More than anything, Tessa wanted to lie down but Diane said “wait” and sent Freddy off to the snug with hot chocolate and Issy. Nancy and Molly must have gone upstairs, they heard a door bang.
“Please take me home,” Tessa looked at Peter. He was still holding the knife. He put it down and picked it up again.
Diane pulled them all into the kitchen. “Peter will drive you home, Scott, you can stay here if need be, but I want you both to listen. We have to tell you something,” and together, Peter and Diane told Scott and Tessa the truth about Ros.
They sat at the broad kitchen table.
“Tell them about Ben,” said Diane.
“Did you know about the funeral?” said Peter.
“Did she kill someone?” said Tessa. She wouldn’t put it past her.
“I remember the first time I met her,” said Diane, getting cups from the cupboard, “she said, Peter was always going to marry my best friend, but you’re so much safer.”
“Nice little backhanded compliment,” said Peter.
“They’re her specialty,” said Diane.
Tessa thought of all the times Ros had said would you like me to help you with your hair without prompting. How she’d turn up at her house and say are you okay? with her head tipped on one side, when Tessa had been feeling perfectly fine until that moment. Ros’ specialty was making her friends feel shit then asking them how they were, she treated her daughters like shopping she regretted, she stole husbands.
Peter said, “it was her best friend’s daughter. We never dreamed she wouldn’t go. Of course, now we know why.”
“They’d met at drama school,” said Diane. “Ben was Cara’s boyfriend, they were a tight little three; Ros maintained she liked it that way, dependable Cara and Ben while she flitted about having chaotic relationships, she always said she never wanted to get married, didn’t want kids, wanted to concentrate on her career, convinced she was going to be the next Vanessa Redgrave. She was always telling us about auditions she was up for, meetings with famous directors that never materialised.” The kettle boiled; Diane filled a cafetière.
“When Ben and Cara got married,” Peter got the milk out, “something flipped in her, I don’t know. Maybe she felt rejected. Maybe she knew things would never be the same. Within a year she’d married Harold.”
Scott said, “I know about Harold.” He rolled a cigarette, and played with it unlit, flipping it between his fingers.
“Do you?” said Peter. “Have you met him?”
Ros had always said not to talk about it, she didn’t want people to know, they might look down on her, think her weak, or pity her. She’d sworn Tessa and Clare to secrecy. Privacy, she’d corrected, I just want to keep it private. Tessa took the unlit cigarette from Scott’s fingers. “She told me he used to hit her.”
Peter said, “Did she now,” and glanced at Diane who fetched an ashtray from under the sink. “He’s the most decent man you’ll ever meet.”
“Apart from you my love,” added Diane as she disappeared off to the sitting room. She returned with platters of leftovers; tired mini quiches, wrinkled cocktail sausages and a scattering of vol au vents.
Scott folded his arms across his chest.
“But she was in a refuge,” said Tessa. She couldn’t find her lighter.
Diane shook her head. “No she wasn’t.”
“She said he almost killed her.”
“Christ,” said Peter.
“Poor Harold,” said Diane.
“Isn’t there a restraining order?” said Tessa.
“I think maybe she didn’t want to hurt you,” said Scott suddenly.
Tessa had avoided looking at him until now. She didn’t want to see his sorry face, all Mr. Innocent, how was I to know. What a fucking child. He’d walked right into it while she was shuffling about in corridors and crying into stewed tea. Derek and Clive had got Ros’ number the moment she’d crouched at Tessa’s shoulder, so she’d been on TV so what? After she’d gone, after Tessa had been dragged back inside, Clive had said, “I watched it a few times, but she only had one way to move her face and that was down. Ethel could knock socks off her,” and Ethel had screamed in delight. Derek had said, “there’s only two kinds who think they’ve got it all worked out; psychiatrists, and the ones who march in out of nowhere and five minutes later think they can mend what others have given up as broken, as if gargling aloe vera will solve twenty years of psychosis. It’s all for her,” and he’d leaned forward out of his chair and taken Tessa’s hands, his voice calm, she’d put all her faith in his steadiness, “this fixing, it’s only for her to feel better. If I wanted a hero I’d call Danger Mouse,” and Ethel had squealed again.
Scott rolled another cigarette. “Harold’s got mental health issues. Is that not right, Peter?”
Peter pinched his nose and blew his cheeks out. “Christ.”
“I told you it was a mistake,” said Diane.
“We did it for the girls,” said Peter.
“Is he not bipolar?” said Scott.
“He’s nothing of the sort,” said Peter.
“I don’t understand,” said Tessa.
“My sister’s a fantasist,” said Peter, and they all looked up as the cuckoo clock struck one.
Scott smoked, Tessa shivered and held out her hand for the lighter, Diane fetched a blanket.
“I don’t suppose either of you know where my sister was supposed to be on opening night?”
“On stage, fucking my husband?” said Tessa.
“It was her Goddaughter’s funeral,” said Diane. “She swore she’d told Brian; she begged me not to say anything. She said she didn’t want to panic the cast, but I should have known. She said they were going to make an announcement, Elvira would be played by Issy, they wouldn’t have to change costumes because they were the same size. I was at South Lodge getting a face peel that Saturday,” and her fingers absently touched her own cheek. “As far as I was concerned, Peter had gone off to pick her up. I knew nothing until I walked into the dressing room that afternoon and saw her. She gave me that look, the one she reserves for people who know her. I didn’t know what to say. I could hardly have it out there and then, we’re up in an hour, I just had to get on and get on stage. But she stayed well away from me that night, I can tell you. Didn’t let me near her, not for one minute. All that shrieking and hugging to keep me at bay. I can’t tell you what I said when I caught up with her. I was incandescent.”
“The point is that Ros didn’t go.” Peter got the whisky out.
“Is that necessary?” said Diane.
“Scott likes a drop, don’t you Scott?”
“I’m one big cliché to you, is it?”
“Big soft Irishman,” said Peter. “No wonder she went for you.”
“I knew it that night at the barbecue,” said Diane.
Tessa had known it, too. She’d watched Ros fling herself all over him, but the messages had got confused. The inside hadn’t matched the outside, Ros had been her friend. She’d gone on about how Tessa should take the part of Elvira, how she’d help her, how she’d hold her hand. You’ll be great, Tess, you’ll be fine. It’d be good for you. All men need is attention. Her attention was what she’d meant. Maybe she’d known it would tip Tessa over the edge.
Scott said, “What happened with this Ben?”
“She saw a weak spot,” said Diane.
There, thought Tessa.
Peter got a handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose. Scott poured himself a whisky, Tessa stubbed out her cigarette and ate another crumbling vol au vent.
“Cara had a bit of a blip after she had Poppy.”
“Post-natal depression is not a blip,” said Diane.
“And Ros stuck her oar in. She used to go on about how Cara wasn’t coping, how she was trying to help.”
“We said, leave them be, but she couldn’t. She was obsessed with interfering. Then she started telling us that Ben was unhappy, that he kept ringing her.”
“It wasn’t true.”
“I think it was a bit true,” said Diane. “She’s good at turning herself into an invaluable shoulder to cry on.”
“Isn’t she just,” said Scott.
Later Tessa would shout take some fucking responsibility but not now; now she was tired.
“We knew something was up.” Diane put the kettle on again.
“I took him out for a pint,” said Peter. “I warned him. I said, you want to watch my sister. But he said there was nothing going on. A difficult patch with Cara, that was all. He said it was great having someone to talk to, someone who knew her as well as he did.”
“Then, one day, Cara came home.”
“She’d gone to stay with her mother for the weekend.”
“And found them in the kitchen with their arms around each other. Ros swore he’d been telling her he was going to leave. He swore he’d been having a bad day, and she’d given him a hug, it was nothing, but Cara didn’t buy it. She said she’d known something was going on. She accused them of having an affair. Ben denied it. Ros didn’t. Cara threw him out. Ros swears to this day that they had.”
“Had they?” said Tessa.
“No,” Peter and Diane said together.
“Nothing happened,” said Peter.
“Except in your sister’s head,” finished Diane. “She’d made it up.”
“Then why didn’t she say so?” said Scott.
“Because she prefers her fantasy life,” said Peter.
Scott looked at Tessa, but Tessa looked down.
“They never spoke to Ros again until last week. They were fine about her going to the funeral. They wanted her to go. It was the past, wasn’t it. This bigger terrible thing had happened, and they weren’t thinking about that other stuff. They thought Ros would want to be there.”
“Had they got back together?” asked Tessa.
Peter shook his head. “That’s why she came here. When they divorced, she thought Ben would come to her, but of course he didn’t. He wasn’t interested in Ros in that way.”
“She was a mess,” said Diane. “Harold said it was like living with an actress who hasn’t heard the word cut. He called it that acting disease. He offered her a divorce, but instead she started telling people she was trapped in an abusive marriage, and then she said he was touching Issy. That was the end of the line for him. He agreed not to fight for custody as long as she got help. Do you remember when he came over with that book? He said he thought maybe she had a personality disorder.”
“She tried saying she was bi-polar for a while. It didn’t stick. Sorry, Tessa,” Peter flattened his hand on the table. “I suppose you’d know better than us. I knew narcissists were self-obsessed but I didn’t know there was all this other stuff.”
“It’s called magical thinking,” said Tessa.
“Well, I don’t know about these things, but I do know my sister lives in a world of fabrication. She makes things up, she believes them.”
They sat in silence. The clock ticked.
Scott said, “I think I’ve got to get home.”
“I’m not going home with you,” said Tessa. She searched her bones for the energy to stand, and thought of Freddy, curled in the snug; they’d heard the television being switched off, Issy tramping upstairs. Diane had gone in to look and reported him fast asleep.
Scott carried his son to Peter’s car and lay him on the back seat, the blanket over him. Tessa climbed in the front. She wasn’t interested in her husband’s face, he could stretch out in one of Diane’s lovely spare rooms. A victim of a narcissist or a lock and key with a woman who preferred to think that nothing was her fault. Scott was the perfect foil, the opposite to Ros, he brushed over his past as if it was a joke, as if growing up in a war zone was funny. While Ros was probably sniffing glue in Biology, he was chucking Molotov cocktails over the playground wall and calling it a laugh. Their fracture lines made sense, denial and exaggeration, anything but the truth. So he’d pitched up in a quaint market town, so he’d found Tessa, the war zones of their childhoods finding an easy match, too, Molotov cocktails replaced by the automatic weapon of her illness, but at least hers was honest. Ros’ fed on shame, her disease was a virus that infected, a contagion for which there was no cure. She would lose the sass in her hips, she would turn scrawny, throw herself at the gym and come out looking hard-edged and desperate, and nothing would stop the death of the person she pretended to be, and nothing would halt the rise of the person she was. There was no happiness in her anywhere, only an aching, selfish, panicked insistence to be the centre of everyone’s world, to seek out collusion, to take hostage, to punish those who saw through her and for the first time since their friendship began, Tessa was glad she was nothing like her. For all her loud voice, Ros was a spitfire in tailspin, she was hurtling towards the ground.
Across the lane, the downstairs lights were on at Ros’s house but as Peter pulled out of his drive, neither of them turned to look.
Oh, Ros!! Don’t judge me for feeling sorry for her. My God, to be trapped in the delusions of narcissism. What a nightmare. Eleanor, I am over and over again by your mad writing skills!
I've a sense of Tessa feeling clearer and steadier about herself, amid her periodic dysfunctions, compared to the malicious delusions of Ros's functional self.