The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly

brother.

‘Twins,’ Poppy reproved them. ‘We haven’t quite finished.’

‘Leave them,’ said their indulgent father.

‘But you mustn’t let them be spoilt.’ Poppy laid a hand on her father’s shoulder. ‘Not even a teeny bit.’ She shook her head and the crystal necklace glinted very satisfactorily indeed. ‘You mustn’t spoil them, Dad.’

‘They’re not spoilt,’ I said crossly. ‘Far from it.’

For a second or two conversation was suspended. Richard threw in a diversionary tactic. ‘Are you going on holiday this year?’ He managed to sound so interested that the tension was broken.

Grateful to him, I sipped my wine and assessed the room. To her credit, Poppy had got it right. A striped wallpaper in old rose and gold, comfortable chairs, flowers. The effect was simple and muted, and I wondered if I had overdone the dining room at home. Was the effect too crowded? Had I tried too hard? I decided that the Chinese figurines should go.

Later, I went up the freshly painted and carpeted staircase to the bathroom, past a shelf of photographs, all framed in the same way. And there was Rose – of course – in shorts and strappy sandals, sitting at a cafe table in what seemed to be a Mediterranean port. The sun was shining, and the scene exuded a shimmering iridescence. Leaning back in the chair, she was inclining her face to the camera, a mark of trust, and a smile played on her lips. One hand held a coffee cup, the other rested in her lap. Tenderness was apparent in the composition of the photograph by the unseen eye. From the bottom of my heart, I envied Rose her ease, and the sensation of hot sun on her arms and legs.

Coming up behind me, Poppy said, ‘That one of Mum was taken last year on Paxos.’

‘I saw the programme the other night. It was very good.’

‘Yes, Mum’s brilliant.’ Poppy was poised between challenge and the good manners she imposed on herself as hostess. The latter got the better of her. Which bathroom do you want to use?’

I murmured that I didn’t mind. As she led me to the second guest bathroom, we passed a small room in which a computer terminal was switched on. The screen-saver showed brightly coloured fish darting about. When I returned from the bathroom, the screen read, ‘Poker On Line. Game Five.’ Someone had been in there.

Before we left, I sought out Poppy, who was stacking china in the kitchen. ‘Thank you so much for lunch,’ I said and, then, surprising myself, ‘Is everything all right?’

She cast a glance at the crockery, and her lips tightened. We didn’t say a word but she knew I’d seen the on- line poker. Then she fixed me with defiant eyes. ‘Absolutely,’ she said. ‘Couldn’t be better.’

As we drove home in the late afternoon, Nathan touched my thigh. ‘I know you’ve tried with Poppy.’ I must have started because he added, ‘Am I such a pig? Do you think I don’t notice?’

‘You’re not a pig.’ I looked out of the window, unsure how to respond. I had grown used to saying nothing. Anyway, the silences that characterized Nathan’s and my life together were deceptive: they were noisy with the unsaid. The London streets rolled past, revealing their Sunday aspect – serviceable acres of Tarmac and city trees that struggled to survive.

The interior of the 4x4 required cleaning, and smelt of the cranberry juice that one of the boys had spilt in the back. NB Put on the list for Eve. I searched my bag for a tissue. ‘Poppy and I rub along.’

Nathan’s hand tightened on my thigh. ‘I wasn’t thinking about Poppy when I married you.’

It was a small concession, but I felt a sudden comfort and pleasure in his ratification of my place in his hierarchy. In my handbag, my fingers encountered a sucked boiled sweet that Felix had discarded and I had rescued from the car seat. The stickiness, and the fact that it was in my bag, which I liked to keep immaculate, instantly banished the feel-good factor and I said, more sharply than I’d intended, ‘You married me because you thought I’d make you happy. I don’t think you are happy. And I don’t know what I can do about it.’

Nathan stared straight ahead. ‘You read my notebook, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘You shouldn’t have.’

‘Perhaps not.’ I could hear the sound of many doors banging shut in Nathan’s head. ‘Nathan, we should make time for a discussion.’ I can’t pretend that I said this with urgency and conviction, but I thought I should try.

‘Not here.’ He jerked his head at the back, where the twins were making their favourite aircraft noises.

‘Of course not. What do you take me for?’

We halted at traffic-lights, and the occupant of a small Fiat shook his fist and pointed to the poster on his back windscreen: ‘4 X 4? Y?’ The lights changed. Nathan drove into Lakey Street and parked. ‘Minty, the notebook was private.’ He rubbed his forehead. All the same, I detected a frisson of… relief? ‘I can’t trust you not to pry.’

‘What, Mummy?’ interrupted Lucas. ‘What, Mummy?’

‘Maybe you can’t.’ I left it like that, swung out of the car, released the twins from captivity, and exhumed spare clothes, toys and the books without which Felix never went anywhere. Thus burdened, I walked up the path behind my husband and sons.

A little later, Nathan said, ‘I need some exercise.’ He had changed into a pair of worn corduroys and a checked shirt with frayed cuffs.

I was unpacking the twins’ toys and working out what to give them for supper. A walk? Take the boys, will you?’

‘I think I’ll have a go at digging the garden.’

‘Digging the garden?’ Wooden engine in hand, I whirled round. ‘You haven’t done that for years.’

‘All the same,’ Nathan stuck his hands into his pockets, ‘I think I will.’

The twins’ football sessions had turned the lawn into a Slough of Despond. I watched Nathan pick his way across it and haul a fork out of the garden shed. From the set of his shoulders, he was perfectly happy, and it was a fair bet that he was whistling. He began to dig under the lilac tree and, after a while, earth was piled beside him.

Half an hour later, I took him a mug of tea. The dark was galloping in, it was chilly and Nathan’s shirt was damp with sweat under the arms. He wiped his hands on his trousers. ‘Good girl.’

‘Why the interest in the garden all of a sudden?’ The question was redundant because I already knew the answer.

He drank some tea. ‘It used to be beautiful.’

‘You’ve been thinking of Rose,’ I accused him, ‘haven’t you? You’ve been talking to her. That diagram I found in your diary. Was it for this garden?’ I gestured at the broken fence, the tangle of grass, the leafless lilac. ‘“Height. Route. Rest.” Was it for here?’

‘Don’t, Minty,’ Nathan said heavily. ‘We don’t discuss Rose. Remember?’

‘About the diary -’

‘Forget it. It’s mine. Private.’ His brows twitched together.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Fine.’ His finger beat a tattoo on his chest. ‘Bit of a pain. I ate too much.’

In chapter three of Coping with Life Strategies (currently beside my bed), the author recommends cognitive behavioural therapy for tricky problems. If a bad thought recurs to the point of damaging one’s well-being, it’s best to avoid it, using thought-evasion techniques. Weary to the bone with marriage, I bent down and plucked a trailing white root from the pile of earth, and let it dangle from my fingers.

I thought hard of Paradox’s Monday agenda. I conjured up the Chinese figurines, whose days were numbered in the dining room. I thought about the fish pie I had taken out of the freezer for the twins’ supper.

Failure.

I turned back to Nathan. ‘Why on earth did I believe you when you said you came to me with the sheet wiped clean?’

I should have kissed him, and prevented him answering. Regrets are a waste of energy, I should have pointed out, stopping his mouth with that ungiven kiss. I should have talked about anything but this.

Nathan wiped his upper lip with the back of his hand, leaving an earth moustache. ‘There’s no point in fighting over something you can do nothing about, Minty.’

I gave up. Memories do not obey commands. You cannot pronounce that the past is in the past. It is in the present with you, dug in.

I left him to it.

I went inside, fed the children and put them to bed. Then I gathered together my notes and files and went up