The Younger Wife(17)
The truth was, she had no idea why she’d insisted on paying. It was a spontaneous gesture, a burst of desire for her father’s approval, maybe. A mistake – she could acknowledge that now – but a well-meaning one. ‘I . . . don’t know.’
‘You don’t know? Tully, we don’t have any spare money at the moment, do you understand that? None. We have to sell our house, our cars – I’m not sure how I’m going to make the mortgage payment. As it stands, we’re well short.’
Tully was flooded with shame, both at what she’d done and at the idea of the bank noticing something was up. She’d always felt so proud, so secure in the fact that they paid off their credit card debt in full each month and that all their payments were made ahead of time. The mortification of people having to follow up, wondering where their money was . . . it was simply unthinkable.
Sonny had also seen the items on the back seat of the car, which only served to make the argument worse. Tully assured him that she would return each and every one – and indeed she had dropped them all off at the nearest charity shop – but he’d still given her the silent treatment. In fact, the only time they’d spoken in the last twenty-four hours was when Tully asked him not to tell Rob and Michelle that they’d lost all their money.
Sonny had looked baffled. ‘They’re going to find out sometime.’
‘I know that,’ Tully said tersely. ‘I just don’t want them to find out today.’
Sonny had agreed and now here they were, sitting in the sun. It was the classic set-up. Sonny and Rob commandeered the barbecue, while she and Michelle sipped white wine spritzers and yelled at the children not to be too rough on the trampoline.
‘So, we’ve been dying to know,’ Michelle said. ‘What was the new girlfriend like?’ She laughed a little. It wasn’t a mean sort of laugh; it was the polite, slightly scandalised sort. A testing laugh – a laugh that was aware of the sensitivity of the issue but hopeful for a bit of salacious gossip. Tully didn’t blame her. How many times had she enjoyed a scandalised laugh of this nature over a friend’s child who’d been caught sexting or a politician who’d been caught with his pants down? How superficial she’d been. This was not content for titillation – this was someone’s life! She vowed to change from now on. Everything would be different.
‘She was . . . as expected,’ Tully said. ‘Young, pretty. Did I mention young?’
Rob and Michelle nodded expectantly. They were waiting for more, of course. And Tully had more. She could tell them that they were getting married. That Dad was planning to divorce Mum. She could have given them what they wanted. But for some reason, her throat started to close up and she couldn’t seem to project the words.
‘Are you having chicken, Michelle?’ Sonny said, in a clear attempt to change the subject. ‘Or I have a nice steak here?’
He met Tully’s eye and, for the first time in ages, she smiled at him.
Sonny had always been a skilled host. She loved the ease with which he chatted to people, the way he kept everyone’s glass full, the effort he always made to talk to even the most boring person and make them feel special. He was equally competent with the kids – their own and other people’s – doling out icy poles or putting on a movie when the other parents were too drunk or tired to deal with them. After everyone left, he always helped her clean up, and while his standard of cleaning was well below hers, she appreciated that he didn’t slope off to bed like other husbands. Often, because of this dedication, he got lucky at the end of the night. It was unlikely this would happen today. Today, they were playing a part. The part of a happy couple.
She and Sonny had met at a university trivia night. Tully had arrived with two friends, but because they didn’t have enough people to make up a table, they’d been put on a table with a bunch of know-it-all law students. Tully hadn’t bothered to argue when they insisted they knew the correct answer to several questions (they hadn’t), but when it came to the final question (How many children did Madonna and Guy Ritchie have together?) she had to speak up.
‘It’s two,’ she said.
‘No,’ one loudmouth, drunken law student had exclaimed. ‘It’s one. The little boy. Rocco.’
‘They also adopted a little boy from Malawi,’ Tully said. ‘David. That’s two children.’
Tully remembered the way she’d levelled her gaze at Sonny, the scribe, and gestured for him to write it down. She’d acted more confident than she felt. She didn’t have numbers on her side, after all. The law students all knew each other. If they sided with the drunken loudmouth, she wouldn’t stand a chance.
‘I think she’s right,’ Sonny said. ‘I’m going with two.’ And he wrote it down, without waiting for any input from the table. When it turned out that Tully had been right, Sonny had nodded at her, a faint look of approval in his eyes. That was the moment, he told her later, that he fell in love with her.
The relationship was full steam ahead from that night, which was fine with Tully. She always preferred travelling at high speed. For a while, she even thought Sonny had cured her of her unspeakable addiction. Or at least got her hooked on a different drug. When he looked at her, and when she looked at him, she got so high she didn’t need to think about stealing. Sonny was her drug, and she could have as much of him as she wanted.