I think I’d throw up if there was anything left in my stomach to purge. He can’t really be about to make a pass at her. Can he? What will I do if he does? What will I do if he does and she reciprocates and I’m there to see it in all its gruesome technicolour glory? Watching him flirt with her has been nauseating enough. Witnessing him going any further – that’s got to be every woman’s worst nightmare, hasn’t it, dead or alive?
As Max and Connor stumble out of the toilets, I spy Sadie sitting at the table, head down, deep in clandestine conversation with Connor’s date. I hurry ahead of the boys just in time to catch the final snippets of Sadie’s confession.
‘He’s a nice enough guy but he’s not, you know, electrifying. Not really my cup of tea at all, to be honest. I’m not sure what Connor was thinking. Guess he just felt, you know, sorry for his little brother. If you don’t mind I think I’m going to head off soon. You’ll be okay with Connor, won’t you? Looks like you two are really hitting it off, lucky thing.’
Sadie and her friend giggle conspiratorially as they’re joined by my hopeful husband and his misguided brother.
I hang uselessly above them, racking my brains to determine if there’s any way – any way on earth or beyond – that I can warn Max about what I’ve overheard. There must be some means I can employ to communicate with him or what’s the point of my being here? What’s the point of being able to see and hear all of this if not to help protect Max from a humiliation he’s so far from being ready to suffer?
Maybe there’s some telepathic way I could contact him, like an extrasensory equivalent of the silent looks we used to give one another across dinner-party tables or at crowded birthday parties, the looks that conveyed we were ready to go home or that we wanted a drink refill or that the person we were talking to was a bore and we were in need of the swiftest of rescues.
I close my eyes and visualize Max arriving back at the table and making the politest of excuses before heading home alone. Perhaps if I focus really hard he might just pick up on some signal from beyond the grave, a signal that might just spare him imminent embarrassment.
I open my eyes to see Max picking up not his coat but Sadie’s glass and handing it to his brother by way of ordering another round of drinks. He’s flushed and grinning, just edging over the precipice of tipsiness into the swell of inebriation.
‘Come on, you. Let’s leave these two lovebirds alone.’
As Connor shepherds his date back to the bar, Sadie looks at her friend with the faintest of frowns that only someone attuned to her intentions would detect.
‘You know what you were saying earlier, about us collaborating some time? Well, maybe we should start by me coming to see one of your performances? Maybe I could get a personal invite?’
Max places a hand on top of Sadie’s and looks directly into her eyes with a combination of lust, hope and fear. He’s flirting with her. He’s actually flirting. A little unsubtly and definitely drunkenly, but he’s flirting nonetheless.
I don’t know what’s more uncomfortable: watching Max flirt with a woman I’d never have imagined him finding attractive in a million years or watching Max flirt with a woman I pre-emptively know is going to reject him.
Whichever it is, I feel woefully unprepared to witness this.
I close my eyes and try to will myself away, hoping that the rarity of the wish will increase the likelihood of it being granted. But when I open them again, I’m looking down on the table where my husband is still in the process of grinning inanely at the woman with whom it would appear he’d like to spend the night.
Sadie glances down at his hand on hers and then back at Max with an expression of sympathy. As she pulls her immaculately manicured fingers from under his and back into her lap, she smiles at him, not her coquettish smile this time, but rather the consolatory smile, the one that tells him he hasn’t won first prize this time.
‘Now, I wouldn’t want to be seen to be giving out special favours, would I? You’ve no idea how jealous my fans can get. Just look up dates and venues on my website and I’ll expect to see you in the audience soon.’
She opens her clutch bag and pulls out a compact which she flips open to obscure Max’s view of her before theatrically powdering her nose.
Max looks momentarily confused. I don’t blame him. Every discernible sign has been pointing him in the direction of mutual attraction, only for him to find himself rebuffed at the eleventh hour. It would confound even the most confident of suitors and Max is far from that at the moment.
Who does this woman think she is? And how dare she not be interested in Max, how dare she not think him ‘electrifying’ enough, how dare she pull her hand away from his when I’d give anything – anything at all – to be touched by Max just one more time.
I could strangle Connor right now.
‘Well, I might just have to do that. And perhaps, maybe, I could take you for a drink afterwards?’
Max doesn’t seem to have understood the conclusiveness of the rejection he’s already suffered and it’s hardly surprising. Connor’s led Max into an exaggerated state of romantic confidence while Sadie’s led him into a false sense of flirtatious security; it’s a lethal combination. No wonder he thinks there’s still a chance of a happy ending.
Sadie looks at her watch.
‘You know, it’s getting pretty late. I think I might head home, if that’s okay with you?’
‘Oh, really? I think Connor’s getting us some more drinks. Won’t you stay for one more at least?’
Sadie bites her bottom lip coquettishly before producing yet another of her dazzling smiles aimed at masking the hypocrisy of the brush-off she’s delivering. This woman can’t put a lid on her flirtations even when she’s in the throes of a dismissal.
‘Not for me, sadly. I’ve got work to do tomorrow. There’s no rest for wicked artists at the weekend, you know. You’ll say goodbye to the others for me, won’t you?’
Max nods, half-heartedly, as he stands up to help her on with her coat.
‘Enjoy the rest of your evening. And I’m sure I’ll see you around, you know, at one of your brother’s infamous parties.’
Sadie places a patronizing hand on Max’s arm who responds with a stoical smile, albeit perhaps a little too apologetically for the sake of dignity on either side. He leans over to kiss Sadie goodbye, but she turns her head away dismissively, leaving Max no option but to kiss the air beside her cheek instead. And with that she sweeps out of the club and out of Max’s life, almost certainly forever.
As Max stands by the table, engulfed by his own bemusement, Connor bounds over with a bottle of champagne in one hand and two glasses in the other.
‘I thought I’d help spice things up for you two. Where is she? Gone to the ladies to freshen up for you, has she?’
Max looks blankly at his brother as if only semi-aware of his presence.
‘Max. What are you looking at me like a moron for? Just take the bottle and the glasses and enjoy a late night tipple on me.’
As Connor bangs the bottle down on the table, Max emerges from his private reverie.
‘She’s gone.’
‘What, to the loo? It’s fine, it’ll still be cold when she gets back.’
‘No. She’s gone home. She’s left. I don’t get it.’
‘Nah, you must be mistaken. She’s probably just gone to powder her nose. You know what women are like. I’ll get Saskia to go and check on her if you like.’
‘No, Connor, you’re not listening. She’s gone home. She told me she was going home. As soon as we got back from the toilets she couldn’t get out of here quick enough. I don’t understand.’
Now it’s Connor’s turn to look perplexed. He stares at the door for a few seconds, then at Sadie’s empty chair, then at Max before repeating the drunken charade twice more until the penny finally drops.
‘Well that’s bloody weird. Sorry, mate. Don’t know what happened there. I thought you and her were a dead cert this evening. But do
n’t look so miserable. The night’s still young. Let me retrieve Saskia from the bar and we’ll do a quick tour of this place to find you someone else.’
Max shrugs Connor’s heavy arm from where it’s slumped over his shoulders and pulls his coat wearily from the back of his chair.
‘I don’t think so. I’m going to call it a night.’
‘What? Don’t be stupid. This place doesn’t close for hours yet.’
‘I’m going home. I should never have come in the first place. I don’t know what I was thinking letting you talk me into this. I knew it was a mistake.’
‘Hey, bro, don’t be so down on it all. So one woman gives you the brush off? So what? Plenty more fish in the sea. Especially in a place like this. Come on, have a glass of champagne.’
‘No, thanks, I’ve had enough. I’m an idiot. I acted like an idiot and I just want to go home.’
‘Don’t be soft. Course you didn’t. It’s just the way these things roll sometimes.’
‘No, it’s not. Maybe it’s me, maybe I’m just not ready for all this. Maybe I’ve been out of the game too long to know how to play it any more. And after tonight I’m not sure I can be bothered to relearn the rules. Thanks for trying, really, but I think I’m just going to sit on the bench a while longer.’
Max starts to put his coat on but Connor pulls it out of his hands and takes his brother by the shoulders.
‘Listen, you cannot get freaked out by one single rejection. I know it’s been a while but you’ll soon get into the swing of things again. Tonight was just supposed to be a bit of fun. You didn’t expect to be running off into the sunset together, did you?’
‘No, of course I didn’t. But I didn’t expect to get it quite so wrong either. I don’t want to get back into the swing of things if those things involve dates with women who are impossible to read and pretending that I’m in any way over Rachel, because I’m not. I should have listened to myself. I’m just not ready.’
‘Okay, bro. Go home and get some sleep and we’ll talk tomorrow and perhaps you’ll feel a bit more upbeat about things.’
‘I don’t think so, but thanks anyway. You can’t say I didn’t give it a go. But I think it’s best all round if I just give up on all this dating malarkey.’
The boys have one last hug before Max heads for the exit and out into the streets of Mayfair.
As he pulls out his phone to check for messages he stops in his tracks, phone in hand, staring at the screen in his palm. I hover over his shoulder and am greeted by my own smiling face beaming back at me, Max to my left and Ellie on my lap, the three of us grinning in the face of the windswept Dorset beach we’re sitting on. I remember us asking a sweet elderly couple to take the photo, him insisting he knew how to use the ‘newfangled’ camera phone, his wife raising an affectionately doubtful eyebrow and proving to know his capabilities better than he did as he fiddled frustratedly with the buttons until finally, possibly more by luck than judgement, he took that lovely shot. The shot that Max must still look at every time he makes a phone call and which he’s gazing at now with only his own, private thoughts for company.
It’s been a tough night for both of us, in different ways, but I suppose if there’s one thing this evening has taught us, it’s that neither Max nor I are ready to move on yet. That our first instincts were spot on; it’s too soon to live life so definitively without one another. And even if Max were ready, it’s going to take more than a random internet introduction or a blind date to find a woman worthy of Max’s attention. I mean, he’s not just any bloke. He’s Max. It’ll take someone pretty special to win him over, if being won over is something, one day, he might want. And someone even more special ever to be allowed into Ellie’s life.
After weeks of worry and hours of disconcerting fantasies alone in the whiteness, I think I can finally rest assured that I’m not on the verge of being replaced. That neither Max nor Ellie are in serious search of a marital or maternal substitute. That I still have a place in the centre of their lives, even though I’m no longer there to share it with them.
And with that reassurance I close my eyes and allow him to travel home alone, confident that Max and I are still bound together in spite of the worlds that keep us apart.
ANGER
Chapter 11
I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I was so naive. I can’t believe I’ve been stuck here, on my own, for day upon endless day, blithely reassured that Max had abolished any immediate thoughts of dating from his mind. And then I return to find this.
We’re in a low-lit restaurant somewhere I don’t recognize, probably because it’s the kind of achingly trendy place that Max and I stopped going to after Ellie had transformed us from a couple into a family. From what I’ve been able to glean so far, which is far less than I’d have liked but probably about as much as is humanly possible in the few minutes since my access was restored, Max is on another date. Except this date is unlike any date he’s previously had, both since I died and no doubt before he and I ever got together.
She’s beautiful. Painfully beautiful. Painful for me, that is, but probably not so much for her. Her long hair is naturally blonde and super-humanly glossy, the kind of hair you imagine exists only in shampoo commercials, and then only when it’s been digitally enhanced. Her eyes are the colour of sapphire with a sparkling intensity you want to dive into. Her skin appears to be foundation-free and yet devoid of a single blemish in its pale translucency. She has the kind of body I’ve always envied: willowy, slim, delicate, a figure that undoubtedly withstands extensive guilty pleasures without revealing an ounce of evidence. Even her hands are beautiful: long, elegant, piano-playing fingers adorned with a single, antique marcasite ring on the middle finger of her right hand. And, as if that weren’t challenge enough to my already burgeoning envy, her clothes are flawless too; she’s wearing a loose patterned blouse over tight dark-brown jeans, accessorized with a pale green chiff on scarf, a combination which on me would have looked frumpy or comical, or both, but on her looks simple, effortless, chic. To add a final insult to an already impressive array of injuries, she’s also almost certainly at least a decade younger than me.
Max says something apparently comical which I fail to hear, engrossed as I am in my study of the woman who’s currently sitting stomach-churningly close to my husband and whose hand has a disturbing habit of making lingering contact with his arm by way of reassurance or encouragement – or both. They’re seated side by side on a banquette, giggling like two childhood friends sharing nostalgic memories after a decade or two’s absence rather than the relative strangers they must surely be. There’s an ease about their interactions, a familiarity which sends alarm bells clanging loudly in my ears. The date, clearly, is going incredibly well. Worryingly well.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Where’s Max’s conviction – the seemingly intractable conviction I last left him with – that he’s just not ready for all this yet? What happened to his resolve that he’s retiring from the dating scene for the foreseeable future? What – or who – has persuaded him back into territory I thought he’d so definitively withdrawn from?
The clock on the wall tells me it’s just gone nine o’clock. Given that the last vestiges of evening light are illuminating the window, it must still be summer and therefore only a matter of weeks since I was last here.
It’s ironic, really; this has been the only absence I can remember during which I haven’t been consumed by fearful fantasies of what I might discover on my return and yet it transpires to be the one time I really should have been.
When did they meet? Where, how? Who is she and what does she mean to Max? And is this their first date or one of many?
‘So, Eve, might I be able to tempt you with a dessert?’
Her name’s Eve? Really? It’s not enough that she’s beautiful, elegant, stylish, she has to be named after the first woman in the world ever?
‘Well, I did see someone else with the chocolate cheese-cake and it did loo
k pretty delicious. Maybe we should order one to share?’
So now they’re sharing desserts. One spoon or two?
Max grins with unadulterated pleasure as he walks towards the bar to order Eve’s decadent dessert. I can’t remember the last time I saw him this relaxed. I don’t think I’ve seen him this content since I died and it’s uplifting and unnerving in equal measure. I want Max to be happy, of course I do. I’m just not sure I’m ready for him to be quite this happy just yet. Or that I want Eve to be his inspiration.
Eve leaves the table too, to make her way to the bathroom, stroking a disarmingly over-familiar hand across the small of Max’s back as she passes him at the bar. Even her walk is exquisite.
I look at Eve’s face as she saunters, gracefully, towards the stairs. If someone told me that she was, indeed, the archetypal woman and that after her creation they’d thrown away the blueprint, I wouldn’t struggle to believe it. And it’s impossible for me to ignore the fact that not only is she beautiful but she’s also my exact physical opposite. I don’t know whether to be insulted or relieved. I’m not sure whether it’s tactful of Max to be on a date with someone so distinctly different from me, whether it demonstrates his desire to ensure some clear blue water between the past, the present and a possible future I’m not yet ready to contemplate. Or whether it’s tactless and insensitive of him, an indication that he’s spent the past decade wishing I were blonde, blue-eyed and congenitally slim rather than brunette, brown-eyed and in possession of the kind of body that spent its relatively short life denying itself all the foods it wanted but couldn’t have.
The two of them return to the table at exactly the same moment – even their timing is perfect – and resume their adjacent positions on the banquette.
The Dead Wife's Handbook Page 12
