Three’s a Crowd (9 page)

‘Yep,' Rachel replied. ‘What happens now? Where am I going to live?'

For a brief, tantalising moment she had imagined herself holding court in her own apartment, with her parents taking turns to come and visit her. But she knew that was an impossible fantasy. She was only thirteen after all.

And so then the real fun began. The split marriage meant split parenting, which for Rachel meant being split down the middle. They pulled and tugged and fought over her like children with a stuffed toy who'd sooner see it torn into pieces than relinquish their claim. They even changed her name – she became Rachel Halliday-Holloway, which was embarrassing and unnecessary, but her mother insisted her own name be indelibly stamped onto her daughter's; she would have had it tattooed onto her if she could have gotten away with it. Rachel gradually adapted to living between the two warring camps, learning to tolerate her father's new girlfriend, and the one after, and the one after that, while avoiding her mother's incessant grilling about what went on there, with whom and how often. Rachel didn't understand her; the whole marriage she had spent wanting to get away from him, and now that she was, she was obsessed with his every move and overflowing with so much vitriolic spite she was like a snake perpetually ready to strike. It was exhausting. Rachel soon worked out there were two ways she could deal with the situation. Rebel outrageously and create more trouble for them than they'd know how to handle, or keep her head down, her mouth shut, and get through her school years, till she achieved independence at eighteen and wouldn't have to live with either of them, or keep both their names.

Rachel went with the latter option, largely due to Catherine's influence, it had to be said. Catherine had come to their school on a scholarship in Year 7 and she did not take it for granted. She
valued the opportunity to rise above the socio-economic level she'd had the misfortune to be born into, as only Catherine could put it, even at the ripe old age of thirteen. Rachel thought her family seemed okay when she finally met them, but Catherine could barely disguise her embarrassment of them. She seriously contemplated the notion that there had been a mix-up in the hospital when she was born, so little did she feel in common with her ‘birth family'. But it didn't matter, she maintained, she was headed way beyond their ordinary little life in their ordinary little suburb. She travelled an hour and a half to school and back every day, never complaining; in fact she never even mentioned it so as not to draw attention to the fact of where she did live. She did not want to be associated with the western suburbs; after all, she would not be there for long.

Rachel had never met anyone so disciplined at such a young age, and it certainly had an effect on her, at least back then. If she wanted her independence, albeit for vastly different reasons, she had to work for it. So she hung around with Catherine, and kept up her marks, which kept her parents off her back. All was relatively well until Year 11, when her father accepted a position in the UK and her mother went ballistic.

‘What do you think of your precious father now, Rachel? Abandoning you when you're at such a vulnerable stage of your life? When you need him the most? I tried to tell him the effect this will have on you, your self-esteem, your body image, your general sense of worth as a human being. And as for your ability to trust men and have a chance at a healthy relationship in the future, well that's shot. I tried to tell him all this, but do you think he cared? Do you think he even listened? Of course not, because the truth is, and I hate to have to be the one to say this to you, darling, but your father doesn't care about anyone but himself. Duncan Halliday is the most important person in the world to Duncan Halliday.'

Then in Rachel's final year at school, her mother met Victor Castaneda, ‘a successful business magnate', as she liked to tell everyone, and after a ‘whirlwind romance' he asked her to come back to Spain with him. Suddenly her daughter's self-esteem and the rest were none of her concern. She packed Rachel off to
the UK the day she finished her final exams, so her father could ‘have a turn for a change'. Rachel was only permitted back in the country when her room was available in college, because her mother had leased out their apartment and moved permanently to Madrid. For the first time in her life Rachel didn't actually have a home to go to. Until she met up with Tom.

She felt a sensation in her chest, a tightening, creeping up into her throat. So here were the tears, finally. Though she wasn't sure if she was grieving for Annie, or grieving with Tom.

She thought about him now, everything he had ahead of him, not least a pretty horrendous hangover in the morning. She was glad she'd stayed tonight, she felt she'd given him some small comfort. She hoped so anyway. Rachel turned onto her side and the tears spilled onto her pillow. Maybe she was not completely dispensable.

‘What are you doing here on a Saturday, Catherine?'

She looked up from her computer. Bill Carlton, one of the senior partners, was standing in the doorway to her office, watching her curiously.

‘Probably the same thing you are, Bill,' she replied offhand.

He was shaking his head. ‘I'm just calling in to pick up some papers I need for a breakfast meeting on Monday. I'll be teeing off within the hour.'

Catherine sat back in her chair. ‘Are you saying you've never worked on a weekend?'

‘Of course I've worked on a weekend, but usually in the privacy of my own home, and preferably in slippers.' He held her gaze for a moment longer before he shrugged, turning away. ‘Don't work too hard,' he called as he walked off up the corridor.

Catherine pushed her chair back and swung her feet up onto the desk with a loaded sigh. She honestly couldn't say if that
exchange had left a good impression or not. There seemed to be a fine line between being regarded as a hard worker or as a machine, and for women the line shifted constantly. She had a sense that Bill felt her place was at home with her daughter on the weekend, despite the fact that he was off to play golf and wouldn't be spending the day with his family anyway.

Well, screw him. Catherine lurched forwards to grab the phone, and sat back again, dialling Rachel's number.

‘Oh hi,' Rachel said when she picked up. ‘I was going to call you soon. I got your messages.'

‘Hmm. Where were you last night?'

‘Bumped into my neighbours, you know, the friendly ones?'

‘You mean the out-of-work, drug-addled ones?'

Rachel ignored that. Besides, the thread was predicated on a lie, so she didn't want to get into an argument defending it.

‘When did you leave Tom's?' asked Catherine. ‘You didn't say goodbye.'

‘No, you weren't around.' She much preferred it when she didn't have to actually lie to avoid telling the whole truth.

‘How did you get home?' Catherine asked.

This was beginning to feel like an inquisition. ‘Taxi.'

‘Well I was coerced into taking a lift from that slimy friend of Tom's,
Dave
.'

‘Did he try something?'

‘He wouldn't dare. I gave him short shrift, anyway,' she said. ‘So what are you up to?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean, what are you up to? What do you think I mean?'

‘Nothing.'

‘You're free then?'

‘Well, actually, I'm sorting through my clothes.'

‘You are? That's very proactive for you on a Saturday,' Catherine remarked. ‘I hope you're making a nice big pile for the charity bin.'

‘Then what will I have to wear?'

‘You could always go out and buy yourself some decent clothes.'

‘Oh, right, that's what I can do with all that spare cash I have lying around,' Rachel quipped.

‘Don't get me started on that low-paying, dead-end job of yours.'

‘Now why would I be foolish enough to do that?'

But Catherine couldn't resist. ‘When are you going to look for a proper job?'

‘I have a proper job,' Rachel returned. ‘I go to an office, and there are desks and phones and computers, just like grown-ups. They even pay me.'

‘You sell bedpans and walking frames.'

‘We prefer to call them “life-enhancing products”.'

Catherine made a snorting sound.

‘Heaven forbid you need anything like that one day, Catherine.'

‘I don't care what you sell, I just don't understand why you're selling in the first place.'

‘I don't do the selling, I order stock, take inventory, write up invoices –'

‘Stop, you're hurting my head, and breaking my heart,' Catherine scolded. ‘You could be a lawyer, Rachel.'

‘Um, yeah, except I don't have any qualifications.'

‘You know I could get you a paralegal job here in a heartbeat.'

‘Or I could shoot myself. It's a toss-up.'

‘Rachel –'

‘There's a reason I dropped out of law, you know, Catherine.'

‘Yes, you were restless and immature, but you always wanted to do law.'

‘No, my parents always wanted me to do law,' Rachel corrected her. ‘I had no idea what I wanted to do, I still don't. So I'll stay in this job until I figure it out.'

‘Do you want to meet somewhere for coffee?' Catherine said suddenly.

‘Why?'

‘What do you mean, why?'

‘If it's because you want to discuss what I should do with my life –'

‘No, no,' said Catherine. ‘It's because I'm bored. I came into the office today to make up for yesterday, but there's not really that much for me to do. I can't even make calls on a Saturday.' She checked her watch. ‘We could do lunch. Have you eaten?'

Rachel hesitated. ‘What about Lexie?'

‘What about her?'

‘Shouldn't we ask her too?'

‘Why?'

‘Because I just don't feel right excluding her.'

‘What are you talking about?' said Catherine. ‘You and I have coffee together all the time, we don't always ask Lexie.'

‘But that was before . . . when Annie was still . . . with us.'

‘What's your point?'

‘I don't want Lexie to feel like she's not one of us now. That we were only friends with her because of Annie.'

‘Well, that's true, isn't it?'

‘No,' Rachel protested. ‘I consider her a friend in her own right.'

‘Yes, of course,' said Catherine. ‘I only meant that we did meet her through Annie, that is how we became friends.'

Annie had to be everybody's friend, it seemed to Catherine. So when the young newlyweds moved into the place next door, she couldn't help herself, she had to invite them along to their next get-together. Which was fine as couples – weirdly Martin and Scott hit it off immediately – but it was the tipping point that saw them become ‘the girls'. Before that, Catherine had always felt the real nexus of the group had been herself, Rachel and Tom. In fact, with Rachel away overseas for so many years, it was Catherine and Tom's connection that really kept everyone together, until Rachel returned. Then Lexie and Scott became a regular fixture, and before long Sean, and suddenly it was ‘the girls' talking babies and children and renovations, while ‘the boys' were off talking about whatever they talked about, which had to be more interesting. Catherine didn't like it, though she usually managed to get Tom aside at some point for a little shop talk.

‘Look, Rachel,' Catherine said finally, ‘you and I have known each other forever, we had coffee together long before we ever met Lexie, or Annie.'

‘But if Lexie was to find out –'

‘How would she find out?'

‘She might,' Rachel defended. ‘And then how do you think she'd feel? It is a bit of a sensitive time right now, and she's not
coping all that well. You saw her at the funeral. Scott had to take her home she was so distraught.'

Catherine sighed loudly. ‘Fine, if that's how you want it. But she'd have to bring the kids on a weekend. And lunch with two sticky toddlers is not exactly my idea of a good time.'

‘So we better leave it,' said Rachel. ‘I'm in the middle of all this, and I'm pretty tired after yesterday. I just want to chill, to be honest.'

Catherine felt snubbed, but she wouldn't admit it, or embarrass herself by pushing the point. ‘Okay, fair enough. I'll call you through the week.'

She hung up the phone, feeling restless and uneasy. They had nothing planned tonight, and Catherine did not like spending Saturday nights in. Martin relished them, it gave him an opportunity to try out one of his new recipes; he had been blabbing on about it before she left the house this morning. He had his day all organised, starting with a trip to the growers' market, then a drive out to Haberfield, for godsakes, the only place he could get some authentic ingredient or other; Catherine couldn't remember what, she never listened that closely. He also thought he'd probably have a chance of picking up a particular Italian film on DVD that he'd read about.

So although they were having a gourmet meal and watching a DVD with subtitles, it still made Catherine feel uncomfortably suburban. Her parents would probably be staying in tonight, and maybe they'd treat themselves to takeaway Chinese (they still hadn't ventured to try Thai), and a new release from the video store. Catherine wanted to believe she had come a long, long way, but there were moments when she felt a deep sense of dread that she was merely a shinier version of that same western suburbs girl, just with more expensive shoes. Though she rarely let on to such insecurities. Over the years she had developed a virtually impervious outer shell, and she preferred to keep her inner demons tucked firmly away. Rachel knew most of them, though not even she knew them all. She was the only person Catherine mixed with now who had known her back then, except for her family of course, and she was able to keep them at arm's distance. Rachel had been her confidante and, more importantly, her alibi
when she snuck off with James. James Barrett from the nearby boys' private school had grown up in privilege and was as worldly as a seventeen-year-old boy could possibly be. All the times she was supposed to be sleeping over at Rachel's she was really sleeping with James, in the pool house of his parents' Point Piper mansion, or the staff quarters – yes, the staff quarters – of their Palm Beach house, while they were off gadding about Europe or Dubai or some other exotic location. They were seriously, obscenely wealthy, and it was like an aphrodisiac to Catherine. It might have been teenage infatuation, but she had never felt so exhilarated. Still hadn't probably. James talked about going to university together, working overseas for a spell, getting married and building their own empire.