My hands twisted in my lap. At least I would not be destitute. With the parcelling out of his capital, Nathan had ensured that I had to work. Just as I had wished.
‘One final point…’ Theo held up a hand. ‘There is a codicil that Nathan added a couple of months ago. It concerns the guardianship of the twins. In the event of anything happening to him, and to Minty, while the twins are still under age, he wished Rose to be their guardian and hoped that Minty would agree.’
‘Surely he meant us?’ Poppy’s surprised interjection sounded very loud in the astonished silence.
Jilly leant over and muttered in Sam’s ear. ‘That can’t be right,’ Sam said.
Theo shook his dark head. ‘No mistake.’
Rose was deathly pale. ‘Did you know about this?’ I demanded.
‘No. Yes. He asked me in a roundabout fashion. I said it wasn’t possible, but he insisted.’
‘Over my dead body.’
‘Don’t, Minty.’
‘Nathan wouldn’t do that.’ I said.
But Nathan would do that. He had done that.
Theo took off his glasses. ‘The fine details can wait for another day. If each of you would care to contact me, I will explain probate. Et cetera.’
‘Mum…’ Poppy rushed over to Rose. ‘Let’s not talk about anything now. Later, when we’ve all calmed down. When you feel better. Go and get your bag, and we’ll take you home.’ She pushed her mother towards the cloakroom and addressed me more or less politely. ‘Thank you for…’ she seemed near breaking point ‘… giving him a good funeral.’
Sam and Jilly were talking to Theo and comparing diaries. The waiters were moving round the room clearing up plates and teacups. An end had been reached, and an end was in sight. ‘I wanted to do the best I could for your father.’
This provoked a strange reaction. Poppy narrowed her short-sighted eyes. ‘I want you to know that your extravagance got to my father. It worried him sick.’
Her cruelty acted like a lash. ‘Oh? And how would you know?’
‘You stupid, stupid woman…’ Poppy’s self-control collapsed and she began to shake. ‘He told me.’
But of course. I pictured him talking to his daughter, she listening with her chin resting on her hands. Minty wants a new bathroom… carpet… but we can’t afford it.
Seasoned poker hands play aggressively when they reckon they hold options, and I wasn’t going to let Poppy get away with it. ‘Actually, he worried about you too.’
‘Did he?’
‘You know he did. I told him nothing, but I know he thought you were in some kind of trouble.’ I laid a hand on Poppy’s arm. ‘Going off tilt? Isn’t that the term for poker players when luck has packed its bag?’
Rose emerged from the cloakroom, and Poppy looked me in the eye. ‘Thank God we don’t have to see each other again,’ she said.
‘Thank God’ hovered on my own lips. If uttered, there would be a sundering, a clean one, and it would suit both of us. But as the words formed, I remembered my boys. The casual manner in which Poppy was ready to abandon them was as wounding as anything I had ever felt. They loved their big half-sister. Naughty, naughty Poppy. She offered them laughter, fun, exoticism.
Poppy was their family. The family might be a nest of vipers, but the vipers were their vipers, unlike the vipers elsewhere.
I swallowed, and felt exhaustion clamp down hard. ‘Nathan would have wanted us to be polite, at least. And it would distress your mother.’
‘My mother…’ Rose was walking towards us. ‘My mother is the best. The best.’
Theo packed his briefcase. I gestured to the half-empty plates of sandwiches, dirty glasses and empty bottles. We’re the only ones left.’
Theo surveyed the empty room. ‘Who’s taking you back to London?’
My list hadn’t specified that. I’d forgotten to think about it. ‘I don’t know.’
He glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll give you a lift.’
‘Thank you.’
15
Instinct told me to dress smartly to go in to Paradox. It was an effort but I chose black trousers, a green cashmere sweater and Stephanie Kelian boots. I pulled my hair into a ponytail.
When I went in, Syriol jumped up. ‘We didn’t expect you. Should you be here, Minty?’
Her raised voice brought Deb into Reception. ‘Minty? How…’ Deb had cut her hair in a different way and looked radiant. ‘How are you? We didn’t think…’
Chris Sharp, in black, opened his office door and stuck out his head. ‘Deb, when you have a moment.’
At her name, Deb gave a self-conscious little jerk of her head, which made her hair swing seductively. ‘I’m just talking to Minty, Chris. Won’t be a moment.’
‘Oh, Minty.’ Chris came up to me and held out his hand. ‘I want to say how sorry I am. We’re all deeply, deeply sorry.’
Deb was not to be outdone. ‘We are all so upset,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘And those poor little boys.’
Chris raised an eyebrow. ‘Isn’t it a little soon to be in?’
I explained I wanted to talk to Barry and check up on my projects.
‘You needn’t worry about them,’ Deb said quickly. ‘We’ve got them under control.’
Barry was sombre but helpful. ‘It was good of you, Minty, to come in. We appreciate it.’
I opened my diary and spread it in front of him. The pages were mostly clean and white. ‘I plan to take the boys away for a short break, and then I need to sort out Nathan’s affairs with the lawyer. If it’s all right with you, I’ll come back in three weeks.’
‘Three weeks?’ Barry twirled his mobile thoughtfully. ‘Are you sure that’s long enough for you to get back on your feet?’
‘Best to hit the ground running.’ Both of us were resorting to clichés, but I had noticed that at pivotal moments, such as the giving and receiving of bad news, or making sure that my career survived in the face of a stealthy takeover by predatory colleagues, they did the job.
Barry looked extra thoughtful. ‘Let’s tease this out, Minty. I assume you still want the full-time position, but I wondered, given your new circumstances, if you shouldn’t be thinking part-time.’
This time my answer was certified cliché-free. ‘I can think all I like about part-time, Barry, but it won’t do any good. It has to be full-time.’
‘If that’s the case…’
‘About my projects.’
Barry leant over and placed a hand on my arm. ‘You’re not to worry about them. Chris will take over. He knows your thinking. You must concentrate on getting yourself through.’ His voice was rough with sympathy, and his genuine concern almost masked the fact that it made no difference to him whether I was in the office or not.
‘I’m afraid there’s gossip,’ said Paige. ‘There always is. But’ – she straightened up from the laundry basket – ‘you have to admit it’s not entirely unjustified. Why was Nathan at Rose’s flat? Gossip-wise, Minty, it’s the equivalent of throwing a juicy Christian to the lions.’
To reward myself for battling with a morning of paperwork and Theo, I had dispatched the twins to the park with Eve and come over to Paige for lunch. We sat in her neat, clean-smelling kitchen with something delicious cooking in the pink Aga. The baby was sleeping upstairs. ‘I think Nathan went to Rose out of a kind of loyalty.’
‘Really?’ Paige’s eyes widened in disbelief.
I pressed my forefingers into the pressure points on my forehead. ‘Nothing more than that.’
Paige looked sceptical. ‘If you say so.’ She folded the sleeves of a shirt across its breast, like a figure in a church brass. ‘Linda should be doing this, but I’ve given her a day off. She doesn’t know yet, but it’s a bribe because I want her to help me out at the weekend. They work most effectively I find, when they are post facto. It’s too late then.’ She picked up a striped yellow and black Babygro and inspected a tiny sleeve. ‘This makes Charlie look like a wasp. How is it at Lakey Street?’
‘Deathly quiet.’
Nathan had been dead for two weeks and the doorbell no longer rang innumerable times every morning. There were no more deliveries of flowers. The boys, Eve and I had worked our way through soups and other offerings in unfamiliar containers that, at one point, had clogged the fridge.
The boys’ understanding of the situation fluctuated. ‘Daddy’s gone to a nice place,’ Lucas announced to Eve. But every so often their grasp modified and slipped. Several times since Nathan’s death, I had woken to discover a pair of unblinking eyes observing me and one or the other of them had burrowed like a velvety mole into the safety of my bed. They seesawed between understanding and bewilderment, and it made them ragged-tempered and uncertain.
‘Where is Daddy?’ Felix had demanded at breakfast.
Paige hefted the basket into the utility room and checked the oven. ‘You could do with a good meal,’ she said. ‘How does fish stew grab you?’
I was half-way through a plateful when the storm hit me out of nowhere. I was chewing prawn when I felt sweat break out on the soles of my feet and the rush of rage. ‘How dare Nathan die?’ I dropped my fork, and pushed the plate to one side. ‘I’m so angry with him for leaving us. What was he thinking of, not getting his heart seen to?’
‘That’s better,’ said Paige. She wiped away a drop of stew by my plate. ‘You have a good hate. I always tell the children it’s best to get it out of their system.’
Paige always favoured that approach. In her book, ‘a good hate’ would evacuate the agony of losing Nathan, and the sorrow of the what will never be.
‘He must have thought about Felix and Lucas, and what it would mean if he wasn’t there. How will they manage without him?’
Yet if Nathan came whirling back out of the darkness, I would say to him, ‘Nathan, I will never again ask for a new bathroom. I promise to work at loving you.’ I would even promise I didn’t mind that I would be damned for ever by his family, and friends like the Frosts and the Lockharts.
I would promise to wipe the slate clean and begin again.
I pulled a shred of prawn shell off my fork. ‘How am I going to cope? The boys – how am I going to help them? Keep them? Maintain a house?’
‘Much as you’re coping now, I imagine. Adapt.’
‘I had a dream, Paige. I’d been transformed into a wise, hands-on mother like you. The sort of mother who says on a rainy afternoon, “Let’s make a dinosaur out of a cardboard box.” Or “Hell, why don’t we write a play about Daddy and I’ll run up the costumes?” But it was only a dream.’
‘Eat.’ Paige dumped another spoonful of stew on my plate.
I stared at it. My anger had burnt out, leaving only sadness. ‘Nathan wanted to humiliate me, Paige, by suggesting Rose became a guardian… if anything happened. How could he have done that? Gisela says he was thinking clearly. Rose is the only one with time, she’s older, and she knows what she’s doing. She would put the boys’ interests first.’
Paige considered. ‘Gisela’s right. But it’s not going to happen. You’re in rude health. Maybe, Minty, he wanted to put things right between you.’
‘Well, he hasn’t.’
Paige ate what was on her plate with a rapidity that any new mother would recognize. ‘Charlie will wake up in a minute.’
On cue, a noise like a small lawnmower struggling into life drifted from the baby alarm. Paige threw down her fork and her face lit up. ‘I’ll fetch him.’
She returned with a now roaring Charlie and sat down to feed him, supporting him with one hand. With the other, deploying an elaborate movement so that her fork did not pass over Charlie’s head, she shovelled food from plate to mouth.
‘How’s Martin?’
‘I barely see him. I booted him into the spare room, which means I have Charlie all to myself.’ Paige smiled down at the baby. ‘Don’t I? And it’s delicious, isn’t it, my tiny tiger? We have a lovely time.’
‘Don’t you miss the bank?’ I gestured at the sterilizer, the timetable pinned to the noticeboard, the copper batterie de cuisine. ‘ Figures used to be your life.’
‘Oh, I miss them,’ she said. ‘I miss their purity, but they were only part of the deal. Most of my time was spent politicking, schmoozing clients and firefighting trouble or bad press. You could never get a run at the purity.’
Whenever Paige mentioned ‘figures’ or ‘statistics’, her face was suffused with longing, as it was now. If she had been a nun, she would have brought the same steely concentration and ferocious will to being the perfect Bride of Christ.
She shifted Charlie to the other breast, and returned to the original subject. ‘You’re going to have to sort yourself out about Rose. You mustn’t let her become an obsession.’ She caressed Charlie’s head, bent over him and cooed, Who’s my pretty boy? Who’s my good boy?’ She straightened up and asked, in a normal voice, You don’t really think anything was going on between them, do you?’
The question nagged away before I fell asleep at night, and it was there when I woke, still fatigued. Its implications swirled in my brain. ‘I don’t know. All I know is that I don’t want to have to think about her at the moment. And Nathan, with his ridiculous request, made sure that I have to.’
‘People do strange things, Minty.’
I became aware of the pulse beating in my right wrist. ‘Yes.’
‘Look, it’s not a problem at the moment. Don’t think about it.’
The fingers of my left hand circled my wrist and pressed down on the pulse. ‘Do you think history repeats itself?’ In other words, had it been predetermined that Nathan would seek comfort and pleasure from the source he knew so well?
‘You mustn’t mind.’ She threw a muslin square over her shoulder, draped Charlie over it, and eased herself to her feet, where she performed a circular rocking movement, like some tribal elder. ‘Helps with the wind.’ Charlie obliged and, one hand rubbing her own back, Paige gyrated in the opposite direction. ‘I’ve sent a search party for my waist, and it’s still out there.’
I laughed. ‘Presumably all your check-ups have been OK.’
‘Back’s a bit dodgy. The ligaments had gone into permanent tension. And I’m not so good at sleeping now. But, then, I anticipated on not sleeping for a hundred years. Do you want to come upstairs while I change Charlie?’
Paige was a champion mother. She was also a champion housekeeper. Her store-cupboards were immaculate, and none of her spice jars ever overran their sell-by date. Each shelf in the linen cupboard corresponded to a room in the house, and the clothes in her wardrobe were colour-coded. You could hate Paige, unless you loved her.
I trailed up behind her, noting that every shelf was dust-free and the curtains in the children’s bedrooms had strips of transparent film sewn along the bottom to preserve them. When I passed the spare room and glanced inside, though, I did a double-take. It was awash with discarded clothes, books, a pile of papers on the floor.
‘You’re looking at the mess? Martin said the deal was that if we had a third, which he didn’t want, he’d grab a space where he could live like a pig.’
‘Ah.’
Paige changed and washed Charlie. For all her talk, she was clearly tired, so I gathered up the discarded baby things and wiped down the mat.
‘You shouldn’t do that,’ she said. ‘But I’m grateful.’
‘Have you any idea how I crave to do something ordinary?’ I chucked the cotton-wool into the bin.
Suddenly Paige sat down on the nursing chair. Her stomach bulged over her skirt, and her thighs had a flabby underdone look. What next, Minty? What are you going to do?’
‘Go back to work full-time. Keep the boys and myself.’
‘You wanted to go back.’
‘I did.’
Paige pinched the flesh of one suety thigh and glared at it. ‘Well, it’s a beginning.’
A week later I packed shorts, T-shirts, sweaters, buckets, spades, baked beans, favourite cereals, teddy bears and alph
abet spaghetti into the car, loaded Eve, a map and the boys into it and drove out of London.
We were heading for Priac Bay in Cornwall. To be more specific, we were going to the house where Nathan and Rose had holidayed every year. It had been neither an easy, nor a difficult decision to make because it had not been a decision in the formal sense. I had never been to Priac Bay – I distrusted the idea of it. ‘For God’s sake,’ I had protested to Paige in the past, when Nathan had brought up the subject of going there. ‘It was where he took his first family.’
Paige had been suitably shocked. ‘Is he stupid? Or very limited in the imagination department?’
Yet I knew I had to take the boys and myself to a place where Nathan had been happy, so I had got on the phone and arranged it.
It was raining, a light spume, when three hundred or so murderous miles later the car jolted down the unmade road that led to the cottage. Stupefied and bored, Felix and Lucas were silent in the back.
The world was drenched. The horizon was wiped out by mist, and the sea roared with white crests. The slate tiles on the roof gleamed, there were damp patches sprouting on the grey walls and the plants in the garden dripped.
The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly Page 17
