The Younger Wife(50)

Rachel shrugged. She wasn’t so sure about that.

‘Listen, Rachel, I’m sorry about last night . . . I mean, if I’d known you weren’t feeling it, I wouldn’t have tried to –’

‘It’s not your fault. Really. It’s the classic case of it’s not you, it’s me.’

She stacked up the pancakes on a plate and covered them in berries and syrup. With Darcy here, she suddenly felt stuffed, so she pushed them in front of him. He picked up his cutlery, but made no move to eat.

‘Can I ask you something?’ she said, after several moments.

‘Sure.’

‘Why did you come back here today?’

He thought for a minute.

‘I came back because I was hoping you’d lain awake all night thinking about me and realised you couldn’t live without me.’ He thought for a minute. ‘Also I was hungry and fancied a pancake feast.’

Rachel tried to smile. ‘Something happened to me,’ she said. ‘When I was sixteen.’

Darcy’s expression changed.

‘I was out jogging. He jumped out of the bushes. Don’t . . . say anything. It’s fine. Well, it’s not fine, really. But that’s the reason. That’s why I don’t date. That’s why . . . well, that’s what happened last night.’

Darcy closed his eyes. ‘Rachel, I . . . I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry.’

‘It was a long time ago.’ She waved her hand with an airiness she didn’t feel.

‘And yet I imagine it’s not the kind of thing that ever really leaves you?’

Rachel shrugged. ‘I manage. Perhaps not in the healthiest of ways, but I do.’

Darcy put down his cutlery. His undivided attention did something to her. For the first time ever, she felt the inclination to share more. ‘I don’t think you’ll be surprised to learn that food is my drug of choice. I eat my feelings, Darcy. I bake my feelings. I order my feelings at restaurants and cafes, and through Uber Eats.’

‘Makes sense,’ Darcy said, nodding.

Rachel blinked. ‘What do you mean . . . makes sense?’

‘I mean . . . why not bake and eat your feelings? It’s not the worst thing to do with your feelings, is it?’

This stopped Rachel for a minute.

‘I mean, sure,’ Darcy allowed, ‘it’s not ideal if you eat a wedding cake hours before it’s due to be delivered. And you are a better judge of whether this is a problem or not in your life than I am. But—’

‘But what?’

‘From what I can see, you’ve done something incredible. You’ve not only learned to manage your feelings, you’ve also found a way to make a living out of it.’

‘It’s not as simple as that,’ she said. And it wasn’t. But also . . . it was.

There was no doubt that her food fixation had hurt her at times. It had stopped her from ‘sitting in the pain’ and ‘healing’ and ‘becoming a stronger person’. At the same time, she couldn’t deny that food had saved her. Over and over and over again.

‘I know it’s not simple,’ he said. ‘And if baking and eating your feelings isn’t working for you, it might be wise to try a different form of therapy. I just mean, don’t beat yourself up for single-handedly saving yourself with the tools you had available to you. Where I come from, that’s called survival.’

Rachel felt a rush of emotion. Tears came to her eyes and she tried hard to blink them away. When she failed, she took a deep breath and walked around the counter to stand right in front of Darcy. With him sitting on the stool and her standing, they were the same height. ‘A different kind of therapy?’

‘I was thinking more of counselling,’ he said, as she leaned toward him. ‘But we could try this.’

‘Let’s try this,’ Rachel agreed. And after that, they didn’t talk anymore.





THE WEDDING


The ambulance wails as it tears away from the chapel. I wonder if the sirens indicate hope? After all, if a person – or persons – had been declared dead, the ambulance wouldn’t be in any hurry, would it?

The wedding cars remain out the front of the church, empty now, and useless. It makes me think of tables that will be set somewhere, the canapés and fish and chicken that will never be eaten. Police stand around in clumps, talking to guests and taking down names.

Standing on the street outside the chapel, I listen as new theories are advanced. Most people now think it was Heather who was injured, rather than Stephen. It does make sense. After all, it was a young woman’s scream that we’d heard. Then again, there were quite a few young women in the vicinity when it happened.

‘Did you see how miserable his daughters looked?’ he says. ‘Like they were at a funeral rather than a wedding.’

‘But trying to be supportive of their father,’ another woman adds. ‘Those girls have always adored Stephen.’

The ambulance had parked at the side door of the chapel to avoid the crowds, so no one saw who was ferried away. The family, too, have all disappeared; presumably they are on their way to the hospital as well. As for the guests, no one seems in any great hurry to leave. I suppose they’d planned to be spending the afternoon and evening at the wedding and so have nowhere else to be. One man suggests everyone head to the local pub for drinks and to wait for news together.