The Loving Husband

by Christobel Kent

  ‘We’ll leave you to it for the moment, then,’ said Gerard, looking at Karen, expressionless. ‘But we’ll be back before you know it.’ It sounded like a warning. ‘If you wouldn’t mind just leaving things as they are, for the moment? The study.’ He smiled, courteous. Karen was watching him levelly, but their eyes didn’t meet. ‘Don’t touch anything,’ said Gerard. ‘Is what I mean.’

  ‘Can’t stand them,’ said Karen, not bothering to wait till the door closed.

  ‘I’m sure they didn’t guess.’

  Karen suppressed a smile, looking round the room. ‘Whyn’t you go and sit next door?’ she said. ‘I’ll bring us some tea. You have got a next door, haven’t you? Place this size?’ Fran got up, Ben asleep and heavy as a sandbag against her shoulder.

  The sitting room was cold. Carefully she put Ben down on the sofa. It was days since she’d been in here. The ceiling was low, but when the fire was lit it was snug. She could hear Karen clattering in the kitchen, opening drawers, and she knelt to lay the fire. There was a neat stack of kindling: Nathan liked cutting it, and there as she bent over in the dark fireplace with Nathan in front of her, all around her, Nathan’s voice in her head, it crept in. The unanswered question, What if.

  What if someone had been in the house? Not just the man in the field, waiting, not just in the yard. If he’d already been in, below her as she slept, moving through the house.

  The two men had been talking in low voices as she came down the stairs with Ben. Something had changed, it had been there in their tone, what did they know? If Nathan hadn’t taken the knife out with him, then someone had been in to get it.

  She could ask them when they got back: she could ask Ali Compton. That was what an FLO was for, wasn’t it? To tell her what the hell was going on.

  Numbly she set a match to the kindling, she sat back, she found herself brushing at herself, her front, her sleeves, as if there was something stuck there, clinging to her.

  The logs were dry, and by the time Karen came in the fire had taken.

  She’d found a tray, laid it with a clean tea towel, a jug of milk, two mugs. One of them had the name of a flooring company on it, another one of Nathan’s freebies.

  Karen sat beside Ben on the sofa: he stirred. Carefully Fran picked him up and settled him back on her knee on the armchair by the fire.

  ‘Harry’s dad used to hit me,’ said Karen, lifting the mug to her mouth. She was almost talking to herself, it seemed. Startled, Fran kept silent. ‘Well, I say used to, he did it the twice. Should’ve gone after the once, well, yeah.’ Her eyes settled on Fran, flat. ‘I took it all the way to court, baby under my arm, Mum in the gallery. He got a two-year suspended sentence.’

  ‘Nathan never…’ began Fran. ‘That’s not…’ but Karen was shaking her head.

  ‘All I mean is.’ She sipped the tea warily, even though she’d made it herself. ‘God almighty, I don’t know what I mean. There’s things you have to just … get sorted. You can do it, with or without. Maybe that’s what I mean. With or without the man.’ She was frowning. ‘And don’t take any rubbish from them.’ Karen jerked her head back towards the road, the policemen’s departing car. ‘Those men. Big kids.’ She was showing Fran the future: On your guard, she was saying. Don’t trust anyone, she was saying. She seemed to know what she was talking about.

  ‘Christ, though,’ she went on, setting the mug down so abruptly it spilled. ‘So. You found him? Went out there and … what? Middle of the bloody night and you’re out in the fen?’

  Did they think it was her? Took the knife from her own kitchen? Buried it, pretended to find it?

  Upstairs there was a rush of small feet, along the corridor, breathless chatter, then back again and a door closed, softly.

  Fran didn’t quite trust the relief she felt then, of having someone there to talk to. Someone who wasn’t a police officer. ‘Well, I woke up and he was gone.’ She found herself telling Karen only what she’d told the police, after all. I was asleep, he came in. Karen sat back in the chair, hands around the mug, and nodded but Fran could see, at a certain point, a certain flatness to her expression that Karen knew, this wasn’t all of it.

  As Fran skirted them, though, the facts – if they were facts, was a dream a fact? – stood their ground. The dream of another man standing close to her, the feel of his fingers through the fabric. Then the sex. She had to clear her throat mid-sentence at the memory, what she was saying was something like, All I know is I’d been asleep at least an hour but what she remembered was his hand on her waist from behind, just where it met the hip bone, the cold as he pushed the fabric up to expose her. His erection, pressing into her.

  She held the mug tight, kept talking. When she’d finished – I don’t know how long it took for the ambulance to arrive, it seemed a long time – Karen waited a moment or two as if there must be more, then set her mug on the tray, leaning forward with both elbows on her knees.

  ‘So he never hit you or nothing?’ Fran was stunned. She felt Karen searching her face, unafraid. Was that what she thought? ‘Because I could’ve killed Danny, when he smacked me that time,’ and Karen’s head moved sideways just a fraction at the memory, as if in recoil. ‘Harry was in his car seat and he woke up with the noise. I could’ve just, if I’d had something in my hand, a knife, anything, I could’ve. Done it. No problem.’ She sat back again.

  Fran could barely form the words. ‘No, never,’ she said, stiff with shame. ‘He never hit me.’

  Other things, though: it came to her like a revelation. There had been times when a particular expression came over his face, saying no to something she suggested, or when he turned away from her in bed, when he simply failed to answer, when she had felt, How do I get out of this? If I wanted to get away, how would I even do it? I could have killed him. It was just something women said, wasn’t it?

  Was that what the police thought? ‘Nathan wasn’t that kind of bloke. He wasn’t violent.’ She hesitated. ‘Not with me, not with the kids, no sign of it, ever. Never angry.’

  Fran moved away from the thought of Nathan angry. ‘He was dead when I found him. There was a lot of blood.’ She swallowed, remembering how it had felt sticky, her hand under the kitchen tap as she waited. Blood on the telephone handset. The knife. ‘He was very cold.’

  Karen nodded. ‘You told me he was from around here,’ she said. ‘First conversation we had, you told me, months back.’

  Had she? She didn’t remember.

  ‘Had he been back in touch, like with mates? I mean, that can be trouble. Place like this, bloke like him, buys a nice big house, wife and kids, he’s got it all.’ She fumbled in her bag, taking out a pack of cigarettes then putting it away again. ‘Comes back lording it, that’s how some of them will see it.’

  Fran did remember, then. Early days, Emme’s term had just begun. Karen had been leaning in over the wrong side of the school fence and puffing on a Silk Cut, she had pink tips to her hair then. Leaves had been blowing around the playground in eddies. ‘You come from London?’ Karen had said to her, incredulous. ‘To a dump like this? What d’you do that for?’ And Fran had given her the story. Nostalgia, swimming in the river, feeding the ducks.

  Karen had tilted her head and was eyeing her. ‘Things aren’t always how you left ’em, that’s all. People.’ She rolled her eyes towards the door. ‘So has he picked up again with anyone?’

  ‘I know Rob. No one else. And Rob’s not … he’s … a sweetheart.’ She went on. ‘They’d kept in touch, all this time.’ Karen barely nodded. ‘He was Nathan’s best man.’

  She remembered a blur of suits and pastel dresses at their wedding, a bobbing feather in a hat. Rob had been staring at her and she had looked down and seen a button come undone on her shirt, which had been par for the course. Who else had been there? Who would she have to tell?

  ‘Look,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to, got to, I think I need to get some sleep now.’ As she stood she saw something, down the side of t
he armchair. No wonder she hadn’t been able to hear it: her mobile. No more Nathan to frown at her when she typed a message, or read one. Both hands full, she left it there. How long since she’d looked at it? A day.

  Karen was already on her feet, not needing to be told twice, her face closed. ‘Harry?’ she shouted up the stairs, and there they were instantly, clattering down together, Emme peeping around from behind Harry when they got to the bottom.

  It was bitterly cold on the doorstep. Karen looked up at the blue-grey cloud and said, ‘Snow, I heard, Sunday, to cap it all. Wouldn’t be surprised.’ She pulled the big coat tighter round her, her sharp red nose buried in the fur. ‘God almighty, that’s all we need.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said quickly, and before she could stop herself she had Karen in an awkward half-hug, Ben briefly crushed between them, before she let go again almost instantly.

  ‘You get some sleep,’ said Karen, raising her eyebrows. ‘You and Emme both. And with a sharp tug on Harry’s hand she was round the corner and gone, before she could soften.

  Upstairs Fran laid Ben down, still swaddled, his small dark face was set in a frown. He looked like Nathan. Emme had followed her up and stood there beside her with her hands on the cot’s bars, obediently silent.

  As Fran straightened from the cot she hardly recognised her own smell: sweat and stress and twenty-four hours of weirdness and strangers in her house. When had she last washed? A bath before going to bed last night, it felt like days ago. She found herself wondering, would the police even allow her to shower? What if … Don’t be stupid. If they wanted evidence off her they would have asked by now.

  Emme yawned. Fran stroked her small face, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and Emme looked back up at her. A smudge of pizza on her chin, her school sweatshirt needed a wash. ‘Bath time,’ she said.

  With Emme in her room having closed the door carefully on Fran to hide from her some mysterious project she and Harry had begun, Fran went into the bedroom, a tangle of dirty clothes in her arms.

  It was this room that had sold the house to her: high-ceilinged, flooded with pale north light, she could remember walking into it with Nathan and stopping to look. The two long sash windows were set in alcoves with panelled shutters, although – she had soon found out – they were thick with layers of ancient paint and wouldn’t budge. Layers of wallpaper, faded pink, yellow garlands. The glass was thick and wavy with age, and if you stood at the right angle you could see the line of poplars, that had been in full leaf when they’d bought the place, the fields had been green and you could imagine, whoever this house had been built for two, three hundred years back, standing looking out to the horizon.

  If you stood in the wrong place all you could see was the chicken barn. Nathan had turned vague whenever she asked about getting it taken down; first vague, then irritable. And so it stood there, a black silhouette in the darkening field, and Fran thought, that pig farmer will know someone to take it down. She wanted it gone.

  The bed was unmade still. She didn’t even need to think when she’d last changed the sheets because it was always Saturday morning, two days ago. They looked grey, from where she stood.

  Kneeling on the edge of the mattress Fran leaned across it, she put her face down on the sheets to breathe him in, the last of him, sooner or later all those microscopic traces of them, him and her together, would be gone, because that was what happened, you couldn’t slow it down. Like her own body though, it smelled strange, alien. And then before she could stop herself she was half across the bed, and tearing at it. In less than a minute it was all in a heap on the floor, sheets, pillowcases, duvet cover, the lot.

  Marching the heap downstairs Fran stuffed it all into the washing machine, ninety degrees, pre-wash, leave nothing to chance. She made it again swiftly, so as not to think about what she was doing, the smell of clean sheets, that was all she wanted. This was her home.

  She was in the shower when the police came back.

  Emme was still behind the closed door of her room as she came out on the landing, Fran could hear her in there, talking in her version of a teacher’s voice to someone imagined or a stuffed toy, perched on the bed.

  It had been when she turned from the door that she heard their voices in the kitchen, and within minutes she was dressed. At the bottom of the stairs she looked into the kitchen, nodded and went calmly into the sitting room. It was still there, her phone down the side of the armchair. The battery was completely dead. She pocketed it and then walked back into the kitchen. She felt clean, at last.

  Gerard had said, don’t touch anything: had that included showering? Tracking down her own phone? He’d meant Nathan’s study, and obediently she hadn’t even opened the door. Now she wished she had.

  The neck of her sweatshirt was damp, her hair twisted up but still wet. Doug Gerard examined her. He was good-looking, she found herself thinking with a shock. His eyes were grey. ‘Hey, Mrs Hall,’ said Carswell, giving her his best eager smile. Gerard looked impatient, just at the sound of Carswell’s voice. She wondered how long they’d worked together, how they got on, outside work.

  ‘Did you talk to the landlady?’ she said, breathless, and saw them exchange glances.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gerard, slowly. ‘I think we need to go over that with you.’

  ‘Who was he with?’ she said, folding her arms across herself stubbornly. ‘Have you got any names?’

  ‘It’s … it looks a bit more complicated than that.’ Gerard frowned. ‘Mind if we have another look in that study, if that’s all right with you?’

  She didn’t move. ‘Fine,’ she said, and they wandered off together, closing the door into the study behind them.

  She had hardly started on the washing up when they were back, Gerard first through the door and frowning.

  ‘Where did you say your computer was then?’ he said, casual, and she shifted on her feet.

  ‘It’s being fixed,’ she said, alarm bells going off, why was he asking? ‘You want it? Nathan took it in months ago, he took it to that place in Oakenham…’

  Something had got spilled on the keyboard, though she didn’t remember doing it. Fran had used to keep it on a table in the bedroom and one morning she’d sat down on it to check her emails and found the keys sticky, then it wouldn’t turn on. ‘I’ll take it in,’ Nathan had said, then, ‘Yeah, I’ll pick it up next time I’m over that way,’ then, ‘Guy says he’s still working on it.’ She’d mentioned getting a new one but he’d turned away, clearing his throat. ‘Maybe when the work starts coming in. And there’s data.’ Frowning. ‘On kids’ exposure to computers at home. All sorts. No harm in keeping them away from keyboards as long as possible, hey?’ And he’d smiled, that brilliant smile that changed everything.

  She shook her head. ‘I can use my phone for most of it.’

  Though that was less and less, under Nathan’s gaze. ‘What are you doing?’ he’d ask, sharply. ‘Who’s that?’ Plus she hardly got emails any more except from marketing companies, catalogues, the occasional bright round robin from Carine or someone who didn’t matter. Jo’s replies to any enquiry had got sporadic and dispiritingly brief, Fran had given up. Before the laptop gave up the ghost, she had had a guilty, painful habit of trawling back down through the inbox for old correspondence with Jo, when emails had run to pages, filled with exclamation marks, pictures and links attached. In some ways it had been a relief not to be able to do that.

  ‘It’s nice not to depend on the internet,’ she said, dully. Spouting Nathan.

  Gerard turned to look at her and she shrugged under his gaze, uncomfortable as she felt the past five years lapping up against her. ‘You must have used his now and again?’ Gerard said, and she stared at him, as if he should have known how that would have gone down with Nathan. ‘Did you not even go into his study? Poke around, just natural curiosity?’

  ‘He was … he liked things like he’d left them,’ she said, and Gerard chewed his lip.

  ‘Fussy, was he? But
still. Check his pockets now and again? Wives generally like to keep tabs.’ There was sourness in the look he gave Carswell, before he turned back to look at her and pulled out a chair.

  ‘Tell us about your husband’s friends, for example,’ he said, and she stared.

  ‘I told you about Rob,’ she said.

  ‘The others, though,’ he said and she began to explain, ‘He wasn’t that sort of—’ but the policeman interrupted her, leaning forward on the table, looking earnestly into her face. ‘I mean, when he went to the pub. You said he went a couple of times a week.’ He sat back. ‘He must have mentioned someone?’

  ‘There must have been others from way back, but I got the impression they’d all moved on,’ she said, desperate. Thinking. ‘There was this summer they all lived together. Squatted.’

  ‘Summer? Who lived together?’ said Gerard quickly, leaning forward.

  ‘Just lads. I don’t know. Their last summer before they all went their separate ways. Rob would know. There was someone – he said he’d heard he was still around, he said he might look him up. Something … did something in the trade, building trade.’ She put her face in her hands. ‘I’m sure I can remember if I just…’

  ‘All right,’ said Gerard, soothing again. ‘All right, yes. It’ll come to you. If it comes to you.’ And in that moment his manner grated on her, she wasn’t a child. She wanted to shake it off.

  ‘It’s the pub, you see,’ said Gerard.

  ‘You said it was complicated,’ she said, scenting something.

  Behind him Carswell had been making tea and now he came around and set the mugs down in front of them before pulling out a chair on the other side of Fran. She looked from one of them to the other and for a second she had a mad impulse to stand up and shout and scream. This is my kitchen. I want my life back.