My Husband's Wife

by Jane Corry

  Ed didn’t like their guest, she was beginning to realize. Poor Rupert. He could see that too.

  Afterwards, they went downstairs to the basement to see Ed’s paintings. ‘Carla tells me that you appreciate paintings.’ Ed crossed his arms.

  ‘I do, sir. These are wonderful.’

  ‘They’re crap.’ Ed glanced dismissively at the pictures of old women, young women, the florist, the tobacconist, a mother in the park. ‘None have done anything. The only thing that worked was my painting of our lovely Carla here.’

  Ouch! Ed was squeezing her shoulder so hard that it hurt. He stank of wine: at dinner, he’d got through an entire bottle on his own. She knew Lily had noticed too.

  ‘But now I am painting her again. Has she told you that?’

  Ed’s face was close to Rupert’s. Part of her felt triumphant. Yet she was also crawling with embarrassment.

  ‘No, sir. She hasn’t told me.’

  ‘So you aren’t privy to everything that goes on in our Carla’s pretty head then.’

  ‘That’s enough, Ed.’ Lily was next to him now, taking his arm. ‘Time to call it a day, don’t you think?’

  ‘Nonsense. I expect you’d like to see the painting, wouldn’t you, young man?’

  Rupert was as red as she was now. ‘Only if it’s not too much trouble, sir.’

  ‘Well, it is. And you know why? Because I never show my paintings to anyone until they’re ready. Never.’

  And with that, Ed stomped up the stairs and left them alone in the basement.

  ‘I am so sorry.’ Lily shook her head. ‘He’s tired and this is a big time in his career at the moment. He’s hoping for a break with his new portrait of Carla. It’s in pastels this time. Quite a new departure for him.’

  ‘I understand.’ Rupert appeared to compose himself, showing those beautiful manners. ‘Artistic temperament and all that. Thank you so much for a lovely evening.’

  But it hadn’t been lovely and they all knew that. That night, Carla listened as Ed and Lily had one of their biggest rows yet.

  ‘Why were you so rude? Almost as if you were jealous of him for being head-over-heels with Carla.’

  ‘Rubbish. I just didn’t like some pup looking at my paintings and making patronizing comments.’

  ‘He wasn’t. He was being entirely polite.’

  ‘I know what he was being. Anyway, what would you care? You’re never here.’

  ‘Maybe it’s time for Carla to leave. There are other hostels she could stay at. I don’t know why you asked her to stay on. It was meant to be temporary.’

  ‘So now you want to throw out my model just when I’ve got my inspiration back? It’s like you want me to fail.’

  It’s happening, Carla told herself, hugging her knees in bed.

  Yet in the morning, it was as though the argument had never taken place. ‘Would you like to come down to Devon this weekend with us?’ asked Lily.

  Carla shook her head. ‘I’ll stay here if you don’t mind.’

  Ed looked disappointed. ‘Really? Tom will be sad not to see you. He might not say so. But I just know it.’

  So will I, said his eyes.

  Good.

  ‘I’m afraid I need to work on my next assignment.’

  ‘Sure.’ Ed sounded put out. ‘When I’m back, Carla, I’d appreciate some more of your sitting time for the portrait.’

  She flushed. ‘Of course.’

  41

  Lily

  Weeks and then months are growing along with the portrait. Easter shoots past with its nodding yellow daffodils. Early summer roses have already, in our little patch of ground at the back, come into bloom. And so too has Carla.

  I watch our ‘lodger’ take form on Ed’s canvas with increasing amazement and respect. My husband’s hand, which had been so unsteady over the last few years, partly due to lack of confidence – and sometimes, let’s be honest, due to drink – has taken on a sureness of its own.

  Carla’s beautiful almond-shaped eyes within that elfin face follow me whenever I glance at the easel. She is there now all the time. A living fixture in the studio that faces the garden at the back of the house, where there is more light. A living fixture too in our house, where she takes my coat when I come in from work and announces that dinner is almost ready.

  And she’s exciting a great deal of interest.

  ‘You are painting the same Italian girl again?’ asked a journalist who came round to interview us for an ‘at home’, a gig that Ed’s agent had somehow arranged.

  I’d been standing by the canvas which Ed had, quite purposefully, left out rather than putting it away as he usually did with a work in progress. ‘Yes,’ my husband said in a casual way, which of course I could see right through. ‘Carla – the little girl whom my wife and I used to look after when we were first married – has come back into our lives. She’s in her early twenties now – training to be a lawyer, actually – and has been kind enough to allow me to paint her again.’

  Word spread like wildfire when the article came out. The phone began to ring. Of course, it isn’t just that the art world (and the media) see this as a good story – a subject who has grown up. It’s that my husband’s painting is amazing. Carla looks as though she could step out of the canvas any minute. Her sleek haircut – so different from those childhood curls – declares that this is a woman of style. Her lips look like they are about to speak.

  Here I am. Back again.

  And sometimes worse. Why are you such a bad wife? Stop being horrible to Tom.

  Yes. That’s right. For the last few weeks, I’ve had a growing feeling that she doesn’t like me, despite the careful way she takes my coat and cooks dinner every evening (at her own suggestion). I can tell she disapproves that Tom doesn’t live with us full time. ‘Don’t you miss him when you leave him on Sunday nights?’ she has remarked on more than one occasion.

  ‘Very much. But he has special needs which his school is better at providing for than we are.’ She wasn’t the only person who asked that question. Only a parent of a child like ours can understand the excruciating agony of not being able to cope and wanting to do the right thing.

  Ed never says anything to back me up, as though he agrees with Carla. Which, of course, he does. Even though Tom is flourishing at his weekly boarding school, and even though there have been no more incidents of assaulting teachers, my husband doesn’t like the idea of his son being in what he calls ‘a military dorm’ during the week.

  Yet it’s not like that. I’ve seen the cosy room with its comfy beds and teddy bears proudly displayed. (One of his room-mates won’t go anywhere without his, even though he’s nearly thirteen. He’s obsessed with them and has them lined up along the wall. If anyone touches them, he has a full-blown melt-down.) My husband’s reaction, I know, is because of his own time at school, when all he wanted was to be at home.

  Carla’s disapproval is ironic, given how much I am doing for her. ‘Carla needs a training contract now her course is almost over,’ Ed announces one night at dinner. ‘I said you’d be able to help.’

  We’re eating an Italian dish, a delicious mixture of white beans and salad which, if I threw it together, would taste like mush. Carla’s hand has transformed it into something different entirely. You’d be able to help? I might be one of the partners, but it is still presumptuous of my husband to assume that I can pull strings like that when I have a stack of emails from other hopeful students. ‘We’ve had lots of applications,’ I begin. ‘But I’ll see what I can do.’

  It won’t be easy, because my own record at work has not been so good recently. So far this year, I’ve lost over a third of my cases. These include the ones I argued myself and also those where I used a barrister. It’s tempting to blame the latter but it wouldn’t be true. If I don’t give counsel the right information or enough details about the case, he or she can’t strut their stuff in court.

  I tell myself that my poor performance has nothing to do with the anonymo
us tips I’ve received in the post and ignored. I try not to even look at them, but I can’t help checking to see if they’re from him. How would I know? Because they’re always accompanied by a final line: How is Tom?

  Useful as these tips might be, I force myself to put them into the shredder, telling myself that I can do without Joe Thomas’s help. I don’t even want to think about how hard he must be working to get these pieces of ‘evidence’. But I do wonder how he has got them. Which secretary is he dating? Or maybe he was lying. Perhaps he’s getting his information somewhere else. Either way, the idea that Joe is watching me from somewhere makes my skin crawl.

  So when Ed invites Carla to Devon for the weekend, and she turns him down, I can’t help but feel a wave of relief. A chance to be on our own. For me to get Ed onside again.

  42

  Carla

  May 2014

  ‘What are you doing at the weekend?’ Rupert asked.

  ‘Working.’

  Ever since the embarrassing dinner at Ed and Lily’s, she’d been avoiding her college friend. But here he was, waiting for her outside the lecture hall.

  ‘All weekend?’

  She looked up at him. ‘All weekend.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’ He fell into step with her. ‘Your friends were … unusual.’

  ‘Lily can be a bit tetchy but she isn’t too bad. I’m afraid Ed was rude. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be.’ Gently he touched her arm as they rounded a corner. ‘Like I said, it’s his artistic temperament. To be honest though … well, I thought you were trying to keep out of my way. So I thought I’d just take the bull by the horns, as it were, and hang around for you, to check everything is all right with us.’

  Carla couldn’t help being flattered. But she also felt the need to make things clear. ‘Of course it is. You’re a very good friend.’

  ‘ “Friend”?’ He was looking at her quizzically, as if hoping for more. ‘Then may I take you out to dinner over the weekend?’

  It was tempting. But wasn’t life complicated enough as it was? ‘Sorry but I’ve got two essays to do. Ed and Lily are away until Sunday night, so I was planning on some quiet time.’

  Carla was as good as her word. She spent the entire Saturday poring over her books. Yet on Sunday lunchtime there was a knock at the front door. Lily and Ed hadn’t told her they were expecting anyone. Maybe it was one of those cold callers or a neighbour perhaps.

  But Rupert was standing on the step. ‘I was just passing.’ He handed her a bunch of flowers, prettily wrapped with an artful straw bow. Freesias. One of her favourites. It was incredible how such a powerful fragrance could come from such small blooms. ‘That’s very kind.’

  ‘How about a walk? Come on, it’ll be good for your brain to have a break.’

  ‘Well …’ It was a beautiful day. Why not? ‘Just to the park and back.’

  It was surprisingly good to have the company. There were lots of other couples out too. Laughing. Holding hands. With a strange feeling in her chest, Carla realized she’d never gone for a walk in the park with a man she liked before.

  ‘I love being with you, Carla.’ Rupert’s hand reached out for hers.

  No.

  Deftly she put her hand in her pocket. ‘I like being with you too, Rupert.’ There was a brief pause while she counted to five. ‘But as I said before, I like you as a friend.’

  Either he didn’t notice the rebuff or else he chose not to. ‘You’re different from the others, Carla. You’re focused. As though you have a purpose. Most of the other girls I know just want to have fun.’

  Carla thought fleetingly of the flightier female students who were always chasing Rupert and others like him. ‘I don’t have time for fun.’

  ‘Really?’ There was definite disappointment in his voice.

  Carla shrugged as they wandered back out of the park, towards Ed and Lily’s house. ‘My mother, she relies on me. It is up to me to make money for us so we can live the lives we should have done.’

  ‘Wow. That’s amazing. I like that.’

  ‘In fact, I must return now. Or I will be behind with my work.’

  ‘Surely you have time to make me a cup of tea first?’

  ‘I’m not sure …’

  ‘Come on.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘It’s what friends do.’

  They were on Ed and Lily’s steps now: smart black and white steps leading up to the black front door. It seemed rude not to agree.

  Inviting Rupert to take a seat, Carla swiftly cleared away her books to make room at the table in the huge kitchen which acted as a casual sitting room too. The sofa, she noticed with irritation, was a mess of cushions and blankets.

  ‘What do you think of …’ she started to say.

  But suddenly Rupert moved towards her and boldly, but so very gently, began to trace the outline of her lips with his forefinger. ‘You’re beautiful, Carla,’ he murmured. ‘Do you know that?’

  He drew her towards him.

  For a minute, she was tempted. Rupert was so good-looking. So charming. Such a gentleman. But she must not allow him to distract her. Just as she was about to step away, there was the sound of the key in the lock.

  It was Ed! Horrified, she watched him take in the rumpled sofa and Rupert stepping quickly away from her. His face was blotched with anger. ‘So this is why you didn’t want to come to Devon, is it? So you could use our home as a love nest? How dare you? Just as well I got back early.’

  Carla’s body went hot and cold and hot again. ‘No. You’ve got it wrong.’

  But Ed’s voice overrode hers as he turned to Rupert. ‘Get out. NOW.’

  Stunned, Carla watched Rupert leave. He should have stayed, she told herself. Stood up for himself. ‘How dare YOU?’ she yelled, quivering with anger. ‘I was doing nothing wrong. And now you have embarrassed me in front of my friend.’

  He would tell her to leave now, she told herself. She’d have nowhere to live. No hope of getting what she wanted.

  Yet instead, he crumbled, falling down to the ground at her feet. ‘I’m sorry, Carla. I really am. But it’s been a hell of a weekend. You should have been there. You could have calmed Tom down. He was awful. Do you know what his current obsession is? Some computer game which keeps him up all night so he barely sleeps. When we tried to take it away from him, he went stark raving mad. We argued about it. Lily’s mother wanted to let him have his way. She’s so scared he’ll end up like Daniel …’

  ‘Daniel? What happened to him?’

  ‘Daniel’s gone.’ Ed made a wild dismissive gesture with his hands. ‘You wouldn’t think it from the way that family talks about him. Daniel’s dead!’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Ed caught her by the hand. His grip was tight. ‘Daniel was Lily’s adopted brother. He was very disturbed – had been since childhood. Poor bugger.’

  Now it was her turn to hold his hand as the horrific words came spilling out. The argument Lily had had with her brother. The stables. The way they found him. Ed was not sure of the exact details (‘Lily can’t talk about it’). But one thing was clear. Whatever Lily had said, it had made her brother take his own life.

  ‘It’s like there’s always this thing between us. She’s never let me in.’ Ed collapsed in sobs on the sofa.

  How terrible! And poor Ed. It wasn’t fair that he should have to suffer for his wife’s guilt. Lily treated him so badly. She didn’t even look after him properly. What kind of woman didn’t have dinner ready for her husband? Or went to bed long after he did? Mamma had taught her the importance of these things, no matter how outdated they might seem.

  Yet why should she be surprised? Lily was a lawyer. Clinical and cold. Used to setting murderers and rapists free.

  Somehow she managed to calm poor Ed. A friendly arm on his shoulder. Poured him a drink (just a touch of hot water with the whisky). And then, even though his hand was still shaking, she persuaded him to start painting.

  Thank you, Rupert, she said silentl
y, as she sat in front of Ed. (‘Nose to the left a bit, please, Carla.’) With any luck everything was going to work out after all.

  43

  Lily

  Despite my recent court losses, and my own reservations, the other partners agreed to my ‘favour’ and Carla duly started work with me in the middle of July. ‘You’ve got a bright girl there,’ said one of my colleagues by the end of the week. ‘She might look stunning but she’s on the ball.’

  He spoke as though looks were a disadvantage, which in a way they are. If you’re more than averagely attractive, especially in a profession like law, people don’t always take you seriously. I’m aware that I will never be considered beautiful, even though I take pleasure in the fact that I have grown into my skin. Perhaps that’s a good thing.

  But Carla turns heads wherever she goes. And not just because of her face or because she is doing well at my firm. Ed’s portrait of her is finally finished. After one of our weekends in Devon, for once without Carla, everything seemed to fall into place. We’d argued, and he’d left early, but sometimes I think our difficulties spur him on. When I returned, he was working on the hardest part – the eyes.

  Now the painting has been accepted for a big London show in the autumn and the national press has got wind of it.

  Suddenly, Carla’s everywhere. In women’s magazines. In the Times art pages. And in the cocktail party invitations we begin to receive. Of course, everyone wants to know the story. How we came across her again. Or rather how she came across us. When I open one magazine, I find that Carla has managed to tell the story with barely a reference to me. It’s as though it was Ed who offered her a home after the hostel fire. Ed who is her mentor rather than me. Ed who says how wonderful she is with our son, Tom, who is in a ‘special school’, far away in Devon. She doesn’t refer to the fact that he lives with my parents.