The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly

18

Two months later, at three o’clock precisely, Barry, Chris and I got out of a taxi at BBC Television Centre in Wood Lane. ‘Right,’ said Barry, after he had paid the very large fare. ‘Now to battle.’

I murmured, ‘All for one and one for all.’

Barry laughed. ‘Glad you haven’t lost your sense of humour, Minty’

Television Centre had been built in the 1950s and was a maze of studios, stacked scenery and coffee bars in odd corners. Ed Golightly’s office was situated in a basement of Ε Block, opposite Scenery Block A. We were ushered through a half-empty production office and into a room that was furnished with a black leather sofa and chairs and overlooked the Hammersmith and City Line.

Ed was short, with red hair, to which he drew attention by constantly running his hand through it. He had the world-weary expression of a man who had devoted his life to the tough business of pushing arts programmes on to the air.

He was rifling through the Paradox dossier entitled Pointe of Departure, which I had prepared and sent to him two weeks earlier. He did not look up. ‘Sit,’ he said. Then, at last, ‘Right.’ He had the grace to add apologetically, ‘I’ve only just got round to reading this.’

I heard Barry click his tongue against his teeth, but Chris said, ‘Take your time, Ed.’

‘Would you like me to run through it?’ I offered. ‘The idea and format is simple. A well-known ballerina will have a go at the tango, breakdancing, belly-dancing and rock-and-roll…’

Ed leant back in his chair. ‘Any particular ballerina in mind?’

Barry took over. ‘Nora Pavane. She’s excited about the idea. Legs that do things you wouldn’t believe.’

‘Very bankable. Very personable. Can talk to anyone,’ Chris said.

Ed grimaced. ‘I have a problem – a big one. As arts editor, if I submit any idea to our controller with the word “dance” in the title, he’ll utter profanities. Or laugh. That’s the way it is. Now, if I said Nora had agreed to have live cosmetic surgery, no problem.’

‘Do you have any budget at all?’ Chris asked.

Ed was guarded. ‘A little.’

At this point, I suggested, ‘Why don’t we get Nora to meet the controller? Is there a do coming up where we could arrange it? I’m sure if he met her he’d be charmed.’

Ed seemed marginally more galvanized by the project, and rifled through his diary. ‘He’s giving a lecture at the Royal Television Society.’

Barry cut in: ‘Easy, then, Ed. I know the director of the RTS. He used to work for me on The Late, Late Show. I’ll email him and get an invite for Nora. She can sit next to the controller at the dinner afterwards.’ He grinned at Chris and me. ‘That’s it, then, guys.’

On the way home, I picked up my winter coat from the cleaner’s and a couple of bottles of fruit juice from the shop on the corner of Lakey Street. The wire coat-hanger cut into my fingers as I walked. The day had been warm and sunny. In Mrs Austen’s window-box, a bright blue lobelia was blooming. It had been a successful day and I should have been feeling happy about it. Yet if anyone had asked me – if Nathan had been there to congratulate me on a successful pitch – I would have replied, ‘You know, I don’t care that much.’

Eve was washing up in the kitchen. ‘The boys are outside,’ she said. ‘It is so nice.’ She stacked the plates and said, ‘I go now,’ then went up to her room. Her radio snapped on.

I squinted out of the back door. The boys were running about in their pyjamas and did not notice me. I listened to my phone messages. Poppy’s breathy voice filled the kitchen. Could I ring her office? She’d be there until late. Next up was Sue Frost. Had I decided about bereavement counselling? I ran myself a glass of water and drank it. If being married invaded one’s privacy, it was even more the case being a widow. Everyone wanted to help themselves to a bit of my predicament. Mrs Jenkins was constantly advising me on how to handle the twins. Paige and Gisela offered contradictory advice. Mrs Austen had asked me point-blank if I had enough money to live on. Kate Winsom had insisted that I sign up for a course of colonic irrigation. ‘It’s so cleansing. At a time like this you can’t afford to house toxins.’ Others demanded to know how I was managing. Without waiting for an answer, they proceeded to tell me how they would manage. I had begun to feel like a large fish in an aquarium where visitors are parked below the water level so that they can enjoy uninterrupted views of the exposed underbellies. No one ever considered a shark’s right to privacy. They should.

Obediently I rang Poppy. ‘It’s Minty.’ Since the funeral, we had met only twice, each time with the twins, and our conversations had remained within the bounds of politeness.

‘Thanks for ringing,’ she said, more hesitant than usual. In the background I could hear the subdued whine of a printer. ‘The thing is, Minty, I wanted to ask you how things were progressing with Dad’s will.’

Was it odd that Poppy hadn’t talked to Theo? ‘We…’ I emphasized it ‘… will have to be patient a little longer. Theo is still waiting for probate to be granted.’

She hesitated. ‘So, we’re no closer to sharing out the money?’

‘Theo’s doing his best.’

‘It takes such a long time.’ Poppy’s urgent cry echoed down the phone. ‘Can’t we hurry it up?’

‘Is there some problem about the money? Theo explained it quite carefully. Have you a complaint?’

‘No, no, nothing like,’ she countered hastily. ‘I was just wondering, that’s all. Theo did say that Sam and I were due our share, and I could… do with my mine. There are one or two things that I must… I would like to use it for.’

‘Can’t Richard tide you over?’

‘No.’ Her voice veered upwards. ‘I mean, yes. I will ask Richard. He’s always so generous. But I don’t rely on my husband.’ She gave a little laugh. Well, as little as possible. Did I tell you he’s been promoted again? So have I, in a modest way.’ The printer choked, interrupting her. ‘Oh, God, I must go. I’m trying to print out a delivery note to go with a huge order for Christmas candles from Liberty’s and the printer keeps jamming. Will you let me know as soon as possible?’

Through the open door, I saw Felix stick out his leg and Lucas go sprawling over it. I switched my gaze back to the kitchen. If Nathan was sitting at the table, he’d say, ‘She’s my daughter, and I must help.’

I took a deep breath. ‘I’m worried you’re in trouble, Poppy. Would you like to talk things over some time?’

‘No!’ Her panicky voice convinced me that I was right. ‘It’s none of your business.’

‘Are you sure?’

Poppy turned hostile. ‘I’m absolutely sure, thank you, Minty. Could we leave it now? Please?’

‘I’ll ask Theo to get in touch with you.’

I terminated the call and I went to say hello to the twins, who occupied me for the next couple of hours. But I was troubled by my conversation with Poppy.

Later, when I came downstairs, my eye lit on a vase of dying irises in the hall. I carried them into the kitchen and emptied out the water, which smelt disgusting. I dropped one of the flowers on to the floor and its pulpy stem left a stain on the tiles. I knelt down and scrubbed at it with a tissue, which disintegrated. I got to my feet to fetch the dustpan, and pain flickered in my knees. That made me smile. Nathan had married me because he thought I would make him young again. But instead I had grown older.

I scraped the rubbish into the bin and the lid banged shut.

A deep, unhealed loss held me in its tight grip.

I was woken by the sound of starlings on the stairs. I glanced at the clock – 5.30 a.m. Groaning, I got out of bed. ‘Just what are you two doing?’ I demanded. The twins were dressed and kitted up with their school rucksacks. ‘And what are you carrying?’

‘It’s our food for the journey,’ Felix explained.

‘Turn round.’ Felix did so, and I unzipped the rucksack. Inside I found an apple, a couple of chocolate biscuits and Blanky. The last was significant. Felix would never leave the house without Blanky. ‘Did you pinch these from the tin?’

‘It’s for our journey,’ Lucas repeated.

‘What journey?’

Felix tugged at my hand. ‘A special journey, Mummy’

I sat down on the top stair. ‘You were running away without telling me. I wouldn’t have liked that, you know.’

This worried Felix. ‘We’re going to find Daddy,’ he said.

To hide the rush of hot tears, I dropped my head into my hands. There were further starling rustles and a twin inserted himself at either side of me. I put out my arms and drew them close. What am I going to do with you?’ They knew the question was rhetorical, and neither answered. ‘I’ve told you both about Daddy. He’s gone to another place where he will be perfectly at peace. But he can’t ever come back.’

‘Oh, yes he will,’ said Lucas. ‘When we dig him up.’

I ached for their misery. My sadness was now complete, and I searched desolately for the best words, the right thing to do. ‘Well,’ I said finally, ‘why don’t we think about it in bed?’

Fifteen minutes later, they were asleep, but not before ‘I had extracted a promise from them that they would never, ever leave the house without telling me or Eve. I lay awake, borne aloft on a layer of biscuit crumbs – they had insisted in eating their provisions.

‘Minty!’ a voice called behind me, as I was dashing out of number seven on the way to work.

It was Martin. He was in his office suit, with a briefcase and a matching overnight bag in the softest leather, the kind top executives favour. ‘I was hoping to catch you. I’m sorry I haven’t been around, but I’ve been so busy. Paige tells me you’re coping… but…’ He placed a finger under my chin and tilted it up. ‘Bit pale, thinner, but that’s to be expected.’

I licked my dry lips. I had almost forgotten how to respond to human beings, let alone friends.

‘I’m afraid I need to talk to you,’ he said.

That shook me out of my torpor. ‘Trouble?’

‘Trouble,’ he conceded. ‘Have you got time?’

I glanced at my watch. ‘I’m due at a meeting in an hour.’ That would take up the morning. Lunchtime would be devoted to buying new school uniform for the twins. An afternoon meeting was scheduled with Ed Golightly at the BBC and everyone was crossing fingers for the green light. With luck and a following wind, I would make it home for the twins’ bath. ‘I have time.’

‘Coffee, then?’ Martin jerked a finger at the café on the corner.

We sat at a too-small table that lurched alarmingly if one or other of us leant on it. Martin blew into the cappuccino, and the resulting ruffle on the froth mirrored his frown. He looked baffled and angry. A dot of shaving cream nesting behind his left ear skewed his conformist, businesslike appearance.

‘Martin, this looks bad.’

‘It is.’ He picked up his cup and put it down again. ‘Paige and I have split up. Or, rather, she told me to go’

‘What? She hasn’t said anything to me.’

Naturally that was neither here nor there to Martin. He raised his eyes and looked directly into mine. ‘You know the expression “a blow in the solar plexus”? It doesn’t describe the half of it.’

A picture of Nathan sitting in the blue chair, dead, swam into view. ‘I have some idea.’

‘Yes, of course you do. I was forgetting.’ He frowned, and the hollows under his eyes deepened alarmingly. This was a man who was hoping to be mistaken, who was grappling with a mystery he suspected he had no hope of solving.

‘How long had it been brewing?’

He shrugged and took refuge in flippancy. ‘Who knows what goes on in my wife’s mind?’

I searched for a clue to Paige’s decision. Had Martin beaten her up? Demanded that she become a sex slave? I tried the obvious line. ‘You can go a bit mad after having a baby. I did. You feel so unsettled and unsure.’

‘Paige?’ he said. ‘Never.’

Yet his bewilderment and hurt were so profound that I could almost touch them. ‘Paige feels I don’t pay enough attention to the children but apparently I demand too much from her. She says she has enough children to look after. She needs to concentrate on them and I get in the way’

Despite the sun warming my back, I felt cold. ‘Martin, Paige has gone mad. Are you sure the doctor is keeping an eye on her?’

‘As far as I know, but I’ve been away quite a lot.’ He pushed aside his untouched coffee. ‘It’s a battlefield at home, but Paige is sane and well. I’ve no doubt of that. Each time she gives birth she becomes… well, stronger and more implacable. Like Clytemnestra or whoever that dreadful woman was who killed her husband for fun.’

‘He’d just slaughtered her daughter.’

‘Had he? Oh, well.’ He reached down for the handle of his bag. It’s perfectly correct that I don’t devote every waking breath, or every sleeping one for that matter, to the children. I leave that to Paige.’

‘What do you want me to do, Martin?’ I asked gently. ‘Although I’m not sure what I could do, except try to persuade Paige that’s she wrong.’

Martin gazed down at the table. He was searching for something to cling to. ‘Try to persuade her to do anything and you’ll achieve the opposite. But could you keep an eye on her? She’s not as strong as she thinks.’ He got to his feet. ‘Thank you for the coffee.’ Large and baffled, he hovered above me. ‘I know it’s a lot to ask, Minty, at the moment, but if you could keep tabs on her? Sooner or later she’ll come to her senses. Actually, I’m not sure I want to live with her at the moment anyway – she’s so awful.’ He yanked out the expanding handle of his suitcase with some force. ‘She should never have left the bank. That’s where her energies are best deployed. Children have ruined her.’

When I tackled Paige, she was unrepentant and not at all mad. ‘Martin doesn’t fit in with the children,’ she said, as she hefted baby Charlie from one breast to the other. I noted the breast was looking less joyously abundant, and floppier than it had been. ‘He’s always coming home at the wrong time, and wanting a meal or his shirts washed.’

‘Linda can do that, or some of it, surely?’

She thought about this for a while. There was an exultant expression in her eyes, which I didn’t recognize. ‘He prevents me concentrating on the children.’

I changed my mind. Paige was unhinged. ‘Have you been to the doctor lately?’

‘No need.’ She addressed the fuzzy head of her sucking son. ‘Mummy’s fine, isn’t she? We’re doing just fine.’

‘You should go,’ I said.

There was a hum in the quiet, organized kitchen: dishwasher, washing-machine. Upstairs my twins were being entertained grudgingly by Jackson and Lara. It was only four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon but the table was already laid for the children’s six o’clock supper, and the oven timer had been primed to spring into life at five thirty.

Oddly at sea, I twisted my hands in my lap. ‘Obviously I can’t occupy the high ground on broken marriages -’

‘Obviously,’ said Paige, rudely.

‘But that’s it, Paige. I can say something because I know.’

‘Know what?’

‘How to convince yourself that what you’re doing is OK.’

Charlie thrust his head back and Paige’s nipple popped out of his mouth. ‘Oh, look!’ she exclaimed. ‘He’s got a sore lip. Poor little boy’ She nuzzled his cheek with lingering tenderness. ‘Mummy will make it better.’

I didn’t often think about my mother and it’s safe to say that, while she was alive, my mother didn’t often think about me in a real, proper, motherly way. First, she was always too tired from trying to earn a living after my father abandoned us. Second, she didn’t like me. Consequently, I lay many of life’s ills at her door because, as the self-help manuals point out, it’s your mother who sets the tone. When she was alive, I pretended she was dead. Then she was dead and, for a while, I pretended she wasn’t.

‘Listen to me.’ Paige did not look up from Charlie. I got up and snatched poor Charlie out of her arms. He felt bulky and compact and smelt of half-digested milk. He protested at this sudden change, but I didn’t care. ‘You will li sten to me. It’s very easy to think yourself into rightness. “Yes,” I used to say to myself. “Rose is so complacent. She doesn’t care about Nathan in the way he needs. She deserves to lose him. A person as careless as Rose doesn’t deserve a husband like Nathan.” In the end, I felt it was almost my duty to take Nathan away.’

‘And you succeeded. So?’

‘You’re missing the point, Paige. You can reason yourself in and out of anything. That’s the trouble with reason. It’s flexible.’

Paige stood up and held out her arms. ‘Give me my baby,’ she ordered. ‘He needs changing.’

I clung to Charlie. ‘You can’t honestly think that the children will be better off without Martin?’

‘Hark at who’s talking.’

‘Felix and Lucas are suffering terribly.’

Paige succeeded in prising Charlie away from me. ‘I appreciate your concern, Minty,’ her face closed, ‘but I’d rather you didn’t interfere in this one.’

‘Don’t imagine because I’ve been away that I’m letting you out of my sight,’ Gisela said. ‘I want to know everything. You’ll hate me for being a busybody, but you’ll be grateful too.’

Gisela had been in the South of France for a month, and on her return she had phoned and arranged to take me out to lunch. The Vistemax car had picked me up from Paradox, a little perk that I made no effort to hide from Deb et al. Gisela was installed inside it. She was tanned and fit and kissed me warmly. I kissed her back – I’d missed her.

‘I hope you’re demanding answers from Theo,’ she continued. ‘Unless you’re stroppy, lawyers let things drift.’

The car purred off in the direction of Kensington. I gave an edited rundown on the financial and legal situation, then asked, ‘Did anyone help you, Gisela, when you were struggling with all the detail?’

She hesitated. ‘Sometimes… Well, Marcus did. He’s good on that sort of thing.’

‘Actually, the detail isn’t my main worry. It’s the boys. They miss Nathan.’

She glanced down at her hands, folded elegantly in her lap. ‘It’s awful for you at the moment.’

‘Sometimes their sadness is almost too much to bear. They wanted to go looking for him the other day. They’d packed a bag each.’

A variety of expressions chased across Gisela’s smooth complexion. Then she said briskly, ‘Bear it you must.’ She opened her bag and produced her diary. ‘Now I need your advice. Or, rather, I’d like to talk to you, so I’m going to offer you a bribe.’

‘I suppose it’s about Marcus.’

‘In a way everything’s always about Marcus. I’ve tried not to let it be, but that’s proved impossible. He’s sort of… always there.’

‘Because you want him to be,’ I pointed out.

‘I suppose so.’

The car slowed for traffic-lights. The thought of the expensive food Gisela was about to buy for me made me feel a little nauseous. ‘Gisela, I’m not that hungry. Appetite seems to have deserted me.’

‘That’s no surprise. Look at it this way. Many women would kill to be in that position. Actually, I want to whisk you off to Claire Manor for a couple of days’ pampering. The treat’s on me, so you’ll have to listen to my problems and you might forget yours.’

I reached over and touched her elbow. ‘You are lovely. It would be…’ Then I heard myself say, ‘But it’s a bit soon for me to leave the twins. I don’t think I could do it to them.’

Steel crept into Gisela’s limpid, sympathetic gaze. Yes, you can, Minty.’

I tried another, perfectly truthful, tack: ‘I can’t afford it, Gisela.’

‘I’ve already said I’m paying.’

‘I can’t take any more time off work, not one second. Paradox are waiting for an excuse to offload me now that I’m a liability.’

‘Is that true?’

I thought of Chris Sharp and his ambitions. ‘I think so. Or, rather, I don’t wish to give them an opportunity to prove it.’

‘Of course. I see that absolutely. We’ll go at a weekend.’

As the car slid to a halt in front of the restaurant, she turned to me. ‘You’re looking bad, Minty. Pale and sad. That isn’t good for Paradox. You must give yourself two days off. It’s the least you can do.’ She took my hand and patted it. Deal?’

‘I’ll have to see if Eve can cover, and all that. I can’t just say yes like…’ Like the old days.

There was a tiny flicker of impatience. ‘Well, I won’t take no for an answer.’

That night when I got ready for bed, I forced myself to conduct a mirror session. The eyes and hair it reflected lacked lustre. Most of all, my eyes bothered me. They were lifeless.