The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly

21

Before twenty-four hours had elapsed Poppy was on the phone. ‘Minty, I don’t think it’s a good idea to use my mother as a fall-back nanny.’

As it happened, I agreed with her. ‘Did Rose put it that way?’

‘Not exactly, but she told me you rang up at the last minute and begged her to step in.’ She added, ‘I object.’

‘I had to find someone to look after the boys.’

‘You’re their mother. Don’t you understand how it would have upset her?’

I reminded myself that Poppy had no children so she didn’t have the faintest idea. Poppy had not lain naked and trussed and given birth amid what resembled a cocktail party. She did not lie awake at night entertaining that special brand of parental imagining: Lucas might run out into the road when a lorry just happens to be coming down it at full speed. She didn’t understand that adaptation was survival. Furthermore, Poppy had no idea how a pair of fair, tousled heads had a way of sneaking past every defence. ‘Your mother could have said no.’

An impatient noise sped down the line. ‘Don’t you know by now that Mum puts up with everything?’

‘I’m not sure I agree, Poppy.’

‘She has some crazy idea that Dad would want her to look out for them. I’ve told her she shouldn’t stand for it. Richard says you should make your own arrangements.’

Despite my best intentions, I was stung by the last. Our occasional rueful exchanges had seemed to indicate that Richard and I understood each other. ‘Did he really?’

‘Um. Well, we both agree.’

It was a fair bet that Richard had said nothing of the sort. ‘Poppy,’ I said, ‘I’m doing the best I can, but things are difficult at the moment, and the boys are more important than anything else.’

‘And?’

‘I was afraid I might lose my job if I didn’t turn up.’ Even to say the words caused sweat to break out on my top lip.

‘Can’t you negotiate? There’s legislation for this kind of contingency.’ Pause. ‘I wouldn’t stand for it, Minty.’

‘I expect you would if you had to.’ My knees were shaky now. ‘There’s theory and then there’s practice.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’

I glanced round the kitchen. Without Eve, it was showing signs of neglect. There was dust on the windowsill, spilt coffee grounds by the rubbish bin and a couple of dirty saucepans waiting for attention beside the sink.

‘By the way, two things, Poppy. I don’t think it would do any good if I intervened in the Jilly-Sam situation. I got a polite brush-off from Sam.’

‘I bet you didn’t try hard enough.’

‘Actually I did. I put feelers out, and it was clear that I wouldn’t get anywhere. I’m afraid the ball’s back in your court. You’ll have to deal.’

‘Hmm. You sound like Sam. All bossy and older sibling. And the second thing?’

‘I’ve spoken to Theo. I’m afraid the money won’t be forthcoming just yet. He couldn’t say when it would be.’

‘Oh, my God,’ Poppy said. A note of desperation had crept into her voice. Are you absolutely sure?’

I didn’t have time, or the inclination, to take on Poppy’s woes. This was the girl who had dressed up in black for my wedding, called her father – and, by extension, me – an old goat and deliberately mucked up family Christmases. She and I didn’t have a relationship where if one was in trouble the other said, ‘Hang on, I’m coming at once.’

Against all reason, I said, ‘Poppy. I suspect you’ve got yourself into trouble over the poker. Am I right?’

There was a choking sob. ‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Actually, you can.’

It took a little more urging and probing but eventually Poppy confessed: ‘Poker got a grip on me. I don’t how – it’s a mystery how quickly I became wrapped up in it. I lie awake at night, and ask myself, “How?” Then I borrowed money because I didn’t win, and I can’t afford to pay it back. I couldn’t pay off my credit card, so I borrowed it from one of those firms that promise the world and forget to tell you that the interest is unbelievable. A career in candles isn’t big beans – well, it’s a career in candles. Need I say more? I can’t tell Richard, who would be horrified, I can’t tell Mum, and the bailiffs will come and I’ll get credit blacklisted if I don’t do something soon -’

At this point, I interrupted: ‘Poppy, listen to me. Have you stopped playing? That’s the first step.’

‘Of course I have.’ Poppy was a hopeless liar.

‘I don’t believe you.’

The situation was still too delicate for the direct approach and I had been clumsy: she turned savage. ‘It’s none of your business. I can deal with it. If you can just arrange for the money, it’ll be sorted.’

A lifetime of self-help manuals came to my rescue. ‘Why don’t you go and talk to someone?’ I lowered my voice. ‘Poppy, I can find out who.’

There was more choking. ‘I miss Dad. It’s like having a hole in the head. Why did he have to die?’ Silence, and then her bleak, disembodied voice at the other end of the line: ‘I wish I was dead.’

I glanced at the clock. I had one hour precisely in hand, but I could put it to better use than pressing the jacket that was next on the list. ‘Hang on, Poppy’ I felt the thrill of stepping into untrodden territory. ‘I can come over.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t.’

Eve was lying in the furthest bed from the entrance to the ward, which, I imagined, gave her a modicum of peace. The traffic in and out was staggering – trolleys, visitors, doctors in white coats.

She was propped up on pillows and her colour matched the linen. ‘Hallo, Minty.’

‘Eve, are you feeling better?’ I placed a basket of fruit on her bedside table and drew up a chair. She was too exhausted to talk much so I held her hand and stroked her fingers. The gesture seemed to please her for she smiled faintly and closed her eyes. After a while, I went in search of information.

The staff nurse was ensconced at the nurses’ station. She was neat, careworn and so small she barely crowned the pile of paper in front of her. ‘Who?’ she asked. It took her a couple of minutes to sift through the notes and get a fix on Eve. Then she informed me that Eve could leave hospital the following day, but required dedicated nursing and would not be properly on her feet for at least six weeks. She outlined a programme of light meals, bedbaths and pill-taking. A chill trickled down my spine.

I tackled the live-in agency stand-in, who had arrived for the week, and gave a run-down of Eve’s nursing care. The girl – Australian, blonde, smiling – shook her head and said politely, ‘I’m afraid the agency rules say I can’t do anything except look after the kids.’

The telephone odyssey began again. ‘If you could pop in once,’ I pleaded with Tessa/Kate/Paige, ‘just to check up on Eve and make sure she’s taken her pills and eaten something.’

Tessa said, ‘If she’s really ill, you’d better get in an agency nurse.’

‘I already have an agency nanny, and she’s costing the earth.’

Kate was more sympathetic and less helpful: ‘You’d better stay at home, Minty. How would you feel if something happened to Eve?’

Paige said, ‘I’m not talking to you, Minty. Not only do you lecture me, but I’ve discovered you’re on Martin’s side.’

‘How?’

‘He let slip he recruited you over a coffee.’

‘That was ages ago. Anyway, what should I have done? Ignored him?’ There was a silence and I added desperately, ‘Eve does need checking over, and the agency girl can’t or won’t.’

‘OK.’ Paige wasn’t enthusiastic. ‘I’ll send Linda over. She can give Eve a meal.’

That was the best I could wrest from the situation. It was bad but not terminal, and I set about drawing up a list for Linda.

To begin with, Eve was very weak. Then she got better and stronger, but it was not straightforward. Some days she could get up for an hour or so. On others the lightest tasks were beyond her. Ignoring my dwindling cash reserves, I hired the agency nanny for another two weeks.

Paige was of the opinion that I should sack Eve. ‘You’ve got to survive,’ she argued. ‘You can’t afford a weak link. It’s either you or her.’

Centuries’ worth of social and ethical thinking that had crept snail-like towards compassion for, and nurture of, the weak flicked through my brain. ‘As a matter of interest, is that what you feel Martin is? A weak link?’

Paige gave the impression that she was talking to a recalcitrant child. ‘I haven’t time to nurture a liability. You haven’t time for a non-functional child-carer.’

Eve might have been ill, but she was no fool. She could scent what was blowing in the wind. ‘Please don’t lose me the job,’ she begged, in genuine terror that I might cast her out into the streets. For ten seconds or so, the idea of buying her a one-way ticket to Romania jumped to the top of the list. I took her sickly face between my hands. ‘Don’t be silly, Eve. The boys need you and they’re very fond of you. I need you, too, for them, so will you please concentrate on getting better?’

As I climbed the stairs to her room in the evenings, bearing a meal tray, I wondered what Nathan would make of me now.

At Paradox, I had taken to draping a jacket (which I changed every two days) over the back of my chair and leaving it there. This was to encourage anyone glancing into my office in the early morning or late evening to conclude that I was already/still at work. I typed out a list of so-called ‘lunch’ meetings in twenty-point, bold Garamond and stuck it on to the side of my computer screen. In fact, I was sacrificing a proportion of the family’s weekly budget on taxis so that I could to race back to Lakey Street to feed Eve. It was a killing schedule, but I had a discovered a quirk in my psyche: I didn’t mind putting myself out.

Barry and Chris had developed an unhealthy symbiosis. ‘Chris thinks my thoughts and walks my walks,’ Barry announced, during an ideas meeting that Chris had dominated.

Deb went pale and stared hard at the coffee machine. ‘I’m looking for a new job,’ she had told me earlier, without enthusiasm.

Chris had not looked at Deb. He gathered up his papers and waggled his fingers. ‘See you later, guys.’

Barry followed him, leaving Deb and me at the conference table. She cocked an eyebrow. ‘I feel I’ve fallen behind, Minty. And I can’t put my finger on how it happened.’

At the weekend, I took the boys to Gisela’s for tea. Since I had been there last, she had redecorated the drawing room in pale gold and cream, with Venetian mirrors and authentic tapestry cushions.

‘Felix, no,’ she said sharply, when Felix picked up one of the cushions. ‘It’s very old and valuable.’ Her attention veered to Lucas, who had discovered that the Aubusson rug concealed an exciting stretch of parquet – perfect for sliding.

I called the twins to heel but they were restless, uneasy and disinclined to obey. This had been a pattern for the last few days and I was fighting to get to grips with it. Lucas happened to be standing close to Gisela when he sneezed fulsomely. I hastened to pass him a tissue, which, after he had used it, he offered to Gisela with his sweetest smile. Gisela recoiled. ‘Why don’t I ring for Angela, and she can give them tea in the kitchen?’

Roger put in a brief appearance on his way to a golf club gathering. He advanced into the room in a hearty manner and kissed my cheek. ‘So good to see you,’ he murmured, one eye on his wife. ‘I hope everything’s under control.’ He looked healthy and wealthy, but not particularly rested or happy.

I was tempted to punish him with a catalogue of what was not going well, but spared him. More than once over the past few weeks, as I reflected on what had happened to Nathan, I reassured myself that Roger, for all his power and success, was as likely to be done-to as often as he did-by. Soon or later, Roger’s career would end.

After he had left, and Angela had brought in tea and chocolate cake and taken the boys away, Gisela asked after Paradox and the job. I put down my cup. ‘I have a fight on my hands,’ I told her, ‘and I’m going to need every ounce of guile I possess.’

Gisela cut a minute slice of chocolate cake and arranged it on her plate. ‘I appreciate how difficult it must be for you, Minty. I admire how you’re handling everything.’

It was nice of her to mention it, but I wondered if she meant it. ‘Have you heard from Marcus?’

At his name, she leapt to her feet. ‘No, I haven’t.’

I waited for more information, but Gisela had retreated into painful reflection. The scene on the tapestry cushion at my right elbow depicted hunters in the forest and a wounded white stag. The forest had been woven with a dreamy, mysterious quality, and its floor was carpeted with little animals and flowers. ‘Are you angry, Gisela?’

‘I am and I’m not.’ Gisela took up a position by the long window and fingered the curtain tie-back. ‘OΚ. I’ll say this. In the end, I felt I had no choice. I’m married to Roger, and I can’t break a vow as easily as Marcus suggests.’

This shone a new, fascinating light on the situation. ‘Gisela, since when have you minded about marriage vows?’

She tossed her head. ‘You’ve read me wrong, Minty. I always observed the contract. I did exactly what was expected and what I undertook to do. Marriage is a business, not some mystical revelation.’ She fiddled some more with the tie-back. ‘In the end, it wasn’t a choice. That’s what upset me… a little. I did not have it in me to consider the alternative, with Marcus, to what I have now, with Roger. I couldn’t see it.’

‘Ah.’

‘Does that make me dead?’

I hazarded a shrewd guess. ‘Is that what Marcus said?’

Gisela smiled bleakly. ‘Something along those lines. But it’s done.’ She returned to her seat, and I watched her slip back into the hostess’s skin, straightening her skirt and lifting the teapot. ‘More?’

Gisela’s pact with the devil had evidently not made her that happy. ‘Are you sure?’

She put down the teapot. ‘You know what they say about addicts? If you take away the addiction and the fuss around it, there’s nothing left to fill the day.’

‘Charity work?’

It was as bad a joke as Nathan would have made. Gisela managed a wintry smile. ‘Then I would be truly dead.’ She pointed to the cushion. ‘French. Eighteenth century. Note the superb vegetable dyes.’

‘Noted.’ I had half an ear listening for the twins and whether they were creating mayhem with Angela.

Gisela traced the outline of the wounded stag on the cushion with a finger on which gleamed an important diamond ring. ‘I had become used to a set-up where everything on the surface appeared straightforward but wasn’t, and only I knew about it. There was an edge to my life, like the hem on a garment. I could say to myself, “I’m married to Nicholas, or Richmond, or Roger, but I have the option to pack my bags.”’ She laughed. ‘The trouble is, since I’ve told Marcus to go, I spend all my time thinking about him in a way I never did when he was on the scene.’

‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘That’s bad. You’ve got guilt plus the grass-is-greener syndrome rolled into one.’

Gisela was startled. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s a stubborn, pesky illness that won’t go away.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I’m intimately acquainted with it,’ I said.

In the car, Felix piped up, ‘If we don’t have a daddy, does that mean we’re not a family?’

‘No, Felix. You can be a family without a daddy’

‘And you really are a mummy.’

I stared at the snarled traffic. ‘I really am a mummy.’

When we got back, Eve was in the kitchen. She looked a lot stronger, even if her clothes hung off her. ‘I make supper,’ she said, and when I tried to stop her she held up her hand. ‘I do.’

I helped her to cut up cucumber and carrot sticks, and to heat up the shepherd’s pie. She moved painfully slowly, but with determination. Afterwards she insisted on clearing up. She raised her normally indifferent eyes to mine and, in them, sparked gratitude. ‘You are nice, Minty.’

During the bad nights, I had been getting rid of Nathan. It should have been a logical process – Nathan was no longer there to wear his shirts, socks, suits, shoes, ties, and they were easy to sort and pack. But their disposal defied logic. Sometimes I managed to clear a drawer; sometimes it was beyond me. It was a process that had to be secret because I didn’t wish the boys to witness it and because… it hurt. So I accomplished it in fits and starts, stealthily, during those nights.

It was a quarter to two when I got out of bed and opened the doors to Nathan’s wardrobe. Already light dust coated the contents. There were his ties, blue, red and green. A scarf was jammed on to the shelf and I picked it up. It was an expensive one, and I caught the faintest echo of his aftershave. The sensation of a sharp instrument striking through my breast made me gasp. I sank down on the bed, holding it between fingers from which the feeling had drained.

Nathan was dead.

After a while, I put it aside, took out his favourite grey suit and laid it on the bed. Into the jacket I tucked his favourite blue office shirt. Round the collar went the tie, red silk. A pair of silk socks and polished shoes completed the ensemble.

There. This was the shell of Nathan. I could pretend he was there, leaning against the pillows, hands folded behind his head. Minty, will you please pay attention… Pillow punched. Shoes eased off and discarded. Minty, what do you think?

The bag for the hospice charity shop was on the floor. If I removed the tie from the shell and placed it in the bag, part of Nathan had gone. If I took out the shirt, as I now did, and folded it carefully, another bit of him had vanished. The shoes… the shoes? If I dropped them into the bag, it would be impossible for Nathan ever again to walk into number seven and run up the stairs – where are my boys?

And with the suit went the businessman who formulated strategies and said, Our competitors are really strong. Let’s give them a hard time.

‘When I married Nathan,’ Rose had confided to me, at one of our lunches in the early days, ‘I was brokenhearted from a love affair that had gone wrong. But Nathan was so anxious to make me happy, how could I resist? He was a rock, and Hal was unreliable sand. What more could I ask?’

I was not so convinced by Rose’s capacity to sort out the rocks from the sand. This was a woman who, she also confided to me, used to slip into St Benedicta’s church en route for home and light a candle under the Madonna. If that was not building a house on sand, I didn’t know what was.

‘Hal could never be what I wanted,’ Rose had added. ‘We both knew it. But Nathan was.’

Downstairs, one of the twins cried out. I swept the suit into the bag and went to find out which one.

Felix had had a bad dream. ‘Mummy, there was a big, big cat with big claws and he was trying to claw me…’

I drew his hot little body close and whispered, ‘It’s all right, Felix. Mummy’s here. I’ve chased the bad cat away. Look, it’s gone.’

It was not all right. Yet as I soothed my son with this lie I took a curious pleasure and pride in its construction. Until the boys were big and bold enough to know better, it was my business to shield them from the worst.