The Wife He Never Forgot

by Anne Fraser

  ‘Can we play dressing-up?’ Melody asked, interrupting her musings.

  Tiggy smiled. ‘Of course you can.’

  When the girls had scuttled off to find the box of old clothes she kept for them to dress up in, she poured herself a glass of wine and wandered into the sitting room. Charlie was a traitor. But, then, she’d never talked about the break-up with her family.

  When it had all started to go wrong she had been too embarrassed, too frightened to tell them she was losing Nick. There had also been her deep-rooted sense of loyalty to him and the conviction that whatever was wrong in their marriage had been between them and no one else. When Nick had moved out she’d avoided her family for weeks and had then simply told them that things hadn’t worked out.

  The door banged and the sounds of laughter drifted in on the night air.

  ‘Where are you, sis?’ Charlie called out.

  She got to her feet. The two of them looked like naughty schoolboys.

  ‘I presume you’re ready for supper?’ she said.

  ‘How do I look?’ a little voice piped up from the doorway. Tiggy spun around and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. Melody was wearing her wedding dress. She had totally forgotten she had flung it in the box of dressing-up clothes. Chrissie was holding up the back like a bridesmaid and both girls were beaming from ear to ear.

  She turned her head to find Nick’s eyes on her.

  * * *

  Their wedding had been a small affair. They had decided to marry during Nick’s leave. When he’d proposed, Tiggy hadn’t been able to think of a single reason to delay. Her mother, on the other hand, had been doubtful.

  ‘Isn’t it a little soon, darling? You hardly know each other.’

  ‘I know everything I need to, Mum,’ Tiggy had replied. ‘I love him, he loves me, we want to spend the rest of our lives together. What could be more simple?’

  They had been in the kitchen of Tiggy’s mother’s house, finalizing the details of the wedding.

  The crease between her mother’s brows had deepened. ‘Meeting someone under, let’s just say, intense circumstances, can heighten feelings. Marriage can be hard work, darling. Not all men, particularly men like Nick, settle to it easily. Trust me, I know. Your dad was in the army when we met and he hadn’t even been in a combat zone.’

  ‘Come on, Mum. Charlie’s marriage is fine. And he works in a combat zone!’

  ‘But he knew Alice for several years before they married.’

  Tiggy frowned. ‘What are you saying, Mum? Don’t you believe Nick loves me?’

  To be honest, sometimes in the night when Nick hadn’t been with her she’d wondered the same thing. Why had Nick fallen in love with her? She was ordinary, nothing special, not even particularly pretty—although Nick had told her repeatedly that he loved the way she looked. And as soon as she’d seen him again the demons of the night had subsided and all her doubts had vanished.

  Her mother had sighed. ‘I have no doubt he loves you. I just have to see the way he looks at you.’

  ‘Right, then. That’s all that matters.’

  And their wedding day had been perfect. They’d chosen a country house hotel for the venue—actually, Tiggy had chosen it, as Nick had been back in Afghanistan at the time—and had had a simple ceremony followed by a dinner. Afterwards they had left for a cottage in Yorkshire where they had holed up for the rest of the week, staying in bed all day, only rising to go for walks or get something to eat. It had been the happiest week of Tiggy’s life.

  Nick was still looking at Melody with a strange look on his face.

  ‘Will you marry me, Uncle Nick?’ Melody asked. ‘Daddy can be the best man.’

  Nick turned his gaze on Tiggy and smiled. ‘Sorry, honey. I’m afraid I’m already married.’

  * * *

  After they had eaten and everyone had gone, Tiggy took her wine into the sitting room. Nick was staring into the fire.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Tiggy asked.

  ‘I was thinking about our wedding. I thought I had never seen anyone more beautiful than you that day.’

  ‘You didn’t look too shabby yourself.’ He’d been in full dress uniform and had looked as sexy as hell.

  ‘What happened to us, Tiggy?’

  She set her glass on the table and sat down next to him. ‘I don’t know, Nick. One minute we were so happy, as if nothing could ever touch us, and the next... I don’t know...we were no longer living together.’ She laced her hands together to stop them shaking. ‘You were so distant that last year. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. I knew even less how to fix it.’

  ‘I don’t think you could have.’ He turned his dark brown eyes on her. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Tigs. You did nothing wrong. It was me.’

  ‘Then tell me, Nick. Help me to understand. I always believed a man and wife who loved and trusted each other could share anything and everything—support one another through the bad times as well as the good. Yet you shut me out, Nick, and I couldn’t understand it. I began to doubt your love for me and then I began to doubt myself and that the old adage was proving true: marry in haste, repent at leisure. And I felt you regretted our marriage.’

  He leaned back on the sofa and studied the ceiling. ‘I guess I thought by marrying you I could save myself,’ he said after a moment. ‘I thought that you would bring me peace, and for a while you did.’

  ‘For a while?’

  ‘The only time I felt truly alive was when I was in Afghanistan. Here with you, it didn’t seem real. Nothing seemed real.’

  ‘Oh!’ She sucked in a breath as a sharp pain tore through her.

  ‘I never meant to hurt you. It was the last thing I wanted.’

  ‘But you did hurt me.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘In that case I think you owe it to me to explain what you mean.’ However much he didn’t want to talk to her, she wasn’t going to let him away with that. ‘You could have tried talking to me, Nick. You never gave me a chance to try and understand.’

  He pushed himself out of the sofa and onto his feet. ‘I’m not sure I understood myself. Over the years we were married, things in Afghanistan got worse. It was like living in a capsule. The men, the staff, we were a unit, each relying completely on one another.’

  ‘I know. Remember, I was out there. Did you fall in love with someone else, Nick? Is that what happened? The way you fell in love with me?’

  He shook his head. ‘No! Of course not. There’s never been anyone else but you.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘When I was back here with you it was great for the first few days. But being around your family never seemed as real to me as being with the guys. And then after a few days I would get restless. I would wonder what was happening back at camp. Hell, Tiggy I felt guilty. I was with you, safe, and there were men and women out there who needed me.’

  ‘I needed you.’

  ‘Not in the way they did.’

  She decided to let that pass.

  ‘It hurt me to even think of you, Tiggy. When I was at the camp all I thought about was you—here, in this armchair with a book in your hand, in our bed, going about your day, your normal, peaceful day. And when I was back, it was as if I was infecting our home with the horror of Afghanistan. I wanted to keep it separate. That’s why I stopped telling you what was happening out there. It was to protect you.’

  ‘Nick, I didn’t need protecting—I was your wife. You shut me out. Don’t you see, it was the worst thing you could have done to me? Couldn’t you see that when you weren’t telling me what was going on, what was happening inside my head was so much worse?’

  Her breathing was ragged from the effort of saying the words that had been rattling around in her head for so long.

  ‘You were different. You were happy with our life. I couldn’t be. Trust me, Tigs, I tried. And you wanted children. I couldn’t see how I could be a father, not while there was a chance I wouldn’t be around to see him or her
grow up.’

  ‘So you signed up without telling me. Worse, you signed up for another tour after we’d agreed that you wouldn’t. How did you think that made me feel?’

  ‘I never expected the war to last for so long. I thought if I did one final tour, I could settle down. That it would be out of my system. That perhaps then we could have a family. That I could live like a normal person. I was wrong.’

  Tiggy got to her feet. ‘I suppose I should thank you for being so honest. But it’s not the whole truth, is it, Nick? It wasn’t just that you wanted to protect me—I could see you were desperate to get back.’ She blinked. She wouldn’t let him see her cry. ‘I’m going to bed.’

  He reached out a hand and touched her on the shoulder. ‘I would give everything to change the past.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘But this is who I am, Tiggy. God help me, this is who I am.’

  Her heart was a lump of ice. ‘I suppose I should thank you for being so honest. But I have to tell you, Nick, none of what you’ve told me makes me feel any better. You couldn’t have loved me. Not really. In the end, I wasn’t enough for you, was I?’

  * * *

  The next morning Tiggy stopped by Charlie’s house on her way to work. One of the girls had left their favourite doll, and Tiggy knew that as soon as she discovered it was missing there would be tears.

  Charlie was in the kitchen, wearing his commercial pilot’s uniform. He’d left the army when the twins had been on the way and had joined one of the major airlines. Alice, he explained, had just left to fetch the girls from nursery school. Alan too had been decommissioned and was working with a large engineering firm in Sussex. After years of chasing anything in a skirt, he was engaged to a woman he adored.

  Ironically, Tiggy was the only one who hadn’t managed to find enduring love.

  ‘Hey, Tiggy,’ Charlie said as he straightened his tie. ‘Mum’s been on the phone, asking me about Nick, and Alice is determined to come and see you. The whole family is buzzing with the news of you and Nick getting back together. Why didn’t you tell us?’

  ‘Because we’re not back together,’ Tiggy said. ‘And that’s the reason I didn’t tell you. I knew you’d all be discussing me.’

  Charlie grinned. ‘You know what this family’s like, sis. One for all, all for one.’

  He ruffled her hair. ‘For what it’s worth, I think it’s great news. I always liked Nick.’

  ‘Of course you did. You’re both men’s men and Nick was someone to go down the pub with, someone to climb bloody mountains with, or whatever else you two got up to.’

  Charlie paused. ‘I liked him because he was someone who understood what it was really like out there. I liked him because he loved you. But I admit, if he hadn’t been on crutches last night I would have punched him for hurting you.’

  ‘Would you?’ She stood on tiptoe and kissed her brother on the cheek. ‘I have to say he didn’t look particularly chastened when you returned him last night.’

  ‘I was going to give him a good ticking-off when I had him on his own, but somehow...’ Charlie grinned sheepishly ‘...we got talking about Afghanistan and then before I knew it, it was time to get back.’ He frowned. ‘But if you like, when I get back from this trip, I can give him a good talking to.’

  Tiggy had to laugh. ‘And what are you going to say? Are you going to tell him that he should go down on his knees and apologise? A bit late for that.’

  ‘What the hell went wrong between you two anyway? You never said.’

  ‘I guess I didn’t really know myself. Still don’t. But tell me, what did you talk about?’

  Charlie poured coffee into two mugs and handed one to Tiggy. ‘What do you think we talked about? What we always talk about. I know you women talk about stuff like your innermost feelings and whatever, but men just aren’t like that. Most of us prefer to talk about footie. That sort of thing. Or in Nick’s and my case, what it was like being on active service. No one who hasn’t been there can really understand.’

  ‘I was there,’ she reminded him quietly.

  ‘I know. But it’s not the same. It’s not the same as being there month after month. It’s not the same as being fired at and wondering whether you’ll be able to hold your nerve or whether you’ll turn tail and run. It’s not the same as knowing that men and women depend on you to protect them, or rescue them; that if you don’t do your job, someone—someone’s husband, father, brother sister, even mother—could die.’

  ‘You never talked about it either!’

  ‘No, I didn’t, and Alice understood that. I told her some of it, but mostly I kept it to myself. It isn’t something you want the people who love you to know. You want to protect them. It’s natural.’

  ‘I disagree. Charlie, we’re not Victorian women and you’re not Victorian men. Don’t you see you do us a disservice by thinking like that?’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ve yet to convince me, sis.’ He folded his arms. ‘Do you know Nick went to see the families of every man who died under his care? Do you know he visited each man he had operated on to see how they were coping?’

  Tiggy sank into a chair. ‘No, I didn’t. Why didn’t he tell me?’

  Charlie raised an eyebrow. ‘For all the reasons I have just told you. It was horrific out there. When we came back home it was to forget for a while.’ He finished his coffee and glanced at his watch. ‘Where’s Mum? She’s looking after the girls for Alice while she goes to the hairdresser. They’ll be back any minute and I have to go. But you have to realise, Tiggy, it wasn’t all bad out there. I know it’s difficult for you to understand but in many ways it was the best time of my life. I have never felt so close to a group of men as I did to my fellow officers. In many ways, I miss it.’

  ‘Sorry, sorry.’ Their mother came in and plonked her bag on the table. ‘The traffic was horrendous. Some accident, I suspect. Girls and Alice not back yet? Anyway, I’m here now, love, so you can get off. Oh, hello, Tiggy. What are you doing here? I’ve been wondering why you haven’t been round to visit lately.’ She peered behind Tiggy. ‘And where is Nick?’

  Charlie laughed, ruffled Tiggy’s hair again and kissed their mother on the cheek. ‘I’ll leave you to answer the hundred and one questions, Tiggy, but I have to shoot.’

  He picked up his captain’s cap. His face grew serious. ‘Don’t give up on him, Tiggy. He’s a good man and there aren’t many of his sort about.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ALL THAT DAY and in the ones that followed, Tiggy could think of nothing but Nick and whether she should fight for him. Or at least tell him she still loved him. In the end she decided she just couldn’t risk it. Not yet. At least, not until Nick gave her some indication that he still cared. She would rather let Nick walk out the door than face being rejected again.

  They settled into a routine. She would go to work. While she was at work Nick, determined not to fail his medical, would do his exercises, probably three times as often as he needed to. Before supper they would go for a walk around the neighbourhood. Nick had discarded his crutches for a walking stick and hardly needed to use that any more.

  Sometimes they would watch television, more often they would play Scrabble or do the crossword together. In many ways it was as if they were still married—except they weren’t sleeping together.

  One evening Nick suggested they play poker.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she teased. ‘Remember, I always beat you.’

  He smiled. ‘I remember everything. You were so...so different from anyone I’d ever met.’

  Instead of fetching the cards, Tiggy curled up in the armchair. She took a deep breath. ‘And you were so different from anyone I’d ever met before. I couldn’t quite believe at first that you were in love with me, that you wanted to marry me.’

  He came across to where she was sitting and took her hands in his. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t know how amazing you are. It was impossible for me not to love you. I should have tried harder to keep away from you, but I couldn’t.’


  ‘But I wasn’t enough for you in the end.’

  A shadow crossed his face. ‘It wasn’t you. Tiggy, you were everything in my life that was good and pure and calm.’

  The firelight flickered across his face. In his eyes she saw such terrible pain it almost took her breath away.

  ‘Talk to me, Nick. Please. Charlie told me how you visited the dead men’s families, and those you had treated too. Why didn’t you tell me that’s where you were going? I would have come with you.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I’m not sure I have the answer to that. The last year of our marriage I don’t know where my head was. All I knew was that I couldn’t bear to be with you.’

  It was as if he’d stuck a scalpel into her heart.

  ‘I was aware of that,’ she admitted. ‘It really hurt.’

  ‘I know,’ he said softly. ‘I regret that more than I can say. And you’re right. I owe you more of an explanation. At first, I couldn’t wait to come back to you. I dreamt of you most nights when I was away.’ He smiled softly. ‘Waking from those dreams and knowing you were hundreds of miles away was hell. But at least you were safe.’ He was looking into the distance and not at her. ‘Does any of this make sense?’

  ‘I’m not sure. But go on.’ Charlie had said much the same thing. Perhaps he was right and whatever the men and women experienced in Afghanistan couldn’t be understood except by those who had shared it with them. She’d been there for such a short while and it had become so much worse over the years. She had to try and understand what had driven Nick away from her, even if it broke her heart.

  ‘It was easier to work than think of you. When I was working I could forget everything. I couldn’t let myself think of you. If I did I would have allowed your fear to infect me. I had to stay focused. I never knew when the firing would start and I would be needed. I never knew when I might have to go out to the men. I worried constantly about what would happen to you if I died. I was distracted just when I needed to be at my most focused. The men depended on me. It was my job to help bring as many men home as we could.’