Tully remembered the way she’d levelled her gaze at Sonny, the scribe, and gestured for him to write it down. She’d acted more confident than she felt. She didn’t have numbers on her side, after all. The law students all knew each other. If they sided with the drunken loudmouth, she wouldn’t stand a chance.
‘I think she’s right,’ Sonny said. ‘I’m going with two.’ And he wrote it down, without waiting for any input from the table. When it turned out that Tully had been right, Sonny had nodded at her, a faint look of approval in his eyes. That was the moment, he told her later, that he fell in love with her.
The relationship was full steam ahead from that night, which was fine with Tully. She always preferred travelling at high speed. For a while, she even thought Sonny had cured her of her unspeakable addiction. Or at least got her hooked on a different drug. When he looked at her, and when she looked at him, she got so high she didn’t need to think about stealing. Sonny was her drug, and she could have as much of him as she wanted.
But like all drugs, Sonny eventually lost his potency. And when he didn’t provide the hit that he once had, Tully needed to go looking for that rush of adrenaline in the place she’d always found it.
‘Boys!’ Michelle called. ‘Not so rough!’
Tully looked over, thrilled that Miles was playing on the grass with Rob and Michelle’s boys. He was often timid when other children came over, and usually spent the whole time sitting on Tully’s lap. Perhaps he was sick of Tully, given that they now spent every night together? Three weeks in, he still hadn’t slept in his big-boy bed and Tully was starting to think he never would. One day, his wife would kiss him goodnight, tuck him into his crib, and then head into her own bedroom. If this was his reaction to a new bed, Tully wondered, what would be his reaction to a new house?
‘Is that a new top, Tully?’ Michelle asked her. ‘It’s gorgeous.’
This caught Sonny’s attention. The word ‘new’ had a way of sending an electric current through him lately. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen it before either,’ he said.
Tully avoided his gaze. ‘This one? Sure you have.’
‘Michelle has a lot of clothes that aren’t new but which I haven’t seen before,’ Rob said, sipping the froth off the premium beer that Sonny must have bought without receiving the third degree from her about its cost. ‘The next thing I know, there’s an eye-watering charge on the credit card from Zimmerman or Scanlan Theodore.’
‘And Rob has so many golf clubs that aren’t new but which I haven’t seen before,’ Michelle replied. ‘If I looked at the credit card statement, I’m sure I’d find some eye-watering charges from House of Golf.’
They both laughed with the airiness of people without money problems. This was how it happened, Tully realised, opening a new bottle of sauvignon blanc. You married a kind, generous progressive man, and within a decade he became George Banks from Mary Poppins. （The boys had been watching Mary Poppins lately and Tully had been shocked by what poor Winifred had had to put up with. No wonder she joined the suffragette movement.）
‘You won’t find any eye-watering amounts on the credit card from me,’ Tully said, holding up her hand to imply scout’s honour. ‘You have my word.’
She wasn’t sure if it was the scout’s honour or giving her word that did it, but Sonny seemed to relax. It had the effect of relaxing Tully too. Until her phone started ringing and she saw Heather’s name on the screen.
‘It’s Heather,’ she said, her eyes widening.
‘Answer it,’ Michelle demanded.
‘Should I?’ Tully said. The group nodded unanimously so she raised the phone to her ear. ‘Heather?’
There was a longer than normal pause.
‘Tully, hi . . . I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time.’
‘It’s not a great time,’ Tully said. ‘I have some friends here at the moment.’
She looked up. Rob, Michelle, and Sonny were all watching her eagerly.
‘In that case, I won’t keep you. But I was just talking to your dad, and he suggested it might be fun for us to get together again. Another lunch, just the girls this time. I wondered if you would be interested?’
Tully had a vision of herself sitting at a table with Rachel and Heather, no Dad. It made her stomach lurch. It was one thing meeting up with Heather and Dad at his request, but . . . socialising with her? It felt like the ultimate betrayal of Mum.