Three Pretty Widows

by Barbara Else

  And Nicolas. We did not do well, that night. All right, I did not do well. But it hurts like hell when your nose is broken.

  All a young man wanted was — plenty, let’s be honest. I got more than I bargained for with Maggie. Why on earth, at the age of twenty-three, with a law degree so new it was scarcely hatched, I thought I could marry a woman who already had two kids … she liked the newness of me. And my God was I new, though I’d have punched the guy who said so. And what did I like about her? The fact that she’d proved herself a woman, had already had a husband, had two kids, had a house stuffed full of things.

  I sound grasping. But it wasn’t that. Lovely things mean something. They are things that have a story.

  So, keep joking, clowning, singing. Walsh, Eliot. Nicolas.

  Keep gathering plenty of things. Ditch law as a profession, buy the shop.

  No kids, though.

  I was trying to put things right. Anna seems to be on to it, though how she’s going to explain, the Good Lord knows.

  chapter twenty-seven

  Bella returns to Eliot’s at lunchtime. She’s finished with the shop. Eliot’s put the laundry back to rights but once again he plays the silence game. He’s known for being uncomplaining, longenduring, but this not like him. What’s more, it’s usually a wife who plays this one. Bella has to face the ugly truth as it stares back at her. Her relationship with Eliot was one steamy desperate night which she has fantasised into the most amazing romance. Magic can’t withstand the light of day.

  Bella wonders if she’ll ever have a normal love relationship. She hopes there is such a thing. There must be, novels are full of them — no, truth to tell, they’re not. There’s nothing entertaining about normality.

  Silent Eliot heaves himself into his car and off to an afternoon appointment in the city, the set of his shoulders exuding gloomy and depressed as if it’s been shaded in around him. It’s enough to make Bella want to leap off a cliff. Now there’s a thought: she rather fancies herself costumed as a bat — one with its wings folded tight like a small collapsed umbrella.

  There: feeling better. In the studio she dusts her working surfaces and arranges her silversmithing equipment, ready to pack them up. Where will she go? No idea. She’ll have to find a box and some cloths to wrap the tools in. Her mother always said it was impossible to do two things well, the silver work and painting. Mothers have been known to be wrong. But what is Bella good at? Maybe nothing. She can’t even cry for her dead husband. Everybody else has wept: Ruth (has she what!), Walsh, Eliot, and Anna, Charlotte, Lydia. Bella spent fifteen years with the man and not a tear.

  Those fifteen years were a limbo, now she thinks of it. A little bit of limbo wasn’t surprising. She’d tried to live the way artists are supposed to in the stories, but her principles kept wincing and it all went sadly wrong. How avant garde she’d thought she was, but how sadly and badly naïve. As she washes out her paint brushes, to pack them when she finds a box, Bella feels a smile twist up. Jonah was so plausible. Older men look so established, so certain of themselves. So encouraging, so uplifting — he promised her the most amazing future with her painting, with his patronage. But Mr Genuine Jonah was just your usual art world user. She’d been an ornament on his arm at cocktail parties, at gallery openings where everybody nibbles, sips, invents and changes their opinions on the spot. How was she to know, until she found him in bed with her boyfriend, that he’d been sleeping with them both? She’d been sleeping with them both as well, of course — and hadn’t particularly enjoyed it because of those annoying principles. (Bella in the doorway. A scramble of male limbs off the bed. ‘I’m going to make some coffee,’ she had said. ‘You’ll be wanting some sweetener, Jonah, but I’m afraid I’ve just run out.’)

  Actually — now she sees it from this distance, Jonah had the most astonishing chutzpah. He truly was a dazzling artist — con artist. Imagine, keeping two young artists at his knees — so to speak — without either of them knowing. ‘I could almost admire the man,’ Bella says to her brushes as she dunks them in the turps. Go, Jonah!

  She’s laughing, her hands are covered in mess and the phone rings. Bella wipes off on her smock and hurries though into the kitchen, both terrified and hoping that it’s Eliot — making up with her, or breaking it off — something is going to happen.

  Sure is. But it’s not Eliot. Bella has to speak; the person on the other end is waiting. It has to be the beige woman, the one who tried to hug her in the chapel.

  ‘But —’ She’s managed one word.

  The voice at the other end explains. ‘You can check with the lawyer. It was part of his wishes, I believe, that you should have them.’

  ‘But his family —’ Bella can’t do more than that.

  ‘The ashes are here to be collected,’ says the woman.

  ‘Give me a break!’ cries Bella. ‘Send them through the post! Or leave them in a box on the front doorstep!’ She jams the phone down.

  She can’t have said that. They wouldn’t do it, anyway. But imagine it: driving home from the funeral parlour — or back to Eliot’s place?, or a motel? — with Barnaby in a canister beside her. Awful. Like a piece of trick photography in a movie, he would probably appear in the passenger seat, saying: ‘For God’s sake, Bella, you just went through a red light!’

  She can’t ask Eliot to collect them. She can’t ask Lydia — can she? No. But this is a chance to talk to Charlotte.

  How do you talk to your separated mother-in-law about your separated husband’s ashes? Pick up the phone and just do it.

  ‘Don’t sound so worried, dear,’ says Charlotte.

  ‘Pardon?’ Bella sits down with the receiver to her ear.

  Charlotte. She sounds wrung through and through with grief, and tougher with it. ‘Whatever Barnaby wanted, he made double sure he got. He was a horrid little boy. Adorable, as horrid boys invariably are. I blame his father. It’s shameful how easy it is to blame him now that both of them are dead.’ She sighs. ‘It was the very devil, being married to a man of the cloth. You had to be either so prim and proper you couldn’t ask where the bathroom was if you were out, or you had to be slightly eccentric. I decided early on to go for prim and proper. A mistake I corrected the moment Lionel was buried. Such a fart of a man. I worried the family would fall to pieces if I wasn’t the opposite.’

  ‘Pardon?’ Bella asks again.

  ‘I’ve something to clear up with you,’ says Charlotte. ‘I realised afterwards you must have thought I snubbed you at Barnaby’s funeral.’

  Brief silence.

  ‘I was so angry,’ continues Charlotte. ‘That woman, being there.’

  ‘Woman?’ asks Bella.

  ‘She was a godsend while the archdeacon was alive. She kept him off me, dear. I applauded silently as numerous wives do, let me tell you. A vicar’s wife learns more that she cares about human nature, it’s part of the chore of it. But for her to be at Barnaby’s funeral was playing merry devils with the boundaries. The bounds of decency, Bella, are flexible, but not made to be ducked under in that way.’

  Bella can’t understand a word of this. ‘About the ashes, though. What — what do you want?’

  A longer silence.

  ‘I don’t think there are any restrictions about what you have to do with them.’ There are funny noises on the phone, as if Charlotte might be scratching it. ‘I like that old Indian custom of hanging the bodies in trees — rather beautiful, part of nature. No pretence. I mean, ashes are not very useful unless you’ve got a garden. And we are talking ashes, after all. But not Eliot’s garden, I think. Nor mine. I’ve only got pot plants. Never Lydia’s.’ She clicks her tongue as if it helps her think. ‘He might have liked to be part of an art work.’

  ‘You mean — I could set the canister in a coffee pot, with one of his silly hats on top and call it an installation?’ Bella asks.

  ‘Or sift him on to some sort of backing with a silver frame around. You are creative, Bella, and I have only one thing to
say about the past, if you don’t mind. You should never have let Lydia intimidate you the way she did. She can be a monster, I’m afraid. I blame her father for that, too. He certainly gave the children mixed messages about how to behave.’

  ‘Oh.’ It is the only response Bella can think of.

  ‘The offspring of vicars are always the least appealing children. I ought to know. Jam sandwiches and boiled eggs. Oh, and thank you, I am happy with the ferret. It reminds me of the archdeacon, that sneaky little nose. I’ve put it in the conservatory behind one of my pots. It’ll give visitors little frights from time to time.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ says Bella. ‘But I think you should have more than that. What about the Moorcroft vase? And I want Lydia’s children to have furniture from the house, whatever they need, and …’

  ‘Ah, so you are staying on with Eliot.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Bella says. ‘That is impossible.’

  ‘If you’re going back to the house you’ll need the furniture yourself, so don’t be silly. But the vase, no. I’m not like Lydia, I wouldn’t sell it, but she would the minute I breathed my last.’ She laughs. ‘I could simply will it back to you. Wills are one way to try and keep control of what is basically uncontrollable. I am too old to be bothered by my children now. Disappointments, from conception to the bitter end. That’s not to say I didn’t — and don’t — love them dearly, you understand. I miss Barnaby terribly; it’s like half my chest has been removed. Perhaps because he’s not here to disappoint me any longer. I’d come to count on it.’

  Bella returns to the studio and continues cleaning the brushes. She sifts through the dusty boxes of her brain but can’t recall ever talking with Barnaby about what to do with their remains. All she can remember is about a week before she left him, Barnaby peering at her in the light of early morning, leaning an elbow on her pillow and pulling it askew in the way he knew infuriated her. ‘Have you ever considered having eyeliner tattooed on?’ he’d asked.

  Something bitter-sweet wells up in Bella, tingling. Eventually it floods her through. The brushes fall out of her hand and roll away. She crouches on the floor and weeps for having no child with Barnaby, weeps for Barnaby himself, the shape of him, the sound of him, the length and breadth, the smell and touch and hulk of him, the springy eyebrow under her fingers when she stroked his little scar, the laugh, his deep brown eyes and badger hair, his jokes, his scowls, the way he isn’t here any more, the way he was, the way he formed her, helped her, loved her, understood her, failed to understand. She weeps for the loss of this complicated, multi-layered, jigsaw puzzle of a man.

  At last she can stumble to her feet. She hauls the easel over to the glass door, and slams the canvas up on it. Using the door as a mirror, she puts one forefinger on her nose and squashes it. She lays the other hand over the first, and uses two fingers to drag down her lower eyelids. The pig face. It used to make her mother and big sister shudder. It’s uglier than ever now her eyes are drenched with tears.

  Still sobbing, Bella grabs a piece of charcoal, sketches swiftly on the canvas, selects a bristle filbert from the floor and picks off the dust. She loads it up with dark purple oil paint. Bella has begun a self-portrait. She can leave it here for Eliot.

  Ruth is also looking in a mirror, a tiny fold-up one. She’s in her room in the private hospital. The surgeon has visited to offer a final reassuring word. Soon a nurse will come to deliver the preop injection. By then, Ruth’s meant to have put on her hospital gown and some hilarious disposable bloomers rather like the knickers fairies might wear in an Enid Blyton storybook. Although she’s been advised not to bring a mirror with her (because really, dear, if you look at yourself too soon you could get the wrong impression of how the surgery has gone), you cannot expect a fashion columnist, a woman who’s been beautiful since four months old, not to have a mirror somewhere on her. This particular one came as a free gift when she bought two items of over-priced cosmetics: the gift included a useless bag, a mini lipstick in an unsuitable shade and some cellulite cream.

  Ruth’s face has been around. If she lived in LA she’d have had so many appearance-medicine procedures performed on it by now, no bit would be the original. At the moment, this face looks panicky. She closes up the mirror, and sits on the bed with the laptop, polishing touches to the final column. Then she’ll be ready to begin her travel articles when she can think sensibly again. That little ‘again’ slides an icy finger down her throat.

  Anna. God, she hopes Anna’s safe. Ruth glances at her watch. It’s too early to pretend to be in LA and leave a message, but if she phones home she can play back any messages there already.

  There’s a phone beside her bed. Walsh answers. It’s not the recorded message, it’s him, the real one. ‘Hullo?’ He must be on the bedroom phone. She can hear the bath being filled in their en-suite. The gurgly tap. She’s so puzzled she almost says something.

  ‘Hullo!’ Walsh repeats. Irritated at the phantom caller.

  She puts the phone down. Why is he back a day early? Has he been fired? Demoted? The talks were a disaster and an international crisis is exploding? Is there bad news about Anna? Is he ill? Is that why he’s having a bath?

  Ruth tries to stop worrying. She takes off her blouse and bra, figures out how to velcro on the hospital gown, removes her shoes and trousers, climbs into the fairy knickers, but she can’t stop worrying about Walsh. Especially about Anna. And about Walsh. The nurse comes in, takes Ruth’s temperature by placing a techno-thing in her ear, takes her blood pressure with another techno-thing, and does the heart bit. They’re all discreet in here, but Ruth still tells from the sideways glances that they all know who she is.

  ‘Your rings,’ says the nurse. ‘Do you want them in safe custody?’ Not the wedding rings. The nurse wraps sticky tape around Walsh’s one first, then the ring from Nicolas on the other hand. ‘I’ll be back with the pre-med in a jiffy.’

  Ruth looks at the sunny afternoon outside — she’ll be unconscious during most of it — opens her briefcase and checks her cellphone. Two messages. The first one is from Bella.

  ‘I meant to catch up before you flew out, sorry. I’d love to have a talk — Charlotte’s gone through a transformation, like in a pantomime. She said the archdeacon had a mistress. All those years when he was groping us, he had someone on the side. Charlotte seemed to think I know her. And, by the way, who is Craig? He said he was a photographer, but he doesn’t have the moves if you ask me. And Eliot — oh, Ruth, I have to leave him, it’s the only thing to do.’

  The second is from Walsh, ten minutes ago. ‘Hullo, darling. I’m home. Too much roast pork and kava, and my back is murdering me. Bath might relax it, or might not. That woman next door’s just been in with some baking. Thinks a man can’t feed himself. Tasty, though. She insisted I call you, by the way. So, here I am — she must remind me of my mother. God, I need early retirement. No business suits. No neighbours. A herd of real pigs, not politicians. I still miss Ivan. House seems empty. Oh, and did you find Anna? Bye. Love you.’

  Oh, Anna, Anna … not that it’s important to deal to Bella’s nonsense about Anna having Barnaby’s child but — but … Ruth presses her hands to her fifty-something-year-old cheeks, then opens her laptop to check through that damn column and email it to Ms Nausea if there’s time.

  Her latest diatribe is about writing styles. Always a tricky subject, when you’re writing. The manipulative language of cosmetic advertisements — the perfect answer for the woman who wants to delay her face lift; a protective cream that reveals the true you — Good God, how do they equate protective with reveals? Undeveloped thinking at its worst, shored up by airbrushed photos of vacuous women, underestimating the intelligence of the reader — and are men manipulated too? You bet!

  Those ads that make thinning hair seem like an illness — why isn’t there an ad that says balding men are just beginning to develop their true sex appeal? And the intrusive shop assistants and hangers-on to the industry … like Craig, in f
act. He pops up when you least want him. Ruth reckons that if this were a story, he’d turn out to be a detective. But this story doesn’t have crimes, murders, secrets in it.

  Well, it does, in fact: secrets and a few deaths. The archdeacon — a combination of sleeping pills and whisky: no surprise, another occasion for fulsome eulogies and over-the-top obituaries. Nicolas, those years ago, and that was a drunken accident. And Barnaby. Poor Barnaby, to die at home alone.

  Ivan probably died from eating something he shouldn’t while Ruth and Walsh were away.

  (Nicolas, oh Nicolas … It still breaks her heart. Ruth’s heart is a mended treasure, owned by Walsh. Poor Eliot, who always worried that he’d saved the wrong friend. Poor Walsh, who worried the same.)

  Walsh … There’s no need for Ruth to worry about Walsh. She is only trying to distract herself from the coming of the knife.

  The knife might slip.

  Her surgeon will slice precisely round her hairline and peel the skin down, cut away the subcutaneous layers, then place the skin back. Her cheeks will be re-suspended, her jaw line will be finer.

  If it makes a huge improvement to the way she looks, everyone will know. If it doesn’t make much difference, why should she bother? If it’s a thorough disaster, she’ll be a gargoyle.

  She picks up the phone again to hear Walsh’s voice.

  It rings and rings, then he says, ‘Hullo’ in an odd, tight voice. She waits to hear him say more. There is a sigh, a thud, then nothing. The bathwater is still running. Walsh is terrified of water. It would be the cruellest lash of fate if he had a stroke while he was in the bath. She looks around her room, expensive private room, big window.