The Subsequent Wife

by Priscilla Masters

  ‘No.’ Then, hoarsely, ‘Do my parents know?’

  ‘I assume so. Steven assured me he’d …’ The words died away as the truth seeped into my brain.

  ‘You’ve been to visit them?’ Now I heard disbelief. ‘Were they at the wedding?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Goodness.’ A long pause before her voice curled round. ‘Why are you ringing me, Jennifer?’

  ‘Because …’ The truth? I didn’t know why.

  There was another long pause before she followed that up with, ‘What do you want of me?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing. I promise you. I just thought you might want to know.’ The words were lame, like my voice.

  I could almost feel her shaking her head, tossing me off as a dog does the rain. But her next sentence surprised even me. ‘What do you expect me to do about it?’

  ‘Do about it? Nothing. Nothing.’ I was puzzled by her question. But not as puzzled as I was by her next sentence. ‘I’m sorry.’

  I was stunned. She was sorry? Sorry? What was she apologizing for? Or more pertinently, who was she apologizing to?

  There was only one possible response. If I dared ask it.

  ‘Why?’

  Silence.

  I repeated my question. ‘Why are you sorry, Francine? Is it something to do with what happened to Margaret?’

  ‘Margaret?’ Her shock was compounding.

  ‘I know that she was ill and died,’ I said, speaking defensively.

  ‘Jesus.’ I got the feeling this was a plea for help rather than blasphemy.

  The silence this time was awkward and prolonged. ‘Jennifer,’ she said finally. ‘Leave my parents out of this. They’ve had enough worry …’

  Didn’t she mean grief?

  ‘Promise me,’ she followed that up with, ‘that you won’t try to get in touch with them.’

  ‘But they’re my …’ My dream was blowing away, a feather in the wind. I had thought my in-laws would provide the happy healthy family background where my parents had failed me. I felt cheated, and disappointment made me silent.

  ‘Just don’t contact them.’

  ‘Can we meet?’ I could hear my voice close to begging.

  The silence this time was thin as gauze. I could hear her breathing through it. ‘Let me think about it. I don’t … I don’t know. I’ll get back to you.’

  And she put the phone down.

  Outside The Green Banana was springing into life. I heard the sound of engines roaring into the yard followed by two cars, Serena’s pink Fiesta and Stanley paying yet another pilgrimage to his mother’s shrine, A7. As Serena flounced in I promised her I would speak to Steven about emptying the container. She gave me a sideways look and held her finger up (index finger, a long-shaped nail bright with yellow gel). ‘Promise?’

  I pretended to spit on my finger. ‘Hope to die.’

  Stanley wanted to talk, mumbling little stories about his mum. This time the one how she liked her chocolates hard. ‘If her finger went in them,’ he said, laughing, showing irregular teeth stained by years of cups of tea and cigarettes, ‘she wouldn’t eat them.’ He laughed so hard some spittle landed on the desk. I tried to ignore it. ‘But of course no one else could eat them either. Not with ruddy great holes in them.’

  I laughed too. I liked Stan. He was a sad man whose life had been defined by his mother – who sounded a character.

  ‘The other thing she liked,’ he said, still laughing, ‘was orange peel. Just the peel. She’d leave the orange on the shelf.’

  I’d heard the stories before. All of them, but they were funny. And it didn’t take much effort to laugh with him.

  It was almost five when the yard finally quietened, the screens showing no sign of life. I was ready to leave when Steven’s car entered the yard. Large and white as a ghost, silently slipping into my view. I watched as he opened the door, climbed out, locked it. Steven was always careful with his belongings. He looked around him, checking no one was there and then he stepped out of my view and into the office.

  ‘Hello.’

  I felt suddenly glad to see him. He looked reassuringly normal. ‘Hi,’ I returned.

  ‘Are you ready to leave?’

  ‘Two minutes.’

  He was my husband. My protector. And I knew I was growing really fond of him.

  THIRTY-NINE

  But unpleasantness cannot simply be swept under the carpet. The lumps and bumps were underneath. Some things cannot be ignored. I knew it was there and one day I would be forced to confront it, whatever ‘it’ was. I also knew I would keep digging.

  I waited for a couple of days until I was on my own in The Green Banana.

  And this time I was a little more oblique and cunning.

  First I rang The Lobster Pot and after a chat about our lovely honeymoon, instead of asking a direct question about the wife they’d never met, I substituted another one.

  ‘I came across a Welsh word,’ I said, ‘and wondered what it meant.’

  ‘Go on then,’ Gwen encouraged. ‘Noah and me both speak Welsh – when the occasion calls for it.’

  I spelt it out because I wasn’t sure how to pronounce it. Y-R-A-R-C-H.’

  Gwen was laughing. ‘Now why would you want to know the meaning of that?’

  ‘Because it’s the name of our house.’

  ‘Oh.’ That stopped her short. And now she didn’t know what to say.

  ‘So what does it mean?’

  She tried to prevaricate. ‘Maybe it’s not Welsh after all.’

  ‘I believe it is and I believe you know the meaning but you don’t want to tell me.’

  She still tried to avoid answering. ‘Maybe it’s got another meaning in the north of Wales. Lots of words do.’

  I persisted. ‘What does it mean?’

  There was another long silence. This is why I hate the phone. If you are sitting opposite someone, you can read their faces through a silence. Watch each process until they reach a resolution. With a phone call you have nothing. No clues; no hints.

  ‘In the south,’ she said finally, ‘it’s a word that can be used for a coffin.’

  I nearly dropped the phone.

  As though to further shift me in a direction I did not want to take, Ruby waltzed in, singing the first line of ‘Living Doll’ over and over again and looking pleased with herself.

  ‘Ruby?’

  ‘Met him on a dating site. Gary Flacks.’

  ‘Not another …?’

  ‘No, someone more my age and a widower.’ She looked at me sharply then. ‘Just like your Steven.’ She tacked on, ‘So he says.’

  ‘Yeah.’ There must have been doubt in my response because she looked at me sharply. ‘You all right there, Jenny?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Then some of the truth leaked out. ‘You know you said when you’re young a man wants to get inside your knickers.’

  She laughed. ‘And when you’re older.’

  ‘Your bank account,’ I supplied.

  ‘Not Gary,’ she said warningly. ‘He just wants company.’

  That hadn’t been what I was about to ask. ‘Which sort do you think “my Steven” is?’

  She came round the desk then and put her arm around me. ‘Not sure there, Jenny,’ she said, her voice sober for once. ‘Something funny. I haven’t quite worked him out yet, love.’ Some of her natural buoyancy returned. ‘I’ll tell you when I do. Anyway …’ She waltzed back to the other side of the desk. ‘I don’t think I’ll be needing to rent your lovely storage facility much longer. My new man has a bungalow in Fenton.’ She gave me a wicked grin. ‘I’ve always fancied living in sin.’

  And she was gone.

  Two days later I asked Scarlet if I could have a day off to go ‘shopping’. She looked a bit bemused but agreed. After all, these days I was holding the fort of The Green Banana most of the time. She was having an easy life.

  Since the phone call with Francine, I had felt constantly fidgety and on edge, and Steven had noticed. He didn’
t say anything but I caught him looking at me, bemused. I worried Francine had got in touch with him and told him about the phone call. It would make him suspicious and mistrustful towards me but I couldn’t confide in him without risking his trust. Like a child in a darkened bedroom, I was aware that monsters were crawling out of the wardrobe. Surely, I reasoned, surely to know – whatever – could not be worse than this dread of the unknown?

  Something else puzzled me. Our wedding certificate.

  The day before, Steven had nipped out to the corner shop so I had been alone in the house and had opened his desk where he kept it.

  On a wedding certificate there is a space under Condition where it described the bridegroom’s status: Bachelor, Widower, Divorced. By his name it should have read, Steven Taverner. Condition: Widower. But it didn’t. It read Bachelor. And I couldn’t understand it.

  The night before, as I had lain beside Steven in bed, I had puzzled over his strange predilections and the name he – or Margaret more likely – had given the house. Had I been wrong about him? Had they not actually been married? Was there, I wondered, another meaning for the house name as Gwen had tried to suggest? Had the house name been meant as a subtle irony suggested by Margaret? Steven might not even have known what the name meant.

  But now I wondered. Had she been laughing when she had had the house name painted on the plaque and nailed to the front door? Had it been her idea of humour? What had really happened to her? I had only Steven’s word for it that she had been ill, died of cancer. All I knew was that she was dead. I did not want to share her fate, and neither did I want to spend the rest of my life playing corpse bride. It would, in the end, kill me, as it had killed her. And it was that final thought pushing into my mind that had decided me. When Steven had left for work (always bang on 8.29 a.m. – my husband was a creature of habit as well as a creature of habits), I had pretended I too was going to work. But I had the day off.

  It was impolite and a bit of a risk to simply turn up to Steven’s parents without warning. But I believed that if I’d rung and asked to meet them, they would have refused. And so I decided to go on the off chance that I would find them in.

  Getting to Macclesfield meant catching two buses, one into Leek and another through to Macclesfield town. It was a blustery day, with rain pouring down the bus windscreen and an evil wind blowing wheelie bins along the street, trees waving branches. It was cold too for May, but that could be helpful. Steven’s parents were probably in their late sixties, maybe early seventies. I judged they would be unlikely to venture out in this weather. No one who didn’t have to would leave home today.

  I found their house easily, a 1940s’ semi-detached which looked a bit sad and neglected, old green paint on the window frames and weeds growing through the paving slabs of the drive. An eight-year-old Citroën stood outside. It looked as though it was rarely used. Mud, leaves and dust coated it. I closed the gate behind me and approached the front door along a path made of concrete slabs. There was one bay window to the side draped with a net curtain. Beyond that I could see no sign of life. As I knocked on the door, I regretted my rashness. It felt rude to land myself on his parents unannounced. Not a good introduction to their new daughter-in-law. Maybe, I thought, they would be out. I could tell myself I’d followed the lead but they’d been out. Maybe better that way. While I waited for the door to be opened, I told myself that – once it opened and I spoke to Steven’s parents – life would return to normal.

  But hey, I lectured myself, these are your in-laws. And they should have been at your wedding. The door opened and I pasted a smile on my face.

  FORTY

  Steven’s father was an elderly gentleman with thin hair, white and wispy. He looked older than I’d expected. He was taller than his son, dressed in an open-necked shirt and casual trousers. His feet were in slippers. ‘If you’re selling something, even if it’s just religion,’ he said, the hint of a smile softening his words, ‘you’re wasting your time. We’re heathens here and we don’t need to buy anything. Not double glazing or life insurance or even a funeral plan.’

  He was still smiling.

  On the bus I’d tried out the words all the way here. ‘I’m your daughter-in-law, Mr Taverner. I’m married to Steven. I’m …’ The right words simply didn’t exist; I sensed I’d wait a long time to be welcomed with open arms.

  He just stared at me.

  ‘Mr Taverner.’

  ‘Yes.’ His eyebrows were thick, bushy and white. He was waiting.

  ‘I’m married to your son, Steven.’

  I knew straight away I’d dropped a bombshell. He staggered back. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m Steven’s wife. Your daughter-in-law.’

  I knew then that Steven had not told his parents we were married. His father looked too shocked. They knew nothing about me. Obviously Francine had not told them of our conversation.

  From inside the house I heard a woman calling. ‘Scott. Scott. Who is it?’ Steven’s mother.

  Without a word Mr Taverner stepped aside, but not before I had seen some terrible apprehension freeze his face.

  God, what were these family’s secrets?

  A woman emerged from a door on the right.

  ‘Who are you?’

  She was small and tired-looking, but with Steven’s lovely hazel eyes, long lashes, the whites very white, contrasting with the light brown, and I swear the identical pattern of gold flecks in them. I stared at her.

  ‘I’m Steven’s wife.’

  She slumped against the wall and I felt as though a hand had reached into my chest and was squeezing my heart.

  Steven’s mother looked at her husband and leaned into him for support. She was as pale as death. ‘You’re married to Steven?’

  I looked from one to the other. I couldn’t understand this response. I had been prepared for stiffness, resentment, even hostility, but not this outright shock. Incredulity. I could have made some sarcastic remark that, as I was Steven’s wife, it followed that of course we were married. Maybe I should have brought the faulty marriage certificate with me to prove it.

  I was still standing on the doorstep.

  ‘When?’ His father barked out the question.

  I summoned up some dignity to respond.

  ‘We were married at Hanley registry office on the eleventh of January,’ I said formally, as though giving evidence in a court of law. I felt compelled to add. ‘I understood Steven had invited you.’

  Both parents shook their heads.

  ‘But you declined to come because, I suppose …’ I looked from one to the other, blundering my way through the forest of words, ‘out of some loyalty for Margaret.’ I started babbling then. ‘Maybe you thought it was too soon to remarry? Maybe you didn’t like the sound of me. Maybe you thought I was …’ My voice trailed away as I looked from one to the other. That was not it.

  I tried another theory. ‘Perhaps he thought you might disapprove?’

  That wasn’t it either. That couldn’t account for the shock and sheer horror on their faces.

  Then Steven’s mother put out a hand. ‘You’d better come in.’

  She led the way, Steven’s father trailing behind. Both seemed shrunken and shocked, stumbling the few steps into a small sitting room, a gas fire burning in the grate. It felt stuffy after the blustery weather outside.

  ‘Sit down.’ Steven’s father’s voice was still weak but this was unmistakably an order.

  He softened it with an introduction. ‘My name is Scott. My wife is Diana.’

  I tried a smile but did not hold out a hand that I sensed would not be shaken. ‘Jennifer.’

  It was Diana who spoke, in a quiet voice she was struggling to control. ‘Why did you come, Jennifer?’ There was real fear behind the question.

  That was a tricky one. I could have done with a little more time to evolve a story. They hadn’t even done the usual delaying tactic of asking me if I wanted a cup of tea. They’d just flopped down on the sofa and now stared
at me, waiting. And I sensed it was with some trepidation.

  I cleared my throat and began with the usual irrelevancies. ‘I work at a storage facility where Steven is storing a few of his wife’s belongings. Late wife,’ I corrected. ‘That’s where we met.’ I tried a smile but they weren’t buying.

  They nodded like a pair of mandarin dolls. Glassy-eyed robots. I wasn’t sure they were taking this in.

  I pushed on. ‘Are you angry that Steven’s married again?’

  ‘Angry – no.’ It was his father who spoke after a swift glance at his wife. ‘Not angry. Of course not.’

  Diana butted in in her soft voice. ‘Is something wrong, Jennifer?’

  Now it was my turn to look confused. ‘Wrong? No …’ And that was a lie. ‘Why should something be wrong? We’ve only been married …’ The words died on my lips.

  I wished I could erase the look they exchanged. Conspiratorial but also frightened.

  ‘Why?’ I repeated.

  Neither of them seemed to have an answer but sat, clinging on to one another.

  I wasn’t sure how to phrase this but tried. ‘What happened to Margaret?’

  That shook them. ‘Margaret?’

  ‘Steven’s first wife. What happened to her?’

  They looked at one another.

  ‘I know she died.’

  ‘You know she died?’

  Why the confusion?

  Steven’s father did his best to find some order, logic.

  ‘My dear …’ He was stumbling over the words. ‘Congratulations. We’re pleased that you and Steven are married and happy.’ But his tone had risen, as though there was a question mark on the end of the statement.

  I tried again to extrude some facts out of them. And tried with a placatory: ‘We are happy. I was just a bit concerned that you might not be pleased about his remarriage.’

  Diana managed a smile. But it was unconvincing.

  ‘I expect you were fond of Margaret.’

  No one could have missed the shudder that rippled down both of them and then neatly they turned the tables on me.

  ‘What has Steven said about Margaret?’