The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly

the centre.

Alan Millett tried again: ‘Would you like a drink? I think there’s pounded wheat-grass juice or something equally unspeakable.’

‘You haven’t taken to the culture.’

‘Not in the slightest,’ he said cheerfully.

‘I’m with you, but please don’t say anything. My friend has given me this as a present.’

‘That’s funny,’ he said. ‘I’d have thought you’d be all for it.’

I watched the swimmer for a moment, then asked, ‘What’s your birthday surprise?’

‘A party with a marquee and all the works. They must have thought I was blind. Strange markings on the lawn. A stash of candles. And, most telling of all, my wife bought a pair of bathroom scales. That means she’s trying to squeeze into a new dress.’ He spoke affectionately.

‘You’ll enjoy it?’

‘Sure. It’s not every day you turn fifty. Why not celebrate?’ He inclined slightly in my direction and raised an eyebrow. I knew that I had only to respond and opportunity would fall into my lap. Light, amusing and with no strings. ‘I didn’t catch your name,’ he added.

‘I didn’t say, but it’s Minty.’

‘Unusual. And why are you here?’

‘For all sorts of reasons.’ I got to my feet and tied my dressing-gown cord tightly round my middle. ‘Your family sounds very nice, and I hope your party’s a success.’

I left him staring thoughtfully into the pool’s blue depths.

As I dressed for dinner in the luxurious room, I found myself talking to Nathan. ‘I was the target of a pickup today.’

‘And?’

‘Not interested, Nathan. He was very nice, but it isn’t the same.’

The answer to that was indistinct.

I was frightened that I was beginning not to remember Nathan with any precision. My memories of him were already blurring and changing shape. Was that true? Was it really like that? Did he really say that to me?

20

‘Minty, you worried me last night.’ Gisela was blunt. ‘You looked terrible.’

Rule Five: apart from life or death situations, a friend’s duty is to lie.

‘It’s the toxins,’ I said. ‘They won’t be told.’

It was early on Sunday morning and we had escaped into the manicured manor grounds – ha-ha and borders, stone steps and an expanse of lawn – for fresh air before the day’s work. It was going to be hot, but we had caught the moment when the air and plants were fresh. It felt good to be alive.

Gisela pressed the case: ‘For obvious reasons, you’re not at your best,’ she lowered her voice sympathetically, ‘but is anything in particular worrying you? You can tell me, you know.’

‘It comes and goes,’ I admitted. ‘I panic’ Even to articulate the word caused the ever more efficient black feelings to take up residence in my chest. ‘I panic that I can’t carry what I’ve got to carry.’

Gisela, the adventurer and realist, understood perfectly. ‘You’ve got enough money, I take it? The pay-out?’ The insider who would be privy to the exact sum of the Vistemax severance package, courtesy of pillow talk, but could not admit it, she spoke with extreme delicacy.

‘Let’s put it this way, I need my job for the time being.’

She regarded me shrewdly. ‘Sometimes we get what we want.’

‘I didn’t want Nathan dead.’

‘I meant, you wanted a serious job. And at least you know what you have to do. There’s a lot to be said for that.’ She kidnapped my arm. ‘No feeling sorry for yourself. Understand? It’s the resort of the stupid. And don’t think, Minty.’

Between not thinking and not feeling sorry for myself, there wouldn’t be much space. But Gisela had a point: setting stern standards to curb internal wails was sensible and life-preserving.

She picked her way down the path, then ran alongside a herbaceous border and stopped by a plant blooming in a bright blue cloud. ‘Marcus was right to say that enough was enough, but I wish he hadn’t. Things were fine as they were.’

The bees were banqueting on this plant, and I bent down to thieve a sprig. Its smell was sharp and vaguely familiar and I tucked it into my pocket. ‘Fine for you, perhaps, but Marcus clearly has another point of view.’

‘That’s what I mean about not thinking, Minty. It weakens one’s position.’

It struck me then that Gisela and Roger made a perfect pair. Had he but known it Marcus, with his hopeless romantic notions about his dame lointaine, had lost out a long time ago. ‘Marcus has had a rough deal.’

An unseen string jerked Gisela round to face me. ‘What I can’t make Marcus understand is that living with a person you love is not necessarily the best thing.’

I glanced back at the venerable, grey-stone manor, every window polished, every blade of grass trimmed. It was expensive, exclusive and out of reach for most. ‘So that’s it,’ I said, tumbling to the whole picture at last. ‘You don’t want to lose all this. It’s too risky. Poor Marcus.’

Lymphatic drainage consisted of someone passing their fingers over my face and neck with fluttering movements. It was not unpleasant. In fact, it was the opposite, and I felt myself slip into drowsiness.

The fingers fluttered and stroked… Birds wheeling south… The beating of a moth’s wings at dusk… Little slaps of the sea on the shore.

I was trying not to think.

Little slaps of the sea… Like the sea at Priac Bay, which Rose had described so well that day – the day Nathan had died in her flat – and to which I had taken the boys.

It was a tiny bay, she had said. (She was right and the boys had loved it.) The coastal path ran along the cliff above it and there were always walkers tramping along. Correct. Thrift grew in clumps, sea grass and, at the right time of year, daisies. The sea can be many things, Rose said, but she loved it best when it was flat, you could peer down through its turquoise glimmer to hidden rocks and seaweed. From the coastguard’s cottage you could look out over the rocks where, centuries ago, wreckers had plundered stricken vessels. A path was cut into the cliff where the pack animals had waited as the looters scrambled up with their booty.

After a while, the fingers swept across my neck. ‘You’ll feel sleepy for the rest of the day,’ the girl informed me. ‘You must allow yourself to give into it.’

As I dressed, yesterday’s headache stole back. I checked my watch. Eleven o’clock. The day stretched out in a beautifully solipsistic shape. It would be the last one like it for a long time.

I made my way out of the beauty suite – all pink swags and niches where potions were arranged in tiers to be worshipped – and my mobile rang. I answered it.

‘Minty…’ Eve sounded hoarse and frantic. ‘I no well. I ill.’

I sat down on one of the chairs in the corridor – left, no doubt, to aid those weakened by the pursuit of beauty. ‘What sort of ill, Eve?’

‘I can’t breathe.’

‘Where are you?’

‘In bed.’

‘Where are the twins?’

‘At Mrs Paige’s.’ I heard her choke, and the phone was tossed around. The choking sounded serious.

‘Eve – Eve? Can you hear me?’ A nasty silence. ‘Listen, Eve, I’m coming home now’

Gisela understood, and did not understand. ‘I suppose you must go.’ Her tone implied that she could not conceive why the au pair’s illness could not be dealt with by someone else. ‘It’s only until tonight.’

‘I know. I’m so sorry.’ I was fully dressed, with my packed bag at my feet in Reception. There were two flower