The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly

too. On the kitchen table I left a Post-it note: ‘Get your own supper.’

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.’