The Good Wife aka The Good Wife Strikes Back

by Elizabeth Buchan

  As I say, to be good is not necessarily to tell the truth.

  14

  The years of children, politics and of a marriage slipped by.

  There was no more talk of a house in Brunton Street. Instead we bought a mansion flat in a utilitarian-looking block in Westminster and it did us fine.

  We settled in and Will came and went: to his chosen arena of deals and alliances, ambitions and ideals. There was less talk of ideas and ideals and more descriptions of personalities and who had done or said what, but his career flourished.

  And I? I patrolled and marshalled a different world, but joined him as often as possible. Once a week, I sat down and did the paperwork for my father. Meg lived with us and Sacha came at weekends. Once or twice a man appeared on the scene, but he did not last. At odd intervals, she got herself a job, but they did not last either. And, in the later years, her drinking was not so bad. Months would go by without incident.

  More often than not, the rooms in the house were full, there was the rustle and mutter of a family sounding under its eaves. Our marriage grew and deepened, went through troughs, blossomed, withered a little, blossomed again but it was never stagnant.

  *

  Before I had had time to catch my breath, Chloë had been gone for a week.

  ‘How do you feel?’ Elaine had rung up to commiserate.

  ‘Like an arm or a leg has been chopped off but, and this sounds odd, I feel my energy returning…’

  ‘Got you,’ she said. ‘Feeding and watering a household takes it out of a girl.’ She drew in a sobbing breath. ‘This household at any rate.’

  ‘Have you been to the doctor as you promised?’

  ‘Prozac,’ she said. ‘The caring wife’s best friend.’

  ‘Hey. I’m your best friend.’

  ‘Fanny,’ Elaine said sadly, ‘you don’t match up to the chemicals.’

  Chloë’s presence was in the house, in every room. If I loaded clothes into the washing machine, there was her favourite pink blouse. Her hipster jeans sat on the clean-laundry pile and I ironed them into shape. I picked up her sponge from the bathroom floor. Her copy of a Harry Potter book – ‘Comfort reading, Mum’ – had become wedged between her bed and the wall. I rescued it and placed it beside my own bed. The insurance loss-adjuster recorded her absence in toothbrushes and socks, in the silence when there had been words, in the hairs snagged in a hairbrush.

  For the present, that would have to do. It was all I could manage in the way of coming to terms, and I closed the door on her room (‘Izt bad,’ said Maleeka, unnecessarily) until later.

  ‘Mum,’ she said, when she rang from Sydney, ‘you never told me how exciting it would be.’

  As I put down the phone, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Expensively cut hair, waistline – well, no comment on the waistline – the correct lipstick for my colouring, long legs. Nothing new, nothing remarkable and yet I felt I looked like a woman in transition. Losing Chloë meant I looked back, and I’m sure Will did too. But Chloë would only be looking forward.

  Meg and I were left to our routines. During the day, if I was at home, we kept our distance by mutual consent. After so long a time, we understood the limits for each other. But in the evenings – the dangerous time, the witching time – Meg often sought me out. She was my evening shadow, the reminder of the ties that earthed me.

  At these times, because it was required of me – or because I required it of myself – I did my best and cooked light, nourishing suppers. Risottos, grilled salmon, chicken breasts in soy sauce. By now, these recipes had become second nature and I tossed them off easily and without much effort, and made a point of sharing them with her.

  It was a sort of bargain struck between us – and we stuck to it fiercely: Meg because she knew she should have left our house long ago, I because… I had grown tough and strong inside. I had wept over Will and Meg and built my city.

  On the day Chloë phoned, Meg and I shared a fish pie in the kitchen. ‘Congratulate me,’ she said. ‘I haven’t touched a drop since your anniversary.’

  I murmured congratulations and Meg regarded me over her plate. ‘I wish I could explain, Fanny. You’re owed many explanations. You, of all people. I know what you’ve done for me. But I feel better and stronger… and I know that things must change.’ She concentrated on spearing a piece of fish on her fork. ‘It’s like this. If this delicious pie was brandy I’d be the happiest woman alive. The terrible truth is, alcohol is so much more reliable than a husband or a son. Or love.’

  I found myself laughing. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’

  After we had finished, we moved into the sitting room and I opened the french windows. A moth flew in and attempted suttee on the lamp. I got up to rescue it and coaxed it out into the night.

  ‘Better to turn out the light,’ said Meg.

  A tiny dusting from its wing had made a mark on the cream lampshade. I brushed it clean and turned off the light. We sat in the summer’s dark, watching a bat swoop over the garden. Meg sat very still and quiet until she said, ‘I will mourn Sacha when he goes more than you will mourn Chloë.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘I’m not sure quite what I mean but because… because of what I missed. The law took Sacha away from me,’ Meg shifted in the chair. ‘The law, which is supposed to be fair and just and sane.’ She shot me a look. ‘OK. There were problems. But you had Chloë. You didn’t miss out on anything, and she has a functioning grandparent, and I had years and years of watching you.’

  This was unanswerable.

  I must be truthful. It was Meg who had taught me how to wean Chloë on to solids. ‘Scrape a bit of banana on to a spoon,’ she said. ‘Just a tiny bit.’ It was Meg who showed me how to prevent nappy rash (use mouth-ulcer ointment) and coaxed Chloë to say her first word. Later, it was Meg who, when I was busy, went over and over with a truculent Chloë the spellings, the times tables, the history dates, the physics problems.

  A second moth flew into the sitting room and I got up to deal with it.

  ‘Why don’t we shut the door?’ said Meg. ‘It’s getting cold.’

  I did as she suggested, and turned on the light.

  ‘Poor me,’ she said in her ironic way, and hid her face with a hand.

  Meg was correct. The law had – partly – taken away her son. But he had come back. Not long after Sacha turned sixteen, he arrived at our front door with two shabby tartan suitcases, and announced: ‘I would like to live with my mum.’ I don’t suppose I’ll ever again witness the same expression of pure joy that I saw on Meg’s face when she heard those words.

  Of course, Will and I welcomed Sacha. We had recently survived a major upheaval – in one sense – for in the previous election our party had been voted (temporarily) out of power, but Will had kept his seat with a decent majority, unlike some of his friends, who had been cast into the wilderness. Thus, the party was back on the opposition benches and Will had time to spare. He ran this way and that to arrange a school for Sacha and we made over a room for him.

  Darling Sacha was no trouble, in many ways far less than Chloë. Even his music was bearable and the leather jackets and studs in his ears were offset by perfect cleanliness. He was forever washing and grooming – his hair was the cleanest I had ever seen. (‘Trust you,’ said Elaine, ‘to inherit a paragon.’) He fitted in with us so easily – perhaps that was a result of learning the hard way about adaptation and survival. Perhaps he was a natural chameleon.

  I strove always to remember that.

  The following morning, I drove over to Ember House. From time to time, I glanced in the rear-view mirror and was so pleased with my reflection (driving mirrors tend to cut off the jawline) that I hummed a tune.

  I found my father in the study, writing up notes and making calls. Shoved into a corner was an opened case of wine, plus a stack of paperwork. Without looking up, he stretched out an arm and drew me close. ‘Bear with me for a couple of minutes.’

 
The Fiertino expedition being uppermost, we discussed timetables, car hire and the necessity of bringing his anti-allergenic pillow. Benedetta had arranged where we were to stay and we compiled lists and talked over the practicalities sensibly. Yet I sensed a grand excitement in my careful father. He laughed and joked, whistled a snatch of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons under his breath and fished out the photograph of the Etruscan couple. After Caro’s departure, it had been relegated to the back of a shelf. ‘We must visit the Etruscan museum, Fanny, and the tombs.’

  Outside, the rain continued to dribble half-heartedly. My father got up to shut the window. ‘I’m sorry Will isn’t coming.’

  ‘He’s got the bit between his teeth. He hankers after the chancellorship and there’s a hint, providing we stay in power, of course, that he’s on his way. Last time we were out, I thought he’d go mad. But I did see more of him.’

  My father peered at me. ‘Self-pity doesn’t suit you, Fanny.’

  ‘Am I self-pitying? I don’t mean to be.’

  ‘Not really,’ he said lovingly. ‘Just a little dip now and again. Your husband is shrewd enough to know not to let up. He’s in the game, and you can’t expect him not to be down there with the best of them.’

  My father was always fair.

  ‘True.’ I slotted a list into my handbag. ‘He’s tied up with the second-car tax project, which is touch and go. I’m not sure about it but he is.’

  My father had an answer for that too. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘It’s his chance to prove himself. Look at it this way, it’s not as bad as selling arms.’

  I peered at him. ‘Dad, you look tired. The doctor is keeping an eye on you?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, and I knew the odds were that he was lying to please me. I opened my mouth to insist that he make an appointment for another check-up, but made the mistake of glancing at my watch.

  ‘Must go. Standing in for Will.’

  I kissed him goodbye and sped off in the car to the opening ceremony of Stanwinton’s spanking new sewage works. Here, I had to struggle to keep a straight face when the mayor referred to the reams of paper that had been necessary before the project had got under way.

  During the night, the telephone tore me from sleep. I fumbled to turn on the bedside light and glared at the clock. Two o’clock. My first thought was: Chloë. The second: Mr Tucker.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘if that’s you, Mr Tucker, I’m going to be angry.’

  ‘I’m calling from Stanwinton Hospital,’ a voice said. ‘We have your father here… He’s had a minor heart attack, and we think you should come in, Mrs Savage.’

  I went into Meg’s room and woke her. ‘Meg, Alfredo has been rushed into hospital. I have to go.’

  Frail and tousled, she pulled herself upright. ‘Wait, I’m coming too.’

  Like a mad thing, I drove through the night with Meg shivering in the passenger seat beside me. Please, please, let it not be serious, I prayed silently, and pressed my foot down on the accelerator.

  Even so, we were too late.

  The night sister, cool, slender and neat, materialized as we pushed our way into Intensive Care and took us aside. It had been peaceful, she said, and I knew she had rehearsed the words many times. Ten minutes ago. A second heart attack, but this time massive.

  Meg gasped and began to cry. I fiddled with the strap of my bag, which was slippery with sweat, and the floor tilted beneath my feet. My first reaction was: It’s my fault, I should have gone with him to the doctor. My second was: I’ll have to ring Benedetta and cancel the trip. Then I thought… but I don’t remember what I thought except that I was grasping at inconsequential things. ‘He should have waited until we got here,’ I said stupidly.

  The night sister put an arm round my shoulder, led us into the relatives’ room and sat us down. While she fetched cups of tea, I sat on the stained bench and stared at an overflowing ashtray on the window-sill.

  Meg pulled herself together and chafed my hands. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘Poor Alfredo. But better quick.’

  I forced myself not to push her away – Meg was doing her best. It was the sort of thing I would have said but I knew I never would again.

  The night sister’s professional expression softened a trifle. ‘Try to drink it, Mrs Savage.’

  The tea tasted of leather and tannin.

  ‘Mrs Savage…’ The immaculate night sister braced herself visibly. ‘Your father managed… he wanted me to tell you…’ I raised my wet face. She checked herself and began again: ‘He said to thank you. And sent his love.’

  ‘But he didn’t wait,’ I cried out, in agony. ‘He didn’t wait for me. He should have waited.’

  ‘He couldn’t,’ she explained quietly. ‘But we told him you were on your way. We talked to him, even when he was unconscious. Hearing is the last sense to go, you know.’ She laid a hand on my lap. ‘He knew. He knew you’d get here as soon as you could.’ She looked from me to Meg, who was sobbing by the window, and back again to me. ‘It was peaceful.’

  ‘But he was alone,’ I cried. ‘He shouldn’t have been alone. I should have been with him. I know he would have wanted me with him. He would have minded – ’

  ‘I held his hand,’ said the sister. ‘I promise you, I did hold his hand.’

  When we got home I rang Will at the London flat but the ringing tone went on and on until the answer-machine clicked on.

  ‘Darling, it was an all-night sitting,’ he explained, when I finally got hold of him. ‘I’m coming down now. I’m just going to order the car and fling a few things into a bag. I’ll ring Chloë and tell her and, if you agree, I will persuade her not to rush home. I’ll tell her Alfredo would not have wanted that.’

  At the back of my mind an old question rose: ‘Are you lying to me?’ I had grown used to it, and I had learnt to understand that it loved the limelight almost for the sake of it. It had become an automatic response to grief, shock and desolation.

  My body felt stretched, weightless, attenuated. I realized that I should be making arrangements but I found it difficult to perform even a simple task like picking up the phone. I wanted to weep endlessly, but my tears were plugged now by astonishment that my father had allowed this to happen.

  I pulled myself together and rang Sally. ‘Oh,’ she said. Then, ‘I must sit down.’ After a pause, she said, ‘Go over it again.’ A clink of china sounded in the background, and radio music, and other voices that belonged in my mother’s life.

  ‘It was a heart attack.’

  ‘I won’t come to the funeral,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I could. I will think of him, though.’

  At this, I wept down the phone. ‘Listen, Fanny,’ said Sally, ‘you must remember that Alfredo considered you the best thing that ever happened to him. Remember that.’

  It was the first really motherly thing my mother had ever said to me, and I wrote it down on the notepad beside the telephone, with the date scrawled at the bottom, because I wanted to make sure I had caught every syllable.

  Mannochie came to the rescue. Organizing. Planning. Cancelling appointments. Chloë was not to fly home – we talked her through what would happen and promised to call her every day. Where did I want the funeral? Burial or cremation? Which hymns? What music? I pulled myself together. Good wives were trained to make things take shape, to make events happen well, to smooth and soothe, and a good daughter followed suit.

  Anyway, I had to keep Meg on the level, for she had taken my father’s death badly. ‘I loved him too,’ she said.

  ‘If you let us down now,’ I told her, tight-lipped and hollow-eyed, ‘then…’ I didn’t finish the sentence but it wasn’t necessary. Meg understood well enough.

  The funeral came and went. My father had left written instructions as to what he wished. With Will at my side, I sang the hymns and listened to a reading from Gibran’s The Prophet, ‘Open your heart wide unto the body of life’, and shook hands with a great many people.

  ‘Such a tragedy,’ mu
rmured one.

  ‘So sorry,’ said another.

  But I did not pay them much attention.

  Afterwards, the hearse took the body to be cremated. He had left further instructions that I should bury his ashes where I thought fit.

  I did not know where was fit.

  Afterwards Will dashed back to London, and in the evening Meg helped me to clear up. ‘Fanny,’ she said, more gently than normal, ‘you’ll have to think about the house. I take it you’ll sell it.’

  ‘Have you been talking to Will?’

  She stretched clingfilm over a plate of leftover sandwiches. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘It’s not his decision,’ I said sharply.

  ‘Have it your own way, darling.’ She put cups and saucers back into the cupboard. ‘By the way, since you’ve been so busy, I bought the socks for Will.’

  ‘What socks?’

  ‘He mentioned he needed some. I’ve put them on your bed. I thought it would help you.’

  I stared at her. ‘You needn’t have bothered.’ I could barely articulate the words.

  ‘No.’ She smiled brightly. ‘But I did.’

  I gathered up the plates in silence.

  ‘I can see I’ve been naughty. Sock-buying is a sin,’ Meg said, and added sadly, ‘Fanny, did you know that your back can be so disapproving?’

  ‘Can it?’ I whirled round, a plate in my hand, and Meg shrank away. ‘In the name of pity, can’t you see you have Will, more than you should? Is that not enough?’

  She held out her hand. ‘I didn’t mean – ’

  ‘Oh, yes, you did, Meg.’ Then I heard myself say, ‘Anything to keep your thumbprint on him.’ And I wondered who this person was that I was turning into.

  Meg gave a little gasp. ‘Wrong, Fanny, so wrong. It’s because it makes me feel useful. It makes me feel I have a place.’

  The plate slid from between my hands. The sound as it smashed on to the tiled floor cracked through the kitchen. I crouched down to retrieve the pieces… and so did Meg. Our faces were so close and our fingers almost touched as we reached for the same shard of china. ‘You’re upset,’ she said.