The Husband Who Refused to Die

by Andrea Darby

  ‘That’s not right.’ Ashley’s eyes narrow to slits.

  ‘I know, but it gets to me at times. But then …’ I hesitate, ‘anyway, let’s change the subject?’ I wiggle my legs – they’re starting to cramp. ‘Have you prepared for your audition?’

  ‘Course … sorry. Not really. Alas, I don’t do preparation very well.’

  I nod, recalling how much he procrastinated over learning lines, annoying lecturers with his frequent absences and late assignments.

  ‘How about your wife? I suppose she has to do lots of preparation, and lesson planning?’

  ‘Yes, she’s very organised.’ I wait for him to elaborate. ‘We’re not really together any more. We’ve been separated for a while, hoping to work things out. But …’ He stops.

  I’m convinced raisins are racing around my chest. He rubs his thighs. ‘Both want different things, I guess.’

  I lean back on the grass while Ashley tells me how his wife had never really been keen on the acting. ‘She’d prefer me to get a proper job, so we can get a mortgage and a better house. She hates renting. To be fair, she’s worked damn hard to qualify as a teacher – she was a classroom assistant before. It’s not the easiest role, being married to a struggling actor. There’s lots of time apart, no stability. This year’s been rough with me out of action, and all the operations.’

  ‘Yes. I can imagine.’ But I couldn’t envisage Ashley giving it up. Over lunch, he’d told me how nothing matched the feeling he got on stage. ‘There’s raw fear, but then the biggest buzz,’ he’d said, eyes blazing with fervour. And I couldn’t imagine a wife being other than preposterously proud to be married to a talented actor. I’d be happy to shout it from my rented rooftop.

  But it wasn’t just that. I persist with the questions and eventually prise out of him that he’d become keener to have children, especially since the accident, while his wife seemed less so. She’d decided to focus on her career, determined to be the one earning the reliable income. Her ambition was to be an assistant headteacher before she turned forty. She was thirty-six.

  ‘I think we could have worked something out if we’d both wanted it enough and things were …’ Ashley shuffles. ‘I think I knew early on that things weren’t right, but I didn’t want to … walk away ...’ He picks at the grass.

  Again! I think. Say it! So he could walk out on me, a smitten, obliging girlfriend, but not on a selfish, malcontented, resentful, controlling wife. But they were married, weren’t they? And we’d only been together for seven months. It was right that he’d tried to make his marriage work.

  I try to appear sympathetic about his separation but a voice in my head’s saying ‘serves you right’ and, at the same time, I can’t stop inappropriate thoughts in their tracks. Ashley’s available. Did that change things? Then a sweep of despair. Ashley wants the one thing I can never give any man – a baby.

  I fold the thoughts away; try to steer my mind in a different direction. After what he did to me, why should I care about his desire for a child, or his marital situation?

  Ashley’s subdued after his revelation and I’m still wrestling with several inner voices as we sit on a Cotswold stone wall by a glistening pond jewelled with sunken coins and topped by a cascading fountain, debating when I should leave and how long my journey back will take, both reluctant to be decisive, as always.

  Ashley reaches out, flicking water at me. I feel a few cold droplets cling to my clammy cheek.

  ‘OK. Have that.’ I plunge my hand into the pond, splashing far more water than I’d intended. One side of his T-shirt is soaked.

  ‘You really shouldn’t have done that.’ He grins mischievously, grabs my arm and grapples me to the edge of the water, pretending he intends to throw me in. I go to pull away but his arms lock me in. Then he kisses me.

  CHAPTER 14

  It’s hard to focus after the fountain incident. Simple tasks prove painstakingly difficult, with a mind so delirious and distracted. This morning, I found my car keys in the fridge. Last night, still disorientated by the twists and turns of the day, I smothered my face in lemon foot cream, mistaking the yellow tube for my new moisturiser. I went to bed with a burning forehead, one shade short of strawberry.

  The kiss has stirred up so many emotions – passion, excitement, confusion, guilt, betrayal – and endless questions. Should I have resisted? Was it significant? Could it ever lead anywhere? Did we look like a couple of sad oldies who should know better than to pucker up in public in the daylight? Did my breath smell of rum and raisin?

  Over breakfast, I give myself a strict talking to: ‘It was just a spur of the moment thing. We were splashing each other in a fountain on a glorious spring day in a picture postcard park; he’d have snogged an octogenarian with halitosis in such a perfect setting. It shouldn’t have happened. It can’t mean anything. We have a tarnished past. I can’t trust him again. He has an estranged wife. He wants someone to start a family with – your baby days are over. Then I try to eject those thoughts, keen to enjoy the buzz and thrill – two old friends whose company I haven’t shared for so long.

  Several episodes of extreme daydreaming later, a pile of post thumps through the door. Casting aside the usual junk, bills and credit card inducements, I see an envelope addressed in erratic, spidery writing I don’t recognise. A local postmark. I stare; handwritten mail’s such a rarity. I’m not expecting anything – perhaps it’s an invitation, or an early birthday card for Eleanor from a distant relative. Not another begging letter.

  I tear it open. Inside is a single sheet, blank but for a few words in the centre, in huge, bold type:

  ‘Your husband’s a selfish freak. Give money to the living, not the dead.’

  I wrench up my stomach muscles in a gasp. I’m sickened, imagining the sender, wicked and spiteful, bent menacingly over the keyboard, bashing out each letter, concluding the mission with a resonant cackle. Beneath the writing is a horrible yellowy-brown stain.

  I’m startled by the phone, standing rigid for several seconds, legs unwilling to move. This person knows my address, perhaps my telephone number, too. I answer. Relief. It’s a Tetford Times reporter.

  ‘I’m putting the story together about local charitable donations – and your husband’s generosity – and wondered if you wanted to comment,’ says the cheery male voice.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘OK – just wanted to give you the opportunity, that’s all. We’ve got some good quotes from your husband’s former secretary …’ he pauses, ‘… Kirsten – saying what a generous man he was.’

  ‘Oh … really.’ I wonder why they’d contacted Kirsten. It’s a long time since she’d worked as Dan’s secretary. She’d left a couple of years before he died to look after baby number four.

  ‘I think she felt a bit bad – wanted to make amends,’ the reporter adds.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Oh, didn’t you know … for … letting the cat out the bag, telling the nationals about your husband’s donation to that research trust.’

  ‘Oh, really.’ My mind’s spinning.

  I make a detour on my way back from work. I sit for ages, staring across the busy road through a wet window, watching between cars parked along the edges of neat driveways and tiny trimmed lawns, as neighbours come and go – a suited man dashing home under a giant golfing umbrella, a postman dropping a pile of letters on to a rain-soaked pavement – willing myself to knock on the door I assume is still Kirsten’s, to confront her, but unable to. She may have moved. Besides, what would I say?

  Tired of craning my neck, I’m daydreaming at the dashboard and think it’s my Conflict Dodgem arriving when, from the corner of my eye, I spot a boxy blue car pull on to her drive, narrowly missing a neglected planter spilling over with a tangled shrub. The side panel on the car’s passenger side is grey and unpainted, with white splodges across the door.

  Kirsten climbs out, auburn hair drawn back in a loose ponytail, huge hooped earrings dangling. A blonde girl and
a smaller boy in bright trainers join her as she fumbles in the back seat and pulls out a sleeping infant. It must be baby number five; the bump she was carrying when I saw her in the street a few months ago. I gulp. I can’t do it.

  I watch from a distance as Kirsten fumbles in a rucksack, then unlocks the door and walks in, toddler draped around one hip, fidgety girl following behind.

  I stare ahead again, distracted, half watching an estate car trying to squeeze into the space in front of me. The rain’s eased, just gentle flecks filling gaps on the windscreen. I should go.

  Moments later, the driver makes his second attempt, bumper inching closer. I hear a bang. I jump, heart tripping.

  I expect the man to leap out in horror, but the car’s still moving, approaching the snug gap from a different angle. I turn to my right, so startled at the sight that I gasp loudly.

  It’s Kirsten, freckled face up close, chest pressed against the side window, waving with one hand, grumpy boy grasping the other. I lower the window.

  ‘Hi. Thought I recognised the car,’ she says. ‘Surprised to see you.’

  ‘Hi, Kirsten,’ I say in a carefree voice, feeling foolish, mind frenziedly searching for a reason to be there. I glance at my open handbag on the passenger seat. ‘I was driving … my mobile rang … thought I better pull over to answer it. Anyway, how are you? Looking well.’

  ‘I’m fine, ta. Busy. My baby girl’s teething and this one’s having tantrums.’ She lifts her straight eyebrows skywards. The bleary-eyed boy’s clinging to her jeans, dark hair dishevelled. ‘Although he’s four in a few weeks, so he should be over it.’ She smiles. ‘He’s just woken up – being a proper Mr Grumpy Pants, aren’t you?’ She tickles his chin.

  The boy can’t resist a smile, turning to give me a bashful stare. He has little dimples and tiny teeth. Kirsten tells me she has an interview for an admin job tomorrow. She hasn’t worked for a few years and it’s doing her head in now. She’s recently parted from her boyfriend – needs the money.

  ‘I better dash.’ I cast an eye at my watch. ‘Great to see you. Take care.’ Adrenalin coursing, I pull away from the kerb in haste.

  At home, Imogen isn’t answering her phone, so I send an email to Sheena about the nasty note and what the reporter revealed. I tell her about Ashley’s separation bombshell, how much I enjoyed his company and how we’d slipped so effortlessly into our easy chat. I confess to the kiss – that I still found him attractive – and the strength of my guilt.

  I decide not to mention the letter to Eleanor. She comes home fretting about her fourteenth birthday plans, even though it’s several weeks away. She doesn’t want a party, just three friends over for a pamper evening and sleepover. It had taken Eleanor ages deciding who to invite, but after saying ‘yes’ Bethany had changed her mind about staying over, and now said she couldn’t come at all because she was visiting relatives.

  ‘I think she’s lying. I don’t think she’s allowed,’ Eleanor says, squeezing a spot into the hall mirror.

  My mind dips in and out of the TV programmes I try to distract myself with that evening. I’ve searched out Dan’s old contacts book and found Kirsten’s number. With a little Dutch courage, and Eleanor in bed, I tap in the numbers.

  ‘I’ve just had a call from a reporter from the Tetford Times,’ I fib, squirming at how ridiculous my fib is. It’s ten o’clock at night. ‘He mentioned that you told the press about Dan’s donation.’ I feel so silly, as if she’d miss the coincidence of my appearance in her street for no apparent reason earlier.

  ‘Yes, I did – accidentally,’ she says. She’d seen some paperwork at the office regarding Dan’s donation. ‘This newspaper guy – from The Sun, I think – tricked me, said he had a list of people who’d given money and asked me to comment. Turns out he was lying, that Dan’s donation was just a rumour.’

  I want to know if she was offered money from that rascal reporter in exchange for her snippet of information. Finances must be tough with five young children and no partner. But I can’t bring myself to ask. It won’t change things. I’m amazed I’ve been brave enough to ring in the first place.

  ***

  ‘These are on me, for being Mrs Patience while I faffed over dresses.’ I place two giant slices of chocolate and hazelnut brownie on the table.

  ‘Ta-dah! Don’t mind if I do.’ Tash eyes hers with a look of pure lust, nibbling it in a rare silence.

  Farello’s is my favourite café. Although below ground and a little cramped and devoid of natural light, it’s full of rustic charm, from the wobbly wooden tables to the mix and match crockery and sloping shelves stacked with authentic Italian products. The owners, a family of excitable Italians, constantly collide and bicker in the confined space behind the counter, but the coffee’s perfect and stars of the show are the cakes, housed in a rotating glass cabinet covered in the breath marks of drooling customers.

  ‘Buongiorno,’ Nonna, the impossibly short and rotund matriarch of the family, says as she marches past, her tiny head partially obscured by a stacked tray. Sweeter than one of her family recipe panettones to customers, she snaps orders to her relatives with an edge harder than the rind on a wedge of Parmesan.

  ‘Oh my good God. This is so yum – though I shouldn’t be eating it if I’m going to get into that dress,’ Tash declares, face turning from delight to despair.

  She’d bought her dress for the charity auction long ago but, tired of helping to choose mine, had tried on more, ending up with a stunning knee-length blue one that clung so closely to her curves it looked like a silk condom. I’d taken an age choosing between my final shortlist; if indecision were ever declared an Olympic sport, I’d be on the podium for team GB.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘We burned off some serious calories walking between each shop.’

  ‘Good point, babe.’ Tash pulls tiny pieces from her brownie with freshly manicured plum nails, savouring every crumb.

  ‘There’s no need to be quite so careful. I think your nails are dry now,’ I say. Tash laughs – loudly – drowning out the clash of china and aggressive hiss of the coffee machine. Nonna Farello stops to give us a stare.

  ‘I always eat really yummy things like this, makes them last longer,’ Tash says. ‘How gorgeous is your dress? I’m not gonna lie, I’ve never seen you look so stunning. You’ll need some killer heels, though.’

  ‘You know I don’t do really high ones.’

  ‘With that dress you so have to. Lowies are illegal!’ Tash looks indignant.

  ‘Don’t tell me, you’ll be wearing slingbacks with yours?’

  ‘Cheeky cow! Actually, I’ll need new ones. I don’t have that shade of blue.’

  Shopping had kept my mind off the kiss, but it hurtles back into the centre of my thoughts, bringing a burst of adrenalin that, when mixed with caffeine, feels on the edge of lethal. I watch Tash lick the last traces of chocolate off each shiny fingertip, debating whether to tell her. I decide against it. I’d mentioned the letter earlier and, while appalled, she’d been more shocked that it had been posted: ‘Do people even send letters any more?’

  ‘I better go easy on the croissants in France next week,’ I say. ‘I probably should have waited until after the holiday to buy the dress – in a bigger size.’

  ‘Just have lots of sex while you’re out there. That’ll keep the weight off!’

  I scowl. ‘So how’s your sex life?’

  ‘Pretty good. I’ve got two dates next week, and one the week after – so far.’

  ‘Have you ever considered a dating detox? You’re addicted.’

  ‘Are you for real?’

  I shake my head. ‘You’re a hopeless case.’

  Tash checks her teeth in her compact. She’s so attractive; and always out and about. She doesn’t need the amount of cyber assistance she seeks. But she’s hooked on the whole online dating process, loves filtering out the ‘fitties’ from the numerous ‘fuglies’ (her word), wasters, geeks, creeps and sex-starved husbands, then flir
ting electronically for weeks, so both parties are armed with the minutiae of each other’s lives and personal preferences before clapping eyes on each other.

  And her attitude to sex is beyond casual. I’d lost count of her boyfriends, mostly one-nighters on her long ‘cop and drop’ list, though she tries to assure me she’s hunting for Mr Right – just having fun along the way.

  I hadn’t slept with anyone other than Dan since I was twenty-two and only six people before him. Two were drunken one-night stands. Although I don’t share Imogen’s rather prudish view of sex, some of the content of Mum’s lectures on the evils of promiscuity filtered through (thankfully not all of it; her moral compass led her so far north she was at risk of hypothermia – Dad once telling me the fridge had frosty drawers ‘just like your mum’) and I didn’t sleep around willy-nilly like some friends at poly.

  ‘I’ve been messaging Seb for a month now – I’ve got to know him well, he’s lovely,’ Tash declares.

  ‘So what’s his view on euthanasia?’ I ask facetiously.

  Tash gives me a questioning stare. ‘I don’t know – but he’s got eight tattoos, a nipple ring and loves Top Gear.’

  Several stunned faces look over to locate the source of the shriek.

  CHAPTER 15

  It’s great to cross the Channel, say goodbye to the changeable May weather, leave my confused, cloudy life behind, and escape to a world of sunshine and blanket brightness.

  I spend the first day staring at clear skies and sharp scenery, though I can’t shift the haze that descends on my mind when I think about Ashley, and seeing him again.

  Since the fountain episode, we’ve both managed to dodge direct references to the kiss with great prowess. He’s texted several times, telling me he had a great afternoon in Cherlsbury and hopes we can do it again soon. I echo his sentiments. But we’ve made no plans – leaving it in a veil of vagueness. Ashley was tied up helping his wife’s friend to run drama workshops in schools; the perfect excuse.