Three’s a Crowd

by Dianne Blacklock

  ‘Even if there’s an element of truth in what you’re saying, so what? You’re right, feelings are complicated, we don’t always know where they come from or why. But I know what I feel,’ he said, his voice becoming hoarse, ‘and you don’t have the right to analyse the crap out of it and make it something less than it is.’

  He turned and took a few steps, before he stopped to look back at her. ‘You want to analyse something, then take a good, hard look at yourself, Rachel. Why are you doing this? Is it because you can’t get on a plane and run away this time?’

  Then he turned again and strode away up the grassy slope. Rachel sat where she was, her heart racing, her head spinning, her eyes fixed on him until he walked out onto the street and she lost sight of him.

  It wasn’t relevant, what he was referring to. It had happened so long ago, and it didn’t mean anything, they had both been so drunk. Why was he bringing it up now? It was the night before she left, they had a farewell party at Rainbow Street. Everyone they knew came, and others they didn’t, not because Rachel was leaving, but because there was a party. That’s how it worked back then. All the student share houses were party houses, there was always something on every weekend, and that weekend the excuse was that Rachel was flying out the next day to London, via Bangkok. She didn’t want a big thing at the airport; her flight was too early anyway. She had planned to go alone, by taxi, but Tom wouldn’t hear of it. He was coming to see her off, but only him, she had even managed to fob off Catherine. As the party wore on through the night, and people started dropping like flies all over the house, Rachel was still wide awake and wired. She told Tom she wanted to stay up all night, she could sleep on the plane tomorrow. So they sat outside in the backyard, just the two of them, drinking White Russians and talking and laughing about God knows what. Silly stuff. And of course, inevitably, she started to cry. And Tom held her, and comforted her, and told her how much he was going to miss her, and that she was his best friend. And then they were making out on the damp, hard ground. It must have been three or four in the morning. After a while Tom pulled her to her feet and led her inside, without a word. They went to his bedroom first, at the back of the house, but it was taken, so they walked up the hall to hers.

  Rachel’s mouth was dry. The sun was hot, and her legs, still tucked underneath her, were starting to go numb. She stretched them out, rubbing her calves, wiggling her toes. The memory that she’d spent years suppressing was coming back with a vengeance, so vivid she could almost feel his skin against hers, his mouth. She remembered indulging in the moment, allowing herself to feel what it would be like to be loved by Tom. And she remembered holding him close afterwards as they drifted off to sleep, spent, his head nestled in the crook of her neck, and that he’d said, ‘I don’t want you to go.’

  She’d woken with a start after an hour, maybe two, she didn’t know exactly, but dawn was breaking. She eased herself out of his arms and slipped off the bed. Fortunately Tom slept like a log; Rachel was forever having to wake him up in the mornings when he slept through his alarm. She was all packed; too bad if she’d forgotten anything, she wasn’t going to double-check now. As long as she had her passport and her wallet, that was all that really mattered. She crept out of the room and up the hall, quietly letting herself out of the house. She slung her backpack over her shoulders and walked through the hazy dawn, all the way down to Anzac Parade, where she had more chance of hailing a passing taxi. When she arrived at the airport it was still too early to check in, so she found one of the bathrooms where she could take a shower and change her clothes. She was first in line at the check-in counter when her flight opened, and she didn’t wait for it to be called at the gate, she went straight through Immigration and waited on the other side where only passengers were allowed.

  Not that Rachel actually expected Tom to follow her. That was the whole reason she left like that, so they didn’t have to face each other, feel awkward, feign excuses, fumble for the right words that would let him off the hook. Because although Tom clearly had some affection for her, and she didn’t doubt he would miss their friendship, he would never seriously consider someone like Rachel. He had girls lining up around the block, beautiful girls she could never compete with. Besides, she and Tom had something else, something better. Up to that point they’d shared an intimacy all the sharper because it had never been consummated; he couldn’t hurt her, let her down. Abandon her. And that meant more to her than anything.

  So in the days before email and other forms of instant communication, Rachel was able to keep her distance, writing him a jolly postcard after a couple of weeks, with a few words to let him know she was safe and well, but with no return address. She finally included that after three more such postcards, and when Tom wrote back to her he made no mention of their last night together. It was in the past, forgotten, almost like it had never happened.

  Until the poison pen letter had arrived from Catherine with the news of Annie. Rachel had never told another living soul that she had cried herself to sleep that night, scrunching the letter up to her wet face, till it disintegrated, leaving odd little ink marks on her cheeks.

  She put it down to homesickness at the time, that she was missing out on all her friends’ milestones, but it was entirely her own choice. She could have come home for the wedding – she had money, and she was only working casually in a bar. She could have come home any time she wanted, but she didn’t. She stayed away till Tom was well and truly married, with a couple of kids. When she finally did return, she quickly hooked up with Sean and became one of the girls. And Tom was just someone else’s husband, and that worked for her.

  Rachel hoisted herself up off the grass, stiff and weary, and wandered back down to join the promenade. She didn’t want to go home, she didn’t know what she wanted to do. She’d follow the coastal walk for a while, clear her head. She’d never seen Tom so angry. He said he felt patronised, and maybe that was fair enough, though it certainly hadn’t been her intention. She had to find a way – without upsetting him again – to get him to see the truth in what she was saying. His memory had tricked him into actually believing he’d once had a crush on her and, even more absurd, that she’d broken his heart. Oh, she remembered he’d said that the other night, but she took it for what it was. Extreme nostalgia brought on by drinking White Russians and listening to old Queen songs. Rachel had been wrong to indulge him; she’d virtually handed him a pair of rose-coloured glasses to glorify the past and diminish the real, true, once-in-a-lifetime love he had found with Annie, which he was clearly now terrified of living without.

  She couldn’t get out of her head what Catherine had said the night they’d gone out to dinner for Annie’s birthday: that the more bereft Tom felt, the more likely he would be to rush in to try to fill the void. Well, Rachel couldn’t be that person for him. She wasn’t that strong.

  She looked around, taking in her surroundings. She was probably no more than a block away from Tom’s street. She couldn’t avoid this, there was no plane to catch to far-off places, much as she might wish there were. She wasn’t good at confrontation, Tom had said it himself. But this was not going away by itself; it would remain percolating under the surface, infecting their friendship and, worse, stifling his grief. The deal was over, she wasn’t going to let him be ‘inappropriate’ any more. A good friend, a true friend, would help him deal with his grief, and make it safe for him to do just that.

  Her resolve renewed, Rachel headed for Tom’s place. She didn’t even know for sure that he had gone home, but she had to try; she didn’t want to put it off or she might lose her nerve.

  She walked briskly up the street, praying that Lexie would not suddenly appear out front of her house and think Rachel was coming to visit her, a perfectly reasonable assumption to make. But she made it to Tom’s front door undetected and gave it a firm couple of knocks, despite a slight tremble in her hand. She couldn’t hear any movement inside. Damn, what if he hadn’t come home? She knocked again, loudly,
insistently, and then she heard footsteps, and a muffled, ‘Coming.’ Her heart was in her mouth as she made out his silhouette approaching through the frosted glass. Then the door opened. His face registered surprise, but it was quickly tempered by the anger still festering in his eyes.

  Rachel’s chest was heaving. So much for resolve, she could feel tears rising in her throat, and she realised she was going to choke up if she tried to speak. Tom still hadn’t said anything, he was just staring at her.

  She swallowed hard. ‘I didn’t want to leave things like that,’ she rasped, cupping her hand to her mouth to clear her throat. Tears were stinging her eyes. Pull yourself together. She looked up at him. ‘I didn’t want you to be angry with me,’ she said, but her voice broke up.

  He drew her inside and closed the door as he folded his arms around her. ‘I couldn’t stay angry with you, Rach,’ he murmured, holding her tight as she dissolved into sobs.

  This was not the way it was supposed to go. But maybe it was okay, just for a minute, while she got herself together. He held her close and stroked her hair, softly kissing the side of her head as he shushed her, swaying her gently in his arms. Rachel felt his cheek against hers, his lips close to her ear, his breath on the skin of her neck. It was giving her goose bumps. Okay, enough. ‘Tom . . .’

  He lifted his head to look at her, cupping her face in his hands, his eyes gazing steadily into hers.

  ‘Rachel,’ he breathed as his mouth sank onto hers. She gasped. This wasn’t a dream, they were really kissing. Her heart was pounding as he pressed her up against the wall, his body so close she felt melded to him. This was not supposed to happen, but the sensations were overpowering, his mouth, his tongue, his lips, leaving hers now as they trailed down her neck. Rachel arched her head back, opening her eyes . . .

  ‘No!’ She pushed against his chest. ‘Tom, we can’t –’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he whispered, ‘the girls aren’t here.’

  ‘But Annie is.’

  He blinked. ‘Well, we won’t go into the bedroom.’

  ‘Tom, she’s everywhere!’

  He sighed, leaning his forehead against hers, catching his breath. ‘Okay, wait here,’ he said, breaking away from her and rushing down the hall.

  Rachel stood there, breathing hard. This was getting out of hand, she had to put a stop to it. He reappeared, rattling his car keys.

  ‘Tom, this is not why I came here,’ said Rachel. ‘We have to talk.’

  ‘All right,’ he said, grabbing her hand as he opened the door. ‘We’ll talk back at your place.’

  ‘Tom,’ she stood her ground. ‘I mean it.’

  He looked at her squarely. ‘You want to talk here? With Annie all around?’

  She hesitated. ‘You promise we’re going to talk?’

  ‘Cross my heart,’ he said, leading her through the door.

  ‘No, wait,’ she said, pulling her hand out of his. ‘I don’t want to get into the car with you, what if Lexie sees us?’

  He sighed. ‘Fine.’ He thought about it. ‘You walk down the street, I’ll pick you up at the corner.’

  She frowned, biting her lip. It was all so . . . clandestine.

  ‘Go on, scoot,’ he said, giving her a gentle push out the door. ‘I’ll give you a head start.’

  He was right, they couldn’t stay here. Rachel scuppered quickly out through the front gate and down the street, not looking back towards Lexie’s house. As she hurried to the corner, she began to have second thoughts. How had she let that happen? She could still feel his lips on her face, her neck, it sent a shiver through her body just thinking about it. And now they were going to her place? Oh, this was bad. She was really going to have to be firm with him. They had to talk.

  ‘Rachel!’

  She looked up. Lexie was pushing the pram across the road towards her, holding Riley by the hand. Oh shit.

  She had reached the kerb, and was negotiating the pram up onto the footpath. How was Rachel going to play this? She took a deep breath, walking sedately to meet her.

  ‘Hi! What are you doing here?’ Lexie beamed at her.

  ‘Well, I was . . . in the neighbourhood,’ she began, ‘and, actually, I just called by your place, but you weren’t there, obviously,’ she added with a nervous laugh.

  ‘No, I just took the kids for a paddle, but we’re heading home now, so come on back.’

  ‘Oh, I better not,’ said Rachel, consulting her watch and shaking her head regretfully. ‘See, now I’m out of time.’

  Lexie frowned. ‘But haven’t you just come from my place?’

  ‘Um, yeah . . .’ Think!

  ‘Mu-um,’ said Riley, yanking on his mother’s arm.

  ‘Excuse me, Riley, Mummy and Rachel are talking,’

  ‘He’s fine, go ahead, Riley,’ Rachel said. Interrupt away, kid.

  ‘I have to do a wee, Mum,’ he winced, clutching at his crotch.

  ‘Best not hold you up then,’ said Rachel, relieved, unlike poor Riley.

  ‘But you’ll come with us?’ Lexie persisted.

  ‘You know, the thing is, when I got to your place, Tom was out the front, he was getting into his car, and well, we got talking, and you know, it must have been twenty minutes, half an hour, and now, well, I really am out of time. I was only dropping in to say hi.’

  A car pulled up behind her, and Lexie looked past Rachel. ‘Oh, here’s Tom now.’

  Rachel turned around. She hoped he had the sense to follow her lead.

  The passenger window slid open and he leaned into view. ‘Hi ladies, what’s happening?’

  Rachel came closer, ducking down to look at him. ‘I was just telling Lexie how I called by to see her, and she wasn’t there but you were out the front, getting into your car, and we were talking for ages, and well, now I’m out of time.’

  ‘Oh, you should have said. Can I give you a lift somewhere?’

  Good save.

  She looked at her watch again. ‘You know, that’d be great actually, thanks, Tom.’ She turned back to Lexie. ‘I’ll call you soon about lunch, okay?’

  Lexie looked a little bemused, but she raised her hand in a wave. ‘Okay, bye guys.’

  Rachel jumped into the car and Tom took off from the kerb with a toot of the horn. He turned out of the street before reaching over to plant his hand on her knee. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Tom,’ she sighed, removing his hand. ‘I don’t think this is a good idea.’

  ‘You don’t think what’s a good idea? Going to your place to talk?’

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s what I’m worried about, I don’t know how much talking is going to happen.’

  ‘See, you can’t pretend there’s not something going on between us.’ He slowed the car to a stop as traffic bottlenecked ahead.

  ‘That doesn’t make it right.’

  He turned abruptly to look at her. ‘You think it’s wrong?’

  Of course she thought it was wrong. How could she not? Kissing and cavorting in his dead wife’s house, what could be right about that? Annie was supposed to have been her friend.

  ‘I think a lot of things,’ said Rachel. ‘What happened back there, with Lexie, for example.’

  ‘What’s the problem? We covered it.’

  ‘Exactly, and we had to lie to a friend to do it.’

  ‘Well, technically, you did the lying,’ he said, a twinkle in his eye.

  ‘Tom,’ she chided, ‘don’t try and make light of this.’

  He faced to the front as the traffic started to move again. ‘I’m not making light, Rach, I just don’t think we did anything wrong. Or that we’re doing anything wrong.’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Come on, we’re consenting adults. Why does this have to be so hard?’

  She looked at him, amazed. ‘I can’t believe you’re saying that. If you don’t understand the enormous issues involved, then we really do have a problem.’

  He straightened his arms
out, clenching the steering wheel. ‘So I suppose now we’re going to talk about what’s appropriate or not again? I thought I didn’t have to do that with you.’

  ‘It’s not that simple, Tom. Other people are involved.’

  She didn’t want to even think about the way Catherine would react, but hitting roofs would surely be involved. And poor Lexie would just be confused; she had such unwavering loyalty to Annie, it would seem like a betrayal to her. And wasn’t it? Surely there was some kind of statute of limitations on something like this? And Rachel bet it had to be longer than a few measly months. Annie deserved better. The knot of guilt in Rachel’s stomach tightened another notch.

  ‘Nobody’s going to be able to handle this,’ she muttered, least of all herself.

  ‘It’s nobody else’s business,’ Tom said bluntly.

  ‘What about your daughters?’

  She saw the first hint of understanding flicker across his eyes.

  ‘It’s too soon, Tom. And it’ll be weird for them.’

  ‘Okay, I agree,’ he relented. ‘It is a little too soon for the girls to process. So we just have to wait a while, keep it to ourselves, and then introduce the idea to them, slowly, and sensitively. That’s possible, isn’t it?’

  ‘I guess,’ she faltered. Again, this was heading in a direction she hadn’t planned at all. They weren’t supposed to be talking about how they were going to be together; they were barrelling along entirely the wrong track.

  He was watching her. ‘What is it, Rach?’

  ‘There’s just a lot more to it.’

  ‘All right, what else?’ he said in a businesslike way, as though they were running through items on an agenda.

  Rachel sighed. They had to talk about Annie. She had to get Tom to talk about Annie. They couldn’t just go on as though she never existed. It wasn’t right. But not here in the car, it didn’t seem . . . respectful somehow.

  ‘We’re nearly there, let’s talk about it when we get inside.’

  Ten minutes later, Tom was perched on the edge of her couch, a glass of water at hand, watching her expectantly. Rachel had pulled an armchair over to face him, with the coffee table between them – she needed to keep a little distance.