The Subsequent Wife

by Priscilla Masters

  ‘Enough,’ I said defiantly. ‘Enough. I’m marrying Steven. Not his family.’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘You haven’t even met them, have you?’

  ‘Not yet. But I will, I’m sure. In time.

  I felt all my friends were against my good luck. I could only think of one mate who would definitely be glad for me. Who would see that I had lifted myself out of debt and poverty, walked away from living rough on the street, healed the scars of my parents’ horrible divorce and ‘made good’. I looked everywhere for Minnie Ha-Ha, on the streets of Hanley, around the bus station. I searched doorways, asked other homeless people if they’d seen her. I walked the park and even explored the cave where I’d hidden with her, but I couldn’t find her.

  Trouble was I didn’t know her real name. I assumed it was something like Minnie, the Ha-Ha added by me because she was always laughing. And what did she have to laugh about? I went to Stoke, which still had a bit of a town centre, not one of these nasty ‘malls’ and I found a person. Just one person who said she knew her. A young girl with a ring through her nose and sad, sad eyes. ‘I think she got a place in one of the hostels. Ask at the soup kitchen. They do breakfasts at seven from the shelter. Someone there will know her.’

  I thanked her, gave her two quid and a packet of fags. (Steven hated the smell.)

  THIRTY

  I didn’t have time that day as we were meeting Stella and Sonny later on that evening after work. We’d arranged to hook up at the Indian opposite the bus station. We arrived early and were lucky to find a parking place in front and stuck four quid in the meter. Daylight robbery but cheaper than a parking fine – or having the car towed away. We sat in the window at a table for four and looked out on a roundabout with cars circling at dizzying speed, a few lumbering buses and pedestrians, heads down, hurrying somewhere or other, like figures from a Lowry painting but missing the dog. I saw a blue Fiesta pull in and dart off again when the driver realized all the spaces were filled. We must have taken the last one and Stella and Sonny had had to hoof it from the multistorey, which wouldn’t improve their mood. They were both lazy. A minute or two later I spotted them approaching. Right from the start I could tell the evening was not going to be a success. Steven’s eyes followed the direction of mine. Stella and Sonny looked tense and they were rowing as they walked, heads jerking towards one another, fingers jabbing, their faces taut and angry, their speed too fast. Couples rowing instead of walking hand in hand, smiling at the thought of a very good Indian meal, is a dampener on any evening. Trouble in the land of love?

  I could see the tension in Stella’s face as they walked in. And the anger in Sonny’s. He didn’t want to be here.

  Steven’s greeting to them was stilted, almost designed to make them ill at ease. He was at his formal, polite best, actually shaking hands with Sonny and simply nodding and smiling at Stella. We all sat down. And Stella did nothing but grill him. I could have killed her. Eyes wide open, as though trying to pretend it was all just normal, innocent conversation, when I knew she was doing a thorough check-up. So what was that going to achieve? She was going to stop the wedding if she didn’t approve? Sure.

  ‘So how long were you married for?’

  ‘Where was your wife from?’

  ‘What was her name?’

  Even, ‘You must have felt terrible when she was diagnosed.’

  And, ‘I bet you were grief-struck when she died.’

  Steven responded to the grilling in a steady voice, his face fixed in a neutral smile while I sulked and fiddled with my engagement ring. But even that didn’t make me feel better. Stella gave one look at it before saying to Steven with another innocent look. ‘Was it your wife’s?’

  I am about to become his wife, I thought, resentful.

  ‘Yes,’ Steven said without embarrassment or apology, as his hand reached out for mine. I treated him to a light kiss on the cheek and an eye-to-eye smile. I felt like winking at him. It’s true that a common foe is very bonding.

  Stella gave me a supercilious look right down her nose while Sonny focused on crunching his poppadom, which was about to snap into a thousand pieces and spray us all with mango chutney.

  Then Stella changed tack. She turned a full smile on Steven. ‘You’re nothing like Jenny’s previous boyfriends.’

  Who were all wankers.

  And Steven knew that. I’d confessed to him the stories of my previous boyfriends. In fact, we’d laughed over them. He bypassed the bait neatly and stopped her dead with, ‘I understand Jenny’s previous boyfriends weren’t exactly George Clooney.’ He gave her one of his glittery glances which I could interpret. He didn’t like her. And then, cleverly, he pre-empted any further onslaughts. ‘And of course I am a bit older. So I’ve settled down, sown my wild oats. I know when I have found someone of value.’ I could tell from his bland expression that he just knew he was going to win this one.

  His composure flustered Stella. ‘Well, yes, but—’

  ‘Lots of successful marriages have an age disparity.’ He put his arm around me. ‘We’re right for each other. We both know that.’

  I gave him a soppy look back.

  She didn’t like that. Stella had to fight – and win. As she stared at him I could see her brain working out how to achieve superiority. And she did it by returning to … ‘Was there an age difference between you and your first wife?’ Such an innocent question. Not.

  ‘No,’ he said bluntly. ‘Margaret and I were almost exactly the same age.’

  Something else I’d learned about the lady with the Mona Lisa eyes.

  I changed the subject. ‘So when are you—’

  She patted her fattening stomach. More fat than baby, I thought, spitefully.

  ‘Late March.’

  Sonny looked down at his plate. He hadn’t wanted another one, I realized.

  We finished the meal, paid the bill and left.

  Halfway home, he said, ‘You did say she was your friend.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It’s just that … she seemed to want to trip me up. Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe a sort of jealousy? I mean, she and Sonny don’t seem exactly ecstatic together, do they?’

  ‘I hope, Jennifer. I hope …’

  ‘We won’t end up like that.’

  ‘Well, only a few more days.’

  He kissed me, dropped me off and didn’t wait to see me into the house.

  I hold that night in my mind, boxed into the treasured-memories box, because that night Steven was at his most normal.

  Jodi and Jason were arguing like crazy downstairs. I could hear venom in both their voices as I passed the sitting-room door. I crept up the stairs and lay on my bed, too many thoughts running through my brain to even think about going to sleep. Besides, when I closed my eyes I was confronted with a horrible vision. My second-hand wedding dress hung on the wardrobe door. My second-hand ring I placed on the table next to the bed. And I could hear my second-hand husband drive off into the night.

  I woke – well, I hadn’t really gone to sleep – early and left the house at six o’clock to catch the bus to the soup kitchen. I felt desperate to speak to someone who would laugh away my fears, someone optimistic who could banish these thoughts and restore my conviction that all would be well when we were married and I’d moved into Yr Arch, taken down the portrait and replaced it with a pretty picture. Maybe I would get pregnant. Steven had said he wanted children but time and/or circumstances hadn’t allowed it. I wanted my own family, though. I vowed I wouldn’t get as fat as Stella and we wouldn’t be such terrible parents as my own had been. And Steven’s family? It did seem odd that I had not met them; neither were they coming to the ceremony. But like any unwelcome thoughts, I pushed it away. I couldn’t afford them.

  The soup kitchen was held in a church hall at the top of Hanley, overlooking the rest of the city. Hanley, the city centre of Stoke-on-Trent, sits on the side of a hill, so whatever shops you want to visit you will have to climb. A
t its centre is The Potteries Shopping Centre, with its empty shops and the rest sparsely populated with shoppers. I left the bus and entered through the side door. The soup kitchen was contained in a spartan room that owed more to the 1950s than the 2000s. The tables were Formica, the chairs stackable plastic, the floor worn wooden parquet marked with the prints of the shuffling shoes of the hungry homeless. And the people? I looked at the queue waiting to be given their breakfast, bedraggled, heads down, moving like sad Lowry figures, in unison. Trudge, trudge. I breathed in the familiar scent of the poor: tobacco, stale clothes, unwashed bodies, dirty teeth. Once, I thought, I was one of them. Now I was about to soar. And then I saw her at the end of the queue. A little taller than the others, head up, proud of accepting the food. And in the same moment she spotted me.

  I’d crossed the room in less than a second and, stink or no stink, ignoring breath that smelt of tooth decay and old food, plus alcohol and stale cigarettes, I hugged her hard. Then she held me at arm’s length. ‘Jen,’ she said, ‘is it really you?’

  I nodded, recognizing how much I loved her, how much I owed this girl – this survivor, this woman who had taught me to survive, this splendid, generous being who invariably found something to laugh at. And look what life had done to her. Don’t ever tell me life is fair because it isn’t.

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s get out of here. Let’s go somewhere else. I’ll treat you to a proper cooked breakfast.’

  She looked a little dazed at that but I took her hand and together we left for the small café down the street where I noticed even the waitress looked down on her, recognizing her as one of the great unwashed. Well, she wouldn’t be if she had access to a bathroom, I thought, feeling like standing up for her.

  Minnie (No Ha-Ha today) slurped her coffee. ‘Fill me in, Jen,’ she said. ‘Tell me all that’s happened.’ She touched my hand and I noticed how ingrained the dirt was under her broken fingernails. ‘You look wonderful.’

  I told her about the nursing home and the old lady who … She burst out laughing. ‘Tell me again. So are you still working there?’

  I shook my head.

  I told her about living at Jodi’s, the awkwardness of house-sharing with a young couple. I told her about working at The Green Banana. And finally, as a climax, I told her about Steven and pulled out a photo I’d taken of him on my phone.

  She stared at it for a very long time, puzzling over something. Which I took to be his age. I felt inexplicably anxious.

  ‘He’s forty-something,’ I put in.

  She shook her head. ‘Not that.’

  ‘He works for the council.’

  She shook herself. ‘Doing what?’ Her voice was sharp.

  I shrugged. ‘Road Management.’

  She blinked, swallowed, took a huge bite out of her bacon butty. A little brown sauce trickled down towards her chin. She didn’t wipe it away, although the rivulet had left a trail where a tiny part of this great unwashed face had been stained even further.

  ‘He’s got a lovely house,’ I added, showing her the picture of—

  ‘Is it in Stanley?’ she asked quietly.

  I nodded. ‘How did you know that?’

  She looked up, eyes bright as buttons, and shook her head. She looked worried. I didn’t pursue it but ploughed ahead with my plan. ‘I wanted to ask if you’d be my bridesmaid,’ I said. At which point Minnie Ha-Ha lived up to her name.

  ‘Look,’ I said, feeling that something was very wrong here. ‘I have to go to work now. Can we meet again?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘Please,’ I said.

  She gave me a hard look. ‘And you are marrying him?’

  ‘Next Saturday,’ I said.

  She began to rock then, backwards and forwards in her seat. It was a habit she had when she was troubled.

  ‘What is it?’

  She shook her head, looked away. Drained her coffee cup. ‘Jen,’ she said. ‘Are you sure?’

  I didn’t know how to answer. The truth was I wasn’t. But is anyone sure about a lifelong commitment? Had my parents been? Had Jason and Jodi? Stella and Sonny? Maybe on the day they just convince themselves. Had Steven and Margaret?

  ‘Will you at least come?’ I asked.

  THIRTY-ONE

  And so the day dawned – not quite how I’d imagined it. But when can reality ever compare to our fantasies? No bridesmaids, my meringue getting mud-splattered as we stood on the pavement and cars raced by. Cold in spite of the velvet bolero. I stood alone in the rain watching my beautiful, dream wedding dress get stained. Remembered my mother’s carp: White shows up everything. Yeah, right, Mum. And why was I thinking about her, today of all days?

  Happy is the bride the sun shines on? Well, in that case I was doomed. The persistent drizzle felt a really bad omen. And I picked up that Steven, in a smart grey suit, looked nervous, almost afraid. He could hardly smile at me. Or did he think I was overdressed for a January wedding in the Hanley registry office?

  At least my dad and Malee were there, she embarrassingly in gold micro-skirt, looking about fourteen and clinging on to my dad who seemed to have aged even in the short time since I’d last seen him. As expected, there was no sign of the bride’s mother. Selfish bitch couldn’t even be bothered to send me a card, let alone cross the Channel to attend. And having no address for her other than ‘France’, which if I remember my Geography lessons, is a bloody huge country with lots of people in it, any invitation I’d sent her would have been unlikely to have found her. I hated my mum; even so, her absence made me feel even more alone.

  Stella and Sonny had met up with Scarlet and Andy and travelled in together. Stella was heavily pregnant now and had the girth to prove it. Andy and Sonny were talking football. Both Stoke City fans. I think they hardly noticed they were even at a wedding. But Ruby seemed really happy for me, chucking confetti all over the place and ignoring the notices outside. ‘Be happy, darling,’ she said, and landed a smacking, smoky kiss on Steven’s cheek which he barely tolerated. I hoped she hadn’t seen him wince. Serena had done my hair, helped me into the dress and driven me there. I was touched that she’d decorated her car with white ribbon. The Barbie-doll-pink Fiesta, festooned with white ribbon and silver helium balloons, made a gaudy sight. It looked like a little girl’s birthday cake. But at least I would be recognized as a bride.

  There was no sign of Minnie Ha-Ha, which was no surprise but disappointing all the same. She hadn’t said she’d come but neither had she said she wouldn’t.

  I’d packed up most of my stuff from Jodi and Jason’s the week before and moved it over to Yr Arch, leaving only a few things to collect after our honeymoon. It looked bare without my stuff and I spent a moment reflecting on my change in fortune.

  The wedding ceremony was over in the blink of an eye. And I was now Mrs Taverner, my sapphire ring joined by a gold wedding band.

  We had our wedding reception at The Grand in Hanley, which sounds posher than it is. In fact, we had a small room on the first floor, with a glorious view of The Potteries Shopping Centre. With the window slightly open, we could hear the furious honks of car horns and some wailing police sirens, but the food was good, a lovely Staffordshire beef roast with all the trimmings and apple pie and custard to follow. Throughout it Steven started to relax, sharing jokes and chat with Colin Ripley, his best man, who had brought Kara, his wife, also, coincidentally, pregnant, so she and Stella had plenty to chat about. Colin was somewhere in his forties, a pale, bald man with bowed shoulders and a shiny suit, like a clerk from a Dickens novel. As we greeted our guests, Steven grinned at me and clutched my hand, giving me a tender look which I returned, adding in a full-blown goofy grin. Colin made about the shortest best man’s speech I’ve ever heard, simply saying that Steven had had ‘his fair share of tragedy’ and they ‘enjoyed working together’. He managed to compliment me on my appearance which drew a sniff from his wife, Kara, who seemed a jealous, possessive sort. Then he sat down abruptly. Thank goodn
ess my dad didn’t even try to make a speech. He’d apologized the day before in a text message. ‘Sorry, Darl. Don’t expect me to make a speech. Not really my style.’

  There was no mention of money. His sole contribution to the festivities consisted of fumbling with a giggling Malee throughout the entire ceremony and reception.

  Steven’s speech was equally brief, simply saying he couldn’t believe his luck. To my relief there was no mention of Margaret. She was out of the picture for the day.

  At my insistence Steven said he had sent his parents an invite, but that they had rung him saying they hoped we’d be very happy but were unable to attend.

  I tried to find a reason that didn’t include dislike of me or resentment at their son’s remarriage. ‘Is it because they were so fond of Margaret?’

  He hadn’t seemed to know how to answer this, finally settling for, ‘They were fond of my wife.’

  Afterwards I realized his answers were all evasive, but at the time I was too upset at him calling her his wife. I was now his wife. She was his dead ex.

  I should have remembered the score for ex-wives in fiction isn’t great. Mad, cruel, damaging, a rival, unattainably beautiful. And that’s leaving out the supernatural hauntings. And the First Wives still living, bitter and angry, determined to have their revenge.

  But I was realizing that mention of Margaret was taboo. Too touchy for casual mention. She was a subject we both skipped around, but never too close. I’d never asked him to tell me more about her death. It all seemed deliberately vague. Maybe it was all still too painful. Even for him. Even now.

  But the details were still missing.

  There was still so much that puzzled me, and as we ate our wedding breakfast I tossed them around in my mind.

  New clothes? Why hadn’t he given them to her? Why hadn’t she worn them? Where was she buried? Had they had a funeral? A memorial service? Had she died in hospital or at Yr Arch? If so, in which room, so I could avoid it? How had he cleared any sign of her from the house so completely? Not even a hair from her head remained. I knew because I’d scoured the entire place, searched every cupboard and drawer. Twice. He had obliterated every single sign of her, as completely as though she had never existed. Never lived there. But he had owned the house for years. She must have lived there.