‘No, I’m saying I’ll move in for the duration.’
Meredith was frowning. ‘What will your husband have to say about that?’
Oops.
‘Look, it’s only temporary,’ said Andie. ‘Ross works such long hours, he travels, and I can always spend the weekends with him. I don’t know, we’ll play it by ear.’
‘But what about your shop? It’s a long way to travel back and forth every day.’
‘Oh, I’ve been pulling back from the day-to-day running of the shop lately.’ Andie had managed to staff the shop almost entirely without needing to be there, ever since her father’s death, and even the days leading up to it. Jess was already acting as manager, Andie only had to drop in, do the pays, oversee the ordering, but really, Jess could handle all that now anyway. ‘I have enough staff to run the place, I don’t need to be there all the time.’
Meredith was regarding her suspiciously. ‘I hope you don’t think that this will give you squatter’s rights.’
Andie groaned inwardly. ‘Of course not, Meredith.’
‘I just think we should be upfront,’ she said. ‘If things aren’t said out loud there can be a lot of misunderstandings. People get weird after a death in the family, you know.’
Yes, Andie was certainly getting that idea.
‘So when is the reading of the will?’ she asked.
‘I made an appointment for next Wednesday,’ said Meredith, taking out her Blackberry and clicking on the screen. ‘Ten am. Does that suit you?’
Bad luck if it didn’t; she’d gone ahead and made the appointment without asking first. ‘Suits me fine,’ said Andie.
Wednesday 10 am
‘Well, ladies, I think you’ll find the will is quite straightforward,’ said Mr Hodge, after giving them both a copy to look over. ‘Your father changed it after the death of your mother, and I believe his circumstances have remained the same ever since. He wasn’t a wealthy man, but he was very secure financially. He’d invested wisely for his retirement, so there are shares and fixed investments to be distributed. And I’m sure you’re aware that the family home is quite a valuable piece of property, given its location.’
‘Did he take his grandchildren into account?’ Meredith asked, flicking through the papers.
‘Yes he did. If you look over on page two, he has set up a trust fund for both Philippa and Tristan, which they can access at age twenty-one. Apart from that, he made several modest bequests, to the church, and to a couple of Catholic charities. But the bulk of the estate is to be divided equally between the two of you.’
Meredith and Andie continued to scan the papers in front of them.
‘I think you’ll find this is a textbook scenario,’ said Mr Hodge. ‘But please don’t hesitate to contact me anytime if you have any questions.’
Meredith seemed irritated, Andie could see it in her body language. When their business was complete, she charged out of the office with a curt goodbye and was standing waiting at the lifts, her arms crossed, tapping her foot, when Andie caught up with her.
‘It’s nice that he set up that trust fund for the kids,’ Andie ventured to say.
Meredith snorted. ‘It won’t even buy them a car by the time they reach twenty-one.’
Which was more than either of them were given at that age.
‘I would have thought that he’d want to contribute to his only grandchildren’s education at least,’ she added. ‘Considering how important education was to them. I’m sure Mum would have insisted had she been alive.’
‘If Mum was alive, it would be a moot point,’ Andie reminded her. ‘The estate would all go to her.’
Meredith just humphed in reply. The lift doors opened and they stepped in. Meredith pressed the button for the ground floor and Andie turned to her as the doors closed.
‘Meredith, is there a problem?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I think we’re both going to end up with a very generous sum after the house is sold and everything’s worked out. I’m sure it will cover the kids’ education, and a whole lot more besides.’
‘What’s your point?’
Andie hesitated. ‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’
‘What?’
‘Well, is everything all right . . . financially?’
Meredith’s head spun around, her eyes ablaze. ‘What are you implying?’
‘Nothing, I —’
‘How dare you!’ she boomed. ‘In case you’d forgotten, or more likely haven’t been paying attention, Neville is the executive director in charge of Australasian operations, and I am a senior director of the research facility.’
‘Then I don’t understand why you seem to be upset about the will. I think it’s fair.’
‘Of course you think it’s fair,’ she sniped, ‘because you’ve always expected to have everything handed to you on a platter.’
Andie was bewildered. ‘What exactly have I had handed to me on a platter?’
‘Oh please, you’ve barely worked a day in your life, Andrea,’ said Meredith, crossing her arms. ‘You steal someone else’s husband, and then make hay on the proceeds, pottering about in your little hobby shop that apparently you don’t even have to show up at every day.’
‘Even if that were true,’ Andie said, trying to keep calm, ‘why does it bother you so much? What have I done to make you so angry, Meredith?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing, Andrea. You have done absolutely nothing. While I have had to work hard for every single thing I’ve achieved,’ she said. ‘I actually completed my university degree. Then I worked my way up in my career, as did Neville, and we gave Mum and Dad their only two grandchildren, while you carried on an affair with a married man almost twice your age. Thank God Mum didn’t live to see that. You have sailed through life using your looks as a meal ticket. But you should realise that looks fade, Andrea, and that husband of yours left one wife when something younger and prettier came along, don’t think he won’t do the same thing to you.’
‘He already has.’
‘What?’
‘Ross has been having an affair,’ Andie said plainly. ‘And I’ve left him.’ The lift doors opened and she stepped out.
Meredith followed her, looking a little dazed. ‘That’s why you want to stay in the house.’
‘Meredith!’
‘Don’t be offended, Andrea,’ she returned. ‘I was wondering why you were so keen. Now I understand, that’s all.’
Andie shook her head. ‘No, Meredith, I don’t think you understand the slightest thing about me,’ she said, before she turned on her heel and walked away.
That night
Tasha stood glaring at Ross, her hands planted on her hips. ‘How long is she going to keep using the excuse of her father dying? She knows about us now. Does she really think she can hang on to you forever?’
She was so over this limbo they were living in at the moment. Ross spent most nights with her, so she wanted to know why they were keeping two apartments, why they couldn’t move in together, to either her place or his, Tasha didn’t care. Though, Ross still had to pay the mortgage on his apartment regardless, whereas if Tasha gave up her apartment, she wouldn’t have to pay rent any more. That seemed like the most sensible way to go. According to Ross, his wife was refusing point-blank to ever set foot in the apartment again, so why should it just sit there empty most of the time?
‘Tash, this is a sensitive time,’ Ross was saying. ‘We have to be patient for just a little while longer. Andie was going to the reading of the will today. If that turns out as I expect it to, she’s going to be a lot better off, and that puts us in a better position.’
‘What do you mean, she will be a lot better off?’ said Tasha. ‘You’re entitled to half her assets as well. You’re still married.’
Ross looked uneasy. ‘I don’t know, Tash, it doesn’t feel right to go for a share of her father’s estate.’
‘Why? She’d take it from you if
it was the other way around, in a shot.’
‘My parents are long gone, Tash.’
‘That’s not the point. It sounds to me like what’s yours is half hers, while what’s hers is all hers.’
‘Look, I’ve been through this before,’ he said, ‘and I don’t want that shitfight all over again.’
‘So you expect me to just wait around?’ she demanded. ‘For how long, Ross?’
‘For as long as it takes,’ he said, raising his voice.
Tasha didn’t like it one bit. ‘Well, what if I’m not prepared to do that?’
‘Look, I don’t know what you expect of me,’ he said angrily. ‘I couldn’t have foreseen her father dying.’
‘Fine, but enough’s enough. She knows about us now. I don’t understand what you’re hiding from.’
‘I’m not hiding from anything, I just don’t think it’s appropriate right now.’
‘I’m so fucking sick of hearing that word!’ she cried, her head starting to pound.
‘Look, you were prepared to be patient before,’ he said. ‘I’m really beginning to wonder what your motives are here.’
‘What exactly are you saying, Ross?’
‘You know what I’m saying.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Well, why don’t you just spell it out?’
‘If Andie hadn’t found us that night . . .’
‘You’d be happy for us to still be sneaking around?’ she finished for him. ‘How long do you think I would have put up with that?’
‘You agreed at the time, for as long as it would take.’
‘But things have changed. She knows about us,’ Tasha insisted for what felt like the billionth time. ‘The shit has already hit the fan. So what are we waiting for? Let’s just move in together and take it from there.’
He turned his back on her and walked over to the window. He was clenching his forehead, the way he did when he was frustrated.
‘You don’t even know if you want to move in together, do you?’ she accused him. ‘You talked the talk while you could fuck me on demand. Now you’re getting cold feet when the only thing in the way of us being together is out of the way. I have to wonder if you ever planned to leave her for me.’
She waited for him to protest, to argue the point, something. But he just stood there at the window, perfectly still.
‘Get out, Ross.’
‘What?’ He turned around.
‘I’m not going to be used like this any more.’ She walked over to the door and held it open. ‘Get out.’
‘Tasha . . .’
‘I mean it, Ross,’ she said coldly. ‘When you make up your mind what you want, then give me a call. Though I can’t promise I’ll pick up.’
Roseville
Andie let herself into the house with her key; she’d almost gone to knock as well until she remembered, with a faint pang, that she didn’t need to do that any more. She wheeled her giant suitcase behind her, propping it upright near the wall in the lounge room, then she carried the hamper of food she’d brought from the deli to the kitchen. She’d only packed enough to get her through this evening and breakfast in the morning. She would do a proper shop tomorrow.
She put the milk and some other things in the fridge and closed the door, staring around the room. It was unnaturally quiet. She gazed out the window, she could see the roof of the garage from here. She would have seen it that day too, without really looking at it, without knowing . . .
Andie started to wonder what had possessed her to do this. Everyone had tried to talk her out of it.
‘We meant it when we said you could stay here until you got your own place,’ Toby had told her, with Donna nodding in agreement beside him. ‘I don’t like the thought of you staying all the way over there on your own, Andie.’
‘It’s so nice of you guys,’ she said. ‘And I will get my own place eventually, but it’s better if I stay at the house in the meantime. It’ll be easier that way, there’s just so much to do before we can put it on the market.’
Toby looked uneasy. ‘You’re not going to let Ross move in there with you, are you?’ he asked.
‘Of course not. What made you think that?’
Ross had his own objections.
‘You don’t need to stay all the way over there, Andie,’ he said. ‘Can’t we do something about this? I know you don’t want to come back to the apartment, so why don’t we get tenants in, and rent ourselves somewhere else while we work through this?’
‘Because I don’t want to live with you while we work through this.’
‘But I’m not even seeing Tasha now.’
Andie groaned. ‘And is she aware of that?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Never mind,’ she said flatly. ‘I need to stay at the house, Ross, it’ll be so much easier to organise everything that has to be done.’
‘What about us?’
‘There is no “us” at the moment.’
‘But . . . I thought, since the funeral and everything . . .’
Andie sighed. ‘I appreciated your support, truly, I did. But what did I say to you, Ross? No demands. I need time, I need space. Don’t pressure me.’
The fridge motor started up suddenly behind her and Andie jumped. Okay, she had all the time and space she could want, and it was creeping her out. She walked into the lounge room and dropped down onto the settee, picking up the remote. She turned on the TV and cycled through the stations, but the screen was so big it was like sitting in the front row at the movies. Andie went to switch it off, but then she thought better of it. She needed some background noise. Instead, she turned over to the news, and got up to go and inspect the bedrooms. She had to decide where she was going to sleep.
She stood at the door of her parents’ room, but she didn’t go in. The bed had been hastily made, probably by Neville. There were some clothes slung over the chair, shoes kicked aside. Everything would have to go, the bedding, all her father’s clothes, all his belongings. She noticed a thick, hardcover book on the bedside table, a bookmark poking out about halfway through. He never got to finish it. She reached for the handle and pulled the door closed. She’d have to work herself up to this.
She walked up the hall and pushed on the door of her old bedroom; there was something in the way, so she couldn’t open it right back. She poked her head around. It was the smallest room in the house, and now it was filled with junk, by the looks of it. Andie had taken everything she owned when she moved out, even the bed. Obviously her dad had only used the room for storage ever since. Andie suspected she was going to find a lot of her mother’s stuff in here. She backed away and closed the door again. Another day.
Brendan’s room was like a shrine; no one had been allowed to touch or move or take anything from it while her mother was alive. She hadn’t even let the grandchildren sleep in there when they stayed over. Andie walked over to the bed and sat down, smoothing her hands across the dated, brown-striped quilt. She gazed around the room, trying to feel some sense of her brother here, but it was no use. Her mother used to insist on cleaning his room for him, regardless of his protests to give him some privacy and leave his things alone. So it was pristine, and it didn’t feel like Brendan’s room, it felt like a room in her mother’s house where he had slept.
Andie swivelled around to lie down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, the same ceiling that Brendan would have stared at. She had been missing him more keenly of late. She wished he was here to talk to, to tell her what to do next, though Brendan would never tell her what to do. He’d say, ‘Andie . . .’ – he was the one who had first called her Andie, when he was little and couldn’t pronounce Andrea, and while their mother always tried to correct him as he got older, the name stuck, though he was the only one in the family who called her that. If he was here now he’d say, ‘Andie, you know what to do, you have to stop listening to the outside voices and listen to your own voice, the one inside your head, that knows you better than anyone. Even better than me
.’ He was barely a teenager when he said that to her, yet he could be so wise sometimes.
Andie wondered about the man he would be now, if he would have married, had any kids. She could have had a real, honest-to-goodness relationship with her nephews and/or nieces, and Andie was certain she would have got along brilliantly with his wife, her very own sister-in-law. Andie imagined barbecues with Toby and Donna, all the kids running around, the adults watching them, laughing together, happy . . . but strangely, Ross was never in the picture. Andie had always had the feeling that things wouldn’t have got very far with Ross if Brendan had still been alive. She could cope with Jess and Toby and just about everyone else’s disapproval, but she could never have coped with Brendan’s.
She sat up again. She didn’t want to sleep in here, it would only make her melancholy. So it would have to be Meredith’s old room, which had long ago been stripped of all things Meredith and converted to a guestroom. It would do for Andie.
She went back out to the living room for her wheelie bag, when she thought she heard knocking. She wasn’t used to the noises in the house yet, it was probably nothing. She picked up the remote and turned down the sound on the TV. Then she heard it again, this time it was unmistakably someone knocking at the door. Andie sighed; the only person she imagined it could be was Meredith, and the only reason she could imagine she’d come around was to start giving her orders.
But when Andie opened the door, it was not Meredith standing on the porch, but Ross, flowers in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.
‘Ross,’ she said, ‘what are you doing here?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m allowed to visit, aren’t I? You didn’t say anything about not visiting.’
Andie just stood there, pressing her lips together.
‘These are for you,’ he said, thrusting the flowers at her. ‘I thought you might want something to brighten up the place.’
The Secret Ingredient Page 16
