Three’s a Crowd

by Dianne Blacklock

  Rachel thought about it. ‘You know what my strategy is when I don’t know what to say?’

  Alice looked up at her, unblinking.

  ‘I don’t say anything, I just listen. I’ve realised lately it’s quite a skill. In fact, I think listening might be my very mild superpower.’

  Alice started to laugh. ‘No way, how do you know about mild superpowers?’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s from a song, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’re funny as, Rachel.’

  Rachel didn’t know what she was as funny as, but she decided to take it as a compliment.

  ‘So, how did you do in your school certificate, Sophie?’ asked Catherine.

  The evening was going along quite well, all things considered. Alice was behaving herself, and Tom and the girls had arrived on time, all of which had clearly put Catherine in a good mood, that and the copious glasses of wine she was downing at a record rate. She seemed nervous, almost desperate to impress. But perhaps Rachel was only thinking that because of what Alice had said.

  For his part, Tom was being very attentive, the perfect gentleman in fact. Although he’d barely made eye contact with Rachel all night. Really, she was starting to wonder what she was doing here.

  ‘She got all band sixes,’ Hannah piped up proudly, but Sophie frowned at her.

  ‘That’s impressive,’ Catherine remarked, ‘especially considering all you’ve been through. Your mother would be very proud of you, Sophie.’

  Sophie’s cheeks flushed crimson. ‘The school certificate’s not that hard, Catherine.’

  ‘Tell that to Alice. She didn’t get any band sixes, did you even get any band fives?’ She glanced fleetingly at her daughter before she took another slurp from her glass. ‘What subjects are you taking for your HSC, Sophie?’

  ‘Oh, um, well, English, of course. It’s compulsory, but it is my favourite subject. And I’m doing the extension unit as well.’

  ‘Is that the one where you have to do a creative piece of writing?’ asked Catherine. ‘You and Hannah have always been so creative.’

  ‘In music, maybe, not so much writing. That’s not the extension unit I’m doing, you can’t pick that up until Year 12 anyway.’

  ‘Are you going to take that unit, Alice?’ Tom directed towards her, leaning forwards on the table.

  ‘I’m doing the same as Soph,’ she muttered.

  ‘English Advanced?’ asked Sophie.

  She nodded.

  ‘What do you think about the area of study?’

  ‘Totally dodgy.’

  ‘I know!’ said Sophie, becoming animated. ‘I’ve always done okay at English, but I just don’t get it.’

  ‘You just have to learn to talk the talk,’ said Alice. ‘It’s way crap.’

  ‘Language please, Alice,’ said Catherine.

  ‘There’s this pretty cool blog,’ Alice went on. ‘It’s run by this dude who did his HSC a couple of years ago, and it’s turned into this massive forum where all these Year 12s ask questions and explain stuff and you can totally understand it. I can show you if you like.’

  ‘That’d be awesome.’

  Alice jumped to her feet, but Catherine cleared her throat.

  ‘Excuse me, Alice, we haven’t had dessert yet.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so full, thank you, Catherine,’ said Sophie. ‘I don’t think I could fit dessert in.’

  ‘Well, you are a very sensible young woman, Sophie,’ said Catherine. ‘That’s why you’ll keep that lovely slender figure.’

  ‘To be honest,’ Tom chimed in, ‘I’m pretty impressed that a couple of teenagers want to skip dessert to check out something related to their school work.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right, Tom,’ Catherine gushed. ‘Go ahead, girls.’

  ‘Can I come too?’ Hannah jumped up.

  ‘Yeah sure,’ said Alice.

  Hannah came around behind her dad’s chair and wrapped her arms around his neck, whispering something in his ear. He broke into a broad smile. ‘Of course, honey.’

  ‘Love you, Daddy,’ she chirped, planting a kiss on his cheek before running off to join the other two.

  Tom turned to watch them disappear up the stairs before looking back at Catherine and Rachel. ‘Hannah told me that she was pretty sure she could still fit dessert in, and would I mind saving her some.’

  Catherine staged an affected laugh. ‘Oh, Tom, your girls are absolutely delightful. You’re doing such a good job with them, despite what you must be going through.’

  ‘I don’t know, Catherine,’ he shrugged. ‘Their mother left them in pretty good shape. I just hope I don’t screw it up from here on in.’

  ‘If you want my advice,’ said Catherine, clearly chomping at the bit to give it, ‘you’ll have to keep a close eye this next year or two, particularly on Sophie. She’s a very smart, sensible girl, but there are so many temptations and distractions out there these days. And everything seems to come at once! Why is it that the same year they are sitting their HSC, they are finally allowed to drive a car and get into licensed venues? It’s madness.’ She knocked back the rest of her glass of wine.

  Martin returned to the table; he’d been quietly going back and forth, clearing away the dishes from dinner, like some nineteenth-century manservant. But he seemed happiest keeping a low profile.

  ‘Oh Martin, darling,’ Catherine said, placing a hand on his forearm, ‘I think we should serve dessert out on the terrace, it’s such a beautiful evening. What does everyone think?’ Her eyes swept past Rachel’s to land on Tom’s.

  ‘Sounds great,’ said Tom. ‘Do you need a hand with anything, Martin?’

  He was shaking his head, but Catherine answered for him, almost like he was a ventriloquist’s dummy. She even rested her hand on his back as she spoke. ‘Oh, Martin loves it, don’t you, Martin? He’s right in his element. He’d secretly love to run a restaurant, wouldn’t you, Martin?’

  She stood up, which brought Tom to his feet, and she linked her arm through his. ‘Come along, Rachel,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘And what about an after-dinner drink, Tom? A liqueur, port, or we have a delicious cognac. It’s a Hennessy Paradis, frightfully expensive, you must try it.’

  ‘Actually, would coffee be too much trouble?’ he asked as they paused at the door out to the terrace. ‘I’m driving.’

  ‘Nothing is too much trouble for you, Tom,’ Catherine gushed. ‘Martin, coffee for Tom, and you and I will stick with the wine, eh, Rachel?’

  Bad luck if she wanted a fancy cognac. Catherine led Tom out onto the terrace and Rachel glanced at Martin. ‘Are you sure I can’t help?’

  He shook his head emphatically. ‘She’d kill me if I let you lift a finger.’ Then he winked. ‘But you know I enjoy it.’

  ‘Well, I’ll take the wine out at least,’ said Rachel, grabbing the bottle and both their glasses.

  It was never easy to get away from Catherine when she’d had a few. Hannah rejoined them after a while, searching out her dessert. Once she had finished she grew visibly more tired; she draped herself across her father’s lap and started to fall asleep on his shoulder. Tom made moves to leave a number of times, but Catherine kept veering the conversation off in another direction. Eventually Sophie and Alice came downstairs, and when Sophie finally pulled up a chair behind Tom and leaned her head sleepily on his free shoulder, he had to be firm.

  ‘Thanks so much for tonight, Catherine, it’s been lovely, but I really need to get these girls home to bed before I have to carry them to the car, and they’re way too big for that now.’

  They seemed to get a second wind on the drive home, however.

  ‘Omigod!’ Sophie exclaimed once they had pulled off up the street. ‘How drunk was Catherine at the end? She could barely stand up.’

  ‘Or talk straight,’ added Hannah.

  ‘She still managed to slobber all over you, Dad.’

  ‘Eew,’ cried Hannah. ‘That’s gross.’

  Tom glanced across at Rachel. ‘That�
��s enough, girls, a little respect,’ he said. ‘We’ve just been guests in Catherine’s home, sat at her table, eaten her food.’

  ‘That Martin cooked. What did her last slave die of?’

  ‘Sophie, what are you saying, that it’s okay for the woman to do all the cooking but not the man?’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ said Sophie. ‘But why is she so mean to Alice? It’s like she can’t stand her own daughter.’

  ‘No, that’s not it,’ said Rachel. ‘Catherine is just so driven and ambitious, she gets frustrated when people aren’t like her.’

  ‘Who’d want to be like her?’ said Sophie.

  ‘Soph,’ Tom warned.

  ‘Dad, give me a break. Are we supposed to pretend she’s a great role model or something?’

  ‘No, but she is an old friend of Rachel’s, and mine, and your mother’s. And she was nice enough to invite us over and you don’t return the favour by gossiping about her the whole way home.’

  ‘We’re not all the way home yet,’ said Hannah.

  ‘Very funny, Han.’

  ‘I can’t help myself, I’m a very funny girl,’ she said airily.

  ‘Funny-looking, more like,’ said Sophie.

  ‘I’ll give you both funny in a minute,’ said Tom.

  The girls burst into shrieks of laughter.

  ‘That is such a Dad thing to say,’ said Sophie.

  ‘That’s nothing,’ said Tom. ‘Keep it up and you’ll both be laughing out of the other side of your faces.’

  That set them off again.

  ‘What does that even mean?’ Hannah cried.

  ‘We’ll be laughing out of our ears!’ exclaimed Sophie.

  And on they went, suggesting all the body parts out of which one could possibly laugh, punctuated with increasingly hysterical bouts of laughter. It was infectious, of course, and before long Rachel was laughing so hard she could barely breathe, and Tom was wiping tears away with the back of his hand while trying to keep his focus on the road.

  They’d finally calmed down by the time he pulled up in front of Rachel’s block. He turned off the engine and undid his seatbelt. ‘I’ll walk you in.’

  She snorted. ‘Don’t be daft.’

  The girls giggled in the back seat.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘That’s very chivalrous of you, Tom, but I assure you I can find the door myself.’

  ‘All right, if you say so.’

  Rachel turned around in her seat. ‘Bye girls, it was really great seeing you.’

  To her surprise they both lurched forwards and kissed her on the cheek, Hannah hooking one arm around her neck as she did so.

  Then, as Rachel turned back, Tom leaned across and gave her a peck on the cheek as well. ‘Night Rach,’ he said. ‘See you soon, I hope.’

  She got out of the car and closed the door, stepping backwards and waving. They all waved back, but Tom didn’t start up the engine. He was obviously going to wait for her to go inside. She turned and walked quickly up the driveway and out of sight. She was digging around for her keys in her bag under the light at the entrance when she heard footsteps approaching up the drive. She looked around to see Tom coming towards her. It gave her a fright.

  ‘What’s the matter? Is something wrong? Did you leave the girls in the car?’

  ‘They’re okay,’ he said, stopping in front of her. ‘I told them I’d just be a minute, that I’d forgotten to tell you something.’

  ‘What is it?’

  He took a deep breath. He seemed a little nervous. ‘The thing is, Rach,’ he lowered his voice, ‘I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, about the other night.’

  Her heart missed a beat. ‘Tom –’

  ‘No, listen to me. You said that if we can act like nothing’s happened, that’s for the best, and we didn’t need to talk about it. Well, seeing you tonight, wearing that top again . . .’ He paused. ‘I couldn’t even look at you, Rach. Obviously I can’t act like nothing’s happened, so we’re going to have to talk about it. That was the deal.’

  Rachel’s throat had gone dry. Damn that she’d put it like that, and that he remembered it word for word, and that he was a lawyer, and that he could mount a case for the defence.

  ‘I don’t know, Tom,’ she shrugged. ‘What’s the point?’

  He dropped his head with a sigh, looking down at the ground for a minute, before raising his eyes to meet hers again. ‘I’ll come round tomorrow afternoon, we’ll discuss it then. You owe me that much.’

  ‘What about the girls?’ she said, clutching at the only straws left to her.

  ‘They’ll be off with their friends or whatever, they’ll be fine for an hour or two.’

  Rachel thought about it. Two hours alone in her flat with Tom. No way. But clearly he wasn’t going to let her renege.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘but not here, I’ll meet you down at the park, at Bronte.’

  He pulled a face. ‘Rach, it’s crowded there on a Sunday. How are we supposed to talk?’

  ‘That’s my best offer, Tom. Take it or leave it.’

  Sunday

  Rachel walked down the hill towards Bronte Park. It was a bright, sunny January day, there were people everywhere. Good, that part had gone to plan. And she was prepared. She had thought it all through; in fact, she’d thought of little else since Tom left last night. She knew what to say to put him straight, she’d gone over and over it, even rehearsed it out loud in the shower this morning. He would see the sense of her argument, and she would be so firm, so confident, that he would have nowhere to go.

  She crossed the road into the park and walked down the path towards the beach, surveying the general area. It really was packed; all the picnic shelters were occupied, and there were groups of picnickers scattered all across the grass. She heard a whistle and looked around. Tom was leaning against the railing of the promenade edging the beach, dark glasses shielding his eyes, his hand lifted in a wave. She walked over towards him.

  ‘Great spot for a quiet chat, Rach,’ he remarked wryly as she approached.

  ‘Let’s walk for a while then,’ she suggested.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘Okay.’

  They strolled along for a minute or two while a noisy throng of teenagers approached and passed them.

  ‘So,’ Rachel spoke first. No use delaying the inevitable. ‘You called this meeting.’

  He hesitated. ‘Can’t we go somewhere?’

  ‘We are somewhere,’ Rachel said flatly. ‘Just get on with it, would you, Tom?’

  ‘Okay.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Like I said, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that night.’

  Rachel didn’t respond, she’d let him do the talking for now, get it off his chest. See where he was coming from.

  ‘And I’m not just talking about where we ended up. I said some things . . .’

  Where was this headed?

  ‘. . . you know, earlier, before we . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she stopped him. She didn’t want to recount the events in detail. ‘I don’t remember much.’

  He took her arm then and turned to face her, propping his sunglasses back on his head. ‘What do you mean, you don’t remember much?’

  ‘Just that. We were pretty drunk, Tom.’

  He frowned. ‘I remember everything, I wasn’t that drunk.’ He looked put out. ‘I remember what I said, and I knew what I was saying. I’ll repeat it all if you like.’

  She shook her head. ‘Come on, Tom, you know we can’t . . . this is not . . .’ God, she didn’t want to put it into words what this wasn’t and what they couldn’t do.

  ‘Rachel, I think if you were honest you’d admit there’s something between us –’

  ‘No, no, no,’ she insisted. ‘You can’t go there.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He was looking earnestly down at her, still holding her arm. She had to stay focused. It was time for her speech. Suddenly a cyclist whooshed past, barely missing them. They needed to get out
of the way. Rachel glanced around.

  ‘Let’s sit over there,’ she said, slipping her arm out of his hold and walking off the path and onto the grass. Tom followed, dropping down onto the ground and reclining back to rest on his elbows. Rachel sat bolt upright, her legs tucked underneath her, facing him.

  ‘Okay, I’ve thought this through very carefully, Tom,’ she began, ‘and I believe there are a couple of things going on here. I think a lot of it has to do with you wanting to go back to a time before Annie, a time that probably feels safe, and where, in a sense, metaphorically I suppose, you’re not going to bump into her, if you get what I’m saying. That has to be less painful.’

  Rachel couldn’t tell what he was thinking, his eyes were hidden behind the sunglasses again, but the set of his jaw seemed a little grim. She cleared her throat, continuing. ‘And then when, you know, when you came with me to the clinic, well, that obviously triggered some very difficult memories, but at the same time it must have seemed to you that you were getting the chance to put something right, to make up, in some small way, for what happened to Annie, where you were helpless to do anything. So now you feel responsible, or bonded, the way people feel when they save someone’s life. Not that you saved my life, it wasn’t that serious, of course.’ She was beginning to blather. She needed to get back on track. ‘I guess what I’m trying to say is, there are a lot of complex feelings all tied up in this, clouding the issue, making you think you feel things that you really don’t.’

  He sat up then, leaning closer to her. ‘What the fuck are you talking about, Rachel?’

  She blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t patronise me, I’m not an idiot. You bloody women think you have the monopoly on emotional insight, that men are all adolescents.’ He shook his head. ‘Tying all this into my feelings for Annie, and what happened to her, you’re doing what everyone else wants to do – pigeonholing me as the grieving widower, deciding what I should feel and when. I didn’t think I’d get that from you, Rachel. And I certainly don’t need it from you.’ He got to his feet abruptly, but he wasn’t finished. He lifted his glasses and glared down at her. ‘You know what?’

  She squinted up at him, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand. She was always forgetting her frigging glasses.