Three’s a Crowd (28 page)

‘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.'

‘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 sure 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 enough 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.'

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.'