The Accidental Wife

by Rowan Coleman

  ‘Um,’ Alison said. ‘Redundancy?’

  ‘No, she got custody of her dead best friend’s children. Two little girls, six and three, isn’t it, Soph?’

  ‘Oh!’ Alison gasped, thinking immediately of her own daughters. ‘Poor little things.’

  Sophie nodded. ‘It was a difficult time. It’s still hard for them to get used to. They miss her.’

  ‘And Sophie dropped everything to look after them,’ Christina said.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t that big a deal …’ Sophie said. ‘Anyone would have done the same.’

  ‘Of course it was a big deal. It was massive,’ Christina insisted. ‘You’d only ever looked after your cat before those children came along. Anyway, it all kicked off, the kids’ dad came back, Sophie got offered this promotion at work and then the dad moved back down to Cornwall with the children and we all thought that normal service had resumed. Sophie the ice queen was back. But guess what happened then.’

  ‘Christina,’ Sophie crossed her arms and raised a brow, ‘Alison doesn’t want to know all about my life.’

  ‘Oh, give me a break, Sophie, of course she does. I never get bored of telling people this story. Maybe one day I’ll meet the love of my life and all I’ll be able to talk about will be me, me, me, but right now you are far more interesting.’

  ‘What happened?’ Alison had asked Sophie directly, laughing. ‘I have to know now!’

  ‘Well, I missed the children. I’d got to know them and I fell in love with them, I guess. I missed them – it took me by surprise how much. But then a good friend told me that if I was so unhappy without them it was simple enough to put right. I should go and move closer to them. So I did!’

  ‘I think you’re missing out something quite crucial,’ Christina observed, raising a brow.

  ‘No I haven’t,’ Sophie said, an air of challenge in her voice. ‘I’ve pretty much talked about myself all night. Let’s talk about you now, Christina.’

  ‘What’s she missing out is that it wasn’t only those darling little girls she fell in love with,’ Christina told Alison, despite Sophie’s warning frown. ‘It was their dad. The tall, dark and handsome Louis. He turned up after being away for years, and as he bonded with his children he and Sophie fell for each other.’ Christina sighed theatrically and fluttered her lashes. ‘The only man ever to melt the ice queen here. Many have tried and failed, but it was Louis that Sophie fell for, and it wasn’t just those girls she moved for, it was Louis too.’

  ‘That’s a big step to make,’ Alison had said, not sure if she was impressed or terrified by the impetuous decision Sophie had taken.

  ‘I’m not exactly the world’s most impulsive person,’ Sophie told her. ‘I like to plan for everything, but then sometimes you realise that you just have to do what is going to make you happy, even if on paper it seems completely crazy.’ She smiled a small, but joy-filled smile. ‘So far it’s working out pretty well.’

  ‘And now you’re a family?’ Alison questioned her.

  ‘Well, I’m not officially living with them or him. I’m not even officially his girlfriend as such. I live in a B & B down the road and we’ve been dating for a while now and … it’s nice.’

  ‘You left everything you had and moved hundreds of miles to date a man?’ Alison asked her.

  ‘And to be in Bella and Izzy’s lives too,’ Sophie said happily. ‘But yes, partly to date their dad. I know, I’m insane!’

  ‘Not insane,’ Christina said. ‘I think you’ve got balls. I think you’re the bravest woman I know, which is ironic because you used to be such an uptight old cow.’

  ‘I just can’t imagine my life without those children now,’ Sophie said with a shrug. ‘No matter what works out between me and Louis I’ll always be there for them.’

  ‘Oh, stop being coy,’ Christina told her. ‘You so totally love him.’

  ‘I’m sorry, are you twelve?’ Sophie had asked her with an arched brow. ‘Only I thought I was friends with a grown woman. I could have got better conversation out of my mother’s Labradoodle.’

  ‘Hey,’ Christina said, deciding it was time to change the subject, ‘whatever happened to that handsome American you used to know? Is he still on the market?’

  But Alison had not been listening after that. All she had been able to think about for the rest of the evening and on her way home was the idea of a woman more or less her age just leaving it all behind to do what she wanted, to follow her heart. Taking that risk simply on the off chance it would result in happiness.

  Now, as the noise from downstairs gradually began to ebb and fade away, Alison realised something. She had never thought it would be possible for her to be happy without Marc in her life. The key to happiness, she was sure, lay in finding the way to make their life together work once and for all, as she wanted it, with him at her side, no other women in his bed, and the children happy and secure in their family.

  Only now, only after the party tonight and Cathy coming back into her life and taking her back to the point when she’d made her own reckless choice, could Alison start to glimpse that that resolution might not be possible. Only now did she begin to see that she might never be happy as long as she was married to Marc James.

  Chapter Twelve

  JIMMY LOOKED OUT from between the drawn living-room curtains at the cold misty early morning and he wondered what exactly had changed last night. The street outside looked the same as it always did, except the pavements were gilded in dew and shimmered under the threat of the rising sun. The trees stood like sentinels along both sides of the road, standing guard over the same row of cars parked nose to tail, in exactly the same order as they always were. Other people still asleep in their houses, still – as far as Jimmy knew – living their lives exactly as they had yesterday.

  Yet in the space of one night everything had changed for him completely, he just couldn’t quite put his finger yet on how. He knew only that for some reason he felt as if this dirty February dawn, so far removed from any promise of spring, was a new start for him. Apart from anything else this had been the first night he had spent in his home for two years. Yes, it had been almost exactly two years since Catherine, ignited like a solar flare, had thrown his second-best acoustic guitar out of an upstairs window. She had thought it was his favourite one, and he’d never told her otherwise.

  His wife had not spoken to him once on the way home from the party. He’d walked a step or two behind her, weighed down by Eloise, who was actually much heavier than she looked, as Catherine marched on, carrying Leila like she was bag of feathers. Jimmy decided he wouldn’t even attempt any conversation. He couldn’t imagine what she was thinking or feeling, and he had no idea how to approach her, or if he even should. It wasn’t just Alison and that Marc showing up that had rattled her so; he’d pissed her off too. He’d shared her confidences without seeking her permission, which Jimmy thought on reflection, knowing Catherine as he supposedly did, possibly wasn’t the best idea he’d had.

  But that’s what happens, he’d thought a tad sullenly, as he trudged along behind Catherine, when you plan to go to a party, have a few beers, a laugh with your wife and kids, and end up dealing with your ex’s major personal crisis instead. He was unprepared for mediating between his wife and her evil archnemesis, not to mention that twat of a git who quite clearly still had the hots for her, judging by the way he was leering at her. He didn’t have time to think things through, he had to go on his instinct, follow his gut. Unfortunately for Jimmy, to this day he couldn’t think of one decision based on his gut feeling that had worked out well for him or anyone.

  Even if he hadn’t pissed Catherine off he wouldn’t exactly know where he stood in this new situation in her life. The last year between them had been mostly good. It was almost like the first phases of a new relationship, treading so carefully around each other, so keen not to give the wrong impression or to scare the other one off as they tried to adjust to each other as something other than lovers and to e
stablish a new kind of intimacy. He’d thought they’d created an even keel now, found a place where they could be together without either feeling the pressure or absence of love so keenly. It had been a difficult journey, much harder for him than he would ever admit to Catherine, but even so, who was he to her now? Was he her friend? Was he someone she could really talk to? Perhaps about the children or work or the PTA, but not about this; he didn’t think she’d talk to him about this.

  When they had finally got home, Jimmy had followed Catherine up the narrow stairs and helped her to get the girls undressed and into their beds. Her voice was low and calm as she murmured to the half-asleep children, buttoned their pyjamas, and tucked them in, and as he watched, Jimmy thought how nice it must be to feel as safe and as warm as his two girls must have felt just then.

  After kissing his girls good night he’d walked downstairs and found Catherine standing in the living room, her long arms wrapped around her slender body, her head bowed as she stood in front of the cold grate.

  ‘Will you make a fire?’ she asked him before he could excuse himself. ‘We never have a real fire any more. I can never get it to light. And I feel cold, I feel cold in my bones.’

  Jimmy hesitated. So he wasn’t leaving right away and she was talking to him.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, attempting to mask his surprise at her request.

  ‘I’ll make tea,’ Catherine told him, lifting her head as he walked through to the kitchen and the back door. ‘Or would you prefer something else?’

  ‘Tea, thanks,’ Jimmy said, pausing by the back door. ‘Look, just so I’m clear here, you want me to stick around for a bit, yeah?’

  Catherine went into the kitchen and picked up the kettle.

  ‘Would you?’ she asked him. ‘I’d like it if you’d stay.’

  And the feeling that Jimmy had got in the pit of his stomach, as he headed out into the freezing midnight air to fetch some logs from the shed, frightened him to death.

  *

  Once the fire was lit Catherine sat on the rug in front of it, chin resting on her knees as she hugged her mug of tea, watching the flames.

  Jimmy sat in the armchair, holding his own drink. He wondered what to say to her. He wondered if he could take his cowboy boots off because his toes were cramping and the hole in the bottom on the right one meant his foot was soggy and chilled. He didn’t know what the protocol was. Could you take your shoes off in front of your ex-wife if you knew that you had odd socks on and one of them would be damp and possibly a bit musty?

  The two of them sat like that for a long time and then finally Jimmy pulled off first one boot and then the other.

  Catherine looked at him.

  ‘My feet hurt,’ he explained. ‘It’s the pointy toes.’

  She nodded and stared at the fire again.

  ‘Look,’ Jimmy said after a while, because it somehow felt that Catherine was waiting for him to talk. ‘OK, she’s back, he’s back, it’s weird because they were so important in the early part of your life, but, well, it doesn’t really matter any more, does it? You came through all of that business with your parents and the … you know. And you made yourself into an amazing woman, a great mother. So, yes, they are here and it’s weird, but once you’ve got over the weirdness, do you really care?’

  Catherine thought for a moment. ‘When I saw him my heart just lurched,’ she said. ‘It was just like I was seventeen again, going to meet him in the park. He doesn’t look the same, he’s older and fatter and he’s got a lot less hair, but it was still him. Still that face I’ve been waiting to see for all of these years.’

  Jimmy sat up a little in his chair, trying to hide just how much her words had winded him. The pain surprised him, but he smothered it quickly.

  ‘Well, yeah – because it was a shock. It’d be like me bumping into Alice Cooper in Tesco – not that I used to be in love with him or anything, well, not in that way – but anyway, what I’m saying is that just because you felt that way when you saw him it doesn’t mean that you still have feelings for him … does it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Catherine said. It was not the answer that Jimmy had discovered he’d been hoping for. His gut clenched and his heart contracted. This was hurting him. Catherine was causing him pain and she had no idea.

  ‘Right,’ he said, concentrating on sounding neutral. You’re supposed to be here for her, he reminded himself sternly, helping her to get things into perspective. This was not the time to open the old wounds that had caused the end of his marriage, wounds it had taken almost two years to heal. But Jimmy couldn’t help the uneasy churning of his stomach that he felt when Catherine talked that way about Marc. He felt sick with jealousy, because he knew Catherine had never felt about him the way she once had – maybe even still did – about Marc.

  ‘Obviously I’m not in love with him – I mean, I’m not insane,’ Catherine said, perhaps reading some expression on Jimmy’s face that even he wasn’t sure of. ‘It’s just that I saw him and even all these years later I felt like that girl I was. I felt drawn to him. I suppose I remembered all these powerful feelings and what it was like to love him. What it was like to love like that, so deeply and so much.’

  ‘Heavy shit,’ Jimmy said idiotically, to cover the sting her words unwittingly inflicted on him. In all the years they had been married she had never once talked about him that way. She’d known this Marc for barely two months and she still remembered exactly how it felt to be with him. Jimmy dragged himself back to Catherine, trying hard to regain control of the situation, to keep the atmosphere light and easy between them. ‘But I mean, you wouldn’t crack on to him now, because he’s, like, married. Plus, I think we’ve established that he’s a heartless wanker, right?’

  Catherine smiled. ‘He can’t be that bad. He stayed with Alison when she was pregnant, and they are still together but even so, I wouldn’t crack on to him now, no,’ she said with less conviction than her words suggested. ‘I’m just saying that’s how I felt when I saw him, all jangled up.’

  ‘Good. I mean, good for you, not about being jangled up, good about not cracking on to him because I don’t think that would help anything …’ Jimmy stalled. ‘Just ignore him, I reckon. Like, when you see someone you’ve slept with and don’t really like any more, the best thing to do is to ignore them.’

  ‘Oh, Jimmy, you are such a kid,’ Catherine laughed.

  ‘I’m not a kid, Cat,’ he replied. ‘I am a man, this is what men do. And if you doubt me then wait and see. I bet you Marc, or whatever his name is, ignores you from now on. I bet he acts like he never knew you.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Catherine said, returning her gaze to the fire with a wistful tone that belied her words.

  ‘And what about her? What do you feel about her?’ he asked, referring to Alison.

  Catherine set down her tea cup.

  ‘The morning after they’d left Alison’s mum came round to our house. Banging on the door at seven in the morning. She’d gone to take Alison her tea in bed and found her daughter had gone. All she’d left was a note: “Mum, I’ve run away with the man I love. We have to be together. Love, Alison.” Alison’s mum was clutching it when she came round. They all thought I would know where she had gone. My mum dragged me down the stairs to see them but I could see she was pleased that Alison’s parents were going through this. It was proof of what kind of daughter they had. What sort of parents they were. My mum was enjoying it.

  ‘I told them I didn’t know where they’d gone. I could see that Mum was itching to slap me around the face. She told me now was not the time to be protecting my friend. I said, I’m not protecting her, I hate her. That shut them all up.

  ‘“What do you mean you hate her?” Alison’s mum asked me.

  ‘So I told them: because she stole my boyfriend from me, I said. She took the one good, one happy thing I had in my life and she’s run away with him. I don’t know where. Mum hit me then. I told them his name and where he worked, where he had been stayin
g. And I waited for Alison’s parents to go because I knew that the moment they had, my mum would really wallop me. I would have just taken it normally, wouldn’t have said a word, never did. But now there was the baby. I was worried about the baby, so I begged her to stop hitting me. I told her I was pregnant.

  ‘She stopped in mid-strike, her fist raised. I closed my eyes, because I expected her to really lay into me but she didn’t. She just stood there, staring at me. She shut the door and went downstairs. It was this thing that Mum used to do if she was really angry with me. She wouldn’t punish me then and there, get it over with. She’d go all quiet and go away, just to let me know that she was thinking about how to really hurt me. Just to let me know that when the punishment came it would be especially bad.

  ‘What I should have done then was what Alison did. I should have climbed out of my bedroom window and never come back. I was seventeen, nearly a grown woman. If I’d had the guts I would have gone out of that window. But I didn’t. I just lay on the bed waiting for her to come back. I was scared. I had no idea where to go or how to look after myself on my own and pregnant. And the one person I could have trusted, the one person I could have relied on had gone. Not Marc – I knew from the minute I had him that I was going to lose him – but Alison.

  ‘It was dark by the time Mum opened the door again. “You do nothing but bring shame and disgrace on this family,” she said, her voice was cold as ice. “Fortunately now I’ve uncovered your lie nobody needs to know. We’ll sort this out between ourselves. Get rid of it and get back to life as normal.”

  ‘“Can I keep it?” I asked her. I remember my voice sounded like a child’s in the darkness. “I want to keep it.”

  ‘“Don’t be so ridiculous,” she said, and that was it: the decision was made.

  ‘I should have fought it, fought for myself and the baby, but I didn’t. I let everything happen around me and all I could think about was how much I hated Alison. I felt like she’d run away with my life, almost as if she’d run away with my baby. She had everything. She had Marc, her baby, she had her freedom. I didn’t even have the guts to fight them, Jim. I didn’t even have the guts to protect my baby. I didn’t know how to. I lay there in the dark and I hated Alison, I hated her with every single cell in my body.