The End of Cuthbert Close

by Cassie Hamer

  James stood up slowly, the bed creaking. ‘Well, I think he really got the message about the consequences of stealing, don’t you?’ He shook his head. ‘iPad time, really? Is that the best you could do?’

  ‘We’re running late.’ She hurried out of the room.

  ‘Night, boys. Night, Talia,’ James called from the hallway, collecting his keys and jacket.

  ‘Night, Dad,’ they chorused back.

  ‘See, they’re happy,’ hissed Alex, giving her lipstick a final check in the mirror. James didn’t answer.

  In the car, he drove stony-faced. It wasn’t like him at all to give her the silent treatment. That was usually Alex’s MO, and James tended to disregard it. He liked to talk things out. Endlessly. It was exhausting. But she realised, now, that it was far preferable to this – the silence.

  Alex’s phone buzzed. A message from Beth.

  Oh, you found my engagement ring! You wonderful, wonderful thing. Where was it?

  ‘So, the ring does belong to Beth. Her engagement ring.’ Alex stared straight ahead. ‘She wants to know where we found it.’

  ‘Tell her the truth.’ James kept his eyes fixed on the road.

  ‘What? That our son stole it from her? She’s one of my best friends. I can’t tell her that. Besides, we don’t even know for sure that he did do it. He’s denied it outright and quite frankly it is hard to understand why a five-year-old boy would steal a diamond ring.’

  ‘Weren’t you the one threatening him with jail?’

  ‘Yes, but only to scare him into telling us the truth.’

  James looked at her hard. ‘I think you know the truth, you just don’t want to admit it.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Trashing the classroom at school, that picture he drew of himself, now this ring business. It’s all about getting our attention. They’re cries for help.’

  Alex stared at the brake lights of the car in front and narrowed her gaze until her vision was filled with a blur of red.

  ‘I even wonder if Noah had something to do with Henny’s death?’ pondered James.

  Alex’s head snapped back. ‘So now our son is a guinea pig murderer? That’s utterly ridiculous. And I know for a fact it’s not true. Talia told me what happened. It was definitely the Devines’ cat.’

  ‘Okay, well, regardless, we’ve always sworn we’d never be the kind of parents who buried their heads in the sand when it came to the kids. There’s a problem here and we need to address it.’

  Alex wound down the window. She couldn’t breathe. Between the damn dress and James’s ridiculous comments, suggesting he thought their son capable of killing a pet, her body couldn’t complete the most basic of functions.

  Alex gulped the air. ‘Noah may have some issues, but he’s far from being a budding psychopath,’ she croaked. ‘I think you’re saying all of this to make me feel guilty. You don’t want me to take the partnership, why don’t you just admit it?’ Alex gripped the armrest. The wind rushed at her, too fast for her to breathe. Everything was coming at her so quickly. The baby, the partnership, Noah’s problems. Her vision was narrowing, becoming black at the edges. It was like rushing headlong into a tunnel, and falling down, further and further, with James calling after her.

  ‘Alex, Alex.’ But his voice was distant, watery and melting away. She blinked and blinked again, tried to focus on the red light but the dark had overtaken that as well.

  Suddenly, everything was blissfully black and silent.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Cara put the final spoonful of beef bourguignon into the last of the thirty-eight plastic containers laid out on the trestle table in the back of the shed. Beth followed behind, adding a sprinkling of parsley. Served on a bed of cauliflower mash, with a side of blanched green beans, the French casserole, with its flavours of salty bacon, rich red wine and fragrant garlic, was proving one of the most popular of Nourish’s dishes. Overall, orders for the week ahead were up by fifty per cent. Everyone who’d ordered in the first week had ordered again, and this time more meals. Tonight, with Poppy asleep and Max out with the kids at a movie, Beth and Cara planned to crank out two of the seven dishes on offer for the week.

  ‘There. One lot of meals. Done.’ Beth wiped her hands against her apron and mopped her brow. ‘Thank goodness.’ Cara put the pot back on the camp stove and absentmindedly licked the ladle.

  ‘Did you season this?’ She took a second taste.

  ‘I think I did.’ Beth frowned. ‘I did it just before Alex’s text message about the ring.’

  ‘Are you sure? Because it tastes really flat.’ Cara scraped again at the bottom of the saucepan and offered Beth the spoon.

  She made a face. ‘I don’t understand. I had the salt in my hand. The phone buzzed, so I replied to Alex and then …’ She pressed her fingers to her cheek, her little finger resting on her lip. ‘I’m sure I put it in. It was in my hand. Maybe I didn’t quite stir it through to the bottom.’

  Using a fresh spoon, Cara dipped lightly into one of the filled containers. ‘This one’s the same.’ She tested another. ‘So’s this one.’

  Beth wrung her hands in the apron. ‘I’m so sorry, Cara. I must have forgotten. I think I was so distracted I just … I just forgot. There must be a way we can fix it.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Cara. ‘If we put it back in the pot, there’ll be cauliflower and parsley all through it.’ She dropped the spoon with a clatter back in the saucepan. ‘It’ll look terrible.’

  ‘Maybe we could supply it with a sachet of salt on the side?’

  ‘Like you get at McDonald’s? You know we can’t do that, Beth. This is a premium product. These mothers are paying so they don’t have to lift a finger.’

  Beth was quiet. ‘I’m sorry. Really.’

  Cara looked at the food before them. All the wasted time and effort, not to mention the cost of buying the ingredients. How could Beth make such a basic mistake? She was a better cook than that. Cara clenched her fingers and tried to swallow the ball of anger in her throat. First, the fire, then Alex’s social media faux pas over the launch, and now this, a dish completely ruined, because of Beth. It was like they were deliberately trying to sabotage the business or, at least, simply weren’t taking it seriously enough. It was fine for them, she supposed. After all, they had choices. They had husbands. Their homes in Cuthbert Close were secure, at least for now.

  She took a breath. She remembered this anger. This sense that the world was conspiring against her. She’d felt it the day Pete’s oncologist had sat them down to tell them his cancer was terminal. There were new tumours. Too many for surgery, and too aggressive to be controlled with chemo. Cara was stunned. Speechless at first. Then, the baby inside of her, Poppy, kicked, and Cara felt her anger ignite. How dare the doctor give up on them. There had to be something. A second opinion. An experimental treatment. Something. In the doctor’s small, airless office, she ranted and raged until Pete put his hand over hers.

  ‘Cara, he’s trying his best. We’re all trying our best.’

  The admonishment shamed her. Pete was right. There was no one to blame. No point to her anger. It was just stupid, dumb bad luck that her husband was going to die, and she could either accept it with grace and make the most of their final days and months together, or she could carry on like a spoilt child. After the appointment, she went home and cooked a cheesecake and she and Pete had eaten every last piece of it.

  Cara had never made another.

  ‘I know you’re sorry, Beth. I know you didn’t do this on purpose.’ Cara sighed. ‘I’m sorry, too. For being cross.’ She folded her arms. ‘I just really need this business to work.’

  Beth stood before her and pushed a stray hair off Cara’s face. ‘It is going to work. I’m going to make sure of it,’ she said. ‘Now, how about we get started on that second dish? I’ll pack these up and maybe we could offer them to residents of the close at half price so we can at least get our costs back?’ Beth stifled a y
awn. ‘Let’s get started.’

  ‘I’ve got a better idea,’ said Cara, taking in the grey circles under Beth’s eyes. ‘Let’s pack up these meals and call it a night. We can start the pasta dish first thing tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Beth gave a relieved smile. ‘That sounds perfect.’

  Half an hour later, the shed was back to its normal spotless self, with all the meals packed into Beth’s freezer.

  ‘Back here at seven?’ Beth untied her apron.

  ‘Can’t wait.’ Cara smiled and watched to make sure her neighbour made it safely through the fence. At her back door, Beth gave a wave and disappeared.

  Inside the cottage, Cara checked on the sleeping Poppy. Her daughter was splayed across the bed, damp curls stuck to her forehead. Cara tried imagining her in a different bed, in a different room other than the one she’d known all her life.

  She couldn’t.

  She didn’t want to. Just thinking about it made her eyes sting.

  She shifted off the door frame and went into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine. The flushed cheeks wouldn’t matter, not when she was all alone anyway. What she needed was alcohol and the food channel. Apart from cooking, it was the perfect balm for her mournful mood.

  Settling back into the couch, she aimed the remote control at the TV and fired. The sound of an angry, berating Englishman filled her lounge room. Gordon Ramsay. Exactly what she didn’t need – a chef scouring other people’s kitchens for evidence of poor hygiene and cooking.

  ‘Give them a break,’ she muttered at the screen. ‘They’re doing their best.’

  Her phone bleeped with a text message and Cara nearly dived on it, relieved to have an excuse to take her attention away from the expletive-ridden angst being played out on screen.

  It was from Will. Cara sat up quickly, cursing the small spill of wine that her sudden movement caused. Heart thumping, she started to read.

  Hi Cara, I know it’s late but I thought you’d like to know this sooner rather than later … I’m in. For the house, that is. I’ve done the numbers and I’m pretty confident that it stacks up as a great investment. The family doesn’t mind, as long as they get their cash they don’t care. I’ll touch base next week to have documents drawn up.

  She yelped and read the message again. Once. Twice. Three times to make sure her eyes weren’t tricking her. No. It was there on the screen. The phone trembled in her fingers. He was in! Definitely in. Her mind scrambled to think through everything that short text message of less than 100 words meant. No moving. No new school. No long commute. No shoebox apartment. No living with her parents. Provided she could get a modest loan from the bank, their lives wouldn’t have to change at all.

  She and Poppy could stay! They could live. They could sit and breathe and laugh and play and paint and cook and work and stay close to Pete’s memory, just as they’d always done.

  The only thing she couldn’t do was fall in love with Will Parry.

  And that was fine, she told herself. Perfectly fine.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  ‘Alex.’ There was a tugging at her arm. ‘Alex, Alex, wake up.’ Now there were fingers on her chin, moving her head from side to side. ‘Alex. Come on.’

  Where was she? The last thing she remembered was poor dead little Henny the guinea pig and Noah stomping on her with a diamond ring between his teeth and a demonic glint in his eye. Wait. What the fuck?

  Alex’s eyes blazed open to find James approximately an inch from her face, his forehead creased with worry.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Alex clutched the seatbelt. Now she knew where she was. The car. The fundraising ball. Her big night to shine on behalf of Macauley.

  ‘You fainted.’ James took her wrist. ‘Your pulse is going crazy.’ He touched her head. ‘And you’re quite feverish. I think you’re coming down with something.’

  ‘I just fell asleep for a minute,’ Alex protested, pushing James’s hand away, her head spinning wildly. She blinked. And blinked again to bring the world back to a standstill. ‘I’m fine,’ she said through gritted teeth.

  ‘No, you’re not.’ He was firm. ‘And you didn’t just fall asleep, you fainted. We were in the middle of a conversation and you stopped, mid-sentence.’

  ‘I’m exhausted! I’m pregnant, don’t forget.’ As if to prove the point, she burped, a bilious, eggy ejection that fortunately seemed to ease her queasy stomach.

  James clenched the steering wheel. ‘Let’s just go home.’

  ‘No.’ Alex released the handbrake. ‘We are going to this ball.’ She tried to lean forward, but was constrained by the seatbelt. ‘Now if I can just loosen this stupid dress and breathe properly then everything will be fine.’

  James watched her.

  ‘Maybe instead of just sitting there, you could help me,’ she snapped, twisting in the seat.

  In silence, James undid the zipper and Alex breathed deeply, taking in blessed lungfuls of oxygen.

  ‘There, that’s better. See, I’m fine now. I just needed to, you know, breathe.’

  ‘Life is pretty tricky without it,’ said James drily, observing her.

  ‘Well, come on then. What are you waiting for? Let’s go. We’re already twenty minutes late.’

  ‘You cannot be serious.’

  ‘I’m perfectly serious.’

  ‘How are you going to walk around that ballroom with your dress half undone?’

  Alex rummaged through her handbag. ‘I’ve got a safety pin here somewhere so I’ll just pin it and cover the back with my wrap.’ She held up the pashmina. ‘Never leave home without one.’

  ‘This is crazy.’ James tapped the steering wheel. ‘No job could be worth this.’

  Alex looked at him. ‘In ten years, when we are debt-free and sitting on a very large retirement fund, you’ll thank me.’

  ‘If I’m still around,’ James muttered under his breath.

  Alex pretended not to hear.

  At the oversized entry doors to the ballroom, under a sparkling chandelier, Alex paused. Behind the solid wooden panels, the ball was in full swing. A jazz band, as James had predicted. She twirled slowly in a circle before her husband. ‘Can you tell I’m pinned in?’

  James studied her. ‘You wouldn’t know a thing.’

  ‘Perfect.’ She took his hand. ‘Thank you for doing this.’

  The silence of the remaining car ride had given her time to think rationally. James wasn’t trying to stand in the way of her career. He’d always been nothing but supportive. He was worried for her. For the kids, and that was perfectly understandable. She loved him for that. But he didn’t understand how these things worked. He also had no idea of what it was like to go without. His mum’s idea of deprivation was refusing to foot the bill for James’s French horn lessons, on account of the horrendous racket. The poor woman still felt guilty. How could James understand Alex’s drive to secure their family’s financial future? How could he understand that a law firm gave one chance and one chance only? This was her time. All she had to do was be brave enough to take it.

  She straightened James’s tie and led him into the ballroom. Both of them stopped under the entry banner, emblazoned with the words A Night of Diamonds: Helping Our Kids Shine Brighter.

  Three months ago, she’d attended a conference here about new corporate regulation and remembered the room being as boring and stale as the ginger nut biscuits served at break time.

  Tonight, it was like entering a planetarium.

  Gone was the beige wallpaper, and in its place were heavy swathes of black velvet. The harsh overhead lighting had been replaced by hundreds of glow-lamps on each table, projecting stars and planets about the room.

  ‘Oh, it’s gorgeous, don’t you think?’ Alex turned to James excitedly.

  ‘If only the sick kids could be here to see it,’ he remarked through tense lips.

  Alex took his hand. ‘Please. Please just go along
with this. For me?’

  James nodded grimly and tucked her hand under his arm as they made their way to the Macauley table, Alex being careful to make sure her wrap didn’t snag on anyone’s chair. The last thing she needed was a wardrobe malfunction.

  She spotted Martin, sitting at the table and studying the menu. An older man sat to his side, next to a substantially younger woman who appeared to be wearing more make-up than clothing.

  Alex waved to get Martin’s attention, and plastered a bright smile to her face. ‘Hi there, sorry we’re late. You remember James, don’t you?’

  Martin frowned for a minute before allowing himself a nod of recognition. ‘Hello, James. Good to see you again.’

  The two shook hands and Martin turned to the man on his left. ‘Anthony, you’ve met Alexandra O’Rourke, I believe. She was one of the senior associates on your acquisition last year.’

  Anthony made a face and offered his hand. ‘I’ve tried to forget all the lawyers I met last year.’

  ‘I try to do the same,’ joked Alex. ‘What’s your name again?’ she said to Martin.

  ‘She’s funny,’ Anthony remarked. ‘Keep her.’

  ‘Alexandra is one of our rising stars. We have big plans for her,’ said Martin. ‘She’s also a mother of two. Twins, I think?’

  Alex blinked. Martin never mentioned her children. She wasn’t even sure he knew she had them.

  Anthony shook his head. ‘I don’t know how you young women do it all. Or why you do it all.’

  ‘Because we love to work and we love our kids,’ said Alex, laughing. ‘And we want both. That’s not too much to ask, is it?’

  Anthony sat down and leant back, his fingers playing at the base of his wineglass. ‘And what does your husband think about that?’

  ‘I think Alex doesn’t know when to stop,’ said James.

  ‘I like that in a lawyer,’ said Anthony. ‘A tiger.’

  The band struck up a new song that Alex recognised as the old Sinatra standard ‘Fly Me to the Moon’.

  The bejewelled and heavily made-up woman on Anthony’s other side squeezed his arm. ‘C’mon, this is boring. We’re not here to talk shop all night.’