The Lonely Wife

by Val Wood

  He slowed his walk to allow Maria to get inside the house, and then rather than using his key he hammered on the door.

  She had shed her jacket and shawl and she opened the door, greeting him with delight. ‘Aah, darling, you are home already! I didn’t think you would be here for another day or more.’ She ushered him inside and took his coat. ‘Did you find him?’ She clasped her fingers together. ‘Was he safe?’

  ‘Who?’ He stared at her woodenly, temporarily forgetting why he had left in such a hurry. ‘Laurence! Oh, yes, cowering, and his mother protecting him. I’m going to bring him here. Make me something to eat,’ he told her, ‘and coffee. I’ve had nothing to eat all day.’

  ‘Bring him here? No!’ she said. ‘He can’t live here, not in my ’ouse. You know that. We have talked. And did your wife not make you breakfast before you leave?’ She changed the subject. ‘Tut!’ She clicked her tongue. ‘I will make paella pronto.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what I can do,’ he snarled. ‘And I want something to eat now! Bread, beef, ham. I can’t wait for paella.’

  ‘All right. All right! Sit. I will be five minutes only. I take my coat and shawl upstairs. I have only just arrived home. Bianca and I—’

  ‘Yes,’ he snapped. ‘I know. I saw you. You’ve been shopping!’

  She smiled. ‘Yes, you wait and see what I buy.’

  ‘Later! I want food now.’ He pointed to the stairs. ‘Be quick.’

  She cast a glance at him and turned, putting her coat and shawl on the stairs to take up later, and went into the tiny kitchen. She washed her hands under the tap and lifted the lid on the wooden bread bin, took out a loaf she had made the day before, and sawed a thick slice. Then she took another sharper knife and cut slices of ham from a joint in the meat safe, finally mixing a spoonful of yellow mustard powder with a drop of water in a small bowl to make a smooth paste.

  She muttered, so that he wouldn’t hear, ‘Santo cielo. Que hombre!’ For goodness’ sake. What a man! She carried a plate with the food on it into the sitting room and placed it on the table, put a bundle of sticks on the fire to make a bigger flame, and went back to the kitchen to fill the kettle to make his coffee.

  As she stood up from putting the kettle on the fire, he grabbed hold of her by her arms. ‘What did you say?’

  She shrugged him off. ‘When? I say nothing.’

  ‘Yes you did. I heard you.’

  She lifted her shoulders and her hands in an extravagant gesture. ‘No! I say nothing. I make you food. Now I cook you dinner. I am your servant, yes?’

  He lifted his hand and smacked her across the face, causing her to stagger and almost fall.

  She gasped and backed away from him, clutching her cheek. ‘What I do? I do nothing!’

  ‘You women are all the same,’ he hissed. ‘Always trying to get the better of the men who feed and clothe you, and,’ he added menacingly, ‘it is not your house. It is my house.’

  She stared at him, her mouth open. ‘What you say? I am here always for you. I cook and clean and share your bed and still it is not enough?’

  He leaned towards her. ‘No. It is not enough! I asked you, what did you say?’ He spanned her throat with one hand and with the other grabbed her arm again. ‘Do you not understand?’ he roared. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I say nothing!’ she shrieked. ‘Get your hands off me!’ With all her strength, she pushed him away so that, unprepared, he toppled backwards. Backwards so that he fell towards the fireplace, whirling his arms to retain his balance, but falling and hitting his head on the stone mantelpiece and crumpling into the hearth.

  She sank to the floor and sat looking at him. What had happened? Why did he do this to her? She who loved and cared for him. Why did he attack her so?

  She crept towards him on her hands and knees and saw that his hair was singeing from the hot coals. ‘Charles! Get up.’ She took hold of his feet and pulled him away from the fire, bumping his back against the brass fender. But he didn’t flinch.

  ‘Charles.’ She patted his face. ‘Charles! Wake up. Don’t let us quarrel. Please. You know I do everything for you. You are my only love. Charles!’

  She looked at her hand. It was sticky; sticky with blood. She drew in a breath. ‘No,’ she gasped. ‘No! Charles. Speak to me. Wake up.’

  She rose from her knees and ran to the kitchen and seized a cloth, held it under the tap, and ran back to Charles and wet his face with it, squeezing the cloth so the water ran down his cheeks and neck. But still he didn’t move. She put her head against his chest. Nothing.

  She lay beside him, her arm across him, holding him, her face close to his. What must I do? Who can help me? They had lived secret lives. Few people visited them. Only his friend Paul, but she didn’t know where he lived. Bianca, who came only when Charles was away. She knew no one else in the area. Charles had said that she mustn’t invite anyone in when he wasn’t there, and she never had; only Bianca.

  The old man next door. He talked to her, and sometimes she took him bread that she had baked, or some leftover ham or half a bottle of wine, as Charles wouldn’t drink yesterday’s wine. But he was old. What could he do? How could he help her?

  She put her head to Charles’s chest again, but still couldn’t hear a heartbeat. She put her fingers round his wrist. No throbbing of a pulse. She began to sob. ‘Charles. Charles. What must I do? Please! Don’t leave me, Charles. I don’t know what to do.’

  Using all her strength she pulled him up and put her arms around him, holding him close to pat his back, but he was heavy and she couldn’t keep a grip on him. He lolled against her and she was frightened; she made the sign of the cross on her chest and let him down on to the rug, pulling him away from the hearth and cradling his sticky bloody head.

  If I run for a bobby, will they come? Tears ran down her face as she sobbed. Will they think I have killed him? The thought terrified her. I am not an Englishwoman. Her sobbing was becoming unstoppable. They will put me in jail, or hang me. There is no one who will save me. Not Charles’s father. He doesn’t like me. I see it in his eyes. He knows my name.

  Her thoughts and imaginings were becoming more and more muddled and eventually she stood up. She was shaking as she looked down on her lover. ‘This is how you treat me after all these years,’ she mumbled incoherently. ‘I do everything for you. I am your wife and your mother. I take care of you always. And now you die.’

  She began to back away as reality stepped in and her breath began to race. Her tears fell as if they would never stop, but now she was crying for herself and her fear and the predicament she found herself in. She bent and put her hand in his pockets, but drew out only coins, which she put into her own skirt pocket.

  She backed away to the foot of the stairs in the small hall, closing the sitting room door behind her. She climbed the stairs to the bedroom they had shared, carrying the parcels she had brought in from shopping. The other tiny room was where she and Charles hung their clothes. A dressing room, Charles had called it. It was also where he kept money in a box which was locked with a key, and she knew where it was hidden. Charles had told her in case she ever needed money. He trusted me, she assured herself.

  She dropped the parcels. They didn’t seem important now, but she opened one and brought out a silk shirt she had bought for Charles and carefully hung it in the cupboard; she took a dark blue gown with a matching jacket from a hanger, and changed into it. She chose a three-quarter woollen cape and put that on. The skirt and blouse and jacket that she had been wearing she put into a large cotton shopping bag along with two petticoats and a warm shawl.

  She unlocked the money box. It had coins and paper money in it: she took some out and tucked it into a cotton money bag that she fastened to her petticoat, and the rest she put at the bottom of a cheap carpet bag she had bought for its bright colours.

  In this she left space for jewels. Hers, that Charles had bought her: rings and brooches, necklaces and earrings that might be worth money should sh
e need it, and covered everything with a shawl and other items of clothing. She knew what it was like to be poor. She didn’t want to revisit that situation. Now is the time, Maria, when you must look after yourself.

  There, she thought. It is everything. She tried to hold back her sobs but she still hiccuped every second, and the tears ran down her cheeks as she closed the door behind her and crept down the stairs.

  She hesitated outside the sitting room, undecided whether or not to enter; then she put down her bags and went in. He was as still as stone. She closed the door to the kitchen and then on reflection opened it again and took down a bottle of red wine from the shelf. Taking a bottle opener from a drawer she drew the cork.

  She put her mouth to the neck and took a deep long swallow, then half filled a wine glass and took it into the sitting room. She sat down and considered, looking down on Charles. ‘We have had some good times, Charles,’ she murmured, speaking in her own language. ‘You saved my life and I loved you for that. I think I helped you in yours, and I don’t know who else could have or would have, for you are not an easy man; you are troubled, I think.’ She gave a deep sigh. ‘Maybe you are tiring of me, yes? I am older than I admit and you were very young when we met.’

  She raised the glass to him, and then gently poured a few drops on to his lips and chin, sprinkled some on his shirt and upturned the rest on to the carpet, lowering the glass on to the stain.

  I don’t want anyone to think you were killed. I want them to think that you fell and banged your head, which is what you did, Charles. We shouldn’t have fought, though it wasn’t the first time.

  She bent low and blew him a kiss. ‘Dios te bendiga.’ God bless you. She crossed herself once more, and went softly into the entrance hall. She hesitated again. Through the small square of glass at the top of the outer door she saw that dusk was drawing in. She took the key from the shelf and put it in her pocket, pulled her shawl over her head, picked up her bags, opened the door and closed it behind her, leaving it unlocked, and stepped into the street.

  It was drizzling with rain and just for the briefest second she wished for the warmth of her own country, but she shook her head. She had been safe here. Here she would stay.

  Looking through the curtain of the house next door, the old man saw her leave. Where’s she going? It’s almost as dark as night. She rarely goes out in the evening except with him. He liked Maria. She was kind to him; but he didn’t like the man she lived with. He often heard him shouting at her, as he had heard him tonight.

  He turned away and closed the curtains on the night.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Beatrix paced the floor. She had been awake again most of the night, and couldn’t settle to anything. She had risen at five o’clock and written a letter to the headmaster of the Hampstead school to tell him that Laurence had been found and was safely home again.

  She said that Laurence was sorry for having worried everyone so much and had promised that he wouldn’t do such a thing again; and had added that either she or her husband would write again with a decision as to whether he would be returning to school. She had sealed it and left the envelope on her dressing table for Dora to take down.

  She could hear the chatter and laughter of the children, but the sound seemed surreal, as if they were in another time and space. Is this how it will be if Charles divorces me? Will I only hear the sounds of my children’s voices in my head?

  How can he do it? Who will he accuse? The only men I see are the men who work on the estate, and Hallam. Surely Charles wouldn’t think – no, he couldn’t. She cast around in her head for acquaintances whom Charles, in his anger, might indict.

  There was no one … except – perhaps – Edward. He is the one he might choose. Charles will know how he helped me when I first came here. She gave a throaty sobbing cry as she thought of Edward going to fetch Aaron to be with her during her first week of marriage, so that she wouldn’t be alone. A marriage without a husband present. What would the courts make of that?

  ‘Nothing.’ She spoke aloud. It will be a court of men. She thought of the good men she knew who would judge her fairly. Her father, even though he had made a huge mistake in introducing her to Charles. Her brother Thomas: oh, if only he were here. His letters were few as yet. Hallam would be astonished by the question, though he would probably be fair; and Edward of course, regardless of his dispute with Charles; his father, Luke, who seemed to bear no grudge against anyone in spite of his misfortune.

  Why am I thinking like this? I feel as if I am preparing for battle, but who is the enemy? Charles! What have I done to cause him to make such an attack on me?

  After reading Charles’s letter the previous day, she had replied immediately, pleading that they must talk and that she would do what she could to repair the rift in their marriage.

  I swear on the heads of my children that I have never consorted with any other man … and had faithfully kept their wedding vows, and then sending the letter as urgent mail addressed and underlined to Mr Charles Dawley only. Strictly private and confidential. She had thought of sending a telegram but didn’t want anyone but Charles reading it. He would see the letter the next morning when he went in to the bank.

  Except that Charles didn’t go in to the bank and his father, Alfred, eyed the letter waiting on Charles’s desk. He thought he recognized Beatrix’s handwriting on the envelope and wondered if Charles had actually travelled to Yorkshire to look for the boy. He might at least have let me know.

  By midday he was becoming extremely annoyed with Charles for taking more time off, and decided that a serious meeting was called for. If Charles didn’t conform he would call a board meeting and have him removed. He had the power to do that.

  ‘One last chance,’ he mumbled. ‘But of course he won’t care; he never wanted to join the family firm anyway, and now that he has the estate and all the profit that is coming in, he’ll care even less.’

  However, he didn’t want the other directors to know just how little Charles did to earn the prestige of being second in command. Even though he won’t ever be in my position, I care about our standing in the banking world, so I will go once more to see him and give him a final warning. Three months only to turn himself around or he’s finished. He must resign.

  Brusquely, he asked one of the clerks to send for a cabriolet, picked up the letter and slipped it in his briefcase, put on his top hat, and half an hour later was rolling along in the direction of Judd Street. He asked the driver to wait near the top of the street as he had done before, but this driver had a sharp tongue and insisted that he paid him first.

  ‘If I get a fare, guv, I’ll take it,’ he told him. ‘But I’ll drive back this way and if you’re waiting here I’ll pick you up. My time is money, you know!’

  ‘Please yourself!’ Alfred was affronted. ‘I’ll be half an hour at least, but if you can afford to turn it down that’s all right by me.’

  He paid him for the single ride and turned to walk down the street. ‘Who does he think he is?’ he muttered. ‘Doesn’t he know who I am? He picked me up at the bank, for heaven’s sake!’

  The old man who lived next door to Charles’s house was standing by his gate, nodding to people walking by and passing the time of day with some of them, but Alfred didn’t acknowledge him in any way. The old man turned to look at him before stepping back inside his own house.

  Alfred hammered on the door and waited; then he knocked again, noting that the door rattled against the frame but not the chain. He put his hand on the knob and turned it; the door was unlocked. He knocked again, and pushed it slightly.

  ‘Charles!’ He opened it wider. ‘Where are you? Maria! Are you there?’

  Nothing. No sound, no voices, no smell of wood smoke or coal fire or cooking. He stepped inside. How foolish of them to forget to lock the door. Where had they gone in such a hurry that they forgot, especially in a neighbourhood such as this? It wasn’t as if Charles hadn’t a lot to lose. Alfred had an obsession
with locking doors and windows in case of burglars.

  ‘Charles? Maria?’ For such a bullish man, an unexpected sense of propriety made him baulk at entering someone else’s property, even though it belonged to his son.

  He pushed open the sitting room door. Everything seemed neat and tidy, though the room was rather dark and he noticed that the curtains were closed; and then he saw a pair of feet attached to two legs and vaguely thought it was odd to lie on the floor when there were comfortable chairs to sit on.

  And then he saw the rest of the figure lying so still. A body. And it was his son. It was Charles lying there, dried blood on his face and caked on his fair hair and what looked like blood on his shirt.

  Alfred made a stifled sound and he wasn’t sure if he shouted, but he backed out of the house and ran to the low iron gate, and then he did shout. ‘Help! Help me, someone. Fetch the police, somebody; help me! There’s been a fatality. My son. My son is dead!’

  Alfred went to the house next door and rattled the knocker, but no one answered. Maybe the old man’s deaf, he thought, and then he saw a young lad open a door further down the street and walk towards him.

  ‘Hey,’ Alfred called to him. ‘Can you run?’

  The boy looked at him warily and nodded.

  ‘Run to the nearest lock-up and find a policeman, will you? Tell him – tell him someone’s died.’

  The boy seemed more interested. ‘Who?’ he asked.

  ‘Never mind who, just run. Sixpence when you return with one.’

  ‘No point in running, is there, if somebody’s dead?’

  Alfred jingled coins in his pocket. ‘Are you going or not? I’ll go myself if you won’t.’ I’ll have to lock the door if I can find a key. Can’t leave the door open now.

  ‘Yeh, all right.’ The lad seemed to have a change of heart and set off at a lope until he reached the main road, where he slowed his step.

  Alfred sat on the low garden wall with his head in his hands. What am I going to do? His chest felt tight, breathless; reality was crowding in on him. What do I say to his mother? What do I tell his wife? I barely know her. Will she have hysterics? What about Maria? Is this an accident, a murder? Is anything missing? Money? Jewellery?