The Good Wife aka The Good Wife Strikes Back

‘Oh dear.’ She brushed this aside. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask, could I encourage you to do more in the constituency? The elderly, you know, and the children.’

Tact had never been Pearl’s strong point. That was the secret of her survival. With some astonishment, I heard myself say, ‘Would you like my life’s blood? Would that be of use? Please bear in mind that I’ve moved house and produced a baby. I have a job to go back to but if I can kill myself for the constituency of course I will.’

The bullets bounced off Pearl, who did not even blink. ‘That’s the point, Fanny. The committee would prefer you not to have any other interests.’

In a strange way, I was enjoying myself. ‘Do they live in an ark by any chance?’

By some miracle, Mannochie appeared at my elbow and said, ‘Do you mind if I kidnap Fanny? There is someone she must meet.’

I followed him to an empty anteroom. ‘You looked a bit at sea,’ he explained. ‘I thought you could do with a moment to yourself.’

I smiled gratefully at him. ‘You’re so nice, Mannochie.’

‘It’s not always easy,’ he said.

‘What isn’t?’ asked my father, gatecrashing this tete-a-tete.

Mannochie muttered something about constituency matters and eased himself out of the door. My father commandeered a gilt chair and patted a second. ‘First off, how’s Chloe?’

I told him the details of Chloe’s illness. At the finish, he said, ‘Look at it this way, it’s built up her immune system.’

I choked. ‘That’s good but mine’s down as a result.’

He looked at me speculatively. ‘I thought you might like to know I’ve got a new shipment coming over from the Margaret River. I think you’ll approve. My bet is on the Semillon and Sauvignon blanc. Come over and try it.’

‘I will,’ I promised and, to my horror, felt tears spring to my eyes.

He searched my face. ‘I think something is wrong. Can you tell me?’

But there was no chance to talk.

‘There you are…’ interrupted Will from the doorway. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I thought you might like to know that I’ve rung Meg to check on Chloe. She’s fine, and I want to take you home.’

I looked round. Will’s features wore a mixture of chagrin and what could only be described as… jealousy. I was glad to see it, delighted to see it. I wanted to hurt him.

My father held out his hand. ‘How are you?’

I thought Will might ignore the gesture, but he took it and answered without his usual easy charm, ‘Fine.’

Will was never at his best with my father. Nor, it must be said, could my father have been less interested in what he considered an inferior occupation. Politics was for boys, business was for adults.

The atmosphere in the anteroom cooled.

‘I’ve come to find Fanny.’ Will abandoned his half-full glass on a nearby table. ‘I thought she’d be anxious about Chloe and we should go home.’

My father put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me decisively towards my husband. ‘Here she is. Come and see me soon.’

I squeezed his hand. ‘Look after yourself, Dad.’

His look was so loving that it almost broke me. I blew him a kiss and he blended into the crowd of chattering men and women who were making their way towards the cloakrooms and their homes.

13

In the car on the way back home, Will asked, ‘Have you been talking to your father about us?’

‘Would it make a difference if I had?’

‘Work it out for yourself.’

I disliked driving in the dark and my hands tensed on the wheel. ‘Actually, I haven’t. We were talking about wine.’

Will was not convinced. ‘You talk to him about most things.’

‘He is my father.’

The road curved to the right and the white line appeared to veer into the verge, as did my thoughts. My hands grew slippery. ‘You talk to Meg all the time,’ I threw at him.

‘Yes, I do,’ he replied. ‘But I never had a father. Nor did she.’

Eventually I turned the car into our lane and drove up between the fields. ‘This evening was a farce,’ I said. ‘One of many.’

‘Possibly,’ Will replied. ‘But at your insistence.’

I parked in the drive, jerked on the brake and switched off the ignition. The interior of the car flipped into darkness.

‘Now what do we do?’ asked Will.

I struggled to control my panic and, with panic, came doubt. ‘What I don’t understand, Will, is that we hadn’t had time to get bored with each other.’ I removed the key from the ignition. ‘Which means something was lacking. If it was, you should have told me.’

This situation was my fault.

As was his habit, Will sat upright in the passenger seat. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself, Fanny…’ Silence. ‘I can’t possibly ask for more than we have and share.’ Another silence. ‘I’m not good at this, Fanny.’ He twisted to look towards the laurel hedge. ‘Nothing was wrong. It was a moment when I was offered temptation, and instead of refusing it I took it. How stupid was that?’

‘That is one way of explaining it, I suppose.’

‘Fanny – ’ he began.

I cut him off. ‘The bed is made up in the spare room.’ I pulled on my shoes, got out of the car and left Will to lock up.

I lay awake, stomach unsettled, eyes wet, in mourning for a marriage as I had envisaged it. I was frightened by the violence of my feelings and by how savagely I had been thrown off course by an event so commonplace, so every¬where, so discussed.

I twisted and turned in the half-occupied bed.

At four o’clock, I got up and slipped into Chloe’s room to check on her. I hovered in the doorway but could not hear anything and, with a shudder of apprehension, put my ear close to her lips and listened for the faint breath of my sleeping, alabaster baby.

On the landing, I paused by the Gothic window. Dark¬ness. Nothing else. During the last few days my waistline had shrunk and I retied my dressing-gown cord so tightly that it bit into my flesh.

The spare-room door was open and I looked in. The night-light in the passage illuminated Will hunched over on his side. He muttered like a puppy, sighed and flung out a hand – just like Chloe. Drawn like a magnet, I tiptoed towards the bed. This side of Will, this sleeping, vulnerable, dreaming side, was private. It belonged to me and I would not share it.

His eyes flicked open. ‘You were watching me.’

‘You betrayed me, Will.’

‘I know. And I betrayed myself, too. Double whammy, Fanny.’

‘I don’t know you one bit,’ I said, and the cold crept into my bare feet.

‘But you’re wrong, you do know me.’ He held out a hand. ‘Come.’

As ever, my body obeyed him, and I slid into the bed, cold beside his slackened warmth. He did not try to touch me, and we lay like the marble effigies of the Earl of Stanwinton and his wife in Stanwinton church.

‘You had a baby,’ he confessed at last. ‘It made a difference.’

‘I did my best,’ I said. ‘I came back as soon as I could.’

‘Yes, but half your mind is elsewhere.’

How could I deny it? The small-print department on motherhood had been careless, too, as to precisely what would happen, which meant that Will no longer took full possession of me – as once he had.