The Pornographer's Wife

by Amy Cross

  “That's enough of the mushy stuff!” he shouted. “Come on, you two! People out here want to celebrate with the happy couple!”

  “You heard the man,” Donald said with a smile, kissing Mary's forehead again. “Let's go and put on our happy faces and look to the future instead of the past. Remember, the past just eats away at your guts if you let it linger.”

  “I'll be out in a moment,” she told him, staring in horror at his changed face. She could still just about tell that it was him, but the change was unmistakeable. “Just... give me a moment to get my head straight.”

  “I know you'll be fine,” he continued, striding confidently to the door. “This is the first day of the rest of our lives, Mary. Let's embrace the future! And remember, stay true to yourself. You've always been a good wife, don't let this experience change you, not one jot.”

  She winced as she heard a roar of approval erupt from the crowd as soon as Donald returned to the party. Standing in the darkened room, she tried to work out how her husband had suddenly changed so much. The light had been different and he'd been angrier than she'd ever seen him before, but she felt as if the man in the room with her just now had been a complete stranger. Still, she told herself she was simply over-reacting, that she just needed to calm down.

  Hearing another roar from the party, she closed her eyes and tried to find the point of disconnection between her two selves, between the pornographer's wife of old and the politician's wife of new. Donald seemed to have managed to deal with everything, almost as if he'd guillotined-off his old memories and was now completely guilt-free. She couldn't find the mental button that would allow her to do the same thing, so she supposed that she must simply be lacking that particular skill, that it must be a weakness of hers. Still, she was fairly certain she could fake it, and she hoped that is she faked it well enough and long enough and hard enough, it would eventually become the truth.

  “I won't let this change me,” she whispered. “I won't, I refuse.”

  As yet another roar erupted next door, she turned and made her way across the room, ready to go back out into the light and the music.

  TODAY

  “Another year,” Mary said, standing in the corner of the cemetery, looking down at the patch of grass that had long since grown over the spot where Sarah Cole's urn had been buried. “Well, I just...”

  Leaning down, she placed a bunch of flowers on the grass. She'd been visiting Sarah's grave once a year, every year, since the funeral, and she'd never seen any suggestion that there were any other visitors. The girl's family had either died off or simply forgotten about her. Mary didn't even know why she came, except that she felt someone should mark the girl's passing. She hadn't told Donald about her annual pilgrimage, of course, although now she felt that she should have let him know. All those years of tip-toeing around the subject, of pretending that she didn't think about it, she realized finally that it had become such a huge part of her life.

  “I don't know how you'd feel about this,” she continued, “but certain things from the past are going to come to light. I've made sure that no photographs of you are used to accompany the story. I imagine there's not much chance of the old copies surfacing, either, so...” She paused. “You won't be humiliated. You won't be portrayed as a victim, either. I was very careful not to do that. You made your own decisions. I just wish I could have found a way to help you, but at the time I was so busy with everything else.”

  Glancing across the cemetery, she saw Donald's large, ornate headstone over by the wall where he'd been buried six months earlier.

  With a faint, sad smile, she turned and headed straight to the gate.

  ***

  “Print it all,” she said as she stood in the dark garden, speaking to Robert Shirley on the phone. “Just... Don't leave anything out. That was the deal we had.”

  “I should warn you,” he replied, “that it might become uncomfortable. The news cycle can be quite short, but also pretty intense. There might be camera crews outside your house on Sunday morning.”

  She took a deep breath, imagining the chaos.

  “Mrs. Heaton?”

  “Thank you for your concern,” she continued, “but I shall be fine. So long as you stick to your side of the deal and the story about my daughter doesn't run, that's the most important thing right now.”

  “Of course. I just don't understand why your husband, of all people, would have arranged to send you those letters after his death. I thought he was the one who insisted on burying the past?”

  “I suppose he wasn't able to bury it after all,” she replied, “especially after he retired and had all that free time on his hands to just sit around and think about things. Maybe it was easier for him to blame me for everything, and that's why he ended up...” Her voice trailed off. “Well, it's not as if we can ask him, and I'm afraid I burned the rest of the letters without reading them. There seemed to be no point, and I'm not too interested in reading the vindictive rants of a man who couldn't deal with his own decisions. I knew he'd changed over the years, but I never realized that there was such a bitter little core to his soul.”

  She shivered as a chill wind raced through the gate.

  “Mr. Shirley, if there's nothing else, I should -”

  “Actually, there is one thing,” he replied. “I was able to dig up a copy of the coroner's report concerning Sarah Cole's death, and also various other papers from the time. She died after suffocating on her own vomit, although the coroner noted a few discrepancies here and there, not enough to really go after but... There's one curious thing I was hoping to ask you about. It turns out that a few days before you found her, right around the time when she's believed to have died, a man was spotted leaving her place. The neighbour said he didn't recognize the guy, just that he remembered him as a fairly tall guy wearing a light grey raincoat. I don't want to put you in a difficult position, Mrs. Heaton, but... Does that sound like anyone you know?”

  She paused as she stared at the house.

  “Mrs. Heaton? The light grey raincoat... Does that ring a bell?”

  “Yes,” she said finally. “Yes, Donald had a coat just like that.”

  ***

  “So I have to pay my own airfare,” Sophie said excitedly as she put a plate of spaghetti bolognese in front of her mother, “but once I'm in San Francisco, I can stay with some friends and work on the campaign. It's insane, but I've been talking to so many people about this issue and I think we can really make a difference.”

  “San Francisco?” Mary paused, shocked by the news. “That's an awfully long way away. How long will you be gone?”

  “I'll leave when I finish uni in June,” she explained, pouring them both a glass of wine, “and I'll be out there for at least three months, maybe longer if I can sort out a long-term visa. I'll have my degree by then and hopefully some sponsors and experience, so I think I could make it work. I know it's kinda nuts, but I figure you've got to grab opportunities when they arrive.” She checked her watch, as if she was worried about missing something important. “You'll be okay, Mum,won't you? I won't be gone forever, and you can always come out and visit me.”

  “I'll be fine,” Mary replied, forcing herself to smile. “I'm just so proud of you for turning this horrendous experience into something that might actually have a positive outcome.”

  “People might be laughing at me now,” Sophie replied, taking a sip of wine before checking her watch again, “but by the time we've effected real change in society, they'll be laughing at people like Tom. I'm not going to just shy away and shut up. This situation is wrong, it affects millions of women around the world, and it's time for a change. You can't stop bad things happening, but you can decide how you react. When bad things happen, you have to change or you'll be destroyed, but you have to change without denying your past.” She paused for a moment. “Do you know the weirdest thing? I feel like I've changed completely in just a few days, like I'm a different person. Is that normal?”

&nb
sp; “I think it might be rather healthy,” Mary replied. “I think you're right, people should change.”

  “Have you changed much?”

  “Well...” She paused for a moment. “Sometimes I feel like I've always been the same person at my core, peering out from inside a shell that constantly adapts to fit the circumstances.”

  “And did Dad change over the years?”

  “Oh yes. In fact, by the end your father was unrecognisable.” She paused for a moment. “Speaking of change, I need to talk to you about something. There's most likely going to be a story in the newspapers about your father soon, and I want you to hear everything from me first. Actually, it's about both your father and me, and our early days when he was still trying to get selected for a run at parliament.”

  She took a deep breath, already feeling relieved now that she'd passed the point of no return.

  “Okay,” Sophie replied a little hesitantly. “Is it a good story or a bad one?”

  “It's...” She paused. “Well, I suppose it's mostly quite bad. It'll certainly be a shock.”

  “Dad had some skeletons in his closet, did he?”

  “You might say that. The thing is -”

  “Hang on,” Sophie said, checking her watch and then getting to her feet. “Come to the garden. Hurry, bring your plate and your wine!”

  “Why?”

  “Just trust me.”

  As Sophie took her own plate and glass and ran out into the garden, Mary got to her feet and began to follow. She had no idea what was happening, but as she emerged onto the patio she found Sophie settling on the steps under a blanket, arranging her food and staring up at the night sky as if she was expecting something at any moment.

  “It's cold,” Sophie said, raising the edge of the blanket. “Come under with me!”

  “Can't we go inside? I need to -”

  “Just come and sit with me,” Sophie continued with a grin. “Mum, seriously. Trust me.”

  “Trust you?” Sighing, she crossed the patio and took a seat, taking a moment to arrange herself under the blanket with her plate balanced on her knees and her glass of wine beside her. “So what's this all about?” she asked. “I'm sure al fresco food is lovely, but it's -”

  “Any second!” Sophie said excitedly, pointing up at the sky. “Wait for it!”

  “What am I supposed to be waiting for?” Mary asked.

  “It's a comet called Tellarus,” Sophie explained. “It only comes past Earth once every, like, thirty years.”

  “Tellarus?” She waited, her eyes scanning the vast darkness for some sign of light. “I think... I think I've actually seen it before. Your father and I went to a...”

  Her voice trailed off as she thought back to the party thirty years ago, when she'd first met Sarah and when Andy had revealed his burgeoning pornography business.

  “The Tellarus comet,” Sophie continued, “is believed to travel a distance of something like three thousand million miles between appearances. That's how far it went shooting through space between the last time you saw it and tonight. Think about all the stuff that's happened down here on Earth while that was happening, huh?”

  “A lot has changed,” Mary replied quietly.

  “Meet you back here in thirty years to see it again?”

  “Oh, I'd be in my eighties by then,” Mary pointed out, turning to her, “and you'd be, well, my age!”

  “So?”

  “So...” She paused, and then finally she allowed herself a faint smile. “I suppose we could meet here, yes.”

  “To long journeys,” Sophie continued, raising her glass for a toast, “and for overcoming all the crap that gets in your way.”

  “To long journeys,” Mary agreed, clinking glasses before taking a sip.

  “What was it you wanted to tell me about Dad, then?”

  “Oh... Maybe now isn't the time.”

  “It's bad, isn't it?”

  She nodded.

  “It's really bad, right? Like... really, really bad?”

  “I...” She paused for a moment, imagining the headlines. “Yes,” she said finally, “I'm afraid so. It's going to be very difficult for you to get your head around, I'm afraid. I might need to take you to see a grave some time.”

  “I'll be okay.”

  “Yes, but you've always seen your father as a -”

  “I'll be okay,” she said again. “Mum, I'm not some fragile little thing.”

  “Well,” Mary said finally, taking a deep breath, “the first thing you need to know is that your father didn't make his money from suits.”

  “He didn't?”

  “Actually, clothes weren't involved at all. I should warn you that your father doesn't come out of this story very well at all, and neither do I. Still, it has to be told. Your father thought that if it stayed hidden, the truth could do no harm, but I'm afraid he was very wrong. I do want you to remember, though, that despite how things ended, your father was truly a good man once, a long time ago. He really did start out with the best of intentions before -”

  “There!” Sophie shouted, pointing to the sky.

  Looking up, Mary saw a streak of light arcing through the void. By the time she'd even registered what she was seeing, however, it was already gone.

  After a moment, she realized she hadn't even noticed that Sophie was holding her hand.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Part One

  Part Two

  Part Three

  Part Four