The Secret Ingredient (18 page)

Andie let herself into the house with her key; she'd almost gone to knock as well until she remembered, with a faint pang, that she didn't need to do that any more. She wheeled her giant suitcase behind her, propping it upright near the wall in the lounge room, then she carried the hamper of food she'd brought from the deli to the kitchen. She'd only packed enough to get her through this evening and breakfast in the morning. She would do a proper shop tomorrow.

She put the milk and some other things in the fridge and closed the door, staring around the room. It was unnaturally quiet. She gazed out the window, she could see the roof of the garage from here. She would have seen it that day too, without really looking at it, without knowing . . .

Andie started to wonder what had possessed her to do this. Everyone had tried to talk her out of it.

‘We meant it when we said you could stay here until you got your own place,' Toby had told her, with Donna nodding in agreement beside him. ‘I don't like the thought of you staying all the way over there on your own, Andie.'

‘It's so nice of you guys,' she said. ‘And I will get my own place eventually, but it's better if I stay at the house in the meantime. It'll be easier that way, there's just so much to do before we can put it on the market.'

Toby looked uneasy. ‘You're not going to let Ross move in there with you, are you?' he asked.

‘Of course not. What made you think that?'

Ross had his own objections.

‘You don't need to stay all the way over there, Andie,' he said. ‘Can't we do something about this? I know you don't want to come back to the apartment, so why don't we get tenants in, and rent ourselves somewhere else while we work through this?'

‘Because I don't want to live with you while we work through this.'

‘But I'm not even seeing Tasha now.'

Andie groaned. ‘And is she aware of that?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Never mind,' she said flatly. ‘I need to stay at the house, Ross, it'll be so much easier to organise everything that has to be done.'

‘What about us?'

‘There is no “us” at the moment.'

‘But . . . I thought, since the funeral and everything . . .'

Andie sighed. ‘I appreciated your support, truly, I did. But what did I say to you, Ross? No demands. I need time, I need space. Don't pressure me.'

The fridge motor started up suddenly behind her and Andie jumped. Okay, she had all the time and space she could want, and it was creeping her out. She walked into the lounge room and dropped down onto the settee, picking up the remote. She turned on the TV and cycled through the stations, but the screen was so big it was like sitting in the front row at the movies. Andie went to switch it off, but then she thought better of it. She needed some background noise. Instead, she turned over to the news, and got up to go and inspect the bedrooms. She had to decide where she was going to sleep.

She stood at the door of her parents' room, but she didn't go in. The bed had been hastily made, probably by Neville. There were some clothes slung over the chair, shoes kicked aside. Everything would have to go, the bedding, all her father's clothes, all his belongings. She noticed a thick, hardcover book on the bedside table, a bookmark poking out about halfway through. He never got to finish it. She reached for the handle and pulled the door closed. She'd have to work herself up to this.

She walked up the hall and pushed on the door of her old bedroom; there was something in the way, so she couldn't open it right back. She poked her head around. It was the smallest room in the house, and now it was filled with junk, by the looks of it. Andie had taken everything she owned when she moved out, even the bed. Obviously her dad had only used the room for storage ever since. Andie suspected she was going to find a lot of her mother's stuff in here. She backed away and closed the door again. Another day.

Brendan's room was like a shrine; no one had been allowed to touch or move or take anything from it while her mother was alive. She hadn't even let the grandchildren sleep in there when they stayed over. Andie walked over to the bed and sat down, smoothing her hands across the dated, brown-striped quilt. She gazed around the room, trying to feel some sense of her brother here, but it was no use. Her mother used to insist on cleaning his room for him, regardless of his protests to give him some privacy and leave his things alone. So it was pristine, and it didn't feel like Brendan's room, it felt like a room in her mother's house where he had slept.

Andie swivelled around to lie down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, the same ceiling that Brendan would have stared at. She had been missing him more keenly of late. She wished he was here to talk to, to tell her what to do next, though Brendan would never tell her what to do. He'd say, ‘Andie . . .' – he was the one who had first called her Andie, when he was little and couldn't pronounce Andrea, and while their mother always tried to correct him as he got older, the name stuck, though he was the only one in the family who called her that. If he was here now he'd say, ‘Andie, you know what to do, you have to stop listening to the outside voices and listen to your own voice, the one inside your head, that knows you better than anyone. Even better than me.' He was barely a teenager when he said that to her, yet he could be so wise sometimes.

Andie wondered about the man he would be now, if he would have married, had any kids. She could have had a real, honest-to-goodness relationship with her nephews and/or nieces, and Andie was certain she would have got along brilliantly with his wife, her very own sister-in-law. Andie imagined barbecues with Toby and Donna, all the kids running around, the adults watching them, laughing together, happy . . . but strangely, Ross was never in the picture. Andie had always had the feeling that things wouldn't have got very far with Ross if Brendan had still been alive. She could cope with Jess and Toby and just about everyone else's disapproval, but she could never have coped with Brendan's.

She sat up again. She didn't want to sleep in here, it would only make her melancholy. So it would have to be Meredith's old room, which had long ago been stripped of all things Meredith and converted to a guestroom. It would do for Andie.

She went back out to the living room for her wheelie bag, when she thought she heard knocking. She wasn't used to the noises in the house yet, it was probably nothing. She picked up the remote and turned down the sound on the TV. Then she heard it again, this time it was unmistakably someone knocking at the door. Andie sighed; the only person she imagined it could be was Meredith, and the only reason she could imagine she'd come around was to start giving her orders.

But when Andie opened the door, it was not Meredith standing on the porch, but Ross, flowers in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.

‘Ross,' she said, ‘what are you doing here?'

He shrugged. ‘I'm allowed to visit, aren't I? You didn't say anything about not visiting.'

Andie just stood there, pressing her lips together.

‘These are for you,' he said, thrusting the flowers at her. ‘I thought you might want something to brighten up the place.'

She looked down at them. They were beautiful, of course, his secretary knew the best florists in the city. ‘Thanks.'

‘So,' he said after a while, ‘are you going to invite me in?'

She hesitated. ‘I don't know . . .'

‘Come on, Andie,' he cajoled. ‘I drove all this way.'

Why did he drive all the way over here? What was he hoping for? Andie had avoided being alone with him wherever possible, she didn't trust him . . . much less herself.

‘Look, it's not as though I'm moving in. Let's just have a drink,' he said with a wave of the bottle.

‘Okay,' Andie finally relented, taking a step back as he walked past her into the hall. Don't be a wimp, you can handle this, you just have to stay in control, keep your wits about you. She closed the door after him and followed him into the lounge room.

He was looking around. ‘I've never been inside this house, you know.'

‘I know.'

‘It's a little . . .'

‘Stuck in a time warp?' she finished for him. ‘Come through to the kitchen and I'll get us some glasses.'

Ross opened the bottle and poured the wine, while Andie searched for a vase for the flowers. She couldn't find anything appropriate, so in the end she stuck them in a plastic container so at least they were in water.

‘I guess I should have brought you a vase as well,' Ross said with a smile as he handed her a glass of wine.

‘Last thing I need is more stuff around here,' she muttered, bringing the glass to her lips.

‘Hold on,' he stopped her. ‘Shouldn't we drink to something?'

‘Like what?'

‘To new beginnings,' he said, raising his glass.

‘I think it might be more appropriate to drink to endings right now.'

‘I hope you're not referring to us.'

Andie shrugged. ‘I guess we'll have to wait and see.'

Ross threw back the contents of his glass almost in one go, and picked up the bottle again. ‘Top-up?'

‘I've barely started on this one,' said Andie. ‘Aren't you driving?'

‘Yeah,' he said, filling his glass again.

If he was going to drink that fast, Andie better get some food into him at the same time. ‘I don't have much to eat here at the moment,' she said, opening the fridge door. ‘I was going to do a big shop tomorrow.'

‘It's okay,' he said. ‘I could take you out to dinner, if you like?'

‘Thanks anyway.'

‘Then we'll order in.'

Andie turned to look at him. ‘I thought you were only staying for a drink?'

‘Why don't we play it by ear?' he said, flashing her one of his stock smiles – category: charming. He took off his jacket and hung it over a chair, then he sat down, loosening his tie.

Andie put out a wedge of brie and some crackers, but Ross didn't touch them as he guzzled down another glass. He better not be planning to drink himself over the limit so that he couldn't drive. Well, that wasn't her problem, there were such things as taxis.

‘So, how's it coming along?' he asked.

‘I only got here about an hour before you, if that,' she returned.

‘You'll have to show me around later,' he said. ‘I'd like to see where you slept when you were a girl.'

‘It's a junk room now, there's not even a bed in it.'

‘Still, there must be beds in other rooms,' he said with a suggestive wink.

Andie winced. ‘Ross . . .'

‘Sweetheart, we haven't talked, properly, in weeks.' He reached over and covered her hand with his. ‘There are so many things I want to say to you.'

‘Like what?'

‘Like I miss you.'

Andie didn't respond.

‘Don't you miss me,' he asked, ‘even a little?'

‘That's a difficult question to answer,' she replied.

He treated her to his forlorn face.

‘Ross, I miss what we had, or what I thought we had. I don't know any more. The rug's been pulled out from under me and I don't know what's real and what's not.'

‘What's real is that I love you. We've had ten years together, that's what's real.'

She sighed. ‘Is it, Ross?'

‘What are you trying to say?'

Andie wasn't sure she wanted to start dissecting their whole marriage right now. She wasn't prepared. Ross would have too many clever answers and, well . . . she just wasn't prepared.

‘Never mind,' she said.

‘No, Andie, I want you to tell me what's on your mind,' he said earnestly. ‘We should have it all out. Say whatever you've been wanting to say, give me a chance to defend myself.'

‘I don't know, Ross,' she said. ‘You have an art.'

‘Well, that's hardly fair,' he protested. ‘You're going to dismiss everything I say because I have a way of saying it?'

She shrugged, and he took hold of her hand now and drew it to his lips, planting a kiss.

‘Ross —'

‘No, listen to me,' he urged. ‘I know I've made mistakes, huge ones, but I've come to realise through all this that I love you more than anything.'

He was stroking her hand, gazing at her with those vivid blue eyes of his. It had been ages since . . . Andie couldn't even remember the last time they made love. Why was she even thinking about that now? He pressed his lips into the palm of her hand and it was as though a jolt of electricity passed through her body.

She had to stay in control. She jerked her hand away and got to her feet. ‘You've had your drink, Ross, in fact you've had two. Time to go.'

‘Andie —'

‘Really, Ross, I want you to go now.'

He stood up and she backed away from the table, right into the corner of the kitchen. Well, that was stupid. Why didn't she head for the doorway? Was this some kind of Freudian slip? Now he was right in front of her, blocking her. She would have to physically push him out of the way to move to the door, and that was hardly going to look like she was in control. She would like to maintain some dignity.