She tried to keep busy after the funeral. Scrubbing the house from top to bottom, calling the bank and electricity company and graveyard, all the bewildering bits of admin you were supposed to somehow handle while going through the worst pain of your life. The meeting with the lawyer was scheduled for later that day, that gave her something to focus on. He would confirm that they had plenty of money. That her husband hadn’t been broke, or borrowed cash from unsavoury types. That everything she’d thought was true still was. But all the same a tiny hummingbird of panic was trapped in her chest, making it impossible to eat, or sleep, or sit still for more than two minutes in a row.
A woman in the car with him. Perhaps she would know what had happened to him. Perhaps she had even caused it, grabbing the wheel, making a scene of some kind. Maybe he was trying to end it with her, and she did this rather than lose him. Or maybe she told him something that shocked him, made him drive off the road. This woman, whoever she was, had perhaps caused his death. Left him there to die instead of getting help – Elle knew the ambulance had been called by an elderly couple, passing the accident spot some time afterwards. This woman, this faceless woman, had not only led Patrick astray, caused him to cheat – she was maybe responsible for Elle being a widow.
Elle stood in her living room, in which not a speck of dust remained, gripping the marble mantelpiece. Staring at the wedding photo, herself so young and slim, red lips, black hair. Him so handsome. Laughing. Had they been happy then, or was it all in her head? Had he ever been happy? Was it possible to love someone and still cheat on them? How could he do this to her?
As if anyone could ever love you.
She was aware of a new sensation, dripping into her veins like coffee into a pot. Anger. Rage, travelling through her veins and into her heart. Galvanising her, like a jolt of electricity through dead flesh. Where she had been so lost, hovering near to the grave herself, unable to see a way forward, she now had a purpose. Find this woman, and destroy her life just as surely as her own had been destroyed.
The doorbell went, and through the glass she saw the small round shape of the lawyer, heard him coughing in the cold air. Of course, the money. It almost seemed insignificant now that this new plan had come to her. She would hear what he had to say, instruct him to do whatever had to be done paperwork-wise, and then she would take action.
She opened it, smiling properly for the first time in weeks. ‘Hello, do come in.’
He looked stricken. ‘Elle, dear, I’m afraid I have some bad news.’
Suzi
‘It’s going to be OK,’ said Nora placidly. Nothing seemed to alarm her about my situation – not my affair, not my baby who likely wasn’t Nick’s, not the fact the police wanted to talk to me. ‘It’s not a crime to have an affair, even if the police did work out you were there.’ We were in my living room, and outside more snow was falling, silent, all sounds cut off by our thick windows and insulated walls. I was glad Nora was there. If it was just me all the way out here, I wasn’t sure I could have stood it.
‘But they won’t know I got out before it happened. They might think, I don’t know, I left the scene of the accident. Or that I was driving, even! I mean, it doesn’t look right, does it? How do you hit a tree on a clear road, on a sunny day?’
‘It is strange.’ Nora’s lovely hands traced patterns on the expensive reclaimed-wood coffee table Nick had bought. ‘Did the hospital have any insights as to why?’
‘They didn’t say anything. I guess maybe a brain thing, or a heart attack, or, I don’t know – something startled him.’
She fixed me with her grey eyes, shaded with the purple of sleepless nights, lines fanning out from them like the contours of a map. She had been very beautiful once, I could tell. I wondered what had aged her so – was it grief and being outdoors so much, or did this just happen after forty? Would this be me in a few years? ‘You got out before anything happened.’
‘Yes! God, of course. I’d have called for help otherwise. He seemed fine. Well, I mean, a bit confused and agitated, I’d just told him I was pregnant, but he was happy.’
‘Are you sure he was happy?’
I stared at her, hurt.
‘I’m sorry to ask. It’s just – he might have panicked, done something stupid. It’s a lot to take in. You say he was planning to leave the wife?’
‘He promised. He was looking at places to rent, even. He was going to go home and tell her right then, and I’d tell Nick. God! Thank Christ I didn’t.’
‘If you had, you might be already settled, you know. Free of him.’
I frowned. Nora was so strange today, offering these odd bits of advice that I’d never heard from her before. ‘But where would I live? I don’t have a job. Plus, Nick’s good at all that legal stuff. I bet he’d find a way to get the baby.’
Nora made a noise of frustration. ‘Suzi, it’s the twenty-first century. They don’t take babies from their mothers.’ She hesitated. ‘Unless they’re in prison, of course.’
I stood up, almost knocking over my tea. Nora righted it. ‘Oh God. I can’t go to prison, can I? I didn’t do anything! I just got dropped off on the verge!’
‘They don’t know that, of course.’
‘Alright, so what do I do? Please, Nora. You’re so clear-minded and I’m so – my brain’s like tangled-up wool. What do I do?’
‘Do you really want my advice?’
I leaned forward, thinking how strange it was that this woman I barely knew was now my lifeline, the only person I could confide in, who could help me out of this mess I’d made for myself. ‘Please, Nora. Tell me what I should do.’
I waited all through the day, my panic gradually subsiding to a dull pain. I jumped at every car that came down the lane, every ring of the phone – Nick’s mother again, PPI. The police didn’t call. They would have come before, surely, anyway, if they knew about me. You had died months ago. I must have left no trace on your life after all. It could be like I never existed. It could be like it never happened – except for that line on the pregnancy test.
The weather was still bone-cold, and I spent hours trudging round the countryside, looking for Poppet again, finding no trace. My ankle throbbed with every step, and my bump weighed me down, but I made myself go on, trying to atone. Not just for losing the dog. For everything. It was chilling how little there was near us. Apart from Nora, we’d have to walk for an hour to reach the nearest house. The landscape was nothing but fields and scrubby woodland, and the sense of loneliness intensified with each step. I hadn’t realised what good company a dog was, as annoying as I found him. Now there was nothing. Not a single living breath except my own.
Nora thought I should leave Nick. Or rather, make him leave me. Tell him to move out, give me the house. Be even more alone out here. Madness. I’d just stared at her, then mumbled my excuses. What I had to do was find out who knew about us, who could have left that message in the snow. If it was your wife, what was to stop her going to the police? Did she know somehow I’d been in the car with you – was that why the police were asking questions now? My life could come crashing about my ears at any moment. I couldn’t rock the boat by overturning my marriage, that was a terrible idea. No, I had to find her. Your wife.
How did I find a woman I knew nothing about? Only the barest of details. You had told me, reluctantly, and only I think because you couldn’t avoid it without a scene, that she was older than you.
‘How progressive,’ I’d said, made snide by jealousy.
‘Mmm.’ You didn’t want to talk about her.
We were in the Travelodge. My blouse was half off my shoulder, revealing the lacy black bra I wore for you. After that I became obsessed with her, as you do with your lover’s wife. Was there anyone more hated, even though I was the one stealing from her? Even though she likely had no idea I existed? I remembered asking: ‘What colour hair does she have? Your wife?’
You didn’t want to answer that. After a while: ‘Dark. Black.’
I
ncreasingly, throughout the few months that we saw each other, I thought it might be OK if she knew about us. Then we could leave all this, stop pretending. I wouldn’t be telling you this, obviously, if things weren’t the way they were, but there you go. I used to think shameful things. Accidentally on purpose texting when I knew you were at home. Emailing her, even. But how would I get in touch with her? All I knew was her surname, assuming she’d taken yours, and that she had black hair. You wouldn’t tell me her first name.
When we were together – such a brief handful of times, really! – I would sometimes ask you questions about your life. Innocent-sounding ones, like do you have stairs in your house? You would go quiet, give me a look as if I was laying a trap. And maybe I was. You were very good at not telling me things, but even with that I picked a few bits up. I knew you had a tree in your garden with red leaves – you had even sent me a picture once, romantically comparing it to my hair. I knew you had paving stones on your drive, because once you’d had to ring a man to come and clean them. They were mossy, and your wife was afraid of slipping, which made me think of her as weak, fragile. The online article I found about your death had mentioned you lived in Guildford (not where you’d told me, of course), on Carnation Drive. I was fairly confident that if I went there, I would be able to find your house.
It was getting too cold to be out, and my body ached. Swollen ankles, swollen belly, a feeling that the air couldn’t fill my lungs. Ivy Cottage was in darkness, and I wondered where Nora was, why she hadn’t mentioned she was going out. Obscurely, I felt a stab of resentment, at being left out here alone. Ridiculous. As I approached my own cottage, I saw to my surprise that the windows were lit up, the blinds drawn. Had I done that before I left? Was Nick home? It was far too early for that, only three o’clock, though the light was already weakening, dying. But the alarm box glowed red, not on ‘stay’ mode, so he couldn’t be back. Puzzled, I carefully keyed in the code – no squawking of a wrong key today – and went inside. The house was warm, welcoming, all the lights on, soft music playing. Had I set this before I went out? I went over my movements in my head: putting my coat on, finding my scarf, setting the alarm. I couldn’t remember. Hurriedly, I turned it off, wanting the music gone.
‘Suzi. Suzi.’ In the silence of the kitchen, my own name echoed. Tinny, electronic, impossible to tell if it was a man or woman’s voice, a machine or a person. Oh God. I hated this thing.
Of course, it wasn’t so simple, going to Guildford. I didn’t have a car and I had to explain each trip out I made. Again, I used the baby as an excuse. I wanted to go and look at cots, bouncy seats, that kind of thing. I pretended I was going to London, since he’d think it strange to go to a town so far away.
Nick wiped a dish with a tea towel. He’d started taking ages to reply to my statements about where I might go (I wasn’t asking for permission. And yet I was). ‘London. Again?’
‘Just getting organised. We’ll need things for the baby! Lots of things.’
‘But I’d like to go with you for that. Choose them together.’ I’d thought he might say that.
‘I know, but I just want to get a head start. Don’t deny me the chance to coo! And you know me, I take years to choose anything.’ Silly Suzi. What an airhead. ‘Remember all those weekends in Spitalfields Market?’
He smiled, recalling the people we used to be, our golden London Sundays buying old-age junk for our tiny flat, paying fifteen pounds for avocado toast and coffee. ‘Yeah. Well, alright. Just don’t get tired out.’
As I picked up the plate he’d dried, I almost wanted to punch the air in triumph. I’d trapped him this time. In the morning he left me an even bigger pile of cash. I got dressed with more care than usual – not hard. I brushed my hair, selected a new maternity jumper and jeans. I even did my eye make-up. I wasn’t sure why, but my heart was racing in my chest. I had to remind myself you wouldn’t be there, not ever. You were gone.
The crowds in Guildford were terrible, Christmas shoppers already out in force, tramping the remnants of snow into grey slush. The night before, as part of our reconciliation, Nick had brought up the holidays for the first time, and, as I’d predicted, suggested inviting his mother (mine was going on a cruise, thankfully). I thought about another week with Joan creeping about at 5 a.m. to listen to Radio 4, rewashing all my dishes, constantly wiping the counters; having to find National Trust properties to take her to, not being able to watch any TV I wanted because she’d tut at any violence or sex or swearing. I’d have to think about Nick’s present, when there wasn’t a single thing I could imagine him wanting. It was exhausting. I thought about getting a cab or an Uber to your house, but I felt an obscure paranoia that Nick might check, that he could look it up online and see I’d been somewhere I had no good reason to go. It wasn’t so far-fetched. In town, I bought a few things without thinking – some babygros, a scarf for Nick – in case I was too upset afterwards to do any shopping. I’d have to hide the receipts with the shop addresses on. The woman in the baby shop smiled at my bump. ‘When are you due?’
‘Oh!’ I somehow hadn’t made the connection that the babygros were for my baby, that I’d dress small, wriggling limbs in this soft brushed cotton. It was still abstract, my life stuck in limbo. ‘February.’ God, it was so soon. Why had I let this go on so long?
‘Lovely. Spring baby.’
Spring seemed impossible to imagine. Would I still be here then, living like this? I threw her a smile that was more of a rictus and left. The paper bags bashed against my leg as I walked out of town, towards Carnation Drive. It was all so suburban, so boring. The mock-Tudor fronts, the two cars in the driveways, snow swept neatly up into piles. The boxy hedges, the paved drives. I was beginning to feel very tired, and also aware of a strong need to pee. Not now! I asked myself why I was doing this, what on earth could be gained by going to look at your house. I didn’t know. Just that something didn’t feel right, that I couldn’t accept you were dead and out of my life, not when I in all likelihood carried your child inside me, pressing on my bladder.
I didn’t know the house number so I looked for one with a red-leafed tree and paving. I found it, halfway down, a few leaves still clinging. Was this your house? It was so normal, so neat, the hedge trimmed, the paintwork fresh. Would you, so passionate and alive, live in a place like this? The door was black. The letter box and handle chrome. And there was a For Sale sign outside. No car.
For some reason, this had not occurred to me. Your wife – your widow – had obviously decided to move away. Too painful. Or maybe she was short of money, since you’d mentioned a few times she didn’t work.
The front door was opening! I almost keeled over. What if it was her, what if she guessed who I was? I pressed a hand to my chest, but it was an estate agent, of course. A woman in a trouser suit, with shiny bleached-blonde hair. I could see her little branded car now, parked in the street. A young couple were being shown out – the man had a baby strapped to his front. As I stood there, they walked past, casting me a curious look, and unlocked a people carrier parked nearby. The woman said to her husband, ‘Shame, it looked brighter in the pictures. What about that three-bed I sent you this morning?’
So they weren’t going to buy it. The estate agent had a large bunch of keys, she was searching for the right one. This was my chance. I was walking towards her before I could think about what I was doing. ‘Hello!’ I made my voice bright. ‘I don’t suppose I could take a peek, could I? I was just passing, I’ve been looking for something in this area.’
She frowned. ‘Normally we’d ask people to make an appointment at the office.’
‘Oh, I know, but since I’m here and you’re here – just a quick little look.’ I rubbed my stomach. ‘Moving’s become a bit more urgent, if you get me.’ Being pregnant entitled you to all kinds of special treatment. She glanced at her watch and nodded reluctantly, and then she was taking the key and letting me in, and it was only then I thought to wonder if your wife might still be there
.
Elle
The money was gone.
She hadn’t taken it in at first. The lawyer was saying phrases, and she could see his large frog-like mouth moving, but nothing made sense. ‘. . . not as expected . . . significant withdrawals . . .’
She interrupted him. It was rude, and she imagined Mother scolding her, but she just didn’t understand. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t . . . What do you mean?’
He had looked at her with kind, dark eyes. ‘I’m so sorry, Elle. There’s no money left. I’ll keep checking for any hidden accounts or savings, but – so far, there’s nothing.’
Seconds ticked by. ‘But . . . there’s all the savings accounts. The trust documents.’ He had worked on her family business for years, he knew all this. He knew about the vast sums her father had left to her, the only surviving child, her parents’ life insurance, the insurance on the house too. The company had dithered over paying it, after all the rumours, but in the end it had come. ‘They can’t be empty.’
‘Elle . . . as you know, we maintain your funds. But they are yours, to do what you want with. We don’t interfere with withdrawals, so long as all the security checks are in line.’
He didn’t mean all the money. He must be misunderstanding. What about all her earnings, the thousands she had made from concerts, so much she simply stopped looking at her accounts, knowing she could buy whatever she wanted? ‘Yes, but . . .’
‘There were a lot of big withdrawals over the last ten years. Always just at the limit where we’d have to call you to double-check – which is, as you may recall, twenty thousand pounds. There was a lot in the accounts . . . but this is quickly used up by heavy spending.’
The Other Wife Page 13