The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly

right. But I didn’t see it then. So, it wasn’t all your fault, you know.’ She was letting me off the hook, a little.

The wine had loosened my tongue. ‘Roger and Gisela Gard came to dinner once. Believe it or not, I was playing office politics. One of the twins was naughty and Nathan dealt with it. I saw Roger watching him and I could almost hear him thinking, This is a man who’s lost his stuffing and brimstone, and the thought flashed through my mind that it was better to be dead than a failure.’ I put down my wine glass. ‘The question is, did I wish Nathan’s death on him, Rose? Did I?’

Rose swirled her wine round her glass. ‘When Nathan left, I thought how much easier it would have been as a widow rather than a dumped wife. For a start, no one could have said it was my fault, unless I’d fed him hamburger and chips every night. If he’d died, the situation would have been easier to handle.’

‘Yes.’

She put down her glass, and the gold ring gleamed. ‘I still would have lost my job to you, wouldn’t I?’

‘Probably,’ I conceded. ? wanted it and I reckoned loyalty in the office was an old-fashioned concept.’

‘And now?’

I thought of Chris Sharp. ‘Much the same.’ I looked down at the carpet. ‘Was Nathan trying to humiliate me when he asked that you be made the boys’ guardian?’

‘Perhaps he was thinking of what was best for them.’

‘Perhaps.’

Rose took my hand. The touch of her flesh on mine was unexpected. ‘Minty, what you don’t understand is… I had got away. Finally. At last. I had stopped dreaming about Nathan. I wasn’t about to involve myself in his life again. I had cut him off.’

I allowed my hand to rest in hers and told her what festered in my mind. ‘I never loved him, Rose, not truly. Not really truly. Not heart, soul, body and mind. He knew he was getting older and wanted different things, and I wasn’t going to make it easy. If I’d loved him, I would have let him… oh, go to Cornwall, a million things.’ My fingers pressed Rose’s. ‘I think he felt desperately alone.’

Rose took away her hand. ‘I’m going to show you a letter, Minty.’ She went to the desk in the corner, picked up a small Jiffy-bag, pulled out an envelope and handed it to me.

I spread out two closely written sheets of paper. ‘My dearest Rose…’ Didn’t ‘Dearest’ mean closest to my heart?

I have no right to ask what I am going to ask, but I have an idea it might be necessary. If you receive this letter, which I am lodging with Theo, then I will have judged correctly.

I am writing to ask you to remember that you were once good friends with Minty. If you are reading this, it means she is on her own with the twins. Of course, I have no idea how long that might be for. When I came over to see you in the flat, I asked you if you would be a guardian if anything should happen to me and to her, and the boys were still under age, and you said you would consider it. I can’t think of anyone better to ask. It is a huge thing to lay on you, especially given our history, but I know you through and through, Rose, and there is no one I trust more…

For a moment, I could not continue. ‘Oh, Nathan…’

‘Are you OK?’ asked Rose.

I nodded.

All I can say in mitigation for my actions towards you is that the complications of feelings and impulse take us to strange places. They certainly took me away from you, whom I loved, to Minty. But I loved Minty, too, and I want to say the following. There is so much in her to admire (you spotted it first when you became friends) and that still holds true. It has been difficult for her, and not as she expected. Thus, I ask you again, if she ever needs it and asks you for help with the boys, or even if she doesn’t ask you, please will you do it?

I put down the letter, picked up my bag and got to my feet. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this? I know I hurt you beyond words, but you should have told me.’

Rose’s response was short and simple. ‘Yes.’

‘It would have made everything easier to bear.’

‘Yes, I suppose it would. But I wasn’t thinking about you, Minty.’

So Rose had taken her revenge on me with her silence, and I could have expected no better and no less.

My head swam, and I wanted very badly to go home. I managed to say, ‘He knew I never loved him properly. Truly, properly.’ I was weeping openly. ‘It’s in the letter.’

Rose folded it and put it on the desk. ‘When he left me, I stopped loving Nathan the way he wanted. It was inevitable. There was no other way of surviving.’

We looked at each other. In that exchange lay the past we had shared, mourned and regretted. She picked up the Jiffy-bag. ‘One more thing. He asked Theo to send this to me. I think it’s a diary of sorts. I haven’t read it, Minty. Or only a little bit. I couldn’t. You should take it.’ She placed the envelope in my hands and I peered inside. It was the missing notebook.

That, too, had gone to Rose.

The hardest thing of all to govern is the heart and I had finally understood that I couldn’t blame Nathan for the struggle with his. If one’s own nature and impulses are unfathomable, then to reach into other minds to make sense of the rage, passion and loyalties that lie within them is impossible. In our separate ways, Rose, Nathan and I had cheated each other and, in doing so, cheated ourselves.

‘We must try harder, Rose, to make something out of this,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, we must.’

On my return to the house the boys, who had been watching for me at the window, ran out to greet me. I scooped them up, and hustled them inside. Then I closed the front door, leant against it and breathed deeply.

24

It was Friday, four weeks before Christmas. In the meeting room at Paradox I watched the clock inch past five thirty. Barry was in full flow and wasn’t going to stop. What he had to say was interesting but I wished he had said it earlier in the day.

Chris propped his head in one hand. During a pause, he looked up. ‘Are you in a hurry, Minty?’

‘Not at all,’ I replied coolly.

‘We’re coming to you in a minute, Minty,’ Barry said.

In a feeble attempt to recognize the season, Syriol had draped a string of fairy-lights over the picture on the wall. It was by Shiftaka and I had persuaded Barry that it would be a good investment when he had decided to plough a proportion of Paradox’s profits into an asset. (When I pointed out that his employees might be considered assets, Barry grinned and said he needed fixed assets.)

Shiftaka’s painting depicted an abstract figure, half flesh, half skeleton, lying on a bed of glowing coals. The colours were violent reds, the blackest of blacks, and a white background that could only be described as dirty. The label read: Kyoto RIP. The jury’s still out as to whether I consider Shiftaka a good painter or not, but I’m working hard on my ‘uneducated’ eye. Still, if Barry thinks Shiftaka’s cutting edge, it was a bargain.

When I had taken Barry to view it at Marcus’s gallery, Marcus had been sitting at the desk, head bent over the laptop. At our entrance, he looked up and I was shocked: he appeared considerably older than I remembered. He took a second or two to place me and, when he did, there was an unmistakable flare of hope in his eyes, which was as quickly extinguished when it became obvious that I was not Gisela’s envoy.

I had introduced the two men and explained that Barry was looking for an investment. Marcus swung into professional mode – easy of manner, patient, sizing up a potential client – and I thought how much nicer he was than Roger.

While Barry patrolled between the two rooms, Marcus turned to me and asked, in his unexpectedly deep voice, ‘How’s Gisela?’

‘Fine, I think. I haven’t seen much of her lately.’

He chose not to indulge in small-talk – another factor in his favour – and went straight to the point. ‘She didn’t