‘Yes, Rachel Crowley,’ said Cecilia. ‘So efficient. Runs the place like a Swiss watch. She actually shares the job with my mother-in-law, although between you and me and the gatepost, I think Rachel does all the work. Virginia just chats on her days. Not that I can talk. Well, actually, that’s my point, I can talk.’ She laughed merrily at herself.
‘How is Rachel these days?’ asked Tess’s mother significantly.
Cecilia’s ferrety face got all sombre. ‘I don’t know her that well, but I do know she has a beautiful little grandson. Jacob. He just turned two.’
‘Ah,’ breathed Lucy, as if that solved everything. ‘That’s good to hear. Jacob.’
‘Well, it was so nice to meet you, Tess,’ said Cecilia, fixing her again with her unblinking stare. ‘I must skedaddle. I’ve got to get to my Zumba class, I go to the gym down the road, it’s great, you should try it sometime, just hilarious, and then I’m going straight to this party-supply place in Strathfield, it’s a bit of a drive but it’s worth it because the prices are amazing, seriously, you can get a helium balloon kit for under fifty dollars, and that gives you over a hundred balloons, and I’m doing so many parties over the next few months – Polly’s pirate party, and the Year 1 parents party – which of course you’ll be invited to as well! – and then I’m dropping off a few Tupperware orders, I do Tupperware by the way, Tess, if you need anything, anyway, all that before school pick-up! You know how it is.’
Tess blinked. It was like being buried in an avalanche of detail. The myriad of tiny logistical manoeuvres that made up someone else’s life. It wasn’t that it was dull. Although it was a little dull. It was mainly the sheer quantity of words that flowed so effortlessly from Cecilia’s mouth.
Oh God, she’s stopped talking. Tess registered with a start that it was her turn to speak.
‘Busy,’ she said finally. ‘You sure are busy.’ She forced her lips into something she hoped resembled a smile.
‘See you at the pirate party!’ Cecilia called out to Liam, who turned from drilling his tree to look at her with that funny, inscrutable, masculine expression he sometimes got, an expression that painfully reminded Tess of Will.
Cecilia lifted her hand like a claw. ‘Aha, me hearties!’
Liam grinned, as if he couldn’t help himself, and Tess knew she’d be taking him to the pirate party whatever it cost her.
‘Oh my,’ said Tess’s mother when Cecilia was out of earshot. ‘Her mother is exactly the same. Very nice, but exhausting. I always feel like I need a cup of tea and a lie-down after talking with her.’
‘What’s the story with this Rachel Crowley?’ asked Tess as they headed towards the school office, she and Liam pushing one handle each of the wheelchair.
Her mother grimaced. ‘Do you remember the name Janie Crowley?’
‘Not the girl they found with the rosary beads –’
‘That’s the one. She was Rachel’s daughter.’
Rachel could tell that Lucy O’Leary and her daughter were both thinking about Janie while they enrolled Tess’s little boy in St Angela’s. They were both being just a little chattier than was obviously natural for them. Tess couldn’t quite meet Rachel’s eyes, while Lucy was doing that tender-eyed, tilted head thing that so many women of a certain age did when they talked to Rachel, as if they were visiting her in a nursing home.
When Lucy asked if the photo on Rachel’s desk was her grandson, both she and Tess went quite over the top with compliments, not that it wasn’t a beautiful photo of Jacob of course, but you didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to see that what they really meant was: We know your daughter was murdered all those years ago, but does this little boy make up for it? Please let him make up for it so we can stop feeling so strange and uncomfortable!
‘I look after him two days a week,’ Rachel told them, her eyes on the computer screen while she printed off some paperwork for Tess. ‘But not for much longer. I found out last night that his parents are taking him off to New York for two years.’ Her voice cracked without her permission and she cleared her throat irritably.
She waited for the reaction she’d been getting from everyone that morning: ‘How exciting for them!’ ‘What an opportunity!’ ‘Will you go for a visit?’
‘Well that just takes the cake!’ exploded Lucy and she banged her elbows on the arms of her wheelchair, like a cranky toddler. Her daughter, who had been busy filling in a form, looked up and frowned. Tess was one of those plain-looking women with a short boyish haircut and strong austere features who sometimes stun you with a flash of raw beauty. Her little boy, who looked a lot like Tess, except for his strange gold-coloured eyes, also turned to stare at his grandmother.
Lucy rubbed her elbows. ‘Of course I’m sure it’s exciting for your son and daughter-in-law. It’s just that after all you’ve been through, losing Janie like – the way you did, and then your husband, I’m so sorry, I can’t actually remember his name, but I know you lost him too – well, this just doesn’t seem fair.’
By the time she finished talking her cheeks were crimson. Rachel could tell she was horrified at herself. People were always worrying that they’d inadvertently reminded her of her daughter’s death, as if it were something that slipped her mind.
‘I’m so sorry, Rachel, I shouldn’t have –’ Poor Lucy looked distraught.