The Actuary's Wife

by K T Bowes

  “No!” Emma’s face screwed up into an unattractive pout and she sounded like a whining teenager. “We have Rohan now. Your job’s done.”

  The Irishman sneered. “That eejit? He’ll get youse all killed, so he will.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Impatience flitted across Emma’s pretty features. “He’s home now.”

  “Aye, isn’t he just! Did he not tell ya where he’d been, Em? Wise up, woman! He didn’t come home last night; he’s been in town a few days, love. He doesn’t keep ya very up to date with his affairs, does he?”

  “Affairs?” The colour drained from Emma’s face and regret moved across Christopher’s brown eyes like a scudding cloud. Her mouth opened and closed again and he moved towards her with care as though approaching a dangerous snake. Emma’s body was rigid as the tall Irishman enfolded her in his strong arms and kissed the top of her head.

  “Sorry. I didn’t want youse to find out like this.”

  Emma closed her eyes as her jaw worked furiously and she tried to quell the sickness in the pit of her stomach. Her voice was muffled as she spoke into the front of Christopher’s jacket. “By ‘in town,’ do you mean he’s been here in Market Harborough for a few days?”

  “Aye.” Christopher’s voice sounded hushed. “Sorry, Em. He’s not bein’ honest with ya.”

  The sickness rose into her gullet and she forced herself not to retch. Christopher’s words berated her for her endless stupidity in trusting Rohan, when she promised herself at sixteen she’d trust no man ever again. “What shall I do?” She lifted her head to look up at Christopher and her eyes filled with tears which formed a glossy sheen over her huge brown eyes.

  “Ach, I don’t know, so I don’t,” Christopher soothed. “He’s been at his old place on Newcombe Street. He arrived a few nights ago, a bit banged up. The lights are still on, Em. Somebody’s living there with him.”

  “I feel sick.” Emma swallowed bile and clung to a handful of Christopher’s coat. “He left over two weeks ago, hardly rang home and now you’re saying he’s been with someone at his old house for a few days before coming home to Nicky and me?” She took a deep breath. “I’ll kill him!”

  “Aye well, call me when it’s done and I’ll get rid of the body.” Christopher smiled at her and Emma tried to reciprocate, finding she couldn’t manage it. A watery sun chose that moment to warm the park and kiss Emma’s cheeks. She lifted her face and closed her eyes.

  “I don’t know what to do.” Her heart felt heavy in her chest, making her feel like she needed to lie down on the muddy grass and sob to relieve the pressure. “Freda wanted to go home today because she felt in the way; I wish she’d stayed.” Emma bit her lip.

  “Na,” Christopher reassured her. “Best do yer dirty washing without an audience. And that auld woman would’ve killed him for yer, so she would.”

  Emma nodded. “Probably.” She inhaled and ran a hand over her face. “I need to go. School finishes soon.” Her legs felt leaden as she took a step back from Christopher’s comforting presence. He nodded and let her go. Emma took an uncertain, tottering pace towards the school gate and then looked back, all courage and confidence gone from her eyes. “Christopher, if I need you, how will I find you?”

  He smiled and tilted his head sideways. “I’ll find ya, Em. Don’t be worryin’ about that.” His brown eyes narrowed with concern and he shook his head. “Em, I tried to tell ya not to let him leave, sweetheart.”

  Emma turned away and continued her wooden steps towards the school gate, the memory of the text messages clanging in her head. ‘Don’t let him leave.’ But she did let Rohan leave and now it seemed she would have to live with the consequences.

  Chapter 9

  “Where’s Daddy?” Nicky’s question filled Emma’s heart with irritation.

  “I don’t know, Nicky. Please can you carry your own bag for once?”

  “It’s heavy. I painted a brick for you. Where’s Freda?”

  Emma sighed in frustration. “Painting a brick sounds exciting but I need you to carry it, babe, please. Freda’s scooter arrived and she wanted to go home and try it out. She might come back at the weekend.”

  Nicky wrinkled his nose in disappointment and Emma gritted her teeth, feeling all control in her life ebbing away. “Won’t I do? I worked at your school this morning, spent the afternoon settling Freda at home and then walked back to pick you up? Isn’t that enough?”

  Nicky looked up at his mother and bit his lip, nodding his head but keeping his mouth sensibly closed. Emma retrieved the large Mercedes from the car park reserved for staff and set off home, desperately wanting to scrape the expensive paintwork along every bush lining the narrow exit. She resisted only because her son watched through wide eyes, sensing her turmoil without understanding. He touched her leg as she pulled out onto the Northampton Road. “Please may we have take-away food tonight? To celebrate Daddy coming home.”

  Emma grimaced and gritted her teeth to prevent the snarky comment escaping. There was nothing to celebrate if Rohan arrived in town days earlier. It made a mockery of her son’s easy trust and the notion enraged her further. “Not tonight, baby. I’ve got microwave dinners in the freezer. Why don’t we have one each and snuggle in front of the fire?”

  “What about Daddy? He prefers proper food.” Nicky’s tone sounded petulant and Emma floored the accelerator to avoid answering. She yearned for violent, engine damaging revs but got only the characteristic purr as the heavy car met her needs. “Careful, Mummy!” Nicky’s fingers gripped the bottom of his booster seat in fear as the car jerked under Emma’s angry grip on the steering wheel.

  They conducted the rest of the journey to Wingate Hall in silence, the atmosphere in the car heavy filled with emotional turbulence. Nicky was edgy and frightened and Emma sullen and uncommunicative. She abandoned the car in front of the main entrance, leaving it strewn wonkily across the gravel and slammed the driver’s door as though it was Rohan’s head in the gap. Nicky got himself out of the car and ran to the front door, ringing the bell and eyeing his mother nervously.

  Emma retrieved his bag, leaning into the foot well to reach for the various objects which had spewed out. Winter darkness shrouded her, but in the light from the interior bulb she held his artwork in her hand and fought tears.

  Blue paint decorated the house brick, covering its redness with an appealing lavender tone. Nicky had written ‘Home’ in wobbling script and drawn five distinguishable characters, with large round heads and stick bodies. A huge orange person with sticking up hair was Rohan, a fat green one was Emma, a smaller purple one was Nicky and a blob at their feet was presumably the baby. A large black dog-shaped Farrell was plopped at the other end near the ‘H’ for ‘Home,’ looking as though he’d been through a tumble dryer. Emma couldn’t stop the tears leaking down her cheeks, wishing they would expunge the orange Rohan with ease. She ran her finger across the surface of the brick, cursing the industrious Mrs Clarke who made the children varnish their artwork and the tears came off in her hand, having done no damage.

  Emma wiped her hand over her face and extracted herself from the car. She slammed the door, activated the central locking and skipped up the front steps. “Hi, Farrell.” She stroked the dog’s fluffy head as he thrust his nose against her thigh, desperate for acknowledgement.

  Rohan held the door open for her and bowed his head for the expected kiss, looking hurt when Emma dodged out of the way. She strode into the huge reception hall, dropping Nicky’s bags at her feet. The heels of her boots clacked on the polished oak floorboards and without waiting for Rohan to lock up, she bolted for the staircase and ran up it. “I made a roast, devotchka,” he called up the stairs. “Don’t be long.”

  “I’m not your bloody girl!” Emma hissed under her breath as anger replaced the devastation.

  A cosy fire burned in the grate and the bedroom felt warm as Emma stripped off her outdoor coat and shoes. The squashy four poster bed which once held the entwined bodies of Lor
d and Lady Ayers called to Emma, offering comfort and security. The newly renovated walnut wood shone in the orange glow of the fire and she slipped from her clothes and into her pyjamas without considering how early it was. Her tired body sank into the new mattress and she turned on her side and willed herself to relax.

  “Daddy maked a lovely chicken wiv roast potatoes and nice things. There’s hardly any nasty veggies. You comin’ down to the kitchen for some?” Nicky’s tiny hand stroked Emma’s forehead with gentle motions and he leaned in and put his face sideways on the pillow. “You sick, Mummy? Will I get help for you?”

  Emma swallowed and shook her head. “No, I’m fine, baby. Don’t worry. I’m just tired. Please tell your father I’m not hungry. I want to be left alone to sleep.”

  “Ok.” Nicky gave her a beautiful smile and kissed her forehead, leaving a wet patch which she left there as a reminder. He skipped from the room in his socks and closed the door behind him, condemning Emma to her misery. The urge to scream and shout and kick everything around her was overwhelming, but she maintained control although it seemed impossible. Hot tears soaked her pillow and she laid trembling fingers over the tiny swell of her stomach, sensing the child within the walls of her womb. Even in her distress she felt the flutter of movement and cried harder, knowing it was an awful moment to experience her baby’s first kicks.

  Exhaustion released her into sleep despite her attempts to resist it and Emma awoke feeling overly hot a few hours later. The room was in darkness and the fire low in the grate, but she heard Rohan’s steady breathing in the bed. As realisation flooded back, Emma stifled a groan of misery and resisted the urge to attack the sleeping man next to her. Questions filtered past her inner vision like a conveyor belt of confusion and she abandoned her marriage bed, padding along the corridor to her son’s room.

  Nicky snored like a dock worker after far too many pints at the pub and Emma realised she would find only sleeplessness and distraction in his bed. Needing peace, she wandered to Lady Celia’s old room, guided by the moonlight which poured through the ornate skylights and lit the upper floor with a silvery glow. Freda stripped the sheets early that morning before school and the duvet looked pristine white in the big bed. Emma smiled at the memory of Freda’s childish enjoyment of the room. “I feel like the queen in this bedroom,” the old lady giggled.

  “You don’t have to leave just because Rohan’s home,” Emma had said, touching the gnarled hand. “You’re welcome to stay.”

  Freda laughed. “Oh, my darling girl. I got a good view of that body he keeps under his clothes and if I stay, I’ll feel compelled to seduce him.”

  The women giggled and stripped the sheets, piling them in the laundry for Emma to wash later. “God help me?” Emma pleaded as the echo of Freda’s mirth faded. She begged the deity who surely hated her. “I’ve screwed up again,” she sniffed into the empty room.

  The covers were chilly and uncomfortable and the bare mattress unwelcoming as Emma slid beneath the duvet. She pulled it over her head and snuggled down, driven back into sleep by the need to safeguard the health of her unborn child. She woke with the memory of a past conversation in her head, banishing sleep for good. In her mind, Nicky bounced in front of her, repeating the phone message from Harley Man. His garbled case of Chinese Whispers righted itself with awful clarity as Emma unscrambled the real point of the phone call. The Contessa is loose.

  Emma clapped her hand over her lips and pressed in the miserable moan of realisation. The ethereal Chinese woman floated past her inner vision in her slender, flowy dress as she purred at Rohan through a beautician’s trademark lips. Emma accused Rohan of liking her once and he seemed appalled then. But Christopher’s message was clear. The Contessa hadn’t died in the Scottish fire. She was loose and having an affair with Rohan underneath Emma’s gullible nose.

  Chapter 10

  “Mmmnn, you smell good.” Rohan’s strong arms enfolded Emma as she wrapped herself in a towel, her body still steaming from the shower.

  “Get off, Rohan.” Her voice was sharp and she tried not to cringe under his touch.

  His perceptive blue eyes narrowed in confusion and he put his hands over her wrists and stopped her frantic movements. “Did I do something wrong?”

  Emma snorted with a sarcastic laugh. “How should I know? I’m not your keeper!”

  “Why are you being like this?” Rohan took a step back, the metal of his prosthetic leg jarring and ugly against his perfectly sculpted flesh. “Why did you sleep in the guest room?”

  “Questions, questions,” Emma sighed, pulling the towel tighter around herself. “You expect the truth whilst dishing out lies.”

  “You’re talking in riddles!” Annoyance lit Rohan’s face, suspicion oozing from every pore.

  “Well, you’d know, wouldn’t you?” she snapped. “I’m getting dressed now, durak. And you’re not watching me!”

  “I’m not stupid!” He looked so hurt, Emma experienced a pang of regret. It made her spiteful.

  “No, but I am, aren’t I, Rohan? Real stupid!”

  “I don’t think so.” His voice was quiet and full of authority. Emma’s husband waved a hand in supplication and he backed away, leaving her to her dissatisfied fury and closing the bathroom door behind him.

  Emma rested her forehead against the mirror and watched the condensation run in front of her face. With a sigh she closed her eyes, feeling like a bomb ready to detonate. She needed to talk to Rohan about Christopher’s accusation but the words wouldn’t formulate themselves properly in her brain. If she tried, she knew her anger would trip the words up on her tongue and make her say things she didn’t mean.

  Emma dressed in the bedroom, hearing Rohan’s voice rumbling in Nicky’s room across the hall. When he came in to dress, she avoided looking at the soft tanned skin on his washboard abdominal muscles or the way his boxer shorts nestled along the line of his hips. She fled from the room and busied herself downstairs with toast she couldn’t eat and a cup of tea which went down the white, Belfast sink.

  Nicky appeared with Rohan and the smile died on the man’s lips at her deliberate avoidance of his presence. “Come on, Nicky. I need to get in early today.” Emma snatched the car keys from the kitchen table and bounced them noisily in her hand, slipping them into her pocket.

  “But I haven’t had breakfast.” Nicky shot her a look of pure indignation.

  “I’ll stop at the shop on the corner and get you a pie.” Emma stared at her son, willing him to comply.

  Nicky’s face broke into an innocent grin. “What, like a real pie? In a wrapper and everything?” His eyes lit up and Emma choked back a sob.

  “Yes, but we have to go now.”

  “I’ve never had one of them pies,” Nicky informed Rohan. “I always wanted one but Mum never had enough pennies.” He bounced along the hallway to grab his shoes and bag, Farrell running next to him and waving his curly black tail like a flag. Emma heard the wail of dismay. “I forgot to do my homework!”

  Breathing through pursed lips, Emma chalked up yet another failure to Rohan and strode across the room. She almost made it through the open doorway before her husband’s strong forearm blocked the way, his fingers resting on the doorframe in front of her face. “Talk to me!” His tone was sharp and Emma cringed, feeling the explosion too near the surface to risk opening her mouth. She put her head down and worked her jaw so hard it made her teeth ache. Rohan’s presence was a heady mix of masculinity and strength and Emma gripped her resolve and stayed silent. “Fine!” He removed his hand. “This is not like you, Em. Perhaps I will find the answers for myself.” Stress made his Russian accent leak through his words like a latent threat.

  “Why didn’t you come home when you finished the job?” Emma snapped and watched Rohan’s reaction. She saw his pupils dilate and then he dropped his eyes.

  “It was just a job, Em. There’s nothing going on.” He tried too hard with his denial, offering more with his facial expression than she expected
.

  “I didn’t ask if there was anything going on,” she said, her voice a whisper as she pushed him away and let her feet carry her backwards. “I asked why you didn’t come straight home.”

  Rohan pressed his lips together and Emma’s chest felt tight from the increased speed of blood flow through her heart. “You’re a rubbish liar,” she spat. “Anton never asked you to twist the truth because you couldn’t do it; we did it for you.” She advanced a step and then glanced backwards, sensing her son’s anxiety. “You always needed an element of truth or you couldn’t do it and you just gave yourself away. It wasn’t just a job and there is something going on, isn’t there? Who’s at the house in Newcombe Street? ”

  “Emma, don’t do this, please?” Rohan said, his eyes straying behind her to Nicky in the doorway. She turned to meet her son’s wide blue eyes, distraught to find him chewing his nails in a characteristic sign of fear.

  “Whatever!” she shouted, numbness shrouding her anger as her world collapsed inwards.

  Nicky whimpered about his forgotten homework, his shoes laced onto the wrong feet as he hopped around on the doormat. “I’m gonna get so done!” he grumbled. “She’ll sit on me and I’ll never be seen again!”

  “Stop exaggerating!” Emma snapped, grappling around in her coat pocket. “Where’s the bloody car keys? I had them here.”

  “You mean these?” Rohan appeared behind them, a look of amusement in his eyes as he dangled the keys from his right hand. Emma looked from the shiny metal to the glint in Rohan’s blue eyes and glared at him.

  “You stole them from my pocket?” His simple distraction technique made her blood boil.

  “I can’t steal what belongs to me.” The statement pushed the last button required for Emma’s detonation and she stamped her foot in fury.

  “Oh yeah, sorry. It’s your car, isn’t it? Your car, my house. I won’t use your car and you get out of my house.”

  Nicky and Rohan stared after her, aghast as Emma set off through the front door and down the steps, trying not to slip in the heavy frost underfoot. She felt the boys’ unease and blew smoke into the cold air, raging inside and swearing to herself like a foul mouthed navvy.