Truly Madly Guilty(74)

Tiffany was still reeling from Dakota’s sobbing confession in the back of the car on the side of the road.

It was tiny. It was huge. Blind Freddy could have seen it and yet Tiffany might have missed it forever. If Vid hadn’t made his remark about Clementine teaching her the cello, Dakota might never have broken down, and they might never have learned the truth.

Tiffany and Vid had both been prepared to sit on either side of Dakota for the whole day, letting her talk, or just being there for her, but Dakota had finally said, ‘Uh, guys? Don’t take this the wrong way but can I get a bit of space?’ And she’d made a circular motion with her hands to indicate the space she required around her. She already seemed more like herself, as if that glass bubble she’d encased herself in was already thinning and cracking.

It was time to be thinking about dinner but Tiffany had suddenly developed a craving for chocolate to go with her coffee, and she’d remembered the jar of chocolate almonds sitting in the back of the pantry.

Vid grunted as he tried to loosen the lid. ‘What the …?’ His face was red. He’d never been defeated by a lid before. He held it up and examined the label. ‘Where did we get these from anyway?’

‘Erika brought them to the barbeque,’ said Tiffany.

Vid’s face shuttered instantly and Tiffany saw with startled clarity just how affected he still was, even after all these weeks, by what had happened, even though he said he didn’t think about it anymore. What a fool she was to have taken his words at face value. Vid was all smoke and mirrors. The more distressed he was the more he joked.

‘I think this lid is superglued on,’ said Vid with a final twist. ‘I really do.’

‘Dammit,’ said Tiffany. ‘I had a real craving for one.’

She took the jar from him and began tapping the lid around the edges with a butter knife as her mother always did.

‘That won’t work,’ scoffed Vid. ‘Give it back. Let me try again.’

‘Has Clementine called you back yet?’ said Tiffany.

‘No,’ said Vid.

‘Do you leave actual messages?’ said Tiffany. ‘Or do you just hang up?’

‘Hang up,’ admitted Vid. ‘Why won’t she answer? I thought she liked me.’

They wanted Clementine to talk to Dakota, to set the record straight.

‘She did like you,’ said Tiffany. ‘She liked you a lot. That’s part of the problem.’

Vid took the jar from Tiffany and began twisting the lid again, grunting and swearing. ‘Fuck it. Open, you f*cker. We should all … just … see each other again. That would make us all feel better, I think. This … silence, it makes everything … bigger, worse … Oh, to hell with this thing!’

He gave the lid such a violent wrench the jar flew from his hands and onto the floor where it shattered instantly, sending chocolate nuts and glass shards cascading across the tiles.

‘There you go,’ said Vid morosely. ‘It’s open now.’





chapter forty



The day of the barbeque

‘Do you see it? Look closely!’ Oliver stood beneath a tree just outside the cabana, holding Holly up high, his hands gripping her calves as though she were a little circus performer.

There was a rustle of leaves and a flash of surprised bright round eyes as the possum suddenly emerged.

‘I see it!’ shrieked Holly.

‘It’s a ringtail possum,’ said Oliver. ‘See how he’s got the white tip on his tail? Little factoid for you: he’s got two thumbs on each front foot to help him climb. Two thumbs! Imagine that!’

Good Lord, Oliver would be a wonderful father, thought Clementine, pressing her lips to Ruby’s scalp. Maybe she could do it. Give them her eggs. She donated her blood, why not her eggs? And then she could just forget that the child was biologically hers. It was a state-of-mind thing.

Be generous, Clementine, be kind. Not everyone has your good fortune. Clementine thought of the time her mother invited Erika to come away on a beach holiday with them when they were thirteen, a holiday Clementine had been desperately anticipating because it would be two weeks without that shameful prickly sensation she’d been experiencing every day at school, when Erika would hurry up to her each lunchtime and stand far too close, her voice low and intimate, ‘Let’s eat lunch over there. Somewhere private.’ Clementine was only a kid. The necessary negotiations, all conducted within the parameters of her mother’s all-important code of kindness, felt amazingly complex. Sometimes she’d promise Erika she’d spend just half of lunchtime with her. Sometimes she’d convince Erika to join her with other kids, but Erika was happiest when it was just the two of them. Clementine had other friendships she wanted to cultivate: normal, easy friendships. It felt like Clementine had to make a daily choice: my happiness or her happiness?

She’d wanted a holiday with just her big brothers, where she would have been included in their adventures, but instead it had been a holiday where the boys had gone one way and the girls another, and every single day Clementine had had to forcibly suppress her rage and disguise her selfishness because poor Erika had never had a family holiday like this, and you had to share what you had.

She looked over at Erika, who had sunk down in her chair and was scowling into her wineglass. There was no doubt about it. Erika was tipsy.