Ellie emits a muffled sob as Max tightens his arms around her vulnerable shoulders.
I’m not sure I could be any more grateful to Max right now. All the frustration and the resentment and the sense of betrayal about last night have evaporated and I feel guilty for doubting him, for being so angry with him, for thinking, even for a second, even in the heat of the moment, that he wouldn’t do his best for Ellie. He’s Max. He’ll always do his best for her.
‘I know how hard this is for you, Ellie. But you’re doing really, really well, sweetheart, and I’m so, so proud of you. And I’m going to use all my special daddy powers to make sure you’re okay. Because you’re the most important thing in the world to me – my special girl – you know that, don’t you?’
Max rests his head on top of Ellie’s, his fingers gently stroking her forehead.
‘So, munchkin, about last night. I don’t want you to worry about what happened. It’s just an accident and no one’s to blame for an accident. But will you promise me that if anything like that happens again, wherever you are, whether at home or here or Nanna’s, you’ll let someone know straight away?’
Ellie nods her head as she lets Max wipe away the last of her tears.
‘There’s one more promise I need from you, sweetheart. Whenever you’re sad about Mummy, will you come and tell me? And if I’m not around, and there’s no one else you want to talk to about her, will you promise me that you’ll close your eyes and picture you and Mummy in that photograph, and remember just how much she loved you?’
Ellie smiles, sniffing away her grief and raising her head to look at Max with a maturity far beyond her years.
‘Okay, Daddy. I promise.’
‘Good girl. Now, why don’t you go and wash your face and get your things together and I’ll see you downstairs. I think we deserve a Sunday afternoon on the sofa with a duvet, a movie and possibly even one of my special ice cream sundaes. What do you think?’
Ellie grins and bounces off the bed towards the bathroom.
Max makes his way downstairs and back to the scene of the earlier argument, where Joan is in the process of laying out frozen Yorkshire puddings on a baking tray.
‘I’m sorry, Mum. You were right. It wasn’t nothing and I shouldn’t have flown off the handle at you. But I’ve had a good chat with her and I think she’ll be fine now.’
‘Good, I’m glad. You know I don’t like it when we have words. Now, are you sure you don’t want to stay for lunch? There’s plenty here.’
‘Thanks, but not today. I think Ellie and I need some time alone and, anyway, I’ve promised her an afternoon of ice cream and movies now.’
‘Right you are. But I haven’t had a chance to ask – did you have a nice time last night? You look as though you didn’t get much sleep.’
Max blushes and I feel the jealousy beginning to creep back in.
‘Yeah, it was a really good night, thanks. Lots of fun.’
‘So was it the same young lady you’ve seen before? Or a new one altogether?’
‘You make it sound like I’ve got a whole harem of women at my disposal. Yes, it was the same one I’ve seen a few times lately. Her name’s Eve. I think you’d like her.’
Please stop there, Max. We don’t need your mum to like her. We don’t need your mum even to be thinking about her just yet. It’s still early days, remember?
‘Eve. What a pretty name. And what does she do?’
‘She’s a head teacher, in a state school up in Finsbury Park. She’s pretty impressive, actually.’
I hear the tone of faux-nonchalance in his voice and can tell he’s trying to minimize the pride in his words, but it’s too potent for him to conceal it entirely.
A toxic air of rivalry blows in my direction again, not just the emotional rivalry and the sexual jealousy, but the professional envy too; the inescapable feeling that Eve’s precocious success eclipses my own achievements and the painful awareness that I’ll now never have the chance to accomplish all that I hoped.
‘A teacher? So you two must have a lot in common? She sounds perfect, Max. When might we get to meet her? Why don’t you bring her over for dinner one night?’
A meet-the-parents dinner already? Isn’t that just a little premature? I don’t remember such a great hurry for me to meet Max’s parents when we were first dating. In fact, if I remember correctly – which I’m pretty certain I do – it was over six months before that introduction took place. Why the rush now to envelop Eve into the Myerson family fold?
‘It’s a bit early for that, Mum. And, anyway, there’s Ellie to think about. I haven’t said anything to her about Eve and I don’t want to yet.’
‘I wasn’t suggesting you bring Ellie too. We could have a grown-up dinner, just the four of us. How about next time Ellie’s at Celia’s for the weekend? What’s that – in about a fortnight’s time?’
It’s hard not to find Joan’s proposal galling; the suggestion that my mum babysit our daughter in order that my husband is free to bring his new girlfriend round to meet the possible future in-laws. As tactless proposals go, it ranks pretty highly.
‘It’s in three weeks. I don’t know, Mum. Don’t you think it’s a bit weird, bringing her round to meet you so soon?’
‘Not at all. We’re all adults. No one’s suggesting you’re going to marry the girl. It would just be nice to meet her. She sounds very interesting.’
So now she’s interesting as well as perfect. I wish Joan would have the decency at least to try and disguise her obvious excitement at the prospect of Max’s new girlfriend.
‘I’ll think about it. I’m not making any promises.’
That’s not really the reassurance I was hoping for. Last time Max told his mum he wasn’t making any promises, he was out on an internet date a month later.
Ellie skips into the room, her face now dry of tears and free of blotches.
‘Can we go and watch a movie now, Daddy? I’m ready for ice cream.’
Before I find out the answer to Ellie’s almost certainly rhetorical question, the clouds begin to gather beneath me and I know it’s only a matter of seconds before they’ll separate me from the living world once more. I’m not sure I mind too much today. I’m exhausted and confused and right now I can’t seem to make up my mind whether to be grateful to Max for being such a wonderful father, for dealing so sensitively with Ellie and for telling her such beautiful stories about our life together, or whether to be angry with him for even contemplating the possibility of another woman usurping my place in our family.
I always thought that life dealt us a convoluted hand of conflicting emotions to play with. Who knew that death was going to be this complicated too?
Chapter 14
My lonely world gives way to the living, revealing that I’m back in Joan and Ralph’s house and that I’ve returned just in time to gatecrash the cosiest of dinner parties. It’s a scene that’s painfully familiar to me, one in which I’ve participated a hundred, two hundred times before, and yet today the fourth chair, the one positioned with its back to the door and its outlook on to the garden because, Joan says, the guest should always be afforded the best view, is taken not by me but by the woman who appears to be slipping into my shoes with disconcerting ease.
Eve congratulates Joan on the fish pie they’re all tucking in to, a dish which was always my favourite too, and I see Max slip a hand under the tablecloth – the antique lace tablecloth that only ever made an appearance in my presence on Christmas Day – and, I’m guessing by her smile, squeeze Eve’s thigh underneath.
‘You must be very clever, petal, to be a head teacher at your age. In my day, you had to be on the verge of retirement before they’d give you that honour.’
Petal. That was always Ralph’s name for me. Now he’s calling her it instead. I look at Eve’s face, radiant in the candlelight that I’ve never seen used in Joan and Ralph’s house before, and I can’t deny that she’s infinitely more suited to the epithet than I ever was.
‘Well, I suppose things have changed quite a bit, particularly in the last ten years or so. Teaching had such a bad reputation for a while that I think they were crying out for people who genuinely want to contribute something to the profession.’
‘Discipline. That’s the problem in schools these days. And that’s why they have trouble recruiting people who want to work in them. Young people have been allowed to run amok. We see it, every day, at the bus stop at the end of the road, don’t we Ralph?’
Max rolls his eyes at Eve who responds with a conspiratorial smile. It’s so early on in their relationship – what must it be, a couple of months? – and yet already they seem to have perfected the art of silent communication; those surreptitious looks in collective gatherings employed to strengthen the pair bond, secure its boundaries and protect it from invaders.
It’s what I used to have with Max. Except now I’m the one facing the most dangerous of intruders and I’m completely devoid of any defences at all.
‘You must be ever so good with children, Eve. I bet you have a really natural flair with them. You’ve got that air about you, I can just tell.’
Joan’s loaded declaration is concluded with an encouraging smile in search of affirmation, as though eager for confirmation that Eve lives up to the already elevated image Joan has of her.
‘I do love being around young people, it’s true. I find them really energizing, even the troublesome ones. I suppose it helps to remember that we were all their age once.’
Joan laughs, approbation radiating from her face, and I can see that Eve’s won herself a fan before they’ve even finished the main course.
‘Well, you know, sometimes I do find it funny that Max ended up in teaching after all the trouble he gave his teachers when he was younger.’
Eve’s eyes light up with playful curiosity.
‘Oh, really? Was he a bit of a handful then?’
‘A handful? I’ll say. He seemed to think school rules were put in place for nothing more than him to break them. When I think of all the times we had the school on the phone to complain about his latest antics. Honestly, there was a time when I used to dread the phone ringing in case it was one of his teachers on the other end again. I know you wouldn’t believe it to look at him now but he was a proper little tearaway.’
Eve grins at Max who shrugs his shoulders with amused resignation. He’s played this part before, at least once.
‘So what kind of things did he get up to?’
‘What didn’t he might be a better question. Ralph, tell Eve the story about the swimming pool.’
‘Which story? The one with the dye or the one where he ended up naked?’
‘Really, Dad. I’m sure Eve doesn’t want to hear any of this.’
‘Are you kidding? I want to hear all of it.’
Of course she does. Why wouldn’t she? I remember when I heard these stories for the first time too, almost certainly on one of my early visits to the Myerson household as well; I remember my surprise at Max’s misspent youth and, more than that, the sense of familial inclusion that accompanied the telling of such tales.
‘Well, there was the time he managed to get his hands on a couple of cans of red water dye – I don’t think we know to this day where he got it from, do we, Joan? – and decided it would be a good idea to empty the lot into the school swimming pool.’
‘You’re joking? What happened?’
‘What happened was that the pool looked liked someone had been murdered in it. When the caretaker turned up on Monday morning, he assumed some God-awful crime had been committed over the weekend and called the police. You were lucky not to be expelled over that one, Max.’
‘I know, Dad. You’ve been telling me that for the past twenty-five years.’
Max is feigning fatigue at having these stories relayed yet again but I can see in the wryness of his smile that he’s enjoying this opportunity to be teased in front of Eve, for her to be privy to another dimension of his past, for his parents to share these private histories with her.
‘So weren’t you punished at all?’
‘He got a one-day suspension and a fortnight of after-school litter duty. You thought he should have got more, didn’t you, Ralph? But he was bright, you see, and it was just before they were doing their mock exams and the school needed him to boost their overall grades. That’s the only way you got away with it, Max – by the skin of your teeth.’
Joan raises her eyebrows with an air of maternal forbearance, as though Max is still a teenager and she’s just hung up the phone to the school yet again.
‘And what about the naked incident? That one sounds intriguing.’
‘You don’t want to know. Thanks, Mum – I think we can leave the school anecdotes there for today. Plenty of opportunity for Eve to hear the horror stories another time.’
Max rubs an affectionate hand up and down Eve’s arm and for a second their eyes lock in mutual mischief. I see Joan clock the gesture and proffer a surreptitious, sideways smile to Ralph, who beams conspicuously back at her.
This is all disarmingly cosy.
‘The funny thing is, Eve, although Max had a bit of a naughty streak throughout his teens, he was never a problem at home. He’s always had such a strong sense of family, right since he was little. What was it you used to say when you were growing up, Max? That when you got married you wanted to have five sons so that you could manage your own five-a-side football team. Five sons. Can you imagine it?’
And there, without even knowing it, Joan provokes my guilt all over again. Five sons. His very own mini football team. By the time we actually got married, of course, that childhood fantasy had long since disappeared into the youthful ether. But one son. He’d have loved just one. And the thought that it won’t be me, that it may be someone else, that it may even be Eve who one day gives him what he always wanted is a possible future I’m not yet ready to consider.
‘Five sons, really? And do you still have ambitions to spawn your own football team?’
My heart would skip a beat if it had any left to miss. Max looks slightly taken aback as though this isn’t a conversation he expected to be having with Eve in front of his parents, but he manages to camouflage any sense of embarrassment with a self-deprecating chuckle.
‘I think with the benefit of rational adult thought, five’s probably a few too many. I don’t know, to be honest. I’m just very grateful to have Ellie. Even having one child feels like a blessing.’
A heavy silence falls on the group and as I look around the room I notice a strange expression on Eve’s face; it’s a complex, confused look, a mask of social conviviality behind which is something strained, something uncomfortable, something sad even. I wonder whether Max’s half-hearted response is a disappointment to her, whether her expectations have been tempered, whether she was hoping for greater confirmation that Max might envisage a future that included more than a single child.
I wonder just how far ahead into this relationship Eve is thinking.
It’s Ralph who breaks the silence.
‘I bet you never gave your mum and dad any trouble, did you, petal? Not like our Max did?’
Eve emerges from the privacy of whatever thoughts she was musing on, a residue of preoccupation still lingering behind her eyes, and turns to smile diffidently at Ralph.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that. I’m sure all teenagers are a worry to their parents in one way or another.’
‘But your mum and dad must be so proud of you now. Look at you. You’re young, beautiful, clever, talented, you’ve got a smashing career. I know if you were my little girl I wouldn’t be able to stop bragging about you to anyone who’d listen.’
Ralph’s words sting me like the swarm of a thousand bees. I hadn’t prepared myself for this. I’ve only ever contemplated how I might feel about Max and Ellie having someone new in their lives. I haven’t really thought about the prospect of another woman taking up residence with my wider family. But hearing Ra
lph speak to Eve with such admiration, such esteem, such warmth, I’m pierced by a new instrument of loss. Ralph’s been the closest person I’ve had to a father for the past decade, the only paternal presence in my life since my own dad died, and I don’t think I can bear him transferring his affections to her. Not to her. Not yet.
Not for the first time since Eve entered our lives, I’m overcome by a woeful sense of professional inadequacy. I spent fifteen years of my life doing a job that I enjoyed, that I believed had some merit, that I think I did well, but now all that seems insignificant in comparison to Eve’s meteoric rise and precocious success. Now all I can think about is all that I didn’t achieve, all that I didn’t have time to achieve, all that I assumed, somewhere in my mind, I’d be able to achieve in the decades I trusted were still ahead of me.
Physically beautiful, professionally successful, kind, calm and charming; there’s no denying the fact that Eve outclasses me in every conceivable category. And, in truth, she’d be everything I’d wish for Max if only I were ready to wish for anything beyond a little more time in remembrance of marriages past.
Right now, Max’s previous marriage is clearly the last thing on his mind. He’s grinning with pride. But Eve’s smile is less convincing, tentative even.
‘I’m not sure about that. I’m just lucky that I really love what I do, I think.’
‘Oh, come on, petal. There’s no need to be so modest. I bet your parents were over the moon when you told them you were going to be a head teacher. I know how proud we were when Max got his deputy headship.’
There’s a lengthy silence which edges just a fraction too far over the line of social acceptability and I can sense the collective awkwardness from up here.
‘I … I don’t really see my parents.’
The Dead Wife's Handbook Page 16