The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly

5

‘Hey, Minty.’ Barry’s summons was issued via the internal phone. ‘We need you.’

I was flicking through the daily papers, the phone between shoulder and neck, a pose I found useful for suggesting that I was engaged on top-whack activity. Lately I had noticed that my shoulder and upper arm were stiff and ached. Nathan laughed when I explained why and murmured that he’d missed a trick.

‘Can you wait while I answer this call, Barry?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘OK.’

The message was unmistakable. When I arrived at his office, Gabrielle and Deb were ensconced on the supersized sofa, wedged so far back that their feet were barely touching the floor. From his desk, Barry loomed a telling couple of feet over them. He was in a leather blouson jacket and chinos. A white silk evening scarf was draped round his neck, and when he raised his arm, a red Kabbalah wristband was prominent. His eyes were sharp and intelligent. He held up a green plastic envelope and kicked off: ‘There’s a mass of stuff in here about middle age. What is it? Who is it? The girls agree that it’s worth a look, but will it pull together?’ Without a mitigating shred of irony, he handed the dossier to me. ‘The consensus, Minty, is that this one’s yours.’

Gabrielle and Deb exchanged a look. ‘Gabrielle and I don’t feel we know enough,’ Deb pointed out.

A small but significant note sounded in my head. ‘And I do?’

I could choose any number of metaphors to explain the transition from imagining you’re one of the girls to knowing you’re not. Depending on my mood, they would make me laugh or weep. In this case I would decide which later.

Deb shook back her long, wavy hair – very North London, Pre-Raphaelite hair – and the gesture suggested (it was intended to) unfettered vision and youthful boldness that knew exactly where it was heading. Gabrielle focused on Barry, who, as usual, was pretending not to notice.

‘I sense possibilities here.’ Barry was passing me the baton. ‘I think you could deal nicely, Minty’

I skimmed the first paragraph of an article from the New Statesman. ‘ The social and cultural emphasis of youth has resulted in a neglect of the middle years. We have more than sufficient cultural and financial data on youth and, to an extent, on the old. But what do we know about the important phase between the two?’

An urgent phone call took Gabrielle out of the room, which released Barry for proper thought and the ‘creative’ discussion that followed. Was middle age defined by behavioural habits? (Avoiding danger? Inability to sleep in? Caffeine intolerance? Regular checking of the bank balance?)

Deb tapped a Biro on her clipboard. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

Barry dropped a small rocket. ‘Or is it when people discover, or rediscover, faith?’

‘Good heavens!’ She sounded appalled. ‘Really?’

Barry retracted. ‘Perhaps not. Maybe middle age is defined financially, when the mortgage is paid off.’

Deb swept back her hair and anchored it with a hand, exposing her smooth, unlined forehead. ‘Middle age is forty?’

‘Fifty.’ Barry was firm.

‘Oh? OK.’ She sounded now as though she’d never heard of fifty. ‘You think?’

Not once during this exchange did either Barry or Deb look fully at me.

‘Minty, have a word with your friends.’ Barry closed the meeting. ‘People who know. What do they think about middle age?’

‘I’ve hunted out a few statistics that might help,’ Deb said kindly. She handed me a sheaf of papers, her hair mimicking the pliant, supple movements of her body. ‘Maybe you could go through them during your days at home.’

The following morning, I came in early, when I knew Barry would be in the office, and presented him with a memo detailing why Paradox Productions would benefit from hiring me full-time. I had dressed carefully in linen trousers, a camisole that exposed a hint of cleavage and a tight denim jacket.

At home, his wife’s thank-you postcard of a Matisse silhouette in brilliant blue was still pinned to the kitchen noticeboard – ‘Barry and I thought the dinner excellent… PS Could I have the recipe for the chicken?’

Barry listened to what I had to say. Then he tapped his finger on his Filofax and spoke pleasantly and reasonably: ‘Not sure, Minty.’

Any minute now the phones would go mad, and Barry’s focus would switch. I had always believed in being straight. ‘I have everything you need.’

Ye-es…’ ‘Barry was still reasonable. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, darling, and I’d like to help, truly I would.’ To show willing he skimmed the main points of the memo. ‘You do have a lot on your plate.’

‘I know.’

‘There are plenty of smart women like you… and unencumbered, if you see what I mean.’ This was thin ice, and he switched tack. ‘I have to consider the dynamics. It would put Deb’s nose out of joint.’ He added, with ironic inflection, ‘Budgets, you know.’

Under the camisole, the half-cup bra itched. ‘At least consider my suggestion.’

Barry’s smile was cat-like. He would so much rather not have to deal with my request. ‘I’ll do that. We’ll talk after Christmas. OK?’

He didn’t so much as glance at my cleavage.

At the end of the day, mindful of Barry’s warning about Deb, I went to find her. ‘Have you got a moment?’

She was gathering her stuff into a leopard-print tote bag. She worked efficiently, handling the papers with a kind of reverence. She listened without comment to the outline of my plans and I made sure she understood that I posed no threat to her position. Eventually, without a mirror, she dabbed on some lip gloss. ‘It really doesn’t matter one way or the other, Minty. We take it as it comes.’ Mobile phone in hand, she hovered in the doorway. ‘You’re not in tomorrow, are you? See you the day after.’

‘So?’ Paige manoeuvred herself into the car seat, like a ship’s container into its berth. The baby was due late January, but during this final trimester, she was finding it difficult to walk and I was ferrying her to the shops to do some Christmas shopping. ‘Why do we need categories of age or behaviour?’

‘We don’t. Or, rather, sensible people don’t. It’s business and marketing that require them.’

Paige considered. ‘You’d better watch that Deborah. Take it from me.’ This was not light advice. Paige knew whereof she talked. She had survived coups and counter-coups. ‘By the time she got home after you talked to her, she would have worked out several scenarios as to why no one else was needed full-time at Paradox, all of which spell bad news for your plans, especially when Barry consults her – which he will.’

I absorbed the advice. ‘After Nathan left Rose, and she was sacked, I wrote to her saying it was my turn now’

‘You didn’t?’

‘I did. I regret it. And I can’t believe I actually did it. At the time I wanted to explain. To show why things had turned out as they had.’

After a moment, Paige said, ‘Some going.’

I eyed her bulk. ‘How is it going?’

‘It’s fine.’

This was not the former Paige – all hustle, smartness and gloss – who had featured in the photographs that adorned the Hurley household. That Paige had been a top banker. No, Paige had given it all up when Jackson, now eight, and Lara, six, arrived. She had had no choice, I’d overheard her telling Nathan – who’d lapped it up. Children cannot flourish at home without a mother. Period.

This Paige was deeply fatigued in her third pregnancy. Her lipstick had been carelessly applied, leaving a rim round the pale interior of her stubborn lower lip, while a smudge of mascara adorned the papery skin under her left eye.

‘You look tired.’

‘So?’ She shrugged, and still managed to convey… excitement and commitment. You know, even though I feel like the largest sack of potatoes on the planet, I wish I’d started earlier.’

‘Your energy is ferocious. You should be working in a bank.’

‘Ha.’

We drove past the common. Paige eased herself back in the seat and gazed hungrily out of the window. ‘Do I look like a prisoner offered an hour’s exercise in the yard?’

‘The sacking smock gives you away’

The dog-walkers were out in force, some struggling with as many as six or eight charges. ‘Look at them.’ Paige sighed. ‘That’s how I feel.’

Winter had snapped its jaws shut. The trees were stripped bare and, since the autumn, the grass had returned to its proper colour. The shops were bright with Christmas lights. Suddenly Paige asked, ‘What if I die with this one? Women do sometimes.’

I was startled. ‘You won’t.’

‘If I do, will you insist that I have “mother” somewhere on my headstone?’ Paige laughed as she spoke, but it was not a happy sound.

‘Don’t you mean “wife and mother”?’

She shook her head, and I saw the suggestion of new flesh settling under her chin. ‘Sort of surplus, don’t you think?’

‘Paige, what’s going on?’ In my book, Paige and Martin were a happy couple. They represented all that was stalwart in the battle to preserve family values. All of a sudden, I experienced a disconcerting flash that I had been looking at the wrong picture.

‘Nothing, sweetie. Nothing at all. Husbands are tiring.’ There was a pause. ‘Hey, did I tell you about Lara? I’ve got her into Partington’s, the ballet school. She’s been aching to go and the list was this long…’ Paige sketched a gesture that fishermen frequently employ when discussing a catch. ‘Anyway, I collared Mary Streatham at the book club. She’s a governor, and we understand each other, and she said she’d see what she could do. No favours, mind. Martin isn’t so pleased with his bit… Apparently a donation to the new studio fund would not go unnoticed – and no favours, mind.’

I snorted. ‘I smell a similarity to Nathan taking paper suppliers to Paris for a long weekend of cultural adventure.’

‘Whatever you say.’ You could have cut Paige’s smugness with a knife.

Back in Paige’s kitchen – complete with a pink Aga and a copper batterie de cuisine - I unpacked and hid various items while Paige instructed me from a chair into which she had lowered herself with a groan. The table had already been laid for supper by Linda, the au pair, with a full complement of china, glasses and napkins. One of Paige’s nostrums, one of the many to which I had helped myself, was that children should be made to eat properly at table with adults.

‘Does Martin get home in time?’ I asked.

Paige sighed. ‘What do you think?

Jackson, a big blond child, bounded into the kitchen. ‘Mum, where have you been?’

Paige jerked out of her torpor, as if an electric switch had been tripped. ‘Darling. How was your day? Say hello to Mrs Lloyd.’

Jackson was full of his news. ‘Guess, Mummy!’ But he couldn’t wait for Paige to run through the options. ‘I came second in the spelling test.’

Even I knew my duty. ‘That’s wonderful, Jackson.’

Paige cupped her son’s chin in her hand. ‘Only second, darling?’ So gentle she sounded, yet so inexorable. ‘What went wrong?’

I drove home from Paige’s, parked and let myself into the house. All over the country parents were hurrying home to scoop up their offspring. Parents who, laden with briefcases and last-minute shopping, kicked open the front door and cried, ‘I’m home.’ That species of parent sank gratefully into a welter of warmth and children’s muddle, ambition laid aside in embraces.

According to the list in the kitchen, the twins were at Millie Rowe’s for tea. I checked the post, which included a volume of poems by the feminist poet Ellen Black, whom I had schmoozed at a party. It was entitled Origin of a New Species.

One of Lucas’s red socks lay on the stairs. I picked it up and smoothed it absently. It was very small with the suggestion of a hole in the toe. Soon I would have to think about supper and endless more meals. Then there was the twins’ Christmas party. I had made a list: sausages, pizzas, crisps, jelly in the shape of a cat, pirate hats. I knew that for days afterwards I would be picking up bits of sausage and crisps that had been trodden into the floors and carpets.

The front door opened and the boys did their windmill act – arms outstretched and flailing towards me. ‘Here’s Mummy!’ Lucas’s cry rang with a note of pure joy. His shirt was hanging out of his trousers and encrusted with Bourbon biscuits. Felix had a green paint splodge on one cheek. Laden with their stuff, Eve brought up the rear.

Felix tugged at my hand. ‘You are my real mummy, aren’t you?’

‘Of course I am.’

He looked important. ‘Lucas says Eve’s our real mummy.’

‘Lucas!’ I shot a glance at Eve, who shook her head. Lucas seemed shifty. ‘Millie says her nanny’s her real mummy…’

Millie was a recently acquired friend, the only child of divorced parents, and spent her life shuttling between two tight-lipped adults. She had the bewilderment – and malice – of a child at sea. The boys needed reassurance, and I thought rapidly, inventively. ‘Why don’t we invite Millie to tea, and she can see who the real mummy is?’

Nathan arrived home, pale and shivering, and I ordered him to bed. Later I took him a tray of scrambled egg, smoked salmon and cranberry juice. ‘You’ve been overdoing the parties.’ I pummelled his pillows, patted the duvet straight and checked that the bedroom was in apple-pie order.

‘There’s a bad flu going round.’ He placed a finger on his pulse, and squinted up at me with a grin. ‘It’s galloping.’

I grinned back. ‘Probably terminal.’

I sat down at the end of the bed and studied him. True, Nathan was not in the pink, but his hair was thick, in good condition and attractively grey-streaked. Thank goodness, he wasn’t coarse, lumpy or hairy. He hadn’t run to fat either, and the veins in his hands were still decently buried beneath his skin. Thank goodness, too, he was not the sort of man who smelt, a roaring masculine presence whose limbs and noise invaded every space. Instead there was delicacy and proportion about his appearance. ‘Should you have a check-up?’

He ate some egg. ‘I might.’

‘I insist.’

‘Bully,’ he said, without rancour. ‘I’d prefer a holiday in Cornwall. How about it, Minty?’ The old spark flickered in his eyes. ‘It would be fun. The boys would love it. It would do us all good – it’d be like old times.’

Outside, a car door slammed and rain spattered the window, but in the bedroom it was warm and peaceful.

I sidestepped Cornwall. ‘Talking of the boys… About the Nativity play’

‘What about it?’

‘Mrs Jenkins promised that Lucas could be a Wise Man.’ Nathan raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘I’m afraid, she said Felix could be a sheep.’

‘What?’ Nathan pulled himself upright. ‘And you didn’t do anything?’

‘There was nothing I could do.’ I rescued the tray and set it down on the chest-of-drawers. ‘There’s no need for drama, I’m sure that next year Felix will be a Wise Man.’ I cast around wildly. ‘Joseph, even.’

‘Minty, come here.’ I obeyed and he caught my hand in a grip so fierce that I cried out. ‘Don’t you understand anything about your sons? Can’t you remember anything of what it’s like to be a child? Don’t you see how Felix will mind? How that fragile little bit of confidence, which is all he has, will be shot to pieces? God knows, we have to learn about suffering and exclusion and mistakes, but not yet for our two. Not yet – if I have anything to do with it.’

I stared down at the figure in the bed. The warm, peaceful atmosphere had dissipated. ‘You’re hurting me, Nathan.’ He released my hand. ‘Don’t you think Felix should learn that the world isn’t fair?’

‘At five, Minty. Are you totally without mercy?’

‘Almost six,’ I heard myself say.

Felix was the younger by ten minutes. It was nothing and everything. Ten minutes had given Lucas the greater percentage of confidence and attention.

‘So, what do you want to do, Nathan? Tell Lucas he can’t be a Wise Man?’

‘If I ever see that woman, I’ll wring her neck.’

‘Why? She’s only doing her job.’

There was a long silence, and Nathan whistled under his breath. ‘Well, the boys can count on their mother.’

That hurt. ‘I see things differently, Nathan.’ I picked up the tray and prepared to leave the room. ‘While we’re on the subject of loyalty and support, are you coming to see them in the play?’

Nathan rubbed his earlobe, and I glimpsed a bone-deep weariness that frightened me a little. He was only fifty-five. As it happens the fifth is a bad day – big meeting scheduled – but I’ll talk to Roger.’

I had a lightning change of heart. ‘Actually, Nathan, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Don’t mention it to Roger. Trust me. Just don’t!

‘Do you know something?’ he asked sharply.

‘No, just instinct’

‘Hum,’ he said. ‘Your instincts are usually sound.’ He moved restlessly and the once neat bed was a muddle. ‘You think I’m not up to it any more?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘But you think it.’

The question went through my mind: how would Rose have handled this? Nathan’s flash of neediness left me cold and unsympathetic – and I knew I was failing to grapple with the uncertainties and strains of his life. Instead I asked, ‘Nathan, do you want some coffee or tea?’

‘Can’t drink coffee in the evening any more.’ He pushed the tray aside. ‘Come back, Minty.’

Something of the old, decisive Nathan made me melt, and I knelt beside the bed, and laid my head on his chest. He stroked my hair. In our story, there had been no time or room for gradual wooing. No leisurely drinks or dinners. No trips to the zoo or meanders in the park. I had sent the message ‘I would like you’ Nathan had received it, turned up at my flat and come straight to the point. ‘I want to sleep with you.’ He was trembling, and I was struck by the gap between the man I observed at his work and the manner of this request. It touched me, and filled me with exhilaration.

Sleeping with Nathan had been the easy part. It was the rest that had been difficult.

‘How do we manage to misunderstand each other?’ he asked.

His fingers moved to my face, stroking my neck and cheek. Between us there was a cessation of darkness and hostility. Instead, there was warmth, communion and peace.

I willed those precious moments to expand, cradle and buoy us up for the hours, days and years ahead.

The Nativity play had come and gone, and by the time Christmas arrived, I had overdosed on lists. There was one for presents, another for food and menus, yet another for events.

Initially, ‘Events’ had read ‘Sam and Jilly to us?’ That had been crossed out and ‘Sunday before Christmas to Sam and Jilly’ substituted. When I had rung Jilly to ask them to come to us on Christmas Day, she said she was frightfully sorry but they had already arranged to be in Bath. When I suggested that we joined them, Jilly had been acutely embarrassed: ‘It’s not that you’re not welcome, Minty – of course you are – but we’re pretty booked up. Poppy and Richard are coming, my parents and… Rose, actually.’

We agreed that Nathan, the boys and I would drive down to Bath on the Sunday before Christmas and arrange a separate meeting with Poppy and Richard. Into this settled plan, Poppy inserted a spoke: ‘Could you come over to us on the Sunday before Christmas? Otherwise we won’t have a chance to see Dad and the boys because Richard and I are nipping off to Verbier on Boxing Day.’ I explained that we were going to Bath. ‘Oh, well,’ said Poppy, with only faint regret. ‘We’ll pop in to you on Christmas Eve on the way down to Sam’s.’

We drove to Sam and Jilly’s through lashing rain and arrived on the dot of one o’clock. Jilly greeted us at the front door in a pair of old jeans and a baggy sweater. This put us all on the back foot. Nathan was in his suit and I was in my best green dress and high-heeled boots. Furthermore I had insisted that Nathan stopped at the service station before we left the motorway and the boys were spruce to a fault, with washed faces and brushed hair.

‘Goodness!’ said Jilly. ‘Don’t you all look smart!’ She led us into the kitchen where Sam was sitting in muddy gardening clothes with his feet on the table. ‘Here they are,’ she sang, and a look passed between husband and wife: a slight widening of the eyes, which indicated, ‘We’ve been caught out.’

Lunch had been hamburgers for the children and stew for the adults. ‘I meant,’ Jilly said, as she dished up the latter – with another silent exchange between her and Sam – ‘to cook something special. But getting ready for Christmas takes up so much time. You know how it is?’

No, I don’t, I wanted to say, outraged by the lack of ceremony. I thought of the goose stuffed with raisins that I would have bought in, the crackers in their box, the silver candles and gauze ribbon that would have adorned my table.

Nathan reached over and picked up a fork that Frieda had dropped on to the floor. ‘This is lovely,’ he said quietly. ‘No need for a fuss.’

Jilly sat down and gazed at her stew. ‘The important thing is that we’ve all met.’

‘Absolutely,’ said Sam.

On the way back in the car, I said to Nathan, ‘They didn’t go to much trouble.’

Nathan was paying keen attention to his driving. ‘No fatted calf, certainly,’ he said lightly, but his lips tightened.

On Christmas Eve, Poppy and Richard arrived in a rush, their car stacked with luggage and presents. It was raining hard and Poppy stood in the hallway, shaking her wet hair, and demanded, ‘Where’s the Christmas tree? It’s always in the hall.’ I explained that this year, for a change, it was in the sitting room. ‘Oh, what a pity.’ She flung her coat on a chair and swept past me. ‘Dad? Where are you?’ She hugged Nathan. ‘Haven’t seen you for ages. How are you?’ Then she rushed round to kiss Felix. ‘Have you been a good boy? No? I thought not. No pressie for you.’ Felix raised stricken eyes, and Poppy sank to her knees beside him. ‘Darling Felix, don’t look like that. Of course I’ve got you a present. A big one.’

‘How big?’ Felix was – rightly – suspicious.

Poppy sketched an air-square. ‘That big.’ Felix was marginally reassured and went off to tell his brother. Poppy got gracefully to her feet. ‘Sweet.’ She turned to Nathan. ‘We can only stay for half an hour. Otherwise we won’t get to Sam’s in time for dinner.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Nathan. ‘I thought you’d be with us for a bit.’

‘We’d better eat,’ I said.

In the dining room, I had laid the table with a dazzling white cloth, and set out on it a plate of cucumber sandwiches. (Tip: boil half a cup of water with brown sugar, add cider vinegar and soak the slices of cucumber in it for a couple of hours.) There were also tiny sausages roasted in honey and mustard, slices of pizza for the boys and a Christmas cake (thank you, Selfridges) with a tiny skiing scene on it, including a twinkly ski lift.

I made to light the candles and Poppy exclaimed, ‘Don’t on our account. We’ll have to go any minute.’ She surveyed the laden table. ‘Goodness, you have gone to a lot of bother.’ Nathan offered her a sandwich. ‘I’m not that hungry, Daddy, and I don’t want to spoil dinner.’

Richard was kinder, accepted two sandwiches and ate them. Lucas climbed on to a chair and strained for the nearest cracker. Nathan picked him up and settled him on his lap. ‘Hang on, young man. We’ll pull them in a minute.’

Poppy addressed me in a low voice: ‘Jilly told me how smart you all were when you went down to see them. She was a little worried that you might have been offended because they were so disorganized. I said of course you wouldn’t. You knew perfectly well that she had to concentrate on Christmas Day’ She stopped, eyes on the empty plate in front of her and, as a great concession, said, ‘Maybe I will have one sandwich. Actually, Jilly doesn’t need to worry. Mum will take over cooking the lunch. She does it so brilliantly’

I sneaked a glance at Nathan. He was still cuddling Lucas, and talking to Richard but I detected a wary, whipped look in his eye. There were not many occasions when I felt protective but Poppy’s words triggered a novel rush of fury. Nathan was hurt, and would continue to be hurt, by these women: his daughter and his daughter-in-law.

My amended ‘Events’ list read: ‘Christmas at number seven. Turkey, roast potatoes, Christmas pudding for 4.’