Chapter 13 #2
She switched on the kettle and sat at the little metal table in the dark, her chin propped on her hands.
The only sound was the hiss of the kettle and then the creak of the stairs.
The moment was almost peaceful, despite the tumult of the day’s encounters: Claire, Meghan, even Henry Price’s bathroom. Rachel let out a gusty sigh.
“Rachel?”
Rachel glanced up to see Lily standing in the doorway, her slight form illuminated by the hall light.
They hadn’t really talked since the bust-up about Lily’s cartoons, and now Rachel felt her chest expand with a maternal mix of love and guilt.
Standing there, Lily still looked little, almost as little as she’d been in primary school, when Rachel had sat next to her and helped her sound out words in her reading book.
When she’d stood by the school gate to make sure Lily had a friend to walk into school with, had given the stink eye to a Year Three she’d seen was a bully.
“Hey, Lil.” Rachel managed a tired smile and went to the kettle, which had switched off. “Tea?”
“All right.” Lily took a step into the darkened kitchen, her head ducked low. “Test me on my biology?”
It was, Rachel knew, a peace offering. She nodded, her back to Lily, and then, emotion getting the better of her, she sniffed. “Of course I will,” she said, her voice a little thick. “Anytime.”
By the middle of the week Rachel felt as if her equilibrium was mostly restored. She wasn’t snarling at everyone at least. She’d kept herself from snipping at Meghan when she came in at an almost-respectable one o’clock in the morning, and had even gotten up early to give Nathan his breakfast.
She’d spent three days with her head down cleaning, and as she arrived at Four Gables, she breathed a sigh of relief that Andrew West was gone and Claire was at work.
She wasn’t ready to face either of them yet, or perhaps ever.
She was able to clean the huge house without any interruption, although in actuality there wasn’t much to do.
Claire did her own dishes and, by the looks of it, the bathroom too. The house looked practically pristine.
By the time she arrived at Emily Hart’s on Wednesday afternoon, she was as much in need of a cuppa as the harassed mother.
“Riley and Rogan are up to their usual tricks, I see,” Rachel said cheerfully as she nodded at the streaks of marker on the walls.
“They’ve discovered felt tips,” Emily said as she sank into a chair at the kitchen table. “No matter where I put the box of them, those two manage to find them.”
“I just found them,” Rachel remarked. She’d been putting away the loaf going stale that Emily had left out on the counter and retrieved the box of markers from the bread bin. “I’ll put them up here, shall I?” She slid the box onto the top of the fridge and then switched on the kettle.
“You look tired,” she said as she handed Emily her mug and leaned against the counter with her own. “Are the twins sleeping?” She could hear them chattering to themselves in the next room, over the musical din of the Chuggington theme song on the telly.
“They are,” Emily admitted. “I don’t really have an excuse—”
“The twins are an excuse in and of themselves. You’ll probably be knackered for the next five years.”
“Or longer,” Emily said on a sigh. “Tom’s been talking about having another.”
“Easy for him, isn’t it?” Rachel had met Emily’s husband on a few occasions, a cheerful, blunt-faced man who left his dirty socks in the hall.
“We always wanted a big family,” Emily said, but she didn’t sound convinced.
“Things change, though. Do you still want a big family? The twins aren’t even two yet.”
“I know. I know.” Emily put her mug down, her soft blond hair falling in front of her face. “Sometimes I don’t know what I want anymore.”
Rachel could sense a big heart-to-heart coming on and discreetly she checked her watch.
Not that she didn’t like Emily, but she had another house to clean this afternoon, and by the looks of it Emily hadn’t done any cleaning all week.
Besides, she didn’t know how much emotional energy she had left.
Lily, Meghan, and Claire had taken it all up.
Emily continued to gaze down at her mug, and so with a mixture of sympathy and exasperation, Rachel asked the inevitable question. “Why do you think you don’t know what you want anymore?”
“Because I have it all, don’t I?” Emily looked up, a wry smile trembling on her lips.
She looked like she was caught between self-deprecation and total tears.
“I mean, look at this.” She waved an arm towards the kitchen with its granite counters and top-of-the-line appliances, the dirty dishes littering most surfaces, crusts cut off from the twins’ sandwiches in a jammy pile by the sink.
“Everyone wants what I have, don’t they? ”
“Not everyone,” Rachel allowed. “I’m quite sure there is a significant part of the population that could do without taking care of nearly two-year-old twins, lovely though they are.”
“True,” Emily agreed, and with relief Rachel noticed that the threat of tears seemed to have passed. “But the big picture. The house, the husband, the kids. I have it all.”
“And?” Rachel asked after a moment. The needlelike prick of envy she felt was surpassed by a deeper curiosity.
“I keep thinking, ‘Is this all there is?’ Seriously?”
Rachel took a sip of tea, considering her responses. “What more do you want?” she asked.
“That’s the stupid thing. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know what I want, what could make me happy. I know I just want . . . more.” She shook her head and gave her a guilty smile. “You must want to slap me.”
“Why would I want to slap you?” Rachel asked, and Emily flushed and looked away.
“I only meant that I must seem ungrateful, compared to, well . . .”
“Ah.” So she must want to slap Emily Hart because she was moaning about her perfect life while it was glaringly obvious that Rachel’s life sucked.
“I don’t want to slap you, Emily,” she said.
She wanted to slap herself, for being so obvious about her jealousy and dissatisfaction.
And then maybe she’d want to slap Emily.
Although Emily was so tired and overwhelmed that Rachel couldn’t really feel anything but sympathy for her.
She was definitely not jealous of her having toddler twins.
“Do you ever think like that?” Emily asked after a moment.
“Is this all there is?” Rachel leaned back in her seat.
“I suppose everyone thinks that once in a while.” Although actually she didn’t think she had, mostly because she knew the answer.
Yes, it bloody well is. “I’ve been too busy with everything to stop and ponder about the meaning of life,” she said with what she hoped passed for a rueful laugh.
“But do you hope for more?” Emily pressed.
“I mean, I don’t know, a different job or a new relationship, something to give your life more excitement, anything .
. .” Rachel couldn’t tell what the expression on her face was, but it must have gone strange, because Emily let out an embarrassed laugh and shook her head.
“Sorry, sorry, I’m rabbiting on. Don’t mind me, Rachel, honestly.
I’m seriously sleep-deprived.” She finished her tea, leaving the mug on the table.
“Do you mind stripping the beds today? I didn’t get around to it this week. ”
You never do, Rachel thought as she murmured her assent, and then took both mugs to the sink.
Rachel might have dismissed Emily’s question to her face, but it rattled around in her mind as she went about her jobs for the next few days, hoovering, scrubbing tiles and toilets, stacking dishes and folding clothes.
Picking unknown hairs out of a stranger’s shower drain and dusting photographs of weddings and baptisms and parties of people she didn’t know but thought looked deliriously happy had a way of making her think about her own life.
Was this all there was?
She knew the answer to that question, which was why she’d never struggled with it the way Emily Hart had.
But now she let herself consider how Lily would be going to university in a few months.
Would that be her chance to have some freedom?
But no. There was still Meghan and Nathan and her mother.
Janice Campbell might be an invalid, but Rachel suspected she would need more and more care over the next several decades.
And don’t you want her to?
She was shocked by her selfishness, the fact that she was practically begrudging her mother her life.
What was wrong with her? So many people had it far worse than she did.
She had a job that paid most of the bills and that she liked at least some of the time.
She had a family she loved, even if they drove her crazy on occasion.
She had friends, a small social life, her health.
She was fine. It was only because Claire West had breezed back into Hartley-by-the-Sea that she was feeling so unsettled.
Friday evening she trudged up the path to her house, bracing herself for the din of noise she knew would greet her upon her arrival.
Lily’s music. Her mother’s groans. Nathan’s wailing.
And Meghan probably on her way out somewhere; out of the last five nights she’d been gone three, coming home smelling of beer and smoke and men’s cologne.
Deep breath, and she opened the door and was greeted with . . . silence.
Carefully Rachel shut the door behind her. She poked her head in her mother’s bedroom and saw she was dozing. The kitchen was empty and fairly clean, and then Rachel went into the sitting room and came up short. Lily was sitting on the sofa talking to Andrew West.
“What . . . ?” She trailed off and simply stared at him looking completely at ease on the overstuffed sofa with the shiny worn patches on the armrests.
He wore a pair of chinos with knife-edge creases and a blue shirt that was open at the throat.
The most boring clothes imaginable. As Andrew caught sight of her, he raised his eyebrows.
“What am I doing here?” he finished. “Saying hello.”
“I thought you were in Manchester.”
“I was. I’ve come back for the weekend.” The words hovered there for a moment. He’d come back to check on Claire.
“Well, you don’t need to check on me,” Rachel said. “I’m fine.”
“I know you are,” he said with a small smile. “I’ve actually come to extend an invitation.”
“An invitation . . . ?”
“Claire and I are going to go hiking this weekend, maybe try to conquer Scafell Pike. We thought you, and any of your family”—he glanced at Lily—“might like to join us.”
Rachel gaped at him. Literally gaped, mouth hanging open, eyes bulging, speechless. “I . . .” she finally said, uselessly, and Lily jumped in.
“I’d love to go,” she said. “And so would Rachel.”