The Younger Wife(22)

Tully nodded, tears welling in her eyes. ‘Yes, Mum,’ she said. ‘You do.’


It was, Tully realised later, the perfect storm. She left the nursing home and went straight to the main street of Armadale, the part with all the shops. She could feel it coming, like the change in the air before a storm. She was like a balloon filling with air. The pressure would grow until it managed to find a release.

When she saw the homewares store, she knew it was the place. It had a double shopfront, which was unusual for this strip, and it was jumbled and chaotic enough to allow Tully to disappear deep into the store, where she wouldn’t be seen. She wouldn’t be watched; Tully never was. She was well presented, upper-middle class, and looked like she had money to spend.

‘Good morning!’ the nicely dressed woman behind the desk said, looking up from the item she was gift-wrapping then immediately down again.

‘Good morning,’ Tully replied brightly.

‘I’m Sophie. If there’s anything I can help you with, just sing out.’

‘Just browsing for now,’ Tully said, plunging into the cosy, cluttered space.

It was still quite shocking to Tully, how easily she played the game. Even as her whole body trembled, she morphed into the role of snobby affluent mother without so much as a thought. She did it on autopilot, the same way she shoved small items into her purse. It was as if she were temporarily inhabited by an alien.

At the back of the room, in a large wicker basket, she spotted a pile of eccentric doorknobs. Tiny little things that would be perfect for a shabby chic bedside table. She fingered one carefully, already feeling her anxiety abate. She never, at any point, decided to take it, no more than she ever decided to breathe. Rather, it was like getting swept up in a hurricane. Her purse was already unzipped when the saleswoman, Sophie, suddenly appeared beside her.

‘I love those doorknobs,’ she said. ‘Did you have a piece of furniture in mind for them?’

The doorknob slipped through Tully’s fingers and went clattering to the ground.

‘Whoops!’ Tully said. ‘I’m a bit jittery today.’

‘I noticed.’ The saleswoman bobbed down to grab it, then continued to hold it in her own hand. Her expression was a little warier now. ‘You live around here, don’t you? I think I’ve seen you with your little boys on the way to the park.’

Tully tried to force herself to smile, to raise her eyebrows with interest, to be the breezy Armadale mother she’d been a few minutes ago. But the skill had deserted her.

‘I noticed because I also have two little boys,’ Sophie said. ‘I bring them in here sometimes, during the school holidays. They stand behind the desk and play shop.’ She smiled. ‘They tell all the customers proudly that it’s their mummy’s shop. It’s so important that our boys are proud of us, don’t you think? I feel like I’m doing my bit for feminism when I make them proud.’

Tully nodded and muttered, ‘Yes, very good.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t catch your name,’ Sophie said.

Tully didn’t want to give the woman her name. She wanted to end this conversation. Leave this shop. She had a bad feeling. But what else could she do? ‘It’s . . . Tully.’

‘Tully,’ Sophie said. ‘That’s pretty. Well, Tully . . . I would hate for your little boys to feel anything other than proud of you. That’s why I’m going to pretend I don’t know what you were about to do with that doorknob.’

Tully smiled in what she hoped was a polite, indignant fashion. ‘Excuse me?’

‘And I’ll pretend I didn’t see you take a candle the last time you were in here. Because I don’t think that would make your boys proud of you.’

Tully’s smile faded.

‘But as I said, I want my boys to be proud of me too, and for that reason, I’m going to have to ask you not to return to my shop. I hope you understand.’

‘Yes,’ Tully said. ‘Yes, I understand.’

And then, because there was nothing else to say, Tully barrelled towards the front door, practically bowling over another customer in her haste to get out of there.





10


HEATHER


Heather sat on Stephen’s bathroom floor nursing a glass of whisky. She’d got home from work an hour ago, poured herself a drink and immediately taken it to the giant ensuite. She’d always found it soothing, drinking in the bathroom. Beyond the privacy the bathroom offered, she liked the way her thoughts felt in there – the coolness of them, the space they had to bounce against the tiled walls.

In a way, it was a tribute to her mother, who used to drink in the bathroom. The first time she saw her do it, Heather was eleven years old. The night before Heather had woken to the sound of her mother crying and her dad shouting. They’d been at a party and Heather had expected them to be gone most of the night, but they’d got home early. It wasn’t even midnight.

‘If you ever embarrass me like that again,’ Dad was saying to her mum, ‘I’m going to kill you. Do you understand?’

Heather had got out of bed and followed the noise as far as the lounge. By then her mum was crying loudly, saying ‘please’ and ‘stop’ in halting bursts. Heather peered around the corner. Mum’s back was against the fridge and Dad was holding her by the throat.