Chapter seven
Rachel
Four Gables looked empty as Rachel drove up on Wednesday. She hoped it was empty, because it would be easier for both women if her former friend made herself scarce while she cleaned. Rachel definitely didn’t relish another run-in with Claire, just-showered or otherwise, and she could certainly live without Claire skulking around, caught, as she often seemed to be, between apology and arrogance while she hoovered and dusted.
Rachel tried the handle of the front door, relieved when it was locked because that meant Claire probably was out, and then she sucked in a surprised breath when the lock was turned from the inside and the door swung open to reveal not Claire, but her older brother, Andrew.
Rachel had never liked Andrew all that much. He’d been four years above them in school, always looking a bit bored and indifferent, a little smug.
She’d seen him occasionally over the years, from a distance, but seeing him now, like this, standing in a doorway, brought her back to the moment when she’d been twelve, two monthsafter she and Claire had stopped being friends. She’d rung the doorbell, teary and snot-nosed, only to have Andrew coolly inform her that Claire was busy with her birthday party, the party Rachel hadn’t even known about. Then he had, without a qualm, shut the door in her face.
Old memories. Kid stuff. Rachel shouldered her mop and gave him a quick smile. “Hello, Andrew. I didn’t know you were back.”
Cue the blank, bored look. “I’m sorry, you are... ?” He sounded just like his mother, with that slight, telling sniff of disdain.
“Rachel Campbell. I clean the house.” She raised her eyebrows, willing him to move aside, but he simply stood there. “This mop is heavy, you know,” she said, and Andrew finally moved. Then he followed her into the kitchen and watched as she started to unpack her cleaning supplies.
“How long have you been cleaning the house?”
“About five years. I do a quick whiz round once a week but if you’re staying along with Claire, I can do more.”
“No. I’m sure whatever you’re doing will be fine. I’m leaving in a few days.”
“Right.” She started spritzing cleaning spray over the vast black granite island, and still Andrew just stood there, watching. Rachel kept an alert, cheerful expression on her face with effort. She felt as if she were performing a role, the chirpy housekeeper on some BBC drama. Next she’d be calling him “love” and boiling him a cup of tea. But, no, Andrew West was no Emily Hart or Iris Fairley.
“Sorry,” he said after a moment. “It’s just you look familiar.”
“I grew up here, went to school a few years below you,” Rachel answered as she started wiping down the island. “Same year as Claire.”
“Oh, right. I must have seen you around, then.”
“Must have.”
He stood there for a few more minutes while Rachel went about her business, head down, spraying and swiping. Finally he left.
She let out a breath, glad to relinquish the role she’d been playing—and for whose benefit? Andrew West’s? Annoyed, Rachel spritzed the sink and swiped it with vigor. Maybe she should stop coming to Four Gables until the West children were no longer in residence. She could do without the stress they caused her, bringing back memories she’d far rather leave buried deep in her subconscious.
Except those memories were already starting to slither out.
She stopped wiping, her elbows propped on the sink, her gaze on the rain-soaked garden outside even as she remembered another scene entirely. A chilly April evening, a month after her mother’s accident, her father walking out. Rachel had watched him go down the high street to the pub. It had only been half five, and Lily, not even a year old, had needed feeding and bathing. Her mother’s sheets had to be changed. And Meghan had been hiding upstairs.
Rachel had done it all, and then, when her father had come in at eight, reeking of beer and knowing full well that the hard work had already been done, he’d given Rachel a shamefaced smile and slouched upstairs.
Rachel had stood by the door for a long moment, consumed by a rage that she, at not quite twelve, didn’t fully understand. All she’d known was that she’d been doing her father’s job, and it wasn’t fair.
She’d slunk out of the house and run up to Claire’s. She’d never been there before, but she’d known where it was. Everyone in the village did. If you stood on the high street and tilted your head back, you could see it perched on the hill above the beach, aVictorian monstrosity that had looked to Rachel, with its gables and turrets, like some kind of overgrown gargoyle.
She’d knocked on the door, her heart beating hard, her nose running from the cold, and tears already starting in her eyes. All she’d wanted was to talk to Claire, to talk to someone who, even if she didn’t understand, might at least listen. Out of desperation she’d put her pride aside; then Andrew had opened the door, told her about the party, and then promptly shut it in her face.
It shouldn’t matter now, but it still hurt, especially when she considered that not much had changed in the sixteen years since then. The only thing that was different was her dad wasn’t at the pub; he was gone for good. And instead of standing on the stoop, she was cleaning the Wests’ house.
“You were friends with Claire, weren’t you?”
She turned around; Andrew had come back into the kitchen, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans as he rocked back and forth on his bare feet.
“A long time ago,” she answered. “Back in primary.” A shrug to show she barely remembered. Then she turned her back on him and got out the Hoover.
“How come you didn’t keep in touch?”
