My Husband's Wife

by Jane Corry

  To my horror, I feel tears pricking my eyes. Tears which I usually ban on the grounds that they do no good. Besides, who wants an unfaithful husband? Good-quality wine glasses are far more useful.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ I shout, ignoring the warning look in Mum’s eyes. Don’t question Tom. Definitely don’t argue with him. You won’t win. During the divorce – a ‘quickie’, which had come through with indecent haste – Ed had claimed it was ‘useless’ arguing with a lawyer. People like me, apparently, never listen to others; they always have their own answers at the ready.

  Maybe that’s where Tom gets it from. His ability to see his own point of view and no one else’s.

  ‘You touched my knife,’ he states factually, squinting through his new thick-framed black glasses. ‘I’ve told you before. I don’t like that.’

  Bending down, I sweep up the pieces of broken glass. ‘You’re acting like a three-year-old,’ I mutter.

  ‘Shh,’ soothes Mum.

  Normally I don’t make a fuss. Since coming back to look after Tom, I decided it was the best way. But every now and then, I snap. Something usually acts as a trigger. Today I suspect it’s the extra place setting at the table. A reminder of the life that ended on the night I saw Ed and Carla kissing outside the hotel off the Strand. Even now, I shudder if someone casually mentions the word ‘hotel’. It’s like a trigger point, shooting me back, churning my guts, making me retch like I did back then on to the pavement, in a mixture of betrayal and disbelief.

  Strangely, after those first few raw moments, there was no anger. There still isn’t. It would be easier if there were. Mum says it’s because I still haven’t worked through my feelings yet. Maybe she’s right. But if so, when am I going to? It’s been months now since Ed and I split. Yet it still feels as raw as if it had happened yesterday.

  I had spent the night at a professional organization which I belong to (the University Women’s Club, which had, by chance, a bedroom available) and called in sick the next day. There was no way I could face Carla, and I didn’t put it past her to prance into the office as though nothing had happened.

  Then my mobile had rung.

  Ed. Ed?

  ‘We need to talk,’ he said. Kindly. Without the defensive tone of the previous night. Was it because he was alone?

  ‘Is Carla there?’

  ‘No.’

  So he could talk! Freely. Hope ballooned up into my throat. Ed wanted me back. Of course he did! We had a child together. A child who wasn’t like most other children. Perhaps now, in the sobering light of day, Ed realized we needed to stick together for Tom’s sake.

  I didn’t have my spare set of keys on me, it struck me, as I reached the door. Instead, I had to ring the bell, feeling like a stranger on my own doorstep. Ed greeted me with a glass of whisky in his hand. It wasn’t even ten o’clock.

  I launched straight in. ‘Look, I’m hurt about Carla. But I’m prepared to forgive you for Tom’s sake. Can’t we start again?’

  Then, rather desperately, I added, ‘We’ve done it before.’

  Ed patted my hand as though I was a little girl. ‘Come on, Lily. It’s understandable that you’re scared.’ As he spoke, there was a gleam in his eye. He looked like a kid himself, one who had been caught with his hand in the sweet jar but didn’t care. He was on a high, no doubt helped by the drink. Something I’d seen time and time again during our marriage. Before long it would be followed by a plunge of mood.

  You see? I know him far better than Carla. How will she cope?

  ‘You’re young enough to start again, Lily. You make a great deal more money than me and …’

  ‘How can you talk about money!’ I stood up and strode into the kitchen towards one of his paintings. It was a picture of the hotel we stayed at during our honeymoon. A picture he’d once helped me to copy, to show how colours could be mixed to achieve that subtle combination of blue merging into green. I can still remember his arm guiding mine, his touch thrilling mine. ‘Not bad,’ he had said, admiring my efforts. And to show willing, he had actually put it on the wall. Next to his.

  ‘We need to talk about the practicalities,’ he continued. ‘I suggest that I keep the house and buy you out.’

  ‘How?’

  Ed was always hopeless when it came to money.

  ‘I’ve got an exhibition coming up. Remember? You could find somewhere in town and then we can each take it in turns to go down to Devon and visit Tom at weekends …’

  ‘You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?’ I said, appalled. ‘You and that Italian bitch.’

  Ed’s face darkened. ‘Don’t call her that. You haven’t shown me any affection for years. All you care about is your work.’

  That wasn’t fair. It’s true that I was exhausted at night after work, but isn’t everyone? And when I had made overtures on Sunday mornings, Ed always rolled away, declaring his back was stiff or that we would wake Carla, on the other side of the wall. How could I have been so stupid?

  Once more, memories of a younger Carla came back to me. The little girl who had asked me to lie for her about that pencil case. The child whose mother was really seeing ‘Larry’ instead of working.

  Like mother, like daughter.

  ‘What are you doing?’ yelled Ed.

  I hardly knew myself. Later, I vaguely recall running at the kitchen wall, towards the pair of paintings of our honeymoon hotel. Picking up his, I threw it on the floor. Jumped on it. Then, pushing my way past Ed, I flew out of the house, weeping my way along the street.

  The following day, I received a letter – hand-delivered at work – starting divorce proceedings on the grounds of my ‘unreasonable behaviour’.

  But there’s something else. Something I’m only now allowing myself to think. If I’m honest, Ed and I weren’t right for ages. But I couldn’t leave him because of Tom. Is it possible that, unintentionally, I had ignored the signs of affection between our lodger and my husband? Had I, unconsciously, wanted something to happen between them to give me a justified get-out card from my marriage?

  So maybe the ‘unreasonable’ wasn’t so unreasonable after all.

  46

  Carla

  Every other weekend, for some months now, Carla and Ed had gone down to Devon to see Tom. At first she had been nervous. What if the boy refused to talk to her? She genuinely felt something for him: an understanding between two people who had never fitted in. But when Ed had picked him up from the house – they’d decided it was better if she stayed in the car while he did this – he had come running up to her all gangly-legged and toothy with excitement. ‘Carla,’ he had said, nodding. ‘You are here.’

  She wouldn’t allow herself to think of Lily, who must be waiting inside. A mother forced to give up her son to another woman for the day. Lily deserved it, Carla told herself. She had neglected Tom so that she could follow her career. She had neglected her husband too. It was the only way Carla could cope with that little nagging voice in her head. The voice that had been reflected in the letter from her mother.

  ‘I hope you know what you are doing, my sweet,’ her mother had written. ‘Looking back, I regret the pain I caused Larry’s wife. Be very careful.’

  And then, one Saturday morning when she and Ed had been lying in bed, came the note through the door. Luckily she had got there before him.

  YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS.

  That was all.

  Clearly it referred to breaking up Ed and Lily’s marriage.

  The writing was in spidery capital letters. Who had sent it? Lily? Yet somehow Carla knew it wasn’t her style. Someone at work then? Even though most were friendlier now, there were still some who talked about their former colleague with affection. How she’d set up a new branch (with flexible hours apparently), focusing on cases where parents had children with special needs. How ‘she deserved to do well’. This last bit had been said by Lily’s old secretary with a meaningful look towards Carla.

  Was it possible one of them had sent
the note? Once more, she read it to herself.

  YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS.

  Part of Carla wanted to show Ed so he could banish her fears. Tell her it was all right. But what if it stirred his conscience? Made him feel guiltier than he did already? There were times when she often found him looking at pictures of Tom with a wistful gaze. And he was always in a difficult mood after their weekend visits. Did he regret leaving his son for her, Carla? Was it possible that he might leave her and return to Lily?

  Such humiliation! She couldn’t end up like Mamma.

  So instead of telling Ed about the note, she ripped it into little pieces. And just to make sure he didn’t find it like he’d found Rupert’s, she dropped the pieces of paper into the rubbish bin down the street.

  For a few weeks after that, she felt nervous, looking over her shoulder every time she went to the office, out-staring the secretary. But nothing happened.

  At home, Ed’s infatuation with her made him clinging and controlling. ‘Where have you been?’ he demanded one night when she came back late after sorting out an urgent land contract. ‘I tried to ring you but there was no answer.’

  ‘I had it switched off so I could concentrate.’

  But when she came out of the shower that night, she found him stuffing her mobile quickly back into her bag as if he’d been checking it.

  ‘I’m not hiding anything from you,’ she said, annoyed.

  ‘Of course you’re not, darling.’ He draped an arm around her. ‘I just thought I heard it hum. Look, you’ve got a text.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Your work again.’

  That stifling feeling increased.

  Then an important client cancelled a commission for a portrait of his wife. ‘Apparently she disapproves of the press publicity over us,’ said Ed, shrugging. ‘Never mind. Commissions come and go. The important thing is that I’ve got you. You know, I never felt I really had Lily. She was always thinking of Daniel or Tom or her career.’

  Meanwhile, bottles of wine were disappearing from the cellar at an alarming rate. ‘I took them into the gallery,’ said Ed when she questioned him about it. But later in the week, she found the bottles at the bottom of the recycling bin at the back of the house.

  Carla, still on a high from having briefed a barrister about a case that looked as though it was almost in the bag, began to feel a stirring of frustration. Was this how Lily had felt?

  Then, one Sunday when Ed was out sketching (again), she did a great tidy-up, partly to expunge Lily’s lingering presence in the house. Ed’s study was sacrosanct: no one went into it. But when she peered inside, she could see the desk was overflowing with bits of paper. Cobwebs fluttered in the corners. Dirty mugs were on every surface. Just a quick bit of rearranging wouldn’t go amiss.

  Underneath the half-finished sketches, she found a pile of unopened post.

  Some had ‘Urgent’ stamped on the envelope. Others, ‘Open Immediately’.

  So she did.

  Aghast, Carla sank on to Ed’s chair. He owed thousands on his credit card. The mortgage hadn’t been paid for two months. There was a letter giving them three more months, ‘following your request’.

  But after that, the money would have to be paid.

  ‘It will be all right,’ Ed said when she confronted him as soon as he got back. ‘It’s just a question of cash flow. I’ve got the new exhibition coming up. My agent is very optimistic. I’ll sell more than enough to keep us going.’

  Then he looked at her disappointedly as though she’d been in the wrong. ‘Please don’t go into my study again. It’s not as though I’ve got anything to hide.’

  The next day, she found the letters had gone.

  The exhibition opening almost distracted Carla from the doubts that were building up. It was such fun to be photographed on Ed’s arm! He looked so handsome dressed in his tuxedo. ‘Shall I refer to you as Mr Macdonald’s companion?’ asked one of the journalists.

  Ed, hovering at her shoulder, had stepped in. ‘Put fiancée, would you?’

  Carla started. They hadn’t even discussed marriage! But Ed was speaking as though it had all been arranged.

  ‘Why did you say that?’ she asked as they walked home.

  Ed’s handgrip tightened. ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’

  ‘I am.’

  But inside, she really wasn’t sure. Instead, Carla thought back to the night when he’d first made love to her. She’d adored his impulsiveness then. But now it felt as though she was being treated like the child she’d been when Ed had first known her. He was making all the decisions. Huge ones which she should have a say in too. Did she really want to get married? It no longer seemed so important.

  The following night, when she was working late at the office, Ed rang. ‘Have you seen the Telegraph?’ he demanded tersely.

  Carla felt a quickening of apprehension. ‘No.’

  ‘Then get one.’

  There was a copy in reception for clients. Swiftly Carla skimmed through until she reached the arts pages. Dear Lord.

  NEW EXHIBITION DISAPPOINTS

  ART LOVERS

  Artist Edward Macdonald fails to live up to expectations …

  ‘Sorry,’ she said to one of the partners. ‘I’ve got to leave.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘You’ve finished the briefing?’

  ‘Not quite. But I’ve got an emergency.’

  ‘We’ll have another if you don’t have everything ready first thing in the morning.’

  ‘I will.’

  When she got home, Ed was slumped on the sofa.

  ‘It will be all right,’ she said, bending down to kiss him on the forehead.

  ‘Will it? We’ll have to sell the gallery. I just can’t afford to keep it going any more.’

  Never had she seen a man cry before.

  ‘I’m sure …’

  Then his arms opened and he pulled her towards him. His breath stank of whisky and his mouth was wet as he pushed her down on the sofa. ‘Don’t, Ed, don’t. It’s not safe.’ But he continued to kiss her, and it seemed easier to let him than carry on protesting.

  The following week, she received a letter from Mamma.

  Cara mia,

  You will not believe what has happened! Larry has left me a little money. I have only just found out – his widow fought against it but the judge ruled I should have it. My Larry changed his will at the end, apparently. It shows what a good man he was, don’t you think? …

  So her visit had achieved something after all.

  Yet Carla felt physically sick. Yes, her mother would be financially secure now, judging from the amount mentioned. No wonder the widow had challenged it. But where did that leave her, Carla? Had she put herself into this awful position with Ed for nothing?

  Perhaps it was time to get out.

  47

  Lily

  February 2015

  ‘He’s nearly here, he’s nearly here!’

  Tom is pacing up and down, patting his hands on his knees as if playing the drum. This is another habit associated with his condition. The action, according to the experts, soothes the person concerned. Even if it plays havoc with everyone else’s nerves.

  ‘There’s his car, Mum. There’s his car!’

  Ross always has this effect on him. If there was one thing that Ed and I got right, I tell myself, it was choosing his friend as godfather.

  Ross was gratifyingly shocked when Ed walked out on me for Carla and then demanded the house. ‘As for “unreasonable behaviour”, that’s ridiculous,’ he said when I’d gone round the following day, my face a mess, barely able to stop crying.

  I’d shrugged, looking round at Ross’s place. The washing-machine door was off, lying on the side of the kitchen counter as if waiting for someone to call the repair man. The kitchen sink was stacked with several days’ worth of crockery and there was a pile of newspapers on the floor by the bin. Half a bottle of Jack Daniel’s sat on the side. Yet Ross himself was always impeccably turned out in a shar
p suit and dapper tie. It occurred to me then, as it occurs to me frequently, that one never really knows a person properly. Especially ourselves. Every human is a melting pot of contradictions.

  ‘What grounds does he cite for this unreasonable behaviour?’ continued Ross.

  ‘Always working late. Not taking holidays. That sort of thing.’ I gave a short laugh. ‘Unreasonable behaviour can mean anything nowadays. I had a client who got a divorce because her husband dug up her vegetable garden without asking her permission first.’

  My fingers gripped the side of Ross’s cream worktop. Imagine if Ed’s lawyers knew the truth … No, I tell myself. Don’t go there.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Ross. He was coming closer now. For a minute, I thought he might be going to give me a cuddle. Until then, we’d only exchanged brief ‘kiss greetings’ on the cheek. It felt odd. So I stepped backwards.

  ‘I don’t know.’ All I could think of was the geometric pattern on the terracotta floor. Since last night, small details seemed big. Maybe it was the mind’s way of coping.

  ‘I’ve got an idea.’ Ross was walking towards the window now and looking outside. His flat was in Holloway; the view wasn’t as pleasant as from our home in Notting Hill. An ‘our’ that would soon be a ‘their’.

  ‘Get out of London. Make a fresh start. Set up your own practice in Devon so you can be on hand for Tom. I seem to remember that you and Ed talked about this before.’

  I winced at my husband’s name. ‘It’s a big step. What if my clients don’t come with me?’

  Ross’s face conceded this was a possibility. ‘Suppose you suggest to the firm that you set up an offshoot in the south-west? Then they might encourage you to take some of their cases.’

  I hesitated. Leave London? Go back to the place that I swore I’d never live in again after Daniel? Yet it did make sense. It would put distance between That Woman and myself. And, more importantly, it would take the pressure off my parents. Tom might be at school during the week. But I couldn’t expect them to carry on for ever at weekends.