The Younger Wife(59)
‘Diana thought Da— . . . Stephen had given you the bruises?’
‘Yes.’
‘And had he?’
‘Of course not.’
Rachel would have found it reassuring had Mum not looked so confused and frightened.
‘Are you sure, Mum?’ Rachel said. ‘Are you sure Stephen never hurt you?’
Mum shook her head and her gaze slid away from Rachel. A moment later, she looked back. ‘He’s married, you know.’
‘Who?’ Rachel said.
Mum rolled her eyes. ‘Stephen, obviously.’
Rachel took a moment to consider that. ‘Who is Stephen married to?’
Mum leaned in close, lowering her voice, ‘Her name is Fiona Arthur.’
38
TULLY
Tully had always thought that her wedding was the day she reached maximum levels of manic. Even the half a valium she’d taken that day had barely taken the edge off. She’d barely managed to sit still while she had her make-up done and she’d stuttered her way through her vows. But she’d now realised she had a new, hidden, maximum level of anxiety reserved especially for the auction of her beloved home.
If only she had some valium handy today.
Tully had always thought it was a particularly sadistic practice of Australians, selling their homes by public auction. She yearned to be one of those people she saw on the American property shows where a ‘realtor’ passed on an offer that the vendors could choose to accept or reject after thinking it over or sleeping on it. The Australian way seemed unnecessarily savage, both for the buyer and the seller, forcing people to compete to be the winner when the hammer went down.
It was a bright, blue-skied day, and most of their neighbours were milling about the Harrises’ front yard as if it were a garden party. Half the pre-school mums were there in their activewear, with prams and coffee. Men in sportswear were shaking hands with acquaintances they’d encountered unexpectedly. Tully saw a woman from her Pilates class (Celia, whom Tully always referred to behind her back as Snobby Celia) greet a friend with a double air kiss. The friend looked familiar, but Tully couldn’t quite place her. Tully only knew of two seriously interested buyers; everyone else had just come along for a stickybeak. Tully herself had done this very thing at countless auctions. Looking into other people’s homes was a particular pleasure of hers. Often, before bed, she scrolled through realestate.com.au on her iPad just looking at beautiful houses. Sonny called it ‘property porn’. She’d gone to half-a-dozen auctions in her local area, simply because she’d always wanted to see the inside of a particular house, or to get an idea of her own house’s worth. It had felt so normal when she’d done it. Now that she was on the other side, it felt vaguely grotesque.
Tully’s family were all here, and she felt a wave of gratitude for that. Dad had greeted her with a kiss on the head and a handshake for Sonny, and Heather had brought her a tiny rabbit foot for luck. Tully thought it was a sweet gesture but also kind of disgusting – yet she gripped that little foot with all her might.
Rachel had arrived a few minutes ago with freshly brewed coffee for Sonny, camomile tea in a thermos for Tully (because the last thing Tully needed was caffeine while she was so hyped up) and homemade apple cinnamon muffins for everyone (which Tully actually stress-ate, for once). Rachel was garnering even more surreptitious glances than usual, which may have been due to the fact that for the first time in forever she was wearing her hair out. Tully couldn’t stop thinking about what Rachel had told her the last time they talked. She had been raped when she was sixteen. It felt unimaginable that she had been carrying that secret around all these years, never telling a soul. Several times this week, as Tully reflected on it, she became so angry, so utterly furious, that her entire body began to shake. Now though, alongside the horror, Tully felt a wave of hope – that now that Rachel had shared this, maybe she’d have the chance to heal. Maybe they both would?
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said the auctioneer, a good-looking young man in a super-tight navy suit. ‘We are getting ready to kick off the auction!’
The chatter of the guests at the garden party died down.
He went into his spiel about the ‘blue-chip’ area, the good schools, the shops nearby, the proximity to the city and the Botanic Gardens. Tully looked around the lycra-clad crowd. Who was going to bid? she wondered. Around these parts, people did bid on houses while wearing lycra. Around these parts people had the kind of money that meant they could decide to buy a house on a whim on the way to the dog park. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility, at least.
The auctioneer had been quite enthusiastic when he talked about sales prices the first time they chatted. In fact, some of the numbers mentioned would have been enough to wipe out most of their debt and put them back on the path to starting again. But as the open-houses went on, the numbers had grown more and more conservative. By this morning, when they were trying to agree on a reserve, the numbers were looking downright depressing.
‘The market has softened in the past few weeks,’ the real estate agent had said. ‘We need sellers to be realistic.’
‘I understand,’ Tully had said at the same time as Sonny had asked, ‘How realistic?’
The auctioneer’s introductory spiel took a comically long time, leaving Tully to wonder how many of these the guy did per day. Did he ever get the houses mixed up? Or did he refer to all the properties as being located in blue-chip areas with great schools? After an eternity, he finished up by reminding everyone that a house of this calibre didn’t come up very often before asking for opening bids. Tully squeezed the rabbit foot so hard that if it hadn’t been already been detached from the rabbit, it would be now.