The Third Wife (13 page)

‘So,’ he said, sitting opposite him. ‘What happened?’

Otis shrugged. ‘I just didn’t want to go into school.’

‘And why didn’t you answer your phone?’

‘I left it at home. By accident.’

Adrian sighed. ‘Christ,’ he said, ‘didn’t it occur to you that me and your mum might be worried about you?’

Otis shrugged again, tossing his head slightly to get his pop-star curls out of his eyes. ‘I said I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.’

‘Yes, but …’ He looked up at Caroline. ‘Where did they find him?’

‘They didn’t. I did. Just happened upon him on my way home. Outside the tube. Sitting on a bench, like a tramp.’

‘What!’ He turned back to Otis. ‘Sitting outside the tube? What on earth …’

‘I just …’ He pulled harder at the dog’s fur. ‘I was just thinking. That’s all. I can never think in this house.’

‘Oh Jesus Christ.’ Adrian ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Listen, mate—’

‘Don’t call me mate. It’s not cool.’

‘Sorry. Son. If you were meeting someone, you can tell us. OK? We won’t be cross.’

Otis’s brow furrowed and he said in that horrible deprecating tone of voice that all his children apart from Beau used when they talked to him, ‘
Meeting someone?
Why the hell would I be meeting someone? I don’t
know
anyone.’

‘No, no, of course not. But you spend a lot of time on the internet. There are people …’

‘Yes. I know. I do know. Old men pretending to be teenagers so that they can stick their willies up my bum. I
know
. And I wasn’t
meeting anyone
. I’m not an idiot.’

Adrian exhaled, relieved and reassured. He and Caroline shared a look.

‘So, what were you thinking about?’

He shrugged. ‘Stuff.’

‘What kind of stuff?’

Otis gently pushed the dog off his lap and got to his feet. ‘You know, actually, Mum, Dad, I think I’d like to go into school now.’ He said this less as a pronouncement of surrender than as an expression of disgust.

‘Fine,’ said Caroline, looking at her watch. ‘But I’m walking you to the gate.’

Otis shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

‘I’ll come too,’ said Adrian.

Otis remained virtually silent as they walked the ten minutes to his school. Caroline said, ‘There’ll have to be a punishment, of course, you know that?’

‘Fine,’ said Otis.

They both hugged him at the gates and watched him skulking across the playground to the school office.

They turned to each other as the heavy swing doors banged shut in his wake and his dark head disappeared up the corridor. ‘Got time for a quick coffee?’ said Adrian.

Caroline looked at her watch again. She sighed. ‘Yeah. Sure. Why not. But really quick. I’ve got a meeting at two p.m.’

They went into a Starbucks and arranged themselves on armchairs set either side of a low table, the only free seats in the place. Caroline had an Earl Grey tea; he had a black Americano. He watched Caroline squeeze out her teabag with her fingertips, so measured, so elegant, her handsome face still unlined, exactly as it had been the first time he saw her. She brushed her damp fingers against the lapel of her jacket, unthinkingly tracing the outline of her breast as she did so and Adrian felt a stirring of sexual desire. He closed his eyes, feeling wrong-footed, embarrassed by himself.

He had never been so long without sex before. He had, on average, taking into consideration the fallow periods that surrounded the gestation and emergence of five babies, had sex an average of once a fortnight since he’d left home. And now he was fourteen months down the line of unwanted abstention. Longer if you took into account the last few weeks with Maya, when she had been … well, anyway. He and Maya had been having sex pretty much every night before that. From 356 shags a year to nothing, virtually overnight. It was no wonder he was looking at his ex-wife inappropriately.

‘So,’ said Caroline, holding her cup halfway to her mouth, oblivious. ‘Theories?’

‘What?’

‘Theories? About Otis?’

‘God, no. Nothing. I mean, you said he did this before. After Maya?’

Caroline nodded. ‘Yes. Twice. We made all kinds of exceptions for him.’ She glanced at Adrian and read the question in his expression. ‘I didn’t tell you. I thought you had enough to deal with. I protected you from a lot.
We
protected you from a lot.’

Adrian nodded understandingly.

‘But that was different,’ she continued. ‘He was with friends then. Doing what boys do. Mucking about. You know. None of this sitting-on-benches business, staring into space. I mean, if I hadn’t come back on the Tube, if I’d got a taxi, say, I wouldn’t even have seen him there. He might still be sitting there now, for Christ’s sake.’

They sat quietly for a moment, thinking, and then sighed in unison.

‘Is he doing all right at school?’ said Adrian, already knowing the answer but asking the question out of a sense of desperation.

‘Yes, yes.’ Caroline nodded. ‘He’s doing so well at school. You know, his creative writing is amazing. I mean, I really think he has the potential …’

‘Yeah, I know, I read that thing he wrote, you know, about the time-travelling girl …’

‘Yes! Wasn’t that incredible? So imaginative …’

‘But so well executed too. I mean, he’d really thought it all through, hadn’t he? All the complexities … And really getting into the mindset of a girl.’

‘I know. I know.’

Caroline rubbed her elbows and smiled up at Adrian. ‘Our brilliant children,’ she said.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

She looked at him with barbed curiosity.

‘I mean, for raising them. For letting me … for being so …’ He swallowed hard as he realised with some horror that he was on the verge of tears. ‘Thank you’, he said once he’d brought his emotions into check, ‘for being such a brilliant mother.’

She gazed at him impassively. Then she looked at her watch.

He could feel that they were running out of time. Out of time for what? he wondered.

She drank half her tea and began to put things back into her bag. ‘I should …’

‘Yes.’ He picked up his coffee.

‘You don’t have to rush off. You stay.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘no. I should go. I should probably …’ He tailed off with no clear idea about what exactly he should be doing.

Caroline zipped up her bag. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘The emails. I didn’t ask. What happened about the emails? Have you managed …?’

‘No,’ he said, piling sugar wrappers into his empty coffee cup. ‘I’ve left the laptop with the computer-crimes unit. They’re going to give me a ring at some point.’ He shrugged. ‘Don’t suppose they’ll find anything though.’

‘So strange,’ she said, ‘so incredibly strange. All that personal stuff. All that stuff that someone would only know if they were …
family
.’ She shook her head as though trying to dislodge a drop of water. ‘Weird.’

‘Horrible,’ he said.

‘Yes. Completely. Anyway. I’ll give you a ring later, OK, see if you’ve heard anything. Update you on Mr Sitting-on-a-bench. We can have a proper chat then.’

‘Yes, thank you. That would be great.’ He smiled and let her go, his own hand on the back of his chair, readying himself to leave. ‘Oh,’ he said, a small concern from earlier leaping to the front of his mind, ‘your appointment, the one you were at this morning? Everything OK?’

She looked at him with surprise, one hand grasping the strap of her handbag, the other in the pocket of her jacket. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it is actually. Everything is OK.’ And then she smiled, a rare, beautiful thing, put her hand up to him as a farewell gesture, turned and left.

‘Where’s, er …’ Luke stopped. ‘Adrian?’

He hadn’t seen his dad since breakfast. Adrian had been working from home this morning because of that appointment at the police station. Freya on reception said that he’d come in at about 11.30 a.m. and then gone straight out again.

The woman who worked outside Adrian’s office talked to Luke without looking at him as she hurriedly pulled together various pieces of paperwork. ‘No idea,’ she said. ‘He told me he was popping out for an hour, but as far as I’m aware he didn’t come back. Have you tried calling him?’

Luke shook his head and said thank you. It was strange being here without his dad. Made him wonder why he was here at all. He walked across the open-plan area in the centre of the office and through the doors to the stairs that took him to the ground floor where the archives were. He took his phone from the pocket of his jacket hanging off the back of his chair and called his dad.

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m at home.’

‘How come?’

He heard his father sigh heavily. ‘Caroline called. Otis went missing.’

‘What!’

‘Yes, I know. It’s all fine now. She found him; he’s gone into school. Everything’s cool.’

‘God, where was he? What was he doing?’

‘Sitting on a bench, apparently, outside Angel. Thinking.’

‘I told you!’ said Luke. ‘Didn’t I tell you? That boy’s not right. Seriously, Dad, I knew something like this was going to happen. I tried to tell you.’

‘Nothing’s happened.’

‘No. Not yet. But it could have. Who knows what’s going on with him? It could be drugs for all we know.’

Adrian pooh-poohed his theory and Luke groaned. ‘You’re doing it again, Dad. You’re assuming just because you live in the
best of all possible worlds
that bad things don’t happen to people you love. But Dad, Maya,
your wife
, she was hounded to her death by somebody. She jumped under a bus because someone was hurting her. These things
do
happen. You should be talking to Otis, following him, searching his browsing history. Not just sending him back to school and saying la la la, everything’s fine.’

He heard Adrian exhale. ‘Yes, yes, you’re right. Of course you are. But he’s not going to open up to me. He thinks I’m a moron.’ He paused. ‘Maybe you could try talking to him?’

Luke sat down, feeling struck by an unexpected wave of warmth. ‘I can try.’

‘He’s sleeping over later this week,’ said Adrian. ‘I could work late? You could collect him from school?’

‘School?’ Luke felt vaguely horrified by the idea.

‘Yeah. He’d like that. Showing off his big brother.’

‘But I’ll be at work.’

Adrian laughed. ‘I’ll talk to the boss about letting you leave early.’

‘Right,’ said Luke, warming to the idea now that he knew it involved an afternoon off work. ‘Yeah. OK. I can do that. Maybe take him somewhere. Where do you normally take him?’

‘He likes the Italian round the corner. You know, the greasy spoon one. He likes their carbonara.’

‘Great. Carbonara. Yeah. OK. I can do that, but …’

‘I’ll give you cash.’

‘Right,’ said Luke. ‘Thank you.’

He hung up feeling strangely substantial.

There was a beautiful blonde sitting on the wall outside his father’s office when Luke left work at five o’clock. He could see one-quarter of her in profile and was struck by the strong line of her jaw, the kick of her peroxide hair across her cheek, nice legs, the soft print of a summer dress, pink ballet pumps and a tan satchel. He peered curiously at her, wondering if he’d inadvertently placed an order at
myperfectwoman.com
during his lunch hour. Then she turned to face him and his heart fell. Instinctively he spun round and attempted to exit the building invisibly and in the wrong direction. But it was too late. She’d seen him.

‘Luke!’

‘Charlotte!’ He tried to sound and look surprised. ‘Wow!’ He kissed her on each cheek. ‘Wow, what are you doing here?’

‘I was in town for the day,’ she said, ‘thought I’d come and see how you were doing.’

Luke tried for a smile. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘cool. You look great.’ He gestured at her pretty dress, her suntan, her glowing skin, her amazing breasts. ‘Really great.’ He stopped, looked at his father’s office and then back at Charlotte. ‘How did you know where …?’

She beamed. ‘Google.’

Luke felt something lurch uncomfortably within him. Hadn’t he got rid of this girl? Wasn’t she consigned to ‘my romantic history’? To the short but high-quality list of women he would one day remember having slept with before he met the woman of his dreams and settled into monogamy?

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘right.’

‘So,’ said Charlotte, pulling at the strap of her satchel, ‘lovely day. Do you fancy a pint? Just a quick one. Before I catch my train?’

Luke relaxed. A train home. Good. That sounded nice and finite.
Goodbye, Charlotte! Jolly nice to see you! Have a safe trip!
And it was a beautiful afternoon, the sort of rare London summer’s afternoon when it felt almost criminal not to stand outside a pub with a pint in your hand.

‘Yeah,’ he said, casually, not wanting to sow any seeds of hope, ‘why not?’

They walked around the corner to a pub on Cowcross Street with a courtyard set back from the street. It was heaving with the solid backs of men in crumpled shirts, and the gentle roar of coiled male tension released by beer boomed across the courtyard. He put a protective hand on Charlotte’s back as they passed through the knot of men towards the doors and then snatched it back as he felt her body respond to his touch, her back arching slightly, turning her neck to smile feelingly at him.
No
, he thought,
absolutely not
.

‘So,’ he said, once they’d found somewhere to balance their drinks. ‘What brings you to London?’

‘Nothing really. A couple of appointments, shopping for bridesmaid dresses …’

‘Oh!’ Luke brightened, imagining that Charlotte was about to share a happy, I’m-totally-over-you announcement. ‘So, you’re …?’

‘No!’ She laughed. ‘Not me! My cousin Nicky – remember her, with the black hair? Really pretty?’

Luke shook his head. Charlotte had a large family, he remembered that much, an unfeasibly large family whom she talked about all the time, expecting him to remember not only names and relationships, but also physical nuances and personality traits.

‘Well, anyway, she’s getting married in August and always-a-bridesmaid muggins here is going to be chief bridesmaid, which makes me feel about a hundred years old, and she keeps showing me all these
elegant column
dresses in, like,
oyster satin
. And I am not built for satin column dresses; I mean, you need to basically be a stick for that to work. And I am not a stick. I have bumps. And you know, when you get to my age, you know what suits you, don’t you? So I thought before she goes out and spends all her money on something that’ll basically make me look like, like … fruit in a condom, I’d better find something
I
like and try and talk her into it.’