The Secret Ingredient (27 page)

‘Well, that's something,' said Jess. She picked up her glass and a platter of food and walked into the living area. ‘So what about this Dominic?' she said, sitting down on the sofa. ‘You two are on first name basis now?'

‘Not really,' said Andie, taking a seat next to her. ‘He started asking me all these intrusive questions, and next thing he's implying that I must have done something to make Ross go off and have an affair.'

Jess blinked. ‘He actually said that?'

‘Yes.' Kind of. Something like that. That was the inference anyway. Wasn't it? God, she didn't even know any more.

‘What a prick,' said Jess. ‘He doesn't even know you.'

‘I know, right?'

‘Where does he get off?'

‘Exactly.' Andie felt so much better already. She gulped down half her glass of wine, at least Jess wouldn't have a dig at her drinking habits. Clearly Dominic Gerou had issues left and right. Andie didn't have any issues, she knew exactly what had destroyed her marriage. Her husband had an affair. That was that. Dominic obviously empathised more with Ross because he was a man. He'd probably dumped a string of women with the same excuse – that there was something wrong with the relationship. Piffle. Jess was right. ‘Arrogant prick,' she said out loud.

‘You didn't say that to him?' Jess looked worried.

‘No,' she chided. ‘I said something like, he didn't have the right to insult me, and I walked out.'

‘On your boss?'

Andie's heart dropped. ‘Oh shit.'

‘Don't worry about it,' said Jess. ‘He can't do anything to you – it was outside of work.'

‘You think?'

‘You didn't abuse him or anything?'

Andie thought about it. ‘No, definitely not. I thanked him for the drink and left.'

‘You'll be okay then.'

Andie sighed, resting her chin in her hand. ‘You know, during the day I actually thought I might have made a good impression on him.'

‘Obviously, if he asked you out,' said Jess.

‘He didn't ask me
out
out,' said Andie. ‘It was just end-of-the-day, coworker-type drinks.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Yes,' she said uncertainly. ‘I don't know, how can you tell?'

‘You've been out of the game a long time, haven't you?' Jess smiled.

‘No, I'm sure this wasn't anything,' Andie decided. ‘He's not like that. He doesn't even hang around at work for staffy's.'

‘Yet this was only a friendly coworker drink with you?' Jess raised an eyebrow.

‘It had to be,' she insisted. ‘Think about it, if he was coming on to me, he had a funny way of showing it. Throwing insults at me about my marriage failing.'

‘Hm . . . that is weird,' Jess mused. ‘Anyway, it's just as well, fraternising with the boss is never a good idea.'

‘Don't worry, I won't be doing that again in a hurry.'

‘Though, I have been meaning to say,' Jess went on, ‘you really should be thinking about getting back on the horse, Andie.'

She rolled her eyes and leaned her head back against the sofa.

‘I'm serious,' said Jess. ‘Put it off and it's only going to get harder. When's the last time you had sex?'

Andie frowned. ‘When's the last time
you
had sex?'

‘About two weeks ago.'

‘Oh, well, it's longer than that.'

‘It's months, isn't it?' said Jess. ‘You know, if you were a guy, you'd have gone out and picked up someone the very next weekend, if not the next night, to salve your ego.'

‘Well, I'm not a guy.'

‘You still have needs. You said so yourself.'

‘The ink isn't even dry on my divorce papers, Jess . . . Come to think of it, the divorce papers haven't even been printed yet. I'm just not ready.'

‘So you're not over Ross?'

‘I doubt it.'

‘Andie!' Jess exclaimed.

‘I'm only being honest,' she returned. ‘I'm not pining for him, I have no intention of going back to him. But I guess on some level I must still love him. Feelings don't go away overnight, they need time to fade.'

‘Hm, like a rash.' Jess grunted. ‘Surely there must be a cream for that?'

Andie snorted a laugh. ‘Yeah, vanishing cream, perhaps?'

‘What was vanishing cream anyway?' said Jess. ‘You never hear of it any more. I wish it was still around, I could use it on my nether regions instead of boiling wax.'

Andie winced. ‘So you went through with it?'

‘No,' she sighed. ‘You two made me feel like I'd be betraying the sisterhood if I did. But when I'm still single in the nursing home, I'll be cursing you.'

Andie considered her. ‘I didn't think you were that bothered about being single.'

Jess shrugged. ‘I don't know, maybe I'm getting a bit old for one-nighters, or the one-nighters are getting a bit old.'

‘Are you telling me you want to settle down?' Andie was almost shocked.

‘I'm never going to be bored, or old, or crazy enough to get married,' she declared. ‘But you know, it wouldn't be so bad to have a regular guy, someone you could hang out with on a wet afternoon and watch a DVD, someone you could actually have a conversation with . . . someone just . . .
nice
.'

‘Isn't that what gay friends are for?' said Andie.

‘Yeah, but they don't like to have sex with girls.'

‘Like I always say, you can't have it all.'

Andie slept pretty soundly on Jess's fold-out, but she woke earlier than she would have preferred on a day off, the street noises around here being somewhat more intrusive than in quiet suburban Roseville. She only had a mild hangover, nothing that a good hot breakfast wouldn't fix, so she went to check out the refrigerator. Not only was it brimming with leftovers from Christmas, there were also eggs and onions and herbs and good cheese – you could always find decent basics in a chef's fridge. When Jess finally emerged, Andie had almost finished cooking a ham and cheese frittata, with a hash she'd made from leftover baked potatoes. Together they made short work of it. It was warming up outside, and they briefly mused about going to the beach, until they remembered that Boxing Day was probably the most popular beach day of the year, and the crowds would be horrendous. Andie decided she better just head back to the house.

‘It's a good chance to get some more packing done,' she told Jess. ‘I still have a couple of boxes of stuff I haven't been through yet.'

‘I guess it's an appropriate way to spend Boxing Day,' Jess quipped.

When Andie arrived home and got out of the car, it was really getting quite steamy, but because the house had been shut up since the day before, it was relatively cool inside. She had a quick shower and changed out of the clothes she'd been wearing since yesterday, before dragging the boxes out of the wardrobe. These were the last ones from amongst her mother's things. She sat down cross-legged on the floor and opened the first, lifting out an old concertina-style file. She flicked through the alphabetised sections, they appeared to be full of old bills, receipts, guarantees. She knew the solicitor had the deed for the house and all her father's financial documents, Andie was pretty sure these were just household records. The whole thing could probably go straight into the recycling, but what if there was something relevant, instructions or a valid warranty, for example? She really didn't feel like sorting through it all now, so she decided she'd hold on to it for a couple of months after the new owners had moved in, and if no issues surfaced, she'd toss the lot then. There was another file in the bottom of the box, an old manila folder marked ‘Certificates', tied with a thin, faded ribbon. Andie lifted it out and laid it on the floor in front of her. She untied the ribbon and opened the folder.

Her heart lurched. On top was an envelope marked ‘Death Certificate'. Andie gingerly picked it up, only to reveal another, identical envelope underneath. Oh God, one must be her mother's, the other had to be Brendan's. Andie held them both, just staring at them, her hands trembling. There was no need to open them or look at them, it would only make her sad. She held them close to her chest as her gaze landed on the next document on the pile, titled ‘Coroner's Report'. It wasn't in an envelope, it was just lying there, barefaced. Phrases jumped out at her before she could block them . . . compound fracture to the skull . . . death – instant . . . Andie turned away, quickly placing the envelopes aside and the report face-down on top of them. She hoped it wasn't all going to be this depressing. She looked back to the pile, relieved to see their certificates of confirmation and first communion next, printed on pages featuring quaint pictures of angels and the Virgin Mary and Jesus – the anglicised version, with fair hair and blue eyes, in flowing, luminous robes, children clustered around him, all blue-eyed and rosy-cheeked. They looked like characters in an Enid Blyton book, dressed up for a nativity play perhaps, Andie smiled to herself. Their baptismal certificates followed, less colourfully adorned, and finally copies of their official birth certificates.

The last few documents were her parents' original birth certificates, and their marriage certificate. Andie picked it up and read the florid script. They were married at the Church of the Holy Redeemer, on the twelfth day of September, nineteen hundred and . . .

That couldn't be right. Meredith was going to be forty next year, in just a few months, the maths was pretty straightforward. Andie sifted back through the documents and found Meredith's birth certificate, checking the year of birth against the date of her parents' wedding. Unless the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages had made a mistake, Meredith was born six months after they were married.

Why had they never mentioned it? Andie wondered if Meredith knew, and decided she probably didn't. Her mother had clearly kept it a secret from everyone all these years, like a hidden shame. Andie only ever remembered seeing one photo from their wedding, a very long time ago, when she was just a girl, it was certainly never put out on display. Her mother had worn quite a severe grey suit, and Andie had asked her why she didn't wear a real bride's dress. She said it would have been a waste of money, because you could never wear it again. Andie remembered being perplexed about all the other brides she had seen in proper wedding dresses that would never be worn again, and wondering whatever happened to them.

If her mother was pregnant she certainly wouldn't have been able to wear the grey suit for much longer either. Andie leaned back against the wardrobe behind her. She believed her parents loved each other, she wanted to believe that, though she supposed she hadn't witnessed much affection between them. There was respect; she couldn't recall her mother ever criticising her husband, and she never heard her father say a bad word about his wife. But if they hadn't really loved each other, if they'd married because they had no choice . . . well, that was just too sad to contemplate.

Her dad had seemed to get joy out of all his children, but Andie was sure Brendan was the only one who brought her mother any joy. She was perennially worried about her daughters, always so insistent that they had to make more of their lives, so she never let her guard down around them, at least not around Andie anyway. She and Meredith seemed to understand each other, speak the same language. And she was entirely different with Brendan; she must have felt she didn't have to worry about him, he was going to be a man in what she still considered was a man's world. He would be all right. No wonder she was so destroyed by his death.

Andie stirred after a while, glancing over at the other box. She wasn't so sure she felt like uncovering any more family history, but she might as well get it over with. She dragged the box closer and opened it. Lying on top was a large dark blue photo album. Andie opened the cover. On the facing page, in her mother's own hand, was neatly written ‘Brendan Patrick Lonergan', followed underneath by his date of birth, at St Margaret's Hospital, Darlinghurst. She turned the page, and there were his hospital records, his newborn photo, and his ankle and wrist identification bands, all glued neatly into place. This was Brendan's baby book. Andie had never seen it before, she was surprised her mother had even kept such a thing, she wasn't a sentimental sort at all. Though she was different with Brendan, her beloved son. Perhaps she had worked on this after he died, as a memorial to him, but surely Andie would have noticed, she was with her most of the time throughout her last year.

She lifted the album onto her lap and flipped through the pages. He was such an adorable baby, and then toddler, always grinning mischievously at the camera. All his milestones were recorded faithfully, and once he was at school, his class photos and yearly reports were interspersed with paintings and handwritten stories, tests with impressive scores. The photos and reports continued all the way to Year 12; the last photo taken at his formal. He wore a plain black dinner suit, but with a lime green tie, braces and shoes – he'd had to get them specially dyed, Andie remembered. There were more pages, but they were blank. Brendan had died the following year, so there were no graduation photos or anything else. She wondered if he'd ever seen this album, but she doubted it, he would have told her.

Andie closed the cover and hugged it to her chest, thinking of Brendan in those crazy green shoes. Their mother had pleaded with him to reconsider, but of course in the end he'd cajoled her into going along with what he wanted, as usual. Andie looked down at the album in her arms, she was so relieved she hadn't decided to turf all the boxes without going through them.

She lay it gently on the floor next to her, and leaned forward to lift the next album out of the box. As Andie opened the cover she drew her breath in sharply. Her own details were recorded on the first page, just like Brendan's. Her heart beat faster as she turned page after page; the same meticulous care had been taken recording her milestones, preserving her childhood paintings and stories, handmade Mother's Day cards, school reports, photos. Andie was overcome and tears filled her eyes. Why had her mother never shown her this? Did she plan that they would only be found after her death? But why? What a shame not to share these with her children. Then it occurred to Andie, maybe she hadn't done them for her children at all, maybe she'd done them for herself. Perhaps her own regrets and disappointments faded when she looked at the lives and achievements of the children she had borne. Andie hoped she had felt proud, that creating these albums had given her some of the joy that seemed to be missing from her life.

There was one more album at the bottom of the box, and it was Meredith's. Andie quickly flicked through the pages; it was the same as the others, except at the end there was a photo of Meredith graduating from university. At least her mother had been around to see one of her daughters achieve that.

Andie went back through the certificates and separated out Meredith's, slipping them between the pages of her album. She'd pass it on to her next time she saw her. She sorted her and Brendan's certificates and put them inside their respective albums. She didn't think Meredith would mind if she held on to Brendan's, so long as someone did. Andie considered her parents' papers, wondering what to do with them. She didn't want to tell Meredith; her parents had kept it a secret, perhaps from some misplaced sense of shame, but Andie would respect their intent. Besides, what would it achieve telling Meredith? It was the kind of thing that was likely to upset her, so there was nothing to be gained from it. Finally Andie slipped the documents into the back of her own album, and then she packed it back into one of the boxes, along with Brendan's album, and the concertina file. She sealed the box with tape, and wrote ‘To Be Kept' across the top, in thick, black marker.