have to be appropriate?'

‘Around the girls we do.'

He sighed, bringing his forearm up to rest on his forehead. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘Hey,' said Rachel. ‘Would you stop saying that?'

He met her eyes again. ‘I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. It's just, the nights are the worst.'

Rachel thought about it. ‘I tell you what, I'll stay till you fall asleep.'

‘You will?'

She nodded. ‘Sure, but you can take your own pants off, I've gone as far as I'm prepared to go.'

She got up and walked around the other side of the bed to the window, closing the blind and drawing the curtains. When she came back, Tom's trousers were on the floor and he was under the doona. He'd left space for her, and Rachel considered her options. She could lie next to him on top of the doona, but that seemed a little too . . . besides, she was beginning to feel pretty tired, she didn't want to risk falling asleep. So she propped up the pillow and sat with her back against the bedhead. Tom nuzzled his head in next to her hip. ‘Thanks Rach,' he said, his eyes closed.

‘It's okay,' she said, resting her hand on his head and giving it a pat.

‘We have a deal, right?' he murmured.

‘Yes we do.'

Thirty seconds later he was snoring.

Rachel sat there for a while to make sure he was fully asleep, then she carefully eased off the bed and tiptoed out of the room. Out in the kitchen she rang for a taxi, then quickly tidied up, putting the bottle of Scotch out of sight, washing the glasses and popping them away in the cupboard. She didn't want to leave traces of their little party for the girls to see in the morning,
and they were likely to be up well before their father tomorrow. She locked the back door and turned out the lights as she crept quietly back through the house. She stuck her head in Tom's room as she passed; he was snoring loudly now. Rachel closed his door, hoping he'd get the chance to sleep off the worst of it, that the girls wouldn't wake him. She briefly wondered whether she should leave them a note, but that might seem weird. It wasn't her place to tell them what to do.

She left through the front door, closing it as noiselessly as possible, then sat down on the front step to wait for the taxi. She felt empty. Sad, of course, but also quite an overwhelming emptiness. Maybe that's what you felt after the funeral of a close friend. She didn't know, she'd never lost anyone this close before.

She couldn't help wondering why it had to be Annie. Surely the world could get by without Rachel far more easily than it could get by without Annie. It's not as though she would ever top herself, but it occurred to her she wouldn't be all that missed if she did. Despite being their only child, her parents would hardly notice; after all, they didn't even live in the same hemisphere, hadn't for more than fifteen years. Not that that would stop her mother from creating a heart-rending anecdote to share at dinner parties, about the loss of her beloved only daughter.

No, Rachel would not be missed, not really. She had no husband, no kids. At work she was entirely dispensable. Annie had two daughters, and they had a close and loving relationship. And she and Tom were happy; they hadn't evolved into the stereotypical bickering couple who'd been together too long. They weren't sickening or lovey dovey either, thank God. They were just solid. Right together. Two halves, all that shit.

Not like her and Sean. He fitted neatly into the category of the ‘nice guy' – easygoing, reliable and, in all honesty, a little bland. But he was just what Rachel needed right then. It was all very well wandering solo around the world, but back at home she didn't fit in with her friends. And she felt it. She couldn't hang out with Tom any more because he was part of a couple, and although she could hang out with Catherine, things had changed. She remembered being terribly hurt when she found out they'd all gone out to dinner together one night without inviting her.
Catherine had brushed it off by saying she didn't think Rachel would want to hang around with a bunch of married couples.

So that was that. She needed to find her other half. The story of how she met Sean was not particularly memorable; it was at a party of ‘mutual friends', he asked for her number and called a few days later. Their subsequent date was pleasant and Rachel couldn't find any reason not to go out with him. So they became a couple, and got invited out to dinner with their couple friends, and generally fitted in. By the time Rachel realised that birds didn't suddenly appear every time he was near, they were already engaged. She couldn't let him and everybody else down by pulling out of the wedding. Rachel decided it would all turn out okay, she'd grow to love him, and if she didn't . . . well, she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

The taxi turned into the street and Rachel jumped up to meet it at the kerb, waving madly. She didn't want the driver to sound the horn and disturb anyone. She climbed into the back and gave him her address, settling into the seat as he pulled off again.

As usual, Rachel's preferred strategy left much to be desired, and Sean was devastated when she sat him down one night after four pallid years, when she realised she had not in fact grown to love him but was instead beginning to loathe the very sight of him. But that wasn't his fault, he hadn't done anything wrong, so she just said something vague to the effect that it wasn't working. ‘Is it the sex?' had been his first question. Why did guys jump to that straightaway? Reassured on that front, he moved on to ‘What can I do to make you change your mind?' ‘Can't we work it out?' ‘Maybe we should have a baby?'

That was when Rachel fled. Why did people treat babies like some kind of glue to hold a relationship together? Sean was obviously not her other half, they were not a good fit, and no amount of glue was going to hold them together. And certainly not a baby.

Sean quickly got over his heartbreak. Two weeks later he was on the internet happily dating a line-up of willing women. He later told Rachel that breaking his heart was the best thing she could have done for him. ‘Chicks dig it!'

Rachel got out of the taxi when it arrived at her block and
walked up the steep drive, and then up the three flights of stairs to her flat. She often wondered why she didn't have better legs considering the heights she had to scale just to get to her front door. As she let herself in, she noticed the light flashing on her answering machine, and she pressed it as she walked past it down the hall. There was a series of messages from Catherine, each more slurred than the last.

Where are you?

Where the fuck are you?

What the fuck are you doing out so late?

She would be unbearable if she found out that Tom had asked her to stay on after everyone had left. Catherine had always been a little jealous of their friendship. She'd had her eye on Tom when they were back at uni, but nothing had ever come of it. Catherine needed to believe that every second man was secretly attracted to her; could barely control himself around her, in fact. Despite appearances, she actually had quite a fragile ego. Rachel knew better than anyone how much the circumstances surrounding Alice's birth had knocked Catherine's confidence, but she would never admit it. Instead she just got pissed off when her flirtatious behaviour went unreciprocated, or worse, unnoticed and she had to find ways to rationalise it; ergo – Tom was not the kind of man who was going to be interested in a woman with a child. He was a good-time guy, he didn't want to settle down. Then Annie came along, with a child in tow, and Tom duly settled down. Rachel could still feel the steam coming off the pages of the letters Catherine had penned to her across the world.

Rachel knew it was not so much that Catherine couldn't get over Tom; she just couldn't get over why he'd passed her over in favour of someone like Annie. Annie had transferred to their university from the Conservatorium when she couldn't cut it there, according to Catherine. Actually, she didn't go back after Sophie was born because of the hours and lack of childcare. In her letters, Catherine had informed Rachel that though she was supposedly some kind of piano virtuoso, Annie became just a music teacher. In fact, she'd added, she didn't even get her Dip Ed, she only ever taught privately so she could be at the beck and call of her daughters. None of it had ever made a scrap of sense to Catherine.

Rachel checked the time; it was too late to call her back now, she'd have passed out long ago. She would wait till the morning to make up something to appease her, but now she was tired and she just wanted to go to bed. If she could find it. She had pulled nearly every item of clothing she owned out of her wardrobe this morning, trying to find the right thing. She usually gave what she wore only a passing thought, if that. But today was different. The standard all-black funeral option didn't feel right for Annie, who never wore black herself. She said it sucked the life out of people. There was a grim irony in there somewhere.

Rachel gathered the pile of clothes up in her arms, looking around for a clean bit of floor where she could dump them for now. God, this place was such a mess, she really needed to spend a weekend bringing back some order. It was just so hard to get motivated. Her flat was in an old building with a tight landlord, so ‘rundown' didn't begin to describe it. But it was cheap. You got what you paid for, and if Rachel wanted to live near her friends, on her salary, then this was the best she was going to do. All her furniture was other people's cast-offs, some of it quite decent, particularly anything from Catherine. But nothing went together, there was no unifying theme, no style, probably because Rachel didn't really have any to speak of. And if you didn't have style, you at least needed money, and Rachel didn't have much of that to speak of, either. She had refused to take any kind of settlement from Sean when they split. She had come into the relationship with nothing, that was how she would leave it. He gave her a cheque anyway, because in the end he was still a good guy. It meant she could pay the bond on a flat and connect to all the services without asking her parents for help for once. Rachel didn't mind so much, she figured they owed her something, she just didn't like giving them opportunities to salve their consciences for never being there for her.

Both ambitious, workaholic lawyers, her parents split when Rachel was in her second year of high school. They told her later that they'd kept it together till then for her sake. But they hadn't kept anything together. Rachel understood the term ‘cold war' long before she came across it in history class. Her childhood had been like living in the Arctic Circle, only chillier. Her parents
couldn't stand living together, they could barely stand the sight of each other. Rachel felt like she'd been holding her breath her whole life, and when they finally broke the ‘bad' news, she was able to breathe out with relief for the first time.

‘So you're okay, darling?' her mother asked, bearing down on her, pushing her father out of the way.