An Ideal Wife: A Novel

by Gemma Townley

Max looked away. “Oh, so the chips have always been down? And that’s my fault, too, is it?”

  “No!” I said hotly. “No, of course not. It’s just that …”

  “Just that what, Jess?”

  I swallowed uncomfortably. This wasn’t going the way it was supposed to at all. “I miss you, that’s all,” I said hesitantly.

  “Miss me? Or miss the strong me? The one you don’t have to worry about?”

  “That’s unfair and totally not true,” I said quietly. “I like worrying about you. I—”

  “You don’t. I wish you’d just admit it instead of attacking Emily, who’s done absolutely nothing wrong here.”

  “And I have?” I asked desperately.

  Max looked at me silently for a few seconds, then he shrugged. “The difference is, she didn’t have a bad word to say about you. She said there would definitely be a very good reason why you turned up so late last night and why you’ve been so weird when you have been here—”

  “Weird?” I blinked back tears. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean sitting there with that fixed smile, your voice shrill, barely telling me anything about work. What, you want to run the business? You think I’ve been doing a bad job?”

  “What?” I said incredulously. “What are you talking about, Max? I don’t want to run the company. I want you to. And since you’ve been in the hospital, all I’ve been trying to do is to keep things going so that you don’t have to worry. Even though the auditor is a weasel, even though Mum’s shagging some guy she met on Facebook, and Chester doesn’t want to talk to me about anything apart from why she’s not taking his calls. So I’m sorry if I haven’t been here all day—I’d love to have been, actually, but I’ve been too busy trying to keep things afloat.”

  “Of course you have. And let’s not forget, if you were running the company we wouldn’t be scrabbling around for money to pay our bills, would we? You’d solve all our cash-flow problems in a second. But we don’t all have millions in the bank, Jess.”

  I stared at Max indignantly. “I’ve always said that’s our money,” I said, the lump returning to my throat.

  “But it isn’t, is it? It’s your money. My money is all invested in the business, which, as you’ve no doubt discovered, is at a breaking point. So right now I could do without your tight little smile and your excuses. Just go. Go and see your mother or whatever other important thing you have to do. And tell Emily to come back in when she’s got a moment. Okay?”

  I realized I was shaking. “Is that what you want?” I asked. “For me to go?”

  Max sighed. “Look, I’m tired. Let’s just leave this, shall we?”

  “No, I don’t want to,” I said desperately, but Max had already closed his eyes. I watched him for a few minutes, then slowly, sadly, turned and left the room.

  Eric was waiting for me when I got back to work, standing outside his office with folded arms. At least I hadn’t noticed anyone in a Hummer following me, but then again, I hadn’t noticed much on my way back from the hospital. I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me, like I’d literally been punched in the stomach. My attempts to be the perfect wife had backfired spectacularly; I had never seen Max like that before, had never known him to talk to me with such anger. And now I had my interview with Eric, after which I had to race down to Wiltshire with Helen to face my mother. All I wanted to do was curl up in a corner and cry.

  I approached him heavily. “Eric, I don’t suppose you’d rearrange this, would you?” I asked. “Today is … Well, it’s just a bit of a hellish day, to be honest.”

  Eric smiled thinly. “I’m afraid I need twenty-four hours’ notice to rearrange an interview,” he said.

  “You do?” I asked. “What, like a dentist?”

  He looked at me strangely. “I suppose.”

  “But why? I mean, you’re here all the time, aren’t you? Couldn’t we please rearrange for tomorrow?”

  “It’s a rule,” he said firmly. “Being ethical also involves being punctual, after all. Being polite. Giving people notice if you are unable to make an appointment.”

  I didn’t feel very ethical, or polite, I realized. “Is that right?” I asked stiffly.

  “Yes, it is,” he said, equally stiff.

  “Then I guess we’ll do the interview now, then,” I said.

  “I suppose we will,” he agreed.

  He walked into the office, sat down at Anthony’s desk, and I sat down opposite him.

  “So, Mrs. Wild Wainwright,” Eric said, looking at me closely. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

  “You have?” I looked at him warily. “From whom?”

  His eyes flickered slightly. “From a … source.”

  “A source?” I narrowed my eyes. “You mean a colleague?”

  “Perhaps,” Eric said vaguely. I stared at him uncertainly. If it wasn’t a colleague, who was it? To whom else had he been talking?

  “They certainly had lots to say,” he continued.

  “They did?” I asked flatly. “Who was it? Surely you have to tell me.”

  “I’m afraid my sources are strictly confidential,” Eric said.

  “Well, what did they say?” I asked impatiently.

  Eric studied his notebook. “I am not at liberty to divulge that information,” he said.

  “Great,” I said sarcastically. “So you’ll talk to people about me, but you can’t tell me what they said or who they are?”

  Eric drew his mouth in; he looked as if he’d just eaten what he thought was a slice of orange but turned out to be lemon. Then something occurred to me: Anthony had been interviewed yesterday. Which meant he probably told Eric all about our history. I sighed inwardly. I was going to have to explain that Anthony’s version of what happened was very different from the truth of the matter. My life might be in a state of collapse, but I still had to at least try to pass this stupid audit.

  “Was it Anthony?” I asked. Eric didn’t say anything; I took that as a yes. After all, no one else that I could think of would talk about me behind my back. “Because if it was, you shouldn’t believe everything that you hear,” I continued.

  Eric nodded slowly. “If you say so,” he said, writing in his notebook.

  He wrote for quite a long time. Too long. “What are you writing?” I asked suspiciously.

  “I’m just noting your comments on Mr. Milton,” he said, not looking up.

  “My comments?”

  “About his being a liar,” Eric said. “He’s the former director of the company, isn’t he? Didn’t he set it up?”

  I swallowed uncomfortably. “Yes. But Max runs the company now. And he’s not like Anthony at all.”

  “They’re good friends, are they not?”

  I frowned. “Yes, they’re friends, I suppose,” I said hesitantly. “But let’s not talk about Anthony, shall we? I mean, you’ve interviewed him already, so—”

  “Such good friends that, after Mr. Wainwright bought the business from Mr. Milton, he still welcomed him with open arms and gave him his old office back?”

  “Well, yes, but that’s because Max is such a good person,” I said quickly. “You know, honorable and—”

  “And yet he has brought a man whom you describe as untrustworthy and no judge of character back into the firm to tout for new business?”

  I looked at Eric worriedly. This was going all wrong. “Actually,” I amended, “Anthony really isn’t all that bad. I was just … you know, joking.”

  “You didn’t mean what you said about him?”

  “No,” I said with relief. “No, not at all.”

  “So he is a good judge of character?” Eric’s eyes were triumphant, as if we were playing a game of chess and he’d put me in check without me realizing.

  “Sure, why not,” I said tensely, trying not to get annoyed. I took a deep breath. “Look, do you think we could start this again? I feel like maybe we got off on the wrong foot.”

  “Start again?” Eric asked curiousl
y.

  “Yes, you know, just scratch what we’ve said so far and go back to the beginning?”

  “You mean pretend that the past five minutes hasn’t happened?”

  I nodded in relief. “Exactly. That would be great.”

  Eric nodded back, and I felt my shoulders relax slightly.

  “So,” I said. “Where do we start?”

  “Start?” he asked. He had pale, watery eyes, I noticed, and he could do with a few days in the sun; his skin was pale and washed out, and his pale-gray ill-fitting suit did nothing to warm his complexion.

  “Yes. Aren’t you going to ask me some questions?”

  He smiled. “Right now, Mrs. Wild Wainwright, I’m trying to decide how to phrase your request to pretend that the first few minutes of this interview didn’t happen.”

  “Phrase it?” I looked at him in confusion. “For what?”

  “For my report,” he said, his lips curling upward in a most unattractive way.

  “Your report? I thought we were going to start over.”

  “My job is to report what is said during the interview, then to analyze the interview, requesting supporting evidence should I deem it necessary,” Eric said. “So I’m writing down everything. This isn’t the first time you’ve attempted to start over, after all, is it?”

  I looked at him for a moment. And then, without warning, I started to cry—stupidly, embarrassingly. Big fat tears were wending their way down my cheeks, and there was nothing I could do to stop them. He was right. It wasn’t the first time I’d attempted to start over. I kept doing it, over and over, and it never made things better—it only made things worse. “You’re right,” I sobbed. “I thought I was making myself a better person. I thought cooking and being supportive and … and listening … and trying new things in the bedroom … I thought they’d make things better. I thought I’d deserve Max more. But I don’t. And everything’s just got worse.”

  “Right,” Eric said, clearing his throat uncomfortably. “What I meant was—”

  “I thought if I reinvented myself it wouldn’t matter about Hugh Barter,” I said miserably. “But it turns out Hugh isn’t important. I mean, he isn’t the reason Max has totally fallen out of love with me. I managed that all on my own. I didn’t bring him muffins. That’s all he asked for, and I didn’t bring him any. And Mum kept trying to talk to me and I wouldn’t listen and now she’s shacked up with some … some … person called Lawrence, and when Chester finds out, he’ll …” I sniffed loudly, and Eric handed me a tissue, his eyes as wide as saucers. “He’ll pull his account, is what he’ll do,” I sobbed. “And Max will be ruined and it’ll be all my fault. And as for this … this … audit, well, I’ve screwed that up, too, haven’t I? I mean, how am I ethical? I’m being blackmailed by Hugh Barter and I’m being followed by the Russian Mafia. Really ethical.”

  “Okay,” Eric said nervously. “Now, back to the interview. So, Mrs. Wild Wainwright, you have been working at Milton Advertising for … five years, is that right?”

  “Five years.” I nodded wretchedly. Then I looked up. “I wouldn’t have had a shrill voice or tight smile if she hadn’t been there all the time. I mean, nurses are meant to nurse, right? Not watch Countdown. Not play truth or dare. Right?”

  “Right,” Eric said awkwardly. “Now, about your recycling habits …”

  “And he thinks because I’ve got money … he thinks that I’ve found running this place easy? Is he crazy? It’s been a nightmare. I haven’t stopped for a second since he went into the hospital. I just didn’t want him to worry, that’s all.”

  “No, I’m sure you didn’t,” Eric said, looking over at the door as though hoping for an interruption. “So what about charitable giving?”

  A hollow laugh erupted out of my mouth. “Charitable giving? Let me tell you about my charitable giving. I wanted to help. Wanted to be a good person, right? So I went to a soup kitchen. A resource center, they call it. And Christina, the woman who runs the place, asked me to be a companion. But you know what? Turns out I’m crap at that, too. I’m the one who goes there for companionship. That’s how sad I am. The people there take pity on me!”

  Eric cleared his throat. “Now, moving on to your habits. Do you gamble, Mrs. Wild Wainwright?”

  I shook my head and Eric smiled, evidently pleased to be able to cross something off his checklist. “And how would you view your attitude toward risk? When it comes to investments and the like?”

  “Investments?” I looked at him blankly.

  “What do you do with your money? Your savings?” he prompted.

  “I …” I frowned. “Nothing,” I said.

  “Nothing,” Eric said, nodding. “Is that because you have no savings or because you prefer not to invest?”

  “You know what?” I said, standing up. “I think we should stop this.”

  “You do?” Eric asked nervously.

  “Yes,” I said. “Let’s stop dancing around, shall we? I am not ideal, not at all. This company probably isn’t ideal—I mean, can you think of one that is?”

  “Well, I … Let m-me think n-now …” Eric stuttered.

  “I’m not ideal,” I repeated, with a little shrug. “I’m imperfect. I’m flawed fundamentally. What I need isn’t to try to be ideal but to accept what I am. Don’t you think?”

  “Ah, acceptance,” Eric said, his eyes lighting up. “Jerome D. Rutter has a chapter on acceptance in his book. I was talking to Caroline about it just this morning. Now, there’s someone who’s ideal.”

  “Rutter?” I asked.

  Eric looked down. “No. I … So, anyway, you were talking about acceptance?”

  “Exactly,” I said. “I accept that I’m not ideal. I’m rubbish. Isn’t that great?”

  Eric pulled a face. “It is?”

  “I love Rutter. The man’s a genius,” I said happily.

  “Oh, he is,” Eric said sagely. “What he says about possessions weighing down the soul, it’s inspired. They hold us back, they entangle us in the selves of our past, the selves we wish to break away from and the lives that others have set for us—”

  “Yes, that,” I said excitedly. “He’s right!”

  “Well, of course he’s right,” Eric said. “And when we’re free from material bondage, we can speak the truth.”

  “The truth! Exactly,” I said triumphantly. Then I took a deep breath. “I have to go,” I said.

  “Go?” Eric asked. “But I haven’t told you about what happens when you speak the truth. You can rescue others. Rescue yourself with the wisdom of the—”

  “I really do have to go,” I interrupted.

  “But you can’t go,” Eric protested.

  “Yes, I can,” I said, smiling through my tears. “I really can.” I opened the door to leave, then froze. There, in reception, were the two men. The men who had been following me. They were talking to Gillie, who was pointing toward my desk. Maybe I couldn’t go after all. Quickly, I shut the door again.

  Eric looked at me strangely. “You’re not going now?” he asked.

  I scanned the office desperately. There was one window; I could probably climb out it if I tried. But what would I say to Eric?

  I opened the door again, just slightly; the men were talking to Caroline now. And suddenly something occurred to me. That look on his face when he’d mentioned Caroline’s name. Something Helen had said. I swung around. “Eric?”

  He had a slightly terrified look in his eye. “Yes?”

  “You like Caroline, don’t you?”

  He went bright red. “Caroline? I … I don’t know what you mean. I …”

  “Do you? Like her? You can tell me if you do.”

  He looked at me hesitantly, then managed a half nod. “I … She’s very nice. A nice girl. Way too good for me. And totally against the rules. She’s a client. But if you’re asking if I … like her, then yes, all things considered, when you put it all into—”

  “There are two men hitting on her,” I cut in.r />
  “Hitting on her?” Eric stood up, a look of outrage on his face.

  “I don’t like the look of them,” I said, holding the door open so that he could see. “It seems to me that she could use some help. Some rescuing.”

  “You think?” Eric asked, wide-eyed.

  “I think,” I answered, nodding.

  “Right, then,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Right then, here goes.” He half-skipped to the door, then turned back. “You won’t … tell …?”

  “I won’t say a word,” I promised. I watched as Eric ran toward Caroline and pulled the men away from her. Immediately, I grabbed my bag and ran—out of Eric’s office, through reception, out the door, and down to the car park, as fast as my legs could carry me. I jumped into my car and sped off. I was going to the resource center to finally do something useful. But before I did, I had a few calls to make; the first one was to Ivana. As I’d expected, no one picked up. “Ivana,” I said, when asked to leave a message. “It’s Jessica. It’s about the trunk….”

  Chapter 16

  THE ROAD DOWN TO WILTSHIRE seemed longer than usual. Helen was in the front of the car with me, and Giles was in the back; he’d called me to ask how things were going and had immediately offered to come when I told him. He was the last person I’d spoken to—after Ivana, Hugh, and Chester, and after my visit to the resource center. I’d been jubilant by the time Giles called—I felt amazing for having spoken my mind. I still did—confident and finally in charge of things. Even the men in the Hummer didn’t seem quite so ominous. Anyway, they were in London. And London was getting farther away by the second.

  “I’ve never been chased by the Russian Mafia before,” Giles breathed as we drove down the motorway.

  “Try acting as a decoy for them,” Helen said dramatically. “I had to keep them occupied so that Jess could escape this morning. Honestly, it was terrifying.”

  “Was it?” I asked worriedly. “God, what happened? I saw you drop your bag.”

  “What happened?” Helen asked, turning round so Giles could hear. “I’ll tell you what happened. I dropped my bag, and one of the guys came up and started to help me. But the other one saw you and wanted to get the first one back in the car to go after you.”