By the time they collected their food from the second window, they had mascara-smudged eyes, blotchy skin, and had released enough tension that their muscles were soft, their spines relaxed, and they breathed easily.
Sitting now in the parking area at the drive-thru, their laughter subsided.
‘Honestly, what a carry-on.’ Ashleigh smiled.
‘That was so funny.’ Remy beamed. ‘I haven’t laughed like that in ages.’Thank you, yes. We’d like some chicken!‘Why did you say that? It sounded like a royal decree!’
‘I don’t know! I panicked, thought it was better to saysomething!’
‘You maniac. Right, we better get this grub back to the masses. Hope it doesn’t make your car smell. Don’t want Archie having to whip out the Febreze the moment you get back, and I know you’d blame me.’
It made her think, how Remy assumed that Archie would do this, something Midge would probably do. Archie wasn’t quite so hands on, wasn’t like Midge at all, in fact. She hoped he was not still mad at her in the way he had been last night, and was looking forward to getting home and making up, hoping this new frivolous mood would last until then. They might not be perfect, but he was her man, her love, and always had been.
‘In answer to your earlier questions about Archie: coffee. Latex. Uno. Wrist.’
‘Ah.’ Remy popped a chip into her mouth, stolen from the bag, and smiled. ‘Well, there we go. Now I have the basis of a great conversation with him.’
Ashleigh smiled, but knew there was truth in her sister’s assessment of Archie’s aloofness, disinterest almost. She was right: it was as if he had enough people. Ashleigh wished it were different, wishedhewere different, knowing how much easier her life would be in some ways if she could better integrate her married life and her family, if only he had that everyman approachability that was such an attractive trait in Midge. But it was undeniably her fault too. Even only at a subconscious level, there was an element of keeping her two worlds separate, so that neither discovered she was a fraud.
‘I know what you mean about Archie, but it’s not personal, Rem. It’s just how he is. His upbringing, his family, all quite odd compared to us.’
‘Christ, they must be reallyodd!’ Remy swallowed her chip and stared at her.
‘It’s not like it is here, at Mum’s.’ It was scary opening up in this way, rare for her, but the atmosphere of fun, the connection, certainly made it easier.
‘Well, no. Mum doesn’t have a pool in the back garden or staff!’
Ashleigh ignored her; this wasn’t what she was driving at. ‘I sometimes’ – what did she want to say? – ‘sometimes when I’m in the house, Archie might be reading the paper, and Evie will be in the den watching her bloody cartoons.’ Remy made a tsk noise, as if recognising the behaviour in Bertie. ‘And I get this feeling like I want to go home. I close my eyes, and I think, I want to gohome, but I am home. Do you ever do that?’
‘No.’ Remy’s tone was quiet now, her expression pained. ‘No, I don’t.’
She turned to face her sister, her own face, the other half of her. ‘I’m happy most of the time.’ She felt the need to add the caveat.
‘I don’t think anyone is happy all of the time, little dove.’ Remy reached out and held her hand. A hand the same size and shape as her own.
‘I’m tired,’ Ashleigh confessed, knowing if she could close her eyes, right there and then in the KFC car park, she’d sleep soundly. ‘Probably because I’ve got the worst period!’
‘Ah, I thought you were looking particularly cool and interesting.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ Remy smiled.
‘Do you ever think we should tell Mum and Dad?’ The words flew from her lips without too much forethought, wondering if this might be the first step to making everything better, easing her guilt, removing a layer of deceit, coming clean.
‘Tell Mum and Dad what?’ Her sister threw another chip into her mouth and crunched loudly.
‘About, about the exam, about St. Jude’s, about all of it.’
Remy stopped crunching and seemed to have difficulty swallowing the mulched-up chip as if it were a boulder.
‘I guess I might have considered it once or twice, especially since you mentioned it last, but then I ask myself why. Why would we?’
‘Because, because it feels important. It weighs me down, Rem. The thought that it’s waiting in the wings. I sometimes feel sick just thinking about it. I thought it would get easier as I got older, but if anything, it grows in my worry, like we can’t keep getting away with it, surely we must be getting close to discovery.’ Ashleigh placed her hand on her forehead as if just the suggestion of discovery gaveher a headache, noticing how that carefree happiness was already on the wane.
‘I get it. I haven’t liked lying to Mum and Dad, or Midge. It’s the worst. And I know what you mean, the feeling that it’s lurking somewhere with leaves over it in a shallow grave, waiting for discovery. Midge is proud of how close we are, he loves that we have no secrets, that we reallyknoweach other, and I have to smile and look him in the eye.’ Remy paused, and Ashleigh could see the anxiety in her anguished expression. ‘How the hell would I tell him that we do actually have secrets, that I’m not the open book he thinks I am?’ She shook her head as if it were non-negotiable. ‘I worry he might stop loving me if I told him, and it wouldn’t be about the exam – who gives a shit? It was such a long time ago – we were kids! It would be about the lying to him, and I get it. I’d be gutted if it was the other way around.’
She understood, trying and failing to imagine how it might feel to tell Archie the truth, worried too that he would see her as the fraud she felt herself to be.
