The Third Wife (3 page)

The cat sprang to its feet and leaped from the sofa at the sound of his raised voice. He stared at his wrist, at the tiny pinprick in his skin, darkly black-red, but not bleeding. He continued to stare at it, willing it to bleed, willing it to yield something human and hot and bright. But it didn’t.

It was Saturday night. Again. The forty-seventh Saturday night since Maya had died.

They didn’t get any easier.

Adrian wondered idly what his family was doing. He pictured them lined up in front of the television watching whatever show was currently the big Saturday night thing. What was it the kids had made him watch last weekend when they were here? Something with Ant and Dec in it. He could barely remember. He was just grateful it wasn’t one of those gruesome talent shows with people crying all over the place.

As the shadows grew long upon the pavement outside and a light shower of rain started to patter against the windowpanes, Adrian poured himself a glass of wine and pulled the laptop towards himself.

He had not realised until Maya had died and left him on his own for the first time since he was nineteen years old that he had no friends. He’d had friends in the past, but they’d come as part of the package of his two former marriages. The friends he’d had in Sussex with Susie had stayed in Sussex with Susie. The friends he’d had with Caroline had taken her side entirely in the aftermath of his affair with Maya. Or rather, the sides of their wives. And he and Maya hadn’t made any friends because they’d been too busy keeping everybody happy.

Some odd-bods had popped up after Maya died, people he’d never expected to hear from again: the slightly sinister deputy head of the girls’ school that Maya had taught at with whom he’d once had a long and very strained conversation at a fundraising evening; the ex-husband of a friend of Caroline’s whose nasal voice he and Caroline had taken great joy in impersonating behind his back; the rather bellicose father of Pearl’s friend whom Adrian had only ever met in ninety-second bursts on their respective doorsteps when delivering and collecting children. They’d forced him into pubs and even on occasion into nightclubs. They’d poured alcohol into him until he looked as though he was having a good time and then they’d tried to get unsuitable women to talk to him. ‘This is my friend, Adrian. He’s just lost his wife.’

There’d also been a swarm of women in the wake of Maya’s death. Mainly mothers of school friends, the very same women who’d looked at him in such disgust when they heard that he’d left Caroline, now circling him with wide, caring eyes, bringing him things to eat in Tupperware boxes, which he’d then have to wash up and return with words of gratitude.

He hadn’t wanted them then. He’d wanted to stay inside and cry and ask himself why why why.

Now, eleven months later, he still didn’t know why but he’d given up asking.

The girl called Jane came again the next day. This time her honey hair was down, blow-dried into loops that flipped off her collarbone, her fringe parted in the centre and hanging either side of her face, as though she was peering through stage curtains. In the moments before her arrival Adrian had done things that he did not wish to consider too deeply. He had taken Maya’s hand-mirror from a dark corner of his flat to a bright corner of his flat and he had examined his face in great and unedifying detail in the light from a west-facing window. Maya had been thirty when he met her and he’d been forty-four. He’d seen himself as a young forty-four. A full head of dark brown hair, bright hazel eyes, upturned smile lines, still the face in the mirror that he expected to see there.

Time and grief were cruel at any age, but particularly at this middle point of physical flux, when the face became like a flickering image in a pretentious video art installation, in and out of focus, young-old, young-old, young again. At some point in the moments after Maya’s death, the image had stopped flickering and there it was. Static. The face of someone older than he’d ever thought he’d be. He had not looked in mirrors very much these last few months, but now he wanted to know what he looked like. He wanted to see what Jane would see.

In minute detail, he saw that his jawline had begun to collapse; he saw folds and crenellations in the skin of his neck that put him in mind of the wild, tide-creased beaches of north Norfolk. He saw yellowish pillows of flesh beneath his eyes; he saw that his skin was dry, his hazel eyes were faded and his hair had achromatised, from rich dark brown to something like the colour of a wet pavement.

Once this process was complete he’d got into the shower and done things to his face with the contents of tubes and bottles left there by Maya. He had washed his hair twice, until it squeaked clean beneath his fingertips. And then for possibly the first time in his life he put conditioner on it. He did not ask himself why. He just did it. Then he ironed himself a shirt. A green shirt that Maya had once said brought out the hazel of his eyes. And he used Maya’s hairdryer on his hair, running his fingers through it, teasing it into something sleek and fragrant.

He cursed himself silently as he watched the clock turn from 11.22 to 11.23, seven minutes before her appointed arrival.
You fool
, he muttered under his breath.
You total and utter ballsack
. He filled the kettle and he pushed things around the kitchen counter to make it look more welcoming.
Forty-eight
, he muttered to himself. You’re
forty
-eight.
You’re a widower
.
You’re a tosser
.

And then there she was, curiously ageless, at his front door, with her mismatched eyes and her disingenuous fringe, smelling of jasmine and clean clothes. Her neat little bag was clutched at stomach level with both hands and she was wearing a soft grey coat, fastened with one single oversized button.

‘Come in. Come in.’

‘I’m really sorry,’ she said, striding confidently into the hallway. ‘I know you must think I’m mad.’

‘What? No!’

‘Of course you do. It’s like I’m
dating
your cat. You know,
courting
her. Next thing I’ll be asking if I can take her out to dinner.’

Adrian looked at Jane and then laughed. ‘Be my guest,’ he said. ‘She has impeccable manners. And doesn’t eat much.’

Jane headed towards the cat, which was in its usual spot on the back of the sofa by the front window. The cat turned at her approach and offered itself to her with a smiling face. ‘Hello,’ said Jane, cupping the cat’s face inside her hand and appraising it affectionately. ‘You sweet girl.’

‘Can I get you a tea?’ asked Adrian. ‘A coffee? Water?’

‘I’d love a coffee,’ she said. ‘Bit of a night last night.’

Adrian nodded. She did not look as though she’d had a
bit of a night
last night. She did not, in fact, look like she’d ever had a
bit of a night
in her life. ‘Black?’

She smiled. ‘Black.’

When Adrian returned with the coffee he found Jane sitting on the sofa with the cat on her lap and a framed photograph of the little ones in her hand.

‘These children are stunning,’ she said, turning the photo to face him. ‘Are they all yours?’

He glanced at the photo. It was Otis, Pearl and Beau, in sou’westers and galoshes, knee deep in a creek somewhere in the West Country. Behind them the sky was gun-metal grey, below them the water was steel and their brightly coloured clothes burst through the dreary background almost as though the children had been cut out and glued on. Beau had his arm around Pearl’s waist and Pearl had her head in the crook of Otis’s shoulder. It was a happy photograph; all three children were smiling evenly and naturally with open eyes and relaxed mouths. Maya had taken it. The children had always smiled for Maya.

Adrian handed Jane her coffee and she put it on the tabletop. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They are all mine.’

‘What are their names?’

He glanced at her. He’d flossed his teeth for this woman – he could hardly be surprised if she wanted to ask him personal questions.

‘Well,’ he said, running his finger across the photograph. ‘That’s Otis, he’s twelve; that’s Pearl, she’s …’

‘Nearly ten.’

He looked at her from the corner of his eye. She looked back at him playfully.

‘Yes. She’s nearly ten. And this little munchkin is Beau. He just turned five.’

‘Adorable,’ she said, putting the photo carefully back on the table and picking up her coffee cup. ‘And they don’t live with you?’

‘You’re very inquisitive,’ he said, sitting himself down on the armchair opposite her.

‘I’m nosy,’ she said. ‘You can say it. I don’t mind.’

‘OK then. You’re nosy.’

She laughed. ‘Sorry, I just find other people’s lives fascinating. Always have done.’

He smiled. ‘That’s OK. I’m the same.’ He inhaled and ran his hand down his freshly shaved jaw. ‘No,’ he said. ‘They don’t live with me. They live with their mum. In a five-storey Georgian townhouse in Islington.’

‘Wow.’ Jane ran her eyes around the cramped living room, a silent acknowledgement of the fact that Adrian’s ex-wife had pulled the long straw.

‘It’s fine,’ he said quickly. He would hate for anyone to feel sorry for him, not for even a moment. ‘It’s good. There’s room for them all to squeeze in here every other weekend. Beau shares with me, Pearl and Otis in the spare room. It’s good.’

‘So, you and your late wife, you didn’t have any children?’

‘No.’ Adrian shook his head. ‘Sadly not. Although, Jesus, I’m not sure what I’d have done if we had had a baby. I mean … I’d have had to give up work. And the whole precarious edifice would have come crashing down.’

‘The big house in Islington …’

‘Yes. And the cottage in Hove.’

She raised an eyebrow at him questioningly.

‘Ex-wife number one,’ he replied. ‘Susie. Mother of my two eldest children. Here …’ He got to his feet and picked up another framed photograph. He passed it to her. ‘Cat and Luke. My big ones.’

She stared at the photograph with wide eyes. ‘You make very special children,’ she said. ‘How old are these two?’

‘Cat will be twenty in May. Luke is twenty-three.’

‘Grown-ups now?’

‘Yes. Grown-ups now. Although sometimes it doesn’t feel like it.’

‘And do they live in Hove? With their mum?’

‘Luke does. Cat’s in London now. Living with Caroline.’

‘Caroline?’

‘Yes. Caroline. Wife number two.’

Jane looked towards the door into the hall. ‘I totally understand that thing now,’ she said. ‘The whiteboard.’

‘Yes. The Board of Harmony. Thank God for it. Thank God for Maya.’ He blew out his breath audibly, to hold back a sudden wave of tearfulness.

Jane looked at him compassionately. ‘So, if you don’t mind me asking, how did Maya die?’

‘Well, technically, she died of a blow to the head and massive internal bleeding after being knocked down by a night bus on Charing Cross Road at three thirty in the morning. But, officially, we have no idea how she ended up being knocked down by a night bus on Charing Cross Road at three thirty in the morning.’ He shrugged.

‘So it wasn’t suicide?’

‘Well. The verdict was accidental death, but people like Maya, sensible, moderate people, don’t tend to
accidentally
get so drunk they can’t stand up and then fall in front of a bus on Charing Cross Road at three thirty in the morning. So …’

‘A big question mark.’

‘Yes. A very big question mark.’

‘God, I bet you wish you knew.’

Adrian exhaled. ‘I sure do. It’s hard to move on, without answers.’

‘Do you have a theory?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing. It was completely out of the blue. We’d just got back from Suffolk, from a family holiday. We’d had a lovely time. She’d spent the day with my children.’ He paused, pulling himself back from the dark place he always went to when considering the last inexplicable hours of Maya’s life. ‘We were happy. We were trying for a baby. Everything was perfect.’

‘Was it?’

He glanced at her curiously. It sounded like an accusation. ‘Yes,’ he said, almost harshly. ‘It really, really was.’

Jane let her hand fall slowly from her collarbone and on to her lap. ‘So young,’ she whispered.

‘So young,’ he echoed.

‘Tragic.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Awful.’

‘Yeah.’

And there it was, like a cold draught, right on cue. The Awkward Silence. Maya’s death was a conversational cul-de-sac. It didn’t matter whom he was talking to, eventually there would come the moment when there was Nothing Left to Say. But it was Unseemly to Change the Subject. It happened much sooner with strangers.

‘Right,’ she said brusquely, springing to her feet. ‘I’d better get on.’

‘Oh,’ he said, taken aback. ‘Right. And what about Billie? Are you feeling more of a connection today?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I am, actually. But I’m not going to take her. I’m going to leave her. With you. I think you need her.’

He looked at her. And then at the cat. And he knew she was right. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Yes. You’re right. I do.’

She smiled knowingly at him. ‘Good,’ she said.

‘I don’t know what I was thinking, really. I think I thought it was a positive thing. Moving on. You know.’

‘Ah,’ she said, picking up her handbag. ‘Moving on is something that happens to you, not something you do. That’s what people don’t realise. Moving on is not proactive. It’s organic.’ She got to her feet. ‘Be kind to yourself.’ She smoothed down the skirt of her knitted dress, shook her blond hair over her shoulders and collected her coat from the arm of the sofa.

Adrian stared at her.
Moving on is not proactive
. Why had no one ever said that to him before? Why did everyone keep telling him what he should do to make himself feel better?
Get away for a while. Join a dating site. Have some therapy. Move house. Throw things away
.

And he didn’t want to do any of those things. He did not want to move on. He wanted to stay exactly where he was. Subsumed and weighted down by the sheer hell of grief. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Yes. Thank you. I will.’

She glanced again at the Board of Harmony as he saw her off at the door. ‘What did you get her?’ she asked.