The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly

by Elizabeth Buchan

  His gaze slid past my shoulder, and rested angrily on Gisela.

  As we left, Marcus placed his hand under Gisela’s chin and forced her to look at him. ‘Dinner tomorrow. You owe me that.’

  Yearning was printed all over her porcelain perfection. She seemed docile, obedient, even. ‘Tomorrow, then.’

  But outside in the street she slid back into her normal self. ‘Did you like him?’

  ‘Very much. But, forgive me, he doesn’t seem your type.’

  She tucked a hand under my elbow. ‘He isn’t. That’s the point. Isn’t life funny?’

  We skirted a pile of rubbish spilling out of a black plastic bag, and stepped into the road. ‘Surely Roger knows,’ I said. ‘How do you get to see Marcus?’

  ‘Oh, details.’ Gisela was impatient. ‘One can always arrange them. How did you get to see Nathan? But Roger doesn’t know, and he never will. OK?’ She squeezed my elbow. ‘OK?’

  I crossed my fingers. ‘OK.’

  We reached the opposite side of the street, and Gisela said, ‘I met Marcus when I was eighteen and already married to Nicholas, who was my godfather. Nicholas was fifty, but well-off, concerned, generous. Marcus came to catalogue his paintings and he’s been in and out of my life ever since.’

  ‘Why didn’t you marry him after Nicholas died?’

  Gisela swivelled to a halt, and flicked her finger in the direction of the Hermès shop window on the corner of the street. Reverently framed in it, on a bed of flowing silk, was a beige Birkin bag. ‘You get used to certain things, and Marcus was very poor in those days. He says I’m a gold-digger. He’s right. I am.’

  We continued our progress towards the restaurant where Gisela was taking me for lunch, traffic wailing, shop windows crammed with desirable objects. ‘Marcus and I would have worn each other out,’ she said at last. ‘I didn’t want that, Minty’ She pushed me towards a door that looked expensive. ‘I want to give you a good lunch.’

  As I was being helped off with my coat in the hushed restaurant, my mobile rang. ‘Yes?’ I answered.

  ‘Minty.’ I felt the hairs rise on my arms. ‘It’s Rose.’

  Maybe Rose had seen me outside her flat after all and she was ringing to say, ‘Please don’t do that again’. Or, ‘What do you think you’re playing at?’

  I stiffened with dismay. ‘Rose, this isn’t a good moment. Can I call you back?’

  Rose’s voice veered uncharacteristically from its normal modulations. She sucked in her breath, with evident effort. ‘Minty, is anyone with you?… I’m afraid… you must prepare yourself. Minty… Minty… Nathan.’ She collected herself. ‘Minty, I think you must come at once. Nathan isn’t very well, and it would be best if you came – ‘

  Where?’ I said. Alarmed by my tone, Gisela laid a hand on my arm. ‘Where should I come?’

  ‘My flat. As soon as you can.’

  Gisela asked almost shrilly, ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s Nathan. Something’s wrong. That was Rose. He’s at her flat.’

  ‘Oh, my God – I hadn’t imagined -’ She checked herself. ‘Right. I’ll cancel the car. It will be quicker to get a taxi and I’m coming with you.’

  ‘What’s he doing with her? Gisela, what can have happened?’

  ‘Let’s get the taxi.’ She pulled out her mobile and called the Vistemax driver, spoke briefly and disconnected.

  I can’t remember much about what happened next, apart from staring hard at a set of traffic-lights. Then there was the motorcyclist who edged so close to us that the driver shouted at him.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come,’ I said to Gisela. ‘There’s no need.’

  Gisela was matter-of-fact. ‘It did sound urgent but it’s probably nothing. Anyway, I’d like to meet the famous Rose.’

  ‘Gisela,’ I repeated, ‘what is Nathan doing at Rose’s?’

  She did not meet my eye. ‘There’s probably a very good reason.’

  I stared out of the window. Nathan and Rose. Old times.

  Keeping one hand on my leg to anchor me, Gisela hunched forward on the seat and issued instructions to the driver. Once, she asked me for more precise details and I heard myself giving them: ‘It’s left at the bottom of the street, then right…’

  Was Nathan really ill? He had rung me that morning on my way to work. It had been a relaxed, easy conversation, almost intimate.

  ‘Lost my glasses.’

  ‘I saw you put them in your briefcase.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘What have you got on today?’

  ‘Roger wants to see me about something. Probably to do with the supplement on Africa we’re planning for the autumn. How we can help it without inflicting Western values at the expense of indigenous ones, that sort of stuff. Doesn’t stand a prayer of enlightening anyone because it’ll be so politically correct it’ll be utter rubbish.’

  I had laughed and now, in the speeding taxi, with anxiety beating a rising crescendo in my ears, I wondered if he’d heard that laugh.

  Surely there could be nothing wrong with Nathan. But perhaps there was. Perhaps Nathan so missed the nice, loving things that happy couples say to each other that he had gone to Rose and said, ‘Let’s go back to where we were,’ and the effort had made him ill.

  He had been pale lately.

  When we arrived at Rose’s gleaming-windowed flat, Gisela gathered up her handbag and I searched in mine for the fare. ‘I think I should stay with you, Minty. It might be that Nathan’s had a shock.’

  My eyes narrowed. ‘Gisela, what do you know?’

  She pushed aside the notes in my hand. ‘I’ll pay.’

  The front door to the flat appeared to open of its own volition and Rose was on the doorstep. She was white – whiter than a clown. I had never seen anyone quite so drained of colour, and there were black streaks on her cheeks. She looked from Gisela to me, and back to Gisela. ‘You’d better bring Minty in.’

  I stepped into a small hallway painted mushroom and white, with sanded floorboards. It flashed through my mind that this was a place I would like to be.

  ‘I have something to tell you,’ said Rose, directing a warning look at Gisela. She took both my hands in hers. Her touch burned. ‘Minty, will you come and sit down in the kitchen? Please?’

  I was silent. ‘Where’s Nathan?’ Rose snatched my hands away, and my anxiety changed to fear. ‘What’s he doing here?’

  ‘Please, Minty,’ said Rose. ‘C-come and sit down.’ Awkward and stammering, she seemed completely at a loss. Then she pulled herself together. ‘Come into the kitchen.’ Again, she looked at Gisela. ‘Could you help me, please?’

  I cried out sharply, ‘Has Nathan gone? Is that it? Tell me.’

  Rose shivered. ‘I’m trying to explain to you, Minty, and I’m not sure how to do it.’

  ‘Something has happened to him.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and again she took possession of my hand. Her fingers pressed into mine. Yes, yes, it has.’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Has Nathan complained of feeling ill lately?’

  ‘No… Yes. I’ve been a bit worried.’

  Rose was drawing me towards the kitchen. ‘I must talk to you before… anything…’ She glanced at Gisela, as if for help. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know your name, but could you persuade Minty to come and sit down?’

  I dug my heels in. ‘Just say whatever it is, Rose. Have you got something to confess?’ I paused, and threw out the first thing in my head even though I knew it would not delay whatever was making her so clown-white and shaky. ‘What are you two up to?’ I turned towards a door opening off the hall. ‘Is he in there? Nathan!’ I called. ‘Nathan, are you there?’

  ‘Don’t… don’t go in. Not yet.’ Rose placed her two hands on my shoulders. ‘Minty, you must prepare yourself.’

  Various explanations presented themsevles. Nathan had left me. Λ doctor had given him bad news. Nathan had gone hack to Rose. ‘ You and Nathan are cooking something up.’ I was fright
ened – and angry that my husband should have shared the news with Rose. I tried to push past her, but she caught my arm – so hard that I winced.

  ‘Minty, listen – listen to me. I’m sorry, but Nathan is dead.’

  Gisela gasped. Dazed, confused, I shook my head and did not reply. Eventually, my head cleared and I said, ‘Don’t be silly,’ in a conversational tone. Extraordinarily, I appeared to have this reply quite pat. ‘I was talking to him earlier. He wanted to know where his glasses were. He couldn’t find them…’ Gisela’s hand was at the small of my back, propping me up. The words slithered into silence, and I thought, The boys.

  I was not prepared. It was not as though Nathan and I had had a long run in to this moment. I hadn’t written a list. Get used to idea. Read manual on bereavement… There had been no doctor saying, ‘I’m so sorry, but…’ No Nathan saying, ‘Minty, we have to face it…’

  Painting and literature were stuffed with farewell scenes. Wives knelt beside the bed – not always weeping. Children were generally at the foot and wept enough for the wives. Black-clad relatives waited outside death chambers. This primary rite of passage, this moment when the strings were so tightly drawn that the merest touch would produce a note of exquisite beauty and sadness, had been rehearsed down the ages and everyone in these scenes knew their role.

  An arm went round my shoulders, and I was enveloped in jasmine scent. Rose’s. But the arm was awkward. I muttered, ‘This isn’t a joke, is it, Rose?’

  ‘A joker?’

  I disengaged myself so abruptly that Gisela reached out to steady me. When?’

  ‘An hour ago. I don’t know. It was… quick. Very quick. One minute Nathan was here. The next he wasn’t. He gave a little sigh. That was all.’

  I examined my hands in detail. Snagged cuticle on fourth left finger and a thumbnail that required filing.

  Shocked and clearly agitated, Gisela asked, ‘What can I do, Minty? Tell me.’

  ‘Go,’ I replied. ‘It’s best.’

  Gisela shrugged the leather jacket closer round her shoulders. ‘Of course.’ The front door clicked shut.

  I raised my head from the detailed observation of my hands. ‘I need to sit down.’

  I allowed myself to be led into the kitchen and put into a chair. ‘You must take your time.’ Rose was so gentle, oh-so-gentle. She placed a glass of water in front of me and I stared at it. Nathan is dead.

  After a while, I asked, ‘Can I see him?’

  ‘Of course. They haven’t moved him. It was too late by the time the ambulance came. He hasn’t been disturbed. There is nothing to be frightened of, Minty, I promise you.’ Rose’s voice beat on my eardrums. ‘The doctor will be here in a minute. Death certificate. I’m afraid it’s necessary’

  ‘Yes.’ I managed a sip of water – its no-taste on my tongue the accompaniment to my slide from wife to widow. I buried my face in my hands. How was I going to tell the boys? Lucas had felt sick this morning. Had he been sick? ‘Rose, I must phone home.’

  ‘I’ll do that for you,’ said Rose. ‘I’ll explain that you’ll be home later, but I won’t go into detail.’ She bent over me. ‘Is that best? I think so.’

  After I had drunk a glass of water, Rose helped me upright and led me to the door of the sitting room. She stepped back. ‘He’s in there.’

  11

  The room had magnolia walls, a chair by an open window upholstered in faded china blue, several pictures and a photo on the small table by the sofa.

  The air coming through the window was cool and damp – the type that frizzes the hair. It held a promise, though, of spring, for it brought with it the tiniest drift of flower scent from the shrub blooming beneath the window.

  And sitting in the blue chair? I took a snapshot look – and concentrated on a cushion. This was made from mushroom shot silk, looked old and there was a surprising variety of texture and colour.

  My feet did not appear to be connecting with the floor and a pulse thudded in my ear. The detail of the room accumulated a dossier. If I had been cross-examined in court, I could have told you everything about it. How useful she is, the judge might think. How indispensable.

  I turned back to the blue chair.

  We’re planning a supplement on Africa in the autumn, I heard Nathan say. Shouldn’t you have kept Lucas at home?

  He was sitting well back in it, his body folded in a natural position, his face turned towards the door as if he was listening for something, someone. A lock of his hair, tinged with grey, had fallen over his forehead. His mouth was slightly open. Had he been speaking to Rose when his heart shuddered, jumped and declared, ‘Enough’? His left arm was tucked by his side, palm up, fingers curled a fraction.

  He was still Nathan – that was evident in the bone structure, the angle of the chin, the width of his forehead. Yet he had become remote. Between one heartbeat and the non-arrival of the next, he had weighed anchor and rowed far away. He had sped past his children, past his life with me towards a horizon of which I had no knowledge.

  ‘Nathan…’ I reached over and smoothed back the lock of hair. Tidying him as I knew he liked. His skin held scintillas of warmth, and hope flared that I could run from the room, shouting, ‘He’s not dead, only asleep.’

  I touched one of the fingers, willing it to curl round mine. What was there left to read in his face, with the blind, closed eyes? There was no distress as far as I could make out, only surprise and a suggestion of… release?

  In the other room, I could hear the murmur of Rose’s voice.

  Had she traced the line from nose to chin, as I did in the gentlest gesture? Had she bent over to be quite, quite sure that no rogue breath soughed from his mouth, as I was doing? Had she sunk to her knees and whispered, ‘I don’t believe you’re dead, Nathan,’ as I was now doing?

  I shed no tears. No easy relief, then. Again I searched Nathan’s face for clues. ‘Why did you not call me, Nathan?’ I begged the still figure, as I knelt in front of him like a penitent. I knew – I feared – that Nathan had struggled on feeling ill and alone. ‘Yοu should have called me. I would have come. Of course I would.’

  How was I going to tell his… our… children?

  Which would be the right words? My toes cramped, but I welcomed the discomfort.

  In the end the pain was too acute. I got to my feet and went in search of Rose. She was in the kitchen, sitting at the table with her head in her hands. At my entrance, she looked up. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t think anything, Minty.’

  I pushed myself into a chair. ‘I was thinking how unfair it was on Nathan. He didn’t deserve this.’

  Rose got up and went to a cupboard, took out a bottle and presented me with a full glass. ‘Brandy. We’d better have some.’

  The glass was heavy, with a pattern incised into it. It felt expensive and weighty. I recognized it. We had two exactly the same in Lakey Street. ‘We divided things,’ Nathan reported, when he and Rose divorced. ‘Straight down the line. I owed her half of everything.’ He had been so pleased with his fairness and generosity that I had snapped shut my lips and had forborne to point out that two matching glasses out of four were not that useful and half a set of silver-plated cutlery limited one’s options.

  Obediently I drank. Rose asked, ‘Were there any clues that Nathan’s heart was giving him problems?’

  ‘No. But, then, I hadn’t been looking for any.’

  She accepted this. ‘I was concerned about him. Don’t ask me why, as I hadn’t seen much of him. But even so…’ she was too upset to bother with tact ‘… there was always the connection between us and I felt… Well, I knew when things weren’t right. I did try to ask him about his health, but you know Nathan…’ She arranged both hands round her glass and lifted it to her lips. ‘How like him. How very like Nathan to say nothing.’

  I couldn’t face talking about his death. The subject and the situation were too big and unknown, too fearsome
and desperate. ‘Did you talk to Eve?’

  ‘Yes She’ll manage, so you’re not to worry. I talked to her very carefully.’

  Before I could stop myself, I lashed out. ‘Did you talk to Nathan very carefully?’

  ‘Stop it, Minty.’ Rose raised a white face. ‘Don’t.’

  I did stop it. Instead I groped for clues to the puzzle. ‘I think he saw a doctor a couple of months ago. There were episodes when he said he was feeling really tired. But that was it.’

  There elapsed another of those pauses that were impossible to describe, only endure. I gulped the brandy as if it were orange juice. They say men wounded in battle do not, at first, feel anything. Then they do. The brandy was a precaution.

  Nathan had not often mentioned death. Not to me, anyway. We were too busy negotiating life. When he did talk about death, it was to wag a metaphorical finger: ‘As long as it doesn’t come too soon.’

  What had Nathan been doing in Rose’s flat?

  I felt cold and faint. I struggled to reach past myself, to think of Felix and Lucas. They wouldn’t understand, perhaps not for a long time. I tried, too, to consider Sam and Poppy.

  And Rose.

  And, yet, out of all the suppositions and shocks, the one question that forced itself past my lips was, ‘Rose, what was Nathan doing here?’ I stared at the brandy in the glass and waited for the answer. ‘I must know.’

  Rose positioned her glass on the table and got to her feet. Slowly, deliberately, she walked round to where I sat, bent down and wrapped her arms round me. It was a gesture we both suffered and endured. Rose needed to make it because it was in her nature. I had to accept it because I craved the comfort of contact, even from her. She gave a jagged sigh. ‘Poor Minty, what you must think.’

  ‘Yes,’ I echoed bitterly. ‘What I must think.’

  Her soft cheek was against mine. ‘Nathan was here for a reason. Had he told you what happened?’

  It was pitiful to lie with Nathan dead in the next room – especially, if you’re a person who prefers to call a spade a spade. But ‘Yes’ slipped through my lips. I didn’t know what she was talking about but hated to admit it.