The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly Read online

  Nathan wiped his upper lip with the back of his hand, leaving an earth moustache. ‘There’s no point in fighting over something you can do nothing about, Minty.’

  I gave up. Memories do not obey commands. You cannot pronounce that the past is in the past. It is in the present with you, dug in.

  I left him to it.

  I went inside, fed the children and put them to bed. Then I gathered together my notes and files and went up too. On the kitchen table I left a Post-it note: ‘Get your own supper.’

  5

  ‘Hey, Minty.’ Barry’s summons was issued via the internal phone. ‘We need you.’

  I was flicking through the daily papers, the phone between shoulder and neck, a pose I found useful for suggesting that I was engaged on top-whack activity. Lately I had noticed that my shoulder and upper arm were stiff and ached. Nathan laughed when I explained why and murmured that he’d missed a trick.

  ‘Can you wait while I answer this call, Barry?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘OK.’

  The message was unmistakable. When I arrived at his office, Gabrielle and Deb were ensconced on the supersized sofa, wedged so far back that their feet were barely touching the floor. From his desk, Barry loomed a telling couple of feet over them. He was in a leather blouson jacket and chinos. A white silk evening scarf was draped round his neck, and when he raised his arm, a red Kabbalah wristband was prominent. His eyes were sharp and intelligent. He held up a green plastic envelope and kicked off: ‘There’s a mass of stuff in here about middle age. What is it? Who is it? The girls agree that it’s worth a look, but will it pull together?’ Without a mitigating shred of irony, he handed the dossier to me. ‘The consensus, Minty, is that this one’s yours.’

  Gabrielle and Deb exchanged a look. ‘Gabrielle and I don’t feel we know enough,’ Deb pointed out.

  A small but significant note sounded in my head. ‘And I do?’

  I could choose any number of metaphors to explain the transition from imagining you’re one of the girls to knowing you’re not. Depending on my mood, they would make me laugh or weep. In this case I would decide which later.

  Deb shook back her long, wavy hair – very North London, Pre-Raphaelite hair – and the gesture suggested (it was intended to) unfettered vision and youthful boldness that knew exactly where it was heading. Gabrielle focused on Barry, who, as usual, was pretending not to notice.

  ‘I sense possibilities here.’ Barry was passing me the baton. ‘I think you could deal nicely, Minty’

  I skimmed the first paragraph of an article from the New Statesman. ‘ The social and cultural emphasis of youth has resulted in a neglect of the middle years. We have more than sufficient cultural and financial data on youth and, to an extent, on the old. But what do we know about the important phase between the two?’

  An urgent phone call took Gabrielle out of the room, which released Barry for proper thought and the ‘creative’ discussion that followed. Was middle age defined by behavioural habits? (Avoiding danger? Inability to sleep in? Caffeine intolerance? Regular checking of the bank balance?)

  Deb tapped a Biro on her clipboard. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  Barry dropped a small rocket. ‘Or is it when people discover, or rediscover, faith?’

  ‘Good heavens!’ She sounded appalled. ‘Really?’

  Barry retracted. ‘Perhaps not. Maybe middle age is defined financially, when the mortgage is paid off.’

  Deb swept back her hair and anchored it with a hand, exposing her smooth, unlined forehead. ‘Middle age is forty?’

  ‘Fifty.’ Barry was firm.

  ‘Oh? OK.’ She sounded now as though she’d never heard of fifty. ‘You think?’

  Not once during this exchange did either Barry or Deb look fully at me.

  ‘Minty, have a word with your friends.’ Barry closed the meeting. ‘People who know. What do they think about middle age?’

  ‘I’ve hunted out a few statistics that might help,’ Deb said kindly. She handed me a sheaf of papers, her hair mimicking the pliant, supple movements of her body. ‘Maybe you could go through them during your days at home.’

  The following morning, I came in early, when I knew Barry would be in the office, and presented him with a memo detailing why Paradox Productions would benefit from hiring me full-time. I had dressed carefully in linen trousers, a camisole that exposed a hint of cleavage and a tight denim jacket.

  At home, his wife’s thank-you postcard of a Matisse silhouette in brilliant blue was still pinned to the kitchen noticeboard – ‘Barry and I thought the dinner excellent… PS Could I have the recipe for the chicken?’

  Barry listened to what I had to say. Then he tapped his finger on his Filofax and spoke pleasantly and reasonably: ‘Not sure, Minty.’

  Any minute now the phones would go mad, and Barry’s focus would switch. I had always believed in being straight. ‘I have everything you need.’

  Ye-es…’ ‘Barry was still reasonable. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, darling, and I’d like to help, truly I would.’ To show willing he skimmed the main points of the memo. ‘You do have a lot on your plate.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘There are plenty of smart women like you… and unencumbered, if you see what I mean.’ This was thin ice, and he switched tack. ‘I have to consider the dynamics. It would put Deb’s nose out of joint.’ He added, with ironic inflection, ‘Budgets, you know.’

  Under the camisole, the half-cup bra itched. ‘At least consider my suggestion.’

  Barry’s smile was cat-like. He would so much rather not have to deal with my request. ‘I’ll do that. We’ll talk after Christmas. OK?’

  He didn’t so much as glance at my cleavage.

  At the end of the day, mindful of Barry’s warning about Deb, I went to find her. ‘Have you got a moment?’

  She was gathering her stuff into a leopard-print tote bag. She worked efficiently, handling the papers with a kind of reverence. She listened without comment to the outline of my plans and I made sure she understood that I posed no threat to her position. Eventually, without a mirror, she dabbed on some lip gloss. ‘It really doesn’t matter one way or the other, Minty. We take it as it comes.’ Mobile phone in hand, she hovered in the doorway. ‘You’re not in tomorrow, are you? See you the day after.’

  ‘So?’ Paige manoeuvred herself into the car seat, like a ship’s container into its berth. The baby was due late January, but during this final trimester, she was finding it difficult to walk and I was ferrying her to the shops to do some Christmas shopping. ‘Why do we need categories of age or behaviour?’

  ‘We don’t. Or, rather, sensible people don’t. It’s business and marketing that require them.’

  Paige considered. ‘You’d better watch that Deborah. Take it from me.’ This was not light advice. Paige knew whereof she talked. She had survived coups and counter-coups. ‘By the time she got home after you talked to her, she would have worked out several scenarios as to why no one else was needed full-time at Paradox, all of which spell bad news for your plans, especially when Barry consults her – which he will.’

  I absorbed the advice. ‘After Nathan left Rose, and she was sacked, I wrote to her saying it was my turn now’

  ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘I did. I regret it. And I can’t believe I actually did it. At the time I wanted to explain. To show why things had turned out as they had.’

  After a moment, Paige said, ‘Some going.’

  I eyed her bulk. ‘How is it going?’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  This was not the former Paige – all hustle, smartness and gloss – who had featured in the photographs that adorned the Hurley household. That Paige had been a top banker. No, Paige had given it all up when Jackson, now eight, and Lara, six, arrived. She had had no choice, I’d overheard her telling Nathan – who’d lapped it up. Children cannot flourish at home without a mother. Period.

  This Paige was deeply fatigued in her third pre
gnancy. Her lipstick had been carelessly applied, leaving a rim round the pale interior of her stubborn lower lip, while a smudge of mascara adorned the papery skin under her left eye.

  ‘You look tired.’

  ‘So?’ She shrugged, and still managed to convey… excitement and commitment. You know, even though I feel like the largest sack of potatoes on the planet, I wish I’d started earlier.’

  ‘Your energy is ferocious. You should be working in a bank.’

  ‘Ha.’

  We drove past the common. Paige eased herself back in the seat and gazed hungrily out of the window. ‘Do I look like a prisoner offered an hour’s exercise in the yard?’

  ‘The sacking smock gives you away’

  The dog-walkers were out in force, some struggling with as many as six or eight charges. ‘Look at them.’ Paige sighed. ‘That’s how I feel.’

  Winter had snapped its jaws shut. The trees were stripped bare and, since the autumn, the grass had returned to its proper colour. The shops were bright with Christmas lights. Suddenly Paige asked, ‘What if I die with this one? Women do sometimes.’

  I was startled. ‘You won’t.’

  ‘If I do, will you insist that I have “mother” somewhere on my headstone?’ Paige laughed as she spoke, but it was not a happy sound.

  ‘Don’t you mean “wife and mother”?’

  She shook her head, and I saw the suggestion of new flesh settling under her chin. ‘Sort of surplus, don’t you think?’

  ‘Paige, what’s going on?’ In my book, Paige and Martin were a happy couple. They represented all that was stalwart in the battle to preserve family values. All of a sudden, I experienced a disconcerting flash that I had been looking at the wrong picture.

  ‘Nothing, sweetie. Nothing at all. Husbands are tiring.’ There was a pause. ‘Hey, did I tell you about Lara? I’ve got her into Partington’s, the ballet school. She’s been aching to go and the list was this long…’ Paige sketched a gesture that fishermen frequently employ when discussing a catch. ‘Anyway, I collared Mary Streatham at the book club. She’s a governor, and we understand each other, and she said she’d see what she could do. No favours, mind. Martin isn’t so pleased with his bit… Apparently a donation to the new studio fund would not go unnoticed – and no favours, mind.’

  I snorted. ‘I smell a similarity to Nathan taking paper suppliers to Paris for a long weekend of cultural adventure.’

  ‘Whatever you say.’ You could have cut Paige’s smugness with a knife.

  Back in Paige’s kitchen – complete with a pink Aga and a copper batterie de cuisine - I unpacked and hid various items while Paige instructed me from a chair into which she had lowered herself with a groan. The table had already been laid for supper by Linda, the au pair, with a full complement of china, glasses and napkins. One of Paige’s nostrums, one of the many to which I had helped myself, was that children should be made to eat properly at table with adults.

  ‘Does Martin get home in time?’ I asked.

  Paige sighed. ‘What do you think?

  Jackson, a big blond child, bounded into the kitchen. ‘Mum, where have you been?’

  Paige jerked out of her torpor, as if an electric switch had been tripped. ‘Darling. How was your day? Say hello to Mrs Lloyd.’

  Jackson was full of his news. ‘Guess, Mummy!’ But he couldn’t wait for Paige to run through the options. ‘I came second in the spelling test.’

  Even I knew my duty. ‘That’s wonderful, Jackson.’

  Paige cupped her son’s chin in her hand. ‘Only second, darling?’ So gentle she sounded, yet so inexorable. ‘What went wrong?’

  *

  I drove home from Paige’s, parked and let myself into the house. All over the country parents were hurrying home to scoop up their offspring. Parents who, laden with briefcases and last-minute shopping, kicked open the front door and cried, ‘I’m home.’ That species of parent sank gratefully into a welter of warmth and children’s muddle, ambition laid aside in embraces.

  According to the list in the kitchen, the twins were at Millie Rowe’s for tea. I checked the post, which included a volume of poems by the feminist poet Ellen Black, whom I had schmoozed at a party. It was entitled Origin of a New Species.

  One of Lucas’s red socks lay on the stairs. I picked it up and smoothed it absently. It was very small with the suggestion of a hole in the toe. Soon I would have to think about supper and endless more meals. Then there was the twins’ Christmas party. I had made a list: sausages, pizzas, crisps, jelly in the shape of a cat, pirate hats. I knew that for days afterwards I would be picking up bits of sausage and crisps that had been trodden into the floors and carpets.

  The front door opened and the boys did their windmill act – arms outstretched and flailing towards me. ‘Here’s Mummy!’ Lucas’s cry rang with a note of pure joy. His shirt was hanging out of his trousers and encrusted with Bourbon biscuits. Felix had a green paint splodge on one cheek. Laden with their stuff, Eve brought up the rear.

  Felix tugged at my hand. ‘You are my real mummy, aren’t you?’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  He looked important. ‘Lucas says Eve’s our real mummy.’

  ‘Lucas!’ I shot a glance at Eve, who shook her head. Lucas seemed shifty. ‘Millie says her nanny’s her real mummy…’

  Millie was a recently acquired friend, the only child of divorced parents, and spent her life shuttling between two tight-lipped adults. She had the bewilderment – and malice – of a child at sea. The boys needed reassurance, and I thought rapidly, inventively. ‘Why don’t we invite Millie to tea, and she can see who the real mummy is?’

  Nathan arrived home, pale and shivering, and I ordered him to bed. Later I took him a tray of scrambled egg, smoked salmon and cranberry juice. ‘You’ve been overdoing the parties.’ I pummelled his pillows, patted the duvet straight and checked that the bedroom was in apple-pie order.

  ‘There’s a bad flu going round.’ He placed a finger on his pulse, and squinted up at me with a grin. ‘It’s galloping.’

  I grinned back. ‘Probably terminal.’

  I sat down at the end of the bed and studied him. True, Nathan was not in the pink, but his hair was thick, in good condition and attractively grey-streaked. Thank goodness, he wasn’t coarse, lumpy or hairy. He hadn’t run to fat either, and the veins in his hands were still decently buried beneath his skin. Thank goodness, too, he was not the sort of man who smelt, a roaring masculine presence whose limbs and noise invaded every space. Instead there was delicacy and proportion about his appearance. ‘Should you have a check-up?’

  He ate some egg. ‘I might.’

  ‘I insist.’

  ‘Bully,’ he said, without rancour. ‘I’d prefer a holiday in Cornwall. How about it, Minty?’ The old spark flickered in his eyes. ‘It would be fun. The boys would love it. It would do us all good – it’d be like old times.’

  Outside, a car door slammed and rain spattered the window, but in the bedroom it was warm and peaceful.

  I sidestepped Cornwall. ‘Talking of the boys… About the Nativity play’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Mrs Jenkins promised that Lucas could be a Wise Man.’ Nathan raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘I’m afraid, she said Felix could be a sheep.’

  ‘What?’ Nathan pulled himself upright. ‘And you didn’t do anything?’

  ‘There was nothing I could do.’ I rescued the tray and set it down on the chest-of-drawers. ‘There’s no need for drama, I’m sure that next year Felix will be a Wise Man.’ I cast around wildly. ‘Joseph, even.’

  ‘Minty, come here.’ I obeyed and he caught my hand in a grip so fierce that I cried out. ‘Don’t you understand anything about your sons? Can’t you remember anything of what it’s like to be a child? Don’t you see how Felix will mind? How that fragile little bit of confidence, which is all he has, will be shot to pieces? God knows, we have to learn about suffering and exclusion and mistakes, but not yet for our two.
Not yet – if I have anything to do with it.’

  I stared down at the figure in the bed. The warm, peaceful atmosphere had dissipated. ‘You’re hurting me, Nathan.’ He released my hand. ‘Don’t you think Felix should learn that the world isn’t fair?’

  ‘At five, Minty. Are you totally without mercy?’

  ‘Almost six,’ I heard myself say.

  Felix was the younger by ten minutes. It was nothing and everything. Ten minutes had given Lucas the greater percentage of confidence and attention.

  ‘So, what do you want to do, Nathan? Tell Lucas he can’t be a Wise Man?’

  ‘If I ever see that woman, I’ll wring her neck.’

  ‘Why? She’s only doing her job.’

  There was a long silence, and Nathan whistled under his breath. ‘Well, the boys can count on their mother.’

  That hurt. ‘I see things differently, Nathan.’ I picked up the tray and prepared to leave the room. ‘While we’re on the subject of loyalty and support, are you coming to see them in the play?’

  Nathan rubbed his earlobe, and I glimpsed a bone-deep weariness that frightened me a little. He was only fifty-five. As it happens the fifth is a bad day – big meeting scheduled – but I’ll talk to Roger.’

  I had a lightning change of heart. ‘Actually, Nathan, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Don’t mention it to Roger. Trust me. Just don’t!

  ‘Do you know something?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘No, just instinct’

  ‘Hum,’ he said. ‘Your instincts are usually sound.’ He moved restlessly and the once neat bed was a muddle. ‘You think I’m not up to it any more?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘But you think it.’

  The question went through my mind: how would Rose have handled this? Nathan’s flash of neediness left me cold and unsympathetic – and I knew I was failing to grapple with the uncertainties and strains of his life. Instead I asked, ‘Nathan, do you want some coffee or tea?’