The Second Woman

by Charlotte Philby

  ‘Artemis, what the hell are you talking about?’ He took off his glasses. ‘What … I don’t even know where to start.’

  ‘It might make things more convenient, for you and May.’

  She didn’t know where it had come from, only that once she had said the words, it felt like a release. The silence that followed was loaded.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘She could come over when you’re in London, stay the night. You wouldn’t have to pussyfoot around me.’

  His jaw clenched. Suddenly he saw where this was going. For a while, he didn’t speak.

  ‘Well at least you’re not denying it,’ she said after a beat.

  ‘There’s nothing to deny. I’m trying to process what you’re saying, what you’re insinuating—’

  ‘Oh please …’ Artemis put up her hands to stop him. She was calm, her voice even.

  ‘You know what? The thing is that I don’t even care. Since I saw you two together – oh, almost over a year ago now – I’ve tried so hard to make myself feel some specific emotion – to feel angry or sad or … But I don’t. I’ve felt detached, yes, I’ve felt mad. And now, being home this time, I realise I wasn’t mad, I was lost. This is where I need to be. I’m not even angry with you, this isn’t a punishment. I just know that this is what I’m attached to – this place, my people.’

  What choice did she have but to redraw her own history?

  Clive was visibly shaking.

  Artemis looked away from him. ‘I’m not breaking up with you. I’m not even telling you to stop—’ Her voice was almost kindly.

  ‘You’re not telling me to stop what, Artemis? What are you even talking about? What is it that you think you’ve seen?’

  ‘David’s birthday, last year. I went out to pick him up and left you and her together at home, except I had to pop back for something and I saw you both—’

  ‘Oh my God.’ Clive covered his face briefly with the palms of his hands.

  Artemis ignored his scorn. ‘I don’t know how long it’s been going on or if Jeff—’

  Clive moved forward suddenly in his seat. ‘You know nothing.’

  ‘So Jeff doesn’t know.’ She bit her lip, watching him for a moment. ‘In that case, I won’t tell him. If you agree to let me stay here without kicking up a fuss, I won’t tell your best friend and business partner that you’ve been fucking his wife.’

  Clive stood up, thrusting his chair backwards. As he moved towards her, Artemis arched away from him.

  ‘You know nothing. Don’t you dare threaten me.’ He was so close that she could see the pores on his nose. When had he started to look so much older? He was barely forty and yet he could have passed for ten years more. But he was strong.

  Artemis shifted back further.

  ‘Do you really think I’d let you take my child away from me? Do you really think that you can blackmail me and then move my son to some provincial little island and that I will pay for him to go to a school inferior to the one he is at now while you fanny around in my house? And with your history of depen—’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  Clive shook his head. ‘Do you think I don’t know?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The pills. Do you think I don’t notice how quickly you get through the medication Dr Blackman prescribes you? He hasn’t said anything to me, for obvious reasons, but I have eyes, Artemis.’

  Artemis sneered. ‘You’re accusing me of having a problem? Who is it that prescribes them, Clive? And who is responsible for me going to him in the first—’

  ‘Because I wanted to help you, Artemis.’

  ‘Oh yes, I forget how helpful you’ve always been. How you helped bring me to a country where I know no one; how you helped me with the promise of a gallery that you’ve since done everything in your power to prevent me from having; how you helped me by leaving me alone for weeks on end while you travel the world, occasionally coming home to fuck your best friend’s wife!’

  He stood straight again, smiling. ‘You’re madder than I thought.’

  ‘We don’t need your money,’ Artemis snarled at him.

  ‘Ha! I think we both know that’s a lie, my darling. Have you seen Athena recently? Do you know what it’s like being a single mother in a place like this? What are you going to do, Artemis? I mean, what are you really going to do? Go and live with your parents? Go back to work in the bakery?’

  She clenched her jaw, her palms starting to open and close. It wouldn’t be so bad. At least she would be living her own life.

  ‘And David? What, he will go to the school you went to? The one where he has no friends and where he barely speaks the language? You’d do that to him? You’d take him out of the school he loves, away from his home, where he has more opportunities than he could ever hope for, away from his friends? For what, so you can feel a bit more … you?’ Clive looked at her with disappointment in his eyes. ‘Of all the things, I never thought you would put your own happiness above David’s.’

  He turned, disgust written over his face. ‘I can’t even look at you.’

  Artemis charged from the front door, taking the pitch-black footpath to Athena’s, on the other side of the old village, in strides. Summer was coming to an end and the sound of the wind coming up off the water rippled through the trees, reminding her of her childhood.

  Maria was playing outside, piling blocks on a precarious tower with a look of intense concentration. She startled at the sound of footsteps, her face breaking into a smile when she saw who it was.

  ‘Is David coming?’

  Artemis touched Maria’s hair on the way past, too angry to stop and talk, not bothering to knock before marching into the kitchen, where Athena was washing dishes.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  Artemis struggled to remain still. ‘I can’t do it any more.’

  ‘Do what?’ Athena turned off the tap and moved to the table, pulling out a chair. ‘Sit down.’

  Artemis stayed standing, the energy crackling off her. ‘Clive, London, all of it … He’s been sleeping with his best friend’s wife.’

  ‘What?’ Athena’s face darkened.

  ‘I saw them. A year ago, in our home. David’s birthday.’

  Athena shook her head. ‘Clive wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘How can you say that? I just told you I saw them.’ Artemis paused, and then the words started tumbling from her mouth, the ones she’d held in for so long. ‘Oh God, you’re jealous.’

  ‘What?’

  She sat down and looked at her friend, as if really considering the situation for the first time. ‘You’re jealous because Clive is sleeping with someone else and it’s not you.’

  Athena’s fingers gripped the edge of the table, her voice quiet. ‘How dare you. I’ve just lost my husband.’

  ‘Yes, but you never wanted him, did you, Athena? You wanted my husband, and Panos knew it. He was never enough for you. You didn’t lose Panos, you threw him away!’

  ‘Don’t you dare talk about Panos—’

  ‘You have no idea what it’s like to lose everything,’ Artemis stormed on.

  ‘Oh please. Not this. You were five years old, Artemis! Helena died in the earthquake and that’s terrible, but you aren’t the only one who lost someone that day – though your family acts like you were. And you? You’re still letting that single event define you three decades later? Get over yourself. You don’t want to be happy. You never have.’

  ‘I don’t want to be happy?’ Artemis’ voice trembled. ‘You have no idea what it has been like for me, growing up here. I was taunted for years – years – and you did nothing to help me …’

  ‘I did nothing? I was your only friend. I was the only one who would talk to you. You were an outcast and I brought you in!’

  ‘You brought me in?’ Artemis was lost for words. ‘You did nothing for me. You were never a good friend. I tried to tell you what happened with Jorgos and you laughed at me. And now, I am the o
ne who has done something with my life and it kills you – and you have lost everything because it was never enough for you. You always wanted what you couldn’t have—’

  ‘What I couldn’t have? This is your fault. Me and Panos, it was because of you …’

  There was a noise from across the room. When Artemis turned, Maria was staring back at them from the doorway.

  Artemis’ face dropped.

  ‘Get out.’ Athena’s voice was a hiss. ‘Get out of my house.’

  Their argument left Artemis not so much with a sense of catharsis, but a feeling of resignation – she had committed the perfect act of self-sabotage. In standing up to Athena, she had lost her only friend. In attempting to stand up to Clive, she had unwittingly invited him to pull his trump card: their son.

  The worst part was that he was right. She couldn’t disrupt David’s life for the sake of her own happiness. Besides, who did she have left on the island other than her parents, now? And they were hardly in a position to support their daughter and grandson. Without Clive’s financial support, she and David had nothing. Without Athena, she didn’t even have a friend.

  They left the island the following day, the image of Maria’s face as Artemis fled the house the night before scored onto her memory.

  The journey back to London passed largely in silence, the rumble of the jet’s engines interspersed with the occasional discordant beep from David’s Game Boy.

  At home, neither of them mentioned the argument again, returning to a semi-convincing version of family life with remarkable ease, talking to each other through their son when necessary, otherwise barely exchanging a word. After walking on glass for so long, Artemis knew the fragility of the land that lay between them. But she didn’t hear it crack until it was too late.

  The leaves were turning, changing their suits in preparation for autumn. Despite her aversion to the cold, she liked this time of year when the air sharpened, the paths on the Heath emptying of its fair-weather friends.

  Clive had been working late again the night before and she hadn’t heard him come to bed. He was still sleep when she left to walk David to school the following morning.

  They held hands, she and David, as they passed the Holly Bush pub, catching the scent of smoke from one of the pub’s first open fires of the season.

  She watched David disappear into school with a proud yearning, turning and walking back the way she’d come, the high street coming to life around her. She could tell Clive was awake the moment she got home, his voice filtering downstairs from the office as she stepped through the front door.

  She was in the kitchen an hour later when he appeared.

  ‘I’m leaving now.’

  She turned to him briefly, noting the perfect suit, the slight paunch that had developed over the years, straining the buttons.

  ‘Fine, have a good day,’ she replied.

  He paused as though he might move forward to kiss her, but then he turned and left, the house falling into renewed silence in his absence.

  Artemis spent the rest of the morning preparing food for David’s supper. At lunchtime she picked up a pile of clean clothes and headed upstairs, pausing briefly as she passed Clive’s study. She had rarely been inside without him there, and she half-expected the door to be locked as she grasped the round brass handle, but the mechanism gave way instantly.

  The smell of Clive hung thick in the air as she looked from the roll-top desk with its dark green leather lining to the bookcase.

  She moved cautiously, like a child trespassing, the thrill of the danger urging her on. Walking behind the desk, she let her hand hover over the telephone. Who had her husband been talking to? What did it matter? She sighed, taking a step away from the desk, spotting the paper scrunched into a ball by the side of the wastepaper bin as if Clive had attempted to throw it away and had missed.

  Leaning down, Artemis saw that it was an envelope. Inside was a letter, which she removed carefully, flattening out the page carefully with her fingers.

  Dear Clive,

  I hear from our mutual friend that you are happy to accept my offer.

  It is a great pleasure to be doing further business with you, and I look forward to meeting in the coming weeks to discuss further the creation of the Stan Group.

  Yours sincerely,

  Irena Vasiliev

  Artemis felt rather than heard Clive’s presence in the hallway outside. Dropping the paper, she moved across the study. Her heartbeat inexplicably sped up as she stepped outside and came face-to-face with her husband – what reason did she have to be nervous?

  ‘I was just doing some cleaning and I thought I’d check if there were any cups … There weren’t,’ she said, looking away from him towards the stairs, imagining for a split second a shadow on the bannisters.

  ‘You’re home early,’ she continued.

  His demeanour shifted. ‘Yes. I’m going to be working here for the rest of the day – please don’t disturb me.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, walking towards the stairs, looking up at him as she took her first step down to the ground floor.

  He looked back at her as though he wanted to say something more but thought better of it. Instead, he simply nodded and stepped inside his office, closing the door behind him.

  Madeleine

  London, present day

  The prison is in Kent, an hour or so east of London. It makes sense for Madeleine to meet Isobel at her place first, not least since she has offered to drive. Although the moment she sees Isobel’s car, she wishes she had suggested she get them a cab.

  ‘It hasn’t broken down once since I bought it,’ Isobel says, noticing Madeleine’s expression as she opens the passenger door as if handling an unknown reptile.

  ‘And that was when, 1980?’ she says, deadpan, picking up a couple of cassette tapes discarded on the seat and tucking her legs under the dash. ‘I’m joking, it’s very evocative. What is it?’

  ‘A Renault five,’ Isobel says. ‘Anyway, at least I have a car.’

  ‘Touché.’

  The visiting room is large and open-plan, a space designed to be inclusive and welcoming, to help convey the prison’s mantra, ‘Our aim is to change lives for the better.’ As if sterile design and a snazzy tagline can distract from the lack of staff training and access to legal advice that are among the perils of an increasing number of privatised prisons like these.

  ‘Thank you so much for agreeing to see me,’ Isobel says, taking the lead as they sit opposite Eva. The woman looks younger than twenty-two, and Madeleine’s first thought is of the child she knows Eva gave birth to less than a year ago. Madeleine checked when she made her application to visit and Eva isn’t being held in the Mother and Baby Unit.

  ‘Eva, this is Madeleine—’ Isobel says.

  ‘I know your friend Dana,’ Madeleine interjects gently, sensing Eva’s understandable wariness. Her eyes narrow with interest. Once satisfied that she is listening, Madeleine continues.

  ‘I work for the National Crime Agency, specifically investigating human trafficking. Dana is among a number of women I have met through my work.’ It is not strictly ethical, let alone legal, for Madeleine to be sharing details of an informant with anyone outside the agency, but seeing as Dana put herself forward to Isobel, via Maureen, and Dana and Eva were victims of the same gang, it seems like extenuating circumstances. Or at least, if Eva can help them bring the traffickers to justice then the ends will surely justify the means.

  Eva looks to Isobel for confirmation, and Isobel nods.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me bringing Madeleine with me.’ She pauses. ‘But first, I wanted to say how sorry I am, for all of this.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Eva says, matter-of-fact. ‘It was me who killed Vedad, not you.’

  ‘Yeah, but he deserved it,’ Isobel says. ‘I just … If I hadn’t pursued you, you wouldn’t be here.’

  Madeleine senses it is time to step in. She speaks gently, guiding Isobel back to less
emotive territory.

  ‘I asked Isobel if I could come with her because we think you might be able to help us catch some of the people responsible for a number of crimes.’ Madeleine lets her words settle, before sitting forward. ‘What do you think?’

  Artemis

  London, the Nineties

  The following year, the family didn’t return to the island. Neither Artemis nor Clive even mooted the idea as the prospect of another school holiday loomed, as if to even mention the place where the fight had happened, while the repercussions were still being felt, threatened to throw off balance the careful dance that their relationship had become.

  For her part, Artemis was simply relieved not to have to make a decision on whether or not to go home to Greece, where the threat of seeing Athena again loomed large. She had expected David to ask when he would be going back to visit his grandparents that year. But as he turned nine, the thrill of spending time with Artemis’ mother and father in the bakery and occasional days out to the beach with Maria – who for all David’s fondness towards her was ultimately still a girl, two years younger than himself – diminished in the face of the prospect of a summer in London, hanging out with friends his own age. The fact was that her son was getting older. One day her boy would be a man. She tried to picture it: David, with his obsession with catching woodworms to keep as pets; the way he subconsciously closed one eye when he tried, unconvincingly, to tell a lie; David who giggled uncontrollably as he showed his friends how he could push almost his whole tongue through the gaps where his teeth had fallen out – as a man. The truth was, he was already changing. The older he got, the more interested he became in hanging out with Clive, and the more Clive rejected him, the more vehemently he seemed to crave his father’s attention.

  Inevitably, when his requests were rejected by Clive, she was the one David seemed to blame, moping around the house, rebutting his mother’s attempts to cajole him out of his mood with offers of the cinema or the zoo.

  When, at the last minute, Clive suggested they spend the last few weeks of the summer in France that year, scoping out a picturesque village in Provence where he was interested in buying a property, David was enthusiastic in a way that Artemis was certain he wouldn’t have been if she had been the one to suggest it. With the promise of a swimming pool and daily ice creams, David was lured away from days spent playing football on the Heath with his friends, playing Sega into the evening.