The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly

The shadows of four children fell over the ensuing hard, cold silence.

I broke it: ‘The twins are not your business, Rose. I don’t know what Nathan was doing when he made that extraordinary…’ I dropped my voice ‘… that senseless request. Was he having a huge joke at our expense? If I die or end up paraplegic or mad, my children will be with you. What was he thinking of?’

She moved restlessly. ‘Don’t make too big a deal of it, Minty. It’s optional and unlikely to happen.’

‘Even so,’ I said bitterly, ‘I don’t want you involved with them.’

‘For goodness’ sake!’ she flashed at me. ‘Do you think I want to be?’ She checked herself. ‘Sorry.’

‘I’ve realized I didn’t know Nathan at all.’

Rose sighed, and said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, ‘That’s what I thought when he left. It astonished me how little I knew about someone I’d lived with for so long. It happens all the time, and it’s probably better that you can’t pry into every nook and cranny of someone’s mind.’

‘Sometimes I wonder if Nathan was so bored that he dreamed up the guardian idea because it gave him something to think about.’ I knew perfectly well that I was traducing him.

And Rose evidently agreed with that: ‘If you think Nathan would have been so selfish…’ She sent me a glance that suggested no bridge would ever span far or wide enough to connect us. ‘He was only thinking about the twins.’ She tapped the package and said, without much enthusiasm, ‘Shall we get on with this?’

Smarting, I led her into the garden. But if I had been wrong to accuse Nathan of self-gratification, it did not mean that his motives had been entirely pure.

The twins had burrowed out of sight behind the shed. On our return from Cornwall, their heads filled with tales of pirates and rock fortresses, they had set up a camp, which, they had informed me, was very, very private.

‘Where are they?’ asked Rose.

I pointed to the shed. ‘In their headquarters. I think it’s the Jedi battle command.’

‘Ah,’ said Rose. She bent down and tugged at an elderly lavender bush. ‘You didn’t care for my garden. You never did.’

Rough, moss-infested grass. Shrubs that required pruning. Overgrown flowerbeds. Casual outrages, the result of Nathan’s and my neglect. ‘No. I never did.’

She straightened up, a sprig of lavender in her fingers. ‘Funny, that. I imagined every blade of grass and leaf would be imprinted on my memory. But once you leave a place, you leave. Or, rather, it leaves you.’

I had devoted not inconsiderable time to imagining Rose’s feelings on being banished from her garden. ‘You mean you forgot about it?’

‘No, never that.’ She rolled the lavender between her fingers. ‘It holds the early days… of us… of me.’

‘Height, route and rest?’ I asked. ‘Did you build those in?’

‘Height? Route?’ Puzzled, she frowned. Then her brow cleared. ‘You’re talking about the plans I sent to Nathan. Did you like them? He asked me for some ideas and it sort of took off. I knew the garden inside out, after all.’

‘Actually, he never mentioned them. I found them in a notebook.’

‘Oh.’ Rose flushed fiery red, and her lips tightened. ‘If you like, I can send you what I suggested. I have a copy’

‘No.’ I said. ‘No.’

After a moment, she added, ‘I don’t think Nathan liked it that I didn’t mind doing the plans. I had an idea that he wanted me to say I’d have nothing to do with it. I think he was surprised that I didn’t mind. Anyway, that was why he ordered the rose, don’t you think?’

‘Probably’ I flapped a hand at a damaged section of fence. ‘The boys. Playing ball. It ought to be mended, but I was never interested in it. Nathan isn’t… I mean, Nathan wasn’t. Occasionally, he had a fit of conscience and did a bit of digging. When I moved in here he said that it had been your thing, not his. I took the implication to be that it wasn’t mine either.’

‘Poor Minty,’ said Rose, ultra-dry. ‘What a lot you had to put up with.’

There was a shout from behind the shed, and Felix emerged red-faced and wailing, ‘Mum! He hit me!’ He flung himself against my knees.

‘Shush,’ I said. ‘He didn’t mean it.’

Felix wailed harder, and I shook him gently. ‘Shush, Felix. Say hello to Mrs Lloyd.’

But Felix decided that he wanted a scene and upped the decibels. ‘Don’t show me up,’ I whispered to him, at which Felix threw himself down on the lawn and kicked his legs in the air. He looked like an angry insect. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of grinning Lucas waving a stick to which he had attached Felix’s Blanky. I transferred my attention back to the insect, who was now roaring. I tapped his bottom. ‘Stop it,’ I said sternly, which had no effect.

Rose said, ‘Oh dear,’ in the amused way of an onlooker when they really wanted to say, ‘Don’t you have any control over your children?’ The black rage, with which I was becoming familiar, swept over me. It was an ugly emotion and I manhandled the screaming Felix upright more roughly than I should have done. ‘Don’t you dare say anything, Rose.’

‘Why would I? It’s nothing to do with me.’

‘You know perfectly well why you would.’

She hauled a pair of gardening gloves out of her handbag. ‘Can I take a look in the shed?’

I bent over Felix. ‘Why don’t you show Mrs Lloyd the shed, and I’ll talk to Lucas?’ But Felix refused to co- operate and clung to my hand. As we passed the lilac tree, Rose paused and pulled a branch towards her for inspection. She exclaimed softly at its condition, then allowed it to snap back.

Weakened by neglect, the shed door shuddered when Rose opened it. The interior was festooned with spiders’ webs. A garden fork was propped against the wall, its tines caked with earth. There was a rusty trowel, a spade and a stack of flowerpots. A packet of fertilizer stood in a corner, so old that it had hardened into a lump. I prodded it with my foot. ‘Nathan always meant to take this to the council dump.’

While I cornered Lucas and ordered him to return Blanky, Rose ferreted around in the shed. She emerged with the fork and a trug with a splintered handle, into which she had teased a handful of the fertilizer. ‘Now’ She catalogued the wandering lines of the lawn, the tangle of weeds and grass, the unpruned clematis. She shaded her eyes with a hand, and I knew she was peering into the past. ‘If I’m truthful, I didn’t want you to be a gardener, Minty. Certainly not in my garden.’ Her eyes betrayed sudden amusement. ‘But I needn’t have worried.’ She picked up the package. ‘Where shall I plant this rose?’

‘I don’t want it.’

Her fingers curled round it protectively. ‘But Nathan sent it. He must have been thinking of us both. It belongs here, and it matters where it’s planted.’

‘What’s the point?’ I gestured at the garden. ‘It’s not likely to flourish.’

Rose hacked off the wrapping package with the secateurs. ‘I take it you’ll be living here for the time being?’

‘You know as well as I do that I have to be here. Anyway, the twins’ school is very close.’ I peered at her. ‘I assume you’ve talked to Theo about the will?’

‘Yes, I have.’ She wasn’t going to pursue the subject. ‘If you’re staying here you should think about the garden.’

Felix’s little fingers clenched mine. ‘Rose, I don’t think it’s your business.’

That silenced her. No doubt Rose was grateful for her little extra acquired immunity – she had had time to get used to being without Nathan. But I had not, and I was not under control. She did not challenge my rudeness but smiled at Felix, who had raised his head. His tears had ceased, and he was studying Rose with unabashed curiosity.

Rose crouched at his level. ‘We haven’t really said hello, Felix.’ She held out her hand. ‘I knew your daddy.’

Felix dropped my hand. ‘Daddy…’ he echoed, and favoured Rose with one of his devastating wide-eyed looks, which I knew could reduce its recipient to weak-kneed adoration. Rose’s eyebrows flew up and, in that instant, she had been ravished.

She swallowed. ‘He’s so beautiful, and innocent,’ she murmured. Her eyes filled. ‘And so like… him. But, then, what else would you expect?’

Felix moved closer to Rose. ‘Why are you crying? Mummy, why’s the lady crying?’