The Younger Wife(67)

‘Hmmm,’ Rachel said loudly. ‘I wonder where Miles could be. Could he be under the table?’

Miles giggled loudly.

Tully said, ‘Well, she must be lying.’

‘But why? What would she have to gain by lying? Besides, I met her today, Tul. And she was credible. Apparently Mum and Dad met while he was married to Fiona, and Dad left her for Mum.’

‘She said that?’

‘She did.’

Tully’s mind was boggling. Even without everything else going on in her life right now, she wasn’t sure she could wrap her head around this. ‘But if that’s true, why didn’t Dad tell us?’

‘I have some theories. The leading one is that Mum was saving money to leave Dad.’

‘What?’ Tully said. ‘Why would she want to leave Dad?’

‘This is going to sound crazy,’ Rachel said, ‘but I’m starting to suspect that Dad is abusive.’

Tully opened her mouth to refute this claim, but before she could speak, Rachel held up a hand. ‘Why don’t I tell you my reasons?’

Tully didn’t respond, which Rachel must have taken as a sign to continue.

‘First, Mum has suggested it more than once when I’ve been to see her. She’s called him a sadistic bastard, and at Miles’s party she warned us to look out for him and said he’d made her life hell. And I know Mum says all sorts of things – that’s why I’ve never taken it seriously. But there’s more.’

‘Like what?’

‘Mum’s dementia. Remember how perplexed the doctors were when she was diagnosed so young with no family history of the disease? Well, I’ve been doing some research and apparently there is a strong correlation between multiple head injuries and dementia.’

Tully felt the beginnings of a headache coming on. She pressed her fingers to her temples. ‘So you’re saying what? Mum got dementia because Dad beat her up and gave her head trauma?’

‘She did get injured a lot while we were growing up. Remember all those times she had a sprained ankle or a dislocated finger?’

‘Mum was very clumsy.’

‘So she used to say. But I don’t have a single memory of her falling over or injuring herself while she was with me. Do you?’

Tully thought about that. A memory came at her – a summer holiday when she was a kid. They were at the theme park in Arthurs Seat, doing a big tree-climbing tour. Mum had been a natural at it. She’d danced along the branches, clambered up and down ropes and ridden the flying fox to the end. She’d beaten them all, including Dad.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Now you mention it, I don’t remember any incidents.’

‘All of that could be explained away, though, if it wasn’t for what Fiona said,’ Rachel added. ‘She told me he hurt her.’

‘So you’re saying—’

‘If Mum wanted to leave Dad, she would have needed to save a lot of money. She didn’t have any of her own. She didn’t even have a bank account. She might have been saving it for years.’

They looked at each other for a long time.

‘But do we really think Dad is abusive?’ Tully said finally. ‘Dad? Our dad?’

Rachel started to respond, but then she got distracted. Her gaze darted to the corner of the room. ‘Uh . . . Tul?’

‘What?’

‘I think Miles just took a dump on the rug.’

Tully closed her eyes.





46


HEATHER


Heather sat in the passenger side of Stephen’s Porsche. Stephen kept shooting her pensive looks from the driver’s seat. Perhaps he was worried about what she might say when they got to the hospital. If so, he needn’t have been. She wasn’t going to tell anyone what had happened; she had too much shame for that. But she wasn’t going to put up with it either. She’d seen Stephen’s true colours now, and she’d made her decision.

Before they’d got into the car, he’d mopped up the blood, checked her arm for glass and then wrapped it in a clean towel. She’d fallen hard, landing right on the smashed glass. Stephen thought one of her cuts might need stitches.

As they drove to the hospital he was every inch the concerned husband, as if her injuries had been sustained as the result of a random accident rather than at his hand. Highest on his list of concerns was what she’d told him right before he let her go.

‘You’re really pregnant?’

Heather kept her eyes forward. ‘Yes.’

‘But . . . I thought you were on the pill?’

‘I am,’ she said. ‘But I was on antibiotics a couple of months ago, so maybe it happened then. I’ve heard that antibiotics can lower the effectiveness of the pill. And I had that stomach bug a few weeks back – maybe I vomited up a pill? I don’t know! It’s a bit late to worry about that.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, you’re right.’

They lapsed back into silence. It occurred to Heather that she probably should have taken an Uber to the hospital. She also should have packed a bag. She didn’t want to have to return to that house after this.

‘I’m leaving you, Stephen,’ she said finally.

Stephen glanced away from the road in apparent surprise. ‘What?’