My Husband's Wife (12 page)

He opened his mouth as if to speak, just as the bedroom door opened. For the first time in her life, Rosie felt intense irritation at the presence of her daughters.
Please no, just five more minutes...

‘It’s funeral day,’ Naomi announced with a mixture of sadness and excitement.

‘Can I wear my party dress?’ Leona asked.

Phil let his eyes rove over his wife’s face, as if taking her in for the last time, then he leapt from the bed. ‘Of course you can!’

She hated his joviality, the eagerness to get things rolling.

‘Why have you got your clothes on in bed, Daddy?’ Naomi pointed at his shirt. ‘And you, Mum!’ She giggled at the sight of Rosie’s jeans, visible where Phil had flung the duvet back.

‘We were too sleepy to get our pyjamas on,’ he answered.

That’s your first lie to them today. How easily it slips from your lips. How many more to follow? How long have you been lying to me?

‘Mummy, your face is all balloony. Have you been crying?’ Naomi stared at her mum, her little fingers twisting the edge of her pyjama top, her mum’s tears the cause of her agitation.

‘Yes.’ Rosie coughed to try and clear some of the croak. ‘Yes, I have.’

‘It’s okay, Mum, I cried too. But we can bury them now and we won’t let it spoil our day.’

Rosie’s heart went out to her girls and their sweet natures as they ran down the stairs to go find their dead pets. She closed her eyes briefly, still feeling quite disembodied, and wished that their day wasn’t going to be spoilt; wished that their dad wasn’t going to leave. But she knew wishes didn’t come true, otherwise her mum would have collected her from school every afternoon and cooked her tea, they’d have had enough money to take the girls to Disneyland and Phil would not be casting her aside in favour of another. Geraldine Farmer. The name was now back in her mind, never to be forgotten again.

As she glimpsed her blotchy face in the mirror, she remembered the day he had taken the girls to soft play in Barnstaple.
‘That’s a bit of a liberty, phoning you on a Saturday. I mean, you’d think it could wait until Monday. What a cheek.’
She recalled the indignation she had felt on his behalf.
You bloody idiot, Rosie.

Half an hour later, the family made their way out into the back garden and chose the perfect spot under the Japanese maple that thrived in the corner of their narrow plot. Phil dug down into the rich soil and placed the shoebox securely in its final resting place.

‘Goodbye, Moby.’

‘Goodbye, Jonathan.’

The girls cried, each clinging to one of her legs, as their dad loaded up the spade and patted the dirt back into place, cushioning Moby and Jonathan for their final sleep. Rosie stared, dry eyed, unable to think straight or get upset, unable to feel much. She did, however, cradle her girls to her, holding their heads in her hands and whispering ‘Ssshhh...’ into the air, as if that might somehow dampen their distress.

What followed next was quite unceremonious. There was no fanfare, no drama or swell of emotion. Naomi and Leona were entirely unaware that this was anything other than a regular day. Fully expecting to see their daddy sitting across from them at the tea table later, they waved him off, distracted by what was on the telly and the crumpets that their mum had toasted. Phil simply loaded his bags into the van, came back, kissed the girls one last time and almost ignored her, as if that might make things easier for all of them; it certainly spared him any embarrassment. He then stepped over the threshold and closed the front door behind him, walking out on twelve years of marriage.

And just like that, he was gone.

Rosie stared at the door long after he had shut it. It felt so much like any other day; it was hard to feel the full force of the situation.

With the girls settled in the sitting room, fed and watered and with the television for company, she trod the stairs. Carefully and quietly she locked the bathroom door behind her and climbed into the bath. Without the water to separ-ate her body from the cold plastic, it wasn’t entirely comfortable, but Rosie didn’t care. She rolled a towel and placed it under her head and there she stayed for an hour, maybe more, fighting the urge to vomit and shivering despite the warmth of the sunny summer’s day.

Rosie had been glad to see an end to the longest day and yet despite her exhaustion had only managed to sleep fitfully. The day had seemed to go on for ever. Zapped of all energy, she found it hard to look after the girls and resorted to sticking them in front of a DVD with the promise of pizza, giving her a few precious minutes to sit in the kitchen and cry. Her thoughts were jumbled. Her grief sat like heaped spaghetti in her brain, strangling all rational, coherent thought.

Then, as night arrived, she’d found herself swamped by fear, a new emotion to sit on top of the sadness. They had lived in the house for years, she was familiar with every square inch of it and knew practically every permanent resident in the town – heck, she could stand on the doorstep and holler, knowing that people would come running – but on her first night without him, she checked and double-checked the windows, secured the locks and drew all the curtains. She then lay in bed with a mist of worry around her. What if someone got into the house? What if they were burgled? How would she keep the girls safe? She missed the presence of her husband in a million different ways.

Closing her eyes, desperately hoping for sleep, she couldn’t stop images of Phil and Geraldine Farmer from floating into her mind. She pictured him and the super-rich woman who had sped by in her flash car, saw him unloading his bags from the van, for which
she
was insured and had travelled in countless times, saw him dump them in a grand hallway that looked like something out of
Downton Abbey
before celebrating his new-found freedom by sipping champagne in one of her two swimming pools. She knew they would, of course, in the first throes of romance, have sex that night, knew that he would whisper to her the sweet words of courtship that had been rehearsed in her ear over a decade ago. These imaginings caused her physical pain. Her gut twisted with jealousy and longing. It was torture, but she couldn’t help it.

And now, after her first night alone, she lay awake in their bed, the imprint of him still in the mattress, his presence lingering on the sheets. Still in the jeans and T-shirt she had been wearing for forty-eight hours straight, she ran her hand over her pouchy stomach, feeling ashamed and disgusted that she had expected him to sleep with her when he had a well-kempt WAG-lookalike to rush off to.
Did they laugh at me? Talk about me?
This thought brought on another bout of sobbing.

Rosie pulled his pillow into her chest and that was how she stayed, clinging to the scent of him, an aftershave bought for the benefit of another woman. She felt desolate and desperate and if she looked towards the future she could see nothing but a big black hole of despair and loneliness. She didn’t want to see anyone, didn’t want to tell anyone. She simply wanted to disappear. And with this idea in her head, she thought for the first time about her mum, her dead mum, who had done just that.

With a start, she sat up in the bed and pictured Kayleigh’s face, remembered her smile, her recent cheeriness, and slowly realisation dawned: it was because she had known.
‘All right, Rosie? How are you? Everything all right with you then?’
Kayleigh had a secret and she liked it.
Who else knows? Who else is laughing at me?
She rubbed her forehead, hoping this might alleviate the thumping headache that she had nursed throughout the night.

Rosie reached out her shaking hand for the glass of water resting on the windowsill. Her brain jumped when she felt a flash of worry as to whether Phil had enough clean underwear with him and then quickly realised it was no longer her concern. She knew what he had worn and eaten every day for the last twelve years, but now it was nothing to do with her, some other woman would be choosing his supper and eating it with him, and even that small detail was like a knife to her heart.

She trod the landing, hoping for a bit of time alone downstairs, wanting the silence of the morning to ease her into the day ahead. But no sooner had she filled the kettle than she heard the clatter of little feet on the stairs. It was hard to find a smile.

‘Mum?’ Naomi began, the moment she was in sight. ‘I had a very funny dream that you got me two puppies because my fish died and we called them Moby and Jonathan just like the fish and they were so cute and we took them for a run on the beach and they loved it. Can I get two dogs?’ She did this, launched the day as she meant to go on; she never had the need for a period of easing in.

‘I don’t think so.’ Rosie was aware of her cracked voice, her lowered tone.

‘Well, I will let you think about it and when you’ve made up your mind, we can go to the big pet store near B&Q and see if they have books on how to look after your new puppies, so that I don’t do anything wrong with them like I did with Moby and Jonathan when I put them in the mug.’ She smiled.

Rosie opened her mouth to speak but literally didn’t know where to start. Trying to find the right words through the fog of confusion and sadness was too hard.

‘Where’s Daddy?’ Naomi asked as she picked up a little rubber ball and bounced it on the hard, tiled floor, catching and dropping it repeatedly.

‘Mum, where’s Daddy?’ she repeated, in case she hadn’t heard her over the noise of the kettle.

Leona sloped into the kitchen. ‘He’s not in the loo, I just looked.’ She rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

‘He’s at work,’ Rosie managed.

‘I’ve told her we want two baby dogs.’ Naomi updated her sister on events, this seemingly more pressing to her than the fact that Phil wasn’t around.

Rosie was glad of the change of topic, a hiatus before having to disclose the truth.

‘I do want two baby dogs, but I want breakfast as well!’ Leona looked a little distressed, as if it was an either/or choice.

While the girls ate their toast on the sofa, Rosie sat in the kitchen and sipped at her cup of tea. Her mobile rang. It was Mel. She took a deep breath and answered the call.

‘Are you okay?’ her friend asked urgently.

‘I guess you’ve heard.’ She closed her eyes; it was somehow easier to have this conversation without looking at the world around her.

‘Andy spoke to him. Oh God, Rosie, I honestly don’t know what to say.’

She had never heard her friend at a loss for words before. ‘Me either.’

‘I’m coming over.’ There was no time for a response: the phone went dead.

*

Fastening her hair in a knot, she opened the front door to her best friend. Mel rushed forwards and put her arms around her and there they stood, locked together while she cried.

‘It’s okay.’ Mel spoke into Rosie’s thick hair.

The two made their way into the kitchen. As soon as the girls got wind of their visitor, they rushed in, hopping on the spot at this much excitement this early in the morning. Rosie once again filled the kettle as if on autopilot.

‘Well, if it isn’t my two favourite girls!’ Mel beamed.

‘Mel,’ Naomi began, ‘we are going to get two dogs called Moby and Jonathan because we accidentally killed our fish and you and Tyler can help us take them for a walk if you want to?’

‘Oh, we’d love that!’ Mel looked at Rosie, who shook her head.

‘We’re thinking about replacement pets, but it won’t be dogs.’

‘But you said!’ Naomi stamped her bare foot on the floor.

‘Please, Naomi.’ Rosie closed her eyes and leant over the sink.

‘But you did-da!’ she whined.

‘You did, Mum,’ Leona added.

Rosie slunk down until her head rested on her arms. Mel and the girls stood staring as her shoulders shook.

‘I... I’m sorry, Mummy!’ Naomi started crying.

Mel bent down and spoke face to face with the girls. ‘I think Mum’s a bit tired, why don’t you go and sit on the sofa and I’ll make her a cup of tea, okay?’ She hugged them both and wiped Naomi’s tears, then the two girls trudged towards the sitting room.

Mel guided her friend to a chair at the table. Rosie placed her head on her forearms and continued to sob. It was some minutes before she found the energy to talk.

‘I can’t believe it, Mel. I just can’t take it in.’ She sat up and shook her head, ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.’

‘Well, what you can’t do is fall apart. You’ve got two little girls who need their mum right now.’ Mel pointed towards the sitting room.

‘They don’t know what’s going on.’ She wiped her face with a tea towel.

‘They don’t need to know the details to know that something’s up. You can feel it in the air, Rosie, and you look terrible.’

‘I can’t cope with you being mean to me right now.’ She felt her bottom lip tremble.

Mel got up and held her again. ‘Oh! I’m not being mean to you. You’re my best friend! But I am trying to help you and you need to be tough now. I know it’s not easy, but you really do.’

Rosie ran her hands over her jeans, realising that not only had she not changed her clothes, she hadn’t showered either. She smelt, she knew she did, and her hair hung in greasy coils either side of her swollen, tear-stained face.

‘Have you eaten anything?’

She shook her head and grimaced. Even the thought of food made her feel sick.

‘Can you just have a piece of toast, just for me? You need to keep healthy, honey,’ Mel said, as if Rosie was six. She rummaged in the bread bin, pulled out two slices of white and shoved them in the toaster. Clearly she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

‘I can’t believe it,’ Rosie repeated.

‘It feels terrible right now because it
is
terrible, but these things happen and you will move on.’

‘I don’t want to move on!’ Her tone was sharper than she intended, but her friend, no matter how well intentioned, clearly had no idea of the extent to which her life had been destroyed.

‘You have no choice.’ Mel’s tone was softer now. She sat at the table and placed her hand on her friend’s arm. ‘I know you loved him—’