The Husband's Secret(34)

            She tried to smooth away the jagged edge of her voice. “You don’t know whose funeral it is?”

            She didn’t really care whose funeral it was. She just wanted to hear words, words about anything, to make those images of Will’s hands on Felicity’s newly slender white body go away. Porcelain skin. Tess’s skin was darker, a legacy from her father’s side of the family. There was a Lebanese great-grandmother who had died before Tess was born.

            Will had called her mobile that morning. She should have ignored it, but when she saw his name she felt an involuntary spark of hope and snatched up the phone. He was calling to tell her that this was all a mistake. Of course he was.

            But as soon as he spoke in that horrible new, heavy, solemn voice, without a hint of laughter, the hope vanished. “Are you okay?” he’d asked. “Is Liam all right?” He was speaking as if there had been a recent tragedy in their lives that had nothing to do with him.

            She was desperate to tell the real Will what this new Will, this humorless intruder, had done; how he’d crushed her heart. The real Will would want to fix things for her. The real Will would be straight on the phone, making a complaint about the way his wife had been treated, demanding recompense. The real Will would make her a cup of tea, run her a bath and finally, make her see the funny side of what had just happened to her.

            Except, this time, there was no funny side.

            Her mother opened her eyes and turned her head to squint up at Tess. “I think it must be for that dreadful little nun.”

            Tess raised her eyebrows to indicate mild shock, and her mother grinned, pleased with herself. She was so determined to make Tess happy, she was like a club entertainer, frantically trying out edgy new material to keep the crowd in their seats. This morning, when she was struggling with the lid on the Vegemite jar, she’d actually used the word “motherfucker,” carefully sounding out the syllables so that the word didn’t sound any more profane than “leprechaun.”

            Her mother had pulled out the most shocking swearword in her vocabulary because she was ablaze with anger on her behalf. Lucy saying “motherfucker” was like a meek and mild, law-abiding citizen suddenly transformed into a gun-wielding vigilante. That’s why she’d phoned the school so fast. Tess understood. She wanted to take action, to do something, anything, on Tess’s behalf.

            “Which particular dreadful little nun?”

            “Where’s Liam?” Her mother twisted around awkwardly in her wheelchair.

            “Right there,” said Tess. Liam was wandering about, checking out the playground equipment with the jaded eye of a six-year-old expert. He hunkered down on his knees at the bottom of a big yellow funnel-shaped slide and poked his head up inside as if he were doing a safety audit.

            “I lost sight of him for a moment.”

            “You don’t have to keep him in sight all the time,” said Tess mildly. “That’s sort of my job.”

            “Of course it is.”

            At breakfast this morning, they’d both wanted to take care of each other. Tess had the advantage because she had two working ankles and could therefore already have the kettle boiled and the tea made in the time it took for her mother to reach for her crutches.

            Tess watched Liam wander over to the corner of the playground under the fig tree where she and Felicity used to sit and eat their lunches with Eloise Bungonia. Eloise had introduced them to cannelloni. (A mistake for someone with Felicity’s metabolism.) Mrs. Bungonia used to send enough for the three of them. It was before childhood obesity was an issue. Tess could still taste it. Divine.

            She watched Liam become still, staring off into space as if he could see his mother eating cannelloni for the first time.