The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly

11

The room had magnolia walls, a chair by an open window upholstered in faded china blue, several pictures and a photo on the small table by the sofa.

The air coming through the window was cool and damp – the type that frizzes the hair. It held a promise, though, of spring, for it brought with it the tiniest drift of flower scent from the shrub blooming beneath the window.

And sitting in the blue chair? I took a snapshot look – and concentrated on a cushion. This was made from mushroom shot silk, looked old and there was a surprising variety of texture and colour.

My feet did not appear to be connecting with the floor and a pulse thudded in my ear. The detail of the room accumulated a dossier. If I had been cross-examined in court, I could have told you everything about it. How useful she is, the judge might think. How indispensable.

I turned back to the blue chair.

We’re planning a supplement on Africa in the autumn, I heard Nathan say. Shouldn’t you have kept Lucas at home?

He was sitting well back in it, his body folded in a natural position, his face turned towards the door as if he was listening for something, someone. A lock of his hair, tinged with grey, had fallen over his forehead. His mouth was slightly open. Had he been speaking to Rose when his heart shuddered, jumped and declared, ‘Enough’? His left arm was tucked by his side, palm up, fingers curled a fraction.

He was still Nathan – that was evident in the bone structure, the angle of the chin, the width of his forehead. Yet he had become remote. Between one heartbeat and the non-arrival of the next, he had weighed anchor and rowed far away. He had sped past his children, past his life with me towards a horizon of which I had no knowledge.

‘Nathan…’ I reached over and smoothed back the lock of hair. Tidying him as I knew he liked. His skin held scintillas of warmth, and hope flared that I could run from the room, shouting, ‘He’s not dead, only asleep.’

I touched one of the fingers, willing it to curl round mine. What was there left to read in his face, with the blind, closed eyes? There was no distress as far as I could make out, only surprise and a suggestion of… release?

In the other room, I could hear the murmur of Rose’s voice.

Had she traced the line from nose to chin, as I did in the gentlest gesture? Had she bent over to be quite, quite sure that no rogue breath soughed from his mouth, as I was doing? Had she sunk to her knees and whispered, ‘I don’t believe you’re dead, Nathan,’ as I was now doing?

I shed no tears. No easy relief, then. Again I searched Nathan’s face for clues. ‘Why did you not call me, Nathan?’ I begged the still figure, as I knelt in front of him like a penitent. I knew – I feared – that Nathan had struggled on feeling ill and alone. ‘Yοu should have called me. I would have come. Of course I would.’

How was I going to tell his… our… children?

Which would be the right words? My toes cramped, but I welcomed the discomfort.

In the end the pain was too acute. I got to my feet and went in search of Rose. She was in the kitchen, sitting at the table with her head in her hands. At my entrance, she looked up. ‘Are you all right?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t think anything, Minty.’

I pushed myself into a chair. ‘I was thinking how unfair it was on Nathan. He didn’t deserve this.’

Rose got up and went to a cupboard, took out a bottle and presented me with a full glass. ‘Brandy. We’d better have some.’

The glass was heavy, with a pattern incised into it. It felt expensive and weighty. I recognized it. We had two exactly the same in Lakey Street. ‘We divided things,’ Nathan reported, when he and Rose divorced. ‘Straight down the line. I owed her half of everything.’ He had been so pleased with his fairness and generosity that I had snapped shut my lips and had forborne to point out that two matching glasses out of four were not that useful and half a set of silver-plated cutlery limited one’s options.

Obediently I drank. Rose asked, ‘Were there any clues that Nathan’s heart was giving him problems?’

‘No. But, then, I hadn’t been looking for any.’

She accepted this. ‘I was concerned about him. Don’t ask me why, as I hadn’t seen much of him. But even so…’ she was too upset to bother with tact ‘… there was always the connection between us and I felt… Well, I knew when things weren’t right. I did try to ask him about his health, but you know Nathan…’ She arranged both hands round her glass and lifted it to her lips. ‘How like him. How very like Nathan to say nothing.’

I couldn’t face talking about his death. The subject and the situation were too big and unknown, too fearsome and desperate. ‘Did you talk to Eve?’

‘Yes She’ll manage, so you’re not to worry. I talked to her very carefully.’

Before I could stop myself, I lashed out. ‘Did you talk to Nathan very carefully?’

‘Stop it, Minty.’ Rose raised a white face. ‘Don’t.’

I did stop it. Instead I groped for clues to the puzzle. ‘I think he saw a doctor a couple of months ago. There were episodes when he said he was feeling really tired. But that was it.’

There elapsed another of those pauses that were impossible to describe, only endure. I gulped the brandy as if it were orange juice. They say men wounded in battle do not, at first, feel anything. Then they do. The brandy was a precaution.

Nathan had not often mentioned death. Not to me, anyway. We were too busy negotiating life. When he did talk about death, it was to wag a metaphorical finger: ‘As long as it doesn’t come too soon.’

What had Nathan been doing in Rose’s flat?

I felt cold and faint. I struggled to reach past myself, to think of Felix and Lucas. They wouldn’t understand, perhaps not for a long time. I tried, too, to consider Sam and Poppy.

And Rose.

And, yet, out of all the suppositions and shocks, the one question that forced itself past my lips was, ‘Rose, what was Nathan doing here?’ I stared at the brandy in the glass and waited for the answer. ‘I must know.’

Rose positioned her glass on the table and got to her feet. Slowly, deliberately, she walked round to where I sat, bent down and wrapped her arms round me. It was a gesture we both suffered and endured. Rose needed to make it because it was in her nature. I had to accept it because I craved the comfort of contact, even from her. She gave a jagged sigh. ‘Poor Minty, what you must think.’

‘Yes,’ I echoed bitterly. ‘What I must think.’

Her soft cheek was against mine. ‘Nathan was here for a reason. Had he told you what happened?’

It was pitiful to lie with Nathan dead in the next room – especially, if you’re a person who prefers to call a spade a spade. But ‘Yes’ slipped through my lips. I didn’t know what she was talking about but hated to admit it.

‘Then you will know that Vistemax…’ Rose’s face was close to mine, her arms a circle in which I was trapped.

‘Yes…’

My mendacity had a false, brassy note but I clung to it. A tap dripped and the fridge emitted a muted electrical choke. We both knew that I was not telling the truth, and Rose was debating how to handle my ignorance of something that was clearly important.

Rose released me. ‘That’s why.’

Wasn’t death supposed to be a cleansing agent? A blow so huge and pulverizing that all the petty emotions, subterfuges and secrets were smashed? It certainly drew a line.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ I braced myself. ‘I don’t know, Rose. Tell me.’

But the phone rang and Rose answered it. She said, ‘Yes, his wife is here. Yes, we’re waiting.’ She was cool and in control, the sort of person who was practised at formalities and procedures. ‘That was the doctor.’ She kept her hand clamped round the receiver. ‘He’ll be here any minute.’

Impatient to know, I laid my hands flat on the table. What’s happened? And why did Nathan come to… you?’ My knuckles whitened with the pressure. ‘Why here?’

Still clutching the phone, Rose told me the truth: ‘Roger sacked him this morning.’

‘Sacked!’ The news was brutal enough to bring the blood rushing into my face. I pressed my hands to my cheeks. ‘Poor Nathan.’ Rose put down the phone. ‘So they got him in the end,’ I said. ‘They always do.’

‘Vistemax is hardly the gulag.’ Rose leant against the sink. ‘And Nathan had a good life with them.’

‘You always did see the best in things and people.’ Still I clung to the inconsequential, and I was curious as to how Rose’s givingness could survive just now. ‘I often wondered if it was a strength or weakness.’

‘I leave you to decide. I don’t think Nathan expected it. Do you?’

‘Nathan did not confide in me’ would have been the truthful answer. ‘He had been there a long time, and he knew the form.’ But, clearly, he had neither known nor cared enough to guard himself against the consequences of Roger’s cynical appraisals. ‘He was in his fifties… and there is a sell-by date for all of us. There was probably somebody else coming up fast, and you know how they operate at Vistemax.’

‘Yes,’ answered Rose, flatly. ‘Funnily enough, I do.’

‘Roger would have dressed it up to Nathan. He would have said, “Change is happening faster than ever and we must harness our energies to keep up.” As sacking formulas go, it does pretty well for most people.’

Rose completed the narrative: ‘By the end of the session, Nathan would have been persuaded into thinking his was a necessary martyrdom. To be desired, even.’

Rose was talking about her own sacking, as I had been talking about mine. ‘No,’ I had to defend him here because I wanted to get it right. ‘He wasn’t that sentimental. He knew his worth. He would have fought. He would have been angry… very angry, so angry his heart couldn’t stand it.’

Rose turned away.

My gaze alighted on objects around the kitchen. A white jug. A wicker shopping basket by the door into which plastic bags had been stuffed.

‘Nathan had his vulnerabilities,’ Rose offered. ‘Everyone does. Roger would have known which button to press.’

The picture assembled of Nathan listening to the delicately phrased insults of the sacking. I knew, I knew, that Roger’s careful cruelty would have smashed into his pride. It was then Nathan must have felt the first intimations that his heart was faltering. Did he register then the choke and stutter of his blood, the pain of the failing muscle, and refuse to call out? God help us, Nathan would rather have died (and did) than ask the man who had just sacked him for help.

‘Peter Shaker’s taking over,’ Rose added.

‘Well, that would have killed Nathan if nothing else.’

Rose’s lips curved in wry amusement. ‘Yes, it probably did.’

Later, I told myself, I will force myself to believe that Roger chose Peter over Nathan for a good reason. After all his years at Vistemax, Nathan deserved that at the very least. Dull Peter and his good-hearted Carolyne in the navy blue suit and gold buttons – both of them, not so long ago, had eaten twice-baked cheese soufflé, then chicken in ginger and bitter cherries in maraschino at our table. On Nathan’s behalf I felt a black killer rage dig in for the duration.

Rose choked, then made a sound like a small animal in distress. She heaved herself round, placed both hands on the edge of the sink and, retching, leant over it. I got up, filled a glass with water and handed it to her.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘One should never drink brandy too fast.’

Now it was my turn to slide a hand round her shoulders and press her into a chair. ‘Rose, are you getting drunk?’

A little colour crept back into her cheeks. ‘Nathan had only been here fifteen minutes or so. He said he wanted to talk over what had happened, and how he was going to manage the changes. He wanted to sound me out.’ She must have registered my instinctive flinch because she added, ‘He would have talked to you, Minty.’

That was unanswerable and none of Rose’s business. ‘Don’t say that.’

She was taken aback and struggled with her answer. ‘After the doctor and the undertakers have been, you must go, Minty.’

‘Undertakers?’

‘Yes, I had to contact them. Nathan can’t stay here.’

I left Rose in the kitchen, and fled back to the cold sitting room, the smell of spring and Nathan. ‘Why didn’t you ring me?’ I demanded of the still figure.

‘You married me because…’ went the stupid, dangerous game we sometimes played in the early days and there was only one rule. All the answers were to be a tease. ‘I married you, Nathan, because you drove a Lexus.’

‘And? What else, Minty? My looks, my wit?’

‘Naturally your serious bank account. And, Nathan, you married me because?’

‘Oh, I married you, Minty, because you were pregnant.’

In his hour of need, Nathan had not defected to Rose because he wished to talk over his options or to block out a new future. He would have done that with me and I would have given him better advice. No. No, Nathan had turned to Rose because he craved her comfort, the long history, her sweetness in his hour of deepest trial, her reassurance.

Behind me, Rose entered the room and closed the window. She had got herself under control and spoke calmly. ‘I opened it to allow his spirit to go. I think… I believe it’s customary.’ She clicked the catch into place, and I had an almost irresistible urge to laugh at the notion. Rose fiddled with the curtain – calico, thickly interlined and evidently expensive – and I imagined Nathan’s spirit forcing his way past it and up into the dark somewhere.

‘When the undertakers arrive, we shall have to take some decisions.’ Rose nerved herself visibly because once this quiet interlude was over a process would begin. ‘When I’ve spoken to Sam and Poppy.’ She turned to me, as if appealing for help with such an appalling task, and I tasted fear at what lay ahead of me too. ‘I dread that. They will be devastated.’

‘Decisions?’

‘All of us must decide what we want. We must try to think of what he would have wanted. Poppy and Sam will have views.’

‘Rose. My decisions, I think.’

She shook her head, and a strand of hair worked loose. ‘That can’t be, Minty. We’re all in this. We’re his family.’

‘And I’m his widow.’

‘How will you tell Felix and Lucas? Will you need help?’ Rose adopted the voice I had sometimes heard in the office when either Sam or Poppy rang up. It was ultra-soothing. I used to think it rather silly and false until, after I’d had the twins, I realized it was a means of staving off panic.

‘No.’ My rejection of the idea was instant. I did not want her softness and comfort stealing my children.

I glanced at my watch. Incredibly I had only been there three-quarters of an hour or so. I wondered who else knew and was, even now, telephoning others, or the florist to order flowers: With deepest sympathy. I wondered if the clocks would stop. Who would cry genuine tears and who would not. I wondered if Nathan had been a tiny bit ready, whether he had thought about his death at all. Or if he was circling up there, cursing.

‘Why don’t we sit with him?’ Rose suggested. ‘He won’t be here for much longer.’

I chose a chair close to the body. Already Nathan was drawing further away, much as his body must have been stiffening. ‘Your children had their childhood with him.’ I was fierce with the unfairness for my boys. ‘Mine won’t.’

Rose sat on the sofa and her eyes met mine. ‘Yes, Minty, there was that.’

After a moment or two, Rose began to talk about the old days when she was married to Nathan. Every year they had gone on holiday to Priac Bay in Cornwall, always to the same cottage. She described the slap of the water on the sides of the clinker fishing-boat, the hiss and heave of the sea, the oily smell and texture of mackerel.

‘The thing I remember most is the rain. Sometimes it was hard and slanted in from the west. At others it was as soft as a caress, and seeped into your clothing. However carefully we put away the mackerel lines at home, they were always knotted when we got them out of the cupboard the next year. Nathan was impatient and demanded that we buy new ones, but I said, “No,” and made it my business to make him laugh. It was an effort but I learnt the routines. I planned a good meal on the first night, and I bought a heater so that we weren’t cold. By day two, he seemed always to breathe easier and he slept differently. Quieter. When he picked up the book I’d chosen for him, I knew the best part of the holiday was beginning. It was a sort of healing from the frazzle of the year. I don’t think we would have survived so long without Cornwall.’

‘I never let him go to Cornwall,’ I said. ‘What was the point? It was your territory. I thought it would be good for him to look at different things. I thought a little guaranteed Greek or Italian sun would work magic, but he never liked the heat. You knew that. And the boys were too young. The heat made them fretful and difficult to manage.’

‘But I was tired, too, always so tired,’ Rose said, ‘until the children were older. I didn’t realize, and it wasn’t a question of accepting the tiredness. I just thought that was the way things were until I began to feel better. Really better. By then it was too late and Nathan had looked elsewhere.’

When the doctor arrived, he examined Nathan. ‘It looks very much as if it was a heart-attack,’ he told us, writing notes, organizing paperwork. ‘The post-mortem will confirm it.’ He was a busy man, and overworked, and did not stay long.

The undertakers also arrived, three burly men, and the dimensions of the flat seemed to shrink.

Rose took Nathan’s hand, kissed his cheek and stepped back.

‘Please could I say goodbye privately?’ I asked. Rose and the men shuffled away, leaving me with my husband. ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered, bent over and adjusted his tie, and pulled his jacket straight. Just as he liked it. ‘I’m so sorry.’

It seemed to me that the flesh was vanishing beneath my lips as I kissed him goodbye.

I retreated to the kitchen where Rose and I helped ourselves to more brandy.

Eventually there was a knock on the door, and one of the undertakers, an older man who introduced himself as Keith, addressed a series of questions to Rose. It was clear that he regarded her as the widow.

‘Excuse me,’ I interjected. ‘I am the current Mrs Lloyd.’

Keith’s gaze slid between us. There was a modicum of embarrassment but little surprise. ‘I’ll await your instructions, Mrs Lloyd. Your husband’s body will have to go to the mortuary for the post-mortem, but after it is released we can discuss the details.’

I cast around in my mind. ‘There’s a church near us, I think. I’ll find out who the vicar is -’

‘Oh, no,’ said Rose. ‘Nathan would have wanted to be buried at Altringham, Minty. Where his parents are.’

‘Altringham? That’s too far away,’ I cried.

Keith stepped delicately round this one. ‘Perhaps it will be specified in the will. It always takes a little time to make these decisions. And we’re at the end of a phone.’

Rose busied herself folding a tea-towel, first one way, then another. Finally she placed it on the table. ‘Of course.’

They left, taking Nathan with them. The front door clicked shut, leaving a stony silence between us.

I broke it: ‘I am his wife, Rose.’

Rose sighed. ‘So am I. In a way.’ She shrugged. ‘So help me. In a strange way.’

‘For God’s sake…’

‘It doesn’t matter. Listen, Minty… listen to me, we can’t leave him where no one will know about him. We can’t leave him where he’ll be alone.’

I hated myself for minding that Rose had got it right, and usually did. ‘I will decide where Nathan is buried, Rose.’

She whirled round. ‘Go, Minty.’ She pushed me out of the kitchen and into the hall. ‘I’ll take you home in the taxi. Then I must – I want to see my children.’ She turned an anguished face to mine. ‘I must see them.’

As we left, Rose snatched up the briefcase in the hall and stuffed it into my hands. ‘That’s his. You must take it.’