The Second Wife

by Sheryl Browne

  ‘Shhh.’ After helping him scramble into the front passenger seat, where at least she could placate him, Nicole started the engine. Even if she could go home, to the house which didn’t feel like a home, she couldn’t go with Bouncer, could she, thanks to the bitch. God! Crunching gears, Nicole pulled out of the car park. Couldn’t Richard see what she was doing?

  She couldn’t go back there at all, not now that she’d done exactly what Olivia had hoped she would, despite knowing he wouldn’t believe her: she’d told Richard that she’d seen Olivia at her mother’s house. She had. Richard had no right to tell her what she had or hadn’t seen with her own eyes. She wasn’t blind. She wasn’t ‘insane’ either. It was her – that bloody witch in the guise of an innocent young woman – who needed psychiatric help.

  Who knew what she might be capable of. It wouldn’t be safe to go back there. Was Richard so blinkered that he really couldn’t see what had been happening? Couldn’t see that his daughter had systematically set out to destroy her from the day of their wedding? Why she was doing it, Nicole had no clue. Why would she have befriended her and then turned on her? Why would she pick on a defenceless old woman in order to hurt her? She’d killed Lydia. Whether by accident or with intent, she had. Richard must know she would never invent such a thing. But she also knew that everything she’d accused Olivia of sounded preposterous, like the ravings of a madwoman.

  Which was exactly what Olivia wanted.

  She needed to fight back. She had to. And she would be as vicious and as devoid of emotion as Olivia. Play her at her own game. In order to do that, she had to appear rational. She had to calm down and get someone on her side, since Richard clearly wasn’t.

  ‘It’s okay, boy.’ Nicole attempted to reassure Bouncer, who was panting worriedly and probably desperate for a wee. ‘I won’t desert you, my faithful little friend, I promise.’

  Blinded by the tears now spilling from her eyes, potent tears of grief and rage, Nicole drove determinedly on towards the village. She had nowhere else to go. No one she knew that well – apart from Isobel, who might label her mad too. It was a risk she had to take. She just prayed that Isobel would understand why she was knocking on her door in the middle of the night. Prayed harder she would take pity on her and take Bouncer until she could think what to do.

  Parking in front of the little cottage situated next to the art shop, Nicole eyed the darkened windows with trepidation. Isobel and Mike would be fast asleep. Everyone, bar her and Richard, would be sleeping at this hour – even Olivia, now that she imagined she’d achieved her aim. Not heavily enough, unfortunately, Nicole thought bitterly. She didn’t believe she’d taken sleeping pills. Not for a second. Or, if she had, only enough to fool her father and the doctors, who would presumably have taken a blood test. She was a liar. A vile, evil, manipulative liar, fixated on her father and prepared to go to any lengths to make sure he had no one in his life but her.

  Once she’d gathered who it was, Isobel unhitched her chain and pulled her front door open. ‘Nicole?’ she said, stunned to find her standing there. ‘What on earth…?’

  ‘I’m sorry to call on you so late,’ Nicole stammered quickly, aware that, with blood still matted in her hair and all over her clothes, she must look like a deranged lunatic on the loose. ‘It’s just that—’ Stopping, she heaved in a breath and tried hard to hold back the tears. ‘My mother died.’

  ‘Oh my God, Nicole…’ Her face creasing with sympathy, Isobel reached for her, ushering her into the hall and causing Nicole’s eyes to fill up all over again.

  ‘I think Olivia killed her!’ she blurted. Choking back a sob, she realised she had no hope of achieving the calmness she needed to.

  ‘What?’ Isobel stared at her, shocked, and then gathered herself and pulled Nicole close to her. ‘Mike!’ she called, as her husband stepped warily into the hall from the stairs behind her. ‘Pour Nicole a brandy, please. And fetch the throw down off the bed, would you?

  ‘Come on,’ she said, steering Nicole towards their cosy lounge. ‘Careful,’ she added, noticing her limp.

  Seating her in the armchair, she grabbed the throw Mike appeared with and wrapped it around her shoulders, then took the brandy her husband also offered. ‘Sip,’ she instructed, holding the glass for her. ‘Small sips, and then take a breath and tell me all about it.’

  Nicole gratefully did as she was bid, feeling the liquid burn her throat all the way down to her belly. It did little to warm her. ‘Bouncer,’ she croaked, wiping a hand across her mouth. ‘Would you take him for me? Just for a while, until…’

  Nicole trailed off, a fresh crop of tears springing from her eyes as she remembered that she didn’t have a plan, had absolutely no clue how to even start fighting back. If Richard refused to believe her, she had nowhere to go, no one to turn to in the whole world, apart from Becky, who suddenly seemed a million miles away. Could she even go to the police, with nothing but accusations which her husband, Olivia’s father, would dismiss as utterly ludicrous?

  ‘Olivia’s allergic,’ she blundered on, trying to explain. ‘She has asthma. I can’t take him back to the rescue centre. I just can’t. That’s what she wants me to do. She doesn’t care about anything or anybody. She won’t give a damn if he ends up being put down. I doubt she even cares about Richard, but he’s too blind to—’

  ‘Shhh,’ Isobel urged her, crouching down in front of her to take hold of her hands. ‘Bouncer, where is he?’ she asked, her eyes kind and understanding as they held hers, which only caused Nicole to cry harder.

  ‘In the car,’ she managed snottily. ‘He desperately needs a wee.’

  ‘I’ll fetch him,’ Mike said, exchanging worried glances with his wife. He was bound to be worried. They both would be, with an incoherent madwoman descending on them in the dead of night.

  Isobel waited for Mike to disappear into the hall, and then, squeezing her hands gently, she asked, ‘Nicole, what did you mean when you said you think Olivia killed your mother?’

  Nicole noted her expression: wary, as it would be. Blinking at her tearfully, she took a shaky breath. She would think she was mad. How could she not? But she had to tell someone. She was right about this. She knew she was.

  ‘She was there, outside the house. I’d already found my mother,’ she began falteringly. ‘I thought she’d fallen down the cellar steps – the banister was loose, you see – but when I went to the car to fetch my phone, I saw someone. I thought it was just a shadow at first, but then I realised it was a figure running away from the house.’

  ‘And you think it was Olivia?’

  ‘I know it was.’ Nicole was adamant.

  Isobel, though, looked incredulous. ‘Did you see her face?’ she asked her.

  She didn’t believe her. Would anybody? Even Becky, her best friend – would she believe her, or would she think she was as mad as everyone else seemed to? Nicole pressed the back of her hand to her nose. ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘It was too dark. But it was her. I’m sure it was.’

  Isobel knitted her brow. ‘But why would she—’

  ‘Because she hates me!’ Nicole insisted, repeating what she’d told Richard. ‘She’s trying to get rid of me. She was trying to get rid of Bouncer. That’s why I had to bring him.’ Her eyes shot to her dog as Mike brought him in, the only friend whose loyalty she could rely on.

  His tail going around like a windmill, Bouncer immediately scrambled towards her and tried to jump up on her lap. Nicole hoisted him up, cuddled him close to her and tried again – in between hiccupping sobs – to explain. And the more she did, the worse it sounded. She really did sound completely insane. It was obvious Isobel and Mike thought so. Nicole could tell by the anxious glances they were now exchanging.

  ‘It’s the truth,’ she said, looking desperately between them. ‘All of it. I swear to God it is. She wants me gone, whatever she has to do to achieve it.’

  Isobel scanned her eyes, and then, her expression troubled, looked away to stroke Bouncer.
‘Does your husband know all this?’ she asked, her gaze coming back to Nicole.

  Nicole hesitated. ‘Yes,’ she said, tugging in a breath. ‘He makes excuses for her. He feels protective of her, I think, because of her mother dying so tragically. It’s still such a short time ago. I suppose that might explain why she does seem to hate me so much. She probably thinks I’m trying to replace—’

  ‘You mean Emily?’ Isobel interrupted.

  Nicole nodded, glancing towards Mike, who frowned in consternation, and then checked his beeping phone and excused himself to the hall.

  ‘But Emily wasn’t Olivia’s mother,’ Isobel said, now looking confused. ‘Emily chose not to have children, because of her condition. She said—’

  Isobel stopped, pulling herself to her feet as Mike came back in – followed by Richard. Her heart sinking to the pit of her stomach, Nicole watched as he swapped cautious glances with Isobel and Mike before approaching her – carefully, as if she were some unpredictable creature he was mistrustful of.

  Instinctively, Nicole shrank back. Emily wasn’t her mother. She looked at him, utterly bewildered. Why had he told her that?

  Seeing her reaction, Richard paused, and then he took another tentative step, finally crouching in front of her, where Isobel – in whom she thought she’d found a safe harbour – had been just a second ago.

  ‘Nicole…’ Richard spoke gently, his face wretched with worry as he reached for her hands. ‘Come home, sweetheart,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘You can’t stay here. We’ll talk. Everything is going to be all right, I promise you it will.’

  Nicole scanned his face. He had tears in his eyes – ice-blue eyes, the colour of the midwinter sky, yet still they weren’t cold. Now, they were concerned, frightened.

  Emily wasn’t her mother. Nicole swallowed back her heart, which seemed to be wedged in her windpipe. Should she go with him? Or should she react in the way Olivia – and now Richard – clearly expected her to: unpredictably, like a woman unbalanced? She wouldn’t, Nicole thought angrily. She wasn’t.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  REBECCA

  PRESENT

  Having visited the hotel and finding it unsuitable, Rebecca tried the heritage centre, which had a small oak-panelled room for hire for modest functions. She definitely wanted modest, but she doubted even this would be understated enough. Collecting up a leaflet after viewing the room, she decided to take the route past the church to the art shop, purchasing flowers on the way. She needed to sit a while in quiet contemplation. To talk to her dear friend, whose soul she hoped was dancing free on the breeze, not trapped somewhere like the purgatory her life must have become.

  She found flowers already there when she arrived. Roses, just beginning to shed their petals and bow their heads earthwards. Richard’s? She crouched to weed out the saddest. The petals he’d sprinkled so romantically on the table had been the same colour – a soft, dusky pink.

  After placing her own flowers – delicate freesias, because Nicole had loved their sweet-smelling perfume – into the urn alongside the roses, Rebecca settled down on the grass beside the grave. She had no particular place to go, nowhere to rush to. But she was rushing. Into what, she wasn’t sure.

  Feeling suddenly adrift, she drew her knees up to her chest and studied the inscription, which Richard had chosen, on the pretty white headstone: ‘If love could have saved you, you would have lived forever.’ Were those the words of a man who would knowingly have hurt her?

  The headstone itself was beautiful: a simple marble heart with a hand-carved dove of peace at the right-hand apex. Thinking of the broken little lark trapped in its cage, Rebecca’s eyes filled up. The stone had been picked with care; she couldn’t have chosen better herself. He truly did appear to have cared for her. So what was she doing here? If ignorance was a sin, then yes, Richard had been guilty of that, but what other crime was she absolutely sure he’d committed?

  Sighing, Rebecca rested her head on her knees. Tell me what to do, Nicole, she prayed silently. Should I go through with it? Dearly wishing she could hear her voice again, laugh with her again, dance barefoot in the rain together, Rebecca’s heart squeezed inside her – and then flipped in her chest as the church bells began to toll, as if in celebration of a wedding.

  On finding no ceremony taking place when she went back – and no sign of anyone – Rebecca had to work at convincing herself it had been a bell practice. She walked from the churchyard, calling Sam on her mobile as she went. She hadn’t told him yet. She would have to eventually, but that very much depended on things continuing as they were and arrangements being firmly in place. For the moment, with the unpredictable nature of things, she’d made up her mind not to. Sam and Laura were thinking of going off to Europe for a couple of weeks, in any case, which would give her a little time.

  ‘Hi, how’s it going?’ she asked, when he picked up.

  ‘Okay… ish,’ Sam answered vaguely.

  And a bit flatly, Rebecca thought. ‘Decided on your holiday venue yet?’ she asked.

  Sam hesitated. ‘No.’ He sighed, after a second. ‘I’m not sure Laura’s up for it now. She’s thinking of taking a holiday with her family.’

  ‘Oh?’ Rebecca frowned. Reading the inflection in his tone, put together with the fact that the two were usually inseparable – going everywhere outside of university together or not going at all – she sensed there was trouble. ‘Everything’s all right with you two though, yes?’

  Sam went quiet for a second, and then, ‘We had a bit of an argument,’ he said, now sounding definitely dejected. ‘Don’t worry, it’s cool,’ he added, attempting to sound blasé and failing. ‘We haven’t split or anything. Laura just needs some space, that’s all.’

  Which meant Sam was in the doghouse. Rebecca felt for him. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ she asked him carefully. Growing into what Rebecca considered to be a fine young man, Sam was putting away childish things. Once it had been cuddles at the school gates. Now, it was confiding in his mum.

  Again, he went quiet. ‘Some girl,’ he admitted eventually. ‘She’s been texting me.’

  Rebecca hesitated. ‘As in sexting?’ she asked him warily.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose.’ Sam sounded embarrassed. ‘The thing is, they’re totally out of the blue. I haven’t, you know, done anything. I only ever replied to the first one, kind of jokily, and then I ignored them, but they just kept pinging in.’

  ‘And Laura saw them,’ Rebecca guessed.

  ‘That’s about the gist of it.’ Sam sighed again, heavily this time. ‘I suppose I should have deleted them, but… Anyway, I didn’t, and Laura’s having a hard time believing me. I can’t say I blame her.’

  ‘Do you want me to give her a ring?’ Rebecca asked gently, her natural instinct being to want to make things right for him, which she couldn’t, of course.

  Sam laughed at that. ‘Yeah, right. My mother ringing my girlfriend for me is going to make me look really macho, isn’t it?’

  Rebecca smiled sadly. She supposed he would be worried about his image. ‘For Laura’s sake as much as yours,’ she clarified. ‘She might want to talk. You never know, it might help.’

  ‘Nah. Don’t worry, we’ll sort it out. Or not. I’ve told her I’m changing my number. I suppose I’ll just have to wait now. I’ll let you know how things go when we’ve talked more.’

  ‘Do that,’ Rebecca said. ‘And call me if you need to – any time.’

  ‘I will,’ Sam promised. ‘I’d better go. I have to be somewhere. Speak soon.’

  He ended the call rather quickly. Rebecca pulled her phone away from her ear, an uneasy feeling creeping through her. Hoping Laura might call possibly? Rebecca hoped she did. They were both still young, with plenty of time yet for romance, but she knew Sam was in love with Laura. Might he have encouraged the girl who had been texting him, she wondered? God, might it be Olivia? The worrying thought occurred. Surely, she wouldn’t? But Rebecca had a sneaking suspicion she would. In which case,
she wasn’t sure what to think. She’d never known Sam to be anything but respectful to women, having been brought up by a single mum. But then, she couldn’t know everything about him, she supposed.

  Making a mental note to call him back later, and to have a quiet word with Olivia, Rebecca stopped as she reached her destination. Goosebumps prickled the entire surface of her skin as she realised Nicole’s paintings were still on display in the window. Richard had given permission for them to stay, presumably.

  Taking a fortifying breath, Rebecca went in, the door jangling quaintly as she did so, giving her a sense of melancholic nostalgia. ‘Hi.’ She smiled at the woman behind the counter, who smiled warmly back. Rebecca half expected her to leap out and ask if she was interested in anything specific. Rebecca was, but like Laura, she felt she needed a little space.

  Grateful when the woman turned back to her laptop, Rebecca browsed the various works of art, the proceeds of which, she noted, were to be donated to a mental health charity. Most were much the same as those she’d seen at the village hall, all in muted tones. There were more here, though, of the river: some of the swirling black depths of the river in flood, possibly at the very lock Rebecca had stood at.

  ‘She’s a local artist,’ the woman offered as Rebecca stared at them, trying to read the mood behind them. ‘Deceased, sadly,’ she added. ‘Thus the charity donation.’

  Rebecca swallowed a jagged knot in her throat. ‘I know.’ She forced a smile. ‘She was a friend.’ A close friend, who hadn’t felt able – or been able – to call her on the darkest day of her life. Tears pricked the back of her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the woman said, coming across to her. ‘Isobel,’ she introduced herself, offering her hand. ‘You knew her well then?’

  ‘Rebecca,’ she said, offering her own. ‘Yes. Yes, I did. We met at university. Shared everything together… up until she married, at least.’

  She felt Isobel watching her as she looked back at the paintings, wanting to decode them, wishing she could.