Now Tassie sat on one of the plastic garden chairs that Henry had bought for the garden, watching Pansy play on the swing in the tree.
Clara walked up beside her, sat on the grass and handed Tassie a gin and tonic.
‘I told him,’ she said.
Tassie nodded and took the drink.
‘I guess I should tell you now,’ said Clara but Tassie shook her head.
‘I don’t need to know, love. I know enough that something happened and changed you. It pushed you down for so long that you chose the wrong boys and the wrong friends and the wrong job because you wanted to make people happy. You thought if you made people happy then that would absolve you.’
Clara was silent next to her.
‘But you had nothing to forgive yourself for. You did what you did to survive and you did survive but now…’ Tassie looked around at the cottage and Pansy on the swing and Henry coming out with the other chairs for him and Clara. ‘Now, you are living.’
Clara wiped a tear away and Tassie patted her on the head.
‘The secret needed to come out eventually. It was too big to keep between you and Henry,’ she said.
Clara nodded and allowed Henry to pull her up from the grass so she could sit on the chair.
‘Can you text Joe and ask him to come and get me?’ asked Tassie to Clara.
‘I can drive you,’ offered Henry.
‘Oh no, you’ve been drinking.’ Tassie sipped her own drink. ‘I haven’t had a sip of one of those for years. It is most refreshing.’
She watched as Clara texted on her phone, marvelling at the ease of communication between humans and yet how much was still hidden and unsaid between friends and lovers.
They sat peacefully under the tree for a while, the last of the summer bees lazily swimming through the heat waves, looking for crumbs of pollen.
Tassie turned to Henry. ‘And what about you, love?’
Henry looked at Tassie in mock horror. ‘Please don’t tell me it’s my turn to be in your spotlight.’
‘What are we going to do about Naomi? She’s ready to go, you know?’
Henry nodded. ‘I know – she told me.’
He looked at Pansy swinging with the puppy jumping up trying to reach her on his short little legs.
‘She wanted to be in a vegetable garden but I don’t like the idea of digging up carrots with her bones in it.’
Tassie listened to the trees for a while and then heard the sound of Joe’s voice coming from around the side of the house.
‘Righto, I must be off. I have a lovely chicken schnitzel dinner from Rachel coming. Did I tell you I’ve cancelled meals on wheels now? Rachel brings me whatever she is having for dinner. Last night it was an egg and bacon pie with your eggs from Clara’s Cluckers. Very good it was too.’
Tassie waved them goodbye.
It was nearly all falling into place, she thought, and then it would be time.
But first dinner and a little television and then off to bed. She had another busy day tomorrow.
51
The bakery closed and Rachel took the cash takings to the little safe and locked them away. She had changed the code since Moira had gone, at Joe’s suggestion.
‘You can’t trust her,’ he had said.
‘Do you think she will come back?’ Rachel had been terrorised by the thought. Some nights she lay in bed and wondered if Moira could come back, if she was outside. She had changed the locks at Clara’s suggestion, but Moira was able to find a way into anything.
Clara had helped her pack up Moira’s things into boxes and had them shipped to an address in Suffolk. She didn’t know whose address and she didn’t want to know. Moira was a survivor, Tassie said, but she took a lot of people down in her desire to live. She knew she was lucky that she had survived Moira. She wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for Clara.
She wondered what would have happened that night if she hadn’t called Clara. She wondered if she would have left Moira on the floor or if she would have put her hand over her mouth and nose and let her fight her until she died.
She couldn’t admit to anyone she had those thoughts until Clara told her what happened with her own father.
Clara was worried Rachel might judge her but she said she needed to know what her business partner was capable of.
Rachel had said nothing but held her friend’s hand and afterwards gave her some lemon cake, because lemons were good to break through sadness.
But weeks later she’d told Clara what she had thought about the night Moira fell.
‘I’m glad you called me. Guilt isn’t a good thing to live with,’ Clara had said. ‘It eats you up and you spend so much time trying to remember the secrets and lies you told people. It’s exhausting.’
Rachel held Clara’s secret close, not even telling Joe, but she did tell Tassie because it was Tassie and she needed to talk about it to someone.
Tassie had nodded. ‘I thought it was something like that. Poor poppet. What a thing to grow up with.’
They had sat in Tassie’s living room, with the heater on and the music on the radio, and Rachel thought about Joe coming over that night and she couldn’t have been happier.
‘When are you turning ninety, Tassie?’ she’d asked.
‘Oh, I am not turning ninety. Ninety is an obscene number and even worse when it’s someone’s age,’ Tassie had said with distaste.
Rachel had laughed. ‘I would like to give you a little party.’
But Tassie had waved her hand. ‘No parties,
