The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly

added an air of menace to what should have been a tranquil vista. I showed this to Felix, who said, ‘Ugh.’

Why “ugh”, Felix?’

‘Because there are nasty things. Look, Mummy.’

The leaves on the trees were withered, and the outcrops on the trunks were clumps of insects, not natural growths. Printed at the bottom of the painting was the legend: ‘Only beetles survive the nuclear winter…’

The following Saturday, I cooked sausages and mash for lunch, which the boys and I ate together. Afterwards they demanded to go into the garden and I retreated into Nathan’s study. I gave it a good hard appraisal. When it came to his study, Nathan had a tendency to behave like a bear in its den. Don’t touch anything. It was very much his room, masculine and utilitarian, cluttered with papers and now a little dusty. Don’t touch anything.

But in getting through a situation such as this – my personal nuclear winter – I must dare to look over the parapet. ‘Good girl,’ I heard Paige say.

I put my shoulder to the desk and heaved it, panting with the effort, from its position. Why did you leave us, Nathan? Why didn’t you take more care? Yes, I am angry with you. I shoved it over to the window and the chair followed. If I sat here, I could see the garden where the twins were chasing a squirrel.

Wrong, I thought, rubbing my shoulder. You’re wrong, Rose. Anger makes you strong.

The study seemed bigger, and unfamiliar, a friendly area on which I would imprint what I wished. Moving the desk had let loose a snowstorm of papers: a directory of key Vistemax employees, which went straight into the bin, invitations, a timetable, and an out-of-date list of golfing fixtures at a club I had never heard of. They went into the bin too.

The doorbell rang. The silence in the house was so pleasant, rather reassuring, in fact, that I was tempted to ignore it. It rang a second time, and I went to see who it was.

Rose was on the doorstep, clasping a long brown-paper package. She was wearing jeans and a short, tight jacket. She seemed strained and harassed. Instinctively I made to shut the door, but she placed a foot on the step and prevented me. ‘Don’t, Minty.’

‘I’m not sure I can take this,’ I said, a sour taste rising in my throat. ‘But thank you for your letter.’

‘You look awful.’ She peered at me. ‘Are you taking care of yourself? You should, you know. Have you seen the doctor?’

‘There’s no point, Rose. Go away, and don’t come back. You’ve been very kind but we’re not friends any more.’

‘That’s true.’ She nodded reflectively. ‘But you still need someone to check up on you.’ She added, ‘I know what it’s like.’

‘Don’t you think that’s what makes it impossible?’

‘In normal circumstances, but these aren’t. So… here I am.’

Several cars roared down the street, followed by a lumbering white van from which blared heavy rock music. Opposite, Mrs Austen glanced up from her pots. Fork in hand, she stared openly at us.

‘Be kind, if only to a dog. Is that it?’

‘That’s it.’

The sourness turned into humiliation. ‘Kindness to canines apart, there must be some other reason.’

She held out the package. ‘I think this is meant for you. I’ve opened it. It’s from Nathan.’

I examined the label. It was addressed to Minty Lloyd but the address was Rose’s. ‘The wrong wife.’

She smiled wryly. ‘Maybe Nathan had fallen into the habit of thinking of us as a composite. He always was thrifty.’

I thrust the package back at her. ‘Go away. Don’t come back.’

Rose should have obeyed. Any reasonable person would have done so. A reasonable person would have seen where the line had been drawn, and that the old loyalties were finally dead.

But she was not prepared to give up. ‘It’s a plant for the garden. He must have ordered it months ago.’

‘A plant? What on earth for? He rarely went into the garden.’

‘Did he not tell you? He was thinking of redoing it. In fact, he was quite excited at the idea.’ She pointed to the package. ‘It deserves a chance, don’t you think?’

‘Why?’

‘Lots of reasons. Not least that Nathan obviously wanted a rose.’

‘It’s a rose?’

‘A white one.’

The urge to throw back my head and laugh hysterically at this extra twist of the knife was strong. ‘I don’t know anything about plants.’

‘But I do.’

It was ridiculous. Nathan should have been more careful. But, then, in conflating his two wives, he was making a point. Or perhaps he had reached a fork in the road where he had been too tired to consult the map. ‘You want to come in and plant this thing?’

‘Well, yes. I don’t feel we can waste it, under the circumstances.’

I thought of all the reasons why I didn’t want Rose to come inside the house with this muddled gift from Nathan.

‘I haven’t much time.’ She shifted the package to her other hand and checked her watch, a plain square Cartier that rested on a tanned wrist. ‘So?’

Across the road, Mrs Austen was entranced by this drama on the doorstep. She put down her fork and wiped her hands on her blue and white apron. Any minute now she would cross the road and push herself on to Rose and me.

I stepped aside. ‘You’d better come in.’

17

Rose walked into the hall and waited. Her gaze travelled over the unopened post on the table to the moraine of shoes and jackets at the foot of the stairs and the pile of ironing on the chair.

‘Don’t look at how untidy it is,’ I said. ‘It’s been difficult.’

‘Of course.’ Up close, Rose had as dark a pair of shadows under her eyes as I did. ‘Of course you won’t have been able to cope.’ She fixed on Nathan’s coat, still on the peg. ‘When Nathan left, it was the same. Stuff everywhere. No sense to the day. No shape.’

I bristled. ‘Do we need to rake over old ground?’

‘There isn’t any point in pretending that what happened didn’t.’ Rose’s shrug had changed. It was no longer weary and burdened, as it had been years ago, but light and sophisticated, an almost Gallic gesture.

I led her into the kitchen. She placed the package on the table. ‘You’ve made it nice,’ she said. ‘Different, but nice.’ Her eyes flicked towards the door. ‘How are the boys? Are they in?’

Again I bristled. ‘They’re in the garden.’

Her eyes went past my left shoulder to the back door. ‘I didn’t catch more than a glimpse of them at the funeral. It… gave me quite a shock to see how like Nathan they are. Is Felix the one with the slightly fairer hair?’

‘No. That’s Lucas.’

‘They seemed big for five-year-olds.’

‘They’re six,’ I said. ‘They were six in March.’

‘Sam was nothing like Nathan until he was eighteen or so. Then he turned into Nathan’s clone. I wonder if they’re going to be tall like their father.’

‘I have no idea.’

If Rose imagined that she could spread her maternal wings over my children, she was wrong, wrong. ‘I could never fault her as a mother,’ Nathan said. ‘Never.’

I gestured towards the kettle. ‘Can I make you some coffee?’

‘No, thank you.’