‘Include us every step of the way with what?’ Tully demanded.
Heather picked up her drink and took a large sip. She felt a whisper of irritation at Stephen. Why had he been so determined to announce it now? They should have taken it slower. Met the girls a few times first, then announced the engagement down the track. She hadn’t even worn her engagement ring. She was delighted about the engagement – ecstatic, even! – but sometimes even the most charming of men were hopeless when it came to reading a room.
‘You’ll wait until . . . until after Mum passes away, I assume,’ Rachel said. ‘It’s not like this is going to happen soon.’ It was ostensibly a statement, but Rachel looked at her father for confirmation.
Heather took another sip of her drink.
‘Well,’ Stephen said, ‘obviously Mum is very healthy – physically, at least. And’ – Heather felt his gaze on her, but she studiously avoided eye contact – ‘we can’t keep our plans on hold forever.’
The girls fell silent. At a table nearby someone started singing ‘Happy Birthday’ and a waiter appeared with a cake.
‘So . . . what are your plans?’ Rachel asked finally.
Stephen sighed. ‘I’ve met with Bill Thompson, and he said we can be granted a divorce, under these circumstances.’
‘You’re going to divorce Mum?’ Tully cried.
‘It’s just a formality, Tully-girl. Mum doesn’t even know we’re married most of the time. And of course I’d continue to look after her – and you. Mum would get sixty per cent of our assets, which would be handed down to you two after she passes.’
Tully and Rachel appeared so bewildered, Heather didn’t know where to look.
Eventually Rachel was the one to speak. ‘This is a lot. I don’t know quite what to say!’
‘Why don’t we drink to it then?’ Stephen suggested, lifting his glass.
Hesitantly, the rest of them followed suit. But after they clinked their glasses together, Heather was the only one who took a sip.
4
TULLY
The day after the lunch, Tully sat in the car park of Westfield and looked in the rear-view mirror. Items were strewn all over the back seat of her Range Rover, spilling into the footwell – a silk camisole, a pair of Lululemon running leggings, a leather wallet. There was also a fine gold necklace, a pair of toddler scissors, and a packet of post-its. A random assortment of items, but it didn’t matter what it was. That’s what most people didn’t get about her habit. It wasn’t about the getting. It was about the taking. She’d determined, a while back, that she was an addict. When the urge to put something into her handbag or stuff it under her sweater overcame her, she was powerless to stop herself. Most of the stuff she stole was later stored in the garage, stuffed under beds or dropped off at charity shops. Heather’s wallet, for example, she’d handed in to the police station yesterday with all cash and cards accounted for.
Like any addict she knew that she’d feel the guilt and self-loathing and remorse. But since this was a given, she decided she might as well enjoy the high.
And enjoying it she was. It was exactly what she needed after all the ‘meeting Heather’ malarkey yesterday. Tully had been unaware of the stress she’d been carrying around in the lead-up to that meeting. Heather hadn’t been a welcome relief nor had she put any of Tully’s fears to rest. Heather had been exactly as she’d feared . . . though perhaps slightly less trashy, with slightly smaller boobs. And now she was going to become Tully’s stepmother! The idea was too horrific to contemplate.
She’d spent the last twenty-four hours analysing and unpacking every moment of the lunch, sorting out what she did and didn’t have to worry about. There was a lot to work through. Every flickering eyebrow, every moment of discomfort, every slightly-longer-than-normal pause, required analysis and conclusions to be drawn. No wonder she didn’t have time for a job. She had no idea how all those type A lawyerly types did it. For Tully, managing her anxiety was a full-time occupation.
If there had been one highlight of the lunch （and ‘highlight’ was pushing it）， it was the declaration that Heather didn’t want children. If she were honest, Tully had never understood those women who didn’t want to have children. She nodded along and loudly championed their rights on social media, and she’d have been aghast if anyone denounced childless women aloud at a dinner party and would immediately take the side of the childless woman who argued her case. But she thought it was strange.