The concoction starts to bubble, so I ladle out portions for Maggie and me and join them at the table. Johnny picks up his toast and takes a bite, carefully watching Maggie. She dips the edge of her spoon in the soup, tentatively. I begin to suspect it wasn’t her that made it: her girl, perhaps, or maybe Waitrose, transferred into the Tupperware for show.
‘Beans again, then,’ she says, still looking at the soup on her spoon. She takes a sip, considers it, then picks up the salt, adding a generous few shakes.
‘He hasn’t had them for a week, Maggie,’ I say.
‘Still,’ she replies with a shake of the head. She looks at me and puffs herself up, as if preparing for a grand announcement. ‘I saw my charity ladies on Saturday. We’re not sure how much longer we’ll keep going as a group.’ Johnny picks up a bean with his fingers, and I gesture at him to use his spoon. ‘It’s more of a chore nowadays.’
‘I’m sure the people you raise money for appreciate it, though.’ (Then, under my breath: ‘Johnny! Spoon!’ Johnny looks at me cautiously and slowly picks up his spoon, balancing a piece of toast on it with his fingers. ‘For the beans, please?’)
‘Well, only so they can spend their money on cigarettes and beer. We turn up at the food bank, and look at them all, in their – what do you call them, the jumpers with the …’ She gestures, two hands by the sides of her head.
‘Hoodies?’
‘Yes, hoodies and trainers, stinking of cigarettes – surely, if you can afford cigarettes, you can afford a bit of Weetabix – and we never get so much as a thank you, or even a nod.’
I can imagine the scene, Maggie and her cronies turning up in their pearls and cashmere, expecting the common masses to throw themselves at their feet in gratitude. It’s a miracle they don’t get lynched.
Johnny finally takes a mouthful of beans with his spoon. He chews them slowly.
‘It must be nice to spend some time with your friends,’ I say, taking a sip of the soup. It has a slightly chalky texture and an after-taste of lemon washing-up liquid. Less Waitrose, more underpaid domestic assistant. I warm to her girl for her minor act of rebellion.
Maggie has polished off her soup and holds the bowl up to me, like Johnny would, asking for seconds. I get up and fill it from the pan. I plough on. ‘I sometimes think I miss my friends. People to chat with about my day. Share funny stories and advice about the kids.’
‘But you have David for that. And me.’ She smiles, her lips a thin line as she takes the refilled bowl.
‘Well, you know, it’s good to talk to people, let off a bit of steam.’
‘Sharing your family’s dirty laundry with strangers?’
‘But they’re not strangers, they’re friends. I had some great friends from school I’d love to see.’ I’m rambling now, in the face of Maggie’s piercing stare. ‘I know David doesn’t have any old school friends because it was a bit rough with all the bullying and drugs—’
‘Rough? We sent him to one of the best schools in the country! The slightest hint of bullying and the little sod responsible would be expelled. There was none of that going on. Though David Senior thought it was a pity as it would have toughened him up a bit.’
‘Oh, well David said—’
‘Finished!’ Johnny says next to me, holding out his bowl.
‘Johnny you’ve barely started your toast. Have one more piece.’
He looks at me, then Maggie, and reluctantly picks up a square.
‘Family are the only people you can trust,’ Maggie says, placing her spoon in her finished bowl and dabbing at her mouth with her napkin. ‘If you need someone to talk to, that’s what your husband is for.’
I feel my lips press together, my muscles tense. I used to trust my husband, I did. Before the screwed-up receipt, the Christmas cards hidden in the back of a cupboard, the lies about his school. I stand up slowly and gather the bowls, the letters from Becca rough against my waistband. I place the dirty crockery in the dishwasher, then pause, knowing what I’m about to do but unable to stop it.
I pull the letters out and hold them in my hand, standing in front of Maggie.
‘What are those, dear?’ she asks.
‘Letters. From my friend Becca.’ She looks at them and turns away from me. I carry on. ‘I found them in David’s office. He’d hidden them from me.’
She turns to face me, her mouth a puckered cat bum of disapproval.
‘Snooping in your husband’s office?’ She shakes her head. ‘Put them back now, before he finds out.’
I take my seat again at the table, forcing her to face me.
‘That’s not the point, Maggie. He hid them from me. They’re my letters, and my friends, and David hid them from me.’ I wave them in her face. My voice is getting squeaky, and Johnny looks at me, distracted from the final bites of his lunch.
‘I’m sure he did it for a good reason,’ Maggie says.
Suddenly I realise. ‘You knew. You knew what he was doing.’
‘He asked my advice, yes.’ She looks at me. ‘He asked me what to do about these awful so-called friends of yours that kept on crawling out of the gutter. Distracting you, leading you astray.’ She carries on, unflinching. ‘What would be next? Drinking again? Nights out on the town? I agreed with him it was the right thing to do.’
‘Right thing for you and David, or for me?’
‘What’s the difference, dear?’ she asks. ‘You’re married now; you are one, together. Your thoughts don’t matter, it’s what’s best for the marriage.’ She tuts. ‘Now, enough of this nonsense, let’s finish our lunch. Does anyone want some yogurt?’ she asks Johnny.
Johnny throws the piece of toast on the floor. It lands butter side down.
‘Strawberry gogurt?’ he says, with a smile.
I slowly place the letters on the kitchen counter, my hands unsteady.
‘Please?’ I say to Johnny, measured and calm, still facing away, feeling Maggie’s gaze on my back. I take a very long breath in, trying to quell the flicker of anger burning in my chest, muzzling my screaming inner voice.
‘Please,’ he replies.
18
The click of the front door as it opens. David’s footsteps as he comes into the house and closes the door behind him. I imagine him taking his coat off, hanging it up, smoothing down his suit and his hair in the mirror in the hallway, his keys still in his hand.
All of this makes my heart beat faster, my mouth go dry.
I hear the jangle of his keys as he goes to his office door. The grate of metal against metal as he puts the key in the lock and turns it. I hear a pause, when normally he would go straight in. I hear the door open, and a thud as David places his briefcase in the doorway. Another pause.
‘Have you been in my office?’ he says from the hallway.
My hands cling to a tea towel to stop them from shaking.
‘I said, have you been in my office?’ He is shouting louder now, his voice partly lost as he moves round the room.
‘Yes, the door was unlocked, so I went in to clean.’ I will my legs to move, to walk out of the kitchen. David is standing in the middle of the study, a striking figure in his black suit, his shoulders thrown back. He is rotating on the spot, looking slowly round the room.
I stand at the doorway, the tea towel still in my hand. I smile, gently. ‘I thought that’s what you wanted.’
Another pause. David’s face is frozen, his eyebrows knotted, scrutinising. ‘You haven’t done a great job.’ He moves to the bookcase and runs a finger over one of the shelves. He shows it to me, grey with dust.
‘No, Johnny needed me so I didn’t have a chance to finish. I’ll do it tomorrow.’
David rubs his fingers together. ‘No. You’re not to come in here again.’ He walks towards his desk and pulls at the drawers, glancing up at me when they refuse to open: locked. He bends to the last one, which opens easily. He inspects the contents, then stands and looks at me.
‘Did you go in here? Because you know this is non
e of your business. There is nothing in this room that is anything to do with you.’
‘I didn’t,’ I lie. My inbuilt reaction. But a part of me hesitates; a part of me feels the anger start to build.
His eyes are on me, focused and intense. He pauses. ‘Are you sure?’ he asks, slowly.
As soon as Johnny was in bed earlier that day, I sat in my room, listening through his chattering for the sound of the door opening, of David coming home. I took the letters out of my pocket and laid them in front of me, the black memory stick next to them.
There were eleven in all. One dated as far back as four years ago, a few months after our wedding, the final one postmarked barely a month ago. All were written on the same light-blue stationery; heavy paper, envelopes matching the notecards. All were from Becca.
I started at the beginning. Becca’s handwriting has always been neat, the letters round and familiar, small bubbles of her personality on the page. The first letter began with a single sentence: I’m sorry. I stared at those two words for a moment, remembering that evening, that argument, then read on, more apologies, more explanations. I’m writing to you as I don’t know how else to get in touch, she wrote. You’re not on social media. It’s true, David doesn’t want our business all over the internet; he says I should talk to people face to face. I agreed at the time, but of course, I never do. Becca had written her phone number down in big letters, underlined, asking me to call her, as she had tried to call me and my mobile had been disconnected. She signed off with four kisses. I put it back in the envelope slowly, then pulled out the next. Again the apology, but moving on to tell me about her new boyfriend, their first date, their first kiss. She said how she looked forward to seeing me, how she hoped I could forgive her.
Another letter moved her relationship with her new man forward. More dates, more kisses. Other things. Signed off a bit more urgently now. Slightly disgruntled, but still the four kisses.
The next: the boyfriend now moved in. A photo of the two of them together, with As you’re not on Facebook written in biro on the back. I stared at it for a moment. Becca’s face familiar but blurring with age, a few more lines, hair colour a bit blonder. The boyfriend: brown hair, stubble, warm smile. He seemed nice. I would have liked to meet him.
And so it progressed. Their relationship seemed to be going well, but Becca’s tone grew increasingly annoyed, then angry. Accusing words, of me forgetting where I had come from, forgetting the people that loved me. The phone number again, underlined, with a few exclamation marks.
Two letters were unopened. I ran a finger under the top of the first envelope, and pulled the letter out. Along with the letter was a cream embossed card with fancy black lettering, inviting David and me to their wedding, Becca and Matt, with a date long since passed. I felt a knot form in my stomach. I had missed my best friend’s wedding, the happiest day of her life, and I hadn’t even known. I didn’t need to imagine how she had felt, because she had written it all down in the next letter. An angry missive, full of exclamation marks and capitals. I’m not going to write to you again, it said, I’ve had enough.
I turned to my bedside table and pulled out the invitation to the birthday party, now buried under the books stored in there. I looked at the date, but it was gone, another significant moment missed.
Helen’s disappointment in me made sense; she was quite right to be furious, and to try and protect her daughter and grandchild in the best way she knew how. In her eyes I had taken all the love and kindness they had shown me, and thrown it back in their faces. What must Becca think of me, ignoring her letters all this time?
I lay back on my bed, the letters around me, and took a few deep breaths, staring up at the ceiling.
‘I’m worried about you, Annabelle. I’m worried about you and David.’
‘What about me and David?’ I asked.
Becca and I were sitting in our favourite restaurant. The lighting was low, the food was delicious but the conversation had been strange; stilted and halting. We’d struggled to find anything to talk about, let alone laugh over.
‘It’s just …’ she started, then put her knife and fork down. ‘He seems very controlling. You never do anything without his say-so.’
‘That’s not true, don’t be ridiculous. We’re fine, I’m fine.’ I was blindsided by Becca’s comments, blustering in response.
Becca went to hold my hand, reaching across the table. I pulled away from her, sitting back in my chair, my arms crossed. ‘He seemed lovely when you first met, but you’re a different person now. I never see you, and when I do, you’re desperate to get back to him.’
Becca was right, it had been months since I’d seen her, but that hadn’t been David’s fault. We had been busy: buying the new house, enjoying being newly-weds. I’d arranged to meet her, but each time something had come up: David had made plans, just the two of us, and couldn’t rearrange, or he’d had a bad day at work and I hadn’t wanted to leave him.
‘Can you blame me, when you attack me like this?’ I replied.
‘It’s just … I miss you,’ she said, with a gentle smile, pulling her blonde hair away from her face and tying it back with a flick of her wrist. ‘And I worry about you.’
‘You don’t need to worry about me. I’m married now, things work differently. I have to be there for my husband. You wouldn’t understand.’
‘Is he hitting you?’ she asked, suddenly.
‘For fuck’s sake, Becca!’ I stood up, and the chair hit the wall behind me. The other diners in the restaurant turned at the commotion. I leant forward as I pulled my coat round my shoulders. ‘I am fine, we are fine. David loves me. And I don’t need you acting like my fucking mother.’
‘I am nothing like your mother.’ Becca stood up too, matching my stance. The glasses on the table chinked together. ‘Your mother didn’t give a shit about you, but I do. That’s the difference. And I can see when something’s not right.’
‘Oh, fuck off,’ I hissed, and turned and stalked through the restaurant, heading home to my husband.
By the time I got in through my front door, I was properly crying, tears streaming down my face. It took me two attempts to open the door, then I collapsed on the sofa when I got inside, throwing my keys across the room in frustration.
David sat, beer in hand, and looked at me, then reached for the remote, muting the football on the television. He placed his beer on the coffee table and came over, crouching in front of me.
‘Fucking Becca,’ I shouted, wiping my nose on my sleeve.
He took both my hands in his and looked up at me. ‘What happened with Becca?’
‘We had a fight.’
‘What about?’ David’s eyes were wide and open. I was reluctant to tell him; I didn’t want to hurt him, to ruin his evening in the same way Becca had ruined mine.
‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘You can tell me anything, it’s okay.’
I started crying again, and David reached up and wiped my cheek with his finger. ‘It was about you,’ I blurted out through the sobbing. ‘She said awful things about you, said you’re no good for me.’
David cocked his head to one side and rested his arms on my knees. ‘What a strange thing for a best friend to say.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Is she still single?’
I nodded, and sniffed.
‘Well, there you go, she’s just jealous of what we have. Perhaps she fancies me for herself.’
He rested his chin on my knee and looked up at me. I ran my hands through his hair and he knelt up and kissed me gently on the lips. ‘Can you blame her?’
I smiled. ‘No,’ I said and kissed him back.
‘I can’t stand to see you so miserable,’ David said. ‘You don’t have to see her again, not if she makes you feel like this.’
And I didn’t. I didn’t call, and weeks turned into months, and then years. At the special times – my birthday, Christmas, when Johnny was born – I wondered why I hadn’t heard from her. ‘You obviously weren’t that import
ant to her,’ was all David had to say on the matter. ‘Don’t dwell on people who aren’t worth your time.’
But of course now I knew why. What an idiot I was, how stupid and blinkered. Why hadn’t I listened to her, the person who knew me better than anyone else in the world?
Johnny’s room was quiet. He had gone to sleep, and I suddenly grew nervous, expecting David home from work at any time. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I knew Maggie would tell him about our conversation; maybe she already had. My stomach turned over, making me feel slightly sick. I put the letters back in their envelopes, and bundled them up with the elastic band before placing them in my chest of drawers, under some socks. The contents of the memory stick would have to wait.
‘Are you sure?’
Am I sure? What about the letters from my best friend, David? What about the invitation to her wedding? Who else is stuffed in that cupboard, David?
My heart is thumping, and I can feel my cheeks turning red. All those lost fucking years. The anger overtakes me. I feel my muscles tense and my fingers contract into fists.
‘Actually, David, I did have a quick look, and do you know what I found?’
He stands up straight and stares at me. I look at him, and in that moment, my charming husband has disappeared; his eyes are icy, hypnotic. I have no idea what he’s thinking.
‘You did what?’ Quiet, slow.
‘I had a look in your desk, and in that crappy old cupboard behind you.’
He glances quickly over his shoulder, then turns back to face me.
‘And?’
‘And I found something.’
‘Please enlighten me, Annie. What exactly did you find?’ David’s voice is still, calm and measured. He hasn’t moved from his position behind the desk, his arms by his sides.
‘I found all my post. Cards, letters, postcards, all addressed to me.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yes! Loads of them; piles and piles of them. I didn’t have time to look at them all. Why did you take them, David? They were mine! They were from my friends!’
Suddenly, in two great strides, he is next to me in the doorway, his face close to mine.
The Dream Wife Page 12
