The Other Wife Read online

  Her knuckles had gone white. Carefully, she set the phone down, then sprang up to see if anything needed doing. She straightened the cushion she’d been sitting against, the exact duck-egg shade as the vase on the sideboard. Flicked some specks of dust from the windowsill. Not that any dirt was allowed to settle. Some nights when she couldn’t sleep, she could almost hear the dust falling, the spiders spinning their webs, the grease building up in the kitchen. She would get up, pull on rubber gloves in the dark.

  She went into the kitchen and turned the heat down on the chicken casserole she had cooking – she usually tried to make things that wouldn’t spoil if he was late. Rinsed the sink out for the fourth time. Arranged the tea towels. It was dangerous, being alone like this. Too much silence for thoughts to creep into. Flames, licking up a brick wall. A face at a window.

  Where are you? Why haven’t you called? Where ARE you?

  Then, just as it felt unbearable, just as she was sure she needed to hold her hand under the scalding tap, or against the burner on the hob – anything to distract herself – she heard the blessed, blessed sound of tyres on gravel. He was home!

  She ran to the door as he was unlocking it. Safe, whole, home to her. She flew into his arms. ‘Thank God! I was so worried!’

  ‘Hey, hey, what’s this? I’m not even very late.’

  ‘It’s just – you didn’t call and I . . .’

  He pulled away, putting his hands on her shoulders. ‘Elle-belle, we talked about this. I can’t always leave on time, or get to my phone.’

  She nodded, trembling. Shame was pouring into her like a sluice gate. ‘I’m sorry, darling. I just love you so much. I worry!’

  He was gentle. ‘I know. But everything’s fine. Darling, you aren’t going funny again, are you?’

  She avoided his gaze. ‘Of course not. I just worry.’

  ‘Well, I’m here now. How about some dinner for a hungry man?’

  ‘Of course.’ Her head was already clearing, filling with what she needed to do. Turn up the casserole, make a salad, slice the bread, pour wine for him. Make sure the bottle she’d opened wasn’t too empty and if it was, hide it and open a fresh one, pour out one glass to make it look like that was all she’d had. ‘Was it a terrible day?’

  ‘The usual disaster zone.’ He couldn’t tell her what he did all day, she knew that. Patient confidentiality. Her heart swelled with pride for him. Saving lives, ushering children into the world. Stitching women back together as they lay, broken and bloody. And here he was, coming back to her. The least she could do was make sure he had a welcoming home to return to.

  ‘Sit down, darling.’ She massaged his shoulders, trying to ease him into a chair. ‘You must be so tired. I’ll bring you a drink. Whisky? Or wine?’

  He stayed standing, gently pushing her away. ‘I need a shower first. That hospital smell.’ A nightly ritual, it helped him relax.

  ‘Of course. There’s fresh towels and that soap you like.’

  He paused at the foot of the stairs, smiling at her with tired eyes. ‘What would I do without you? I’ll be down in a minute.’

  She heard him go upstairs, and once again she looped the living room, making sure nothing was out of place, everything was neat and clean and tidy. Perfect.

  She could almost see her mother smiling at her – not that she had smiled much while she was around. You learned at last. Elle liked to think she would look at her daughter now – her spotless house in the nicer part of Guildford, her handsome doctor husband, her French cookery and elegant clothes – and she would at last approve.

  Suzi

  I’d wondered if I should bring her something, but I wasn’t the kind of woman who had cakes lying around in Tupperware or punnets of home-grown strawberries. I’d just go and say hello. I put on my too-clean Hunters and jeans under the jumper – I didn’t feel ready to take it off, not yet – and made sure to tidy up, in case Nick came home early again. I set the dishwasher running, a silent whoosh behind brushed chrome. I adjusted the underfloor heating as it was far too hot, although when I checked the thermostat was set at eighteen, and outside the November weather had turned, all the warmth leached from it. This house seemed to keep everything in.

  Nick had left his breakfast dishes on the table, of course, a new habit since we’d moved here. I had broached once or twice the fact I was now doing all the cooking, cleaning, washing and housework. He’d looked at me in astonishment, grinding pepper all over the stew I’d laboured on. ‘But I’ve been working all day.’

  I’d felt the helpless rage rise up in me – he’d always worked all day, and yet in London we’d shared everything, stopping by the shops, running a sponge over the shower. ‘I’m working too.’

  ‘Hardly.’

  I didn’t answer. I was supposed to be studying for my art therapist certificate, as well as painting, but we both knew I had done neither for weeks.

  I was almost excited, I realised, as my feet made deep prints in the autumn mud. It was the first time in days I’d seen anyone but Nick. The dog was frantic at the door. Walkies! People! I wished I felt such enthusiasm for life. I couldn’t find his lead – I never put it back in the right place – so I tied him with a scarf. There were three movers altogether. They must have been family because the younger men had the same burly width and curly hair as the older one.

  ‘Hello!’ I was dragged across the lane, the dog almost strangling himself with joy at seeing someone other than me. The older man regarded me, chewing gum. ‘I’m the neighbour – is someone moving in? Exciting!’ I was already trying to flatten my vowels, be more working class, not Mrs Hunter Wellies and Joules Gilet.

  He was hefting a chest of drawers, his muscles rippling under tattoos. ‘In there,’ he said laconically. ‘You wanna get that dog a lead.’

  What was it about pets that meant you got advice from random strangers all the time?

  ‘Be careful with that, will you?’ A posh voice, cool and controlled. I turned. The woman was on the doorstep, holding a small plant in a pot. ‘It’s quite valuable. Please don’t scrape it.’ The man gave me what I thought was a class-conscious eye roll and I glowed. I wasn’t the middle-class bitch here! I might own truffle oil but I was just like him!

  She was older than me, eyes sinking under crow’s feet, hair greying. She looked me over, and I saw her frown, perhaps at my unsuitable clothes, or maybe at Poppet, who was being a nightmare.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I’m next door. Have you moved in?’

  ‘Moving.’ She was looking at the yapping, straining dog. ‘Is that a scarf?’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t find his lead, and he’s such a bad dog, he’d be on the road in seconds.’ Poppet had been a deep trial to me from the very beginning, when I’d been stuck at home with him as a puppy, unable even to step outside – they couldn’t go out at all for the first two weeks, who knew? I’d begged Nick to let me go out for air, ten minutes even.

  ‘But the pupster will be lonely,’ he’d said, putting on his work jacket, something as simple as going to an office making me jealous. I had realised at that point that Poppet was now the number two priority in our family, and I had slipped to third.

  The woman bent to him now, and very firmly said, ‘Sit down.’ And he did, ears flattened.

  ‘That’s amazing.’

  ‘Just firmness. I grew up around dogs.’ She crouched down, stroking his silky ears. He gazed up with deep adoration. ‘They’re so guileless. Not like people. He’s a lurcher, is he?’

  ‘Yeah.’ How did people do that, tell just by looking? Really, I knew nothing about dogs.

  She put out a hand. ‘Nora Halscombe.’

  I grasped it, fumbling with the dog. Her skin was surprisingly calloused. ‘Hi, Nora. This is Poppet. Daft name, daft dog. I just wanted to say hello. There’s only us, you know. It can be very isolated down here.’ Again, the penetrating gaze. I felt a craven urge to do something and bent to lift a packing case the men had left by the stone path. ‘I’ll get this,
you must be swamped.’

  I felt her hand encircle my wrist, cool and oddly strong. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Please don’t. Not in your condition.’

  I must have turned pale, and for a moment I felt the same cold dread flush through me like a weir, as it had every day since it happened. ‘I didn’t think I showed much yet.’ The baggy jumper should have hidden it, surely.

  ‘Oh, I know the signs.’

  It felt too intimate, like when complete strangers come up behind you and tuck in the label of your shirt. The truth hit me like a bucket of cold water – I was almost six months pregnant. What would happen when the baby came – surely I couldn’t keep this up, this tightrope-act I walked every day? What would I do? I tried to change the subject back to her. ‘Is it just you living here? Are you married?’

  I could tell I’d made a terrible mistake by the way her face stiffened. ‘I’m a widow,’ she said finally. ‘I wanted to be out of the house as soon as possible. Well, that’s not entirely it. I had to move – money, you know. My husband was the one with the career.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.’ Tears filled my eyes, to my deep horror and shame. ‘God, I’m sorry, I – I lost someone close recently. It was – well, I’m still getting used to it.’ Why had I said that? It wasn’t the same kind of loss, even if it felt like it. My opinion of myself went even lower.

  Nora’s face was still frozen. ‘A change will help, I’m sure.’

  ‘I hope you’ll be happy here.’ I was screwing up my eyes to keep the tears in. ‘Perhaps you’d like to come for dinner one time.’ Supper, I should have said – she’d call it supper. ‘I’m learning to cook. So far it’s mostly burning, but you never know!’ I turned to go. ‘Oh, and if you meet Nick, that’s my husband, perhaps you wouldn’t mention what I said – you know, about the loss. It might upset him.’

  ‘Of course.’ She smiled. ‘I’m good at keeping secrets, Suzi.’

  It was only when I’d fumbled with the alarm – Nick said I had to set it every time, even just to pop out, but I was always scared I’d get the code wrong – and shut the door and started chopping onions for the recipe he’d left out that I realised I hadn’t actually told her my name.

  Nora

  I’d been sure I would meet Suzi that first day, with just the two houses on this isolated road. And sure enough, I was still unpacking when she wandered over, dragging a lurcher pulling hard on an improvised lead. I did hate to see untrained dogs like that. Her hair was loosely plaited, strands of it falling over her face, and under her jacket she wore what looked like a man’s jumper. I peered closer – yes, it was a man’s jumper. I began to feel nervous. What would she be like?

  I made myself smile at her, despite everything, as she stood talking to Brian, the head removals man. She wore no make-up but she was beautiful, and beside her I felt so old and dried-up, though there couldn’t have been more than ten years between us. A widow. That’s what I was. The word itself aged me, as did the loss.

  It was only as I got nearer, and she lifted her hand in a greeting, that I saw something I hadn’t prepared for at all. She was pregnant. And at once I found myself all at sea again, poleaxed with a pain so great I could hardly stand up.

  I’d thought I was ready for the next step. Maybe I was wrong.

  After Suzi went, I spent the rest of the day unpacking, trying to make the small damp place feel like home. It had been cleaned before I moved in, but not to my standards, so I had to leave the furniture in the middle of the room while I sponged skirting boards and dusted cobwebs. It went round and round in my head – she was pregnant. There would be a baby. Could I still be here, in that case? What did it mean for me? I had been so certain, but the knowledge made me falter in my plans. The cottage was so small, so ugly. And it was hard to get used to the silence out here, the fields that stretched out in every direction, the only noise the vague hum of the M25. The sense that nothing human was nearby, just bare trees, frozen ground.

  Except Suzi, of course. My new neighbour. Standing at my own darkened window, I glimpsed her behind the sealed glass of their renovated cottage. It reminded me of Uplands, when I used to look out the glass panel of my room door at the other girls, who for all their feralness had a camaraderie of sorts. No one wanted to be friends with me, the possibly deranged posh girl. Ivy Cottage, that was the name of my house. Ivy that creeps, and clings. An invasive weed. And Suzi’s was Willow, willow that droops and bows, melancholy.

  I shivered, envious of Suzi’s thick windows – the panes here let in draughts of cold air, and I’d had to wedge a rug against the door, it was so cold. When it got dark – before four already, so early – I came out of my unpacking daze and found myself alone in a damp, cold, cheerless house. I had no food in. I hadn’t set up my lamps and candles or television, or figured out how to use the heating. I’d hesitated over putting my husband’s picture out, and in the end decided to keep it in a drawer by my bed. I didn’t need it out, reminding me every second. Besides, it might upset Suzi if she saw it. I’d seen her face when I mentioned I was a widow.

  Overwhelmed, I sat down on the stairs, with their old patterned carpet. What am I doing here? I couldn’t answer it. They say grief is close to madness. Perhaps I was mad. The noise of my phone ringing made me jump; it sounded so loud in the silence. ‘Hello?’

  It was Eddie, the lawyer I’d used since I was sixteen. The only person still around who’d known me when I was a child. A short, wheezy man, close to retirement; I was so happy to hear his voice I almost cried. ‘I don’t have good news, I’m afraid,’ he said, when he’d finished asking about the cottage (I lied, said it was charming).

  ‘Oh.’ It seemed like a long time since anyone had good news for me. I wasn’t sure it was possible any more. ‘The money?’

  ‘The forensic accounting didn’t turn up anything. No secret accounts or trusts. It looks as if it really is gone. And as you know, the life insurance was cancelled last year. I’m so sorry, dear.’

  I hadn’t believed it when he first told me. It didn’t make any sense. ‘No, no, there’s plenty,’ I’d insisted. I couldn’t have said how much, but I’d always had the impression it was limitless for all the things I wanted. Comfortable. Not something I needed to worry about.

  ‘I’m sorry. The accounts just seem to be . . . depleted. There’s nothing there.’

  It was an interesting word to choose. I felt that way myself – diminished. Drained. Empty. A husk of a person, in a husk of a house. All I had left was a certain wild pride, and a drive to keep on going, in case I looked down and saw the gaping abyss I was balanced over. ‘Thank you, Eddie.’ I hung up before he could hear me cry.

  Suzi

  I was a bit troubled by the thing with my name, but it was easy to explain to myself. Gavin the estate agent might have mentioned it to her, for example. I had to stop dwelling on things. Rumination, they call it in psychology. When your brain worries away at a minor thing until you wear a hole in yourself, like an unravelling jumper. The way I think about the last time I saw you, taking the memory out and rubbing it smooth as a stone. We’ll figure this out. But for now, don’t make any waves. Go home.

  It isn’t home, I’d said, made bold with fear. Not with him.

  Soon. And you drove off in your Jaguar, leaving me by the side of the road in the September sunshine, the waving grass brushing my bare legs, my city sandals far too clean to have been for a proper country walk, so that I had to muddy them on my way home in case Nick suspected. I’d been so happy just then, despite the fear and the sick feeling of having to tell him. I didn’t doubt you would come for me. But since then – almost two months now! – I hadn’t heard a word. I’d replayed it a thousand times. Had I done something – said something – that changed everything so utterly? What was it? Meanwhile, my stomach was swelling like an opening flower in water. Something had to be done. But what?

  Nick was late that night, after I went to Nora’s. I’d taken to hovering by the front window when he
was due, like a woebegone dog, hands on my belly. Not because I missed him. More because the clock had hit six, the hands balanced straight as a knife, and I knew if it tipped any further I’d tip with it. That night, he idled outside, locking the car. He must have been on the phone; I could hear his voice but not what he was saying. The low roll of his laugh, unfamiliar as thunder in a long summer. He was talking to a woman, I could tell. Someone in the office, probably, some bright young graduate. Loyal. Liked dogs and wellies and didn’t crave the pound of tarmac under her heels. He was silent now. Off the phone. He still didn’t come in. I went into the hallway and up to the door, right up close to the Farrow & Ball paint, pressing my bump into it along with my ear, and I imagined I could almost hear him breathe on the other side. What was he waiting for? Then suddenly he wrenched it open. I saw him like a stranger might, a middling-height man in a Superdry jacket, a shirt and tie, glasses steaming up in the cold. Brown hair, a nice rather than a striking face, or so I had once thought. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Oh! I just heard the car.’ I wanted to ask, who were you talking to, but I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t turn into him. ‘You’re so late.’ I trailed after him into the kitchen.

  He looked at me in weary bafflement. ‘But you used to be late all the time. Three a.m., one time you came back, in London. Remember?’

  ‘It’s different. I’m on my own here.’ We were hovering close to the edge, so I turned away, tidying some dishes around the sink.

  ‘You can go out too,’ he said, taking off his coat. ‘I’m not stopping you.’

  I threw a mug into the sink. It didn’t break and when Nick glanced over, I picked it back out again, shaking, as if my hand had slipped. I’d wished it would break. That was why people threw things in arguments. It wasn’t rage. It was the need to show the other person that, however things looked from the outside, something was broken and jagged. ‘I can’t, can I? You have the car, the station’s miles away.’