The Husband’s Secret

  They’d never had a home video recorder. Ed didn’t think they were worth the money. The only footage they had of Janie alive was from a friend’s wedding, where Janie had been the flower girl.

  ‘Janie.’ Rachel put her hand to the television screen.

  ‘You’re standing too close to the camera,’ said a boy’s voice.

  Rachel dropped her hand.

  Janie moved back. She was wearing high-waisted blue jeans, with a metallic silver belt and a long-sleeved purple top. Rachel remembered ironing that purple top. The sleeves were tricky, with a complicated arrangement of pleats.

  Janie was truly beautiful, like a delicate bird, a heron perhaps, but good lord, had the child really been that thin? Her arms and legs were so spindly. Had there been something wrong with her? Did she have anorexia? How had Rachel not noticed?

  Janie sat down on the edge of a single bed. She was in a room Rachel had never seen before. The bed had a striped red and blue bedspread. The walls behind were dark brown wood panelling. Janie lowered her chin and looked up at the camera with a mock serious face while she lifted a pencil to her mouth as if it were a microphone.

  Rachel laughed out loud and clasped her hands together as if in prayer. She’d forgotten that too. How could she have forgotten it? Janie used to pretend to be a reporter at the oddest times. She’d come into the kitchen, pick up a carrot and say, ‘Tell me, Mrs Rachel Crowley, how was your day today? Ordinary? Extraordinary?’ And then she’d hold the carrot in front of Rachel and Rachel would lean in close to the carrot and say, ‘Ordinary.’

  Of course she said ordinary. Her days were always so very ordinary.

  ‘Good evening, I’m Janie Crowley reporting live from Turramurra where I’m interviewing a reclusive young man by the name of Connor Whitby.’

  Rachel caught her breath. She turned her head and the word ‘Ed’ caught in the back of her throat. Ed. Come. You must see this. It had been years since she’d done that.

  Janie spoke into the pencil again. ‘If you could just scoot a little closer, Mr Whitby, so my viewers can see you.’

  ‘Janie.’

  ‘Connor,’ Janie imitated his tone.

  A broad-chested, dark-haired boy wearing a yellow and blue striped rugby shirt and shorts slid over on the bed until he was sitting next to Janie. He glanced at the camera and looked away again, uncomfortably, as if he could see Janie’s mother thirty years in the future, watching them.

  Connor had the body of a man and the face of a boy. Rachel could see a smattering of pimples across his forehead. He had that starved, frightened, sullen look you saw on so many teenager boys. It was as if they needed to both punch a wall and be cuddled. The Connor of thirty years ago didn’t inhabit his body in the comfortable way he did now. He didn’t know what to do with his limbs. He flung his legs out in front of him and tapped one open palm softly against his closed fist.

  Rachel could hear herself breathing raggedy gasps. She wanted to lunge into the television and drag Janie away. What was she doing there? She must be in Connor’s bedroom. She was not allowed to be on her own in a boy’s bedroom. Ed would have a fit.

  Janie Crowley, young lady, you come back home this minute.

  ‘Why do you need me actually in it?’ asked Connor, his eyes returning to the camera. ‘Can’t I just sit off camera?’

  ‘You can’t have your interview subject off camera,’ said Janie. ‘I might need this tape for when I apply for a job as a reporter on 60 Minutes.’ She smiled at Connor and he smiled back: an involuntary, smitten smile.

  Smitten was the right word. The boy was smitten with her daughter. ‘We were just good friends,’ he told the police. ‘She wasn’t my girlfriend.’ ‘But I know all her friends,’ Rachel told the police. ‘I know all their mothers.’ She could see the polite restraint on their faces. Years later, when Rachel finally decided to get rid of Janie’s single bed she’d found a contraceptive pill packet hidden under the mattress. She hadn’t known her daughter at all.

  ‘So Connor, tell me about yourself.’ Janie held out the pencil.

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Well, for example, do you have a girlfriend?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Connor. He looked keenly at Janie and suddenly seemed more grown-up. He leaned forward and spoke into the pencil. ‘Do I have a girlfriend?’

  ‘That would depend.’ Janie twisted her ponytail around her finger. ‘What do you have to offer? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? I mean, you need to sell yourself a bit, don’t you know.’

  She sounded silly now, strident and whiny even. Rachel winced. Oh, Janie, darling, stop it! Speak nicely. You can’t talk to him like that. It was only in the movies that teenagers flirted with beautiful sensuality. In real life it was excruciating to watch them flailing about.

  ‘Jeez, Janie, if you still can’t give me a straight answer, I mean – fuck!’

  Connor stood up from the bed and Janie gave a disdainful little laugh, while at the same time her face crumpled like a child’s, but Connor only heard the laugh. He walked straight towards the camera. His hand reached out so that it filled the screen.

  Rachel held out her hand to stop him. No, don’t turn it off. Don’t take her away from me.

  The screen instantly filled with static, and Rachel’s head jerked back as if she’d been slapped.

  Bastard. Murderer.

  She was filled with adrenaline, exhilarated with hatred. Why, this was evidence! New evidence after all these years!

  ‘Call me any time, Mrs Crowley, if you think of anything. I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night,’ Sergeant Bellach had said that so many times it had got boring.

  She never had before. Now at least she had something for him. They would get him. She could sit in a courtroom and watch a judge pronounce Connor Whitby guilty.

  As her fingers jabbed at Sergeant Bellach’s numbers, she bounced up and down impatiently on the balls of her feet, while the image of Janie’s crumpled face filled her head.

  chapter seventeen

  ‘Connor,’ said Tess. ‘I’m just getting some petrol.’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ said Connor.

  Tess took a moment to get it. ‘You gave me a fright,’ she said with a touch of petulance because she was embarrassed. ‘I thought you were an axe murderer.’

  She picked up the nozzle. Connor kept standing there, without moving, his helmet tucked under one arm, looking at her as if he expected something. Okay, well, that was enough chitchat, wasn’t it? On your bike. Off you go. Tess preferred people from her past to stay in the past. Ex-boyfriends, old school friends, past colleagues – really, what was the point of them? Lives moved on. Tess quite enjoyed reminiscing about people she once knew, not with them. She pulled on the petrol lever, smiling warily at him, trying to remember exactly how their relationship had ended. Was it when she and Felicity moved to Melbourne? He was a boyfriend in between lots of other boyfriends. She usually broke up with them before they broke up with her. Normally after Felicity had made fun of them. There was always a new boy to take their place. She thought it was because she was the right level of attractiveness: not too intimidating. She said yes to whoever asked her out. It wouldn’t have occurred to her to say no.

  She remembered that Connor had always been keener than she was – he was too old and serious, she’d thought. It was her first year at uni; she was only nineteen, and she’d been somewhat bemused by the intense interest this older, quiet man was showing her.

  She may well have treated him quite badly. She’d been lacking in so much confidence when she was a teenager, worrying all the time about what people thought of her, and how they might hurt her, without even considering the impact she might have on their feelings.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about you actually,’ said Connor. ‘After I saw you at the school this morning. I was even wondering if you’d like to, ah, catch up? For a coffee, maybe?’

  ‘Oh!’ said Tess. A coffee with Conno
r Whitby. It just seemed so preposterously irrelevant, like those times that Liam suggested they do a jigsaw puzzle just when Tess was smack bang in the middle of some computer or plumbing crisis. Her whole life had just imploded! She wasn’t going to go for a coffee with this sweet but essentially dull ex-boyfriend from her teens.

  Didn’t he know she was married? She twisted her hands on the petrol pump so that her wedding ring was in full view. She still felt extremely married.

  Apparently moving back home was just like joining Facebook, when middle-aged ex-boyfriends came crawling out of the woodwork like cockroaches, suggesting ‘drinks’, putting out their little feelers for potential affairs. Was Connor married? She glanced over at his hands, trying to see a ring.

  ‘I didn’t mean a date if that’s what you’re thinking,’ said Connor.

  ‘I wasn’t thinking that.’

  ‘I know you’re married, don’t worry. I don’t know if you remember my sister’s son, Benjamin? Anyway, he’s just finished uni and he wants to go into advertising. That’s your field, isn’t it? I was actually thinking of exploiting you for your professional expertise.’ He chewed on the side of his cheek. ‘Maybe exploiting is the wrong choice of word.’

  ‘Benjamin has just finished uni?’ Tess was bewildered. ‘But he couldn’t have – he was only in preschool!’

  Memories flooded back. A minute ago she wouldn’t have been able to name Connor’s nephew, or even remember that he had one. Now she could suddenly see the exact pale green colour of the walls of Benjamin’s bedroom.

  ‘He was a preschooler sixteen years ago,’ said Connor. ‘Now he’s six foot three and very hairy, with a tattoo of a barcode on his neck. I’m not kidding. A barcode.’

  ‘We took him to the zoo,’ marvelled Tess.

  ‘We may well have.’

  ‘Your sister was sound asleep.’ Tess remembered a dark-haired woman curled up on a sofa. ‘She was sick.’ Hadn’t she been a single mother? Not that Tess had appreciated that at the time. She should have offered to go out and buy groceries. ‘How is your sister?’

  ‘Oh, well, we actually lost her, a few years ago.’ He sounded apologetic. ‘A heart attack. She was only fifty. Very fit and healthy, so it was . . . a shock. I’m Benjamin’s guardian.’

  ‘God, I’m so sorry, Connor.’ Tess’s voice fractured with the unexpectedness of it. The world was a desperately sad place. Hadn’t he been especially close to his sister? What was her name? Lisa. It was Lisa.

  ‘A coffee would be great,’ she said suddenly, impulsively. ‘You can pick my brain. For what it’s worth.’ She wasn’t the only one suffering. People lost their loved ones. Husbands fell in love with other people. Besides, a coffee with someone entirely unrelated to her current life would be the perfect distraction. Connor Whitby was not creepy. ‘That’d be great,’ Connor smiled. She didn’t remember him having such an attractive smile. He lifted his helmet. ‘I’ll call, or email.’

  ‘Okay, do you need my –’ The petrol pump clicked to indicate the tank was full, and Tess lifted the nozzle out and placed it back on the bowser.

  ‘You’re a St Angela’s mum now,’ said Connor. ‘I can track you down.’

  ‘Oh. Good.’ A St Angela’s mum. She felt strangely exposed. She turned to face him with her car keys and wallet in her hand.

  ‘Like your PJs by the way.’ Connor looked her up and down and grinned.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Tess. ‘I like your bike. I don’t remember you riding one.’ Didn’t he drive a boring little sedan of some sort?

  ‘It’s my midlife crisis.’

  ‘I think my husband is having one of those,’ said Tess.

  ‘Hope it’s not costing you too much,’ said Connor.

  Tess shrugged. Ha ha. She looked at the bike again and said, ‘When I was seventeen, my mother said she would pay me five hundred dollars if I signed a contract promising never to go on the back of a boy’s motorbike.’

  ‘Did you sign it?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Never breached the contract?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘I’m forty-five,’ said Connor. ‘Not exactly a boy.’

  Their eyes met. Was this conversation becoming . . . flirtatious? She remembered waking up next to him, in a plain white room with a window that looked out on a busy highway. Didn’t he have a waterbed? Hadn’t she and Felicity laughed themselves silly over that? He wore a St Christopher medallion that dangled over her face when they made love. All at once she felt nauseous. Miserable. This was a mistake.

  Connor seemed to recognise the change in her mood.

  ‘Anyway, Tess, I’ll give you a call sometime about that coffee.’ He put his helmet back on, revved his bike, lifted a black-gloved hand and roared off.

  Tess watched him go, and it occurred to her with a jolt that she’d had her first ever orgasm on that ridiculous waterbed. Actually, now she thought about it, there had been a few other firsts in that bed too. Slosh, slosh, went the bed. Sex, especially for a good Catholic girl like Tess, had been so raw and dirty and new back then.

  As she walked into the brightly lit service station to pay for the petrol, she glanced up and caught sight of herself in a security mirror. Her face, she noticed, was very pink.

  chapter eighteen

  ‘You’ve read it then,’ said John-Paul.

  Cecilia looked at him as if she’d never seen him before. A middle-aged man who had once been very handsome and still was, to her at least. John-Paul had one of those honest, trustworthy faces. You’d buy a used car from John-Paul. That famous Fitzpatrick jaw. All the Fitzpatrick boys had strong jaws. He had a good head of hair, grey and thick. He was still vain about his hair. He liked to blow-dry it. His brothers gave him hell about that. He stood at the door of the study, wearing his blue and white striped boxer shorts and a red T-shirt. His face was pale and sweaty, as if he had food poisoning.

  She hadn’t heard him come down from the attic, or walk down the hallway. She didn’t know how long he’d been standing there, while she sat, staring unseeingly at her hands, which she saw now were clasped angelically in her lap, like a little girl in church.

  ‘I’ve read it,’ she said.

  She pulled the sheet of paper over to her and read it again, slowly, as if this time, now that John-Paul was standing in front of her, it would surely say something different.

  It was written in blue ballpoint pen on a lined piece of paper. It felt ridged, like braille. He must have pressed hard with his pen, as if he was trying to engrave each word into the paper. There were no paragraphs or spaces. The words were crammed together without a break.

  My darling Cecilia,

  If you’re reading this, then I’ve died, which sounds so melodramatic to write down, but I guess everyone dies. You’re in the hospital right now, with our baby girl, Isabel. She was born early this morning. She’s so beautiful and tiny and helpless. I’ve never felt anything like what I felt when I held her for the first time. I’m already terrified that something will happen to her. And that’s why I have to write this down. Just in case something does happen to me, at least I have done this. At least I could have tried to make it right. I’ve had a few beers. I might not be making sense. I probably will tear this letter up. Cecilia, I have to tell you that when I was seventeen I killed Janie Crowley. If her parents are still alive, will you please tell them that I’m sorry and that it was an accident. It wasn’t planned. I lost my temper. I was seventeen and so fucking stupid. I can’t believe it was me. It feels like a nightmare. It feels like I must have been on drugs, or drunk, but I wasn’t. I was perfectly sober. I just snapped. I had a brain snap, like those idiot rugby players say. It sounds like I’m trying to justify it, but I’m not trying to make excuses. I did this unimaginable thing and I can’t explain it. I know what you’re thinking, Cecilia, because everything is black and white for you. You’re thinking, why didn’t he confess? But you know why I couldn’t go to jail, Cecilia. You know I couldn’t be locked up. I know I’m a c
oward. That’s why I tried to kill myself when I was eighteen but I didn’t have the balls to go through with it. Please tell Ed and Rachel Crowley that I never went a day without thinking of their daughter. Tell them it happened so fast. Janie was laughing just seconds before. She was happy right up until the end. Maybe that just sounds awful. It does sound awful. Don’t tell them that. It was an accident, Cecilia. Janie told me she was in love with some other kid and then she laughed at me. That’s all she did. I lost my mind. Please tell the Crowleys that I’m so sorry, I couldn’t be sorrier. Please tell Ed Crowley that now I’m a dad I understand exactly what I’ve done. The guilt has been like a tumour eating away at me, and now it’s worse than ever. I’m so sorry to leave you with this, Cecilia, but I know you’re strong enough to handle it. I love you and our baby so much, and you’ve given me more happiness than I ever deserved. I deserved nothing and I got everything.

  I’m so sorry.

  With all my love,

  John-Paul

  Cecilia thought she’d experienced anger before, plenty of times, but now she knew that she’d had no idea how real anger felt. The white-hot burning purity of it. It was a frantic, crazy, wonderful feeling. She felt like she could fly. She could fly across the room, like a demon, and claw bloody scratch marks down John-Paul’s face.

  ‘Is it true?’ she said. She was disappointed by the sound of her voice. It was weak. It didn’t sound like it came from someone who was wild with anger.