The First Wife (24 page)

Al helped me out,’ I volunteered, as she made two cups of tea. ‘I was in a bad place, and he literally saved me – a year or so ago. I owe him. I know how he behaved towards you and your family and I’m sorry.’ I decided to steer well clear of any mention of Boris. All I want to know is whether you have any clues that he’s all right. Or that he’s still alive.’

She handed me a cup of tea. ‘There’s sugar if you want?’ I shook my head.

‘Well, I have to thank him, in a sick sort of way, you know.’ She laughed, but not happily. ‘He was so possessive, so obsessive, with Stan that he sent him straight back here, begging for a second chance. I didn’t want to take him, because it seemed like masochism of the worst kind, but he was so sorry, so desperate, that I agreed, under some very definite non-negotiable rules. We were tentatively doing all right, and then the stalking began.’

‘You got an injunction?’ I tried to hide my reaction to the difference between her account and Al’s. I twiddled my engagement ring, unthinkingly.

‘We did. It didn’t put him off. It was being arrested that put him off, thank God.’

‘He was arrested?’

‘He didn’t tell you? Spent a night in the cells. Then vanished. To Scotland, you say? Best place for him. Land’s End to John O’Groats. That suits me.’

There was the sound of a key in the door.

‘That’ll be Stan,’ she said quietly as the front door banged shut.

He froze in the kitchen doorway, looking with some panic from his wife to me, and back again.

‘Hi, Stan,’ I managed to say, though I had always called him Boris before.

‘Lily,’ he said.

‘It’s all right,’ his wife said. ‘Lily’s just come to ask if we’ve heard from your friend. He’s gone missing, apparently. I’m trying to find it in my heart to be concerned, but I’m afraid I can’t.’

She left the room, and Boris sat down heavily.

‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘Emma let you in? She’s quite something.’

‘I really like her. She’s not like Al said.’

‘I know. Is that an engagement ring?’ I nodded. ‘Congratulations.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Look, he’s been emailing sometimes. Erratically. Last one about a week ago. I think he’s down and out.’

‘Boris,’ I said, ‘would you reply? Just to tell him to contact me? I think he needs someone. It’s not you – it’s me. He saved me once. I need to save him back. If you do that, I promise I will do everything in my power to stop him contacting you ever, ever again.’

He sighed and walked to the fridge. As he opened it and perused the contents, he said, in a falsely-casual tone, ‘OK. I’ll give it one shot. That’s it.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thank you so much.’

I stood at my upstairs window. A sunny winter’s day was a magical thing. Everything glistened. There were no sailing boats to be seen: the air was still. The few people I could see hurried by with their dogs or their pushchairs, wrapped against the weather. I suddenly wanted to be there, to be down by the sea, filling my lungs with cold air. I loved this room, but I wanted to be out in the world, right now. I wanted to be accepted.

Everyone hated my engagement. News had travelled fast, and apparently Harry and I were now both public property, and funny. When we went out, people would look at us on the street and smile at each other. I tried not to care, but it was disconcerting and horrible. When we were married, people would get used to us. Harry said we would soon be old news, and I hoped he was right.

I finished the floor, and picked up my coffee cup from the desk. As I lifted it, I discovered that there was more coffee in it than I had thought, as it spilled over the side and dripped down the front of the desk. I yanked the desk out from the wall, hoping that there were no stains on the carpet or the paint behind it.

I wiped the drops off the wall quickly, pleased that the spill was not worse. There were a couple of things stuck behind the desk, things that had obviously fallen down the back of it. Without thinking about it, I picked them up. It was nothing. Just a book, and a map. The book, however, was called
Teach Yourself Catalan,
and there was something spooky about that. I wondered whether Sarah had left it there on purpose, so that he would discover it one day; so that his heart would jolt and start racing as mine was now doing.

My hands shook slightly as I picked up the map and turned it over. It showed Barcelona. When I opened it up, I saw that it had been drawn on. A few spots, scattered over it, had been marked in red pen.

I opened the Catalan book, and flicked through the pages. On the inside of the back cover, in red again, there were three words. They read: ‘find teaching work.’

‘Harry,’ I said, as we lay in bed on Sunday morning.

‘Hmm?’

‘Can I ask you something?’

‘You know you can. Fire away.’

I moved away slightly.

‘You know when you went to Barcelona? When Sarah died?’

‘What? Yes, of course I do. Why?’

‘Well – what happened?’ When he did not answer at once, I carried on speaking. ‘It’s just that it was so recently, and everywhere I go people are looking at me with contempt. I feel I’ve stepped straight into Sarah’s shoes and I’m living her life, and it seems odd that I can’t imagine . . .’ I tailed off, unsure of what I wanted to say.

‘Oh, Lily,’ he said easily. ‘I should have known this would come up at some point. OK. You want a blow-by-blow account?’

‘Is that weird?’

‘No, no. By all means, but let’s only talk about it once. It’s not something either of us should be dwelling on. Well, we were staying in a five-star hotel, the grandest one in the city. My timing was admittedly bad, but on Christmas Day I told her that we needed to go our separate ways, as I mentioned. She did not take it well.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s an understatement, of course. I believe she put some sort of sleeping draught in my coffee that night, because when I woke up in the morning, she was gone. There was a note, but it didn’t make much sense.
Can’t do this any more. Sorry but everyone will be better off this way.
Then a load of rambling about how miserable she’d been for all this time and how she wasn’t going to be humiliated by me any more.’

He paused and inhaled deeply, visibly collecting himself. ‘I suppose she decided she would rather die than be divorced. Not of sound mind. The police fished her out of the water later that morning. There was quite a crowd, by all accounts. That’s just about it. What more do you want to know? Ask me anything. This is the only time we’ll talk about it.’

‘It’s funny,’ I said, ‘because I remember, before you went, Sarah said you were staying at a little place in the back streets. She said you were cross because she chose it, and it only had three stars instead of five, and that you would prefer to be in a posh hotel.’

He laughed. ‘She did try to inflict some grotty little place on me, yes. We had words about it. I changed it to a proper hotel. Not that it made the slightest bit of difference, in the end.’

‘Were you there when her body was pulled out of the water?’

‘I wasn’t,’ he said. ‘No. There are some things in life one doesn’t want to witness, and believe me, that was one of them. I was groggy from the pills for days. Fergus flew out and took care of the grim realities of it all for me.’

‘You . . . you actually saw her body, then?’

He shook his head. ‘I just couldn’t bear it. Fergus identified her and sorted out all the details. He took care of everything. Anything else?’

I held him. ‘No. Sorry for asking all that.’

It was easy to find the Expedia booking for their holiday in Barcelona, by digging around on the computer in the living room. It was in front of me in black and white: they had flown British Airways business class, and they stayed at the three-star hotel. Harry had lied.

I did not hold it against him. He was impressing me, and he did not want to admit that they had stayed at somewhere modest and characterful. In fact, his lie made me fond of him: I told myself that the fact that he thought I would think more of him if he pretended they had stayed at a posher hotel was adorable.

November

I stood on the platform at Truro station and kicked my heels while I waited for him.

I wanted to be happy, but there were too many things crowding in. The main one, my secret biggest fear, was about my parents. I was terrified that they would ignore me again; and I was equally stricken by the opposite fear, that they might turn up. I had written to their last address, and this time I had sent a proper letter.

I wrote it as simply as I could, and then rewrote it to take out any traces of resentment. I told them I was fine, that I was asking nothing of them at all. I said I was perfectly happy, that Grandma and Granddad had brought me up well and that I hoped they were living happily in New Zealand. I said I had met a wonderful man and was getting married next spring, and that I would love it if they were able to come. I even added that we would probably be able to help them out with their air fares.
All
I want is to see you again, and for you to have the chance to know that, whatever has happened in the past, all has worked out for the best,
I finished. I hesitated about using the word ‘love’, but in the end I put it in:
Love from Lilybella.
At least the emphasis was on my name in that phrase, and not on the word ‘love’.

Lilybella. I was not looking forward to having to enunciate my full name during our wedding ceremony. When we found a registrar, I was going to ask whether I could just call myself ‘Lily’.

My parents wanted a fairy or a pixie child, not a baby. The reality was a crushing disappointment to them. They gave me a silly fey name: Lilybella Tatiana Blossom. Despite this, I had come out as a normal, crying, pooing baby, and in the end they had travelled to the ends of the earth to escape the fact that I was human, and annoying.

Lilybella Tatiana Blossom Button: it was a ridiculous name, and I could not wait to become Lily Summer.

I had posted that letter, in a purple envelope because I thought they might like that, to their address in ‘Mount Eden’, just over an hour ago. I gave my new email address in case they found it easier to communicate that way.

It was four o’clock, but the shadows were already lengthening. My breath puffed out in a cloud, and everyone was wrapped in thick coats, scarves and hats. In the shadows, the ground was icy, slick and white.

I sat in the ticket hall, jiggled my legs, and waited.

I was about to meet my future mother-in-law. This was a pivotal moment. Nobody was happy about our engagement. Everyone had an opinion, and it was transparently the same one every time: I was after money and status, and Harry had had his head turned by his young cleaner. He was being taken for a ride and I was a flinty-hearted gold-digger.

Julia, John and the family were the only people who were genuinely happy for me. Mia and Jessica were wildly excited about their duties as bridesmaids, and Tommy had happily agreed to be a pageboy. Zac had laughed in my face when I offered him the same role.

‘Er, thanks,’ he said, when he managed to draw breath. ‘A pageboy? Right. I don’t think so. Thanks, though.’

I looked at my phone as I waited. Boris had texted me to say that he had emailed Al three times now, with no response. I was waiting, monitoring the phone, all the time. A week ago, I had left a message on Al’s answer-phone, telling him about the wedding, but he had not responded to that, either.

Harry came into the waiting room and looked around. He did not see me at first, and I sat and looked at him. I relaxed, smiled and felt my worries departing. I saw the other half of myself. We knew it was right, and nothing else mattered.

His face lit up as he saw me.

‘Hello, darling,’ he said. I stood up and he kissed me. I loved it that he was just the right amount taller than I was. I felt protected by him; but I hoped that he now felt protected by me, too. I would show him what a partnership could be.

I had dressed carefully for today in a thick maroon dress that almost reached my knees, my Victorian riding boots, and a duffel coat. All of it was Grandma’s choice: she had been gone for well over a year now, but I had not had a spare penny, in that time, to buy myself anything else.

I had dried my hair carefully so that it looked thick and curly rather than frizzy and bushy, and put on a small amount of make-up. I was getting a little bit better at that, I thought.

‘You look great,’ Harry said as we walked out to the platform. ‘Just right.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Grandma knew her stuff.’

‘You’re not still wearing your Grandma clothes?’

I laughed and squeezed his hand. ‘All my clothes are Grandma clothes.’

‘Hmm.’

I waited, but he said nothing else.

We crossed the rail bridge together, our feet tapping the steps in unison as we went up, across, and down. There were quite a few people waiting for the train, and Harry tucked his arm through mine and led me down the platform.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, to a passing station worker. ‘Which end is first class going to be?’

‘Far end, mate,’ the man said, pointing down the platform towards the level crossing. Mist was rolling in, and I could hardly see the end of the platform. When I looked to the left, towards the car park, the cars vanished into the fog.

‘I always do this journey first class,’ Harry said. ‘It’s unbearable if you don’t.’ His phone beeped, and he looked at it and grimaced and switched it off. ‘My brother. I hope he’s not going to annoy you too much this weekend. Tell me if he does.’

The seats were huge. Ours were opposite each other, with a table between us and no one else nearby. I laughed at the luxury.

‘I’ve never been on a train before,’ I said, sitting in the seat he indicated for me. ‘Not a big one. Only the little local ones that only have one carriage. This is in a different league, isn’t it?’

‘Your first proper train. Your first trip out of Cornwall.’

I smiled to mask my fear. ‘My first meeting with your mother.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Lilybelle. Don’t worry about her for a moment. Promise me you won’t?’