The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly

I stared at the snarled traffic. ‘I really am a mummy.’

When we got back, Eve was in the kitchen. She looked a lot stronger, even if her clothes hung off her. ‘I make supper,’ she said, and when I tried to stop her she held up her hand. ‘I do.’

I helped her to cut up cucumber and carrot sticks, and to heat up the shepherd’s pie. She moved painfully slowly, but with determination. Afterwards she insisted on clearing up. She raised her normally indifferent eyes to mine and, in them, sparked gratitude. ‘You are nice, Minty.’

During the bad nights, I had been getting rid of Nathan. It should have been a logical process – Nathan was no longer there to wear his shirts, socks, suits, shoes, ties, and they were easy to sort and pack. But their disposal defied logic. Sometimes I managed to clear a drawer; sometimes it was beyond me. It was a process that had to be secret because I didn’t wish the boys to witness it and because… it hurt. So I accomplished it in fits and starts, stealthily, during those nights.

It was a quarter to two when I got out of bed and opened the doors to Nathan’s wardrobe. Already light dust coated the contents. There were his ties, blue, red and green. A scarf was jammed on to the shelf and I picked it up. It was an expensive one, and I caught the faintest echo of his aftershave. The sensation of a sharp instrument striking through my breast made me gasp. I sank down on the bed, holding it between fingers from which the feeling had drained.

Nathan was dead.

After a while, I put it aside, took out his favourite grey suit and laid it on the bed. Into the jacket I tucked his favourite blue office shirt. Round the collar went the tie, red silk. A pair of silk socks and polished shoes completed the ensemble.

There. This was the shell of Nathan. I could pretend he was there, leaning against the pillows, hands folded behind his head. Minty, will you please pay attention… Pillow punched. Shoes eased off and discarded. Minty, what do you think?

The bag for the hospice charity shop was on the floor. If I removed the tie from the shell and placed it in the bag, part of Nathan had gone. If I took out the shirt, as I now did, and folded it carefully, another bit of him had vanished. The shoes… the shoes? If I dropped them into the bag, it would be impossible for Nathan ever again to walk into number seven and run up the stairs – where are my boys?

And with the suit went the businessman who formulated strategies and said, Our competitors are really strong. Let’s give them a hard time.

‘When I married Nathan,’ Rose had confided to me, at one of our lunches in the early days, ‘I was brokenhearted from a love affair that had gone wrong. But Nathan was so anxious to make me happy, how could I resist? He was a rock, and Hal was unreliable sand. What more could I ask?’

I was not so convinced by Rose’s capacity to sort out the rocks from the sand. This was a woman who, she also confided to me, used to slip into St Benedicta’s church en route for home and light a candle under the Madonna. If that was not building a house on sand, I didn’t know what was.

‘Hal could never be what I wanted,’ Rose had added. ‘We both knew it. But Nathan was.’

Downstairs, one of the twins cried out. I swept the suit into the bag and went to find out which one.

Felix had had a bad dream. ‘Mummy, there was a big, big cat with big claws and he was trying to claw me…’

I drew his hot little body close and whispered, ‘It’s all right, Felix. Mummy’s here. I’ve chased the bad cat away. Look, it’s gone.’

It was not all right. Yet as I soothed my son with this lie I took a curious pleasure and pride in its construction. Until the boys were big and bold enough to know better, it was my business to shield them from the worst.

22

When I turned out the pocket of my black linen trousers, I discovered the sprig of the plant I’d picked at Claire Manor. It was brittle and withered, with only faint traces of the blue that had attracted me. Intrigued, I looked it up in one of Nathan’s books. It was called nepeta, and its old nickname was ‘Kattesminte’. It was so powerfully attractive to cats that infant seedlings had to be protected against them.

The phone rang as I was reading about catmint.

If you set it, the cats will get it

If you sow it, the cats won’t know it.

‘I know I’m not talking to you,’ said Paige.

‘O?,’ I said. ‘I’m not asking you how the baby is.’

‘He’s a bit of a screamer.’ Her voice wavered. ‘I’ve never been so exhausted.’ For Paige to admit anything of the sort was serious. ‘Three children, and I have to make them into human beings without turning myself into a monster.’ Her voice veered up the scale. ‘It’s so tough that I sometimes wonder.’

It was almost unheard-of for Paige to have doubts. ‘Paige, have you been in touch with Martin?

‘Tell you what, ask me about Lara’s arabesques instead.’

‘Paige. Have you been in touch with Martin?’

‘Minty. Don’t interfere. OK?’

I raised my eyes to the ceiling. ‘How are Lara’s arabesques?’

‘Funnily enough, very good. She has an excellent line, but she’s let down a bit by her feet. Pats of butter, unfortunately. But we’ll get to work on them.’

I felt sorry for the ramshackle, terrorized Lara. From now on, her feet would not be her own. At the other end of the phone Paige sighed heavily, a sound pregnant with despair and uncertainty, and I weighed in. ‘You’ve got to think again about Martin.’

‘I think about him, Minty, all the time, and I’m very fond of him. Very. But I haven’t time to be married. Not with three children. Not if I’m to do things properly’

‘Paige, have you eaten today?’

‘Eaten? Not much. I’m far too busy. And before you ask, no, I’m not sleeping well. I know you think I’ve gone mad with post-natal depression and maybe I have, but at the best of times, Martin’s a reluctant father. He doesn’t enjoy it. He hates the house being full of children. Now, who’s the one with a psychosis?’

‘All the same he needs to be there.’

There was an ominous silence. ‘Minty, I’m not sure about lectures from you.’

‘Where is he living?’

At his mother’s. She’s put him in the attic bedroom for the time being.’

*

I rang Martin and arranged to meet him the following afternoon at the bank. ‘Minty, is this urgent? I have a big convention in Geneva and I’m travelling for the next couple of weeks. But if you really need to see me I can fit you in at two thirty.’

To his credit, Martin was on time, which didn’t give me much opportunity to study the building’s stunning glass atrium. He stepped out of a lift, kissed my cheek and steered me down the corridor. ‘This had better be good.’

‘You asked me to keep an eye on Paige.’

‘Ah, my wife.’ For all the lightness of tone, Martin was on the alert. He led me into the canteen, which was more like a banqueting hall, did the equivalent of clicking his fingers and, lo and behold, we were presented with freshly made espresso, hot milk and a cantucci biscuit each. Living with his mother was doing him no harm physically for, unlike his wife, he was immaculate, slim, and healthy-complexioned.

I could never resist cantucci I dipped mine into the espresso and bit into it with the special pleasure reserved for the forbidden. ‘Martin, you must go home.’

He frowned. ‘She threw me out. Remember?’

‘She’s just had a baby. We’ve agreed you’re half mad when you’ve had a baby. You stay half mad, I reckon, until they’re adults. Paige is half mad anyway’ Martin snorted. ‘She won’t listen to me because I’m a sinner. Or, at least, she won’t take my advice.’ I stared longingly at Martin’s