‘Cara–’
‘Rafa, if you won’t help, just take him somewhere.’
‘It’s Christmas Day,’ Rafael protests. ‘Everything is closed.’
‘I’ll go,’ Lucy says quietly, and she stands up quickly before anyone can say anything, throws her serviette on the table and runs.
She doesn’t go upstairs, to her room, because they could find her there, and she desperately needs to be away from them all.
‘Lucy! Darling!’ she hears her mother call as she sprints out the front door and into the street. She’s wearing sandals, which are the wrong footwear for running, but she used to be a good runner and knows she can outpace her mother.
She keeps running, down Raglan Street, left into McLeod Street and down the steps to Sirius Cove. Even though she’s sure she’s not being followed now, the run has its own momentum and as her lungs start to hurt she finds herself laughing.
Pounding along the bush track, onto Curlew Camp Road, she almost tumbles down the grass toward the water. And there she stops, panting, legs splayed and her dress spread out.
It’s a lovely day. There’s a light breeze. There are yachts moored and dogs frolicking in the shallows, their owners nearby having Christmas picnics.
Suddenly she’s not laughing any more. She is sobbing, her face in her hands, not caring what the picnickers think.
She has another year left at school, and can’t support herself financially if she leaves home now. She has only dreams and plans and they can’t take care of her. But she can’t live at home any more. She’s been so afraid of Russell for so long, and she doesn’t want it. Doesn’t want to live like that.
There’s just no way out she can think of, and that terrifies her more than anything.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Adelaide couldn’t avoid Daphne any longer. Especially since Daphne turned up on her doorstep and insisted on seeing her, then insisted she come over one day in the lull between Christmas and New Year, when half of Sydney is at the beach and the days stretch out with heat and cicadas and humidity.
So Adelaide’s on the sofa in Daphne and Hector’s sitting room, with Janet fluttering in and out bearing trays and crockery.
Adelaide feels like this is a reckoning. Or an execution. Except Daphne has no idea why Adelaide’s been avoiding her, and there’s no plausible excuse Adelaide has been able to come up with other than she’s been feeling unwell. Which is probably why Janet’s fussing about whether the tea is the right temperature and the biscuits are satisfactory.
‘So how are you feeling?’ Daphne says.
‘Better,’ Adelaide says.
The story she came up with evolved into her suffering from migraines, which are convenient because they leave no visible trace and are temporary afflictions, and their unpredictability means she could say she was suffering on the same days she was meant to be at the frock shop. But she’s realised that if she doesn’t start to ‘improve’ Daphne will likely start calling specialistsand making appointments for her. No, it can’t go that far. She’s accepted that she has to find a way to be around Daphne while keeping the secret that is very much to the forefront of her life at the moment.
For now that she’s met her son, and realised that she very much wants to see him again, she doesn’t know if she can keep him secret from the friend who has known her the longest. Nor does she want to. Desmond – George – is too important. The problem, of course, is how can she reveal to Daphne that she’s been lying to her since they were young women. First lying about why she left Sydney for a while, then concealing something so huge that she left Australia to try to get away from it.
Round and round she goes, thinking about what to do, and she’s certainly given herself headaches over it, so the migraine story wasn’t far off the truth.
Daphne’s forehead puckers. ‘You don’t think you should see a doctor?’
‘No,’ Adelaide says forcefully, then smiles to soften it. She’s not a good enough actress to catch herself sometimes – the truth sharpens her edges, cutting through in her tone.
It’s possible that she won’t have the wherewithal to keep the lie up around Daphne, and she doesn’t know yet what that means. Will she have to leave Mosman? Sydney? Australia? Leave her past – and Desmond – behind one more time? For the last time.
‘I’m worried about you,’ Daphne says.
Hector makes a noise and Daphne turns to him, patting his hand. ‘It’s all right, love.’
Janet appears. ‘Should I take him?’
‘No, he’s fine. It’s good for him to see Adelaide. Just like old times, isn’t it?’
Daphne smiles but it’s weary, and Adelaide can only imagine what it’s like to manage him – this man who used to be so strong and capable, now so diminished.
Janet nods and disappears again. She’s a loyal daughter. Daphne has earnt that. And Adelaide can’t help feeling jealous of it. She doesn’t have anyone to see her through to the end. Not even Louis, because she wouldn’t impose on him and his family like that. There will be no loyal daughter tending to her in her dying days. Or even her infirm ones. It’s a truth that takes her breath away sometimes: she has no one. Nobody in those dark hours in the middle of the night. There’s just the space in her life where there might have been a son, and his father.