‘Wow,’ Rachel said, once Tully had had a few deep gulps. ‘That’s . . . I had no idea.’
‘It’s a reasonably new thing. I’m still getting my head around it myself. I mean, I know it’s happened, but I keep thinking that somehow we’ll be able to keep the house. We’ll . . . I don’t know – win the lottery or something.’
The lottery. It gave Rachel an idea. She walked into her bedroom, picked up the plastic bag she’d stuffed the cash into, and returned, thrusting the bag at Tully.
Tully looked at it warily. ‘What’s this?’
‘Consider it a lottery win,’ Rachel said. ‘I mean . . . it’s not millions of dollars. But ninety-seven thousand-odd dollars should help, right?’
‘Ninety-seven thousand dollars?’ Tully said. ‘Good God, Rachel. Where did you get this?’
‘Found it,’ Rachel said. ‘Stuffed inside a hot-water bottle that belonged to Mum.’
Tully shook her head. ‘What?’
‘It’s true,’ Rachel said. ’Bizarre as it sounds.’
‘But where would Mum get this kind of money? And why would she keep it in a hot-water bottle?’ Tully pulled out a fistful of cash and looked at it closely, as if expecting it to be fake. ‘Does Dad know?’
‘I told him,’ she said. ‘But he doesn’t have a clue where it came from either. He just told me to keep it.’
‘He told you to keep it?’ Tully said, affronted. ‘Just like that? Without even consulting me?’
‘I guess he assumed that you were doing okay financially,’ Rachel said. ‘As did I. If I’d known the truth, I would have given it to you immediately.’
‘Oh, I know that,’ Tully said without hesitation, and Rachel felt relieved. It was true, Rachel never knew how Tully would react to things on a day-to-day basis, but she knew that when push came to shove, Tully had her back. She was glad that Tully knew the same applied to her. That knowledge had been a strange, powerful undercurrent to her life. Rachel experienced a sudden swell of gratitude for it.
‘Can we have another cupcake?’ Locky called from the kitchen.
‘Yes,’ Tully and Rachel said in unison.
Tully peered into the bag again. ‘What’s this?’ she asked, fishing out the note with her name and Fiona Arthur’s.
‘That was stuffed into the hot-water bottle with the cash. I don’t suppose you know anyone called Fiona Arthur, do you?’
‘Yes,’ Tully said. ‘She’s one of Locky’s swim teachers.’
Rachel stared at her. ‘Seriously?’
‘Yes . . . no, wait! It’s Fiona Archer, not Arthur. I remember one of the parents commenting that she should have been called Fiona Swimmer.’
‘Oh.’ Rachel deflated. ‘So you don’t know a Fiona Arthur? Maybe a friend of Mum’s?’
Tully thought for a moment. ‘I don’t think so.’
Rachel sighed. ‘It’s driving me mad. I searched for the name on Facebook, and it turns out there are three Fiona Arthurs in Australia. I’ve sent a direct message to each of them but haven’t had a response.’
Tully put the note back in the bag. ‘I get why you want to know who it is, but just because Mum wrote her name down doesn’t mean she’s anyone important. Fiona Arthur could be the ironing lady. Or the name of the person Mum spoke to about getting Dad’s car serviced. Or a hairdresser one of her friends recommended. Or the name of a milliner who makes hats for women with large heads. Remember Mum had to get her hat specially made for the Melbourne Cup because she had such a large head circumference? You got her large head, actually.’
‘That’s true,’ Rachel said. ‘Except that when I asked Mum about Fiona Arthur, she started to cry. And then she said, Stephen hurt that poor woman terribly.’
Tully thought about that. ‘Maybe Dad performed surgery on her, and there were complications?’
‘Or maybe Mum was talking nonsense,’ Rachel said. ‘The frustrating part is we’ll never know.’
‘I wish we could ask her,’ Tully said. ‘Wouldn’t you love that? One more conversation where she was really with us. Where she knew who we were and who she was. Where she could access her memories and tell us what we want to know.’
‘It would be amazing. Though I have to say, I think she’d be pretty happy to know that you and I were sitting here together, talking like this. She’d be over the moon.’