Chapter 20 #2
“If I’ve seemed upset it’s because my mother has had a stroke,” Rachel cut in.
“And my life feels like a trap that is closing in on me, because I’m never going to be doing anything other than cleaning toilets and taking care of my family for the rest of my life.
” She broke off abruptly, pressing the heel of her hand to her eyes before she resolutely dropped it.
“I’m not upset because you hurt my feelings when we were eleven. I’m not quite that pathetic.”
“I know that,” Claire said. “I don’t think you’re pathetic. If anyone’s pathetic, it’s me, for not being brave enough to keep the best friend I ever had.”
Rachel pressed her lips together, her eyes bright with what Claire thought might actually be tears. “I suppose I was the same. I was too proud to go and talk to you.” She took a quick, sharp breath. “I didn’t want to be rejected.”
“I wouldn’t have—”
“Are you sure about that? You stayed with those girls for the rest of Year Six. They came to your blasted birthday party.”
Claire closed her eyes briefly as a memory washed over her. “That was an absolutely wretched party. My mother arranged it all—”
“Including the invitations?”
Claire’s mouth parted soundlessly as realization crept in. “You weren’t invited . . . ?”
“No, but I hardly care now. It’s not about that.” Rachel let out an impatient sigh. “It was a hard time in my life, that’s all. My mother broke her back and my father was out of work, and I wanted—needed—someone I could count on.”
“Oh, Rachel.” Claire swallowed hard. “I should have been that person.” Rachel didn’t answer.
“I hate that I was so weak,” Claire said abruptly, her tone vehement.
“I hate it. I’ve been so bloody weak my whole life, going where someone points, even to rehab!
” She laughed, a choked sound, and shook her head. “You must despise me. I despise me.”
“I don’t despise you,” Rachel said. “I can understand how you might have wanted to be popular.”
“It wasn’t that. I’ve never wanted to be popular in my life.”
“No?” Rachel glanced at her, eyebrows raised. “What, then?”
“I wanted to please my mother. She wanted me to be friends with all the Wyndham girls. To be popular. But I never really felt like part of their group.”
“You looked like you were, from the outside,” Rachel said as she reached for the bottle and poured herself another glass of wine. “You looked like you were having a ball.”
“Did I really?” Claire shook her head. “Actually, I was miserable.” She paused and then continued starkly. “I think I’ve been unhappy most of my life.”
Rachel stared at her, nonplussed. “Oh?”
“I know you think I had the whole silver spoon thing going on,” Claire continued stiltedly.
It was hard to hold on to her conviction with Rachel looking so unimpressed.
“And I know I’ve been lucky in a lot of ways.
But . . .” She took a deep breath, wondering how she could explain everything without seeming like she was asking for pity.
Maybe she was. “I also know there’s no excuse for dropping you as a friend. I do realize that.”
“I’m glad, and I get that you want to make up for all that,” Rachel said, “but there’s really no need. I lost my temper the other day, but trust me, I have not been crying into my pillow every night wondering what went wrong.”
“I know you haven’t. And this is as much about me, and trying to be the person I want to be, as it is about addressing something that happened a lifetime ago. So let me do this, okay?”
Rachel sat back in her chair. “Fine.”
“My whole life . . .” Claire began slowly, searching for the right words. “I’ve felt . . . fragile. And useless, like you said. And I haven’t known how to stop.”
“Okay,” Rachel said cautiously, eyeing her with wary curiosity. “And now?”
“Now I’m trying to change,” Claire answered.
“I’m trying by working in the shop, and I’m trying with you right now.
But it’s hard to break old patterns. From the time I was four years old my mother wrapped me in cotton wool and treated me as if I could break.
I didn’t go to Reception or Year One because she thought I was too fragile.
And so I started acting fragile, because that’s how everyone seemed to see me.
Even you, unbuttoning my coat the first day of Year Two. I remember that.”
“You didn’t stop me.”
“I know. And I suppose part of me expected it, even. I remember being relieved, that I’d have someone to take care of me. Because that’s what I was used to.”
Rachel shook her head slowly. “So why did your mother treat you that way? It seems a little OTT, even for Marie West.”
Claire took a deep breath. “When I was little I was always getting ill. Ear infections, colds, just low-level stuff. But then when I was four I developed a tumor thing in my ear. It started out small, but it went undiagnosed, and I ended up having a whole bunch of surgeries and then I went deaf in that ear. It freaked my mother out, I suppose, and so she kept me off school and obsessed over everything.” She released her breath in a long, low rush. “And I mean everything.”
Rachel was frowning, looking like she didn’t even know Claire anymore. “Why did you never tell me about all that? When we were little?”
“I didn’t tell anyone. It didn’t feel like a secret exactly, more something you shouldn’t mention in polite conversation.”
“Your mother said that, I’m guessing?”
“It was more just a feeling.” A very strong feeling. “You must have noticed how much school I missed.”
“I suppose.” Rachel was still frowning, lost in thought. “You had pneumonia for a couple of weeks in Year Three. . . .”
“I was always getting sick or having surgery. It felt like that, anyway. And my mother was always flitting about me, obsessing about every little thing. She stopped work when I first got sick, and I think she made me her career. And I don’t think I was a particularly satisfying one.
” Claire let out a humorless laugh and drained her glass of wine.
“And when you grew up? Went to college, to Portugal? Didn’t you ever feel like breaking that pattern?”
“It took me a while to realize there was a pattern to break. I know this doesn’t put me in a good light,” she added, for Rachel’s expression had gone a bit skeptical, a little sour.
“I just . . . drifted. My father arranged for me to work in an art gallery in London, so I went. And then my mother’s friend had a villa in Portugal, and they thought I should go there.
I think my mother was hoping I’d get together with Hugh. ”
“Hugh.” Rachel said his name like it was a foreign country, a place she’d never heard of. “You haven’t mentioned him very much.”
“No.”
“Did you love him?”
Claire gazed down at her wineglass. “No.”
“But your mother wanted you to marry him, so you said yes.”
“It seemed like the next step.”
“Did he love you? I have to admit he doesn’t sound like a stellar guy, checking you into rehab without your consent.”
“Well, I did have a problem,” Claire said, and nodded towards the wineglass dangling from her fingertips.
Rachel finally cracked a smile, and Claire slumped in her seat, leaning her head back against the chair.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what he saw in me except that I was biddable and eager to please.
When I moved in with him, I asked if I could put my clothes in his bedroom cupboard. He said no.”
“Seriously?”
“I used the guest bedroom’s cupboard instead. But everything was like that. And I didn’t make a fuss. I’m not sure I even minded, really. When you’re so miserable you don’t mind anything, if that makes sense. I was just sleepwalking through life.”
“So that’s why you got drunk at that party. Because you were facing a lifetime of Hugh Hoity-Toity.”
Claire grimaced. “Basically. But to be fair, he wasn’t that bad. He was—is—very handsome and charming. And he could be funny too, when he turned it on.”
“So what did you do when you were drunk?” Rachel asked. “I hope you embarrassed him terribly.”
“I did.” A smile slipped out, and Rachel leaned forward.
“Go on, then. Tell me everything.”
“I don’t remember it all, but I know I danced. On a table.”
Rachel let out a bark of laughter. “I would so have liked to see that.”
“And I sang along to the music. ‘Roar’ by Katy Perry, if I remember correctly. And I don’t have a good singing voice.”
Rachel looked fascinated. “And how did you feel when you were doing all that?” she asked.
“Wonderful,” Claire admitted with a surprised laugh. “Absolutely wonderful.”
“Spot on,” Rachel answered, and then filled both their wineglasses to the brim.
A glass of wine was making her feel woozy, and Claire sipped the second one more slowly.
She imagined the look of horror on her mother’s face to see her drinking at the pub with Rachel Campbell, and then found herself smiling instead of wincing, a mental nose-thumbing at her mother from three hundred miles away.
“So are you going to see Hugh again?” Rachel asked, and Claire shook her head.
“No. We haven’t spoken since I left Portugal.”
“You should ring him. Make sure you’re the one to end it properly.”
Now that was a novel and surprisingly appealing idea. She liked the thought of shocking Hugh. Again.
“I might do that,” she said, and then took a deep breath, offering Rachel a tentative smile. “So are we friends now?”
Rachel didn’t answer for a moment, and Claire braced herself for the inevitable brush-off. One drink didn’t change ten years of hard history.
“We were always friends,” she finally said, and raised her glass in a toast.