The Last Wife

by Karen Hamilton

  “I haven’t just made one mistake, I’ve made loads because one invariably leads to another.”

  Saying it out loud makes it real and true.

  “I don’t know why I ever thought I wanted what I’ve now got,” I say. “The kids are beginning to pick up on the atmosphere because they’re playing up. The place is a mess. We don’t have a cleaner at the moment.” I realize how that must sound. “I know that this isn’t a problem in itself, that I’m very lucky,” I say. “But all the little things keep adding up. For example, Ben, my ex, had a baby girl a few weeks ago.” I pause. “I saw pictures—online, of course. There’s no escape, however hard I try to avoid them.” That is the truth, we still have mutual friends. I continue, “He looked overjoyed and proud. When my baby is born, Stuart won’t feel the same.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because he’s done it twice before.”

  “In my experience, that’s not how it works. This is a new life, one you chose to create together.”

  “Only, he didn’t choose, not really.” I take a breath. “I chose. I knew what I wanted and I went for it. I was angry with Nina, fed up with always feeling like she’d got one over on me. I appreciate how that sounds, but it’s how I felt. I thought that if I had her life, I’d understand things more, that I’d feel better. Whole. No, that’s not what I mean either.”

  I stop. This is hard, really hard, because I’m balancing the truth with my less-decent motivations. It wasn’t my fault that Nina fell ill and died. I do love her children. Those are true. Everything else blurs into grabbed, sometimes slightly murky, opportunities.

  “I thought that if I led her life, I’d have her confidence,” I say. “And by confidence, I mean that sense of feeling like I’m living the right sort of life.”

  I give up. I’m even confusing myself.

  “You’ve talked about the holiday you had together a fair amount here,” Christian prompts.

  I look up in surprise. He rarely does that. He lets me meander until something of potential interest manifests and then I sense that we both grab it in gratitude and go with it. I must have done a good job of boring him, too.

  “There’s nothing left to say about it. I’ve told you everything,” I lie.

  “I got the impression that you also held Nina, as well as Camilla, responsible for the loss of a man you fell deeply and quickly for.”

  “Do you write notes?” I say.

  Paranoia at some of my innermost thoughts and secrets being held in Christian’s cloud somewhere sends a wave of panic right through me. I clutch my stomach and smooth it down to calm my baby in case he’s sensed my fear.

  “Very basic ones, like we’ve discussed,” he says. “There’s nothing in them that would be able to identify you in any way.”

  It doesn’t reassure me. I reel back, trying to recall everything I’ve ever told him, told Judy, told all the therapists over the years. I can’t remember all the details.

  “Did I tell you that Charlie died?”

  “I assumed as much. I am sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry.” I stand up. “I don’t want to do this anymore. I’ll be in touch...after the baby. If I can.”

  “We can arrange to talk on the phone any time, if it helps,” he says.

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” I say.

  I mean it.

  On the way home, I make a detour. I want to explain out loud what I couldn’t bring myself to go over with Christian. My mother is the best person to talk to, but I don’t want Pam or my dad overhearing.

  I do something I’m ashamed to say I’ve never done. I offer to look after her. Alone. I should’ve done it many times, offered to give Dad a break. But something stopped me, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Her diagnosis was such a shock, such a drawn-out loss, that I couldn’t deal with it head-on.

  “What’s the catch?” my dad says.

  I don’t blame him.

  Alone, just me and Mum, I go back there. To ten years ago. I need to go through the past in detail, to take myself back, to remind me why I made the decision I did. Even though hindsight isn’t necessarily useful; it makes me want to kick myself in frustration.

  She smiles in a way that I choose to interpret as encouragement. I take out my journal, which I’ve rewritten in an attempt to make it sound more like a story for her, and read aloud.

  It was the final day of our holiday and if I didn’t make a decision soon, it would be too late. Our flights home were booked for the early hours of the next morning. On sunbeds on either side of me, the others were lying flat, asleep.

  The smell of sun cream, cigarettes and chlorine lingered. I glanced to my right. Camilla’s pale pink sarong matched her bikini and towel. I turned to my left. Nina was lying on her stomach, an arm dropped to the side, her fingers curved awkwardly against the concrete.

  I picked up my camera, but the memory card was full. I put it down again. I couldn’t settle. Burgeoning dread had returned. I needed a distraction. I hadn’t planned on having a drink, yet I stood up and walked to the water’s edge and eased myself in.

  I swam over to the pool bar and ordered a fruit cocktail. As vodka and pineapple chunks were mixed and chopped in a too-screechy blender, I looked ahead, past the bar. A man, his back to me, placed a towel on his sunbed and smoothed it down. For a hopeful second, I thought it was Charlie. But it wasn’t. Too tall, too broad. He still hadn’t turned up after our row and it was no wonder after what I said.

  I stop. Mum has closed her eyes. Unsure, I sit and watch her. She looks at peace. Maybe she likes the sound of my voice? Perhaps it offers small comfort? There’s not much more left to read.

  After drinking my cocktail, I swam back to our spot. The other two were awake. Camilla was sitting next to Nina. They stopped talking as I approached.

  “Hi, Marie, we wondered where you’d got to.”

  “I went for a swim,” I said, picking up my towel and wrapping it around me. “What were you two talking about?”

  Paranoia isn’t paranoia if you know, rather than suspect, that people are talking about you.

  They fobbed me off with dismissive smiles. “Just comparing hangovers, such a comedown,” Camilla said as she went off to buy drinks. “Hair of the dog.”

  It should have felt nicely familiar, just the two of us. Me and Nina. Instead, a horrible sense of foreboding mushroomed. I took a deep, audible breath. Nina clearly sensed that I needed comforting.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, taking my hand and giving it a squeeze.

  She so rarely apologized. It wasn’t her thing.

  Reassurance replaced some of my anxiety. There was no dilemma, not really, because there could only be one reasonable conclusion. Charlie and I were over. There was no point in looking for him. Where would I even start? His phone wasn’t switched on. He’d only be even more annoyed when he did show up, and his lack of interest in me was plain. I got the message. My place was here, with my friends. I needed to draw a line under the previous night and take a leaf out of their book: be cool and nonchalant.

  Homesickness kicked in badly. A yearning to get away from the island grew. I pushed away my instinct that Nina and Camilla’s smiles were too bright, their reassurances too OTT. Because, deep down, I still hoped that Charlie would at least come back to say goodbye, but Nina (especially) and Camilla were so full of care and concern.

  “He doesn’t deserve you,” they said. “If you still feel the same way when you get back, you can have it out with him at home. We can’t miss our flights just because he’s being selfish and inconsiderate.”

  I should have been stronger and ignored them. I hate that I allowed myself to be so easily manipulated. And I wish I’d known what I know now back then. It would’ve saved me—and others—so much angst.

  Mum opens her eyes and stares at me. Briefly, I think she recognizes me
. But seconds later, the slight recognition I hoped I saw has gone again. I really am on my own with this.

  Nina bequeathed me her share of the problem. I’d love to tell Mum lots more, like how they lied to me about what time they got in after their night out. They claimed it was earlier. I thought it was because Nina was trying to give the impression that the party hadn’t been that amazing after all, to stop me from feeling so bad about myself and the situation with Charlie. How I hate that I thought so well of her. I don’t say any more. All this guilt and regret won’t change a thing.

  “Be safe,” Mum says.

  She used to say that to me every time I went out. She said it before I went to Ibiza and “that it was a dangerous world out there.” It was stifling. One of my therapists suggested that it sounded like she had struggled a lot when I reached the teenage years and craved freedom. “You’re precious to me,” was another phrase she used a lot.

  We sit in silence. I hope that whatever her thoughts or memories are, they’re happier than mine.

  Upon my dad’s return, he is very keen to know how we got on. His barely disguised hope—that maybe it could become a regular thing—brings a lump to my throat. I am a bad daughter to have never offered before.

  * * *

  I arrive home to a postcard faceup on the mat. It depicts our village during bluebell season. Spiteful words litter the back, the ridiculously bad handwriting clearly a disguise.

  What goes around, comes around. You will get your comeuppance because bad luck will haunt you until your dying days.

  I scroll through the CCTV, but no one comes to our front door apart from the postman. It’s only later, after hours of wasted time, that I take proper note of our address and the second-class stamp. It’s the first time a message hasn’t been hand delivered.

  Enraged and discouraged, I sift through all of the old messages and cards apart from the first one burned in the fire. I’ve logged everything else.

  “I’m handing my evidence over to the police,” I tell Stuart. “It’s irresponsible not to. What if they attack me or hurt our baby?”

  “I’ll do it,” he says. “I don’t want you to have to deal with the stress of it.”

  “Okay. But if you don’t do it ASAP, or if they don’t take it seriously, I’m going to deal with it. Enough is enough.”

  “I’ll phone them now,” he says.

  He explains the situation with more urgency than I thought he would, to be fair. He takes out a pen and jots down notes.

  Social media—contact individual companies

  Phone provider

  Notes, calendar, dates, times

  Update

  Call if escalates

  He disconnects after writing down a number.

  “I’ve done most of that,” I point to his list.

  “Yes, and we’ve got to continue to keep a record,” he says.

  “No one has said anything on social media or phoned. Everything is mainly through the letterbox, which points to someone local. In all likelihood, someone we know well.”

  “I’ve got a crime reference number,” he says.

  “Well, that solves everything,” I say. “Forget it, I’ll visit a police station and take in the evidence myself.”

  A horrible thought crosses my mind. “Do you really not know who is doing this?”

  “Marie,” he says in a tone of voice that I’ve grown to dread. “Everything’s fine. I won’t let anything happen to you or the children. Of course I don’t know who it is! What are you accusing me of?”

  “I don’t like being told that everything is fine when it is so far from fine.”

  I comfort myself by dreaming of all the wine I’m going to knock back after the baby’s born.

  My phone rings. Deborah’s number shows up.

  “I’m going out,” I say, resisting the urge to slam the door behind me, and take her call.

  As I walk toward the café where she’s agreed to meet me, it is the greatest feeling to have escaped my own life, however briefly.

  I can breathe again.

  Thirty

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me. I appreciate that it’s been really tough. I’d be the same, probably, if the roles were reversed.”

  Actually, I’d be nicer, I hope, but I really want to build bridges. We sit in a local café in the window. I notice that the sugar pot in the center of the table needs filling while we wait for our order. We both sit in silence as a waiter puts down our cups and saucers, a teapot and a jug of milk, decorated in pale pink roses.

  As I pour, keeping my eyes focused on the steaming tea (I can’t do much eye contact with Deborah, it’s too disconcerting), I get on with it.

  “Camilla suggested I talk to you.”

  She takes a sip, her face guarded.

  “I know,” I say, taking her hand. “As in know, know. About Nina. About the accident. But it’s fine, I’m not going to do anything about it. I will continue to protect Nina, and of course the children, but I must know exactly what happened. Charlie was my first love, my boyfriend. I need the truth about how he died.”

  Tears stream down her face. She makes no attempt to wipe them away as I reach for my bag and fumble around for a pack of tissues.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I miss her so much. She had children. It was so unfair. I took it out on you and blamed you for being alive when she wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t right, but I couldn’t stop myself. But...”

  With Deborah there is always a but, she can’t help herself. She accepts a tissue from me.

  “Why would I trust you?” she asks.

  “Good question.” I place my hand on my stomach. “Because this child will be the half sibling of your grandchildren. I know you don’t agree with me and Stuart, and I do understand why, but my intentions are good.”

  She doesn’t look convinced.

  “Stuart knows, Camilla knows, I know. But I would like to have heard it from Nina, so you are the next best thing. I should’ve known right from the beginning that she’d have confided in you.”

  She wipes her cheeks and beneath her eyes. “How are things with Stuart?”

  The tone she chooses to use alerts me to the fact that she knew something else, too. Something about Nina and Stuart’s relationship.

  “Stuart’s Stuart,” I say.

  “What did he tell you?”

  “Not much. I was shocked that he knew.”

  I tell her all that has happened. It feels nice to have Deborah back in my life, a second mum. I hate how badly our relationship has deteriorated.

  “Stuart covered it up,” she says.

  “He couldn’t have. Stuart wasn’t there. His holiday ended sooner, so he left before it all happened.”

  “He flew back, inviting an unsuspecting friend for a long weekend away as a guise. Nina and Camilla had forgotten a cooler on the boat and Nina was afraid that when it was discovered on the boat by the owner, another friend of Stuart’s, that he’d realize it had been taken out, that it might then lead to further investigations. Stuart and his friend took a day trip. Afterward he gave the boat a thorough clean.”

  “Does Camilla know?”

  “No, as far as I know, I imagine Stuart assumes his secret died with Nina.” She pauses. “I’d keep it that way if I were you.”

  “Why?”

  “Knowledge is power,” she says in a rehearsed-sounding way.

  “I will keep it to myself, but still, I need more than that.”

  “It’s how he got her to marry him so quickly, so young. He did this massive thing for her and Nina cared for him. He loved her. He knew the truth. She felt indebted, greatly so. I didn’t know at the time—she didn’t tell me until years later.”

  “He told me he’d felt duped, that—”

  “Stuart doesn’t like being single. When he met N
ina, he was married. Estranged, but married, nonetheless. Meeting Nina encouraged him to rush through with the divorce.”

  “Oh my God. How can I not know that?”

  “Nina didn’t like to make it common knowledge.”

  I don’t know why it never occurred to me to ask Stuart about his romantic history. I realize that I’ve always merely assumed that I knew him inside out. Of course, I don’t.

  “What happened to his ex-wife?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Could it be her behind the threatening cards? Perhaps it wasn’t her choice to split up from him, perhaps, deep down she realized that she still loved or missed him and hoped they’d reunite until I was on the scene.

  My tea has gone cold. I feel numb, like nothing will ever be normal anymore. I don’t know how I’m going to go home and play happy families. How can I not know the man I’ve known for so long, my...husband.

  I pay the bill and we leave, walking toward the open area of the village where the ponies roam freely.

  “I’m not surprised that Camilla won’t tell you,” Deborah says, “it was hard enough for Nina to divulge the details. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you.”

  “Fair enough. Thank you.”

  The anticipation of finding out what happened to Charlie, to really discover the horrible truth, fills me with both fear and relief. When Deborah starts speaking, I almost want to stop her, find some kind of way of hearing but not hearing, like peeking at a horror film through fingers partially covering my eyes.

  “Nina said that they decided to take the boat out. It was her idea. She said she was showing off to Camilla, it was her boyfriend’s connections that gave them access to a boat, her newly acquired skill.”

  Sounds about right, I think.

  “But once they set off, she wasn’t as confident as she thought. It’s one thing doing it when you have an experienced person alongside you on board, obviously quite another when you’re wholly responsible. She said that as soon as she realized that, she should’ve turned back. But she got distracted.”