His Other Life

by Beth Thomas

  ‘Hey,’ Dad says, but I’ve had enough for today, and it’s only eight fifteen.

  ‘Yes, I would love to borrow your car, Dad. Where are the keys?’

  ‘In the pot by the front door.’ He puts his hand out towards me. ‘Do you want help with anything, love?’

  I’m in the process of stomping past him angrily, but I stop at this point and look at him. ‘Thanks Dad. I don’t think so. Yet. But I’ll let you know, if I do.’

  ‘More like when.’ That’s Lauren. She’s holding a mug about an inch away from her lips and is staring down into it. She moves it the final inch and takes a sip as I stare at her. She’s pretending she can’t see me; I’m standing right in front of her.

  ‘So they’re getting their driveway done, are they?’ Mum says now to Dad. ‘What a surprise. Not.’

  ‘That’s pathetic,’ Lauren joins in. ‘Do they think we’re stupid?’

  ‘Could be a coincidence,’ Mum says. ‘Maybe they were thinking about having theirs done months ago, before ours even started …’

  ‘Yeah, sure, Mum.’

  Everyone disappears at this point to get ready for work, and thirty minutes later, they’ve all gone. Lauren to the council offices, Mum to the primary school, Dad to the solicitors’. I’m all on my own. Again. Should try to get used to it, I suppose.

  I’ve brought my laptop with me, so I make myself a cup of tea, then install myself at the kitchen table and Google locksmiths. It’s not much of an idea, but it’s a starting point. Surely someone, a specialist in the field, might recognise the style of the silver key and be able to tell me what it fits? Google tells me there are three locksmiths in the town here, so I’ll try them all. I feel energised, positive – glad that I finally have some constructive action I can take to try to discover something about Adam, and maybe find out where he is. Or at least, why he’s gone. Finally, after three years of knowing him, I might actually know him. Or something about him, anyway, besides his favourite type of ice cream. Although given recent events, he may well have been lying about rum and raisin too. It always seemed a bit unlikely. Anyway, I’m just assuming, hoping, that the silver key holds, well, the key, and will literally unlock some answers about Adam. Crouching at the back of my mind, unacknowledged and unwanted, is the idea that it might not be significant at all. That it’s simply the key to a cabinet full of back issues of FHM, or Julia’s catalogue money. That would crush me. All my hopes at the moment are pinned to this key, and the key in turn is pinning me. If it turns out to be useless I fear I will fall off the world.

  But then, when I think about that, it seems pretty doubtful. The key was in a locked drawer. The key to unlock that drawer was hidden. There was nothing else in the drawer, just a couple of pens. So Adam went to the trouble and expense of buying a cabinet with a lockable drawer for the specific and only purpose of locking this key in it. Hiding this key in it. Hiding this key from me.

  I need to let Ginger know where I am, and tell her I won’t be in the shop again today. I’m not sure when Penny is back from Italy, but I doubt it will matter that I’m not there, for now at least. I’ve been through – am going through – a terrible, traumatic time. I’ll probably need at least three weeks off. Longer, even. I’m already in Google, so quickly I look up the length of time that’s an acceptable absence after your husband fucks off without telling you. The results feature mostly some obscure song lyrics by failing bands, and some advice for managers about malingering employees; but then four or five lines down, I notice a free online dictionary definition of the word ‘leave’, and as a form of self-flagellation, I click on it and read all of the meanings. ‘To omit or exclude’; ‘to abandon or forsake’; ‘to remove oneself from association with or participation in’. Yeah, that sounds like my darling Adam, bless him. He’s a living, breathing dictionary definition. I’ve been omitted, excluded and forsaken. I wonder why it doesn’t say ‘generally fuck over’ in there.

  I slam the laptop shut in impotent fury, then immediately feel bad and open it a crack to make sure it’s OK. The light comes on timidly, so I close it again, more gently this time, and walk away from it to give it some space to recover. I’ll take this opportunity to call Ginge and let her know where I am.

  ‘Why have you gone there?’ she demands, when I tell her. ‘I thought you couldn’t stand it there?’

  ‘No, no, I don’t think I ever said I couldn’t stand it …’

  ‘Yeah, you did, you’ve been going on about it for months. How your mum pisses you off with her negativity, your sister is so nosey, your brother gets away with murder—’

  ‘Yeah, all right, maybe I did, I don’t remember.’ It’s a lie. I remember perfectly. They were originally Adam’s words, said to me after we’d had dinner with my family to let them know we’d got engaged.

  I was so excited at the prospect of telling my family my big news. It was pretty much the first thing I thought of when Adam proposed, after wondering for a brief moment how much the ring had cost. Oh, and living happily ever after with the man of my dreams, of course. Mum was never going to believe that someone like Adam had chosen me to spend his life with; me, over everyone else in the world. I literally couldn’t wait to see the expression on her face.

  ‘Let’s go and tell them now,’ I’d pleaded, gazing at my finger’s sparkly new decoration. I wanted hysteria and shrieks of joy and impulsive cracking open of the champagne that’s been in the fridge for three Christmases. ‘Come on, it’s not late, they’re bound to be up …’

  ‘Watching Come Dine With Me or something?’ he’d said with half a sardonic smile. ‘I think I’ll pass, thanks.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Adam, please? I really want to go now …’

  ‘No.’ He’d practically snapped it. ‘Oh, now, come on, let’s not argue. We’ll do it properly, take them out for dinner, make a big announcement. OK?’

  I had been mollified. Of course that was miles better. And if I had to wait a few days, I would. And if it meant Mum got an inkling of what we were going to say, so I wouldn’t get the full impact of the surprise on her face, well that was a small price to pay.

  There was a bit of kerfuffle about the restaurant in the end. I wanted to go to Dimitrio’s – expensive, classy, Italian. Adam preferred the Harvester. He always preferred the Harvester. He was right, of course, it didn’t matter where we went, as long as we were all together. And one of the tables in the Harvester was close to a little fake stream trickling under a little fake bridge. You could almost imagine you were sitting in a picturesque setting, especially in the evening when the motorway traffic had died down a bit.

  After we’d eaten our mains and sides and were waiting for our desserts (three courses for £14.95 each, very reasonable) Adam stood up and tapped his knife against his wine glass. I noticed it left little gravy marks on the side. Should probably have used one of the unused knives from the adjacent table.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began, then like Seb Coe at the Olympic Games closing ceremony he fell silent and waited for everyone to pay attention to him. Lauren and Robbie were squabbling over the last half a glass of wine; Dad was looking around for a waiter to clear the plates; Mum was fishing in her bag for a tissue. I gazed raptly up at my future husband, until I realised that his mouth was getting a bit thin, and risked a glance back at the others.

  ‘Mum, Dad,’ I stage whispered, and rolled my eyes towards the head of the table, where Adam presided.

  ‘Oh, Christ,’ Mum said, and snapped to attention.

  ‘Sorry, Adam,’ Dad said affably, and turned back round in his chair.

  ‘You have it, then,’ Lauren said, pushing the glass across the table.

  ‘Cheers,’ Robbie said, and quickly necked the wine. ‘Right. Over to you, Adam mate.’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ Adam said, not entirely pleasantly. But I forgave him. He was so handsome and commanding and my entire family sat captivated in their seats and listened to his big announcement. It was obvious they’d kind of been exp
ecting it, because they all behaved impeccably afterwards. Mum cuddled me tightly and dabbed away a genteel tear; Dad stood up and shook Adam’s hand, then patted him fondly on the shoulder, before crushing me in a daddy-hug embrace. Even Robbie and Lo kissed us both sweetly on the cheek and wished us every happiness. It was a bit stilted, but I was very proud of us all.

  ‘Christ, that was an ordeal,’ Adam said, as we bustled together in the bathroom later.

  My eyebrows flicked to a frown, then out again. ‘Really?’ I’d thought it had gone very well. Mum had been obsequiously attentive throughout the meal – to Adam, not me – and Dad had thrown secret winks to me every time she was in danger of fawning Adam to death. ‘What do you mean?’

  He turned to me and smiled. ‘Come on, you know what I mean. Look, I know they’re your family but they really are very difficult people.’

  I’d felt a hot spark of annoyance but I damped it down determinedly. ‘Oh, do you think so? Why?’

  ‘Jesus, Gracie. It’s so suffocating, I don’t know how you can stand it. Your mum is so negative all the time, and your sister’s so nosey, demanding to know absolutely everything about everyone.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘And your brother gets away with murder. It’s so painful watching how everyone indulges him all the time. Christ, no wonder you were so desperate to leave home and get your own place.’ He ruffled my hair up. ‘Good thing I was on hand to find you the perfect little pied-à-terre, eh?’

  At first, I wanted to tell him that Mum’s negativity was just exaggerated cynicism that we all found hilarious; and Lauren’s nosiness was a genuine interest in people; and Robbie nearly choked to death when he was eight, so of course we all held him like precious china. But I didn’t say it. Any of it. Instead, I thought hard about what he’d said about them. And then, for the first time, I started to realise that Robbie swanned around acting as if everything he touched turned to gold; and Lauren never gave me any privacy or respect; and Mum hated everything and everyone and it was very wearing. How had I not seen this before?

  ‘You certainly did,’ Ginge says now. ‘Even if you don’t remember, I do. You said it was very wearing being around them and you were so lucky to have got that flat of Adam’s.’

  ‘OK, but no one can stand to live with their family when they grow up, it’s normal. That is, until they get abandoned, omitted and excluded by their husband. When that happens, there’s nowhere else you want to be, believe me. It’s well documented.’

  There’s a short pause. ‘Ohhh-kaaaay.’ I imagine her at the other end of the phone looking at Fletch and making spiral motions with her finger against her temple.

  ‘I haven’t gone insane, Ginge.’

  Another pause. ‘You know, truly insane people think they’re perfectly sane. It’s the sane people that think they’re going mad.’

  ‘Yes, I thought you might say that. Anyway, look, do you mind if I don’t come to work again today? Or for maybe the next two or three days? Possibly longer. Do you think you can manage?’

  ‘Of course I can, my friend. Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Thanks Ginge. Gotta go, speak soon.’

  ‘OK.’

  Right. Locksmiths. I go to the hall to pick up Dad’s car keys and catch sight of my face in the mirror there. Then I put the keys back down and go upstairs for a shower and change of clothes.

  The first locksmith I go to is also a heel bar and café. As I wait at the counter for the assistant to get his boss, I wonder how many people come in here to have a key cut and decide to have a Danish and a coffee at the same time. The café is only four or five tables, to the left of the key and shoe counter, but three have people sitting at them. Good thinking, Mr Smith.

  ‘You’ve got a key you want looking at?’ Mr Smith says now, coming to the counter.

  ‘Oh, yes, hi. It’s this.’ I hand over the heavy silver key and watch his face closely as he takes it from me. I don’t know what I’m expecting – some kind of huge reaction, a gasp, eyes widening as he reaches for his glasses and reference book. ‘Oh my God,’ he’ll exclaim, ‘this is the lost key to the ancient chest of Cador that contains the last broken fragments of Excalibur’ or something. But he doesn’t. He turns it over in his hands a few moments then gives it back.

  ‘Yeah, fairly standard key to an old Churchill safe.’

  I blink. ‘A … safe?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He nods. ‘Not many of them left around these days. Everyone likes the keypad type, or the magnetic fob. Or there are some that require the user’s fingerprints. Like something out of James Bond!’

  ‘Oh, right, well …’

  ‘Much more secure, right?’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘Wrong. Easy way round that. Corpses turning up all over the place with their fingers cut off, ha ha ha ha!’

  ‘Yes. Ha ha. Well, thanks for your time.’

  ‘No problem.’

  I try the other two locksmiths too, to get second opinions, but they say exactly the same thing. Well, one does. The other one doesn’t have a clue and seems to resent my presence in his shop. ‘I’m not here to give free advice, love.’ Anyway, the consensus is that it’s a vintage, free-standing Churchill safe, probably about the size of a microwave oven, although possibly smaller. No one was very clear on that one, but it’s a start. Thank goodness Adam chose one that uses a key. I’d have had a terrible time lifting his fingerprints off an old coffee mug using superglue fumes, or whatever.

  Back at Mum’s, I Google ‘Churchill safes’ and scroll through all the different types and sizes. They’re all modern ones with touch pad locks, or much smaller keys than the big old silver thing I’ve got. What I do learn is that Churchill are the leading manufacturer of hidden safes, and they’re absolutely perfect for secreting stuff away from your prying wife and keeping all your personal information completely inviolate. Their tag line should be ‘Your Safe’s Secret with Us!’

  I’m feeling restless and anxious again. I want to start looking for this safe straight away, but I have absolutely no idea where to start. Well, maybe not no idea at all: our home seems like the most sensible place. But I don’t want to go back there yet in case Leon is watching the house in black leather gloves. Anyway, I can’t think of a single place in that house where something the size of a kitchen appliance could be hidden, where I wouldn’t already have seen it.

  Except … wait. I remember suddenly that there is one place big enough that I haven’t seen.

  It’s in Adam’s wardrobe. It’s so obvious! He never let me look in there. I was allowed to see it while he was present and admire a new shirt or suit that was hanging up there, but I was forbidden from opening the doors while he wasn’t there.

  ‘Why, though?’ I’d asked, not understanding. ‘I’m hardly going to trash everything in there, am I?’

  ‘Ah, my sweet sugarpuff,’ he’d said, taking my face between his hands, ‘of course you aren’t.’ He’d kissed me, still holding my face. Then had turned away to resume whatever it was he was doing.

  ‘No, Adam, seriously, what do you think I’m likely to do?’ I’d persisted, not recognising at this point that the conversation was over. We had only lived there a couple of weeks and he had just started laying down the ground rules. I had accepted most of them, and gladly. All paperwork, accounts, bills and anything like that were to be dealt with by Adam. He was the man of the house, it was his role. Fine by me. I was to open no post or try to deal with anything to do with the banking. Why would I want to? Dull, dull, dull. We would each have an individual bank account, and a joint one into which we would both pay a fixed amount every month to cover joint responsibilities, such as rent, food, electricity, and so on. Suited me fine. That way we could still buy surprises for each other without the other knowing about it in advance, or finding out how much it cost afterwards.

  I’d nodded and smiled, thinking how lucky I was to have found someone who was prepared to take on the huge burden of household finances and correspondenc
e without any assistance whatsoever. Right now, sitting here at my mum’s kitchen table with a mysterious key in front of me, I understand why he was insistent on keeping all the paperwork under his control. Why didn’t I see it at the time? Why didn’t I think, ‘Hello, that’s a bit odd’? But I was happy to accept his terms, without question. Naïve me thought he was just being super helpful. I remember that the only, the only, ground rule that I objected to, and that only faintly, was the wardrobe embargo.

  ‘I don’t think you’re likely to do anything, sweetie,’ he’d said, turning back to me again with an oh-so-patient smile. Ah, bless her, little wifey trying to understand me. ‘It’s just that it’s my wardrobe, full of my things. Why would you want to go in there anyway?’

  ‘I don’t, but—’

  ‘Well there we are then.’ He’d grinned, blown me another kiss, and walked away, leaving me feeling … a bit mystified, but nothing more. I’d simply shrugged and packed it away as one of those little idiosyncrasies that I could love about him and tell people about at parties. ‘Oh, yes, my husband’s so clothes conscious, he won’t even let me open the wardrobe door if he’s not there, ha ha ha!’

  At the kitchen table, I lean forward and rest my head in my hands. If I had ever told that one to other wives at a party, they would have looked at me askance and said, ‘Really? Christ, that’s incredibly odd. There’s probably a secret safe in that wardrobe that he doesn’t want you to find.’ But then, of course, we never went to parties.

  I spend the rest of the day on the internet, Googling the best place to hide a safe. Naturally, none of the websites has advice for people with secretive husbands who want to hide an actual safe. Every one of them simply gives advice about where to stash valuables in the home where a burglar won’t find it. The assumption is that if you have a safe, no one in the family is going to want to hide it from everyone else, as everyone else will be putting their stuff in it too.

  By the time Lauren comes home from work at six o’clock, I’ve moved on to private detectives and psychic investigators. She leans over the screen and reads what I’m looking at, then slowly looks round at me.