The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly

she loses, the more she’ll play. It’s the nature of the beast.’ They could have seized the chance to act in concert, and asked, ‘How much and how deep?’ They could have gone in tandem to have it out with Poppy. You can tell us. We’re your parents. We love you. But, yes, I held my silence. I didn’t hold any brief for Poppy, but what was her business was her business.

Nathan put his elbows on his knees and leant forward. It was a pose he adopted frequently, which emulated Rodin’s The Thinker. ‘ About Sam, is Jilly happy for him to take the job?’

Rose tucked a leg under her. ‘That’s what I wanted to discuss. Jilly’s furious at the idea of leaving Winchcombe. Apparently she’s threatening to stay behind. She says she hates America, Texas in particular.’

‘She’s never been to Texas, and she won’t stay behind. She’s not that kind of woman. She knows it’s a big step up for Sam, and that it’s important.’

Rose clicked her tongue against her teeth, but it was not an impatient or angry sound. It was a marker that formed part of the discussion. It meant she was considering what she would say next and my husband, my foolish husband, waited, a smile on his lips, doting to the point of being offensive. ‘Difficult, Nathan. Jilly’s very settled in the village. Parish council, book club, and the school is perfect.’ Rose turned to Nathan and her hair tumbled over her shoulders. Nathan… Nathan reached over and tucked a tendril behind her ear.

‘It’s uncanny,’ he said, in a low voice. ‘Frieda looks more like you each day.’

Rose ignored the gesture, but she was pleased. ‘Do you think? She’s very special. Has she told you about the pink bike? Last time I went down, she and I conducted a ballet class. We leapt off armchairs and pointed our toes.’ She drank some wine.

‘Savour the merlot,’ he said, in a Russian accent, which made Rose laugh.

‘Don’t remind me of him,’ she said, and I had no idea who she meant. She tapped the glass. ‘This is nice, though. Did you buy it at the usual place?’

I had an impression that I was gazing into one of those fairground mirrors, which, by their curvature, invert what they reflect. In theory, it should have been me sitting on the sofa, all cosy and intimate, Nathan’s hand resting behind my shoulder, and Rose should have been peering through the door like a prize snooper.

I must have moved for they swung round. Immediately Nathan looked tense and reared back against the sofa, but Rose stayed where she was. I advanced into the room. ‘Since you ask, darling, the twins are fine.’ I sat down in the chair opposite them. ‘Have you sorted out whatever it was?’

Rose got to her feet and smoothed her jacket. ‘Yes and no. I’m sure Nathan will tell you about it.’

The ‘tell you about it’ was irritating but, under the circumstances, I had to let it pass. ‘I enjoyed the television programme, Rose. It was very good.’

‘Yes,’ she replied simply. ‘It was, wasn’t it? We had a lot of fun making it. It came about by serendipity. I was mulling over the idea and Hal introduced me to a producer. It took a lot of haggling, and I had to persuade them I was the right person to front it, but we got there.’ She made a rueful moue, which invited me to enter into a solidarity with her. ‘Camera adds ten pounds, though. Not that one should mind.’

I was trying not to stare at her too obviously. But I couldn’t avoid the conclusion that the woman standing before me was the model I had taken a lot of trouble to copy. Rose had worked through the messy bits of her life, and there she was, furnished and burnished with an electricity I was supposed to possess. Yet here I was, weighed down by minutiae, my lists, my children… and my husband. Then it occurred to me that hundreds of thousands of second wives had been faced with encounters such as this one, only to realize that what they had suspected was true: they had volunteered for the predicament of the younger sibling, who would never, ever catch up with the dazzling elder.

‘There might be a follow-up series,’ she was saying. ‘I had no idea… until…’ There was a frozen little silence. ‘Until I… I mean I’ve only just discovered how vast, diverse and wonderful the world is.’

Nathan pulled himself to his feet and moved a fraction closer to Rose. ‘Don’t feel you have to go.’

Rose knew Nathan. I knew Nathan. We both knew he was making a bad job of concealing that he ached with regret. If I had truly loved Nathan… if I had… this imperfect, humiliating pretence would have cut my heart in two.

‘Let us know,’ I said. We’ll make a point of watching.’

Rose picked up the fashionable handbag and searched inside it. ‘Did I leave the keys in my coat? I shouldn’t do that – they’re always falling out. No, here they are.’ She managed to convey a sense of charming disorder that, nevertheless, would not inconvenience anyone.

Nathan was completely taken and gazed, spellbound, down at her. ‘I’ll ring Sam tomorrow,’ he touched her arm, ‘and find out if he’s serious about this Texan job.’

‘I’m going to Italy tomorrow. Last minute, spur of the moment. Long weekend. Then I have a couple of pieces to write, which will take lots of research but they should be fun.’

There was so much more about Rose that she could have told us. She had walked into number seven with a new history about which Nathan and I were largely ignorant. She could have told us about her intriguing new life. I live here. I work there. I had dinner with so-and-so. If I had been prepared, I could have dealt with it. I would even have wanted to hear it because I would have been able to make realistic comparisons, instead of the reverse.

She placed her hands on Nathan’s shoulders and kissed his cheek lightly. ‘I’ll give you a ring next week. And, Nathan, about that other idea…’ the light caught the gloss on her hair and the sheen of her jacket ‘… let’s talk about that too.’

Nathan’s hands clenched. ‘Yup.’ He stuffed his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. Suddenly I glimpsed the younger Nathan – the one who had swept the young Rose up from her disaster with Hal Thorne, married her, given her children and a domain she had guarded until I came along.

The light in the sitting room was flattering – which it should have been for I had gone to a lot of trouble to make it so. Rose seemed so fresh, so mysterious in her intentions and busyness – but mysterious with what? I struggled to understand precisely what I was up against.

The answer seemed to be that Rose had become powerful because it was impossible any longer to pin her down.

Nathan led Rose into the hall: there had been a further conversation lasting five minutes or so, and I heard him say, ‘Tell Frieda I’ll be looking out for her pointy toes when I come down.’

The front door closed, and he came into the kitchen to face the inevitable scene.

I had taken refuge in checking the store-cupboard in readiness for Eve’s weekly shopping trip. It was lucky I had: it was practically bare.

He was braced for a major explosion and knocked his clenched fist on the table. Deliberately, I kept my back to him. ‘I’m sure you didn’t mean to make me feel uncomfortable or humiliate me, Nathan.’ I kept my anger in check and turned round. ‘Why would you wish to do that?’

He was shocked, and took a step towards me. ‘Of course I didn’t want to humiliate you. Of course not. Rose was going to be in the area and she wanted to talk to me.’

‘It might have suited Rose, Nathan, but was it the best thing for us?’ I strove to keep calm.

‘Oh, come on,’ he said, but he was on the defensive. Of course.

‘Look at us both,’ I pointed out. ‘All churned up.’

Nathan fished the whisky bottle out of the cupboard and poured himself a slug. ‘It’s not much to ask – can’t you be a little flexible and civilized about it?’

My anger escaped the leash. ‘Were you civilized when you left Rose? I think not. I don’t hold with this be-nice- at-any-price thing, Nathan. Even if she doesn’t show it, Rose hates me, and rightly so. I hate her.’

‘Why? She’s done nothing to you.’

We glared at each other. The adrenaline pumped through me, drained away and left me weakened. Of their own volition, my hands continued to rifle through the contents of the store-cupboard. ‘If you don’t understand, I can’t explain.’ My fingers encountered a stray – pasta shell, and I knew – I knew – that I was walking into a darkness of the spirit, that I was about to say things I would regret. ‘It’s not rational, certainly not civilized, what I feel about Rose. I hate her because… I’ve wronged her. Can’t you see that, you stupid man? It’s to do with the battle for possession – but I don’t think you wish to see it, let alone acknowledge it. And you want it both ways.’ I emptied the remainder of a rice packet (wild) into a glass jar. ‘You want to have me and see Rose. You want us all to be friends.’