The Younger Wife(5)

‘Oh, look,’ he cried, feverishly pleased to see her. ‘It’s Rachel. Rachel! Over here!’

Rachel made her way to the table, ignoring the barista, who winked at her. She hated it when people flirted with her.

‘Sorry I’m late!’ she said brightly.

‘Rachel’s not known for her punctuality,’ Dad said to the immaculate woman beside him, presumably Heather, as he rose to greet her. ‘Luckily she has other talents.’

‘Like what?’ Rachel asked. She shot a quick glance at Tully, who appeared to have recovered from whatever spell had caused her to put her head between her knees, then held out her hand to Heather. She was, as expected, exceptionally young. Other diners would almost certainly assume Dad was taking his three daughters to lunch.

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Heather,’ Rachel said as she shook Heather’s delicate hand.

‘Pleasure’, admittedly, was a stretch. After all, ‘pleasure’ was a good bottle of wine, a belly laugh, a perfectly iced chocolate éclair. Under different circumstances, Rachel might have felt pleasure at this meeting. For example, if her father had started dating someone after Mum died. A nice widow named Judy, perhaps – someone he’d met down at the tennis club, who had adult children and plans for a huge blended family Christmas with vicious games of Stealing Santa. After all, the idea of Dad not having to spend his golden years alone did indeed bring her pleasure. But the way things stood? Pleasure was a bit of a stretch.

Heather smiled as Rachel sat down. ‘It’s good to meet you too, Rachel. I’ve heard a lot about you. Your dad says you make cakes.’

‘The best wedding cakes in Australia,’ Dad chimed in. Rachel didn’t bother clarifying that she also made cakes and pastries for other occasions. She’d deduced a while back that her father only had the capacity to understand high-powered jobs. Banker. IT professional. Business person. She was fine with this. In her opinion, when you saved lives for a living, you didn’t have to remember jobs.

Rachel tried to catch the attention of the waiter.

‘Where have you been?’ Tully asked curtly.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I dropped in to see Mum on the way here.’

Rachel wasn’t sure how that particular piece of information would be received. Mum had been moved to a high-security nursing home with a specialist dementia wing a month ago. She had been diagnosed a couple of years back, after many more years of searching for a diagnosis before that. First, her doctor thought it was concussion (she’d had a fall before the confusion started), then depression (Pam’s own mother had died around that time), and they’d even blamed a urinary tract infection briefly. By the time they’d got the diagnosis and a second opinion, Mum was already lost to them.

Upon admitting her to the nursing home last month, the doctors had advised that it would be good to give her time to settle in before visiting. Rachel had agreed and then promptly showed up daily, with cookies for the nurses. She felt sheepish about it, but the idea of leaving Mum there alone, without anyone who cared about her, was simply too much to bear. Her guilt was eased by the knowledge that Tully was doing exactly the same thing.

‘How was she?’ Tully asked.

‘A little agitated,’ Rachel admitted.

In fact, when Rachel arrived in her room, Mum had been irate. She’d pointed at Rachel. ‘Did you take my bag thingy?’

‘No,’ Rachel had said.

Pamela narrowed her eyes. ‘It must have been your father. He was just here, you know.’

‘Dad? No, I don’t think he was here.’

Her mother shook her head, tutting. ‘He’s an awful man. I don’t know how I ever put up with him.’

Rachel walked to the cupboard where the nurses always put her bag. ‘Here it is, Mum.’

‘She wanted to go shopping,’ Rachel explained to Dad and Tully. ‘And she was upset because she couldn’t find her handbag.’

‘At least she was planning to take it with her this time,’ Dad said to Heather. ‘A few months back, she wandered away from me at Westfield and I got a call from security saying she’d tried to walk out of Kmart with a full trolley. Then, a few weeks ago, I found a bunch of stuff in the back of her closet. Random stuff. A Nintendo Switch, some candles, a screwdriver. A hot-water bottle. Most still with tags on. Which reminds me, I still haven’t returned any of it. I’ve been driving around with stolen goods in the back of my car for months.’

‘I’ll return it for you, Dad,’ Rachel said. ‘I’m at Westfield every other day. Now, have we ordered?’ She waved madly at the waiter. ‘I’m happy to do the honours!’

Happy was an understatement. Rachel got terrible anxiety whenever she wasn’t in control of the catering – particularly when she was with Dad, who always wanted to start with a drink, then maybe some bread and dip or an appetiser. But Rachel couldn’t relax until she knew her main course was in the oven. Rachel’s family laughed about it, considered it a quirk of hers, a trademark of being a foodie. Usually Rachel considered it in the same light. Only occasionally did she hear a little voice at the back of her head that told her there was a bit more to it than that. That her foodie persona was nothing more than a glorified distraction from the one thing she didn’t want to think about, dwell on, obsess about.