The Second Wife

by Fleet, Rebecca

  ‘Your second time here. There is something about this place you like?’ he asks Sadie. His tone is oblique, lazily charming. His eyes flicker up and down her body, never quite settling.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. If only he would look at her properly, then she could show him exactly what that something is – give him the brazen, unblinking stare that has worked on so many others. But he doesn’t, and there’s something unmistakeably deliberate about the way he’s holding her at arm’s length. She knows this game, has played it, but never from this side of the fence.

  He smiles, reaching out an olive-skinned hand and slowly pushing his fingers into her hair. She stands rigid, trying to slow her breathing. His fingers re-emerge with something between them; a bright twisted stream of ribbon. ‘Yours?’

  She laughs, trying to be casual, though she can still feel the touch of his skin against hers, as if it has branded her. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  He crumples it into a little ball between his fingertips, then puts it in his pocket, and for a moment he does look at her. She feels the full focus of his attention on her, intense and overwhelming. ‘I hope to see you again,’ he says.

  ‘Maybe,’ she fires back. ‘If you’re lucky.’

  For a moment he looks a little incredulous, regarding her steadily. She hears the echo of her flippant words hanging between them, and it comes with the queasy, dawning realization that none of her usual patter will work on this man. She has always been the one in control, without even trying; it has always been so easy. She cannot even imagine what it would be like to be with someone like Kas. Someone who will not jump when she clicks her fingers, panting after her like an eager dog on heat. She thinks about those hands that were close to her just moments ago, thinks about them slipping underneath her clothes and claiming her body, and desire floods through her again, making her feel almost sick.

  ‘Well,’ he says. ‘Until next time.’ And he gives her a brief glittering smile and nods at Rachel politely before he walks away.

  As soon as he is gone Rachel tugs on her arm, putting her mouth close to her ear. ‘What a creep. Come on, Sadie. You can’t possibly think anything else.’

  ‘You don’t know him,’ Sadie says, dismissively.

  ‘No,’ Rachel acknowledges, ‘and nor do you.’

  And in this, Sadie thinks, she isn’t wrong. And so she watches him, carefully, throughout the rest of the night, trying to glean what she can. He moves across the dance floor, behind the bar, out to the reception, never staying anywhere for long. He talks to various men, one-on-one, short intent conversations that look professional. There is something distinctly deferential in the way the other men behave around him. Their stances, the angle of their heads, the movement of their hands. She sees it, and she understands that he is the boss. Not only of the club, but of the people in it.

  At almost two a.m., when the crowd is thinning out and the music is winding down, she sees his attention caught by something behind the bar. One of the barmen is swigging cheekily from a bottle, laughing with a couple of the punters. It looks harmless, a brief jokey interlude before he turns back to his work, but she can see at once that Kas is not happy. He strides over to the man, puts a hand on his shoulder and leans in. The two of them stay there for almost a minute, a little frozen tableau, and she’s suddenly aware of how tall Kas is, six foot four or maybe more, and how his presence dominates. She cannot hear the words that he speaks into the barman’s ear, but whatever they are, they are enough to make him blanch and pull back, nodding urgently. She sees that he is trying to mumble something in return, but Kas cuts him off instantly, his hand reaching out again and this time gripping harder. The man’s face twists in pain, and he nods again, his eyes downcast, until Kas breaks away and walks back across the dance floor, not looking back.

  Sadie watches him go. She has stopped dancing and she’s aware of a thin film of sweat all over her body, but her skin feels clammy and cold. It is important, she supposes, when you are in charge of people, that you are able to keep them in line. She thinks back to her old school, where some of the best teachers were those who had the respect and admiration of the pupils, but who were also strict enough to command a little fear. If you have this power, you use it. That’s natural.

  Rachel

  1999

  SHE DOESN’T ALWAYS go into the club. Most of the time, in fact, she just drives to Camden late at night and waits in the car park opposite until Sadie emerges. She sits there watching the minutes tick by, trying to warm her hands against the ineffectual fan heater, waiting. At first she used to switch on the little light above the driver’s seat, spurred by a childish fear of the dark, but one night it occurred to her how it would look from the outside; a beacon advertising her presence to whatever ruthless stranger might chance to walk past. Since the thought entered her head she hasn’t been able to get it out, and so now she just sits in the dark.

  Sometimes the thought of this silent vigil is too much to contemplate, and instead she joins Sadie inside. She can never decide if this is better or worse. At least in there she can watch her sister, keep an eye on whatever is going on. But she doesn’t like to be in the same room as Kaspar. There’s something about him that she instinctively mistrusted from the start, but over time this instinct has hardened into knowledge. It’s not that he’s ever done anything untoward as such, not that she’s seen. It’s subtler than that, more ingrained; she’s simply frightened by the person that he is. She finds it impossible to understand why Sadie is unable to see what she sees, but she’s given up trying to make her. Instead she makes it her business to watch him.

  Slowly, she grows to understand that he is at the centre of a network that does not advertise itself. Like a set of concentric circles, some are allowed into his inner force field, and others are kept at the fringes. There are many men who drop in and out of the club from week to week, seemingly at random, but the strange thing is, she soon becomes adept at knowing which ones are part of Kas’s circle. There is something indefinable that groups them, something she cannot isolate despite many attempts.

  At the heart of the circle is a man called Dominic Westwood. He is short and stocky, with white-blond cropped hair, hard, glassy eyes and curiously pliable-looking features, as if he has been fashioned out of Play-Doh. It takes three visits for Rachel to notice him, but once she does, it seems he’s there all the time – observing from a distance, exchanging looks with Kas across the club. She starts to notice them talking in corners. She is unsure of the nature of the bond between them, but she quickly realizes that it is well established. In much the same way, it seems that Dominic has noticed her, recognized her link to Sadie, whose growing closeness to Kas he has clearly acknowledged. When the two of them fall together into one of their cryptic conversations or intense exchanges of glances by the bar, Dominic often seeks Rachel out, despite her efforts to put him off. They are thrown together by default. He has never indicated any sexual interest in her, and it’s for this reason only that she talks to him at all. At least if he is there, he keeps the others at bay; men who circle silently and speculatively, waiting for their chance.

  ‘How did you and Kas meet?’ she asks Dominic one night, some six weeks in, as they sit together by the bar.

  Dominic shrugs and his eyes slant away, in some brief private moment of remembrance. ‘He’s always been around,’ he says, ‘but I only got to know him a couple of years ago.’

  This answer tells her nothing. Rachel pushes the heat of her hair back from her face, feeling her forehead damp with sweat. ‘You started working here with him?’ she asks. As she speaks, she realizes that she is not entirely sure, after all, whether or not Dominic works at the club. He is always there, and sometimes behind the bar, but there is a layer of distance; he observes, rather than participates. It does not surprise her when he shakes his head.

  ‘He did me a favour,’ he says. ‘Helped me out of some trouble. After that, well.’ He shrugs again, and downs his drink. Rachel wants to probe fur
ther, but she has detected something new in his voice – a chilly note of self-protection that warns her off. She repeats his words to herself. She is reminded of a fairy story: the princess who, once saved from peril by the handsome stranger, was magically bound to him for ever. The comparison feels faintly ridiculous, and without thinking, she smiles.

  Dominic gives her a swift, sly look. ‘And of course, I’ve known Melanie for a while,’ he says.

  Rachel frowns slightly, trying to place the name. All Kas’s associates are men, as far as she is aware. ‘Right …’ she says, in a tone that she hopes conveys understanding.

  ‘Yeah,’ says Dominic, nodding. ‘His wife.’ The keenness of his eyes tells her that he wants to see her reaction.

  She keeps her face straight, though inside her stomach is churning. She’s almost certain that Sadie has no idea that Kas is married. They rarely discuss him – they’re both too aware of their fundamental differences of opinion – but it would take a blind woman not to see that her sister is obsessed with him, and to a degree Rachel has never really seen in her before. ‘I didn’t know he had a wife,’ she settles for, her tone off-hand.

  ‘She’s in tonight,’ Dominic says casually. ‘First time in a while. Look.’ He jerks his head in the direction of the DJ box. ‘Over there. Red dress.’

  Rachel looks, and sees a tall woman, five foot ten at least, with olive skin, wavy dark hair, an angular face and a rake-slim figure that speaks of self-possession and denial. She’s leaning back against the box, her arms folded, looking dispassionately out across the club. For a second her gaze snags on Rachel’s, and she gives her a quick hard stare of dismissal.

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’ she asks.

  Dominic smirks as he motions towards the barman for another drink. ‘Just making conversation, babe.’ He manages to make the endearment sound like an insult. ‘You want another?’ He nods at her near-empty glass.

  Rachel shakes her head. ‘I’m not staying.’ She slips off her stool, scanning the crowd for Sadie. She soon spots her, dancing aimlessly in the centre of the crowd, her expression flat and glazed. She doesn’t look as if she’s enjoying herself. She only comes here, Rachel thinks, for him.

  She pushes through the dancers to reach her sister’s side, touching her on the shoulder. ‘Sadie,’ she says, putting her mouth close to her ear. ‘Can I have a word?’

  Sadie looks vaguely put out, but shrugs and nods, allowing herself to be led to the side of the dance floor. Now that they’re away from the spotlights, Rachel can see that her make-up is running; sparkled shadows of dust collecting beneath her eyes, a smudge of red lipstick spilling on to the skin beneath her mouth. She looks damaged, and inexplicably beautiful. ‘What is it?’ she asks.

  ‘Dominic just told me something,’ Rachel says. There doesn’t feel like a good way to say this, so she just spits it out. ‘Did you know that Kas is married?’

  Sadie’s face twitches, as if she’s been slapped. ‘No. What do you mean? He isn’t.’

  ‘That’s not what Dominic said.’ For a moment Rachel thinks about pointing out the woman in the red dress, but thinks better of it. ‘Anyway, I just thought you ought to know. I know there’s nothing going on between you two, but …’ She trails off, unsure of how to continue. She senses that for Sadie, confronting the fact that she isn’t having an affair with a married man might be even more humiliating than having an affair with one that she believed to be single.

  She expects Sadie to snap something back; conversation with her is usually quick-fire, shoot first and think later. But she stays silent – a slight frown furrowing her brows, her eyes distant and lost – and then abruptly turns and marches back across the dance floor. Rachel can see she’s heading for the reception area, where Kas is likely to be. She stands indecisively for a moment, then swiftly follows her sister. The reception is round a sharp corner, and she lingers diagonally across from it, shaded by the dim corridor lighting. She can see Kas, leaning back against the wall and rifling through a stack of papers, so absorbed that even when Sadie moves next to him he doesn’t look up.

  ‘Kas,’ Sadie says.

  He whips round. ‘What?’ The word is barked and unfriendly, like an accusation. A split-second later, his expression relaxes. ‘I am sorry, Sadie,’ he murmurs. ‘I thought you were somebody else.’

  Sadie looks uncertain for an instant, then seems to collect herself. ‘I just came to let you know I won’t be coming in again.’ Rachel can hear the slight crack in her voice that would be imperceptible to anyone else; the only sign that this is difficult for her to say.

  Kas raises his eyebrows, but says nothing. It’s impossible to tell from his face whether he cares about what she is saying or not.

  ‘You never said you were married,’ Sadie states baldly, but as soon as it’s out she seems to lose confidence in her stance. She wraps her arms around herself, reaches one hand up to tug unconsciously at her hair. ‘It’s none of my business,’ she continues more quietly, ‘but …’

  Kas comes closer to her, sliding a hand beneath her chin and lifting her face a little to his. He studies her intently, like a scientist with a strange and rare specimen. ‘I thought you knew how things were,’ he says softly, so that Rachel has to strain to hear him. ‘Life is not always simple, Sadie. You know this.’

  Sadie is staring up into his eyes, clearly completely taken in. ‘I just …’ Rachel hears her say, and then her lips move again with words that she can’t quite catch. Kas nods, and for a moment their faces are so close that Rachel thinks they are going to kiss. A light shudder runs down her back. She’s spying on them, doesn’t want to see this, but she can’t move.

  But in the end Kas just smiles, and straightens up slightly, smoothing Sadie’s hair back behind her ears, and then resting one hand each side of her head, keeping her in place.

  ‘For now I can only say this,’ he says. ‘That if you were to stop coming here I would be sorry. And that your feelings are not only your own.’

  Whatever the hell that means, Rachel thinks, but Sadie seems satisfied with it, dropping her gaze to the floor and nodding, a smile playing around her lips. Incredibly, it’s as if she has got exactly what she wants from this exchange. She isn’t disillusioned or angry; the news that Kas has a wife has been taken in, evaluated and dismissed all in the space of five minutes. And the way she’s reacting isn’t like her at all. She’s never seen her sister look so – she gropes for the word – submissive. There’s no fight or resistance in her body; she’s pliable, apparently quite happy to have this man’s hands on her and to believe every word that comes out of his mouth.

  It’s only now, watching this, that Rachel realizes she’s wasting her time. There is no point in trying to control her sister. She’ll do what she wants, with whom she wants, no matter what Rachel says or thinks or does. There’s a sense of things shifting inside her – a weight lifting, but an emptiness too.

  Quietly, she slips along the corridor by the wall and hurries towards the exit, though she knows they are too absorbed in each other to notice her. She grabs her coat from the cloakroom and walks back to the car in the light rain, her head bowed. She’ll sit there until Sadie reappears, and then she’ll take her home, but she won’t be coming back to the club. Her sister is on her own.

  Sadie

  1999

  IN THE HEAT and dark of the corridor, their faces almost touching, she understands him perfectly. He’s saying that their feelings are the same. That he wants her as much as she wants him, even if it can’t happen. For now.

  Mutely, she nods, and she’s seized by the fervent desire to get away from him, because she doesn’t want to shatter the unspoken perfection of this moment. She senses that it won’t get any better than this, and so she pulls away and walks slowly back towards the dance floor, her limbs aching, a sweet dizziness spreading across her temples and sending the room reeling.

  She’s in the thick of the crowd again, her body moving to the music, the sweat trickling down
her face, when she sees Dominic across the room. He’s not alone. He’s listening to a woman beside him, a woman with long, wavy hair falling down the length of her bare back who’s leaning in towards him. She watches, never taking her eyes away from them until she sees the other woman turn from Dominic and stalk away towards the basement stairs.

  Sadie picks her way over to Dominic, reaching his side and raising her voice above the thumping music. ‘Is that her, then?’ she asks airily. She can be this way with Dominic – flippant, challenging. She knows very well that telling Rachel was his way of telling her, indirectly, just to test her reaction.

  Dominic smirks. ‘She was asking about you, funnily enough,’ he says. ‘How I know you, how old you are …’ He pauses. ‘If you have a boyfriend.’

  Sadie mirrors Dominic’s detached expression, setting her jaw in a hard, uncompromising line, but her stomach is churning with excitement. This means something. For Kas’s wife to have noticed her, to have bothered to try and find out more, she must on some level see her as a threat. ‘What did you say?’ she asks.

  ‘Not a lot. I’ve not got a clue about your – love life.’ The last words are ironically laced, framed by invisible quotation marks. ‘How would I know if you have a boyfriend or not?’

  ‘I don’t.’ As she speaks, Sadie realizes that she hasn’t slept with anyone for almost two months now – the longest she’s ever gone without it since that first awkward night in the upstairs room of a local pub five years ago, when she was only fourteen. She’s had the opportunity, of course, could turn around right now if she wanted and catch the eye of some lingering Lothario who’d be only too happy to step in and end the dry spell. It comes to her that she doesn’t want any of them, doesn’t want anyone except Kas. The knowledge steals her breath. This is different from anything she’s felt before. It’s all-consuming, terrifying. She barely knows this man, but she wants him so much that it feels as if her insides have been brutally scooped out, leaving her hollow with need. Tears are suddenly in her eyes, and she glances away.