My Husband's Wife

by Jane Corry

  That’s when she runs at me, her eyes blazing like an animal’s. Her push is much stronger than her frame might suggest. I push her back. Then I wobble. Lose my balance. Trip over the spindle-backed mahogany kitchen chair that I once bought at auction. It’s yet one more thing that Carla has taken from me.

  I put up my hands to protect myself, the key and gloves flying into the air.

  Flash of metal.

  Thunder in my ears.

  ‘This is the five o’clock news.’

  The radio, chirping merrily from the pine dresser laden with photographs (holidays, graduation, wedding); a pretty blue and pink plate; and a quarter bottle of Jack Daniel’s, partially hidden by a birthday card.

  The pain, when it comes, is so acute that it can’t be real.

  A quick succession of questions race through my head. What will happen to Tom when I am gone? Who will understand him? How will Mum and Dad cope with another child gone?

  Above me, on the wall, is a picture of a small white house in Italy with purple bougainvillea climbing up it. A honeymoon memento. The one that Ed helped me to paint.

  And here I still am, an hour later, slumped against the wall. My limbs completely numb. Bleeding and waiting. The blood is still streaming from my head, from where I hit the wall. My chest is throbbing. Am I having a heart attack? My silver honeymoon bracelet, which – despite any reasoning – I still wear every day, is cutting into my wrist because of the way I have fallen. And my ankle, which had been throbbing quietly, is now agony.

  Still, at least the smell of smoke is getting fainter. It had been rubbery. Rather like a tyre burning. The gloves?

  If Carla has destroyed them, there will be no evidence.

  And if Joe tells the truth about the key, I might go down instead.

  Carla

  That last push from Lily had sent her reeling against the kitchen counter. A saucer had fallen off the side, smashing on the floor. She hadn’t been hurt. Just stunned by the push. But not badly enough to stop her pushing Lily back. There had been a hollow crack as Lily had crashed against the wall.

  Vaguely Carla remembered staggering over to the sink and trying to get rid of the gloves. Incriminating evidence. How often had she read that phrase in files at work? Essential to get rid of.

  They wouldn’t burn properly, so she’d chopped them up into little bits and flushed them down the toilet. Then she’d slumped in the hall, below one of Ed’s rough charcoal studies for the original Italian Girl.

  It seemed a fitting place to stop. Her body might not be injured. But her mind seemed to have had enough.

  From where she was lying, Carla could hear Lily groaning. Who would have guessed how much blood could gush from the head?

  If it wasn’t for the fact that her legs didn’t feel like her own, Carla might have got up to help Lily. She’d had time to think now after that initial shock of seeing those bloody gloves. Strangely, she didn’t hate the woman for trying to turn her in. In fact, if she’d been in her position, she might have done exactly the same.

  All her life she’d wanted things that had belonged to other people. The caterpillar pencil case. Nicer clothes. A father. Even her mother had belonged to Larry when she was a child. And, of course, Ed. Until she’d finally got him and saw what he was really like.

  She hadn’t, Carla reminded herself, meant to hurt Ed. All she’d been doing was trying to defend herself. Such a fright when the knife had gone into his thigh. How easily the blade had slipped in! Made her feel sick right now to think about it.

  I deserve to be caught, Carla told herself. It’s gone too far. Then her eye rested on a photograph of Ed and Tom on the bookcase near her. Father and son had their arms around each other, grinning out of the frame.

  Poppy.

  How would her daughter manage without her? Mothers needed to protect their children. Now she could see why Mamma had pretended that Carla’s father was dead in the early days. And why, later, she had hidden her cancer. Now she, Carla, couldn’t let Poppy suffer by having a mother in prison. As a child, Carla had thought it was bad enough having a mother with a strange accent who was always at work. But this was going to be far worse. Poppy would be Different with a capital D from the others in her class when she went to school. No doubt about that.

  She had to force her shocked body to get up and leave, if only for Poppy’s sake. Reality began to kick in. She’d hung around long enough now. It was time to take a few things. Ed’s grandmother’s ring might fetch a bit and see them through a few weeks.

  There was a moan.

  She didn’t, Carla told herself, really want Lily to die, especially now she’d got rid of the gloves. All she’d done was push her, although that crack had sounded bad. Yet she couldn’t help her, either. It would compromise her own safety. Maybe when she got out of the house, she could go to a phone box and make an anonymous call to say that a woman was hurt.

  ‘Lily?’

  Footsteps. Someone was coming towards her, through the front door. With a shock, Carla realized Lily must have left it open.

  ‘Where is my Lily? What have you done to her?’

  Carla stared up as fear caught in her throat. It was him! The man who had broken in through the door that night. Something about those black eyes stirred a more distant memory. That stranger at Tony’s funeral!

  He ran past her now. Towards Lily. ‘It’s all right, my darling. I’m here.’ She couldn’t hear Lily’s reply.

  But she could hear his footsteps coming back now. Could see the glint of metal in his hands.

  Carla felt strangely calm.

  ‘You hurt her!’ he was screaming. ‘You hurt Lily!’

  The last thing she could remember hearing was the rush of wind as the blade came down to meet her.

  63

  Lily

  It took me a long time to get better.

  Not so much physically but mentally.

  It still seems impossible that any of it happened.

  When you realize you’re not dying after all, you feel an initial gust of euphoria. ‘You were so lucky,’ everyone kept saying. ‘Someone must’ve been looking after you’ was another favourite phrase.

  And you believe it. You honestly do. You look out through the hospital window and see people walking, ambulances arriving, patients in wheelchairs, others on sticks, heads bowed, others laughing with relief. And you know that this is the real world. The one where lives are saved, instead of the one outside where the bad people try to take lives away.

  Then, when you’re out in that real world again, that’s when the doubts come crowding back in. That’s when you start to think. If I hadn’t married Ed … if my boss hadn’t put me in charge of Joe’s appeal when I was too young and inexperienced … if I hadn’t allowed my feelings to take over … if we hadn’t met Carla and her mother … if I hadn’t had that drink with Joe in Highgate … if I hadn’t dropped my key … if I hadn’t defended Carla … if I hadn’t opened that envelope …

  ‘You mustn’t think about the ifs,’ says Ross. He’s been one of my regular visitors at home back in Devon, where I’ve been since they discharged me. There will always be a scar on the side of my head from my fall against the wall, although it might not show so much when my hair has grown back. My cracked ribs (hence the agonizing pain in my chest) have mended now. But my wrist is still playing up, and I no longer wear the honeymoon bracelet which was caught between me and the wall when I fell over. My ankle, which cracked as I went down, is ‘coming along’.

  ‘Ifs will drive you mad,’ he continues. ‘You did your best, Lily. You really did. And if you made a few mistakes along the way, well, that’s life.’

  Mum comes into the room with a tray of coffee for our visitor and hears the end of the last sentence. She catches my eye and then looks away. But it’s too late. I know what she’s thinking. If I’m really going to heal, I have to tell the truth. The very last part of my story. The bit I never told my husband, or the grief counsellor the hospital encouraged
me to see.

  Ross is a good friend. I owe it to him. And, maybe more importantly, I owe it to myself.

  I was eleven when my parents took on Daniel. It wasn’t the first time they’d brought children into the house. Remember that little brother and sister who Dad kept saying I was going to have? Only later did I find out that Mum had had one miscarriage after another. So my parents turned to fostering to give me ‘company’.

  Of course, it was brilliant of them to do it. But it didn’t feel like that at the time.

  Some of the kids were all right. Others weren’t. There were times when I’d come back from school to find Mum playing with a three-year-old. I’d want to talk to her about my day, but she would be too busy. The social worker would be coming to do a check. Or she had to take the child to the doctor because he or she had a wheezy chest.

  I wouldn’t have minded except that they weren’t real brothers and sisters. They took my parents away from me. And they made me feel different. My friends at school thought it was weird that my socially aware parents took in one kid after another, looking after them for anything from a few days to a year before they’d go away and others would replace them.

  Eventually, my parents got the message. ‘You’re going to have a full-time brother,’ my father announced one morning. I remember it well. We were eating boiled eggs at the time, in our home in London. A trim, neat, semi-detached house with pebble-dash. Nothing bigger, even though my mother’s family were quite well off, because that didn’t suit my parents’ socialist principles. ‘He’s had a rough start to life,’ my mother said. ‘Poor little thing had parents who were … well, who did bad things. So sometimes he behaves badly too. He’s been in and out of foster homes, but now we’re going to adopt him. Give him a proper home.’ She gave me a comforting hug. ‘And you can help too, Lily, by being a kind big sister. You must look after him with us.’

  And then Daniel arrived.

  He was a year younger than me but looked older with his tall, lanky stance and a wild mass of tousled black hair. With hindsight, my parents could have thought it through more carefully. But they wanted to make a difference – to take the child no one else would. Later I found out that Daniel’s mother had been a prostitute, addicted to heroin, although he used to claim she was a trapeze artist in a circus. (He was good at embroidering facts to make them more exciting.) His father was in prison for a drug-induced double killing. (Daniel never spoke of him.)

  From the minute he arrived, Daniel began to push the boundaries. No, he wouldn’t go to school. No, he wouldn’t come home when he’d promised. No, he hadn’t stolen money from Mum’s purse. Didn’t we trust him?

  In fact, there was only one person whom Daniel trusted.

  ‘You,’ says Ross quietly. I glance out of the window on to the lawn where Tom is playing croquet with my father. He throws his mallet in the air with joy when he gets the ball through the hoop, just as Daniel used to. He stamps his foot on the ground when he misses a shot. At times, the similarities are extraordinary, even though there is no blood link.

  Nature or nurture? I often wonder.

  ‘Yes,’ I say softly. ‘Daniel trusted me. For some reason, he latched on to me. Adored me. But I let him down.’

  Ross’s hand is holding mine. Firmly. Comfortingly. Non-judgementally. I think of how Ross helped me through Ed’s betrayals. And I know that just as Daniel trusted me, so I can trust Ross. I won’t just tell him the half-version of Daniel’s death that I told Joe at the pub. Or the version I gave Ed where I left out a vital scene.

  I will tell Ross the whole truth.

  It was the other girls at school that started it. They all fancied my adopted brother. He was so good-looking: so tall, with that mop of hair and slightly lopsided, endearing smile. How he made everyone laugh! Daniel specialized in playing the classroom fool. He would answer back. Make fun of the teachers. Get into trouble. The more he got told off, the worse he became. He started stealing other kids’ money and then swearing blind it wasn’t him.

  When Mum’s dad died, she inherited the house in Devon. It would be a fresh start for my brother, my parents said when I kicked up a fuss about leaving my old school. And it was. Daniel and I loved our new home. Such a novelty to live by the sea!

  I pause for a moment and look out of the window again at the waves, lashing against the rocks on the far side of the bay.

  My parents did everything they could to make Daniel happy. They got him Merlin and took on a rescue dog at the same time. They ignored bad behaviour because they believed in ‘positive praise’. They bought him the new jacket he wanted when I’d not been allowed a fluffy blue jumper I’d had my eye on. (He needed it and I didn’t, apparently.)

  ‘I was chosen by them,’ Daniel would announce proudly at times.

  But during his blacker moments, the mask would slip. ‘I don’t want to be different, Lily,’ he’d say. ‘I want to be like you. Like everyone else.’

  Daniel wasn’t the only one to be confused. Sometimes I was jealous of the attention that my parents piled on him. At other times, I was overwhelmed with love for my new brother, grateful that I finally had the company I had craved. But every now and then, something would occur which made me wonder what would have happened if they’d chosen someone else.

  Of course, Daniel still got into trouble, just like he had in London. It was the same old things. Lying about homework. Lying about where he’d been. I’d cover up for him. It was what a sister did. Once a shopkeeper ran out after us, claiming that Daniel had stolen a bag of sweets.

  ‘He wouldn’t do that,’ I insisted.

  But when we were allowed to leave, Daniel took the packet out of his sock.

  I went back to the shop, explaining that there had been a misunderstanding. And Daniel swore never to do it again. ‘I promise. I promise.’

  His childhood – and mine – were peppered with similar incidents.

  Later, when he’d just turned fifteen, a local girl claimed he’d slept with her. It was all over school.

  ‘It’s not true,’ he laughed when I asked him about it. ‘Why would I want to do that? She’s a slut. Anyway, there’s only one girl I want.’

  ‘Who?’ I asked teasingly.

  His face closed down as if someone had drawn a curtain across it. ‘Not saying.’

  But then, one day, I got my first date.

  I stop, my cheeks flushing.

  It was one of the boys from the local school. All my friends had been asked out by now. But they were prettier than me. Slimmer.

  My mother was excited for me. ‘What are you going to wear?’

  Daniel was furious. He wouldn’t talk to me. And when I finally came downstairs, after spending ages getting ready, my brother informed me that the boy had called to say he couldn’t make it. Later, I found out that Daniel had stood outside the front door, waiting for him, and then lied. Told him that I didn’t want to go out after all.

  Ross gently interrupts. ‘Didn’t you wonder if …’ His voice tails off.

  ‘No. I know it sounds silly, but I just thought it was Daniel being difficult again. Causing trouble the way he always did.’ I take a deep breath. ‘But then his arm started to “accidentally” brush mine. We had these long conversations, late at night. And one evening, when we went down to the stables to feed Merlin, he kissed me.’

  I close my eyes. Even now I can remember that kiss. It was like no other. Never, ever, have I been kissed like that. The knowledge that it was wrong only added to the excitement. That’s right, I wanted him to. Deep down, I realized I’d always wanted him to do this. That I’d been jealous of that other girl he was said to have slept with. But when I finally drew away, I was overcome with shame.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Daniel said, his breath heavy and his voice thick. ‘We’re not related. We can do what we want.’

  But it wasn’t all right. And we knew it. Before long, the kissing grew more adventurous. Even as I speak, I can still recall the illicit thrill.

&nb
sp; Mum began to notice something. ‘I might have got this wrong,’ she said, her cheeks burning. ‘But do be careful, won’t you? Daniel might not be your blood brother. But don’t forget he’s your adopted brother.’

  I was mortified. Sickened by myself. So I did what a lot of people do when they are accused of something. I threw it back. ‘How can you think such filthy thoughts?’ I yelled.

  Mum went beetroot, but she held her ground. ‘Are you sure you’re telling me the truth about Daniel?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. How can you be so disgusting?’

  Her words scared me. By then I had turned eighteen. Daniel was seventeen. We hadn’t ‘done it’, as my school friends called it. But we were close. Perilously close.

  At times, my love for Daniel was so overwhelming that I could barely breathe when I sat opposite him at breakfast. Yet at other times, I could barely stand to be in the same room as him. Both feelings that I was to have later, towards Joe.

  And that’s the nub of it, you see. Because of Daniel, I was unable to feel attracted to a man unless it was wrong. That’s why I was so drawn to Joe. And that’s why my honeymoon had been a disaster. Why I always found it difficult with Ed.

  ‘Then,’ I continue falteringly, ‘the same boy from school asked me out again. (I’d explained there’d been a misunderstanding over the previous date.) This time, I wouldn’t let Daniel stop me. It was my way to break free.’

  I close my eyes again, shutting out my bedroom with its posters on the wall; the desk with my homework littered over it; my brother with his furious eyes as he took in the clingy top I had put on for the date. A glittery silver one (which I’d saved up for) that showed my curves …

  ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ says Ross, sensing my distress.

  ‘I need to.’

  So I make myself describe how Daniel went mad. How jealous he was of this boy. How he said I’d never be able to stop doing what he and I had been doing. How he called me terrible names.

  Whore.

  Slut.

  Fatty.

  That no one else would ever want me.