She picked up her glass and took another long drink as Alice burst through the door.
‘You could’ve told me you were home already!’ she accused.
‘So I could be the recipient of such a charming welcome?’ Catherine returned archly.
‘Sorry Mum, hi Mum,’ Alice groaned in a monotone as she sauntered over and dragged a chair out from the table, scraping it across the flagstone paving. She slumped down into it, facing her mother.
‘Sit up straight, please Alice.’
Alice sighed dramatically, squaring her shoulders into the back of the seat. ‘I have something important to ask you and you have to promise you’ll give me a fair hearing.’
‘When do I not give you a fair hearing?’
Alice almost rolled her eyes. ‘Okay, here it is. Travesty is playing at the stadium and I know you don’t like big outdoor concerts, and you think I’m too young, but the last time I asked was a full year ago, and I am seventeen now, after all. Anyway, tickets were like, impossible to get, but now, it’s so totally amazing, because Lottie –’
‘Who?’
‘Lottie . . . Charlotte Campbell, you know her, Mum. You were like, totally impressed when you found out who her dad was.’
‘Mm . . .’ Catherine recalled now. Her father was Douglas Campbell, the CEO of a major investment bank, one that had survived the crash with both its stocks and its reputation intact. Catherine had been taken aback when he’d shown up one Saturday afternoon to pick up Charlotte – a rather nondescript little thing, it had to be said – dressed in grubby clothes as though he’d been working in the garden. Catherine had paused to wonder just who they were letting into the school these days, but she had impeccable manners so she invited him in and even offered him a drink while Charlotte got her things together. Out of politeness, and not a little curiosity, she had asked him what he did for a living. ‘Yes, I know who Charlotte is.’
‘Well, her dad’s got some kind of VIP passes, she can take three friends, and it’s in a roped-off area, totally safe, and Lottie’s mum’s going to take us and everything, and you so have to let me go or I’m seriously going to die.’
‘You’re not going to die, Alice.’
‘Oh, come on, Mum, give me a little poetic licence.’
Catherine was vaguely amused, she just wished these things weren’t the be-all and end-all to Alice. At her age, Catherine was pregnant; concerts and the like faded into insignificance. She understood from then what was really important – working hard, getting ahead, not letting anyone get the better of you – and she believed it had stood her in good stead. Not that she’d want Alice to get pregnant to learn those important life lessons, heaven forbid, but she wouldn’t mind if her perspective was a little broader than the latest teenage fad.
She had to admit though, she was not against the idea of Alice cultivating this friendship with Douglas Campbell’s daughter.
‘When is this gala event?’ she asked.
‘Saturday night,’ Alice said hopefully.
‘This Saturday?’ said Catherine. ‘Well, I’m sorry, darling, but this Saturday is impossible. The Macklins are coming for dinner.’
‘So?’ Alice said, a look of crazed disbelief on her face. ‘Did you even listen to a word I just said, Mum? This is Travesty, and I have been, like, their biggest fan forever! These are VIP tickets, this is totally a once-in-a-lifetime thing! Don’t you get it?’
Catherine shook her head with a knowing smile. ‘Alice, you’re seventeen. Let’s hope there are far bigger things to look forward to in your lifetime. And of course I “get” that you’re disappointed, but I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do. This was organised more than a week ago.’
‘But it doesn’t matter if I’m not here.’
‘Of course it matters. I expressly included the girls in the invitation so you could all catch up before school goes back.’
‘Can’t we just make it another night then?’
‘No, Alice! That is the height of bad manners, shunting people around because you get a better offer. How would you like to be treated that way?’
‘I wouldn’t care if someone had a good reason,’ she insisted. ‘I bet if you rang Tom and got him to check with Soph, she would totally be on my side.’
‘Well I’m not going to ring Tom, obviously. Of course they’d agree with whatever you said, you’d be putting them in an untenable position.’
Alice went to protest further but Catherine spoke over her.
‘Look, you will have many more opportunities to go to many more concerts. As much as you think this is the end of the world, it’s far from it, and sometimes in life we have to choose to do what is right over doing whatever we feel like. At your age I was already pregnant with you, and my adolescence came to an abrupt end, but I made the most of it –’
‘Why do you always have to bring that up!’ Alice cried. ‘Just because you went and got yourself pregnant –’
‘I didn’t “get myself” pregnant, young lady,’ Catherine interrupted firmly, raising her voice with control. ‘It takes two, it’s just that all too often one party gets left with the consequences.’
‘What does this even have to do with anything?’ Alice demanded. ‘It’s so unfair, having me is your excuse for everything.’
‘Alice –’
‘I wish you never had had me, you should have got rid of me while you had the chance!’
‘Now you’re being ridiculous.’
Alice got to her feet. ‘It would be better not to have been born than to have you as a mother!’ She went to stomp off, but Catherine rose from her chair and caught her by her arm, gripping it tightly.
‘You ungrateful little brat,’ she seethed, her face close to her daughter’s. ‘When I witness this kind of behaviour from you I have to wonder why I did bother keeping you. You can forget about concerts, parties or anything else for the foreseeable future.’
‘You can’t do that!’
‘Oh yes I can,’ said Catherine. ‘I’m grounding you for first term at least, until I see some evidence that you have your priorities straight.’
‘I hate you,’ Alice hissed tearfully as she wrenched her arm out of her mother’s grip and dashed for the door, running inside.
Catherine stood there, breathing hard, clenching her nails into the palms of her hands to stop them from trembling. Why did Alice push her like that? She made her so angry, made her say things she didn’t mean. She picked up the glass of wine and drained what was left. But her hands were still trembling.
She turned and walked back into the house.
‘Oh, dinner’s almost ready,’ Martin said timidly.
‘I can’t eat,’ she said, crossing directly to the fridge.
‘Come on, Catherine, you have to eat something.’
‘Don’t you start at me as well.’ She grabbed the bottle of wine she’d opened previously and headed across the room.
‘I’m going to have a bath,’ she barked over her shoulder. ‘And I do not want to be disturbed for anything.’
Saturday
‘Listen, I need you to get here a little earlier, Rachel,’ said Catherine down the phone line.
Something was up. Rachel could hear it in her voice. ‘Oh? What for?’
‘Miss Junior Drama Queen is staging the tantrum to end all tantrums, claiming that while she might have to be here tonight, I can’t make her talk to anyone or be pleasant, or even polite. I think she’s going to make the most of this opportunity to embarrass me.’
‘What happened, Catherine?’ asked Rachel, knowing there had to be something. Alice was a sweet girl at heart. She wouldn’t be mean just for the sake of it.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t let her go to some silly concert tonight. She was offered a leftover ticket at the last minute and so I’m the worst person in the world because I expect her to fulfil a prior commitment. Aren’t I a monster?’ she said deadpan.
Rachel realised she was getting a very edited version, but she wasn’t so su
re she wanted to see the bits left on the cutting-room floor either. ‘What do you expect me to do, Catherine?’
‘Just talk to her. You have a lot more chance of getting through to her than I do right now.’
Why did everyone think Rachel had all the answers all of a sudden? This was becoming a disturbing pattern, and it was also a little overwhelming. She had always considered herself a good listener, but that was because listening only required just that – to listen, nod in appropriate places, make the odd encouraging comment. She felt hopelessly unqualified to actually solve other people’s problems.
‘What do you want me to say to her?’ she asked Catherine.
‘Oh, you know – “You’ll be hurting Tom and the girls more than you’ll hurt your mother”, blah, blah, that kind of thing,’ she dismissed. ‘I just want you to make sure she comes down to the table, minds her manners and spends an adequate amount of time with the girls.’
‘God, I dunno, Catherine, how do you expect me to do all that?’
‘Look, underneath it all Alice doesn’t want to upset Sophie and Hannah, but she needs a way to save face. If she thinks I had to bring in reinforcements, she’ll believe she’s scored some kind of victory over me. She’ll have her win.’
Wow. Tonight must be important to Catherine if she was prepared to let Alice score points over her.
‘Well,’ said Rachel, ‘Tom was going to pick me up –’
‘Then give him a call and tell him I needed a hand, but don’t let on about anything. I’ll come and pick you up. How soon can you be ready?’
At five pm Rachel came down the stairs of her building to wait for Catherine, a full two hours before Tom would have been picking her up. It was going to be a long night. Once again she had found herself paying a little too much attention to what she was going to wear. That was also becoming a disturbing pattern, but she really wasn’t in the mood for Catherine’s criticism. She wanted to be comfortable, but also feel good about herself, and the top she’d bought for her internet date filled both criteria. And Catherine hadn’t seen it yet. Tom had, but that didn’t matter, men never remembered what women wore.
‘Well, you look nice,’ said Catherine when Rachel got into the car. ‘Is that the top you bought for your blind date?’
‘Yep,’ said Rachel, clicking her seatbelt into place.
Catherine pulled out into the traffic. ‘How is that all going, by the way?’
‘What?’
‘Rendezvous. Are you getting lots of “arrows”? Any worth pursuing?’
‘Oh, I haven’t had time to check lately,’ Rachel dismissed. She had not, in fact, even looked at it again since the night Catherine set it up.
‘Well, don’t leave it too long,’ said Catherine. ‘Tick tock.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Your biological clock. Though mind you, the mood I’m in, there are far worse things that could happen in your life than not having children.’
When they arrived at her house, Catherine shooed Rachel immediately upstairs to deal with the recalcitrant. Rachel knocked on her door.
‘Hi Alice, it’s me, Rachel.’
There was no answer, so she knocked again, and called a little louder. ‘Alice!’
When there was still no answer, Rachel thought about her options. It was probably better to let herself in than go back down to Catherine, who was likely to come up and storm the Bastille, which would not get things off to a good start.
‘Alice,’ she said loudly, as she opened the door a little way. She stuck her head around tentatively to see Alice splayed out, tummy down, on the bed, her head cradled in the crook of one arm as she clicked away on her laptop with her free hand. An ergonomic nightmare. Rachel spotted the culprit cord trailing from her ear into the computer. No wonder she couldn’t hear her knocking. She moved into Alice’s peripheral vision, finally getting her attention. Alice jumped up, removing the earphones at the same time. ‘Hi,’ she said, a little flustered.
‘Sorry, I did knock . . .’
‘It’s okay,’ she dismissed, making a series of rapid clicks on the keyboard before closing the laptop.
‘I didn’t mean to disturb you.’
Alice lifted one eyebrow. ‘Mum sent you up here, didn’t she?’
Rachel intended to play it straight, at least as straight as possible. ‘Yes, she did.’
Alice slid the laptop off her bed and onto the floor and shifted to make room for Rachel. ‘You might as well sit down.’
‘Thanks.’ She walked over to the queen-size bed. It was what you would call a lavishly appointed room – all the furniture and woodwork had been custom made from that rare timber Catherine was so taken with. There was a long, sleek slab of the stuff running the length of one wall, supporting a desktop computer at one end and a good-sized flat-screen TV at the other. Two identical doors on the right led to an ensuite and a walk-in robe. She had everything a girl could want, but it had always reminded Rachel of a hotel room. There were some nice touches – the deep aubergine bedspread topped with a pile of gorgeous pillows, the rather funky bedside lamp and designer clock radio that looked like a piece of modern sculpture – but there was a distinct absence of girlie paraphernalia, no posters, no clutter. Catherine’s orders.
Rachel sat on the bed and propped a couple of pillows behind her back. ‘So, how are you?’
Alice pursed her lips. ‘What did she tell you?’
‘That you’re upset about not being allowed to go out tonight, and that she’s worried you’re going to make it unpleasant for Sophie and Hannah just to get back at her.’
‘Did she tell you where I wanted to go?’
‘She said it was a concert.’
‘Yeah, a Travesty concert, you know how much I like them. And it was a VIP ticket, Rachel, we were going backstage and everything.’
Bugger, the stakes were high. ‘Your mum just felt because it was last minute –’
‘I asked her on Wednesday, Rachel.’
‘You did?’ Bloody Catherine. Rachel had got the impression it had all come up today, that’s what ‘last minute’ suggested to her.
Alice was watching her. ‘What did she tell you?’
This was delicate. ‘She didn’t specify.’
Alice groaned. ‘Typical. Why does she do this, Rachel? It’s like she just doesn’t want me to have a good time. She didn’t get to have a good time when she was my age, because of me, and so now she wants me to pay for it.’
‘Oh, I don’t think that’s it, Alice. I think it’s more that she’s scared the same thing will happen to you.’
‘How am I going to get pregnant under parental supervision in the VIP stand at a rock concert?’
‘I don’t mean she’s scared you’ll fall pregnant. I think she’s scared you’ll miss out on opportunities –’
‘Like going to this concert,’ said Alice.
Rachel wasn’t going to get anywhere making this about the fairness or otherwise of missing the concert. Especially because she happened to agree with Alice on that point. But she could not take sides. That would only make things worse.
‘The thing is, chook, I understand you’re upset and disappointed, but that’s between you and your mum. Tonight she just wants to do something nice for Tom and the girls.’
‘Crap, she just wants to suck up to Tom and flirt with him all night. She’s so embarrassing.’
‘She’s not going to flirt with Tom,’ said Rachel uncertainly.
‘Come on, Rachel, you know what she’s like. If there’s a good-looking guy around, she has to have his attention.’
‘You think Tom’s good-looking?’
‘Yeah,’ she shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t, you know, he’s way old, but yeah, he’s good-looking. And he’s a pretty cool guy. It sucks what happened to Annie. They were like this perfect, sitcom family. It’s so totally unfair.’
‘Hmm. That’s why it’s not really fair to make them uncomfortable tonight,’ said Rachel. ‘They’ve been through enoug
h already, don’t you think?’
Alice slumped back against the pillows next to her. ‘I don’t even know what I’m supposed to say to them.’
Rachel realised there was more to this than just missing out on a concert. ‘You’re not alone there, honey. No one knows what to say to them. But I’ll tell you something Tom told me, just between us.’
‘What?’
‘He can’t stand it when people treat him differently, or they’re awkward around him. And he feels like he can’t be himself, like he’s not allowed to laugh at a joke, or have fun, or whatever, because it’ll seem inappropriate. I bet it’s the same for the girls.’
‘Wow, I never thought of that. How much would it suck, being so self-conscious all the time?’
‘That’s right. Sophie and Hannah have lost their mum, they shouldn’t have to lose their adolescence as well.’
‘But what if they want to talk about it?’ said Alice. ‘I would totally not know what to say.’
Three’s a Crowd Page 21
