My Husband's Wife

by Jane Corry

‘What happened to your eye exactly?’

  The child looks away. ‘It was a mistake. He didn’t mean it to happen.’

  ‘Who made a mistake, poppet?’

  But even as I ask the question, I hear voices.

  The jury made a mistake, Joe Thomas had said.

  There’s got to be a mistake, my mother had sobbed when we found Daniel.

  Is this a mistake? I’d asked myself as I’d walked down the aisle.

  No more mistakes, I say to myself, as I take Carla into our flat to call the local taxi firm.

  From now on, I’ve got to be good.

  6

  Carla

  ‘Who made a mistake, poppet?’ said Lily with the golden hair as they went into number 3. Her voice was very clear. Like one of those actresses on television. Posh, Mamma would have called it.

  ‘Kevin. A boy in my class. He threw a ball at me.’

  Carla nuzzled Charlie’s fur. It felt warm and cosy against her skin. She glanced around the flat. It was the same shape as theirs but there were more pictures on the walls. Untidier, too, with pieces of paper on the kitchen table and a pair of brown shoes underneath, suggesting that someone had forgotten them. They looked like they belonged to a man, with those thick soles and laces. Shoes, Mamma always said, were one of the most important weapons in a woman’s wardrobe. When Carla said she didn’t understand, Mamma just laughed.

  ‘If your mother isn’t at work, where do you think she might be?’

  Carla shrugged. ‘Maybe with Larry, her friend. Sometimes he takes her out for lunch near the shop. She sells nice things to make women beautiful.’

  ‘And where is this shop?’

  ‘A place called Night Bridge.’

  There was a smile as if she’d said something funny. ‘Do you mean Knightsbridge?’

  ‘Non lo so.’ When she was tired, she always lapsed into Italian, even though she tried to make Mamma speak English at home.

  ‘Well, we’ve left her a note to say where we are. The taxi will be here in a minute.’

  Carla was still stroking the soft green fur. ‘Can Charlie come too?’

  ‘Of course it can.’

  ‘He can. Charlie’s a he.’

  The woman smiled. ‘That’s nice.’

  See, whispered Charlie. Told you we’d find a way.

  They were nice to her at the hospital. One of the smiley nurses gave her a barley sugar that stuck to the roof of her mouth. Carla had to put her finger in to poke it out. Mamma didn’t allow her to have sweets at home unless Larry gave them to her. They made you fat like cakes and then you wouldn’t get a boyfriend to pay the rent.

  She hoped the golden-haired woman wouldn’t tell.

  ‘Think of something nice and it won’t hurt as much,’ her new friend said, holding her hand as the nurse put something stingy on her eyebrow.

  So Carla thought of her new friend’s name. Lily! So pretty! When Larry came to visit, he sometimes brought lilies. Once, her mother and Larry had danced so hard when she was in bed that the lilies fell on to the ground and stained the carpet bright yellow. When she’d come out to see what had happened, Larry said it was ‘nothing’. He’d arrange for it to be cleaned. Maybe he’d arrange for Mamma’s blouse to be mended too. The top three buttons had lain scattered by her feet like little red sweets.

  She told Lily this story as they got into the taxi to go home. They went a long way back because the driver said there was something called a diversion.

  Lily was quiet for a while. ‘Do you ever see your daddy?’ she asked.

  Carla shrugged. ‘He died when I was a baby. Mamma cries if we talk about him.’ Then she looked out of the window at the flashing lights. Wow!

  ‘That’s called Piccadilly Circus,’ said Lily.

  ‘Really?’ Carla pressed her nose against the window. It was beginning to drizzle. She could pretend that her nose was running with rain. ‘Where are the lions?’

  ‘Lions?’

  ‘You said it was a circus. I can’t see any lions or ladies in skirts walking on wires.’

  There was a muffled sound of laughter. It was like the noise that Mamma made when Larry visited. Carla always heard it through the wall that divided her bedroom from Mamma’s.

  ‘Don’t laugh like that! It’s true. I know what circuses look like. I’ve seen pictures in books.’

  Maybe she shouldn’t have shouted. Lily’s smile had become a straight line now. But instead of being cross, like Mamma when Carla did something she shouldn’t, she looked kind and gentle and nice.

  ‘I’m sorry, but you reminded me of someone.’

  Instantly Carla’s curiosity was aroused. ‘Who?’

  Then Lily turned away. ‘Someone I used to know.’

  They were going under a bridge now. The taxi grew dark inside. Carla could hear Lily blowing her nose. When they came out the other side, her eyes were very bright. ‘I like your pencil case.’

  ‘It’s not a pencil case. He’s a caterpillar.’ Carla stroked the green fur lovingly; first one way and then the other. ‘Charlie can understand every word you are saying.’

  ‘I used to feel that way about a doll I had once. She was called Amelia.’

  ‘Do you still have her?’

  The face turned away again. ‘No. I don’t.’

  Lily used exactly the same tone of voice that Mamma used when she said that there was only enough dinner for one and that it didn’t matter because she wasn’t hungry. And just as she did with Mamma, Carla stayed silent because sometimes adults didn’t want you to ask any more questions.

  Meanwhile, the taxi was jolting along through big wide streets with pretty shops and then smaller ones with wooden boxes of fruit outside. Eventually, they passed a park she recognized and then they turned into their road. Charlie’s fur stood up on end. Carla felt her chest beating at the same time. Mamma might be home now. What would she say?

  Never talk to strangers. How often had she told her that? Yet Carla had not only gone off with a stranger, she had also stolen Charlie.

  ‘I’ll explain everything to your mother,’ said golden-haired Lily, as if she could see what Carla was thinking. Then she handed over two real paper notes for the taxi ride to the driver. How rich she must be! ‘Do you think she’ll be home yet? If not, you can …’

  ‘Piccola mia!’

  She smelled Mamma’s rich perfume swooping out of the block before she saw her. ‘Where have you been? I am out of my mind with worry.’ Then she glared at Lily, black eyes flashing. ‘How dare you take my daughter away? And what have you done to her eye? I will report you to the police. I will …’

  It suddenly occurred to Carla that Lily wouldn’t understand what Mamma was saying because she was speaking in their own language. Italian! What Mamma called ‘the tongue of the poets and the artists and the great thinkers’. Whatever that meant. Certainly Lily had looked very confused until the word polizia. Then her face grew red and cross.

  ‘Your daughter got hit by a ball at school.’ She was speaking very slowly, as if making a big effort to stay calm. But Carla could see that her throat had gone all blotchy. ‘One of the staff took her home but you weren’t in. She was going to have to go back to school but it just happened that I came back from work early and offered to take Carla to hospital for that eye.’

  ‘The teacher, why did she not do this?’

  Mamma was speaking in English now. It worried Carla when she did this because she sometimes got the words in the wrong order. Then people would laugh or try to correct her. She didn’t want Mamma feeling hurt.

  ‘She had to get back to her own children, apparently.’

  ‘They rang your work from school,’ Carla butted in. ‘But they said you weren’t there today.’

  Mamma’s eyes widened. ‘Of course I was. My manager had sent me on a training course. Someone should have known where to get me. Mi dispiace.’ Mamma was almost suffocating her with a big hug. ‘I am so sorry. Thank you for looking after my little one.’

&n
bsp; Together, she and Mamma rocked back and forth on the dirty steps. Even though the grip was uncomfortable, Carla’s heart soared. This is what it had been like before the man with the shiny car had come into their lives. Just her and Mamma. No laughter through the walls that shut her out and danced up and down in her nightmares.

  ‘You are Italian?’ Lily’s soft voice released Mamma’s grip and the old emptiness dived back in. ‘My husband and I spent our honeymoon in Italy. Sicily. We loved it.’

  Mamma’s eyes were wet with tears. Real tears, Carla observed. Not the kind of tears she practised in front of the mirror. ‘My daughter’s father, he came from there …’

  Carla’s skin began to prickle. She had not known that.

  ‘But now … now …’

  Poor Mamma. Her voice was coming out in big gulps. She needed help.

  Carla heard her own voice piping up. ‘Now it is just Mamma and me.’

  Do not talk about Larry, she wanted to say out loud. Do not mention that man.

  ‘It is very hard,’ Mamma continued. ‘I do not like to leave my little one alone, but there are times when I have to work. Saturdays are the worst, when there is no school.’

  Golden-haired Lily was nodding. ‘If it would help, my husband and I can look after her sometimes.’

  Carla felt her breath stop. Really? Then she wouldn’t have to stay inside the flat all on her own, with the door locked. She would have someone to talk to until Mamma got home!

  ‘You would look after my little girl? That is very kind.’

  Both women were flushed now. Was Lily regretting her offer? Carla hoped not. Adults often suggested something and then took it away.

  ‘I must go now.’ Lily glanced at her case. ‘I have work to do and you’ll want time with your daughter. Don’t worry about the cut. The hospital said it would heal fast.’

  Mamma clucked. ‘That school, she is no good. Wait until I see the teachers tomorrow.’

  ‘But you won’t, Mamma! You will be at work.’

  ‘Tsk.’ Already she was being whisked inside.

  ‘We’re in number 3 if you need us,’ Lily called out. Had Mamma heard? Carla made a mental note just in case.

  As soon as they were alone, Mamma rounded on her. Her glossy red smile had become a creased crimson scowl. How could adults move from one face to another so fast?

  ‘Never, never speak to strangers again.’ Her pointed red finger wagged in front of her nose. There was a small chip in the polish, Carla noticed. On the right of the nail. ‘You were lucky this time to find an angel, but next time it might be the devil. Do you understand?’

  Not exactly, but Carla knew better than to ask any more questions.

  Apart from one.

  ‘Did my father really come from Sicily?’

  Mamma’s face went red. ‘I cannot talk of this. You know it upsets me.’ Then she frowned at Carla’s blouse. ‘What are you hiding in there?’

  Reluctantly, Carla brought Charlie out for inspection. ‘He’s a caterpillar.’ She had to squeeze the words out of her mouth with fear.

  ‘One of those pencil cases you’ve been nagging me for?’

  Carla could only nod.

  Her mother’s eyes narrowed. ‘Did you take him? From one of the other children? Is that why you have a bruise?’

  ‘No! No!’ They were speaking in Italian now. Fast. Fluid. Desperate.

  ‘Lily told you. Someone threw a ball at me. But on the way back from the hospital, she bought Charlie to make me feel better.’

  Mamma’s face softened. ‘That is very kind of her. I must thank her.’

  ‘No.’ Carla felt a trickle of wee run down her legs. That happened sometimes when she was nervous. It was another reason why the others teased her at school. It had happened once in PE. Smelly Carla Spagoletti! Why don’t you wear nappies, like a real baby?

  ‘She would be embarrassed,’ Carla added. ‘Like Larry. You know what English people are like.’

  Holding her breath, she waited. It was true that when the man with the shiny car gave them things, Mamma said they mustn’t talk about it too much in case it embarrassed him.

  Eventually, Mamma nodded. ‘You are right.’

  Carla breathed out a slow sigh of relief.

  ‘Now go and wash your hands. Hospitals are dirty places.’ Mamma was glancing at herself in the mirror, running her hands through her thick black curls. ‘Larry is coming for dinner.’ Her eyes sparkled. ‘You must go to bed early.’

  7

  Lily

  Mid-October 2000

  ‘Sugar? Sellotape? Sharp implements? Crisps?’ barks the man on the other side of the glass divide.

  It’s true what they told me in the office. You get used to prison: even by your second visit. I face the officer impassively. His skin is clean-shaven. Almost baby-like.

  ‘No,’ I say in a confident voice which doesn’t belong to me. Then I step aside to be searched. What would happen, I wonder, if I succeeded in hiding anything illegal – drugs or simply an innocuous packet of sugar from a coffee shop? The idea is strangely exciting.

  Clip-clop across the courtyard in my new red kitten heels. Just to boost my self-confidence, I told myself when I bought them. Today, there are no men in prison uniform tending the garden. It’s a dull day with a nip in the air. I wrap my navy-blue jacket protectively around me and follow the officer through the double doors.

  ‘What’s it like in prison?’ Ed asked the evening after my first visit.

  To be honest, I’d almost put it out of my head after the drama of taking the little Italian girl to hospital and then facing the wrath of her mother until she’d calmed down. Her reaction was, of course, understandable. She’d been worried. ‘Thank you from the bottom of my heart for looking after my Carla,’ she had written in a little note that I found slipped under the door later.

  I still doubt my wisdom in stepping in. But that’s what happens when you have an overdeveloped conscience.

  ‘It’s airless,’ I said to my husband in reply to his question. ‘You can’t breathe properly.’

  ‘And the men?’ His arm tightened protectively around me. We were lying on the sofa, side by side in front of the evening television; a little squashed, but in that nice together sort of way. A married cosiness that almost (but not quite) makes up for the other part of a relationship.

  I thought of the prisoners I’d seen in the corridor with their staring eyes and short-sleeved T-shirts with bulging muscles underneath. And I thought of Joe Thomas with his surprisingly intelligent (if odd) observations and the puzzle he had set me.

  ‘Not what you’d think.’ I shifted towards my husband so my nose was nestling comfortably against his neck. ‘My client could be an ordinary next-door neighbour. He was clever too.’

  ‘Really?’

  I could feel Ed’s interest stirring. ‘But what did he actually look like?’

  ‘Well built. A beard. Tall – about your height. Very dark-brown eyes. Long thin fingers. Surprisingly so.’

  My husband nodded, and I could feel him drawing my client in his head.

  ‘He talked a lot about Rupert Brooke, the war poet,’ I added. ‘Implied that this had something to do with his case.’

  ‘Was he in the army?’

  It was a tradition that the men in Ed’s family went to Sandhurst before enjoying distinguished careers in the army. During our first date, he told me how disappointed his parents had been when he refused to follow suit. Art school? Was he mad? A proper job. That’s what he needed. Graphic design in an advertising company was an unhappy compromise all round. People didn’t rebel in Ed’s family, he told me. They toed the line. Ironically, I rather liked that at the time. It made me feel safe. Secure. But it seems to have given my husband a chip on the shoulder. At the few family gatherings I’ve been to with him, he’s always felt like the odd one out. Not that he’s said so. He doesn’t need to. I can just see.

  ‘The army?’ I repeated. ‘No, apparently not.’

 
Then Ed sat up and I felt a breeze of coldness between us. Not just the loss of warmth from his body, but the distance that comes when someone is on another plane. I hadn’t realized, until our marriage, that an artist could move so smoothly from real life to an imagined world. Ed’s family may have refused to finance art school, but no one could stop him from doing what he did best, in his spare time. Already a sketchpad appeared in his hands and my husband was jotting down the facial features of one of the men in the photographs staring across at us from the mantelpiece. This particular one was of his father as a young man.

  Father …

  And now, here I am, walking across the courtyard with the answer to my lifer’s puzzle right here, in my briefcase.

  ‘Your father was in the army,’ I say in the visitors’ room, sliding a folder across the table towards my client.

  Joe Thomas’s face goes blank. ‘So what?’

  ‘So he was discharged. Not honourably either.’

  I’m purposefully speaking in staccato. I want to stir this man, make him react. Something tells me it’s the only way to help him. If I want to help him.

  ‘He tried to protect himself when a man threatened to stab him in a pub, according to his statement.’ I look down at the notes which had taken me days to put together with the help of a keen junior trainee. ‘But when your father pushed the man away, he fell through a window and nearly bled to death. I think there’s a link between that and your case. Am I right?’

  Joe Thomas’s eyes grow black in front of me. I glance around the room.

  ‘There’s no emergency button here,’ says my client softly.

  My skin goes clammy. Is this man threatening me?

  Then he sits back in his chair and regards me as though I’m in the hot seat instead of him. ‘My father was punished for acting in self-defence. He was shamed. Our family was ridiculed. We had to move to Civvy Street. I was bullied at school. But I learned a big lesson. Self-defence is no defence, because no one ever believes you.’

  I look at this man in the chair before me and then draw out a photograph from my file. It shows a slim redhead. The dead woman. Sarah Evans. Joe Thomas’s girlfriend.