She remembered walking into that room and seeing Clementine's horrified face. She was so clearly terrified that Erika had overheard.
She remembered how she'd carried Ruby downstairs on her hip while rage and pain raced like bacteria through her bloodstream. Rage and pain for Oliver, who had so blissfully, innocently assumed that if they asked Clementine to donate her eggs his little baby would come from 'a place of love'. A place of love. What a joke.
They'd gone out into that preposterous backyard and Tiffany had offered her wine, that very good wine, and she'd drunk it faster than she'd ever drunk a glass of wine before, and every time Erika had looked at Clementine, laughing, chatting, having the time of her life, she had silently screamed, You can keep your damned eggs.
And it was at that point that her memories of exactly what happened that afternoon began to loosen, fragment and crumble.
chapter twenty-eight
The day of the barbeque
'This is some backyard,' said Sam.
'It's ... amazing,' said Clementine.
Vid and Tiffany's house had been impressive, especially the artwork, but this lavishly landscaped backyard, with its tinkling water features, its fountains and urns, its white marble statues and its scented candle-lit, luxuriously fitted out cabana, was another level of extravagance altogether. The fragrance of roasting meat filled the air, and Clementine wanted to laugh out loud with delight, like a child walking into Disneyland. She was enchanted by the opulence of it all. There was something so hedonistic and generous about it, especially after poor Erika's rigidly minimalist home.
Of course she understood the reasons for Erika's obsession with minimalism, she wasn't completely insensitive.
'Yeah, the backyard is all Vid's. He goes for the understated look,' said Tiffany as she indicated a seat for Clementine, refilled her glass with champagne and offered the plate of Vid's freshly baked strudels.
Clementine wondered if Tiffany had some experience in the hospitality field. She almost had one arm folded behind her back as she bent at the waist and poured drinks.
From where Clementine sat in the long, low cabana she could see her daughters playing on a large rectangle of grass next to a gazebo with ornate columns and a wrought-iron dome. They were throwing a tennis ball for the little dog. Ruby had the ball at the moment and she was holding it up high above her head, while the dog, taut and trembling with anticipation, sat in front of her, poised to spring.
'You must tell Dakota to let us know when she gets sick of looking after the girls,' said Clementine to Tiffany, although she hoped it wouldn't be any time soon.
'She's having a great time with them,' said Tiffany. 'You just relax and enjoy the view of the Trevi Fountain there.' She nodded at the largest, most extravagant fountain, a monolithic creation built like a wedding cake with winged angels holding uplifted hands as if to sing, except instead they spurted great criss-crossing arcs of water from their mouths. 'That's what my sisters call it.'
'Her sisters have the wrong country,' said Vid. 'The Gardens of Versailles was my inspiration, in France, you know! I got books, pictures, I studied up. This is all my own design, you know, I sketched it out: the gazebo, the fountain, everything! Then I got friends in to build it all for me. I know a lot of tradies. But her sisters!' He pointed his thumb at Tiffany. 'When they saw this backyard, they laughed and laughed, they just about wet their pants.' He shrugged, unbothered. 'I said to them, it's no problem that my art has given you joy!'
'I think it's incredible,' said Clementine.
'No pool?' asked Sam, who had grown up splashing about in a backyard above-ground pool with his brothers and sister. 'You've got enough room for one.'
He looked about the backyard as if planning a redesign, and Clementine could tell exactly where his mind was heading. Sometimes he talked wistfully about selling up and moving out to a good old-fashioned quarter-acre block in the suburbs, where there would be room for a pool and a trampoline, a cubby house and a chook shed and a vegetable garden; a house where his children could have the sort of childhood he'd had, even though nobody had childhoods like that anymore, and even though Sam was more urban than her, and loved being able to walk to restaurants and bars and catch the ferry into the city.
Clementine shuddered at the thought of the third child in that suburban dream of his, now at the front of his mind thanks to Erika's request. God, there might even be a fourth child romping about in his imaginary backyard.
'No pool! I'm not a fan of chlorine. Unnatural,' said Vid, as if there were anything natural about all this glossy marble and concrete.
'It's incredible,' said Clementine again, in case Sam's comment could be interpreted as criticism. 'Is that a maze over there in the corner? For lovers' trysts?'
She didn't know why she'd said 'lovers' trysts'. What a thing to say. Had she ever said the word 'tryst' out loud in her life before? Was that even how you pronounced it?
'Yes, and for Easter egg hunts with all of Dakota's cousins,' said Tiffany.
'Taking care of that topiary must take up a bit of your time,' commented Oliver, looking at the sculptured hedges.
'I have a good friend, you know, he takes care of it.' Vid made giant snip-snip movements with his hands to indicate someone else doing his hedge clipping.
The late afternoon sun streamed into the cabana and created a rainbow effect in the mist of water billowing from the wonderfully absurd fountain. Clementine felt a sudden burst of optimism. Surely Erika hadn't overheard what she'd said, and even if she had, Clementine would make it right, like she had so many times before, and then she'd find a nice, gentle way to explain why she couldn't donate her eggs. An anonymous egg donor would be more suitable for all concerned. They existed! Didn't they? People were always getting pregnant using donated eggs. Or celebrities were, anyway.
And Sam didn't really want another baby, any more than he really wanted to be a tradesman like his dad. He sometimes said he should have done something with his hands. After a frustrating day at work he'd go on about how he wasn't really cut out for the corporate world, but then next thing he was all excited about a TV commercial he was shooting. Everyone had another sort of life up their sleeve that might have made them happy. Yes, Sam could have been a plumber married to a stay-at-home domestically minded wife who kept the house in perfect order, with five strapping football-playing sons, but then he probably would have dreamed of having a fun office job and living in a cool, funky suburb by the harbour with a cellist and two gorgeous little girls, thank you very much.
She took a bite of Vid's strudel. Sam, who was already halfway through eating one, laughed at her. 'I knew your eyes would roll back into your head when you tasted that.'
'It's spectacular,' said Clementine.