The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly

24

It was Friday, four weeks before Christmas. In the meeting room at Paradox I watched the clock inch past five thirty. Barry was in full flow and wasn’t going to stop. What he had to say was interesting but I wished he had said it earlier in the day.

Chris propped his head in one hand. During a pause, he looked up. ‘Are you in a hurry, Minty?’

‘Not at all,’ I replied coolly.

‘We’re coming to you in a minute, Minty,’ Barry said.

In a feeble attempt to recognize the season, Syriol had draped a string of fairy-lights over the picture on the wall. It was by Shiftaka and I had persuaded Barry that it would be a good investment when he had decided to plough a proportion of Paradox’s profits into an asset. (When I pointed out that his employees might be considered assets, Barry grinned and said he needed fixed assets.)

Shiftaka’s painting depicted an abstract figure, half flesh, half skeleton, lying on a bed of glowing coals. The colours were violent reds, the blackest of blacks, and a white background that could only be described as dirty. The label read: Kyoto RIP. The jury’s still out as to whether I consider Shiftaka a good painter or not, but I’m working hard on my ‘uneducated’ eye. Still, if Barry thinks Shiftaka’s cutting edge, it was a bargain.

When I had taken Barry to view it at Marcus’s gallery, Marcus had been sitting at the desk, head bent over the laptop. At our entrance, he looked up and I was shocked: he appeared considerably older than I remembered. He took a second or two to place me and, when he did, there was an unmistakable flare of hope in his eyes, which was as quickly extinguished when it became obvious that I was not Gisela’s envoy.

I had introduced the two men and explained that Barry was looking for an investment. Marcus swung into professional mode – easy of manner, patient, sizing up a potential client – and I thought how much nicer he was than Roger.

While Barry patrolled between the two rooms, Marcus turned to me and asked, in his unexpectedly deep voice, ‘How’s Gisela?’

‘Fine, I think. I haven’t seen much of her lately.’

He chose not to indulge in small-talk – another factor in his favour – and went straight to the point. ‘She didn’t seem to understand that I didn’t want a wife. I wanted her. Not someone who stockpiles jam and checks the dinner menus. But when it came to a decision, I think she preferred it. Gisela has got used to being a professional wife.’

‘I think you’re right.’

Marcus’s rightness, however, was of no help to him. What can she possibly gain with Roger? The dullness of such an existence… and I’m the one who loved her, not Roger.’

With regret, I noted the past tense. ‘It’s not dull, Marcus,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s different.’

Barry had stopped prowling, and waved at Kyoto RIP. ‘I’ll take that one.’ He pushed his face close to Marcus’s. ‘Now, you are sure I won’t be throwing my money away?’

Marcus hadn’t even blinked. ‘Nothing is certain.’

So that was how Shiftaka had come to grace the walls at Paradox.

‘Minty,’ Barry had finally finished what he’d had to say, ‘do you want to go ahead?’

I pulled my notes towards me. ‘OΚ. Remember last year we discussed an idea for a programme on middle age? It didn’t work. But this will. Three-part series on being a parent. Baby Love. The format? Each section to be an hour, featuring expert talking heads and personal experiences of parents. The programmes will ask: what are the stresses and strains of becoming a parent? Can you ever prepare for it? How does it affect a man and a woman physically and emotionally? What sort of impact do children have on marriages, friendships? How can it affect you if you become a step-parent to older children? How do you cope if you feel you’re a failure as a parent? How do you manage as a lone parent?’

Good question. How do you manage as a lone parent?

Chris raised an eyebrow. Then he cleared his throat and made a note.

I continued: ‘The trick will be to handle the material in a fresh, bold manner, and not be afraid to tackle the difficult aspects of being a parent. The programmes have to be honest and say things that most people only think. Children do change you. You don’t always love them. Parents do fail. It is lonely.’

‘Any up-side?’ asked Chris.

‘Oh, yes,’ I replied. ‘Plenty.’ I thought of my beautiful sons and felt my spirit lift. ‘But I’ll leave that for the parents to describe. They’ll do it best.’ I picked up the treatment I had prepared and handed it to Barry. ‘We want it fast, colourful, daring, and I think BBC1 should be the target.’

Chris frowned. Barry gazed thoughtfully at Kyoto RIP.

‘Minty, thanks,’ Barry said. ‘Not quite convinced, but I’ll think about it. We’ll talk.’

‘Think massive audience,’ I urged. ‘Trust me.’

Chris came into my office as I was shifting my papers into order. He closed the door and leant against it. ‘I wanted to chew the cud about a few things, Minty.’

‘Sure.’ I clicked off my computer screen. As I did so, I noticed that my wedding ring was much looser and a vein running down my hand stood out in relief. Not a good sign. Film stars had hand lifts for less.

‘You heard we got the Carlton deal for the documentary on the Pope?’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Should boost the quarterly figures.’

‘Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? If so, can we do it tomorrow? I have to get home.’

Chris levered himself away from the door, and perched against my desk. Suddenly my small office was very cramped. The hazel eyes gleamed. You’ve had a tough year, Minty.’

His kindness was unexpected, and I was still having trouble with kindness. It tended to reduce me. ‘Yes. But I’m coming to terms with it and making my way.’

I needn’t have wasted my energy: Chris’s kindness was merely a vehicle for other considerations.

‘Minty, it might be better if you were working for a bigger organization, which would have more slack for someone in your predicament. A very real predicament.’

There was no point in getting angry. If I was to survive at Paradox until such time as I wished to leave on my own terms, I could not be angry. ‘Are you suggesting this or telling me?’

He smiled gently, and I could not decide whether it was genuine or not. ‘Friend to friend, in this business it doesn’t help to have additional pressures. A company as tight as Paradox needs to know it’s functioning optimally with no unnecessary drag. You need to know, when a problem arises, that there’s no problem in dealing with it, if you see what I mean.’

‘Sweet of you, Chris,’ I murmured.

In the old days, I would have deployed sex – which Nathan fell for. I would have opened my eyes, looked up from beneath the lids, and have made sure my cleavage was in the correct line of sight. I might have said, ‘How nice of you to take an interest,’ which would have introduced a faint chime of promise, sufficient to push Chris off the track. I’m not saying that I’ve come to despise such tactics, or would never use them again, only that sex took time and the boys would be waiting for me.

Instead I placed the last of my notes in my bag and fastened it. ‘Chris. Perhaps it would be better not to pursue this conversation. If you’re trying to suggest that, as a working mother, I’m a liability, it could get you into trouble.’

No fool, he backed off at once. ‘I was only thinking of you,’ he said.

On the way home, I passed Paige’s house. The front garden was ultra-smart because the gardener had recently completed the autumn spring-clean. ‘You can’t call it a spring clean,’ I had pointed out to Paige, when I phoned her the previous day.

‘I can call it what I like,’ was her reply.

‘Has Martin been to see you?’

Paige bristled. ‘I wish you wouldn’t interfere.’

‘And?’

‘He’s here at the weekend. But I’m not taking him back, Minty. As I told you, I’m far too busy with the children to be married.’

The scene when I got through the door of number seven was much as I had pictured it. Eve had collapsed into a chair in the kitchen and a small riot was going on in the boys’ bedroom. One of Eve’s hands lay on the table, so white and thin that it alarmed me.

First, I tackled her. ‘Look,’ I said to the slumped figure, ‘this is no good. It’s been going on for months, and you haven’t got properly better. You need to go home and see your family.’

She raised her face from her hands and I was star-tied by the light in her eyes. ‘Go back?’ She gulped a lungful of air – as if she was already breathing in the scents of river and mountains, of her home.

That decided it. ‘You must go home for two weeks, see your family, rest, then come back.’

‘I get coach.’ Eve hauled herself to her feet, and her smile was pure joy. ‘I telephone. Now.’

‘No, it’s a two-day journey both ways. You must fly.’

‘The moneys.’

A stack of quick-fire calculations snapped through my brain. Eve needed a break. She needed her mother. Four days in a coach was not a rest. I needed Eve well and strong, as she herself wished to be. ‘I’ll pay your air fare, and you must go as soon as we can arrange it.’

As I went upstairs, preparing for riot duty, the rest of the calculation slotted into place. What with the hit my finances had taken with the loan to Poppy, Eve’s air fare equalled a reduction in the Christmas-present list. It definitely put paid to the haircut, and the cost of her replacement would, no doubt, see off any strictly unnecessary seasonal frivolity. But that, I supposed, was what ‘unnecessary’ meant. You could do without it.

It was the day before Christmas Eve, the kind of day that paraded a weak sun as a joke. I eased the car into the parking slot and got out. It was very cold and I zipped up my fleece, powder blue, then turned up the collar. I could smell frosted leaf mould and the faintest whiff of frying fat coming from a van selling snacks parked further up.

I was relishing the moment of freedom, and allowing my mind to drift, before I took up the slack in the reins and pulled them tight. Moments such as these kept me sane.

I was contemplating getting back into the warm car when a smart silver coupé drew up and parked in the space beside mine. One of the passenger doors flung open and Lucas tumbled out. ‘Mum!’

He was followed closely by Felix. ‘Mum!’

Both were clutching picture books with an illustration of a dinosaur on the front. I knew this because Felix virtually pressed his into my face.

A figure emerged from the driver’s seat in a tweed jacket, black trousers and boots. ‘Hi,’ said Rose.

She locked the car and, boys in tow, we moved off in the direction of the pond.

‘Lucas didn’t eat much lunch,’ Rose reported. ‘He was too excited. There was an exhibition about Tyrannosaurus Rex. The model ate model prey and snapped its jaws. Lucas was transfixed, and Felix… Well, I’m not sure he liked it much.’

‘Was it crowded?’

‘Was it crowded!’

We circumnavigated the pond once, and that was enough. It was scummy and the council’s attempts to landscape it had only gone so far before the money had run out. It was too cold. By mutual consent, we retraced our steps to the cars. ‘What are you up to?’ I asked Rose.

‘After Christmas I’m off to see Hal at the farm. I haven’t seen him for weeks.’ Her face registered anticipation and pleasure. ‘After that Vietnam, I think. There’s a piece I’ve got to do.’

We stood by the cars. ‘Thank you so much for taking them today,’ I said. ‘I’m so grateful.’ I fished out my car key, which had become attached to a piece of chewed bubble-gum, which I had confiscated recently from Lucas. Rose extracted her key from a brilliant green lizard-skin handbag and zapped the lock. ‘Next time I’ll take them to the zoo. When it gets warmer.’

We leant towards each other, and an awkward second elapsed as we clashed cheeks and exchanged the lightest of kisses.

‘Thanks,’ I said again.

‘That’s fine.’ She kissed Felix and Lucas on the top of their heads. ‘Be good boys, and remember what I told you.’

When the twins had been strapped into their seats, Rose and I drove off in opposite directions. Before she disappeared, Rose tooted her horn.

I drove back through the streets as people made their way home from work. It seemed that there were couples everywhere. Hand in hand. Talking. Sharing a bottle of water or chips. Some had their arms round each other. One man had his hand tucked into the pocket of his girlfriend’s jacket. At the corner of Albert Bridge Road and Battersea Bridge Road, a couple was wrapped in each other’s arms. As I drove past, I caught a glimpse of the girl’s face. It was enraptured, alight, quivering with a new dawn.

My eyes smarted with tears.

I had not read a self-help manual in weeks. For one thing, I’ve hunted out the statistics. ‘The most likely customer for a book on any given topic,’ concluded one researcher, ‘was someone who had bought a similar work within the past eighteen months.’ This begged the question: if self-help manuals are so good at solving the problem, why would you need to buy another on the same subject?

‘What did Rose tell you to remember?’ I asked the boys eventually.

Lucas went, ‘Roar, roar. That’s the dinosaur eating the horse.’

‘They weren’t horses,’ said Felix. ‘Not then.’

‘Boys, what did Rose ask you to remember?’

In the rear mirror, I watched Felix’s brow wrinkle with effort. ‘She said we looked more like Daddy every day,’ he said.

I put out my tongue and licked my cheek where the tears continued to run. Rule Six is taken from something Rose said. You must hold on, for this, too, will pass.

Poppy had been a little sour about the family decision to hold Christmas lunch at number seven. ‘Richard and I could almost be offended,’ she pointed out, ‘and our house is bigger.’

She had been mollified, however, when it was arranged that Jilly and Frieda would drive up from Bath, Sam would fly in from the States and they would stay with Poppy for a couple of days. Jilly was pregnant again and, in the latest bulletin, Sam announced that they had agreed she would remain in the UK until after the birth – ‘We couldn’t afford to have a baby in the States’ – then join Sam in Austin.

The boys and I chose the Christmas tree from the trader at the corner of Lakey Street and brought it home with a selection of particularly nasty coloured baubles, and coloured lights with which they had fallen in love. It had been no use protesting that silver balls and white lights were prettier. They simply didn’t see it. Any idea I might have cherished of a sophisticated, elegant tree disintegrated in the face of a determined pair of twins.

After all, and after everything, it was their tree.

We put it in the hall. Felix and Lucas did their best to hold it steady while I crawled underneath it to screw it into the stand. The three of us stood back to assess the effect. ‘Mummy,’ pronounced Felix, seriously, ‘it’s a bit crooked.’ I bit my lip. This had been Nathan’s job, and he had been expert in the fine-tuning. I saw ‘Daddy’ float through their minds, and I said, ‘You’re so picky, Felix,’ but I crawled back under the pine-scented branches and thought, You should see me now, Nathan.

I planned everything down to the last detail. Presents: bath oil for the women, which I had employed Syriol to wrap – she was keen to earn a bit extra – and a good bottle of wine each for the men. Food: the turkey, ready-made gravy, cranberry sauce, bread sauce, vegetables and pudding were to be delivered by the supermarket. I reckoned I could manage to peel the Brussels sprouts and potatoes with the boys’ help.

A big smile plastered across her wan face, Eve had flown home on Christmas Eve with so much luggage – mostly sweaters and socks from M &S – that I was convinced she wouldn’t get through check-in.

I had filled the stockings several days previously.

On Christmas Day, I had been up at dawn laying the table. Having thought long and hard about the placements, I decided that Sam should be at the head with his mother and Jilly on either side. Richard was at the other end of the table with me. Poppy had volunteered to sit between the twins so that she could keep an eye on them. ‘You’re to make decent conversation,’ I had admonished them. ‘What’s decent?’ asked Felix.

Sam arrived early, straight from the airport. He was tired, unshaven and foul-breathed. I sent him up to the spare bedroom where he could wash and brush up in peace. The rest arrived half an hour later.

There was confusion as to whether the presents should be opened before or after lunch, but I put my foot down and announced that lunch would burn if we delayed. Sam carved, and Richard poured the wine. Poppy had provided the candles, which were red, glittering and, to be honest, would not have been my first choice – and played cat’s cradle with the twins while the food was served. With one arm round Frieda, Rose talked earnestly to Jilly.

No one paid me much attention, but that was fine, particularly as I was busy in the kitchen. That was how I wanted it. As we sat and ate, conversation flew back and forth across the table, little snippets of gossip, an old joke, a snatch of reminiscence. Only so much could be expected from six-year-olds, and before long the boys had decided they were jumping beans and Richard had to swap places to help Poppy control them.

When I emerged from the kitchen with two puddings burning merrily, there was a spatter of applause. I sat down, head spinning, speechless and not hungry. At that moment, Rose sent me a little smile.

We discussed jet-lag. ‘I’ve been taking melatonin,’ Sam rubbed his face, ‘but it’s not great.’

‘You should try arnica. The pills, I mean,’ Rose said.

‘It might be better if you didn’t quaff huge quantities of wine on board.’ Poppy leant over to poke her brother. ‘Eh?’

‘Who are you to lecture us on behaviour?’ Sam grinned all the same. ‘I know where your secrets are buried.’ For a second, Poppy’s eyes were dark with terror. Under the table, I felt for her hand. After a moment Poppy’s fingers tightened on mine. Sam continued: ‘Who snitched the chocolate bunny from Gavin in the fifth form? That’s what I want to know.’

After the pudding Sam got to his feet, wine glass in hand. ‘We need a toast,’ he said. ‘Absent friends.’

‘Dad…’ cried one of the twins, and I swivelled round to see which.

There followed a heartbreaking, emotion-filled silence, which no one wanted to last. The twins wriggled, Frieda pulled a face, and the adults drank the toast. Absent friends.

At which point, Frieda threw herself back in her chair and overbalanced. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ said Jilly, ‘I told you not to do that.’ Then she remembered it was Christmas and wiped the frown off her face. ‘Come here, sweetheart. I’ll kiss you better.’

Sam produced a digital camera. ‘OΚ. Best smiles,’ he ordered. ‘Mum, can you move up a bit? Frieda, sit still Lucas, can you get on to your mum’s lap? Thank you.’

We held our poses, there were several clicks, and Sam fiddled with the camera. ‘Have a look,’ he said and passed it round.

Rose was in the middle of the group, with Jilly beside her. Richard’s eyes were red. Lucas had moved at the crucial moment and, consequently, was a little blurred. Felix was pointing at something. Poppy was gazing at Richard. And me? I was positioned in the left-hand corner of the photo, looking tired, which was not surprising. ‘It’s quite good of you, Minty,’ Poppy commented, and handed the camera back to Sam.

Rose sat herself down beside me. ‘I’ve been thinking about the garden, as you asked. We could put the catmint by the fence. It would look good there, and leave space for the boys to play. What do you think?’

A candle guttered, and I leant forward to shield the flame. It was hot against my flesh and I flinched. ‘Mum!’ shrieked Felix. ‘Mum! Can we have presents?’

The flame steadied, and I took my hand away.