The Accidental Wife

by Rowan Coleman

  ‘I’m more of an instinctive kind of guy,’ Jimmy said with a half-smile. ‘Like a Ninja.’

  Catherine’s exasperation bloomed into a reluctant smile and Jimmy found to his immense surprise that he had been holding his breath until it appeared.

  Neither Gemma nor her younger sister were in the playground when the bell rang, which infuriated Eloise, who was determined to firm up a tea arrangement, party or no.

  ‘Where is she?’ she asked, holding on until the last second as her classmates filed in around her. ‘I want you to meet her, Daddy. She’s really nice.’

  ‘Just chill, babe,’ Jimmy said. Catherine had left him to wait with Eloise while she took Leila round to her class, a feat she normally had to juggle on her own, and one that was only just about manageable if she arrived ten minutes earlier than they had today. ‘You’ll see this Gemma in class, won’t you?’

  ‘But I want to go in with her,’ Eloise said, pawing the ground like an impatient colt. ‘So everyone will see we’re best friends.’

  Jimmy looked down at his flame-haired girl. ‘You are everyone’s best friend, Ellie. Look, you’ve got to go in now otherwise I’ll have to sign the late book and your mum will be even more cross with me than she already is.’

  ‘Sorry Mummy’s angry with you, Dad,’ Eloise said, hugging Jimmy around his waist.

  ‘She wasn’t angry as such, just direct, and that’s never a bad thing,’ Jimmy said, edging both of them towards the school entrance, which was now deserted. ‘Besides, she was right. It’s an irritating habit she has.’

  ‘I was thinking on the way here,’ Eloise added, ‘if you got a cold or got sick or something, and were really poorly and you couldn’t stay on the boat any more because you might die, then you’d have to come and stay with us until you got better, wouldn’t you? And then maybe if you liked it, and Mummy liked it, you could stay for ever. And you wouldn’t have to worry about the stinky boat or finding more money to rent a flat.’ Eloise looked up at him, her expression serious. ‘It’s a good idea, isn’t it, Daddy?’

  Jimmy took a breath. ‘But I never get sick,’ he said. ‘I’m as strong as an ox, and I love that stinking old boat, so don’t you worry about me, darling. In you go.’

  Eloise looked disappointed but nevertheless she raced into class, her bright hair flying behind her, calling out over her shoulder, ‘Gemma’s got blonde hair and a blue shiny coat and she usually has some sparkly clips in her hair. If you see her with her mum, will you ask her about tea, please?’

  ‘Deffo,’ Jimmy called after her, although he had no intention of doing any such thing.

  All these year-round tanned women, with their smart hairdos and high heels just to have coffee in, did his head in, even more than the groupies that hung around at his gigs. At least he knew what those women wanted with him, and all it required to deal with them was basic evasive techniques.

  He thought of Janine Seymour, who had cornered him in the pub last night. When it had come to chucking-out time she had thrust him up against a wall and put his hand up her top. But while Janine Seymour had a lot of the qualities required for the CV of a real woman, particularly with her curves and enthusiasm, she still didn’t match up to Jimmy’s exacting standards. Many a young woman, her eyes glittering with vodka and bristling with self-assurance, had pounced on Jimmy after a gig like Janine had, but in the end Jimmy always declined because, despite his reputation as a ladies’ man, fifteen minutes in the ladies’ loo at The Goat pub with Donna Clarke was really all it was based on.

  So making small talk with whatever the name for the posh wives was – glamour mamas, or something – wasn’t on Jimmy’s agenda. He didn’t have the stomach for those women, as brown and as shiny as they might be. He liked real women. Women you could have a laugh with.

  Jimmy had really only ever met one real woman in his life, and he’d married her. Married her, had children with her and then saw himself settling into a life that wasn’t meant for him. Husband, father, even a wage slave. He’d seen his dream slipping away and the more settled he and Catherine became, the less chance he thought he ever had of hearing her tell him she loved him. When he’d gone to the loo holding Donna Clarke’s hand he had wanted to escape Catherine and make her want him all at once.

  Two years later, he realised that somehow he’d failed to do either.

  The story of my bloody life, he thought, his head down.

  ‘My God, Jimmy Ashley!’ Jimmy stopped dead and looked at the blonde woman standing in front of him. Good-looking, nice shiny hair, a long white mac and high-heeled boots under some faded jeans. She was unquestionably one of them, so how on earth did she know his name? He couldn’t see her at one of his gigs somehow, unless she had a thing for slumming it, and besides, he was fairly sure he’d remember sleeping with her and her orthodontist-whitened teeth.

  ‘Run in, love, you’ll just about make it,’ she said to a blonde little girl in a shiny blue coat. ‘Don’t want to sign that book again!’

  Another little kid, one about Leila’s age, was clutching her arm.

  ‘Right then,’ Jimmy said, preparing to leave, but the woman just looked at him expectantly.

  ‘It’s great to see you again after all this time,’ the woman gushed, her face flushing. Jimmy was confused but intrigued.

  ‘Is it?’ he said. ‘I mean, it’s good to see you too …’ There was a long gap where the absence of a name flashed like a neon sign.

  ‘Alison,’ the woman said, her smile fading just a fraction. ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

  Jimmy gazed at her. She looked nice for one of them, though he was fairly certain he had never seen her before in his life. It seemed wrong to offend her right out. He smiled at her, interested to note her blush deepen.

  ‘Honestly I don’t, but I can’t think why. It must have been that serious water-skiing accident that I don’t remember having last year, because only serious amnesia would be a good enough reason not to remember you.’

  To his amazement the woman giggled like a sixteen-year-old, and then there was something about her that seemed familiar.

  ‘I’m Alison,’ she told him as if her name was sure to remind him. ‘Alison James. When you knew me I was Alison –’

  ‘Mrs James?’ The woman looked up as the head teacher popped her head out of the reception door. ‘Any chance of a quick word before you take Amy in? I know you are already running late.’

  ‘Of course,’ Alison said, looking disappointed as she smiled at Jimmy. ‘Time-keeping is not my strong point.’ She reached into her bag and handed Jimmy an invitation. ‘We’re having a house-warming party on Saturday – can you come?’

  ‘Oh, you’re Gemma’s mum,’ Jimmy said, as if that should be reason enough to know who she was. ‘I’m already coming with my wife, well, ex-wife sort of, and my daughters. My Eloise is very keen on your Gemma.’

  ‘You’re Ellie’s dad?’ Alison looked surprised. ‘I’d never pictured you as a dad. I don’t know why, maybe because you look the same. You teach my son guitar – he’s just started at the school? Dominic.’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ Jimmy began to relax. ‘He’s a talented kid. When he’s not sulking. A lot of them sulk these days. They think if they’re not depressed they’ve got no cred. Only thing is, most of them haven’t got anything decent to be depressed about.’

  ‘Mrs James?’ The head appeared again and this time there was a definite edge to her voice.

  ‘Do you know what, Jimmy? It’s been really good to see you,’ Alison said, laying her hand on his arm.

  ‘You too, Alison,’ Jimmy said, because although he still couldn’t place exactly who she was, it was always good to see a good-looking woman who was pleased to see him.

  Alison flashed him another dazzling smile as she trotted towards the head, her smaller girl lingering a step or two behind her.

  It was just as she went into the building that Catherine appeared around the corner at full pelt, running right into Jimmy.


  ‘Jimmy! Why are you still here? Please tell me you haven’t had to sign Eloise into the late book, have you? I’m only still here because Lois would not stop going on about the sodding Easter Fayre. You don’t fancy dressing up in a bunny costume, do you?’

  ‘I bumped into this woman who thought she knew me,’ Jimmy began to tell her, ‘but I don’t know how because she’s this Gemma’s mum, the one whose party we’re all going to.’

  ‘Oh, was she nice?’ Catherine asked, although she clearly didn’t want a reply as she was walking backwards towards the gate as she talked. ‘Anyway, I’ve got to get to work. I have three minutes to make it down the high street. I’ll measure you up for that suit, OK?’

  ‘I’m off to work too,’ Jimmy called after her as she sprinted off at full pelt. ‘Laying down a demo today,’ he added in a lower voice as the playground had now entirely emptied of all people with purpose and direction. ‘Today’s the day. This is the day that’s going to change my life. This is the one.’

  Alison practically skipped her way to the gym to take up the new membership.

  It was foolish, she knew, literally idiotic, to feel so happy about bumping into a man who clearly had no idea who she was. But he’d had no idea who she was with some serious charm and a sexy smile. So what if he didn’t remember that she was the girl who used to lean forward on the edge of the stage in the hope he’d look right down her top? He’d never noticed that girl anyway. But he’d noticed her now, a grown woman. He noticed her and she was fairly sure he had flirted with her too. It might have been the first time a man had actually flirted with her since the early 1990s.

  That, coupled with the tentative smile on Amy’s face as Mrs Woodruff had led her by the hand into class, put her in exactly the right mood for her one-on-one Pilates class with her new teacher.

  ‘Hello there,’ a woman about her age smiled at her and held out her hand as she walked into the private studio she had booked. ‘Mrs James, is it? I’m Kirsty Robinson. I’m going to be teaching you Pilates.’

  ‘Right,’ Kirsty said. ‘From that position step one foot forward and we’ll stretch out your hip flexors.’

  ‘So?’ Alison asked her with some effort as she stretched her left leg behind her. ‘Are you going to see him again?’ Her new teacher had been regaling her with the details of her love life for the last half an hour, something that Alison found most entertaining, not to mention diverting.

  ‘I think so,’ Kirsty considered. ‘We had a nice time in the pub, and he is a great kisser. I let him walk me home and everything, and he didn’t even try to invite himself in for sex, which I was slightly disappointed by, even though I would have definitely said no because I hardly ever do sex on the first date with men I like. But he didn’t call me over the weekend and today when I saw him he was playing it cool as if we hadn’t spent half an hour with our tongues down each other’s throat on Friday night. I still think he likes me, though. And if he doesn’t then I’ll just revert to Plan A until I’ve got over him.’

  ‘Ignore him and pretend nothing happened,’ Alison confirmed as she followed Kirsty’s movements in the mirror.

  ‘Exactly.’ Kirsty grinned at her. ‘OK, relax into child pose and then roll yourself slowly and carefully up into a standing position, working each vertebra.’ She and Alison rose in unison in front of the full-length mirror.

  ‘Shake yourself out and you’re done,’ Kirsty told her.

  ‘Thanks, I really enjoyed that,’ Alison said warmly.

  ‘Me too. It’s good to have a client that’s nice and not some stuffy old cow who thinks I’m one of her servants.’

  ‘I really hope you get things sorted with Sam and that he asks you out again.’

  ‘Well, he will or he won’t,’ Kirsty said with a sigh, catching sight of herself in the mirror and giving herself an admiring glance. ‘It’s not the end of the world if he doesn’t. Yes, I’m in love with him. But look at me: I’m gorgeous and still young. I’ll love again.’

  Alison laughed. ‘And it’s better to shop around than buy the first thing you see and find out fifteen years later you don’t really want it any more,’ she said completely out of the blue, then paused for a moment as she heard the words that she had just said out loud for the first time.

  ‘You are so right,’ Kirsty smiled. ‘You should meet my neighbour. She got married in her twenties to some guy she went to school with, and course it didn’t work, and now it’s like she’s stuck in a time warp. Can’t go back, can’t go forwards. I’m trying to crowbar her out of it, but it’s a challenge, let me tell you. So how long have you been married?’

  Alison pursed her lips and looked down at her painted toenails.

  ‘Married fourteen, together nearly sixteen years,’ she said sheepishly.

  ‘So you bought the first thing you saw in the shop then?’ Kirsty laughed.

  ‘More like shoplifted him out from under my best friend’s nose,’ Alison said. ‘But you know, when you’re seventeen you don’t really think.’

  ‘Well, it’s obviously worked out for you,’ Kirsty said. ‘So tell me, what’s your secret?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Alison said with a shrug. ‘We implement Plan A a lot.’

  As she picked up her bag she pulled out her last few remaining invitations. ‘Listen, we’re having a house-warming party and –’

  ‘Oh, I already know about that,’ Kirsty said. ‘All the sports centre staff are coming. Even Sam.’

  ‘Well, maybe while you’re not ignoring him you’ll have a drink with me. I don’t know anyone in the town yet and the thought of having two hundred strangers in my new house is slightly intimidating.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ Kirsty said. ‘And I’ll introduce you to my neighbour. She’s a bit like a young Miss Marple but once you get to know her she’s pretty cool, and then you’ll have two friends and I’ll know two people to lead astray instead of one.’

  Alison grinned at her. ‘I’m perfectly capable of leading myself astray, thank you very much. I’ve lived my life by it.’

  Chapter Nine

  ‘ARE YOU SURE that you can plug all of those fairy lights into my house and it won’t explode?’ Alison asked the Fairy Light Man as he plugged yet another extension into yet another extension on the morning of the party.

  He scowled at her. ‘Yes, I’m completely sure,’ he said, his voice a weary monotone.

  Maybe it was because in his daily life he was commonly referred to as the Fairy Light Man, Alison thought. Maybe that gave him a complex, challenged his masculinity, perhaps that was why he was so surly and ungrateful for the several hundred pounds they was paying him to plug in a few lights. Very charitably, she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  ‘OK, well, I’ll leave it up to you then,’ she said, trying to get back into his good books in case he shorted the fuses just to spite her. ‘You’re the professional. I don’t know anything, me!’

  He turned his back on her and resumed plugging more things into more things, which Alison took as a sign that he agreed with her self-assessment. In a flash of Fairy Light Man insight she could picture just exactly what he thought of her: a spoiled rich housewife who treated all tradesmen like servants and still believed that the working classes were born to serve her. Maybe that was what she was like, a little bit now, even if her upbringing on the immaculately kept but down-to-earth council estate couldn’t have been more different. Her life had transformed with Marc, and Alison supposed that it was inevitable that she would change too, because now she was new money and that was the way she often sounded and acted, even if she didn’t truly feel that way.

  Sometimes she just couldn’t stop herself. She’d hear her own voice, and even as she was talking she’d be thinking, who is that stuck-up stupid cow? That’s not really me, is it? Invariably she was disappointed to find out that it was.

  It had been a challenging week to get to this point and Alison had had a hard time keeping up the good mood her Pilates class had left her in
on Monday. The first set of caterers she thought she’d miraculously managed to book for Saturday let her down, citing some lame excuse like a death in the family and referring her on to a friend’s brand-new only-just-started family-run business called Home Hearths.

  From that moment Alison had felt that luck was not on her side. She had been well aware that any caterer available for booking a scant five days before an event was not exactly going to be top of the range, but by that time she had very little choice but to go with the family company. She’d even booked them blind without any tasting or menu discussion. Alison had told them she wanted canapés for two hundred people and they told her they’d provide the waiting staff. That, as far as Alison was concerned, was as good as it was likely to get.

  Marc had not been around for almost the whole week. He’d been at the office until past eleven every night, working on getting the new showroom up and running. If Alison wasn’t asleep by the time he got in then she found she was in too bad a mood to make small talk with him, something he always annoyingly wanted to do, regardless of the hour, because he’d be as high as a kite and wouldn’t care that the children and the low-level bone-splintering radioactive stress of her day had drilled her into the ground. But it wasn’t just the contrast in their days that infuriated her: him high-flying and go-getting, making things happen and living the dream he seemed to be able to believe in so entirely, despite considerable evidence to the contrary; and she, who literally ran just to stand still, putting in thirty minutes on the treadmill at the gym because she was determined not to let her body look one second older than it absolutely had to, arguing with her children over yoghurt vs. fromage frais, withstanding the barrage of passive aggression that radiated out from her son whenever he was in a room, a feat that was only just eclipsed by the constant nagging fear about what he was doing whenever he wasn’t.

  It wasn’t the unjust disparity in their lives, even though Alison knew that her lifestyle was privileged and rare. No, it was her husband’s sheer bloody thoughtless optimism that had infected him ever since they decided to come back to Farmington that nearly drove her to murder him.