The Third Wife (21 page)

‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said, hooking her bag over the back of her chair and sitting down elegantly. ‘Cat was running late.’

Adrian knew this was a lie. Cat was never late.

‘You need a haircut,’ she said, resting her smartphone on the tabletop and pulling her reading glasses out of a Liberty-print pouch.

‘Yes. I know.’ He passed a hand down the length of it at the back. He hadn’t had a cut since the end of March. It was almost long enough to tie back.

‘It’s something I’m starting to come to terms with. The older you get, the neater your hair needs to be. Bedhead only looks sexy when you’re under forty. After that it just makes you look deranged.’ She picked up the menu and opened it. ‘Take Susie for example,’ she finished, looking at Adrian over the top of her reading glasses.

‘Oh, bless Susie,’ said Adrian, who knew that Caroline bore Susie no ill will.

‘I know. God bless her soul. She really doesn’t care. I wish I had her confidence.’ She moved her gaze back to the menu and said, ‘Have they given you the specials yet?’

‘No,’ said Adrian, ‘but I heard them talking them through to the table behind. Something to do with sea bass. A primavera risotto. And a rib-eye. I seem to recall they do a great rib-eye here.’

They’d come here a lot when they were married. It was their easy local.

Caroline closed her menu and removed her glasses. ‘Rib-eye then, yes, I could do with the iron. Been feeling a bit dizzy lately.’

‘That’ll be all the sex,’ said Adrian, before he had a chance to censor himself.

Caroline rolled her eyes but didn’t rise to it.

They placed their order and Adrian noted Caroline’s reticence to order a bottle of wine. Whether this was related to her efforts to get pregnant or merely because she had no interest in having a fun night with her ex-husband he did not know. Instead they ordered a glass of wine each and a bottle of water.

‘So,’ said Caroline, ‘to what do I owe the honour?’

Adrian smiled. He wasn’t going to go to the crux just yet. Caroline had been known to walk out of restaurants if the turn of events displeased her and he wanted at least to have first had a nice meal if that were to be the case.

He shrugged. ‘Nothing special. Just a catch-up really. About Otis. About the kids generally. Luke gave me the impression that there were some issues?’

‘Issues?’ Her expression grew defensive, clearly anticipating a strike on her parenting skills.

‘According to Luke, Pearl is lonely and weird and Cat is stressed and overeating.’

Caroline tipped her head back and laughed. ‘What a load of crap,’ she said.

‘Yeah. I thought as much. I assumed it was just Luke hamming it up to make me feel shitty. But after the Otis thing, I thought I should check in on it.’

‘I promise you,’ said Caroline, pushing up the sleeves of her blouse, ‘everyone is doing incredibly well. Given the circumstances.’

He looked at her quizzically. ‘Circumstances?’

‘Yes, you know. Us splitting up. Maya dying. They’ve had a lot to process the last few years. And Otis, you know, he’s twelve. It’s a tricky age. But I do think, everything taken into consideration, they’re all doing brilliantly.’

Adrian nodded, only partially reassured. ‘Although,’ he said, ‘Cat has been piling on the weight.’

‘Well, yes. That is true. But she spends a lot of time with the kids now and it’s hard when you’ve got a big appetite like Cat, hard to resist the chips and the leftovers. She’ll work it out. She’ll work out that she doesn’t want to be fat and then she’ll work out how not to be fat. She’s so young. She’s still got such a lot to learn.’

‘And Otis? Is he any more forthcoming? Any more ideas yet about what he was doing outside the Tube station that time?’

‘No.’ Caroline sighed heavily. ‘No. Still none the wiser. I’m putting it down as an aberration. He’s been quite clingy actually, since it happened, quite needy. Spending much more time downstairs, keeps asking me if I love him and how much I love him and will I always love him. Like, you know: if I hurt someone, would you still love me? If I did something really bad, would you still love me? And he’s started asking for bedtime stories.’ She shrugged. ‘A tiny bit of regression. But nothing to worry about. It happens sometimes.’

‘And Paul,’ said Adrian, trying to make the name sound normal on his tongue, ‘are they all OK about him?’

Caroline glared at him. ‘Paul’, she said, ‘has no impact on their lives. I am very sure of that. He is just a friend as far as they are concerned and they barely see him.’

Adrian bit his lip. It was still too early to launch into the main event. But she had, with that last wholly inaccurate comment, given him a perfect launching point.

‘I promise you,’ she said, ‘I would not do anything to threaten the children’s stability right now. They’ve had enough to deal with. They deserve a nice quiet life.’

‘Where does he live, Paul?’

‘Highbury.’

‘On his own?’

‘Yes, on his own.’

‘What is it, a flat or a house?’

‘It’s a maisonette, two floors, a garden.’

Adrian nodded again.

‘What?’ said Caroline.

‘Nothing,’ said Adrian. ‘I’m just curious. Do you think … do you feel like it might be a long-term thing? With Paul?’

Caroline tugged at the sleeves of her blouse again. ‘Christ,’ she said, ‘I have no idea. I hope so.’

Adrian laughed drily. ‘Well,’ he said, trying to keep the disdain from his voice, ‘you do appear to have changed your tune. What happened to “smelly men” and “snoring”?’

She raised an eyebrow at him and said, ‘Paul is not smelly and he does not snore.’

‘Bollocks,’ said Adrian. ‘All men snore.’

‘I promise you,’ said Caroline, ‘that Paul does not.’

Adrian felt his resolve begin to break down, the weight of his anger and jealousy pushing at the doors of his self-control. He was peaking too early but he could not help himself.

‘So if you’re hoping it might be long-term, where do the kids fit into this?’

Caroline flared her nostrils. ‘Sorry?’

‘I mean, are you planning on moving in with each other? Getting married?’

‘God, Ade, I really don’t know. We’ve only been seeing each other for a few months. He’s young. Well,
younger
. We haven’t really talked about it.’

Adrian felt a fire of indignation starting to build beneath him. He saw the waiter approaching with two large steaks. He dampened himself down.

‘Oh, wow,’ said Caroline, appraising the plate in front of her, ‘look at that. Amazing.’

Adrian asked for mustard. Caroline asked for another glass of wine. They chatted genially about mutual friends, about Caroline’s upcoming holiday in France, about the Olympics, about the weather. As Caroline talked, Adrian watched her. She was such a cool customer, formidably so.

He’d met her when he was working on a rebuild of a shopping centre on the King’s Road. She was in the window of the clothes shop opposite putting in the Christmas display and he’d been on site with the landlord talking through some alterations to the plans. He and the client were meant to be talking face-to-face but in reality he was talking to the view over his client’s shoulder, watching the statuesque blonde single-handedly drag a five-by-five-foot square of chipboard into the display, climb a ladder to hang a weighty mirrorball and assemble a mannequin in ten easy movements. He had been mesmerised by her, by her strength and agility, the elegance of her movements, the lack of vanity.

The client had turned eventually, aware that he was not the prime focus of his architect’s attention and said, simply and with conviction: ‘Goddess.’

Ultimately, of course, it transpired that Caroline was not a goddess. She was simply a rather impressively designed human being with all manner of annoying habits and foibles. She was emotionally stunted, forgetful, tardy, hard to impress, impossible to beguile; she had no time for losers or stragglers; she was impatient and demanding and she talked in her sleep.

The waiter removed their plates and they both agreed to look at the pudding menu although Adrian already knew that Caroline would read it in great detail, mmming and yumming and then put down the menu and say, ‘Actually, I’m not sure I can manage a pudding.’ Adrian ordered a plate of fresh fruit and an affogato.

‘So,’ he said, ‘Paul …’

Caroline groaned and rolled her eyes.

‘Does he want children?’

‘I have no idea,’ she snapped.

‘Well, he’s thirty-eight.’

‘Thirty-nine. It was his birthday yesterday.’

‘Oh, well, happy birthday to him. So even more
of an age
then. Nearly forty. He must want a family of his own.’

‘Yes. I’m sure he does. Probably.’

‘So? How is that going to work?’

‘Oh God, Adrian. Will you stop this? Seriously. Paul is just my boyfriend, OK? We like each other. We enjoy each other. End of story.’

Adrian tried not to take too much pleasure from his next statement, the pleasure wasn’t his to take, but he couldn’t help but feel a tiny thrill of satisfaction when he said, ‘Is it? Is it the end of the story? Caroline, I saw the stuff in your bathroom cabinet. I saw the ovulation sticks.’

‘What! What were you doing snooping around in my bathroom cabinet?’

‘I wasn’t snooping around, I was looking for moisturiser.’

‘Moisturiser?’

‘Yes. I was waiting for Beau to finish going to the toilet and looked in the mirror and I looked old and dried out so I thought I’d use one of your amazing cream things. I figured they seem to work for you …’ He added a twinkle to his smile to soften her defences. ‘And I saw all the
stuff
, you know, the folic acid and that herbal stuff you took when we were trying.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Caroline tutted and folded her arms. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Just … nothing.’

‘What kind of nothing?’ He could sense an opening here.

‘Urgh, God. It’s just … Paul wants a baby. There. OK. He hasn’t said he wants a baby with me, but he’s always banging on about this friend’s baby and that friend’s baby and he thinks I’m …’

Adrian watched her dispassionately, not wanting to say or do anything to make her stop talking.

‘He thinks I’m forty. So.’ She sighed. ‘He probably thinks I could still get pregnant. Anyway …’ She broke off to call over a waiter and ordered herself a large brandy. Adrian followed suit. ‘My friend at work just met this guy, she’s forty-two, never had any kids and she went to Harley Street for one of those tests, to see how fertile you are, to see if they were going to be able to get pregnant. So
just for fun
– I didn’t even tell Paul I was doing it – I went with her and got myself tested. That’s what I was doing that morning, when Otis bunked off school. And it turns out I have the fertility of a thirty-five-year-old. According to my test results I should still be able to conceive without assistance.’ Caroline glowed proudly at her announcement.

‘Wow,’ said Adrian. ‘And what did Paul say?’

‘I haven’t told him,’ she said. ‘I’ve just been mulling it over. And then I was in Boots and I thought, you know, good to have it all there. Just in case. And of course once you get the idea of a baby into your head, it’s almost impossible to get it out again. I’m already thinking about names. I’m already working out how to reconfigure the bedrooms. You know. It’s nuts, Ade. It’s absolutely nuts.’

‘Have you stopped using contraception yet?’

She threw him a brief, defensive glance, then swirled her brandy violently round the bottom of the glass.

‘Jesus, Caroline.’

‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’ve been on the pill for decades. You know how long it took my body to adjust every time I went off it when we were trying to conceive. I figure …’

‘Caroline. Caroline.’ He shook his head, appalled.

‘Oh, come on, Ade, I’m forty-four. Really. How likely is it?’

‘Well, the test you had done seems to think it’s very likely.’

‘It took us thirteen months to conceive Beau. And I was only thirty-eight.’

‘Caroline! You know that’s irrelevant. Totally irrelevant.’

She exhaled and leaned her head down, resting her forehead against the rim of her brandy glass. ‘You’re right,’ she whispered, slowly bringing her head back upright. ‘You are right.’

‘If you want another baby, Caroline, at least tell the man.’

‘No, but that’s the thing. I don’t think I do want another baby. Not really. I
don’t
want to be standing in the reception playground, fifty years old, everyone thinking I’m a glamorous granny. I don’t want to do night feeds and buy another buggy and sing “The Wheels on the Bus” and all that. I just want … Oh, I don’t know, I want a baby that doesn’t change anything. You know. A baby that comes along and makes everyone really happy without anything having to change.’

‘If you don’t mind me saying, it doesn’t really sound like you’ve thought this through.’

‘No. I haven’t. I’m just acting on pure animal instinct and every time I try to engage my intellect, the whole thing falls apart into an indecipherable mess and my head feels like it’s going to explode. I mean, Adrian, you’ve done this. And you were going to do it again, with Maya. How did you reconcile yourself with it?’

‘With what exactly?’

‘With … with making all this mess.’

The words sat suspended between them, frozen and harsh.

‘I never thought of it as a mess,’ he said. ‘Children aren’t a mess.’

‘No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just, you know, it was just me and my mum growing up and I’d look at what other people had: two parents, two children, this neat square. And that’s still, in spite of everything, my intrinsic definition of family. I still feel like I’ve broken some fundamental law of nature by making a family with a man who already had a family. I’m not sure I could do something like that again. Add another spoke to the wheel. Another line to the grid. You know? How do you do it, Adrian? How do you make yourself feel OK about it?’

Adrian stared at her. It had never occurred to him that he needed to feel OK about anything. It had never occurred to him that he had made any decisions he needed to reconcile himself with. Life had brought him to these women. Fate had delivered him these children. Love was the name of the game. You woke up, you ate, you worked, you loved, you slept. And if one day it turned out that you were loving the wrong person then you rectified that by loving somebody else. He had no Catholic guilt. His wives still liked him. His children all loved him. What on earth was there to feel bad about?