The Missing Wife

by Sheila O'Flanagan

  ‘It must be weird,’ he said.

  ‘Weird? How?’

  ‘It’s not your house.’

  ‘It’s no different to renting.’ Carol lifted the Le Creuset pot on to a worktop and peered inside.

  ‘I suppose not. Yet … well, you have the run of the place when they’re not here, but when they are, you’re banished to the kitchen.’

  ‘Hardly banished,’ she said drily. ‘I’m happy here, Mr Thorpe, and I don’t want to change a thing.’

  ‘Simon,’ he said. ‘My name is Simon.’

  ‘I know. But I prefer Mr Thorpe.’

  ‘I’m not your employer,’ he pointed out. ‘You don’t have to be as formal with me as you are with Denis. Which is kind of cute, by the way.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘OK, OK. You’re the staff and you don’t fraternise with friends of the family. But given that you won’t come out to dinner with me, is there any chance I can have some of that casserole? I’m famished.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said as she put the pot back into the oven. ‘It will be ready in a little while. Anything for a friend of the family.’

  She had dinner with him in the end – the casserole at the kitchen table later that evening. She checked first on Denis Delissandes, who was asleep in his room, the empty whisky tumbler on the mahogany locker beside his bed. Carol tiptoed in and retrieved the glass, replacing it with a small bottle of Vichy water before closing the door gently and going downstairs again. Imogen was at the table, talking to Simon.

  ‘You should be doing your homework,’ Carol told her.

  ‘I’ve finished,’ she said. ‘I was being sociable by talking to Monsieur’s friend. Do you know that Simon’s mum has a huge house?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know that.’

  ‘And that he’s met the Queen of England.’

  Carol raised an eyebrow as she looked at Simon.

  ‘She visited our company when we opened new offices,’ he explained.

  ‘Is it time for dinner yet?’ asked Imogen. ‘I’m starving, and so is Simon.’

  Carol served up the casserole with crusty bread. She took a bottle of wine from the store, reckoning that Monsieur Delissandes would rather she opened a good bottle for a friend rather than serving the cheaper stuff she usually bought for herself, although the amount she poured into her own glass was small.

  Simon ate the casserole and drank the wine, keeping up a stream of conversation and anecdotes that had both Carol and Imogen laughing. When the meal was finally finished, Carol sent Imogen to bed.

  ‘There’s a TV in the living room,’ she told Simon. ‘I think you can get the BBC on it.’

  ‘I’d rather stay here with you,’ he said.

  ‘You’re wasting your time.’ Carol shook her head. ‘I’m not available.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Been there, done that,’ said Carol.

  ‘And left with the daughter.’

  ‘Imogen is the most important person in my life,’ said Carol.

  ‘I’m sure she is. And Denis told me about your husband – that must have been terrible for you.’

  ‘Yes.’ She kept her voice steady. ‘It was.’

  ‘But you can’t stay out of the game for ever.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ said Carol.

  She was relieved when Simon left the following day. She’d never met anybody like him before, so sure of himself and his attractiveness to women. And he was attractive, there was no question about that. But Carol wasn’t going to let a fleeting dalliance with Simon Thorpe mess things up for her. And she knew that was all he wanted, so it was easy to resist.

  Nevertheless, she also missed him. Much as she hadn’t been looking for it, having a man showing interest in her made her think differently for the first time in a long time. Made her think about things other than the most effective washing power, or the quickest way to clean porcelain tiles, or the best furniture polish. As she stood in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom, she wondered what it would have been like if she’d said yes to dinner and yes to whatever else he might have suggested. She felt a fluttering sensation in the pit of her stomach and closed her eyes. She’d forgotten that feeling. The feeling of desire. Of wanting to be with someone. The way she’d felt with Ray.

  The following day, she brought Denis Delissandes to the local hospital for his appointment there, although there was nothing more they could do for him other than give him physiotherapy exercises and confirm that it would take about four weeks for the bone to heal.

  ‘I hope it doesn’t hurt like this for four weeks,’ said Denis as he eased himself into the car. ‘I can’t believe how bloody painful it is.’

  ‘You should take the tablets they gave you,’ said Carol.

  ‘I will,’ Denis assured her.

  ‘What are you going to do about getting back to Paris?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll stick to the schedule of flying back with the boys next week. The doctor says it will be fine because I’m not in a cast. I’ll just have to take the boot off.’

  ‘You don’t want to go back sooner?’

  ‘It’s easier to go back with the others,’ said Denis. ‘They can manoeuvre me on and off the plane like an unwieldy hippo.’

  ‘Madame doesn’t want to come here and bring you home?’ Carol never called Lucie by her first name in front of her husband.

  ‘Madame is probably very happy to have the house to herself.’ Denis chuckled.

  ‘But she’s not by herself,’ said Carol. ‘The boys …’

  ‘Oliver and Charles are staying with my sister,’ said Denis. ‘Lucie made her plans when she knew I’d be away, and she won’t want to change them.’

  ‘So you’re stuck here for another four days.’

  ‘You mean you’re stuck with me for another four days.’

  ‘I don’t mean that at all!’

  ‘No?’ Denis gave her a sideways smile. ‘It doesn’t mess up your day to have one member of the family in the house?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘And yet you must have a routine of your own when we’re not here,’ said Denis.

  ‘Naturally,’ she said. ‘But I’m always happy when you arrive.’

  ‘You know, Simon was right about you,’ said Denis as they stopped at the gates to the house and Carol pressed the remote. ‘You’re an interesting character. You’re worth getting to know.’

  ‘Not a bit of it.’ But she blushed as she brought the car to a halt outside the house.

  She made sure that Denis was comfortably settled in a chair in front of the TV, then got on with her household chores, sticking to her plan to clean the room that Imogen called the library, as one wall was entirely covered in bookshelves. The shelves were divided into a dozen sections, with the books arranged in a method devised by Lucie that Carol didn’t quite grasp. She used a small stepladder to reach the highest shelf of the first section, take down the books, dust them and the shelf and replace them. It was painstaking and tiring work, but every so often she stopped to flick through one of the heavy volumes and read a few pages. She didn’t find them any more riveting than the books Lucie had given her, and was sliding one back on to the shelf when she was startled by a sound behind her.

  ‘You scared me,’ she told Denis Delissandes. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’

  ‘Which is odd given that I’m thudding around the place in this bloody boot,’ he said. ‘You were engrossed.’

  ‘Not engrossed,’ she said. ‘Trying to figure it out. And I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be reading your books.’

  ‘Read all you want,’ he said. ‘That’s what they’re for.’

  ‘Nevertheless …’

  ‘Nevertheless, if you can understand half of what Gilbert Giraud is saying, you’re a better person than me.’ Denis made a face. ‘Lucie made me read that last year. I think I managed ten pages before deciding that I was a total philistine. I’m impressed that you were so into it.’

&
nbsp; ‘I wasn’t,’ confessed Carol. ‘I was thinking that it’s one thing being able to read the papers, but something entirely different when it comes to great literature.’

  ‘Great literature?’ Denis made a face. ‘Have you ever met Gilbert Giraud?’

  ‘No,’ replied Carol. ‘How would I?’

  ‘Lucky you,’ said Denis. ‘The biggest bore I’ve ever come across. And so full of himself. “I use language to make people think, to question what they know about it. If a reader doesn’t have to use the dictionary at least once when reading my novels, I have failed.” Poseur.’

  Carol laughed.

  ‘Me, I prefer les romans de gare,’ said Denis. ‘In English I think they are called airport novels – exciting and thrilling. By authors like Robert Ludlum or Michael Crichton. At least things happen in those books. That one you just put back is nothing but the author sitting in his garden talking to a bluebell.’ He clicked his fingers dismissively.

  ‘But he’s very successful,’ protested Carol. ‘Lucie told me he won an award.’

  ‘Probably for novels that people buy but never read,’ said Denis.

  Carol laughed again.

  ‘Are you going to spend all day among the dusty books?’ asked Denis.

  ‘I’m only a third of the way through cleaning,’ Carol told him.

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, leave it and talk to me instead,’ said Denis. ‘I’m bored.’

  Carol looked at the pile of books on the floor and shrugged. There was at least another couple of hours’ work there, but she wanted to be finished in time to make the evening meal and before Imogen got home from school. She said this to Denis.

  ‘Will the roof fall in if you don’t finish?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Will demons swoop from hell to scoop you up for abandoning it?’

  ‘No.’ She chuckled.

  ‘Well then. Come and have coffee with me in the kitchen.’

  ‘Well … OK.’

  She walked to the door where he was standing.

  ‘Wait,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  He reached out and ran his finger across her cheek. She recoiled in shock.

  ‘Dust,’ he told her, holding up his finger.

  ‘Oh.’

  She moved past him and into the kitchen, where she looked at her reflection in the wall mirror. He was right; her forehead was also streaked with a dark line of dust. She rubbed it away and then re-tied her hair in the short ponytail she always wore it in while working.

  ‘Très jolie,’ said Denis as he took the cafetière from a kitchen cupboard and began to ladle coffee into it. ‘You are a pretty woman, Carol.’

  ‘It’s my job to do that.’ She was embarrassed by the compliment.

  ‘You’re not a servant in this house,’ said Denis. ‘I can make coffee.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Sit, woman! I’ve done nothing useful all day. Let me make it.’

  Carol sat. She watched as Denis poured water into the cafetière and took two cups from the cupboard and placed them on the table. Then he looked at her, a rueful expression on his face.

  ‘Do we have biscuits?’

  ‘I’ll get—’

  ‘Just tell me where they are.’

  ‘The cupboard to the left,’ she said.

  Denis found a packet of almond tuiles and shook some on to a plate. Then he sat at the table and slowly depressed the plunger on the cafetière.

  Carol couldn’t remember the last time someone had made her a cup of coffee. Or indeed told her to sit down while they did something for her. It was nice to be taken care of for a change. She allowed Denis to fill her wide coffee cup, then took one of the biscuits.

  ‘So,’ said Denis, taking a biscuit himself, ‘what’s it like here when we’re away?’

  He was a different man to the slightly remote figure who’d picked her up at Biarritz airport and had hardly spoken on the drive to the house, the man who enjoyed physical pursuits like sailing and skiing but who wasn’t interested in talking. Not that she ever had much need to talk to him. Most of her interaction was with his wife. But she was talking to him now, telling him about the accident, and about her move to France, some of which he already knew from Lucie, although in a sketchy way.

  ‘I admire you,’ he said. ‘You’re a strong woman.’

  ‘Not really,’ said Carol.

  ‘You recovered from a horrible event. You started a new life in a new country. Formidable.’

  She smiled.

  ‘But you don’t have time for fun,’ he said. ‘You’ve talked about the things you do around the house, about looking after Imogen – nothing about yourself.’

  ‘I don’t have time for myself.’

  ‘You must find time,’ said Denis. ‘That’s very important.’

  ‘What’s important is me tidying these things away.’ Carol stood up and took the cups from the table, stacking them in the dishwasher.

  When she turned around again, Denis was standing behind her. He’d taken the boot from his foot.

  ‘It’s time for you to live again, Carol,’ he said.

  ‘I …’

  He pushed a strand of hair from her face and rubbed the spot on her cheek from where he’d previously wiped away the streak of dust.

  ‘Monsieur Delissandes …’

  ‘Relax,’ he said, and kissed her.

  She hadn’t intended to become Denis Delissandes’ lover. And yet that was what happened. In the four days they were alone together in the Villa Martine, they made love more times than Carol could count. And it was making love, she said to herself each night when she’d slipped back into her own room in the early hours of the morning so that Imogen wouldn’t know she’d been missing. It was making love because it was so wonderful and so spectacular and because Denis said he loved her. And she loved him too, even though she knew it couldn’t possibly last.

  Of course she felt guilty about Lucie. She thought of Lucie as a friend. But Denis was dismissive when she said this on the night before he returned to Paris.

  ‘You’re friendly but she’s not your friend,’ he told her. ‘You’re not betraying her. Lucie is a sensible person. She knows that a marriage is different to an affaire.’

  ‘So this is an affair?’ said Carol.

  ‘If that is the word you like to use.’ Denis pulled her close to him. ‘You and I – we’re good together, Carol.’

  ‘Better than you and Lucie?’

  He looked at her in the darkness. ‘In some ways. Which makes it more than a simple affaire, of course.’

  ‘You’re not planning on leaving her, are you?’

  ‘You wouldn’t want me to do that.’

  It was silly to have hoped, even for a moment, that he might.

  ‘Of course I wouldn’t.’ She rested her head against his chest.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘We don’t need to ruin what we have.’

  It was only when she’d tiptoed back to her bedroom that she wondered what on earth that really was.

  Chapter 15

  Back in Dublin, Vince was convinced he should have made a bigger fuss about Imogen’s departure. He shouldn’t have allowed Shona (and the gardai and the Missing Family people) to persuade him that all his wife needed was time. He should have called the national newspapers and turned it into a big story, which would have forced the police to do something about it, instead of persuading him that she’d walked out on him without a word.

  The neighbours were beginning to ask questions. Sadie Harris next door had remarked that she hadn’t seen Imogen in ages and wondered aloud if she was away. Vince muttered something about her having work commitments in France, and Sadie said that it was great to see her doing so well, wasn’t it, and that she hoped Vince was coping all right on his own. He’d been in two minds then about what he should say, wondering if he should exploit Sadie’s good nature and say that he was doing terribly on his own, which might have led to her asking him next door for dinner;
or if he should come out with it and say that Imogen had left him without a word and maybe trigger even greater sympathy.

  In the end, though, he knew that he would never tell anyone that she’d walked out on him. Besides, she hadn’t gone for ever. She’d be home soon, guilty and remorseful at having caused him pain, because she couldn’t live without him and she was always remorseful when she’d done something stupid. This, however, was far and away the stupidest thing she’d ever done, and the fact that she’d planned it was driving him insane. He thought he knew her, and he couldn’t believe that he hadn’t had the slightest idea what she’d been up to. How long had she spent planning? he asked himself as he opened his laptop. How often had she sat in the living room beside him, thinking about leaving him? How often had she pretended to be listening to him when in fact she was thinking about running away? And had she really kept it a secret from everyone she knew? Surely she would’ve told someone, even if that person wasn’t Shona Egan.

  He logged into Imogen’s email account again. He liked being able to access it even though it seemed that she wasn’t bothering herself. He was hopeful that at some point an email would arrive for her with information that could be useful to him. He skimmed through the ones he’d sent her and pursed his lips. He’d been both angry and annoyed when he’d written them, and in re-reading them he could see those emotions coming through. Maybe that was why she hadn’t replied to him. She knew she’d done wrong, she could sense how angry he was and she didn’t know how to respond. Perhaps it would be better to take a different approach.

  He closed her account, opened his own and composed another message.

  From: Vinnock@carlisledirect.com

  To: Imozhen@gmail.com

  Subject: I Miss You

  Imogen, I realise that you’ve gone through a difficult time. It’s taken me a while because I couldn’t understand how you could do this to me and I have to confess that I was very, very angry with you. But I realise you must be extremely distressed to have done this awful thing. All I want is for us to sort out whatever’s wrong between us. I can come to you if you’re not ready to come home yet. I love you and I miss you so please reply to me as soon as possible.