The pang of a guilty conscience twisted in Dan’s gut. ‘Bloody hell.’
Ry leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. ‘But wait, there’s more. Turns out his wife was doing the dirty with his best friend.’
‘Ouch.’ Dan winced.
‘And he caught them. In flagrante delicto.’
‘Double ouch.’
‘So, he got in his car and drove right back to Middle Point.’
Dan considered Joe’s story, weighed up all that he knew from what Ry had just revealed and what he’d seen with his own eyes the other night at Lizzie’s. Damn it. There was more to the bloke than he’d figured, and he could totally understand why someone whose life was falling to bits would want to leave the city behind, and all that they knew, and head to this sleepy coastal town. Dan hadn’t grown up here and he’d still found it a place of refuge and retreat. From what Lizzie had said about him, Joe hadn’t been home in years. It couldn’t have been easy to come back with his tail between his legs. No job. No wife. Everything in a state of flux, not knowing what was ahead of you and whether you’d actually make it around the next corner to see the possibilities and the problems.
Dan finished his beer and decided it would be his first and last for the day. He needed a clear head to think. ‘You know, Ry, I can’t say I like the guy, but I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.’
Ry looked to the cheering noise come from the television. ‘Gold for Australia, that’s another wicket down. He’s all right, Dan, give him a break.’
Dan got defensive. ‘Why should I? Why do I have to like the bloke?’
Ry chuckled. ‘I wouldn’t get between Lizzie and her brother, if you know what’s good for you. He’s her family.’
And all she has left.
Dan had lost interest in the match by the first ball of the fourth over. After that, it became nothing but a visual jumble of blokes playing a bit of bat and ball. He didn’t care if Australia was thrashed.
Every thought in his head was about Lizzie. He felt further apart from her than ever. Given what he’d just found out about her brother, how could he tell her what he’d been through, what he’d been battling? How could he add to the burdens she already had? Dan understood family and what that meant. Ry had dropped everything after the accident, had done what families are supposed to do. Lizzie was doing the same for Joe. It’s what people did for each other. And if Joe was brave enough to talk to his sister, all power to him. Maybe he was a bigger man than Dan had realised.
He knew all about keeping secrets and hiding the truth. Hell, until New Year’s Eve, he’d still believed that some things were best left unsaid. His plan to change that was now hanging in the air like the freeze-framed shot of a ball about to leave the bowler’s hand. If the image remained static, no one would ever know the outcome of that delivery. It could hang there for eternity. No resolution. No one would ever be out. No score would ever be recorded from it.
He’d wanted to be honest with Lizzie. To tell her the truth. He’d wanted her to see him for who he really was. The man he’d become, for better or worse. A man with more baggage than a Qantas flight to London.
She was right. Their timing was terrible.
After a week of sisterly rebukes for his secret squirrel behaviour, Lizzie forgave Joe. Not that it was easy, mind, but after they’d talked it through she understood his reasons. Some blokes don’t like to talk about stuff, he’d told her, don’t like the idea of eviscerating themselves just to satisfy other people’s expectations of what sadness and grief should look like. When she’d asked for the umpteenth time how he was doing, Joe had given her a stern big-brother lecture.
‘I’m feeling like crap actually, Mosquito, and I’m allowed to feel like crap. I’m unemployed, my wife left me for my best friend and I’m sleeping in a single bed in my childhood bedroom. How the fuck do you expect me to feel?’
She’d stopped asking after that. He had a point, after all, the smug shit that he was. It turned out that he’d only told her the truth on New Year’s Day, just before Dan had come over, because he’d had a call from Jasmine. She’d just told him there was no chance of reconciling, that she was moving in with his best friend. His ex-best friend.
And thinking of that night made her think of Dan. Again. Raking over the coals of that evening was turning out to be torture. She’d wanted so much to spend it with Dan, drinking that beautiful champagne together, flirting and fucking. Oh, God yes, she’d planned on fucking him. The scorching kiss out front of the pub on New Year’s Eve had whipped her senses into a frenzy which had buzzed through her body for the twenty-four hours after that, making her skittish with expectation and giddy with the thought of his hands on her, and hers on him.
But hearing Joe’s news had evaporated all that sensation. She’d been transformed from potential sex goddess to concerned sister in one sentence.
Four times in the past few days, Lizzie had picked up her phone and scrolled down to Dan’s number. And four times, she’d chickened out.
Of course she’d wanted to be there for Joe. Unlike her, he’d at least opened up to someone about his pain. Maybe it was the fatal Blake flaw, she wondered, the compulsion to keep secrets until they buried you with their weight and their guilt.
There was something else she shared with Joe, besides their blue eyes. Listening to Joe unburden himself, talk about his pain and his heartache, meant her secret had uncloaked itself, knocked at the door of her throat, tried to force its way out, to finally be spoken. The secret she’d kept hidden since London, because she’d learned from bitter experience that telling someone, someone important, simply drove them away. The secrets she’d hidden since she’d fallen apart and put herself back together again in Middle Point.
Saying it out loud would mean reliving it. It would mean explaining why she’d run home and had never left again. Why she’d never been brave enough to have any ambitions that didn’t involve this life, this house and her job at the pub.
Had it helped Joe to talk about his pain? It was too early to judge. If she revealed hers, would the burden be lifted from her shoulders or magically erased from her life? Would it mean it had never happened? (For that’s what she really wanted). Would it help others forgive her, those she’d hurt by keeping it secret?
She’d not thought about this chain of damage for years, not until Dan’s accident and not really until Joe’s confession.
Was she as brave as Joe? In her private moments, when she was in bed late at night, the cool of the sheets on her limbs, the gusting southerlies rattling the windowpanes and fluttering her curtains, she tried to imagine telling the story again.
Was she strong enough this time to cope with the consequences?
CHAPTER
23
The weather in Middle Point during January veered from eye-poppingly blazing hot, to cloudy and wet, often within twenty-four hours, but the locals took it in their stride. Usually it was cooler down on the coast than it was in Adelaide, which is what had attracted holidaymakers for more than a century to the small towns along the Fleurieu Peninsula during summer holidays.
No matter the weather, when it was peak season, the pub was busy and that meant Lizzie was busy. The added attraction of The Market every Sunday morning had seen more and more people coming to Middle Point. There were now twice as many stalls as they’d started out with, which thrilled Lizzie to her toes, and the breakfast trade had started well and was growing, too.
It hadn’t been a challenge for Lizzie to keep her distance from Dan. She spent most of her waking hours at work and he hadn’t shown up there. She hadn’t forgotten his parting words to her: You know where I am. And I’ll be waiting. She knew exactly where he was and she needed him like a pub needs beer, but she couldn’t summon up the courage to say it to his face. Saying she needed someone, needed him in particular, came with all sorts of complications. Lizzie had learned not to need people. She’d never had a father to rely on. Her mother and grandmother had died. Joe had left Middle Point
and so had Julia. Other people she’d relied on had abandoned her, too. What was the point? From a very early age she’d learned to stand on her own two feet. Needing people only hurt too much when they let you down.
As the days wore on, Lizzie grew progressively more tired and sick of herself. Joe had reverted to the archetypal cynical journo and was now regularly on his soapbox, with her as a reluctant audience, railing against love and commitment and all that went with it. It was all an excruciating irony for Lizzie, given that she was soon to be the bridesmaid at her best friend’s wedding, the embodiment of love and commitment between two people.
She glanced around at the packed front bar and was relieved it was her time for a half-hour lunch break. The bride-to-be was parked at a corner table over in the dining area, her laptop open in front of her, typing furiously. Lizzie walked over and sat opposite, placed her octopus salad on the table, and began picking at it in a desultory fashion.
Julia tore her eyes of the screen and looked over the table at her friend. ‘We’ve made a decision, Lizzie.’
Julia’s smile would have been infectious if Lizzie wasn’t so shattered. She crunched on her baby spinach, speared chunks of her octopus and managed an absent-minded smile between bites. ‘That’s good.’ Lizzie had propped one elbow on the table and rested her chin there, barely finding the energy to chew.
‘Ry and I have decided where the wedding will be.’
‘Nice.’ Lizzie took another bite, completely oblivious to the silence of Julia’s scrutinising gaze.
‘We’re going to go with a nude theme.’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Ry’s going to parachute in wearing nothing but a smile.’
‘Great.’
Julia reached over and touched her friend’s hand. Lizzie startled and looked up through heavily lidded eyes.
‘Right. That’s it.’ Julia slammed her laptop shut and reached for her mobile.
Lizzie dropped her fork with a clatter, felt the guilt battle with the fatigue. ‘Sorry, Jools, I wasn’t paying attention.’
Julia pressed her phone to her ear, her cheeks ruddy with anger. ‘Go get your things,’ she instructed Lizzie. ‘Ry, it’s me. You need to find someone to take over at the pub for a couple of days. I’m taking Lizzie home. She’s exhausted.’
Lizzie held up a hand, waved it at Julia. ‘I’m okay, Jools. Stop it. I just need a coffee. Or three.’
‘Okay. We’ll wait ’til you get here.’ Julia jabbed the screen and dropped her phone on the table. Then she turned her attention to Lizzie. ‘Have you realised how hard you’ve been working? When’s the last time you had two consecutive days off?’
Lizzie stopped, let her mind whir back over the past few weeks, and it took a few moments to realise it had been around the day the two of them had gone wedding dress shopping in Adelaide. A month before.
‘I thought so,’ Julia said through gritted teeth. ‘You can’t remember, either. You’ve been doing your new job, working on the renovation, running The Market on Sundays, coping with tourist season. And on top of that, you’ve had Joe.’
Julia hadn’t added Dan to that mix, Lizzie noticed. She blinked the thought of him away.
‘I’m going to look after you, Lizzie. It’s about time somebody did. As soon as Ry arrives, I’m taking you home and forcing you to rest.’
Lizzie didn’t know where they’d come from but she felt tears in her eyes.
‘I am going to force-feed you chocolate and wine and make you watch at least three decent rom-coms. Per day. Total R&R.’
It was a miracle to Lizzie that her best friend knew exactly what she needed. She managed a smile. ‘You’re so bossy.’
‘And from now on, the wedding planning is out of your hands. I shouldn’t have asked you, with all that you’ve got on your plate. How crazy was I?’
‘No, don’t do that,’ Lizzie exclaimed. ‘I’m as excited about the wedding as you are. It’s no trouble, really.’
Julia shook her head, adamant. ‘You are officially relieved of wedding duties. As of right now.’
Lizzie signed. ‘As much as I love the summer, I’m kind of looking forward to when the school year starts so all this craziness will slow down.’
‘Ladies.’ Ry appeared by Julia’s side, kissed her warmly. ‘I was on my way. What’s going on?’
‘You,’ Julia jabbed him in the chest, ‘are working my best friend too hard.’
Ry pulled up a chair, sat down and searched Lizzie’s face. ‘It has been kind of busy, hasn’t it, Lizzie?’
She shrugged. ‘It’s the season, Ry. That’s why no one down here on the south coast takes holidays this time of year. We usually wait until the middle of winter and then find somewhere warm. With no people.’
Ry shook his head. ‘Julia’s right. This has been a bit of an experiment, our first summer. I know you’ve taken on The Market as well and our numbers are looking sensational. What do you say we get someone in to help? Maybe an assistant manager?’
Lizzie nodded. ‘That sounds great, Ry.’
‘Good. I’m taking over now so go home.’ He shooed the two women out of the pub and towards his car.
Home. Lizzie thought about what home was as her own came into view. She’d barely seen it lately and missed it terribly. Of course, when she’d been home, to fall into bed and do almost nothing else, Joe had been there, taking up too much space for one person. He’d been a total misery guts. At first, she’d been full of understanding, sympathetic utterings and bottles of whisky. But her patience had begun to wear thin. So something crappy had happened to him. He wasn’t the first person in the world to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous…she was too tired to remember the rest.
Lizzie pushed open her front door to find Joe stretched out on the sofa. She heard Julia behind her swearing under her breath.
‘Hey,’ he said, barely looking in her direction.
‘Right. That’s it.’ Julia was in full she-wolf mode.
Julia pointed at Joe. ‘You. Sydney. Grab a change of clothes and an overnight bag. I’m going to introduce you to the pleasures of beachfront living, from my spare bedroom.’
‘Huh?’ Now she had Joe’s attention.
‘Lizzie needs some peace and quiet and she’s not getting it with you here.’
He sat up slowly, a scowl on his face. ‘Are you kicking me out?’
Julia rolled her eyes at Lizzie. ‘Not surprised he’s a journalist. He catches on fast, doesn’t he? Yes, Joe, I’m kicking you out. I’m looking after my best friend, who’s been too busy looking after you and everyone else to realise that she is about to drop from exhaustion.’
Joe’s scowl was replaced by a look of genuine concern as he regarded his sister. ‘Yeah, you do look like crap.’
‘Thanks, Stinkface,’ she muttered.
Joe stood to his full height. ‘I can just stay out of her way. I don’t need to evacuate to your place, Jools.’
Julia tossed him a bag full of DVDs. ‘We’re about to begin a rom-com marathon. Four Weddings and a Funeral. Bridget Jones’s Diary. When Harry Met Sally. The Wedding Singer…and that’s just today. Any questions?’
Joe hadn’t moved so fast since he’d been back in Middle Point. ‘I’ll just get my stuff.’
Two weddings in to Four Weddings and a Funeral, Julia paused the movie. Lizzie lay sleepily on the long sofa, stretched out like a cat. Joe had gone to Ry and Julia’s, happy to escape the overdose of oestrogen. Lizzie felt happily lazy, a glass of white wine on the table in front of her, her best friend right by her side with whom she could share raunchy comments about the younger Hugh Grant. Who was now paused mid-sentence.
Julia grinned. ‘So, here’s what I was trying to tell you at the pub before you went all dozy on me.’
‘Sorry.’ Lizzie yawned. ‘Brain fade.’
‘I totally understand. I should have noticed earlier that you’ve been working yourself to the bone. I’m sorry. I’ve been a little distracted myself. Work has picked up a
nd I’ve been head down tail up in my clients’ problems. But now, I need to talk to you about the wedding.’
‘I know I haven’t been much help, not as much as I’d like to be.’
Julia batted that away. ‘Oh shoosh. Listen up. Ry and I have decided to ditch all our big wedding plans. I don’t know what I was thinking. Got a little bridezilla there for a minute or two. We want the ceremony here.’
Lizzie crunched on a salt and vinegar chip. Her favourite kind. ‘That’s not news. I already knew you were getting married in Middle Point. You thinking of the Memorial Hall for the reception?’
‘No, Lizzie. We want to get married at the pub.’
Lizzie flopped back down on the sofa and sighed at the simplicity of the plan. ‘Of course.’
‘I know I’ve been harbouring all these fantasy plans about the perfect wedding, but I realised it would be perfect there. Simple. Uncomplicated. And The Market looks so brilliant, thanks to you and Dan, so we’re going to have the ceremony out there. There’ll be platters of food rather than a sit-down dinner and an open bar. We can set up a dance floor outside too, and we’re going to hire in some caterers so you won’t have to lift a finger. Except, of course, to look gorgeous in your bridesmaid’s dress.’
Lizzie held three fingers to her forehead in a girl guide’s salute. ‘I promise to look gorgeous but not as gorgeous as you.’
‘That goes without saying,’ Julia laughed. ‘And I’ve ditched the whole idea of getting a make-up artist to drive down from Adelaide to make us look as gorgeous as we need to be. I’ve booked us in to Megan’s in Port Elliot for our hair and make-up. And…’
Lizzie saw the tears in Julia’s eyes.
‘…I’ve decided to wear Mum’s wedding dress.’
Lizzie’s let out a sigh. ‘Oh, Jools. She would be so happy.’
‘It’ll be my “something old” and “something borrowed” all wrapped up in one.’
Lizzie raised her glass. ‘To your beautiful mother, Mary.’ Julia clinked her glass with Lizzie’s and wiped the tears from her face.
Someone Like You Page 23