The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly Page 9

  The light in the sitting room was flattering – which it should have been for I had gone to a lot of trouble to make it so. Rose seemed so fresh, so mysterious in her intentions and busyness – but mysterious with what? I struggled to understand precisely what I was up against.

  The answer seemed to be that Rose had become powerful because it was impossible any longer to pin her down.

  Nathan led Rose into the hall: there had been a further conversation lasting five minutes or so, and I heard him say, ‘Tell Frieda I’ll be looking out for her pointy toes when I come down.’

  The front door closed, and he came into the kitchen to face the inevitable scene.

  I had taken refuge in checking the store-cupboard in readiness for Eve’s weekly shopping trip. It was lucky I had: it was practically bare.

  He was braced for a major explosion and knocked his clenched fist on the table. Deliberately, I kept my back to him. ‘I’m sure you didn’t mean to make me feel uncomfortable or humiliate me, Nathan.’ I kept my anger in check and turned round. ‘Why would you wish to do that?’

  He was shocked, and took a step towards me. ‘Of course I didn’t want to humiliate you. Of course not. Rose was going to be in the area and she wanted to talk to me.’

  ‘It might have suited Rose, Nathan, but was it the best thing for us?’ I strove to keep calm.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ he said, but he was on the defensive. Of course.

  ‘Look at us both,’ I pointed out. ‘All churned up.’

  Nathan fished the whisky bottle out of the cupboard and poured himself a slug. ‘It’s not much to ask – can’t you be a little flexible and civilized about it?’

  My anger escaped the leash. ‘Were you civilized when you left Rose? I think not. I don’t hold with this be-nice-at-any-price thing, Nathan. Even if she doesn’t show it, Rose hates me, and rightly so. I hate her.’

  ‘Why? She’s done nothing to you.’

  We glared at each other. The adrenaline pumped through me, drained away and left me weakened. Of their own volition, my hands continued to rifle through the contents of the store-cupboard. ‘If you don’t understand, I can’t explain.’ My fingers encountered a stray – pasta shell, and I knew – I knew – that I was walking into a darkness of the spirit, that I was about to say things I would regret. ‘It’s not rational, certainly not civilized, what I feel about Rose. I hate her because… I’ve wronged her. Can’t you see that, you stupid man? It’s to do with the battle for possession – but I don’t think you wish to see it, let alone acknowledge it. And you want it both ways.’ I emptied the remainder of a rice packet (wild) into a glass jar. ‘You want to have me and see Rose. You want us all to be friends.’

  Nathan sat down at the kitchen table and put his head into his hands. ‘Wouldn’t you like to be friends with her? You were once.’

  I kept myself busy with the rice because I couldn’t bear to see his unhappiness. ‘You can’t have two faces looking opposite ways. As a matter of fact, you can’t have two wives. Not in this country, at least.’

  I heard him swallow some whisky. ‘I can’t talk to you about this, Minty. It’s like trying to have a conversation in a foreign language or with a total stranger.’

  That was more than enough. It was far too much. ‘OΚ, Nathan, let’s talk plain English. I think you’re hiding behind the let’s-be-nice mask because what you really want is to see Rose without feeling guilt.’

  He made an indeterminate gesture with his hands, which, if I’d needed it, would have provided proof. ‘It’s meant nothing, has it?’ I threw at him. ‘And I’ve tried with you, and your family who loathe me. If you remember, you were the one who felt imprisoned in your marriage with Rose. You said, not me, that it was dull and void. That was why you left her. You convinced me, and I believed you.’

  Nathan went white, presumably with fury, for I had pricked his vulnerable area: he didn’t like to be thought of badly. ‘Could I point out that you fell over yourself to believe me? You couldn’t get enough of how Rose had failed.’

  ‘Times change, don’t they? For two pins you’d go back to her. If it wasn’t for the children -’

  ‘Someone has to put their interests first!’ he cried.

  A long, dangerous silence ensued. ‘I’ll forget you said that, Nathan.’

  Another mouthful of whisky went down.

  ‘Don’t,’ I said sharply, alarmed at his pallor. ‘It’s not good for you.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Look at me, Nathan.’ Reluctantly, he did so. ‘Tell me the truth. You want to see Rose. You miss her. You find this marriage less than satisfactory. Disappointing. Is that plain enough for you?’

  ‘Stop it.’

  ‘Rose is more your age, Nathan.’

  ‘Stop it.’

  ‘Coward.’

  Nathan snatched up his glass and left the kitchen. The study door banged shut.

  ‘Rice’, I wrote on Eve’s list. ‘Spaghetti shapes’.

  I crept up to the boys’ bedroom, and peered through the door. There was a pillow on the floor, and Lucas had flung his teddy bear to the other side of the room. The shade on the nightlight had been knocked askew. My fingers twitched to put everything in order.

  I leant against the door jamb, closed my eyes and imagined a future that featured hundreds of objects to pick up. And hundreds of shopping expeditions: tins of soup, cartons of orange juice.

  Every year I would have to buy larger clothes for the twins. They would demand to play cricket and football. Football! Maybe Felix would prefer to learn the violin or the piano. That would cost money. Where would it come from? Barely a week went by without Nathan saying, ‘We have to be careful. Our funds aren’t limitless.’ What he meant was that he was still paying Rose for her share of our home. Nathan might get ill. He was at the age when the body began to slow down. He would demand more peace and quiet. Where was that to come from?

  That night, I slept in the spare room. Rattled and miserable, I dipped into the poems in Origin of a New Species, which Ellen had sent me. The publisher had been generous – or rash – and bound them in stiff board with facsimiles of her writing on the endpapers. The tides ranged from the epic ‘Men’s Lament’ to the domestic ‘The Object in the Fridge’, and the eponymous ‘Origin of a New Species’.

  At forty-seven, I have reached the age of reason

  No longer female, but no man either

  Triumph?

  Two pieces of news here. The narrator had a decade on me, and the outlook was not all bad. Throughout, the language was littered with references to ‘banging’, ‘clacking’, ‘clashing’ and ‘the rush of dark tides’ – enough to keep a small orchestra busy – and its noise permeated my sleep.

  Some time during the night, one of the boys cried out and I heard Nathan moving around their bedroom, his voice low and hushed, soothing whoever it was.

  In the early morning, Nathan slid into the bed, dragging me up from the long, slow depths. He was cold and needy. He spooned himself round me, and placed his mouth on my bare shoulder. ‘Why didn’t you come back? You should have come back, Minty. We shouldn’t have slept on our anger.’

  ‘Because…’ I murmured, ‘… officially I hate you.’

  ‘I was wrong, Minty, not to say anything. OK?’

  I felt the bitter chill of not getting anywhere much and the sadness that descends after a major quarrel. ‘OK.’

  He smelt of sleep, his breath of whisky. ‘What happens today, Minty?’

  Ellen’s poems were still racketing around my head. ‘I don’t know what happens today.’ Then I remembered. ‘It’s Parents’ Evening at school. Are you coming?’

  ‘Yes.’ His reply was barely audible. ‘But probably late.’

  I was suddenly alert. ‘Do you need to tell Roger?’

  Nathan chuckled in my ear. ‘Roger’s not my keeper. But if he asks I’m seeing the lawyer.’ Nathan’s fingers walked across my shoulder. ‘I don’t like lying. Much. But I have an idea you may be rig
ht.’

  They were not our best sheets as they had too high a percentage of man-made fibre in the cotton but, for that reason, they were ideal for guests. ‘You and I “worked late” most evenings. Remember?’

  Nathan pressed the nervy point between my shoulder-blade and my spine. ‘I didn’t feel I was lying then. Isn’t that strange?’

  Those days had been made up of… what? Episodes that featured the pitching stomach, unreliable knees and fast-beating heart of the clichés? Yes and no. Certainly I had been dazzled and mesmerized by my own power. ‘Get over it, Nathan. Most working mothers lie every day,’ I said, then added, ‘A check-up is a good idea.’ His body was warming up. ‘Are you feeling OK?’

  ‘Fine. Don’t fuss.’

  If I had been more collected, I might have pointed out that I was only fussing because lately he had been behaving like a man of a hundred and ten. Furthermore, I reckoned we could alter our routines a little bit, do things in a different way, exercise more. The twins would love him to take them bowling. Or to play football on the common.

  ‘As a matter of interest, have you ever considered that Roger is nearing retirement? Well, if you haven’t, and I bet you have, why don’t you think about his successor? They might get rid of Roger sooner rather than later.’

  Nathan poked my hip. ‘A little tasteless?’

  ‘Yes – and?’

  He changed the subject. ‘Has Barry said any more about you going full-time?’

  ‘He’s still thinking about it.’

  There was a small silence.

  ‘About Rose, Minty.’

  The sigh came from a black and bitter place. I was heartily sick of Rose. What about her?’

  ‘Why don’t you remember sometimes that you were friends? Good friends.’

  Mornings in the Vistemax office that smelt of bad coffee and photocopying and Rose saying, ‘Here, take these,’ and passing over several dozen manuals on low-fat/no-fat/Outer Mongolian cuisine, or Five Hundred Ways to Thinner Thighs. ‘You deal.’ Coming in once, and finding her weeping, her too-pink lipstick smudged and the ends of her hair damp with rain. ‘It’s Sam,’ she confessed. ‘He’s having a hard time with his girlfriend, and I can’t bear it.’ I had put my arm round her and kissed her cheek.

  ‘Nathan. Please shut up.’

  Their shared history, their shared children, their past – all mixed up together. ‘Nathan, Rose said there was something else you had to discuss…’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘It was nothing.’

  ‘What was it?’

  There was a pause. ‘Nothing worth bothering about.’

  You know what they say? When the mistress marries her lover, a vacancy is created.

  He moved even closer and his hand snaked between my thighs. His stubble was grazing my skin. ‘Minty, about what we said last night…’

  Nathan probed even further and I bit my lip. He was hot now, and urgent. In our bedroom downstairs, my skirt and jacket were waiting on a chair. I had sufficient change in my purse for the morning’s journey and a cappuccino. The bag containing my documents was zipped and ready to go. By my reckoning, I had precisely an hour to get the twins and myself up, breakfasted and ready to go.

  So much in life is about timing. Truly it is.

  His voice echoed in my ear: ‘About last night…’ And then I realized what Nathan was doing.

  ‘Oh, my God, Nathan…’

  His fingers dug into the soft part of my arm. ‘Minty… I’m sorry about not warning you. She looked good, didn’t she? Rose seemed in charge. Happy. That’s good, isn’t it? I’d never seen her hair that long before…’

  He turned his face to me, and his eyes burnt with a fever that was not of my making.

  With all my strength, I pushed him away. ‘I’m not… Rose. Do you understand? I’m not Rose.’

  8

  The following week Barry called me into the office. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry I’ve taken so long to get back to you about the job.’

  How lucky that I’d made an effort that morning and dressed up – floaty floral skirt and belted black jacket.

  Barry eyed me with detachment, and apprehension flickered in me. Maybe things wouldn’t go to plan. ‘You know the Aids series has been green lit?’

  ‘Yes. Congratulations.’

  ‘Charles at Channel 4 is very excited about it.’ Barry ticked off the points. ‘Big money. Big foreign sales. And Kevin Stone to direct. Fantastic package.’ Again the speculative appraisal. ‘You know, Minty, you started me thinking.’

  Generally when bosses think, it’s bad for someone.

  ‘I reckon this is how it is for Paradox. I’ve been looking to expand the output and I need plenty of ideas. You can come full-time on a probationary basis. Six months. Then I’ll take a raincheck, see what’s working and what isn’t. We’ll discuss money, et cetera, et cetera, later.’

  I noted that Barry was not keen to go over the ‘et cetera’. ‘I’m delighted. Thank you.’

  He leant forward. ‘No problems with childcare?’ I raised an eyebrow and he added hastily, ‘I’m asking as a friend.’

  ‘All taken care of.’

  ‘Six months, then.’

  The joke that had darted like marsh gas through the offices when I left Vistemax had been quite funny. At other times, I would have savoured and dissected its delicious taste of schadenfreude. Which board director uniquely has two wives sacked from the same job? Answer: Nathan Lloyd. ‘What a sap that makes me,’ Nathan had pointed out. Was he blaming me for my failure? ‘And what a fool me,’ I had flashed back.

  ‘Fine.’

  Barry tipped back his chair. ‘Also…’ the word was elongated, ‘… Chris Sharp will be joining Paradox as producer. He used to work for me at the BBC. Bright. Sharp as his name. You’ll be working together. He doesn’t suffer fools.’

  I smelt gladiatorial combat but I snapped my fingers in a bullish manner. ‘So he’ll thrive here, won’t he?’

  We were introduced to Chris Sharp at the Friday meeting. He turned out to be slight, brown-haired, hazel eyes, dressed entirely in black Armani. All the same, he was not that noticeable. Barry ushered him into the room. ‘Say hello, girls.’ Deb and I obediently smiled a welcome.

  Chris raised a finger in greeting and sat down. Deb presented a proposal for a six-part series on gardening, Dig for Victory, ‘ Each programme will be fronted by a different celebrity gardener and deal with a different topic. The format of each programme will be a general overview and two related features. In the cities edition, we’ll discuss a couple of city gardens, one established, one in makeover, then a feature on window-boxes – the pensioner window-box, the window-box for children -’

  ‘Won’t you need to put in something like the bachelor’s window-box?’ Chris interjected. ‘Otherwise… a little unbalanced?’ His confident gaze shifted round the table, tabulating and assessing. A feline quality was evident, a subtle and determined sniffing out of motive and opportunity. ‘And should you stick to UK gardens if we want to sell in Europe?’

  Her certainty punctured, Deb pushed back her North London hair. ‘Sure,’ she said. She retrieved the initiative. ‘I would have come to that.’

  Barry muttered about costs and Chris totted up a column of figures. ‘You might have to increase the unit cost initially, but with anticipated wider subsidiary sales your margins are better.’

  Barry looked pleased. ‘Nice.’

  Next up was Middle Age: End of the Beginning? NB ran the memo to myself: assurance and fluidity.’I see this as a two-parter. One, defining what middle age is. Two, following a selected group and showing how it affects them. The conclusion being, it is a desirable phase of one’s life.’ I went on to show how the programmes would touch on affluence, diet, exercise, plastic surgery and spiritual regrowth. My commentary flowed over the rocks and pools of statistics and attitude, consumer practices and personal histories. Barry pressed his Biro up and down between his fingers. Chris cupped his chin in one hand
, observed me carefully and took notes.

  Deb got up and poured the coffee. She slid a cup in my direction and Barry’s hand hovered over the biscuit plate. ‘I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t.’ The hand dived towards the Jammie Dodger. ‘Middle age sounds like a destination resort,’ he commented, without irony. A spray of crumbs accompanied the remark and Deb got a tissue out of her bag and gave the table a furtive wipe.

  ‘We should emphasize to the controllers the spending power of this group,’ I continued, ‘which is underestimated, according to some experts. The grey pound is huge and middle-aged people will want to watch this programme. Particularly if we show them positive things.’

  Chris scribbled away.

  Barry ate a second biscuit and reflected.

  Chris looked up from his notes. ‘It’s an interesting subject, but it’s lacking…’ the cat’s eyes closed briefly ‘… sharper orientation. Shouldn’t we be asking, “Are you, the thirty – or forty-something, irrelevant because you’re middle-aged?’

  Paige’s eyebrows climbed Everest, then did so again. I enjoyed the effect.

  ‘Rose just turned up out of the blue? Outrageous!’ Propped up on some uncomfortable-looking pillows with her knitting, she begged for every detail. It sounded simple – Rose came, she and Nathan talked, I snooped, Rose went – but it wasn’t.

  After a couple of false alarms, Paige had been admitted to the People’s Hospital and I had dropped in to see her on the way home from Paradox. The People’s Hospital was the size of an airport and had been billed as the latest and finest, state-of-the-art. State-of-the-art or not, someone had failed to grapple with temperature control and it was far too hot. Also it had taken the entire reservoir of my patience to find the Nelson Mandela Maternity Unit.

  Paige listened, her needles clicking. When I had finished, she said, ‘You mustn’t read too much into it.’ Then she laughed. ‘You’ve just described the perfect triangle.’ She finished the row with a flourish. ‘And Rose is at the top.’

  ‘I’ve realized that Nathan didn’t leave Rose because he was tired of her. He left her because he was tired of himself.’