by Tess Stimson
It’s why she refuses, even now, to accept Andrew is a lost cause. She’ll fight our battles for us, whether we want her to or not. She’s seen too much, been through too much; all that’s left for her is to make things right for her family. I can’t take that away from her.
Dad grieved differently. Before Nicky’s death, he and Mum parented us jointly, but afterwards, he ceded everything to Mum. I glance across at him as he fiddles with his old-fashioned camera. He still uses the same one he did for our school plays, and I wince as he tests the flash, which leaves a Hiroshima-like glow imprinted on the retinas of anyone within a ten-foot radius. On the other side of him, Luke holds up his new iPhone and hits record, checking for light levels. Peas in a pod, give or take a bit of technology. They survived Nicky’s loss as I did, by fading into the background, and leaving Mum alone in the spotlight of her grief.
The lights dim, and there’s a sudden hush, the rustle of programmes, and a few self-conscious coughs. The headmistress, Mrs St George, comes on stage and makes the usual remarks about how hard everyone has worked and what troupers the PTA have been, but I’m not really concentrating. Bella will be devastated if her father doesn’t come. As the headmistress asks everyone to turn off their phones and people grope in their bags, I take the opportunity for one more look around the audience, trying to find him. If he’s here, he must be right at the back.
Then the curtain lifts, and Antonio walks onto the stage with his Shakespearean bros. I send up a prayer that Bella doesn’t get stage fright or forget her lines, and I wait anxiously for her opening scene. After all the drama getting her to her dress rehearsal this morning, her nerves are frayed to breaking point. She dropped her eyeliner when she was putting on her make-up this afternoon, and burst into tears.
But as soon as she comes out and launches confidently into her first monologue, I know she’s going to be fine. I’ve rehearsed her lines with her so often, I can recite them backwards, and find myself murmuring along with her: ‘… so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father.’
My mother jabs me in the ribs, and I shut up.
Two and a half hours later, I have tears in my eyes as I leap to my feet along with the rest of the audience to deliver a standing ovation, clapping and cheering until my palms tingle and my throat is raw. For the duration of the play, I completely forgot that Portia was my daughter. She is beautiful, gracious, intelligent, quick-witted: Shakespeare’s most appealing heroine. It’s only a school play, and there were forgotten lines and fluffed cues and wooden acting – Antonio showed less range of emotion than a table leg – but Bella was an absolute revelation, and if I say that as her mother, it’s only because she was so completely other. I have never seen her sparkle and dazzle the way she just has up on stage. The sullen, withdrawn child I live with was nowhere to be seen. In her place was a confident, brilliant woman: a drama queen, indeed. I feel as if I’m seeing my daughter for the first time.
‘Wasn’t she amazing?’ Min cries, as we join the madding crowd heading towards the exits.
‘Wonderful,’ I say, straining to find Andrew. He can’t have missed this. Bella was extraordinary. ‘Can you see Andrew anywhere?’
‘There!’ Tolly cries, pulling away from me. ‘Daddy!’
I struggle to hang on to my son as he forces his way through the throng, apologising profusely as I jostle shoulders and step on toes. ‘Tolly, wait!’
I still can’t see Andrew, though Tolly obviously has him in his sights. As we reach the double doors to the entrance vestibule, the cast comes running through the side corridor that leads backstage, still in costume, shrieking and laughing as they reunite with proud parents in the auditorium. Bella races towards us, hand in hand with her friend, Taylor, a smile splitting her face from ear to ear. She scoops Tolly up in one swift movement, swinging him around, bubbling with triumph. ‘Did you see me?’ she cries. ‘Did you see me?’
‘We could hardly miss you.’ I smile. ‘You were brilliant, darling. Absolutely amazing. I told you that you would be. You too, Taylor. I loved your Bassanio. You were brilliant.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Page,’ Taylor says. ‘Oh, there’s Mum! Catch you later, Bel.’
Bella can’t hide her elation, and I love her for it. ‘I messed up on my speech at the beginning of Act II Scene 1 but I don’t think anyone noticed.’
‘I can’t believe it was you up there,’ I say honestly. ‘You were incredible, Bella. You blew us all away. It’ll be the Oscars next.’
‘Where’s Dad?’ she asks, looking past me as Celia, Min and Luke force their way through the crowd and catch up to us.
‘I see him!’ Tolly shouts, pointing.
Andrew and Caz are standing in the entrance hall, talking to Taylor’s mother. They must have been standing right at the back for the whole performance. That can’t have been comfortable in the ridiculous stilettos Caz is wearing. She looks like she’s dressed for a nightclub, not a school play.
My heart swoops as Andrew turns. For a split second, I’m twenty-four again, walking into the wine bar opposite the INN TV studio, and coming face to face with the most beautiful man I’d ever encountered. Now, as then, it’s as if the crowds around us fade away, and there are just two of us in the room. When we met, Andrew was in his early thirties, tall and dark-haired and dressed more formally than most men his age in a grey suit – I soon learned he was a reporter, and this was his on-camera attire – his tie pulled loose around his neck, his jacket hooked casually over his shoulder on one finger. He’d glanced around as I’d let the heavy door swing shut behind me, and I’d seen appreciation and interest in his leonine amber eyes, and his mouth had quirked into a smile. The blood had pulsed in my ears and I’d felt the fizz of butterflies in my stomach. I feel them still. I think I will until the day I die.
Andrew puts his palm on the small of Caz’s back, and murmurs something in her ear, and the pain I’d thought I’d tamed flares as sharp and stinging as the day Andrew left me.
Bella puts her brother down, and Tolly barrels through a forest of legs towards his father. ‘You’re late!’ he cries. ‘You missed it all!’
There’s a sudden silence. I glance at Andrew, assuming he’ll say they were just out of sight, at the back, but he shrugs helplessly. ‘We got the time wrong. I’m so sorry,’ he adds, as Bella’s face crumples beneath her stage make-up. ‘I’ve been listening to people talking about how wonderful you were. The star of the show—’
She doesn’t wait for him to finish. With a terrible sob, she turns and runs back into the auditorium.
Andrew starts after her, but Min blocks his way. ‘I think you’ve done enough damage,’ she says coldly.
‘How could you get the time wrong, Andrew?’ I cry furiously. ‘I told Caz it started at four at least three times!’
‘You said seven,’ Caz protests.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Mum snaps. ‘School plays are always in the afternoon, so siblings can come and watch without having to stay up late. You came last year, Caroline. You should know that.’
Andrew glares at his wife. ‘Caz obviously made a mistake. I’ll go and find Bella and apologise. I’m sure she’ll understand.’
‘I did not make a mistake,’ Caz says firmly. ‘I thought it was a bit odd, but Louise insisted it was in the evening this year. That’s why I told you to book the table for nine-thirty.’
Andrew hesitates, and I see the sudden doubt in his eyes. Surely he can’t think I’d be that petty and underhand?
But I know the answer to that one. I’ve cried wolf before, and now, when the wolf is at my door – in the heart of my family – no one believes me.
Chapter 10
Caz
I sit at the end of the table, playing with my salad. I should feel vindicated, but even though Louise was the one in the wrong, not me, somehow I still feel like the villain.
Andy spent forty minutes calming Bella down and persuading her to come out to dinner, but he didn’t once apologise
to me. Instead, in the car on the way over to the restaurant, he said Louise and I needed to ‘communicate better’ next time, and then refused to discuss it any further. Even after I’ve given him cast-iron proof she’s trying to sabotage me, he still makes excuses for her.
I don’t know why I expected anything else. For the last four years, Louise has had Andy twisted around her little finger. All she has to do is snap her fingers, and he comes running.
It’s not just his ex-wife I have to share him with, either. He’s been part of the Roberts family for seventeen years, and divorce hasn’t changed that. Even when it’s not our weekend for the kids, Andy’s often over at their place, fixing wonky shelves in the living room or taking Brian out for a pint. He spent a whole weekend a few weeks ago putting in a new tomato bed, for God’s sake. But if I object, I look like an unreasonable, jealous cow.
I know the bonds of relationships are complicated, even when two people are no longer sharing a life together. I understand when there are children in the picture, both parents need to be involved in their lives, and I’ve never had a problem with that. But just because I’m Andy’s second wife, that doesn’t mean I should always be in second place.
There’s a sudden kerfuffle on the other side of the restaurant, and I glance up. The woman in the flowery dress from Bella’s school has just entered with her daughter, Taylor, and the rest of her extended family, and they’re all waving madly at Louise. My heart sinks. Great. Louise’s travelling fan club. Just what I need.
Flowery Dress rushes over to our table, and Louise and Andy leap up for hugs and mutual congratulations. They both put a proud arm around Bella, and I sit there, completely ignored, as everyone takes photos of the three of them on their phones. Then Andrew drapes his arm around Bella and Taylor, who’s clearly a bit starstruck by him, and the nonsense starts again. The husband of Flowery Dress raves about Bella’s performance, talking stage school and Oscars, and they all bask in a love-fest from which I’m pointedly excluded. I might as well not be here.
The only person less comfortable than me is Bella herself. She ducks her head, tucking her hands into the long sleeves of her black top, looking like she wishes the ground could swallow her up. Being able to hide behind another persona on stage is very different from standing in the spotlight in real life. You’d think Louise and Andy would have figured that out.
I push back my chair and go over to rescue her. ‘Bella, why don’t you and Taylor take the boys outside for five minutes for a bit of fresh air?’ I suggest.
She doesn’t need to be asked twice. As they all hurtle out, I stand by the table like a fool, waiting for someone to acknowledge me.
‘Rebecca, Hugo, I don’t believe you’ve met Caroline,’ Celia finally says, with a poisonous smile. ‘Andrew’s second wife.’
My husband is not Mormon or Muslim. He does not belong to a religious group where polygamy is practised. Andy was divorced, and a single man, when we tied the proverbial knot. I am his wife, plain and simple, no qualifying descriptor necessary.
Rebecca gives me a cold smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes, and I see her tug her husband’s sleeve as he goes to shake my hand, his arm falling obediently back to his side.
When everyone finally disperses, I take my seat at the table again. Bella brings the boys back in, and I have Kit on one side of me, and Tolly on the other; Celia ensured I wasn’t seated next to an adult, so I have no one to talk to all evening. When Brian leans across his grandson and tentatively offers an opinion on the likelihood of rain, Celia cuts across him, and he doesn’t try again.
I’m not normally given to self-pity, and certainly didn’t expect to be the centre of attention on Bella’s night, but this meal is costing us – costing me, since Louise already swallows up all Andy’s disposable income – a fortune, and they’re all treating me like something the cat dragged in.
And then, miraculously, the night is unexpectedly redeemed.
As we leave, Bella hangs back from her parents and offers an awkward thank you, her dark hair falling across her face. ‘I know Mum can be a bit … you know,’ she adds, fiddling awkwardly with the strap of her watch. She’s the only sixteen-year-old I know who wears an old-fashioned timepiece. ‘I’m sure she didn’t mean to give you the wrong time for the play.’
The whole miserable fiasco of an evening was worth it, just for this. ‘I’m sure she didn’t either,’ I lie. ‘It was just a mix-up, that’s all.’
Bella shrugs. ‘I guess.’
‘Come on, Bella,’ Louise calls sharply. ‘Time to go. Your brother needs to get to bed.’
I’m taken aback: this is our weekend with the kids. I turn to Andy. ‘Aren’t Bella and Tolly coming home with us?’
He can’t quite meet my eye. ‘Louise thought they should go home with her, as Bella was so upset we missed the play,’ he says. ‘We’ll have them next weekend instead.’
‘But I booked the Escape Room for tomorrow morning,’ I object. ‘It’s all paid for. It’s too late to change it now.’
‘I’m so sorry, but that’s not going to work for us. Perhaps if Bella hadn’t had such a trying evening,’ Louise says acidly.
I’m literally too angry to speak. I storm out to our car, not bothering to wait for Andy and Kit. Andy has had a couple of glasses of wine, which means I’m driving, and I stare rigidly through the windscreen, watching him kiss his ex-wife and her family goodnight, Kit asleep in his arms. It’s not just the waste of money that makes me so furious. I’m beyond fed up with the way Andy lets that woman dictate our lives. Why can’t he ever stand up to her?
‘You were a bit ungracious tonight,’ Andy says, as he buckles Kit into his car seat and gets in.
‘Me?’
‘Sssh. You’ll wake Kit.’
‘How was I ungracious?’ I demand, in a furious whisper.
‘You barely spoke to anyone all night. And when Becky and Hugo Conway came over to congratulate Bella, you interrupted them.’ He reaches for his seatbelt. ‘I know you and Bella don’t really get on, but it was her night. You could have made a bit more of an effort.’
I’m so incensed, I almost reverse into a lamp-post. ‘We just spent nearly seven hundred pounds on a dinner where the only two people to talk to me all evening were four years old!’ I retort. ‘And I interrupted the Conways because you were all making Bella incredibly uncomfortable. She hates being the centre of attention—’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Everyone said how brilliant she was!’
‘Onstage, yes. Onstage, she gets to hide behind the character she’s playing. And it’s not true I don’t get on with her. She was the only person who even bothered to thank me for dinner.’
‘Shame we couldn’t make it on time to her play, then,’ Andy mutters.
‘If you think I’m going to Celia’s damn party after—’
‘I’m going,’ Andy snaps. ‘You do what you like.’
We drive the rest of the way home in silence. Angie warned me years ago, when Andy and I first got engaged, that I wouldn’t just be marrying him, but I didn’t take her seriously. I knew I’d have to take on his kids, of course, but it never occurred to me I’d have to deal with his ex-wife’s entire family.
No one ever chooses to fall in love with a married man. Five years ago, when Andy ran a red light and hit the side of my Fiat Uno, I didn’t clock the wedding ring on his left hand as we exchanged insurance details and think, Yes, this will be a nice challenge. Of course I fancied him; he was crazy good-looking, I’d have been blind not to. But I’d never been one of those women who felt empowered by being a mistress, naively imagining themselves as a figure charged with some magical, carnal power, superior to the dull, wifely creature who did the supermarket shop and the school run.
But I knew, too, that when he called the next day and asked me out for a drink to ‘apologise for the inconvenience’, the invitation was far from innocent.
His marriage was already over, but I didn’t know that then, and I went anyway. And
by the time I left the bar in Covent Garden, I was already halfway to being in love with him. I’d heard the expression ‘walking on air’ before, but that night I understood for the first time what it meant. I felt as if I was floating seven inches above the ground, weightless with joy. I had no idea then what I was letting myself in for.
Second wife. Second best. Second fiddle.
My pregnancy with Kit wasn’t special, even though Andy did his best to seem excited, because he’d done it all before. Our wedding was a lovely, classy, elegant affair at Kensington and Chelsea Register Office, but it wasn’t the big white church wedding I’d dreamed of as a little girl, because Louise had already had that. We’ve never been to Venice, or South Africa, or to see the Northern Lights, because he’s been to those places with her. He was unfaithful to me: he broke all our promises to each other when he and Louise slept together again, but because I was the mistress, because he was Louise’s before he was mine, I accepted it and took him back.
I wasn’t the reason for their break-up, but somehow I’ve always felt it was my fault. So I’ve put up with the litany of seconds instead of firsts; the guilt and the compromises, the snide remarks, and the open hostility. I’ve sucked it up and plastered on a smile, accepting it all as the price of loving him. I always believed that, if I gave it time, Louise would move on with her life, and Andy would be wholly, unquestionably mine.
But what I failed to understand until this moment is that it’s not just Louise who’s mired in the past. Andy is the one who can’t let go.
I pull into the driveway outside our house, watching my husband as he gets out of the car, and for the first time since that night in Covent Garden, instead of floating on air, I find my feet planted firmly on the ground.