The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly

16

I drove myself into Nathan’s study where a pile of letters had to be read and answered.

‘Dear Minty,’ wrote Jean, Nathan’s secretary. ‘The shock is considerable and I keep asking myself if I could have done something. He was so considerate and so kind to me…’

Charlie on Vistemax Reception wrote, ‘Mr Lloyd was never too busy to say “hallo” unlike some. He always asked after Sheila and Jody…’

To my surprise, Roger had written: ‘Thank you for the privilege of letting me speak at the funeral. I realize what a hard decision it must have been for you. I meant every word. Nathan was a Titan, big in vision and strong in execution. He was also delightful to know.’

Clive-of-the-wind-turbines chose a more direct approach: ‘Jolly good send-off for the old boy. Very difficult for you. Nathan and I did not always see eye to eye as he was an obstinate old buzzard but we came from the same stock and that always sorts things out in the end…’

A couple more letters were so adulatory that they were in danger of suggesting that Nathan was one of the great businessmen of our time. Another, from an old schoolfriend, was more modest: ‘He was a sweet boy…’

‘Dear Minty,’ said Sue Frost. ‘This letter could not be more difficult to write. We do not know each other, and that was of my choosing. But I thought about it and I thought you would want to know that we loved Nathan dearly…’

To read these letters was to shuffle a pack of cards. Nathan the businessman. Nathan the friend. Nathan the father.

Each one must be kept. I would buy a scrapbook and paste them in, and one day I would it give to the boys. Perhaps we would read them together. ‘This letter is from Daddy’s boss… This one is from the lady Daddy worked with.’

To my surprise, Jilly had written, ‘Dear Minty. Nathan’s funeral went off very well, and I know that Sam was comforted by it. Sam was going to write but he is so busy getting ready to go the States. Frieda is flourishing, and I hope the boys are not bad. Maybe we should hook up for Christmas…’

I must have moved awkwardly, for my elbow caught the pile and caused the letters to rain on to the floor. I bent over and picked up the one written in black ink on expensive white paper. ‘Dear Minty…’ The sharp strokes of her ts and ls cut into the paper, and the rounded ds and ns cradled the letters.

I am writing this after the funeral because I am at a loss. I know you will be too. You will be indescribably busy and tired at the moment; and perhaps the shock hasn’t really registered. Please take care of yourself. It is important. I also want to say that, sometimes, you can be very angry with a person who dies. I was when, like Nathan, my father died unexpectedly. Actually, more than angry, I was outraged. But I wanted to say, anger will weaken you, Minty, as it weakened me when Nathan decided our marriage was over. I suspect you might be thinking, How dare Nathan leave it all to me? You might be asking yourself how you are going to cope with earning a living and keeping the children…

The word ‘children’ appeared especially black on the white paper.

You may also be thinking as you read this that I am being indelicate, unsubtle and interfering. But I thought I would take the risk.

Rose was inviting me to filter my grief through her. I had slept in her bed and now she was sleeping in mine. ‘But it won’t do, Rose,’ I murmured, into the empty study. Above all, and above everything, I owed Nathan direct, undiluted grief. That I must grant him. And I would. I did.

‘Welcome back.’ Barry looked up from the stuffed Filofax. ‘We’ve missed you.’ He was wearing his leather blouson jacket, but he had added to the red Kabbalah wristband a couple of others in pastel colours.

He sounded as if he meant it. A lump wedged itself in my throat, but I managed a weak wave in his direction as I disappeared into my office. In my absence, it had been swept and cleaned. Two polite mountains of paper sat on the desk.

‘Hello.’ Deb walked lightly into the room. ‘How are you?’

‘I hope I’m managing.’

‘I’m so very sorry, Minty. It must be quite dreadful.’

I managed to smile. ‘So dreadful that I need diversion. Please tell me what you’ve been doing.’

She needed no second invitation. Within five minutes, I had been acquainted with every shudder and sigh that made up her affair with Chris Sharp. I was reliably informed that he was the most talented man since Einstein, and fantastic in the sack. Chris had such ambitions for Paradox, and vision that stretched far into the future of the industry and the changes that were likely to take place. ‘He says that people will compose their own television viewing programmes in the not too distant future…’ Her voice dipped, swooped, grew dreamy as she released one detail after another. She said things like: ‘To think I could so easily not have met him.’ Or ‘Do you think he’s good-looking?’ As I listened to the outpourings of the former cool-urban-hunter now girl-clearly-besotted, I was reminded that other things did exist.

‘Is he nice to you, Deb?’

‘Oh, sure. Sure. But he doesn’t really want absolute commitment at the moment. And that’s how we’re playing it.’ Deb reached over and flicked on my screen. ‘He’s organizing new software.’ She fiddled with the keyboard. ‘It might mean I have to find a new job because it’s not sensible for us both to work for the same set-up.’

Alarm bells clanged. ‘Hang on, Deb. Why should you leave? You like the job, and you’ve earned your place here.’ But I could see that whatever I said would make no difference. ‘Tell me about the projects.’

A suggestion of worry traced itself across her glowing features. ‘That’s a bit of a story. I’m afraid we had a clear-out after you went off. Chris and Barry have been talking hard about trends. Reality shows, property and things. Chris thinks we’ll improve the margins that way. There’s a couple of good ideas going through the pipeline at the moment.’

‘And?’

‘You’ll have to talk to Barry, but I have a feeling…’ She paused, then added, ‘Chris feels we shouldn’t be too cultural or earnest. It brings the strike rate down.’ She giggled. ‘Do you know what he’s called the Middle Age proposal?’

‘Tell me, Deb.’

‘Finished at Forty.’

Later on, in the editorial meeting, we discussed strike rates, and I heard myself issuing comments that made enough sense to get me through. Not that either Chris or Barry paid me much attention: they were far too busy talking to each other.

‘OΚ,’ I said, and my voice sounded rusty and foreign. ‘There’s an article I read in Harper’s about ballerinas. Nora Pavane, one of them, is quite something, and a defender of the arts. I think we should grab her and ask her to participate in a series on dance.’

Chris reflected. ‘Get her to front, even.’

‘Yup,’ said Barry. ‘Sounds good.’

‘I’ll work on the treatment and think about the format,’ I said. ‘Ed Golightly at BBC2 might be interested. He’s an arts editor, and I met him at a Vistemax do. I could set up the meeting.’

‘Sounds good,’ repeated Barry.

On the way home I sprinted into Theo’s office. I wanted to talk over the financial and legal position and he had suggested that I call in.

He sat me down at his desk, and asked his assistant for tea, which arrived in a china pot. ‘The next few months won’t be easy,’ he said. ‘Probate will take a while and then I have to convene several meetings with the trustees to discuss the division. Meanwhile Vistemax are honouring the severance package.’

I let out a sigh of relief.

‘And, of course, there’s Nathan’s pension. That will be sorted out.’ He paused. ‘There is the question that Rose might be due a portion.’ With a steady hand, he poured me a second cup of tea. ‘Whatever you receive won’t be riches, but it will provide you with a base from which to operate. Add to that the money from your slice of the stocks and shares, and any earnings you may have, and I think you’ll be all right, providing you’re not extravagant. However, if you did lose your job, you wouldn’t be destitute, and it will tide you over the worst.’

I stared at my tea. ‘Theo, what was Nathan doing when he suggested Rose as a guardian? What was he thinking? He must have known how… difficult – impossible – that would be.’

‘He made it clear that he wanted to put the boys’ interest first. He said he had every faith that you would understand.’

‘But I don’t!’ I cried. ‘I don’t. And to make it so public! He should have talked to me.’

Theo had witnessed many such exchanges in his office. Scenes in which outrage, betrayal, bitterness had burst through the dam of good behaviour and politeness. ‘It’s difficult to absorb, perhaps, at the moment. But things change. Why don’t you drink your tea?’

Then he showed me the facts and figures of my new life.

‘If you marry again, or live with someone else,’ he said, as I rose to take my leave, ‘you will be obliged to sell the house and the proceeds will be invested for the twins.’

He left me to reflect that, since Theo’s hourly fees would make anyone’s eyes water, this had been an expensive way to learn that celibacy paid.

I climbed on to a bus. At least I knew that now, I must be vigilant. Extra, extra vigilant. In the coming months, possibly years, I would require energy and the stamina to attack. At the moment, I was not sure I possessed either. What I did have was an overwhelming sense of panic. That would have to do. In fact, its blackness and sharpness would do very well.

Theo advised me to draw up a list of priorities, and a financial timetable. ‘Be ruthless,’ he said. ‘Put together all the facts and figures to see the whole picture. It will make it easier for you.’

Fact. There was no one to fall back on.

Fact I must get used to it.

Fact A widow with two children was hampered as to what she could do to survive.

Fact After cataclysm, the mind indulges in curious illusions. And they are fiction.

Once, early in the morning, I stumbled downstairs and Nathan was in the kitchen making breakfast. Coffee. Bacon. Toast. All those lovely aromas. He was in his dressing-gown, whistling under his breath. ‘Hello,’ I said, with a rush of pure delight. ‘You’re up early.’ Without turning round, he reached back and pulled me close.

Then he was gone.

Yes, my mind skittered about. Concentration lapsed and I found it hard to read. Sleep was unpredictable, and I asked myself difficult questions. Would Nathan have known as he died what was happening to him? Had it been painful? I prayed not. But perhaps, if he had understood what was happening, he had been granted the chance during the final seconds to think, Thank you for a good life. I can’t imagine what it must be like to die with the conclusion, I had an unsatisfactory/woeful/beastly life.

Did he manage to think about any of us?

The self-help manual After Life, which I was now reading, said we cannot possibly comprehend Death. Anything we think we know is fantasy.

I want to know how the author knew that.

Sue Frost turned up at the house. At first I didn’t recognize the figure in pink cut-off trousers and matching loafers – she looked older than the woman I had encountered in the supermarket. ‘Surprise?’ she said.

‘Well, yes. But no.’

She held out a bunch of peonies and a couple of leaflets. ‘For Nathan’s sake I brought you these.’

Her eyes filled and so, to my distress, did mine. ‘Thank you,’ I managed.

‘We’ll miss him.’ She was weeping openly now. ‘We really loved him.’

The tears were rolling down my cheeks and I lashed out, ‘But not enough to recognize me, which would have made him happy?’

The idea clearly took her by surprise. ‘Yes. Well,’ she wiped her cheeks with her sleeve, ‘we all do things we regret. Anyway, the leaflets. I’m a counsellor, trained for these circumstances. In fact, I run the operation. If you like – if you feel you need help… If you need -’

‘Closure?’ I offered.

‘- a listening ear, just ring this number.’

Scenes from our married life… summoned to help me counter the torture of sleeplessness.

…‘These are for the bride.’ Nathan returned from his first day back at work after our honeymoon, and presented me with a bouquet of such beauty that I cried out with pleasure. ‘This is to make up for no flowers at the wedding.’

…‘Broccoli needs butter.’ Nathan stared at the plate when I served him broccoli mixed with pine nuts and raisins. ‘Why do we have to gussy-up vegetables?’

‘Because,’ I said, ‘it’s to make sticks-in-the-mud like you sit up a little. Things are changing, including broccoli.’

Nathan dropped his head into his hands and groaned. ‘Nothing’s sacred.’

… In the bedroom, I drew the bustier out of the elegant carrier-bag in which it was packed. From the bed, Nathan’s eyes flicked over it. ‘Put it on, Minty. I want to see you in it.’

I looked down at it: such a pretty, sexy thing. Into it I would insert a body altered by childbirth but pretend it wasn’t.

‘Minty!’ Nathan was impatient. ‘Put it on. It’ll be like – it used to be.’

That was what Nathan wanted. He craved the heightened excitement of our affair, the novelty of his willing, inventive mistress.

I gave a tiny sigh and did as he asked. Thus accoutred, I joined my husband on the bed – but I was no longer willing or inventive for I carried a tally of the past, of routine and regret. No bustier would ever mask those.

‘Oh, we’re absolutely fine,’ I heard myself say into the phone to Mrs Jenkins, who had rung up to ask if I needed extra help with the boys. Or ‘That would be such fun’ when Millie’s mother rang up to invite us to a picnic on the common, giving the impression that the boys and I were thoroughly enjoying Nathan being dead.

I never found Nathan’s diary although I searched his drawers and files. I went through the car, his pockets, the bookshelves. At the finish, I was forced to concede that I had lost the tussle between us. Nathan had decided to deny me the intimacies revealed on its pages and I grieved for that, too.

Yet there was a curious beauty to grief, a haunting, solitary beauty that was hard to describe and more than a little alarming. It was almost a pleasure.

Meanwhile I worked steadily through the letters in the study, determined to reply to them all.

When I got round to sorting out the piles of newspapers that had accumulated since Nathan’s death, which I had never read, I came across an advertisement in one of the supplements for the Shiftaka exhibition that Gisela had taken me to see. I examined the painting. A series of free brushstrokes created a forest glade, a mixture of deciduous and pine. Imposed on the mesh of foliage were the lines of trunks and branches so rigid and black they added an air of menace to what should have been a tranquil vista. I showed this to Felix, who said, ‘Ugh.’

Why “ugh”, Felix?’

‘Because there are nasty things. Look, Mummy.’

The leaves on the trees were withered, and the outcrops on the trunks were clumps of insects, not natural growths. Printed at the bottom of the painting was the legend: ‘Only beetles survive the nuclear winter…’

The following Saturday, I cooked sausages and mash for lunch, which the boys and I ate together. Afterwards they demanded to go into the garden and I retreated into Nathan’s study. I gave it a good hard appraisal. When it came to his study, Nathan had a tendency to behave like a bear in its den. Don’t touch anything. It was very much his room, masculine and utilitarian, cluttered with papers and now a little dusty. Don’t touch anything.

But in getting through a situation such as this – my personal nuclear winter – I must dare to look over the parapet. ‘Good girl,’ I heard Paige say.

I put my shoulder to the desk and heaved it, panting with the effort, from its position. Why did you leave us, Nathan? Why didn’t you take more care? Yes, I am angry with you. I shoved it over to the window and the chair followed. If I sat here, I could see the garden where the twins were chasing a squirrel.

Wrong, I thought, rubbing my shoulder. You’re wrong, Rose. Anger makes you strong.

The study seemed bigger, and unfamiliar, a friendly area on which I would imprint what I wished. Moving the desk had let loose a snowstorm of papers: a directory of key Vistemax employees, which went straight into the bin, invitations, a timetable, and an out-of-date list of golfing fixtures at a club I had never heard of. They went into the bin too.

The doorbell rang. The silence in the house was so pleasant, rather reassuring, in fact, that I was tempted to ignore it. It rang a second time, and I went to see who it was.

Rose was on the doorstep, clasping a long brown-paper package. She was wearing jeans and a short, tight jacket. She seemed strained and harassed. Instinctively I made to shut the door, but she placed a foot on the step and prevented me. ‘Don’t, Minty.’

‘I’m not sure I can take this,’ I said, a sour taste rising in my throat. ‘But thank you for your letter.’

‘You look awful.’ She peered at me. ‘Are you taking care of yourself? You should, you know. Have you seen the doctor?’

‘There’s no point, Rose. Go away, and don’t come back. You’ve been very kind but we’re not friends any more.’

‘That’s true.’ She nodded reflectively. ‘But you still need someone to check up on you.’ She added, ‘I know what it’s like.’

‘Don’t you think that’s what makes it impossible?’

‘In normal circumstances, but these aren’t. So… here I am.’

Several cars roared down the street, followed by a lumbering white van from which blared heavy rock music. Opposite, Mrs Austen glanced up from her pots. Fork in hand, she stared openly at us.

‘Be kind, if only to a dog. Is that it?’

‘That’s it.’

The sourness turned into humiliation. ‘Kindness to canines apart, there must be some other reason.’

She held out the package. ‘I think this is meant for you. I’ve opened it. It’s from Nathan.’

I examined the label. It was addressed to Minty Lloyd but the address was Rose’s. ‘The wrong wife.’

She smiled wryly. ‘Maybe Nathan had fallen into the habit of thinking of us as a composite. He always was thrifty.’

I thrust the package back at her. ‘Go away. Don’t come back.’

Rose should have obeyed. Any reasonable person would have done so. A reasonable person would have seen where the line had been drawn, and that the old loyalties were finally dead.

But she was not prepared to give up. ‘It’s a plant for the garden. He must have ordered it months ago.’

‘A plant? What on earth for? He rarely went into the garden.’

‘Did he not tell you? He was thinking of redoing it. In fact, he was quite excited at the idea.’ She pointed to the package. ‘It deserves a chance, don’t you think?’

‘Why?’

‘Lots of reasons. Not least that Nathan obviously wanted a rose.’

‘It’s a rose?’

‘A white one.’

The urge to throw back my head and laugh hysterically at this extra twist of the knife was strong. ‘I don’t know anything about plants.’

‘But I do.’

It was ridiculous. Nathan should have been more careful. But, then, in conflating his two wives, he was making a point. Or perhaps he had reached a fork in the road where he had been too tired to consult the map. ‘You want to come in and plant this thing?’

‘Well, yes. I don’t feel we can waste it, under the circumstances.’

I thought of all the reasons why I didn’t want Rose to come inside the house with this muddled gift from Nathan.

‘I haven’t much time.’ She shifted the package to her other hand and checked her watch, a plain square Cartier that rested on a tanned wrist. ‘So?’

Across the road, Mrs Austen was entranced by this drama on the doorstep. She put down her fork and wiped her hands on her blue and white apron. Any minute now she would cross the road and push herself on to Rose and me.

I stepped aside. ‘You’d better come in.’