A Perfect Husband

by Hilary Boyd

  So the plan now was to raise enough money – he was sure he could find someone with the vision – to open a small recording studio in a provincial city. Not Manchester, which was awash with media servicing, as were Leeds and Liverpool. But Nottingham, for instance, Warwick or Sheffield, which held a documentary festival every year. All had thriving universities popular with students hungry for media experience. A studio in one of those cities would be perfectly placed and probably much in demand. Investors would see the sense. And with a suitable building it needn’t cost too much to set up.

  Of course, there was the not insignificant problem of his bankruptcy: he couldn’t be a director of a company, couldn’t even open a bank account. But if he set the business up with someone like Max Blackstone on the masthead instead of himself, with Freddy doing all the work, it could be win-win.

  Maybe he’d find an existing studio, take it over. Lily could help, do the design – she was good at that – while he brought in the clients. His thoughts began to fly. Maybe it would have a small flat over it where they could live together until things picked up . . .

  The lethargy Freddy had felt in those long weeks in Malta seemed to have dissipated as soon as the plane touched down on English soil. Ideas and energy were pulsing through his veins again, plus an absolute determination to succeed. But he wasn’t ready to brave London yet, not with the possibility of running into his peers, his ex-employees, his social group. And, worst of all, his creditors. They wouldn’t have gone away.

  Tonight, having consumed a toasted cheese sandwich and a couple of glasses of whisky at the functional hotel bar, Freddy found himself lonely and longing to speak to Lily. It was harder, now he was home, to resist calling her. But he did resist. He had nothing to offer her right now, only promises. And he knew the first thing she would ask was, ‘Have you stopped gambling?’

  Freddy hadn’t set foot in a casino in the week he’d been home. Proud of himself, and once again determined that he would quit for good, he knew that he had run out of options. He was in the last-chance saloon. If he wanted Max’s help, wanted to get back with his wife, then his habit had to be totally expunged from his life. He had even checked out the Gamblers Anonymous site. The nearest meeting was seven miles away, which would require an expensive taxi. But he didn’t really need a meeting. It would be a bunch of no-hopers droning on about their sad lives. He wasn’t like them: he could do it on his own, prove his father wrong.

  Vinnie had left upwards of ten messages on his phone in the days since their meeting, all begging his son to come back. Freddy had answered none, but when the calls stopped he was haunted by the image of his sick father lying helpless in the Maltese flat, knowing nobody, too ill to summon assistance. What if he dies there? he asked himself. What if he dies and his body rots and nobody finds him for years? How will I feel?

  He couldn’t answer his own question. All he knew was that he wanted never to see the man, dead or alive, ever again.

  To stop himself ringing Lily, Freddy, lying alone on the cold, clean hotel bed in that dreary room, thought of calling his friend Fish. He hadn’t spoken to him in weeks, only a brief chat when he’d first escaped to Malta to tell him what was what. But Fish represented his gambling self. His friend, although recognizing Freddy’s problem and frequently trying to explain the difference between his own love affair with casinos and Freddy’s obsession, had never once refused the offer of an evening at the tables. ‘It’s up to you,’ Fish said. ‘I can’t stop you, so I might as well join you, keep an eye.’

  There was no one he could call, Freddy realized miserably, no one, at least, to whom he could really tell the truth.

  PART III

  Chapter 37

  Something had begun to shift in Lily. It was as a result of talking to Seth. The doctor, although she had not yet revealed her situation to him, had made her realize she was dealing with something much more frightening in Freddy than she had previously thought. Was her husband hiding some past trauma from her? Something so bad he couldn’t speak about it? She had never met his parents, his mother long dead and his father, Vincent, no longer able to recognize his own son. But he had clearly loved them. As she kept going over in her mind her husband’s behaviour since she had first met him, she knew that what he’d done this year wasn’t in the realms of normal. It was wild, self-destructive, she accepted that. And his ability to hide it all from her and everyone else was epic.

  Yet, despite what the naysayers said, Freddy had run an extremely successful recording studio for nearly a decade, a feat in itself. He’d had money, that wasn’t in question. And his love for her, albeit intense, had not felt mad or pathological. He had been highly functioning, successful, and popular with almost everyone. How could that be the behaviour of a seriously damaged man . . . an addict?

  But life went on. She was establishing a rhythm with her work, her Friday visits to the doctor, long walks in the parks and meadows around the city – it had been a beautiful June. She would take her sketchbook on her walks, do thumbnails of people on the bus or in the park, then work them up into pen-and-ink portraits at home. She was getting quite a portfolio together, relishing the time she had never had in her frantic London life to indulge in her lifelong passion.

  Her love for Freddy had in no way diminished, but it wasn’t exactly being fuelled by his silence. Without being able to see him, talk to him, feel his kisses, see his eyes light up with something she said, she sensed the edges of her obsession wearing thin. She wasn’t sure what she would do if he didn’t come back. But she was beginning to realize she might almost survive without him.

  The time had come, she knew, to make decisions. She couldn’t wait for ever without any sign that her husband was even alive. And things were coming to a head with Helen. Yesterday, for instance, her sister had completely lost it. A mistake by David – putting a grey wool cardigan of Helen’s into a hot cotton wash and shrinking it – was blamed on Lily.

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ Helen had exploded when she’d got home from work, obviously tired after a long day. ‘Can’t you wake up and take a bit of care for once in a while?’

  Lily hadn’t had time to defend herself before her sister went on, ‘But then you’ve always had everything you want, of course. You probably can’t even imagine that it matters, having to buy a new sweater.’ She held the offending garment up for Lily to see, the wool matted, uneven at the edges, shrunk to half its normal size. ‘This was one of my favourites. How hard is it to check before you throw it all in together? Honestly, if you can’t be bothered then leave it alone. Let me do the bloody wash.’

  Used to her sister’s temper, but lulled into a false sense of security in recent weeks by the truce to which they’d both tacitly agreed, Lily was surprised by the venom in Helen’s voice.

  ‘It wasn’t me. David did the washing.’ As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. It sounded petty. And now her poor brother-in-law would get it in the neck as well.

  But Helen barely heard. This wasn’t to do with the cardigan, as Lily well knew.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Helen gave a martyred sigh, dropping the sweater back into the white plastic basket on top of the other damp washing, then turned away and sank down on a chair, removing her glasses before rubbing her hands across her eyes. ‘I come home exhausted and I find you sitting here without a care in the world, having nothing to do but a bit of easy-peasy typing all day, a cosy coffee with the doctor, some sketching in the park, and I wonder how long you think this can go on, this – this lifestyle of yours. What are you waiting for, Lily? Yet another knight in shining armour – preferably rich – to come and sweep you off your feet as per usual?’

  Lily, shocked, didn’t have time to reply before Helen, putting her glasses back on, said, ‘You’ve been here for months now, and – don’t get me wrong – I’m perfectly happy to let you stay. But you don’t seem to have any sort of plan.’ Her voice had set
tled into a pained murmur, as if she were musing on the problem rather than speaking to Lily. But now it rose a couple of octaves. ‘I’m just baffled by your lack of ambition. You’ve spent your whole life lying about drawing, waiting for someone else to do the slog, to look after you in the style to which you’ve accustomed yourself.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’ Lily did not want this argument. She was on the back foot, at her sister’s mercy.

  ‘Take Mum and Dad, run ragged with your bloody asthma. It was always “Oh, we can’t do that, can’t go there, Lily’s ill, Lily has to rest, Lily has to go to the hospital. Be quiet, Helen, Lily didn’t sleep. Be careful, Helen, Lily can’t drink milk, can’t run, can’t have feather pillows, can’t sleep in the small room, can’t play with next door’s bloody cat. Don’t overexcite her, Helen. Oh, and Helen, we can’t come to the school play, Lily isn’t well.”’

  The cruel mimic of her mother’s wispy voice was painful to listen to. Snippets of her sister’s resentment had bubbled up in arguments between them over the years and Lily had always had sympathy for her. It must have been a nightmare, growing up with a chronically – often dangerously – ill sibling, who stole every minute of their parents’ time. But she had never heard this drawn-out bitterness before.

  ‘To be honest, I might just as well have been invisible for all the attention I got,’ Helen went on. ‘My only way to get Brownie points was to look after you, and they didn’t even trust me to do that. I lived in dread of you having an attack when we were together, because the first thing Mum would say was, ‘“What did you do to her?”’

  Lily was shocked to see tears in her sister’s eyes. ‘And then you marry Garret and he does everything for you, absolutely everything.’ She glared at Lily. ‘Did you ever pay a bill, raise a mortgage, get the car serviced, worry about your salary? I’d say not. Then Prem picks you up and hands you a cushy job on a plate until Freddy comes along and whisks you off your feet.’ She raised her hands in the air in a gesture of disbelief. ‘You got past fifty, Lily, without lifting a goddamn finger. So why am I surprised you’re incapable of managing on your own now?’

  Lily was too stunned to speak. What her sister was saying was unfair on so many levels. ‘The asthma was hardly my fault.’

  ‘I know it wasn’t your bloody fault,’ Helen snapped, implying, nonetheless, that if it were possible for Lily to have engineered her childhood illness, she would have.

  ‘It must have been hell for you,’ Lily said, determined not to inflame her sister further.

  Helen stared at her as if she were checking Lily’s face for sarcasm. ‘It wasn’t “hell” exactly,’ she said eventually, her voice sulky.

  ‘Pretty bad, though, I’m sure. I had no idea at the time, of course. Children always think that whatever happens to them is normal.’

  Lily sat down next to Helen and put her arm around her shoulders. She felt her sister stiffen, then relax slightly. ‘Listen, I’m so sorry about the past. You’ve always been so amazingly kind to me, Helen. I don’t know what I would have done without you both this summer. You have no idea how grateful I am.’

  Helen didn’t speak.

  ‘But I’ve outstayed my welcome and I’ll get on to it ASAP. I’ve got money saved – thanks to your generosity. I can find a flat somewhere.’

  Her sister sighed, and shook off Lily’s arm in an almost imperceptible gesture. ‘That’s stupid, you spending money on somewhere when we’ve a room here. David would be horrified if he thought I’d made you unwelcome.’

  ‘You haven’t. But you’re right. It’s time to move on, decide what I want to do with the rest of my life. Everyone’s been telling me so.’

  They were both silent, worn out by the row. Lily felt a small knot of panic forming in her gut at the thought of moving out, leaving the safety of her big sister’s care. She couldn’t pay rent on the meagre income from the tapes: she’d have to get at least three times more transcription work, or find a proper job. But maybe she could do it, reject her sister’s cruel assessment of her lifelong dependency. After all, she thought wryly, I have ‘skills’ now.

  *

  She reached the entrance to Seth’s boat. The doctor’s head poked out at the sound of her call and silenced her thoughts.

  ‘Am I glad to see you,’ he said, holding the door open while she clambered aboard and down the steps into the cabin. He was casually dressed in a faded grey T-shirt and jeans, his normally settled face alive with irritation, his wiry dark hair mirroring his mood as it stuck out at all angles from his head. ‘I’ve been fighting with that spreadsheet you sent me. I can’t get the damn text to go down a line in the boxes. I’ve tried everything, but it just keeps merrily on, making the box longer and longer. It’s driving me nuts.’ Without any greeting, he led Lily over to his laptop, where the workbook she’d shed blood over was neatly displayed, showing no signs of her own screeching angst while she had been creating it. Seth held out his hand, palm up. ‘See?’

  Lily peered at the document. ‘Ah. You need to go to Wrap Text.’ She calmly clicked on the icon on the top of the sheet and the text that Seth had typed re-formed miraculously to fit the original box. She felt ridiculously pleased with herself.

  ‘Hallelujah! Fantastic. I knew you’d know,’ he said, clapping her on the back as if she’d discovered the secret of turning lead into gold. ‘Write it down, could you? I’ll forget otherwise.’ He beamed at her. ‘That deserves a strong cup of coffee. Or at least I need a strong cup of coffee. You can have tea, if you like.’

  She laughed, ‘No, strong coffee is what I need too. Been one of those weeks.’

  And as she stood alone, Seth busying himself over by the sink with the coffee machine, she knew she’d been holding on until she was face to face with him, desperate to unload her thoughts on someone who might understand. Someone who might clarify them for her. She didn’t care right at this minute that he was her employer. If he sacked her, he sacked her. She just needed him to listen first.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ he said, handing her a mug of coffee.

  Lily sat on the sofa, Seth opposite in the desk chair. Not knowing where to start, she said, ‘It’s my husband,’ and stopped.

  He didn’t reply, just waited.

  She began again. ‘He disappeared . . .’ The tale, so often gone over in her mind, tumbled from her mouth – she was barely conscious of what she was saying. But telling the doctor rendered her slightly wobbly, Seth’s coffee strong and making her shake. Not wanting to face her sister, she had come out without breakfast, then had to walk fast so as not to be late – she hadn’t taken the bike in case that was construed as more ligging on her part. Now she ran out of steam and fell silent.

  Seth was nodding encouragingly.

  ‘I’ve been sort of waiting, because I didn’t think Freddy was serious about us being apart, not for so long. I thought we’d be back together by now. But . . . I don’t know . . . I haven’t heard a word from him since April. All my family think I’m insane.’

  ‘For sticking with Freddy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And do you feel insane?’

  ‘I didn’t . . .’ She met Seth’s eye. ‘You can’t stop loving someone overnight. But now . . .’

  He nodded.

  ‘I didn’t want him to go. I wanted us to sort it out together. But he just went off when I was asleep and never came back. Everyone says he’s an addict, but that sounds crazy, especially since Kit came round and I saw what a real one looks like. Freddy was just trying to find a way out of the mess he’d got into with the business.’ She paused. ‘He was really successful before that.’

  ‘So he went because he wanted to deal with his addiction on his own?’

  Did Freddy say that?

  ‘He wanted to sort out the financial mess on his own,’ she corrected. ‘There were people he’d borrowed a lot of money from, people who didn
’t take it too kindly when he couldn’t pay them back. Freddy said they’d get nasty . . . although it seems a bit fantastical to me. He didn’t want me to get tangled up in it all.’

  ‘He got into a mess because of the gambling, then? Rather than gambling as a way out of the mess?’

  Both options in Seth’s question sounded just as bad to Lily. Which was it?

  ‘Has he always had a problem?’

  ‘I . . .’ That day when Freddy had told her about it all was so muddled in her mind. She’d been too shocked to take in the details. ‘He said he’d gambled normally before, just it got out of hand in the last year or so.’

  ‘And you didn’t know about it?’

  Lily shook her head. God, I sound like the moron wife who thinks the bodies in the basement were just there by chance, not buried by her serial-killer husband.

  ‘That must have been a terrible shock,’ Seth was saying.

  She gave a short laugh. ‘You could say that.’

  The doctor frowned, didn’t speak for a moment or two. Then: ‘Do you think he’s getting help?’

  ‘I don’t know, I honestly don’t know. But if he’s still gambling, he’ll be on the streets by now, won’t he? Lying in some gutter.’ She could hear her voice rising. ‘He doesn’t have family like I do, just a father who’s got Alzheimer’s. But I can’t help him if he won’t see me.’ She stood, paced up and down, then turned back to Seth. ‘If you met Freddy, you wouldn’t believe any of this. He’s such a strong person, so clever and charismatic. Everyone loves him – you’d love him.’ She stopped speaking because her throat was choked with the sobs she could no longer control and she slumped onto the sofa, burying her face in her hands.

  It was only a moment before Seth was beside her. He didn’t speak, didn’t touch her, just offered her the box of tissues that was on the ledge behind him, underneath the porthole. But his presence was somehow comforting.