The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly

abandoned us. Second, she didn’t like me. Consequently, I lay many of life’s ills at her door because, as the self-help manuals point out, it’s your mother who sets the tone. When she was alive, I pretended she was dead. Then she was dead and, for a while, I pretended she wasn’t.

‘Listen to me.’ Paige did not look up from Charlie. I got up and snatched poor Charlie out of her arms. He felt bulky and compact and smelt of half-digested milk. He protested at this sudden change, but I didn’t care. ‘You will li sten to me. It’s very easy to think yourself into rightness. “Yes,” I used to say to myself. “Rose is so complacent. She doesn’t care about Nathan in the way he needs. She deserves to lose him. A person as careless as Rose doesn’t deserve a husband like Nathan.” In the end, I felt it was almost my duty to take Nathan away.’

‘And you succeeded. So?’

‘You’re missing the point, Paige. You can reason yourself in and out of anything. That’s the trouble with reason. It’s flexible.’

Paige stood up and held out her arms. ‘Give me my baby,’ she ordered. ‘He needs changing.’

I clung to Charlie. ‘You can’t honestly think that the children will be better off without Martin?’

‘Hark at who’s talking.’

‘Felix and Lucas are suffering terribly.’

Paige succeeded in prising Charlie away from me. ‘I appreciate your concern, Minty,’ her face closed, ‘but I’d rather you didn’t interfere in this one.’

‘Don’t imagine because I’ve been away that I’m letting you out of my sight,’ Gisela said. ‘I want to know everything. You’ll hate me for being a busybody, but you’ll be grateful too.’

Gisela had been in the South of France for a month, and on her return she had phoned and arranged to take me out to lunch. The Vistemax car had picked me up from Paradox, a little perk that I made no effort to hide from Deb et al. Gisela was installed inside it. She was tanned and fit and kissed me warmly. I kissed her back – I’d missed her.

‘I hope you’re demanding answers from Theo,’ she continued. ‘Unless you’re stroppy, lawyers let things drift.’

The car purred off in the direction of Kensington. I gave an edited rundown on the financial and legal situation, then asked, ‘Did anyone help you, Gisela, when you were struggling with all the detail?’

She hesitated. ‘Sometimes… Well, Marcus did. He’s good on that sort of thing.’

‘Actually, the detail isn’t my main worry. It’s the boys. They miss Nathan.’

She glanced down at her hands, folded elegantly in her lap. ‘It’s awful for you at the moment.’

‘Sometimes their sadness is almost too much to bear. They wanted to go looking for him the other day. They’d packed a bag each.’

A variety of expressions chased across Gisela’s smooth complexion. Then she said briskly, ‘Bear it you must.’ She opened her bag and produced her diary. ‘Now I need your advice. Or, rather, I’d like to talk to you, so I’m going to offer you a bribe.’

‘I suppose it’s about Marcus.’

‘In a way everything’s always about Marcus. I’ve tried not to let it be, but that’s proved impossible. He’s sort of… always there.’

‘Because you want him to be,’ I pointed out.

‘I suppose so.’

The car slowed for traffic-lights. The thought of the expensive food Gisela was about to buy for me made me feel a little nauseous. ‘Gisela, I’m not that hungry. Appetite seems to have deserted me.’

‘That’s no surprise. Look at it this way. Many women would kill to be in that position. Actually, I want to whisk you off to Claire Manor for a couple of days’ pampering. The treat’s on me, so you’ll have to listen to my problems and you might forget yours.’

I reached over and touched her elbow. ‘You are lovely. It would be…’ Then I heard myself say, ‘But it’s a bit soon for me to leave the twins. I don’t think I could do it to them.’

Steel crept into Gisela’s limpid, sympathetic gaze. Yes, you can, Minty.’

I tried another, perfectly truthful, tack: ‘I can’t afford it, Gisela.’

‘I’ve already said I’m paying.’

‘I can’t take any more time off work, not one second. Paradox are waiting for an excuse to offload me now that I’m a liability.’

‘Is that true?’

I thought of Chris Sharp and his ambitions. ‘I think so. Or, rather, I don’t wish to give them an opportunity to prove it.’

‘Of course. I see that absolutely. We’ll go at a weekend.’

As the car slid to a halt in front of the restaurant, she turned to me. ‘You’re looking bad, Minty. Pale and sad. That isn’t good for Paradox. You must give yourself two days off. It’s the least you can do.’ She took my hand and patted it. Deal?’

‘I’ll have to see if Eve can cover, and all that. I can’t just say yes like…’ Like the old days.

There was a tiny flicker of impatience. ‘Well, I won’t take no for an answer.’

That night when I got ready for bed, I forced myself to conduct a mirror session. The eyes and hair it reflected lacked lustre. Most of all, my eyes bothered me. They were lifeless.

19

I planned my assault on Barry carefully. The La Hacienda nightclub was two flights of steps underground and sparing on lights. Barry had taken Chris, Deb, Gabrielle, Syriol and me there to celebrate the green light for Pointe of Departure. Chris and Deb lounged on a sofa and Syriol was dancing solo in the gloom on a small square of dance-floor. Iggy Pop was deafening. Barry sucked at a bottle of Bacardi Breezer (half sugar).

I took a swig of tequila and the salt burnt my lips. ‘Barry,’ I shouted, ‘can I leave early a week on Friday? There’s no meeting or anything – I’ve checked.’

He removed the bottle from his mouth and shouted back, ‘Why?’

I edged closer and put my lips to his ear, hoping he wouldn’t get the wrong idea. ‘Weekend away.’

‘Must you?’ he yelled.

I glanced round. The strobe light on the dance-floor had turned Syriol a peculiar colour. On an adjacent sofa, a couple were eating each other. Deb was gazing into Chris’s eyes, but his were fixed on Syriol. The gloom and the noise were uncomfortable and I felt old.

‘Yes I must,’ I said. ‘But I’ll be back first thing on Monday morning for the meeting with Ed.’

‘Mind you are,’ he said. ‘We have to keep pushing to show that we mean business.’

Eve was also agreeable. She was briefed and bribed with double pay, the meals planned. I rang Paige and begged her to act as back-up. Still smarting from our previous conversation, she was not forthcoming. ‘Only in an emergency,’ she said. ‘Jackson has maths coaching on Saturday mornings, and Lara has ballet all day. Sunday we’re at my mother’s.’

The edifice of care was thus constructed. No expedition to the moon could have been planned in more detail: meals, clothes, money. No contingencies could have been so closely considered.

I explained to the twins that I was going away for two days and two nights to a place where they made you pretty, and my promise to take them to see the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum when I returned was written in blood.

But I was making a bad fist of it. Lucas jumped up and down on the spot. ‘Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!’

Patiently, I explained that Eve would look after them, and it was not for long. I listened to myself spell out – soothing and placatory – that I would be away Friday and Saturday and be back to kiss them goodnight on Sunday.

‘But you’re pretty already, Mummy.’ Felix reached for Blanky.