The Subsequent Wife

by Priscilla Masters

  There was nothing there and yet the feeling of dread persisted.

  It was too early. So no green fields, no coal dust. No nightmare woman roaming the valley crying like a banshee, wearing a white nightdress and flapping cloak. The first rays of sunshine crept towards the horizon and, with it, when I threw open the windows, there was the scent of a new morning. The morning of my date. I smiled and heard the radiators creak into warmth, watching the sun creep down the slope of the moors. I could see more clearly now. No broomstick. Out there, there was nothing. But just as I reassured myself, I felt something light brush my right shoulder. I spun around and saw a stray moth fluttering towards the window. I opened it wider and let it escape.

  I left my dreams underneath the pillow, along with my conscience, drew in a deep breath and headed for the bathroom.

  It is usual to say that a day crawls by when you have a ‘date’ in the evening. That wasn’t so. The day flew by. People coming and going, and at three p.m. Serena the hairdresser came and I told her I was having dinner with Steven Taverner that night. Her eyes opened wide as pebbles. ‘What about …?’

  I shrugged and blew out my lips. ‘Phh.’

  ‘No, really,’ she insisted, a frown struggling to crease her Botoxed forehead.

  I tossed my head. ‘I can find everything out tonight when we have dinner.’ Oh, how I loved the sophistication of those words, having dinner. Not supper. Not a drink. Not a quick fuck in the back of the car. Not even afternoon tea.

  Dinner.

  ‘If he’s married,’ I added airily, ‘I can soon finish it.’

  ‘Be careful.’

  I reflected on her warning all the way home. Why had she felt it necessary to warn me like that? Why did I need to be careful? I didn’t. I felt I understood him now. There was nothing to be nervous about. Back home I hogged the bathroom for an almost unprecedented twenty minutes. I washed my hair and shaved my armpits. And in my bedroom, wrapped up in a towel that might once have been thick and white, but was now thin and grey – like a young woman faded and aged, I dried myself and lathered on some smelly body lotion I’d bought in the Pound Shop. It didn’t take me long to rummage through my wardrobe. There wasn’t a lot of choice. There was the grey dress I’d worn the other day to work, a tiny black dress that left little to the imagination. Too tarty. I put that one back in the wardrobe. The blue dress was too posh for a local pub. Swanning in in a floor-length gown to a country pub would look pretty stupid. But that only left a black dress with big red flowers splashed all over it. I didn’t much like the material: polyester, shiny and cheap, showing every tiny lump and bulge. I guessed someone had bought it, worn it once, seen the damage it did to their appearance and disliked it after that, giving it to the charity shop where I’d bought it. But I’d really gone on the flowers, whatever they were. Something tropical, at a guess. That was it then. I managed to find a pair of tights with no ladders and pinned my hair back on one side, letting it fall over my face on the other. I thought that made it look sophisticated; besides, it was handy if I needed to hide behind anything. My high-heeled black leather shoes and I were ready by ten to eight. I knew he would be bang on time. The next ten minutes dragged and I felt stupid. What the heck was I doing, dressing up, going out for ‘dinner’ with a married guy probably twice my age? I didn’t even have a chance to answer myself because I saw his car glide along the road, probably looking for my address.

  Oh well, I thought. Here goes!

  He actually got out of the car as I opened the front door to let myself out. I did not want him seeing Jodi or Jason or them seeing him. He gave me a tight smile. ‘Hello, Jennifer.’ No Spinning Jenny. No Jenny Wren. No Jenny Lind. Just Jennifer.

  Behind me I sensed a swish of air as Jodi curtain-twitched. I anticipated her voice in the morning, sharp, mocking and critical. ‘Your dad, was he?’ When she knew I’d had nothing to do with him for years. If I got a birthday or Christmas card it was a red-letter year. She noticed everything.

  It was then that I noticed he was wearing a suit and felt my mouth drop open. A smart, navy blue suit. Embarrassing. In my book, men wore suits to two occasions. Strictly weddings and funerals. Definitely not out for a drink or going for dinner.

  So this, I thought, was what a real, grown-up dinner date was like. He was taking it seriously. He held open the passenger door and I climbed in, feeling even more vulnerable and out of my depth. I didn’t know what to say, how to act, what to do. I’d hardly known what to wear. I clipped my seat belt and gave an uncertain smile, staring ahead.

  ‘I thought we might eat at The Traveller’s Rest instead of The Plough?’ His voice was gentle and soft.

  My mind pinned to what I considered a significant fact. I’d seen his hands wrap around the steering wheel. He was not wearing his wedding ring. I could still see the dent in his finger and a pale line where it had sat. Now, I guessed, it was in his pocket.

  He was cheating on Margaret.

  But something else registered. He lived in Stanley. The Traveller’s Rest was his local pub. If you’re going to cheat on your wife you hardly take your date to your local.

  I licked my lips and wondered.

  ‘That would be lovely. I don’t think I’ve been there before.’ I borrowed a phrase I’d heard on a film. ‘Is the food good there?’

  He turned his head sharply, as though he suspected this wasn’t me speaking, and gave the ghost of a smile. ‘I believe so.’ He still looked tight-lipped and I worried that he was regretting this. Then his mouth relaxed. ‘I’m sorry, Jennifer,’ he said in a soft, apologetic voice. ‘I’m unused to this’ – pause – ‘dating thing.’

  I settled back in my seat. So that was what this was? A dating thing. I wasn’t sure about that but I was sure about one thing. It beat my parade of wankers any day.

  NINETEEN

  There was much about Steven Taverner that still mystified me. I couldn’t quite get a handle on him. I watched his driving to find a clue. He was a cautious man, his driving careful and precise, pulling in tight to the side when anything approached on this narrow country lane and giving a soft beep of the horn as we mounted the humpback bridge over the canal.

  We arrived at The Traveller’s Rest; the car park was almost full. He advised me to get out before parking close to the wall and folding in his mirrors. The Traveller’s Rest proved to be a traditional sort of pub, draught beer and home-cooked food. Low ceilings and big black beams framing the collection of local beers: Rudyard Ruby, Danebridge, Double Sunset, a tribute to a phenomenon which can be observed from a point just above Rudyard Lake. The scent of cooking wafted in through the kitchen door. The customers looked up sharply as we entered and the woman behind the bar (wrinkly, sun-damaged skin, dark mahogany tan, big white wolfish teeth and long dangling earrings) greeted him. ‘Hello there, Steven,’ she said in a stiff Potteries accent, ‘haven’t seen you here for a while.’ She gave me the once-over, heavy with curiosity, eyes wide open, mouth slack. I resisted the juvenile temptation to stick my tongue out at her. Tonight I was grown up. On a ‘date’, and I felt happy.

  Steven Taverner gave her a curt, embarrassed nod, devoid of friendliness. Did I imagine it, or was there also something furtive about it? He led me to a table in the bay window. ‘Now,’ he said formally, ‘what would you like to drink, Jennifer?’

  I knew I was sitting awkwardly, bolt upright, shoulders tensed, hands primly on lap, knees together, staring ahead as though I was at an interview. ‘A glass of wine, please.’

  He laughed. ‘Give me a clue.’

  And when I looked confused, he enlarged, ‘Red, pink or white.’

  ‘Oh, white, please.’

  ‘Any particular preference?’

  I shook my head. I was already out of my depth. I didn’t know the names of any wines, white, red or pink or even fucking blue. And even if I had I wouldn’t be able to pronounce them. Half of them would be French or Italian or Spanish. At the wine bar I asked for the cheapest and got house white. He came
back with a large glass of straw-coloured wine in one hand and a pint of beer in the other. He handed me the wine which was ice cold and flipped two menus on to the table, encouraging me with, ‘Hungry?’

  ‘Yeah.’ It was my first lie of the evening. Truth was, there were so many butterflies flitting around in my stomach that there was no room for food. But … I scanned the menu and recognized something. ‘Fish and chips, please.’

  He smiled, returned to the bar and, presumably, ordered food. Whatever the barmaid had said to him – and I could guess – he didn’t like it. She shot me a malicious look and I saw his shoulders stiffen, heard a firm denial, almost a shout, and as he walked back to the table there was a scowl on his face that hadn’t been there before. He was muttering something to himself but I couldn’t decipher the words.

  I was starting to feel uncomfortable. What was I doing here, playing the sophisticate with a man I didn’t know, whose circumstances were also unknown?

  He sat down heavily, still frowning and abstracted. Instinctively I sensed he was feeling the same as I, full of doubts. There was a distance between us that seemed strange, a disconnect which I wanted to bridge.

  I felt the need to fill the silence, say something, even something as fatuous as, ‘What are you having to eat?’

  He didn’t answer me straight away. He was still internalizing, his eyes flickering. I felt embarrassed and very awkward. I repeated my question and he came to with a shake. ‘Same as you,’ he said, back to smiling now.

  I was still curious as to Margaret’s role in all this. How did she fit in? Where did she fit in?

  He leaned forward and began what felt like an interrogation. ‘Tell me about yourself, Jennifer.’

  I was startled. The blokes I went out with didn’t say, Tell me about yourself. They told me about themselves – all bloody evening. So I was unprepared with a story. Which is probably why I gave him a sanitized truth.

  ‘There isn’t much to tell,’ I said. ‘Mum and Dad split up years ago. Don’t see much of either of them. They’ve both got new partners.’ I thought for a minute, reluctant to mention Thailand. ‘Mum’s guy, George, he’s got a nasty temper.’

  I’d felt the back of his hand a few times while my mother had watched, impassive.

  ‘And your father’s new girlfriend? Partner,’ he quickly corrected.

  I made a face. Decided not to mention Dad’s sad exploits in Thailand. ‘Doing his own thing.’

  He giggled at that. Another of my borrowed phrases, I thought.

  The latest bulletin from Thailand had mentioned a hot little hooker named Malee. I hoped I would never have to meet her.

  But borrowed phrases make you bold. They give you another identity. Someone else’s cloak to wear. ‘So what about you?’

  His face changed. He dropped his eyes, frowning. His expression was steely. ‘Jennifer,’ he said, voice broken. ‘Oh, Jennifer. I lost her.’ He reached across the table and touched my hand. His felt cold.

  Luckily for us the fish and chips arrived then.

  At first we ate in silence. I kept stealing little glances at him but he was focusing on his meal, chewing thoughtfully and staring into the distance. Then he looked up and I sensed he was considering telling me something. Something that stuck in his throat. And it wasn’t a fishbone. Finally he did speak, but I had the feeling it was not what had been on his mind. ‘Is your food all right?’

  ‘Oh yes, thank you. It’s delicious, actually.’ I’d pinned the word, actually, on because I thought it sounded posh. But it didn’t. It sounded fake. The person I was becoming or rather trying to become. People talk about ‘not being yourself’. That was how I felt, a fake who trotted out other people’s phrases.

  ‘I’m glad you came out tonight,’ he said next.

  I stopped chewing.

  ‘Do you have a current boyfriend?’

  ‘Steven,’ I said, putting my knife and fork down, ready for honesty, ‘I wouldn’t be out with you tonight if I had a current boyfriend.’ As soon as the words were out I knew I’d nailed my colours to the mast. Challenged him.

  And he knew it too. He raised his eyebrows as though I had told him off.

  I tried to retrieve my bluntness. ‘I’ve had a few …’ I slipped past the word, wankers, choosing instead, ‘unsuitable boyfriends.’ I managed to laugh it off. ‘I never seem to find a decent one.’

  He fixed me with a bit of a stare. ‘What do you call unsuitable?’ he said so quietly it was barely above a whisper.

  I shrugged. ‘Cheats, lazies, liars, guys who take drugs, weirdos, guys into S&M, guys with nasty tempers. I’ve had the lot.’ I eyed him. ‘And then there’s the married ones.’

  He was silent as he digested my words. Then … ‘Weirdos?’

  ‘Into bondage and stuff. Strange practices.’ I didn’t want to remember Scary II.

  He was frowning with his next question. ‘How old are you, Jennifer?’

  ‘Twenty-three.’

  ‘I’m forty,’ he said. ‘Would you consider a man nearly twice your age unsuitable?’ He tried to turn it into a joke though it wasn’t one. It was deadly serious. ‘Would you consider a forty-year-old man unsuitable, or one of your … weirdos? Tell me now. Don’t let me find it out later.’

  ‘I would if he was married.’ There – I’d thrown down the gauntlet. And now I waited.

  He opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it. Then … ‘The boxes, the clothes, the stuff I’ve put into store. They were my wife’s. She died almost three years ago now. Cancer.’ He wasn’t looking at me as he blurted this out. So – was it a lie?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. But I wasn’t. I was exultant. He wasn’t cheating or going through a troublesome divorce. She was dead. Hang on a minute …

  ‘Have you got any children?’

  He shook his head and spoke quickly, as though to hurry the phrase through. ‘She didn’t want children and, as it turned out, we didn’t have time.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want them either.’ I recalled my brother’s early years. ‘Nasty, smelly, crying things.’ But it was a lie. I did want children. My own.

  He gave an abstracted smile aimed somewhere beyond my shoulder. ‘I think that’s what she would have said.’ At the time the wording puzzled me. Later it made perfect sense. Then I felt vaguely creepy, haunted, as though he had asked her, was still communing with her. Goodness knows why. He was a quiet, pleasant, unattached man. Nothing messy here, I told myself. No drugs, no kinky ways, just a sad man who’d lost his wife. I wasn’t under threat.

  ‘I like children.’ He spoke defiantly, again looking past me before focusing back with a look that was so intense it drilled into me. Now I wanted to own the truth, but it was a little late.

  ‘You remind me of her,’ he said, leaning across and touching my hair. ‘You’re very like her. You could almost … be her.’

  I shifted in my seat. I felt uncomfortable.

  When he looked up his face was quite different. It was determined, intense, decisive. ‘And now I have found you.’

  I wanted to hold my hand up, Whoa. Stop right there. You’re going too fast for me. But then I had a quick think. Why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I have the luck for once? Have a nice, decent boyfriend, someone solvent who drove a car, opened the door for me, took me out on ‘dates’ and ‘for dinner’ dressed in a suit? Someone who invited me to tell him about myself instead of listening to boring stories about football or motorbikes or what weights he was lifting in the gym or how many pints he’d downed a few nights before. Or lied. I could go out with Steven for a bit and if it didn’t work out … Hey-ho. I would lose nothing, I reasoned. I could have nice evenings out. Anything was better than being stuck in my room with Jason and Jodi downstairs alternating between lovey-dovey and bitter arguments. Dinner at the pub was nicer than my microwave meals. The ambience felt safe and normal. And if he was old enough to be my dad, well my dad had followed in the footsteps of my mum and buggered off, hadn’t he? And the girl he was
currently with was probably younger than me. So what was the problem? That was where I stopped, aware I was walking into the unknown.

  I was brought down to earth. ‘Are you sure your fish and chips were all right?’

  ‘Yes. Lovely. Thank you.’ Was this how these evenings would go? With stilted conversation and an unaccountable awkwardness? Or would he gradually learn to relax with me, become light-hearted and easy to be with? Would marriage change him once he had the security we both craved?

  ‘Do you want dessert?’

  Dessert? Was that what I would call pudding? I shook my head. ‘I’m full. Thank you.’

  He crossed over to the bar then to pay the bill. Another big tick in the box, I thought. He hadn’t even asked me to go Dutch, unlike Mr Mean aka Lee Williams, who started patting his pockets the minute the bill was due to be paid. Oh, and surprise, surprise. He’d forgotten his wallet … again. So it was a choice. I either paid the bill or we did the washing up or did a runner. And I can tell you, in six-inch stilettos my running is not great. So I’d pay up rather than face the police or mountains of greasy water. Mr Mean and I rarely went to the same place twice. So I felt reassured that there was never a tip for the waitresses who watched us leave with a sour expression on their faces.

  Another of my fears displaced. Until I watched Steven speak to the barmaid, before both turned and looked at me. I couldn’t read their expressions.

  Steven drove me home and I was quiet, worrying what was the right thing to do next? I couldn’t ask him in. Jodi and Jason had made it perfectly clear that I was not to invite boyfriends in. With the result that they were lucky. They’d missed out on Scaries I & II. What was he expecting now? A quick snog in the car? Full-blown sex? If I didn’t know the rules of this encounter, did he? I felt completely out of my depth as I studied his profile. Very calm now, steady hands on the wheel.