The Third Wife

by Lisa Jewell

  “Fine,” said Cat. “Eat up.”

  Cat regarded her own plate of food. There was over half a portion of chips left and all the best bits of the chicken, but suddenly she didn’t have the stomach for it. She concentrated, instead, on collating the children and their possessions, including, hidden beneath a crumpled napkin, Otis’s phone. Otis normally guarded his phone like a Rottweiler. It was always in his hand, in his pocket, under his pillow. She slipped it into her handbag and led the children home.

  35

  There. There she was. My God. It was actually her, after all these months.

  She was wearing a fitted white cotton dress, black wedge-heeled sandals and a denim jacket. Her golden hair was combed straight and worn down, pushed back from her face by a pair of oversized black sunglasses. She was chatting to someone on her phone as she approached her office, laughing and strolling, clearly a personal call, not a business call. Adrian got to his feet and threaded his way through the traffic. She didn’t see him at first; she’d pulled over by the entrance to her office to finish off her call, leaning backwards against a wall, her legs crossed in front of her, a sudden blast of sunshine illuminating her, causing her to lower her sunglasses and twist slightly away from him. Adrian pretended to use his own phone while he waited for her to finish her call and then, as she turned back, a smile still on her face, he stood before her, smiled and said, “Hello, Jane.”

  She clutched her chest. “Shit,” she said, “you made me jump.”

  She pulled up her sunglasses and there they were, those remarkable, peculiar eyes of hers.

  “Sorry,” he said, “I’ve just been waiting for you to finish your phone call. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “What on earth are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been following the trail of your phone. The phone you left in my flat.”

  “Oh,” she said, “right. Well, I really don’t need the phone. It wasn’t mine anyway, I borrowed it from someone. They’re really not bothered about it.”

  “Well, that’s just as well since I ended up giving it back to the woman who had it three owners back.”

  She smiled nervously, clearly struggling to make sense of the situation.

  “So,” she began, her eyes turning constantly to the office building to her left, as if to make her intentions obvious. “What can I—?”

  “I’d like to talk to you,” he said. “About Maya.”

  He watched her carefully, looking for signs of recognition. And he saw it, a flicker of her eyes, a parting of her lips, a mental recalibration. “Who?” she said feebly.

  “Maya,” he repeated. “My wife? The one who died?”

  “Right,” she said, feigning confusion.

  “Have you got time,” he said, “for a quick drink? A cup of coffee?”

  “Look,” she said, “I really don’t understand. I didn’t know your wife . . .”

  “They’re not expecting you back just yet. And honestly, I only need five minutes. We could sit over there if you like.” He pointed at the bench on the other side of the road.

  She looked at the bench and then back at her office block. He could see her hand inside her bag, her fingertips tracing the edges of her cigarette packet. He could see her resolve separating into two parts: the part that wanted a cigarette, that wanted to get rid of whatever it was she’d been wanting to do or say to him when she first came to his flat back in March; and the part that wanted to disappear into her office block and defer this thing indefinitely.

  He stared at her impassively. He didn’t want to scare her away. “Five minutes,” he said again.

  Her hand came out of her bag and onto her hip. “No,” she said. “I’m sorry. I really do need to get back to work. But listen . . .” She stopped and softened. “Your family, how are you all? How are your beautiful children?”

  “They’re OK,” he said, feeling that there was a right and a wrong answer to this question and that the key to opening up Abby’s secrets rested in answering it correctly. “But there’s been some unsettling developments, regarding Maya. I think we’re all feeling a bit, you know, shaky.”

  Bingo. Her hand left her hip and hung loosely at her side. Her shoulders slumped. Her face lost its stiff mask of defensiveness. She sighed. “I could meet you later. If you like.”

  “How do I know you’ll turn up?”

  “I will. I promise you.”

  “So, you do know something?” he said. “About Maya?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you’re agreeing to meet me. Why would you unless you knew something?”

  “I am agreeing to meet up with you. You obviously want to talk to me. We’ll work out the rest later. OK?” Her voice was soft and her hand rested on his sleeve. He was reminded of the impression she’d made on him all those months ago, her warmth and wisdom, her kindness and beauty.

  “Yes,” he said, his hand squeezing her upper arm. “Of course.”

  “Meet me at seven, at the Blue Posts in Rupert Street. Do you know it?”

  “Yes,” said Adrian, “yes, I’m sure I’ve been there before. I’ll find it, anyway.”

  “I’ll see you later,” she said.

  “Thank you,” said Adrian. “I’m very grateful.”

  “Well,” she said, her smile faltering, her hand going to the strap of her handbag, “maybe you should wait to hear what I have to tell you before you feel too grateful to me.”

  She smiled again, uncertainly, and then turned and headed into the office block, the door opening and closing behind her with a buzz and a click.

  36

  Luke kept the shaggy helmet of Otis’s hair in his line of vision for a short while after he disappeared from the restaurant. Otis had started out at a brisk pace and then, as he neared the corner of the road, he’d begun to run. Luke picked up his pace to keep up with him and tore around the corner, nearly knocking over an elderly couple as he did so. He saw Otis’s head bobbing, weaving urgently through the crowd. All the way up the road and around the corner he kept Otis in view. And then suddenly he was gone. Just like that.

  He rounded the next corner, his heart pounding now with dread. It was Charlotte. That’s who Otis had talked to on the bench outside Angel. It was the same day that Charlotte had turned up outside his office, unannounced, when they’d gone for a beer and she’d showed him photos of the bridesmaid dress she liked. Mere hours earlier she’d been telling his little brother that Maya had been in love with another man. Why? Why was she telling a twelve-year-old boy? And more importantly, had she told him who the other man was?

  Luke found himself in a street of terraced houses, empty apart from a woman pushing a pram, and two teenage girls heading in the opposite direction. He stood at the junction, looking all around him. It was the summer holidays. There were children as far as the eye could see. But none of them was Otis.

  He kept to the High Street. He didn’t think Otis would take a side turning; this wasn’t his immediate locale, not an area he would be familiar with. He would be more likely to stick to the main roads.

  Luke turned right figuring that Otis would be unlikely to cross a busy junction in a hurry. He called Cat to tell her that he couldn’t find him, to tell her to phone him on his mobile, but Cat said Otis had left his phone in the restaurant, that she had it with her. Then he told her to log on to Facebook and put a message on Otis’s wall asking his friends to look out for him. And then to send a text to everyone in his address book. “Shall I call Caroline?” she asked.

  “No,” Luke said, “let’s wait a while. He’s bound to head for a friend, or for home. Let’s see what happens when the messages go out. Let’s not freak her out just yet.”

  Luke walked for over two miles during the course of the next forty-five minutes. He walked until the soles of his feet had started to chafe against the insoles of his deck shoes bec
ause he was wearing no socks. He walked until he was lost and had to call Cat again to find out how to get back to Caroline’s. When he finally got there he was sweating so much that he had dark ovals under the arms of his shirt.

  “Well?” he said as Cat opened the door to him. “Anything?”

  Cat shook her head and started to cry.

  “Come on,” said Luke, guiding her into the front room by her elbow and lowering her into the sofa, “come on. Don’t cry. It’s OK. He’s twelve years old; he’s not a baby. He’ll be fine.”

  “Yes, but he was really upset. What if he makes a bad decision? Or what if he does something stupid?”

  “He won’t do anything stupid. He’s a bright boy. He’s just keeping his head down until the storm blows over.”

  “I think we should call Caroline now,” she said. “It’s been an hour. Oh God, I feel sick.” She made the call and then switched off her phone.

  They both turned at the sound of Beau and Pearl running down the stairs together. “We’ve been trying to hack into his Facebook page but we can’t,” said Pearl.

  “We’ve tried about a hundred different passwords,” breathed Beau.

  “Loads of people have replied to your post on his wall though,” said Pearl, “everyone’s really worried about him.”

  “But nobody knows where he is.”

  “Although a girl in his class called Hannah said she reckons she saw him in Swanage about an hour ago.”

  “Which is completely stupid, because he was in Nando’s with us an hour ago.”

  “And I looked up Swanage,” said Pearl, “and it’s about three hours on the train.”

  “Good work,” said Cat, squeezing the back of Beau’s leg. “Keep at it. Let me know the minute someone says something helpful.”

  They both nodded and ran back up the stairs to the study.

  “Dad!” said Cat. “I haven’t told Dad.”

  “I’ll call him,” said Luke.

  Cat nodded.

  “Dad,” said Luke, when his father answered his phone. “It’s me. Listen, Cat and I took the kids out for tea. We got into a bit of a row with Otis and he stormed off. I tried to follow but I lost him. He’s been gone for over an hour. And he didn’t take his phone with him.”

  There was a dead silence on the line.

  “Dad?”

  “Sorry. I mean— Shit. Does Caroline know?”

  “Yes, she’s on her way home right now.”

  “Jesus. What were you arguing about?”

  “Well, it wasn’t an argument exactly.”

  “Well, what was it then, exactly?”

  Luke paused. “Where are you? Can you come over?”

  Now Adrian paused. “I was just leaving the office.” He sounded strangely reticent.

  “Then get over here.”

  “Yes”—a beat too slow—“yes. Sure. I’ll see you in thirty minutes.”

  “Yeah,” said Luke sourly, “if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “It’s not that, Luke. It’s . . . it’s that Jane woman. I’ve found her. I’m supposed to be meeting her in an hour. She’s going to tell me what she knows about Maya.”

  “Ah,” said Luke. “Can you reschedule?”

  “No. I haven’t got her number. She hasn’t got mine.”

  “Ah,” said Luke again. “Well, I’m here. Cat’s here. Caroline’s on her way. But make sure you’ve got a good signal. OK? If I call you and you don’t answer I’ll break both your arms. Seriously.”

  “Of course,” said Adrian urgently, “bloody hell, of course. If there’s no signal I’ll make sure we go somewhere where there is a signal. OK? Call me constantly.”

  Luke was about to say good-bye and then he stopped and said, “Dad, do you have any idea where Otis might be? I mean, he’s your son. Does anything occur to you?”

  He could hear the almost silent exhalation of disappointment on the other end of the line. “No,” said Adrian, “no. I truly do not have a clue.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Luke, “I didn’t really think you would.”

  37

  April 2011

  Another holiday, another carefully chosen cottage in one of England’s picture-perfect corners. It felt more like summer than spring. The temperature had been in the midseventies for days; the tender spring grass was already frazzled and brown; Maya had a tan mark under her wedding band.

  The drive up to Suffolk had been a tonic; the sight of London fading away through the windows of a rental car had brought about a sense of release. The thought of not being in that flat, of not going through the motions, of breaking the weird patterns of the past few weeks since the drunken pronouncement of her night out with Sara. She hadn’t thought too hard about the prospect of what lay ahead, about seeing Luke and being watched and being judged, about the as yet uncommitted faux pas that would be reported back to her in cruel, exacting detail upon her return to London. For now she was just glad to be getting away.

  She sat now, reading, upon the grass outside the French windows of her and Adrian’s ground-floor bedroom. She was wearing a black halter-neck bikini top and black shorts. In the distance she could hear the smaller children dashing around with the dogs, and behind her she could hear the sound of people arriving, the crunch of gravel, the banging of car doors. She put her book down by her side, folded open against its spine, and sat up. She recognized the sound of Luke’s voice. She hadn’t heard his voice for a long time. It filled her with something mad and stupefying. She heard Susie’s voice, too, loud and enthused. Then she heard another voice. A shrill voice. A silly, carefree voice. She recognized it and immediately stood up, slid her feet into warm flip-flops, pulled on a T-shirt and headed around the walls of the rambling house to the front door. Adrian and Susie greeted each other warmly and then turned to smile at Luke and his companion: Mum and Dad. It always surprised Maya how right her husband looked when he stood side by side with one of his ex-wives, how each woman complemented him in some unique and distinctive way. With Susie it was the scruffiness, the slightly shabby clothes, the outgrown hair and large feet and hands. With Caroline it was the height, the substance, the imposing presence. And with her? Well, they both had two arms and two legs. But that was about as far as it went.

  “Hello!” She swallowed her discomfort and walked towards Luke. Then she turned to his companion, to the unannounced and unexpected guest. “Hello, Charlotte,” she said, leaning in to kiss each shiny, puppy-fatted cheek. “We weren’t expecting you! How lovely!”

  She tried not to look at Luke but couldn’t help a brief sideways glance, just enough to theorize that maybe Charlotte’s being here wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind himself. According to the family grapevine Luke and Charlotte had split up last month. Again. Sources reported that Charlotte had taken it very badly. Sources also reported that this was it, over for good. No more off and on. Luke was adamant and his mind was set.

  “No!” said Charlotte, echoing Maya’s forced jollity. “It was all a bit last-minute! I literally walked into the pub last night and there was Luke, completely out of the blue, and literally a few hours later he’d invited me up to Suffolk! I mean, literally!”

  Susie, Adrian and Maya all nodded at Charlotte and made noises of muted wonder.

  “Well,” said Adrian, “that’s great. Really lovely to have you here, Charlotte. Really.”

  “I promise I’ll pull my weight. I’ll wash up and cook and all that business. I’m not just here for a free holiday!”

  “No!” said Adrian. “No. Of course you’re not. And even if you were, nobody would particularly care. We’re pretty easygoing.”

  “Yes, I suppose you need to be to have these kinds of holidays. Especially in your circumstances. I mean”—her face fell—“you know, this big extended family. Hard enough to make it work when you’re all apart, let alone when you’re all s
queezed into a house together.” Her face fell again. “I think I’ll stop talking now,” she said.

  Adrian and Susie laughed and said, “Nonono, don’t be silly, of course, you’re right.” Maya managed a smile. Charlotte was just adorable. Look at her, in her little pleated shorts with rosebud sprigs, her tight white Aertex polo shirt, shiny white Converse, vanilla-cream hair pinned back on each side with kirby grips. Just adorable. But what was she doing here? Where was she going to sleep? Luke was supposed to be sharing a room with Otis and Beau. The only spare bed in the house was in an anteroom, just off her own bedroom. A camp bed. Charlotte couldn’t sleep in there. It was too weird. And what about Luke? Was he expecting to share a bed with her? Were they having sex again? Why hadn’t he phoned ahead to say he was bringing her? What was she doing here?

  “Where are you going to sleep?” she asked, more forcefully than she’d intended.

  “Oh, I’ll sleep anywhere! A sofa. The bath. Anywhere that I don’t get in the way.”

  “I’m sure we can rejig things,” said Susie. “Don’t you worry. It’s just lovely having you here.”

  Susie looked at Adrian and Maya as though checking that they shared her sentiment. They both smiled back tightly and nodded.

  It was another two hours before Maya was able to corner Luke by himself. She found him moving a mattress from one room to another on the first floor. Charlotte was in the garden playing croquet with Pearl. She took the other end of the mattress and said, “Where is this going?”

  “The girls’ room,” he said, pointing his head in the direction of a door on the other side of the landing. “Beau’s going to sleep with Caroline, so we have a spare mattress.”

  “Didn’t he mind?” Beau usually loved sharing a room with both his big brothers.

  “You know Beau. World’s most obliging child.”

  “So you and Charlotte, you’re not . . . ?”

  A twitch of Luke’s left shoulder told her all she needed to know.