The Second Wife

by Fleet, Rebecca

  I register the present tense, wonder if it is significant. He certainly speaks as if they are still in contact, still part of one another’s lives. But on the other hand, in a place like this time effectively stops. I can imagine that the past few years might have felt like a drawn breath, little more than a necessary bridge between the past and the future. ‘My wife is loyal,’ I say tightly. ‘To those that she feels have earned it.’

  Kaspar straightens up in his chair, looks a little incredulous. For the first time, I see him studying me with some genuine interest. ‘Forgive me,’ he says, ‘but I am not sure you have, in fact, explained why you are here.’ His tone is still light, but there’s a kind of veiled menace to it that makes my blood rise.

  ‘I’m here because I want to understand what happened back then,’ I say. I keep my voice as low and controlled as his, conscious of the official behind the door.

  Kaspar frowns, tipping his head to one side and rubbing a finger across the smooth slash of his jawline. ‘Surely this does not matter now,’ he comments.

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to find out.’ I’m aware of an increasing sense of frustration, knowing this conversation isn’t being played out on an equal level. Without knowing for sure if he has any involvement, I don’t want to mention the fire, or the man in our house; it feels better to play dumb, assume that he has nothing against me. ‘Look, you and I don’t know each other. We have no animosity.’ I pause briefly, giving him the chance to contradict me, but he remains silent. ‘All I’m asking is for some information about the past that can cost you nothing to give. Anything you can tell me will help.’

  Kaspar nods slowly, his eyes on mine. When he speaks his voice is calm, almost soothing. ‘My friend,’ he says, with a little tremor of irony, ‘I will tell you only that I am serving two life sentences for murder. I will be in here until the day I die. Not everyone is in a position such as mine, but everyone must serve their sentence. Even your wife.’

  My heart is thumping, and I can feel the collar of my shirt damp against my neck. It’s something about the casual way in which he says it – the throwaway acknowledgement of what he’s capable of. ‘What does my wife have to do with this?’ I manage.

  He shrugs faintly. ‘Nothing. Everything. She is not exempt from consequence.’

  I realize with increasing despair that he’s playing with me. ‘She has a new life now,’ I say, trying to drag us back on to concrete ground. ‘She only wants to live her life with me and my daughter – our daughter – in peace.’

  Another long pause, before he speaks again. ‘I cannot imagine,’ he says thoughtfully, ‘why you would think I would wish otherwise.’ He leans forward, those odd grey-silver eyes boring into mine. Now that he is so close, I can smell the heat that rises off his skin, a faint note of cinnamon and spice. ‘These things are so insignificant to me now,’ he says quietly. ‘What is done is done. Your wife is nothing to me anymore. My life is this.’ He gestures around at the four walls of the small room encircling us. ‘You would be surprised at how quickly everything else is extinguished.’

  Despite the mildness of his expression, there’s an indefinable malice about the way he speaks, and about the closeness that he maintains between us. I force myself to stay motionless, not wanting to be the one to move back. It’s impossible to say if he is telling the truth. There is a frightening composure to this man that I sense I won’t crack. I had imagined a thug, coarsely direct and indiscreetly verbose, not this regal-looking foreigner who makes it so clear that each word he gives me is a gift that he could easily withdraw if he wanted to.

  ‘Then I’m sorry to have taken up your time,’ I say. It’s meant to sound ironic, but the words come out simple and unvarnished.

  Kaspar regards me thoughtfully. ‘Time is something I have plenty of,’ he says at last.

  I make as if to stand up, but as I do so I’m conscious of the photograph digging into my stomach. I want him to see it. There’s the slightest chance that the sight of my wife’s face might unlock something in him, maybe betray some emotion that he has held back up to this point. I reach down and pull it out, holding it between my fingertips. ‘I have a picture of her,’ I say. ‘Rachel.’ The name feels unfamiliar on my lips. ‘This is how she is now.’

  There’s the faintest spark of interest in Kaspar’s eyes – nothing much, just a brief instant of connection as he reaches one hand forward to take the photograph that I’m holding out to him. He looks at it intently for what must be ten seconds; a long time, in this room and its silence. I’m watching him, trying to read his expression, but it’s frustratingly blank.

  He tosses the photograph back at me across the table. ‘It only remains,’ he says, ‘for me to say good luck to you, my friend.’

  I snatch up the photo. It’s clear that the conversation is over. He’s leaning back in his chair, the T-shirt riding up over the tight muscles of his stomach, signalling to the official through the small glass window. I think I can see a faint smile playing at the corners of his mouth now, but when he glances back at me as I stand up it’s gone.

  ‘Goodbye,’ I say, and then I’m walking away, listening to my own footsteps echoing across the smooth polished floor, and forcing myself not to look back.

  Natalie

  September 2017

  I’M SITTING ACROSS from Jade, trying to block out everything I hate about being in this place: the antiseptic smell, the harsh fizz of the lighting, the general air of lethargy and decay. We’re watching the little TV above her bed, steadily eating the grapes I brought with me. We haven’t spoken in about ten minutes. I had thought that Alex would meet me here, but I was held up on the bus and by the time I arrived, he’d texted me saying he had had to leave. Work again, I’m guessing. So it’s just me and her.

  While she’s absorbed in the television I take the chance to study her. She’s looking better, I think. The colour is bleeding slowly back into her cheeks, and everything about her – even the way she blinks – just seems a little less languid and perfunctory. In fact, if we were sitting somewhere other than a hospital bed, then the only clue I’d have that there was anything wrong with her would be the livid red scar running along her hairline and creeping down the side of her face. It astounds me, the speed with which she’s bouncing back. The indestructability of youth.

  Tentatively, I clear my throat, but she doesn’t look over, her eyes trained on the screen. I have no idea if her concentration is put on, or whether this silence is an uncomfortable one for her. I know it’s uncomfortable for me. Say something, I instruct myself. Doesn’t matter how banal. Anything to break the deadlock.

  ‘I’ve seen this before,’ I say at last, gesturing at the film. ‘She dies at the end.’

  Jade shoots me a quick look, half amused, half outraged. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘No.’ I smile, pleased to have caught her attention. ‘Just joking. I’ve never seen it.’

  Jade sighs, then reaches out for the remote control beside her and zaps the television into blackness. ‘I have.’ She rolls on to her side, pushing herself up on her elbow and propping her head on her hand. ‘And she does, actually.’

  ‘Seriously?’ I echo her, thinking she’s making a joke in turn, but she just nods, straight-faced. ‘Oh. Well …’ I try and think of something else to say. Making conversation with Jade is unpredictable; sometimes easy and unthinking, sometimes like pushing water uphill. I’ve always been conscious of this, but here more than ever. There’s nothing to distract. The spotlight is on us, shining at full force. ‘Your friends have been in?’ I ask, gesturing at the little clutch of new get-well cards lined up by the bed.

  Jade nods again. ‘Yeah. Last night. They all had a nightmare with the history test yesterday. At least I didn’t have to take that.’

  ‘That’s something,’ I agree. Is she being ironic, or just stating a fact? I can’t tell; don’t seem to have that natural instinct for teenage mannerisms and moods. I can’t remember much about how I thought and felt at that ag
e. It’s another life.

  ‘Have you been back to the house?’ she asks. There’s no obvious change of tempo, but her eyes seem a little brighter and keener.

  ‘I haven’t, no,’ I say slowly. ‘Your dad has, but I don’t … I’m not sure I see the point. Not until we find out how much can realistically be rebuilt, or how long it’s going to take. Without knowing that, it’s just staring at wreckage.’ I take a breath, half expecting her to chip in or at least make some noise of agreement, but she’s silent, and so I keep talking. ‘And I suppose quite apart from that, I just don’t want to. I remember reading an article a little while ago about a woman who goes back every weekend to the place where she saw both her parents shot, to place flowers or whatever, or just to, you know, relive it. I thought at the time, why would you want to do that … And now I think it even more. No one in their right mind wants to relive trauma really, do they? I mean, I know it’s not the same, what’s happened here. But …’ I finally wind myself up, realizing that Jade is staring at me looking lost, presumably wondering what the hell I’m on. ‘All the same,’ I say.

  ‘I think you’re right,’ Jade says. ‘I don’t want to go back, either. I don’t even want to live there anymore, even if they do rebuild it. It’s all …’ She moves her head restlessly on the pillow. ‘I dunno. I can’t think of the word.’

  Tainted, I think, but I don’t say it.

  She’s looking at me head on now, unfalteringly. ‘Did Dad tell you?’ she asks. ‘About me having seen that man before, the one who was in the house before the fire.’

  ‘Yes, he did.’ I realize as soon as I’ve spoken that she’s chosen a clever way of putting it. By framing a question, she’s slipped the fact of the man being there under the radar, so that any answer I gave would be a tacit acknowledgement of it. I don’t know if this is calculated, or if she’s just got a natural knack for it, but either way I respect it. And of course she’s right. Whatever I might have thought when she first talked about this, the truth is that I know she wasn’t mistaken. In fact, I know more than she does – I know exactly the kind of man we’re dealing with. The kind of man who’s capable, not of anything, but of most things. And they’re the most dangerous kind, in a way; they have something to prove, always feeling they have to make up for their little pockets of softness and shortcoming. Yes, Dominic Westwood could set a fire. He could light a match and walk away, as long as he didn’t have to see the outcome of what he’d done.

  My mouth is dry and I know that Jade is waiting for me to say something more, but it’s an effort to get the words out. ‘You think he’s been following you.’

  ‘I don’t think it.’ Jade’s voice is briefly scornful, but there’s a crack in it that tells me she’s desperate to be taken seriously. ‘It’s not the sort of thing you imagine, is it. Maybe once or twice you might see someone around and think they were following you, but it was actually just a coincidence. But not this much. I’ve seen him, like, nine or ten times.’

  ‘That much?’ I say, my mind whirling. ‘When? Doing what?’

  Jade scratches the side of her face, glancing down. At first I think she’s being bashful for some reason, but then I see with a light shock that there are tears brimming in her eyes. ‘Not much,’ she says, clearly fighting to keep her voice casual. ‘Sometimes he’s just hanging around the school gates, on his phone or whatever. Once or twice he’s been on the bus with me. A couple of times round the shops when I’ve been hanging out with Katie or Sophie. He’s never spoken to me. He just … stares at me. Not like a perv, you know. Just looking. That’s all it is. It sounds stupid now I say it.’

  ‘It’s not stupid,’ I say automatically. Internally, I can feel fury welling up, and I obviously don’t do as good a job of hiding it as I think, because Jade looks startled, her fingers plucking at the bedsheets uncertainly. ‘Sorry,’ I say with an effort. ‘It’s just, well, it’s not fair, is it? It’s not right.’

  ‘Not fair?’ Jade echoes.

  ‘Not right,’ I repeat. I realize that I’m not sure how much Alex has told her, if anything. For all I know, she may have no idea that the man she’s talking about has any connection to my own past. In fact, the more I think about it the more I’m convinced he hasn’t said anything. If he had, then she too would be thinking this wasn’t fair. She’d be asking herself the same question that I’m sure must be going through Alex’s head: why her? If this man has some kind of grudge against me, why is it Jade he’s targeting? I have an answer, of course. Because she’s an easy target. A naive young girl who could be a convenient weapon of choice, given the right circumstances. I could say this to Alex, maybe, but not to her. I don’t want her wandering around in a permanent state of fear, on red alert.

  ‘Anyway,’ Jade says, her voice distant now. I can tell she’s regretting this sudden show of vulnerability – it doesn’t fit with our relationship. We get on, but she keeps me at arm’s length. ‘It’ll get sorted now, won’t it. If there’s some weirdo been hanging round trying to torch my house and kill me, the police will be on to it now.’ She speaks with what might be false bravado, but I suspect that there’s a core of belief in her own words. Now that the drama of the past few days has passed, she can’t conceive of a world in which justice might not be done, and in which the police wouldn’t be there waiting in the wings like avenging angels if danger ever came her way again. She has no idea.

  Impulsively, I lean across the bed and take her hand in mine. I feel her muscles stiffen for an instant, but she doesn’t pull it away.

  ‘I understand how you’re feeling,’ I say. ‘I was luckier than you, but I was there too, at the fire. We’ve been through it together, and we’re the only two people who know what it was like. It was horrible, but in a way it brings us closer, doesn’t it? It’s … bonding. Something like that. Don’t you think?’ I squeeze her hand, maybe a little too hard. And I find that I am holding my breath, really wanting her to say yes.

  ‘Uh huh,’ she says, but her eyes are blank.

  That evening Alex and I order room service at the hotel. The trays arrive topped by silver domed servers, flanked by ostentatiously folded napkins, though the food underneath is likely to be pretty basic. The porter places our trays ceremoniously on the little table and retreats gravely without a word. I pull a chair up and sit down, smiling tentatively at Alex as I whip the servers off with a flourish.

  ‘And tonight,’ I say in a bad French accent, ‘we have fillet of plaice with pommes frites. You are in for a treat, Monsieur …’

  Alex laughs, but there’s no real warmth to it. He sits down opposite me and starts eating; fast, rhythmically, pushing forkful after forkful into his mouth in a way that suggests he’s barely tasting it. After a couple of minutes he catches me watching him and shrugs. ‘Sorry. Just hungry. I didn’t get much lunch.’

  I make a vague noise of acquiescence but anxiety is building within me. This wasn’t how I had envisaged this evening. I’d hoped that we might be able to shake off everything that’s been oppressing us, just for an hour or two, and that I could remind him what it was really like between us. The odds are against me, though, in this setting. I glance round at the sterile white walls, the bought-in furnishings. Staying in hotels is all right, when you’ve got a home to go back to.

  ‘So you went to the office this afternoon?’ I ask after a while, when Alex has demolished his fish and chips and is staring at the plate with a look of prickly dissatisfaction. ‘How was everything?’

  Slowly, he nods. ‘All fine,’ he says. ‘Gav had a proposal he needed to get out the door and …’ He trails off. Silence settles between us and he takes an audible breath, pushing a hand back through his hair and rubbing the back of his neck. ‘No,’ he says eventually. ‘I didn’t go to the office.’

  I taste something sour at the back of my throat. ‘You didn’t? Where did you go, then?’ Normally I’d make an effort to keep these words light and non-threatening, but right now I can’t think about niceties. For a stupid moment, I
think he’s going to tell me he’s been with another woman. But this is Alex. He’d never do that. So why lie?

  He’s looking me full in the face now, with something like remorse in his expression, and yet when he speaks again his tone is defiant. ‘You didn’t want to talk to me,’ he says. ‘You land all this on me, this stuff about you having changed your name and started a new life, about you having a sister I didn’t even know about, and you talk around the houses about something bad that’s happened in the past, but you didn’t really want to tell me anything. How do you think that makes me feel, when my daughter’s in hospital and my house has been all but burned to the ground and it sounds like it might be because of you?’

  I gasp, feeling winded. There’s a vicious emphasis on that ‘you’, and I’ve never heard him speak like this before. ‘I’m sorry,’ I begin. ‘I would have talked to you – I will talk to you. It’s just not easy, after all this time …’

  ‘I know,’ he interrupts, and his voice is softer now, the anger gone from his eyes as fast as it came. ‘Look, I’m trying to explain why I did what I did today. I felt I needed to take things into my own hands. I did some research on the Internet, and I found out about the man you told me about – Kaspar. I found out where he was, and I went to visit him.’

  He says it so quietly, with such unvarnished simplicity, that at first it doesn’t compute. My body gets there faster than my mind does; my heartbeat quickening, my fingers curling into fists. ‘You went to visit him?’ I repeat. And saying it out loud brings it home. I look at Alex – my husband – and it’s as if that other face is imprinted on his, just for an instant. My husband has been in the same room as Kas, today. Nausea swells inside me. ‘What the hell were you thinking?’ I ask. If I’d been asked beforehand how I’d feel if this happened, I wouldn’t have been able to imagine it, but now that it has, it seems my overriding feeling is that it’s my turn to be angry. I don’t even know exactly why, can’t stop to unpick it – there’s only this white-hot sense of incredulity and rage, rising inside me. ‘How could you do something like that?’ I spit. ‘How could you be so stupid?’