‘Poor Minty,’ said Rose, and her irony cut me to the quick. She remained hunched over her wine, neither drinking it nor looking in my direction. ‘You were welcome to him,’ she admitted. ‘He had hurt me so much. Sometimes I thought I’d die of the hurt. But you know the aphorism “This, too, will pass”? It’s true, it does. Thank God. When he turned up here on the day he died, I didn’t make him particularly welcome. Actually, I didn’t want him here. I was busy. He could see that, and he was disappointed. But I didn’t feel I had any reason to put myself out. I had spent so long shaking free, and Nathan’s problems were not mine… I could no longer engage with him, not in the way he wanted… Actually, I blame myself for that.’
‘It was a shame,’ I managed. To be unwanted when you are dying must be terribly hard…
She gave a choking sound. ‘For God’s sake, he left me for you. Remember?’ She turned an anguished face towards me. ‘Remember?’
‘I think of it most of the time. Never more so than now.’
Rose made a visible effort. ‘You have the twins to consider. Sam and Poppy suffered. You may think that they were too old, but they weren’t and they did. I blame you and Nathan for that. There was nothing I could do to help them. You can’t inflict your anger and mistakes on your children.’ She twirled her glass between her fingers. ‘I won’t let you.’
A tiny pulse beat in Rose’s temple and, no doubt, one did in mine. I fixed on the blank television screen in the corner of the room. ‘I’m truly sorry about Poppy and Sam.’ For good measure, I threw in, ‘Poppy’s taken it out on me. She’s a fighter.’
Rose bent down and picked up a tiny mother-of-pearl button. ‘That’s Poppy for you. Sam’s struggling a bit at the moment. I’m a little worried about him and Jilly… The job in America has thrown them both. They seemed so good for each other, but you never know. I want to be around to help, but I’m busy earning a living and getting on with my life and they have to sort themselves out.’ Her voice was tender. ‘Much… much as I love them.’
The tenderness excluded me. ‘They’re growing older, as I am, Rose, and more invisible.’
‘Just as I felt, then.’ She added, in a kinder voice, ‘Grief saps the confidence, Minty. I can tell you that. But it can be fine in the end. Believe me.’ She gestured at the room. ‘When Nathan left, I felt I’d failed myself and the children, but I survived. It took blood and tears, but I did it.’ She balanced the button on the palm of her hand. ‘Nathan did what he wanted to do. I failed to see that he was changing. And why shouldn’t he change? It was his right. But I didn’t see it then. So, it wasn’t all your fault, you know.’ She was letting me off the hook, a little.
The wine had loosened my tongue. ‘Roger and Gisela Gard came to dinner once. Believe it or not, I was playing office politics. One of the twins was naughty and Nathan dealt with it. I saw Roger watching him and I could almost hear him thinking, This is a man who’s lost his stuffing and brimstone, and the thought flashed through my mind that it was better to be dead than a failure.’ I put down my wine glass. ‘The question is, did I wish Nathan’s death on him, Rose? Did I?’
Rose swirled her wine round her glass. ‘When Nathan left, I thought how much easier it would have been as a widow rather than a dumped wife. For a start, no one could have said it was my fault, unless I’d fed him hamburger and chips every night. If he’d died, the situation would have been easier to handle.’
‘Yes.’
She put down her glass, and the gold ring gleamed. ‘I still would have lost my job to you, wouldn’t I?’
‘Probably,’ I conceded. Τ wanted it and I reckoned loyalty in the office was an old-fashioned concept.’
‘And now?’
I thought of Chris Sharp. ‘Much the same.’ I looked down at the carpet. ‘Was Nathan trying to humiliate me when he asked that you be made the boys’ guardian?’
‘Perhaps he was thinking of what was best for them.’
‘Perhaps.’
Rose took my hand. The touch of her flesh on mine was unexpected. ‘Minty, what you don’t understand is… I had got away. Finally. At last. I had stopped dreaming about Nathan. I wasn’t about to involve myself in his life again. I had cut him off.’
I allowed my hand to rest in hers and told her what festered in my mind. ‘I never loved him, Rose, not truly. Not really truly. Not heart, soul, body and mind. He knew he was getting older and wanted different things, and I wasn’t going to make it easy. If I’d loved him, I would have let him… oh, go to Cornwall, a million things.’ My fingers pressed Rose’s. ‘I think he felt desperately alone.’
Rose took away her hand. ‘I’m going to show you a letter, Minty.’ She went to the desk in the corner, picked up a small Jiffy-bag, pulled out an envelope and handed it to me.
I spread out two closely written sheets of paper. ‘My dearest Rose…’ Didn’t ‘Dearest’ mean closest to my heart?
I have no right to ask what I am going to ask, but I have an idea it might be necessary. If you receive this letter, which I am lodging with Theo, then I will have judged correctly.
I am writing to ask you to remember that you were once good friends with Minty. If you are reading this, it means she is on her own with the twins. Of course, I have no idea how long that might be for. When I came over to see you in the flat, I asked you if you would be a guardian if anything should happen to me and to her, and the boys were still under age, and you said you would consider it. I can’t think of anyone better to ask. It is a huge thing to lay on you, especially given our history, but I know you through and through, Rose, and there is no one I trust more…
For a moment, I could not continue. ‘Oh, Nathan…’
‘Are you OK?’ asked Rose.
I nodded.
All I can say in mitigation for my actions towards you is that the complications of feelings and impulse take us to strange places. They certainly took me away from you, whom I loved, to Minty. But I loved Minty, too, and I want to say the following. There is so much in her to admire (you spotted it first when you became friends) and that still holds true. It has been difficult for her, and not as she expected. Thus, I ask you again, if she ever needs it and asks you for help with the boys, or even if she doesn’t ask you, please will you do it?
I put down the letter, picked up my bag and got to my feet. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this? I know I hurt you beyond words, but you should have told me.’
Rose’s response was short and simple. ‘Yes.’
‘It would have made everything easier to bear.’
‘Yes, I suppose it would. But I wasn’t thinking about you, Minty.’
So Rose had taken her revenge on me with her silence, and I could have expected no better and no less.
My head swam, and I wanted very badly to go home. I managed to say, ‘He knew I never loved him properly. Truly, properly.’ I was weeping openly. ‘It’s in the letter.’
Rose folded it and put it on the desk. ‘When he left me, I stopped loving Nathan the way he wanted. It was inevitable. There was no other way of surviving.’
We looked at each other. In that exchange lay the past we had shared, mourned and regretted. She picked up the Jiffy-bag. ‘One more thing. He asked Theo to send this to me. I think it’s a diary of sorts. I haven’t read it, Minty. Or only a little bit. I couldn’t. You should take it.’ She placed the envelope in my hands and I peered inside. It was the missing notebook.
That, too, had gone to Rose.
The hardest thing of all to govern is the heart and I had finally understood that I couldn’t blame Nathan for the struggle with his. If one’s own nature and impulses are unfathomable, then to reach into other minds to make sense of the rage, passion and loyalties that lie within them is impossible. In our separate ways, Rose, Nathan and I had cheated each other and, in doing so, cheated ourselves.
‘We must try harder, Rose, to make something out of this,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, we must.’
; On my return to the house the boys, who had been watching for me at the window, ran out to greet me. I scooped them up, and hustled them inside. Then I closed the front door, leant against it and breathed deeply.
24
It was Friday, four weeks before Christmas. In the meeting room at Paradox I watched the clock inch past five thirty. Barry was in full flow and wasn’t going to stop. What he had to say was interesting but I wished he had said it earlier in the day.
Chris propped his head in one hand. During a pause, he looked up. ‘Are you in a hurry, Minty?’
‘Not at all,’ I replied coolly.
‘We’re coming to you in a minute, Minty,’ Barry said.
In a feeble attempt to recognize the season, Syriol had draped a string of fairy-lights over the picture on the wall. It was by Shiftaka and I had persuaded Barry that it would be a good investment when he had decided to plough a proportion of Paradox’s profits into an asset. (When I pointed out that his employees might be considered assets, Barry grinned and said he needed fixed assets.)
Shiftaka’s painting depicted an abstract figure, half flesh, half skeleton, lying on a bed of glowing coals. The colours were violent reds, the blackest of blacks, and a white background that could only be described as dirty. The label read: Kyoto RIP. The jury’s still out as to whether I consider Shiftaka a good painter or not, but I’m working hard on my ‘uneducated’ eye. Still, if Barry thinks Shiftaka’s cutting edge, it was a bargain.
When I had taken Barry to view it at Marcus’s gallery, Marcus had been sitting at the desk, head bent over the laptop. At our entrance, he looked up and I was shocked: he appeared considerably older than I remembered. He took a second or two to place me and, when he did, there was an unmistakable flare of hope in his eyes, which was as quickly extinguished when it became obvious that I was not Gisela’s envoy.
I had introduced the two men and explained that Barry was looking for an investment. Marcus swung into professional mode – easy of manner, patient, sizing up a potential client – and I thought how much nicer he was than Roger.
While Barry patrolled between the two rooms, Marcus turned to me and asked, in his unexpectedly deep voice, ‘How’s Gisela?’
‘Fine, I think. I haven’t seen much of her lately.’
He chose not to indulge in small-talk – another factor in his favour – and went straight to the point. ‘She didn’t seem to understand that I didn’t want a wife. I wanted her. Not someone who stockpiles jam and checks the dinner menus. But when it came to a decision, I think she preferred it. Gisela has got used to being a professional wife.’
‘I think you’re right.’
Marcus’s rightness, however, was of no help to him. What can she possibly gain with Roger? The dullness of such an existence… and I’m the one who loved her, not Roger.’
With regret, I noted the past tense. ‘It’s not dull, Marcus,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s different.’
Barry had stopped prowling, and waved at Kyoto RIP. ‘I’ll take that one.’ He pushed his face close to Marcus’s. ‘Now, you are sure I won’t be throwing my money away?’
Marcus hadn’t even blinked. ‘Nothing is certain.’
So that was how Shiftaka had come to grace the walls at Paradox.
‘Minty,’ Barry had finally finished what he’d had to say, ‘do you want to go ahead?’
I pulled my notes towards me. ‘OΚ. Remember last year we discussed an idea for a programme on middle age? It didn’t work. But this will. Three-part series on being a parent. Baby Love. The format? Each section to be an hour, featuring expert talking heads and personal experiences of parents. The programmes will ask: what are the stresses and strains of becoming a parent? Can you ever prepare for it? How does it affect a man and a woman physically and emotionally? What sort of impact do children have on marriages, friendships? How can it affect you if you become a step-parent to older children? How do you cope if you feel you’re a failure as a parent? How do you manage as a lone parent?’
Good question. How do you manage as a lone parent?
Chris raised an eyebrow. Then he cleared his throat and made a note.
I continued: ‘The trick will be to handle the material in a fresh, bold manner, and not be afraid to tackle the difficult aspects of being a parent. The programmes have to be honest and say things that most people only think. Children do change you. You don’t always love them. Parents do fail. It is lonely.’
‘Any up-side?’ asked Chris.
‘Oh, yes,’ I replied. ‘Plenty.’ I thought of my beautiful sons and felt my spirit lift. ‘But I’ll leave that for the parents to describe. They’ll do it best.’ I picked up the treatment I had prepared and handed it to Barry. ‘We want it fast, colourful, daring, and I think BBC1 should be the target.’
Chris frowned. Barry gazed thoughtfully at Kyoto RIP.
‘Minty, thanks,’ Barry said. ‘Not quite convinced, but I’ll think about it. We’ll talk.’
‘Think massive audience,’ I urged. ‘Trust me.’
Chris came into my office as I was shifting my papers into order. He closed the door and leant against it. ‘I wanted to chew the cud about a few things, Minty.’
‘Sure.’ I clicked off my computer screen. As I did so, I noticed that my wedding ring was much looser and a vein running down my hand stood out in relief. Not a good sign. Film stars had hand lifts for less.
‘You heard we got the Carlton deal for the documentary on the Pope?’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Should boost the quarterly figures.’
‘Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? If so, can we do it tomorrow? I have to get home.’
Chris levered himself away from the door, and perched against my desk. Suddenly my small office was very cramped. The hazel eyes gleamed. You’ve had a tough year, Minty.’
His kindness was unexpected, and I was still having trouble with kindness. It tended to reduce me. ‘Yes. But I’m coming to terms with it and making my way.’
I needn’t have wasted my energy: Chris’s kindness was merely a vehicle for other considerations.
‘Minty, it might be better if you were working for a bigger organization, which would have more slack for someone in your predicament. A very real predicament.’
There was no point in getting angry. If I was to survive at Paradox until such time as I wished to leave on my own terms, I could not be angry. ‘Are you suggesting this or telling me?’
He smiled gently, and I could not decide whether it was genuine or not. ‘Friend to friend, in this business it doesn’t help to have additional pressures. A company as tight as Paradox needs to know it’s functioning optimally with no unnecessary drag. You need to know, when a problem arises, that there’s no problem in dealing with it, if you see what I mean.’
‘Sweet of you, Chris,’ I murmured.
In the old days, I would have deployed sex – which Nathan fell for. I would have opened my eyes, looked up from beneath the lids, and have made sure my cleavage was in the correct line of sight. I might have said, ‘How nice of you to take an interest,’ which would have introduced a faint chime of promise, sufficient to push Chris off the track. I’m not saying that I’ve come to despise such tactics, or would never use them again, only that sex took time and the boys would be waiting for me.
Instead I placed the last of my notes in my bag and fastened it. ‘Chris. Perhaps it would be better not to pursue this conversation. If you’re trying to suggest that, as a working mother, I’m a liability, it could get you into trouble.’
No fool, he backed off at once. ‘I was only thinking of you,’ he said.
On the way home, I passed Paige’s house. The front garden was ultra-smart because the gardener had recently completed the autumn spring-clean. ‘You can’t call it a spring clean,’ I had pointed out to Paige, when I phoned her the previous day.
‘I can call it what I like,’ was her reply.
‘Has Martin been to see you?’
Paige bristled. ‘I wish yo
u wouldn’t interfere.’
‘And?’
‘He’s here at the weekend. But I’m not taking him back, Minty. As I told you, I’m far too busy with the children to be married.’
The scene when I got through the door of number seven was much as I had pictured it. Eve had collapsed into a chair in the kitchen and a small riot was going on in the boys’ bedroom. One of Eve’s hands lay on the table, so white and thin that it alarmed me.
First, I tackled her. ‘Look,’ I said to the slumped figure, ‘this is no good. It’s been going on for months, and you haven’t got properly better. You need to go home and see your family.’
She raised her face from her hands and I was star-tied by the light in her eyes. ‘Go back?’ She gulped a lungful of air – as if she was already breathing in the scents of river and mountains, of her home.
That decided it. ‘You must go home for two weeks, see your family, rest, then come back.’
‘I get coach.’ Eve hauled herself to her feet, and her smile was pure joy. ‘I telephone. Now.’
‘No, it’s a two-day journey both ways. You must fly.’
‘The moneys.’
A stack of quick-fire calculations snapped through my brain. Eve needed a break. She needed her mother. Four days in a coach was not a rest. I needed Eve well and strong, as she herself wished to be. ‘I’ll pay your air fare, and you must go as soon as we can arrange it.’
As I went upstairs, preparing for riot duty, the rest of the calculation slotted into place. What with the hit my finances had taken with the loan to Poppy, Eve’s air fare equalled a reduction in the Christmas-present list. It definitely put paid to the haircut, and the cost of her replacement would, no doubt, see off any strictly unnecessary seasonal frivolity. But that, I supposed, was what ‘unnecessary’ meant. You could do without it.
It was the day before Christmas Eve, the kind of day that paraded a weak sun as a joke. I eased the car into the parking slot and got out. It was very cold and I zipped up my fleece, powder blue, then turned up the collar. I could smell frosted leaf mould and the faintest whiff of frying fat coming from a van selling snacks parked further up.
The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly Page 27