My Husband's Wife (18 page)

By the time I come back from Hampstead, it is nearly seven o'clock. Ed is sitting at the kitchen table, working on a sketch.

‘We won,' I say.

He starts, and I can see that he's been so involved with his work that he'd forgotten today is verdict day. Then he collects himself. ‘Wonderful,' he says, leaping up and throwing his arms around me. ‘We must celebrate! Open a bottle.' His face tightens. ‘Then we can have that talk you've been promising.'

My hand shakes on the fridge door at the thought of the conversation ahead. My heart sinks. The Pinot that had been there at breakfast time is gone. No guesses as to who drank it. But I don't feel up to having an argument.

‘We're out of drink,' I say shortly.

‘I'll go round to the off-licence.' He's trying. I'll say that for him.

‘Let me.' Even though I've only just returned, I'm already feeling claustrophobic. My heart is juddering so badly at what I must do that I simply have to get out of here.

As I make a move, I see a man through the window, striding towards the front entrance. His hat is firmly
down over his forehead but there's something about that walk that looks familiar.

I close the front door behind me and step into the corridor.

My eyes struggle to understand what they're seeing.

The man who was striding towards our apartment building and who is now twirling Francesca round and round in the air (while little Carla watches in her white pyjamas) is Tony.

‘I love you,' I hear him say, as he puts her back down. ‘We won the case! Wanted to tell you before I went home!'

Coincidences are one of those things which sound contrived until they happen in real life. During my short time as a lawyer, I've already seen so many. Most of them tragic. The father who ran over his toddler by mistake on the day his new baby was born. The grandmother who was held up at knifepoint in the dark by her adopted son, neither aware of the connection at the time. The woman who had a child by a nightclub bouncer, who turned out to be the father who'd left before she was born – he, unaware of even having a child.

And now Tony and my neighbour.

I am disappointed. And fiercely, overpoweringly angry. How can someone uphold the law when they are acting immorally themselves? Such hypocrisy.

Perhaps it's also because I remember my mother's grief when she found out about my father's affair. An affair which must have been quickly extinguished, because after that row, my parents appeared to carry on as normal. After Daniel's death I doubt either of them had the energy for love, or for fighting. But it marked my mother. She
never spoke to my father the same way again. Part of me thinks she somehow blamed his infidelity for Daniel's death. Since then, I've tried to forgive my father. But you can never really put back the pieces of a fractured family.

That's one of the reasons I let rip. ‘How could you go off with someone else's husband? Don't you have any shame? As for you, Tony, if I see you again with this woman, I will tell your wife.'

Of course I wouldn't really tell Tony's wife (who I've never actually met). That would only cause more hurt. But I'm so angry, I don't really think about what I'm saying.

‘What was all that noise out there?' asks Ed when I return.

I tell him what happened.

My husband looks up from his sketch. It's a nose. A cute, pert, turned-up nose. Just like Carla's. ‘You don't think you should have stayed out of it?'

‘No.' I turn away. ‘It's not fair – either on her or Tony's wife and children. Or Carla. Tony was carrying on with Francesca when we were looking after her. Her mother choosing a man over her child! And how on earth did he meet her?'

‘You seem more bothered about them than us.' Ed looks nervous. I know he wants to talk, and I owe it to him. ‘Shall we open that bottle?'

‘I forgot to get it.'

‘Then I'll go. This is finished now.' He lays a hand on my shoulder. ‘I think we both need a glass, don't you?'

As he shuts the door, something Tony said during the case comes back to me: ‘There are times when you'll find yourself swearing that blue is black. You'll truly believe it
yourself. We all do it. It's not that lawyers lie. It's that they twist the real facts to make another world that everyone else believes in too. And who's to say that won't be a better world?'

When Ed comes back, I am in bed. Pretending to be asleep.

In the morning, I wake before my husband and leave a note.

Talk tonight. Promise. Sorry.

It is a relief to get back to the office the next day, where I can attempt to block out the confused look on Carla's face which is preying on my mind. The phones are ringing like an orchestra. People are rushing everywhere. The place is going mad.

PRISONER'S RELEASE OPENS GATE FOR MORE BOILER LAWSUITS
, screams the headline on the corner news-stand.

‘Well done,' says one of the partners, who's never bothered to give me the time of day before.

‘You did a good job,' nods my boss gruffly.

There are balloons on my desk. A bottle of champagne. And a stack of messages. None from Tony. How will I ever face him again? Yet he is the one who should be ashamed.

‘We've had a flood of calls from potential clients who want you to take them on,' adds my boss. Then he pats me on the back: a laddish pat. ‘But we'll talk about that later. Why don't you have the rest of the day off to make up for all those extra hours you put in?'

Coming home from the office at lunchtime is virtually unknown in law unless you've been ‘let go'. But my heart is heavy. There'll be no getting out of the talk with Ed this evening. Everything, I think as I turn the key, is such a muddle.

‘Ed?' He's in his jeans instead of the usual office suit. A half-eaten bowl of mushy cereal is on the table, surrounded by charcoal sticks and sketches. His feet are bare. ‘Have you come home early from work?'

‘No.'

There's a slur to his speech, a smell to his breath. At the same time I notice the half-full bottle of Jack Daniel's on the side.

‘I've been sacked.'

Sacked?

For a minute, all kinds of possibilities flash through my head. Upsetting a client? Having an argument with his boss?

‘They found me working on this when I should have been doing
proper
work.'

He says the word ‘proper' with finger gestures, making sarcastic inverted commas in the air.

I glance down at the drawing in front of him. Little Carla smiles up at me. It's always little Carla smiling. Or dancing. Or riding her bike. He's lost in a world of make-believe.

‘For God's sake,' I explode. ‘How on earth are we going to manage without your pay? Do you have any idea what you've done?'

‘I need to know what our future is,' Ed continues as if I haven't spoken.

‘I don't know.' I want to scream. ‘I can't think after what you've just told me.'

‘You said you'd talk about it when the case was over. We could have thrashed it out last night, but you were more interested in trying to redeem our neighbour's love life before our own.'

What can I say? It's true. I brush past him, making straight for the bathroom. You'll get a low after the case, Tony had warned me. It's like coming off a drug. Winning is an addiction. ‘I need some me-time,' I say, locking the door behind me. Then I sit on the edge of the bath while I run the taps. Hot. Cold. Hot.

After Sarah Evans, I'm never going to look at a bath in the same way again.

Just as I can never look at Ed in the same way.

Or myself.

Desperately, I force myself to consider the options.

If I leave Ed now, I will be alone. Scared. With an uncertain future.

But if I stay, we might be able to start again. Providing Ed really means it about not caring for Davina any more. But can I trust him? And can I trust myself?

A decision has to be made. One way or the other.

A coin. Daniel used to toss a coin when he didn't know what to do. I pick up a magazine that I've left by the side of the bath. If I open on a page with an odd number, I'll leave.

If it's even, I'll stay.

I open the magazine at a feature on how to make Sunday family suppers. There's a picture of a happy family sitting round the table. The picture and the print swim
before my eyes. Sunday suppers. Normal life. The kind we could have had if Daniel hadn't come into our lives.

I glance at the page number.

Then I walk out of the bathroom door. Ed's not sketching any more. He's simply staring into space with blank empty eyes.

‘Do you want to start again?' I ask.

He nods. There's hope in his eyes. Fear too.

I feel exactly the same.

Then I take my husband's hand and lead him into our bedroom.

During the next month, I try to get back into normal life but it's not easy. My workload seems dull after the thrill of getting Joe Thomas released, even though everyone in the office, including my boss, regards me with a new level of respect. And still the work comes pouring in.

‘They want Lily to do it,' says the secretary when my boss allocates himself one of the meatier cases, involving a newly married young man whose father-in-law (an eminent CEO) allegedly hit him on the head with a bottle of Merlot. Fifty stitches.

Yet instead of being jealous, as I feared, my boss nods. ‘You'd better have a room of your own if you're going to be so popular.'

People ring to ask if I can represent them. A woman whose elderly father was burned by a boiler wants me to take on her case. Solicitors I've never heard of ring to congratulate me. A woman's magazine wants to interview me as ‘a rising lawyer'. Questions about health and safety are being asked in the House of Commons.

But inside my head, it's hell. Ed and I may have agreed to start again but it was never going to be as simple as that. I have to force myself to believe him when he says he's ‘having a quick drink with Ross'. Supposing he's really seeing Davina? For his part, Ed resents me getting back late, laden with files. But then, out of the blue, he will bring me a cup of tea when I'm working into the small hours and kindly tell me not to ‘overdo it'. And now he's at home during the day, he's started doing the housework while searching for a new job – something I'm sure his traditional parents would be shocked at. He doesn't do it as well as I would, but I appreciate the gesture.

The guilt over Carla is getting worse. I've been hoping to go round and apologize, but there's no answer to my knocks. One of our other neighbours said she heard ‘some kind of commotion' on the evening of the night I last saw them. Is this my fault? Have they moved away because of what I said? The worry actually makes me feel sick.

‘Forget it,' says Ed. ‘You've meddled enough.'

‘Aren't you concerned about little Carla?' I say.

He shrugs. ‘You can't help everyone, Lily. She's not our child.'

It's amazing how an artist can take such care and compassion over a piece of work, while ignoring his subject's well-being.

Yet isn't that the same as the relationship between lawyer and client ? You're together for hours, talking endlessly about a case. But when it's over, your relationship is finished. Just like that. Or at least that's how it's supposed to be.

To be honest, I can't help wondering where Joe Thomas is. What he's doing. Whether he's made it to Italy.

And then, one evening, he's there. Hovering by the entrance to the office as I emerge after a long day's work. How incredible that someone can change so much in a few weeks! Gone is the beard. Gone are the prison scrubs. Gone too are the brogues and shirt. This clean-shaven man in a moss-green tweed jacket (light-brown suede collar turned up) looks more like an estate manager than an insurance salesman.

‘I came to say goodbye.'

We fall into step beside each other, just as we did after the drink when we won the case. Even steps.

I don't know where we're going and I don't care. In some ways, this man is more real to me than Ed. Haven't I spent over half a year of my life trying to save him?

‘You've got a job?'

‘Yes.' He speaks briskly. ‘I took your advice. Remember you talked about working in Italy? Well, I've gone for France instead.'

His arm brushes mine as we cross the road together.

‘A friend in Corsica wants me to help out with a renovation.' He looks down at his hands. ‘I'm quite good with these. And it'll be a change.'

‘Will there be a problem with the language?'

There's a grin. ‘No, thanks to the prison library. I taught myself to speak French and Spanish.'

It doesn't surprise me.

We're going into a restaurant now. A smart one. ‘This is a thank you.' He speaks as though this has all been arranged beforehand. Doesn't he realize that I'm expected
home? The presumption both irritates and thrills me. Yet I go along with it, allowing the waiter to take my coat.

‘You did a lot for me,' he adds, handing me the menu. I use it to hide my blush.

‘I did my job.' Then my questions pour out as though he is an old friend I haven't seen for years. ‘How are you? What are you doing? Where are you living?'

‘The same friend in France has a place in Richmond. It's rather nice.'

Richmond? I compare it in my mind with Clapham. The tiny kitchen where Ed is still drawing, unpaid, with job application forms around him.

‘What about you?' His voice is direct. ‘How is married life?'

‘OK.'

I'm tempted to tell him about Ed and Davina, but I said too much the last time we met. I'm no longer drunk on too much G&T and that excited flush of having won the case. I have to remind myself that I have a position of responsibility here. Confidences are not appropriate.