The First Wife (3 page)

‘Hey,’ she said sulkily. ‘Julia says, do you want to come down and have a cup of tea?’

I shot her my best smile.

‘Yes, please,’ I said. ‘That would be lovely.’

I sat up and tried to iron out my features, to make myself look normal. Smoothing down my hair, I looked at myself in the mirror. I, Lily Button, was about to start my new life.

I took a deep breath and headed for the stairs.

A week later

‘Bathroom’s free!’

I jumped out of bed and grabbed my towel. I could not be late. I had a big thing to do today: this was the day on which I was going to work, for money. I had decided to dress as I felt a student would, if she had a cleaning job in her spare time. That was the person I was aiming to be.

My wardrobe was not exactly crammed with disguises. Most of my clothes had been bought by Grandma, and she had liked floral dresses, velvet capes, and quirky hats. I managed, in the end, to achieve more or less the look I was going for, by combining a pair of black trousers that were fairly tight, with a maroon satin tunic embroidered with silver flowers at the hem. Both items were a bit odd for normal people, but from a distance I thought it would be OK.

I laid the outfit out on my bed, and ran for the shower as soon as I heard John’s voice.

He smiled back over his shoulder, as he disappeared into his and Julia’s bedroom, which was right next to mine. He had a towel round his waist, and his chest was hairy in a greyish, wiry way. John was forty-six, and as he had already told me twice, he was ‘an apple’ – exceptionally round around the middle in a way that boded ill, he said, for his future health.

‘Heart attacks on legs,’ he would say cheerfully. ‘That’s what “apples” are.’

He had left the window open, but it was only a tiny window of frosted glass that opened a fraction, and it did almost nothing. The air was foggy. My hair started dripping as soon as I closed the door. There was a strange intimacy in coming straight into someone else’s bathroom. I could smell him, and his shower gel, and his farts.

When Grandma and Granddad moved into the downstairs bedroom, I had the upstairs bathroom all to myself. This one was smaller, and it was full of toothbrushes and different shampoo for different people, and smears of toothpaste.

I tested the water with a hand. It was almost warm: it would do nicely. I smiled to myself as I borrowed Mia’s shampoo again. For the first time in my life, I was going out to work. Cleaning was something I knew I could do, because I had scrubbed our cottage ruthlessly for years, anxious to meet Grandma’s standards. I was going to do it well. It helped that I was not going to have to talk to anyone while I was there. I was resolutely looking forward, not back. Al had told me that if I made myself a life, good things would happen to me.

‘Get work of some sort,’ he said. ‘You’ll meet people. Things will happen to you that you will never be able to predict or imagine. Everything you get to do, do it well, and you’ll open up new horizons.’

I was hanging onto this as I dried myself and wrapped one of Grandma’s towels around my hair. I had no other option. I made a conscious effort and poured myself into my new persona. I was going to act like a cheerful, confident person and, sooner or later, perhaps reality would catch up.

I smiled and bounced down the stairs, copying the careless strides of the eleven year olds.

‘Morning, Julia,’ I chirped.

‘Well,’ said Julia. ‘Good morning, Lily Button.’

‘Morning!’ I said again, even brighter this time. I took my black lace-up boots from the rack and stood them next to the door, ready for departure. They were not brilliantly practical shoes for a cleaner, but they were sturdier than my ballet shoes. They were like Victorian riding boots, and I knew they had been expensive. I had stupidly high-quality clothes and shoes, and no actual money whatsoever.

‘Where you get that energy . . .’ Julia said, shaking her head. ‘When you got here I was quite worried about the way you seemed to lie on your bed all day with a book. So pale and thin, like a girl in a ghost story. Now, suddenly I can’t focus on you, you move so fast.’

Julia was forty-something, but she looked good. I thought of a saying that both my grandparents had liked to recite. It was Coco Chanel: ‘Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; life shapes the face you have at thirty; but at fifty, you get the face you deserve.’ Granddad had liked to say that, while admiring himself in the mirror. Although Julia was not going to be fifty for several years, I thought it was right. Her face was kind and her eyes were sparkly, but most of all, she looked wise.

She was dressed now for work: she did not have a uniform, but wore a pair of black trousers, with a loose floral blouse over the top with a name badge on her chest that read
Julia Hobson Health Visitor.
I liked to see her ready for work, because I loved to imagine her checking that all the babies in Falmouth were all right, making sure their parents were looking after them properly, testing their hearing and their reflexes. If I had a baby (which I would not) I would want Julia to be my health visitor.

‘I’m off to work this morning,’ I reminded her, and I nipped into the kitchen, put the kettle on, and stuck two pieces of toast into the toaster. I only wanted one, but there was bound to be someone who would devour the other. Sharing a slice of my 86p loaf of bread was a grand gesture, in my way, and one that would probably pass unnoticed.

The twins were sitting at the tiny kitchen table, looking wholesome in burgundy uniforms, listening to their iPod with one headphone each, and nodding enthusiastically along with it. Jessica was eating a bowl of cereal, and Zacary was spreading Marmite on toast. Both their faces were covered in light brown freckles, and they had matching wide smiles. Zac’s dark hair was carefully spiked upwards, and Jessica’s was pulled forward over her face, in an imitation of Mia’s.

‘I know!’ Julia said, following me. ‘Jess and Zac, you have to leave in less than five minutes. Jess, you have to do something with your hair. At least take a hairband on your wrist for when they tell you off.’

They pretended not to hear, even though they each had a free ear. This was their second week at secondary school.

‘Coffee, Julia?’ I asked, and started measuring it into the cafetière. Left to herself, Julia made instant, but Granddad had been vehemently anti-instant coffee, and I could not bear to desecrate his memory even by trying it. I had used five of my precious last pounds to buy four packs of real coffee, on a special offer at the supermarket. I liked to imagine him approving of this impractical allocation of my resources.

I looked at Julia and waited for her to tell me not to bother.

‘Oh, don’t feel you have to bother,’ she said. ‘Instant would be fine, unless you’re making anyway. Where’s Tommy?’

‘Watching telly,’ the twins said, in unison. I knew she knew it really: the jaunty music that I had now learned signified a programme called
Charlie and Lola
was providing the soundtrack to the entire house, and probably the house next door, too.

‘Did John give him breakfast?’ She took six lunchboxes from the fridge and put three of them into school bags, one into her own backpack, and left the last two on the table.

‘Yep,’ they said together.

‘He had a boiled egg,’ Zac added, with some distaste.

‘Mia up?’

They both shrugged. Julia looked at the clock.

‘She’s cutting it fine, but I suppose it’s her business.’

‘Here you go.’ I passed her a mug of black coffee, and poured milk into mine. I spread some peanut butter on my toast and ate it standing up.

Julia took the second piece.

‘So, Lily,’ she said, as she started spreading it with Utterly Butterly, ‘are you in tonight? I’m going to need to hear all about your day.’ She whisked the twins’ dishes away and dumped them in the sink. ‘I can’t believe who you’re going to be cleaning for. I saw them both once at a council reception. He was very dishy and she was like a film star. I’ve told you that before, haven’t I? A hundred times.’

‘I won’t see them.’

‘Yes, but you get to look at all their things! It’ll be better than seeing them. Right, if I’m dropping Tommy on the way, I’m out of here. Jess and Zac, you too.’

They left in a whirlwind. Tommy doubled back to hug my legs, which took me aback. I patted his head, confused, but feeling strangely warm inside.

Seconds after the door slammed behind them, Mia drifted into the kitchen, smiled a watery smile, pulled her blonde hair across her face, and opened her lunchbox. She took out a packet of crisps, two biscuits wrapped in clingfilm, and some granary-bread cheese and tomato sandwiches, piled them up on the side, and clicked it shut with only an apple left inside, before putting it into her bag.

‘Can I have these?’ I asked, picking up her rejects. I could not bear to watch her throwing good food away.

‘Course,’ she said. ‘Saves me having to dump them. She goes through the bins, you know, to check up on me. Through the bloody bins!’ She poured an inch of black coffee into a Noddy mug, drank it quickly, smiled and left the house. John came into the kitchen, grabbed his lunchbox, wished me luck, and followed his daughter.

The door banged behind them with a delightful finality. I exhaled and sat down. The pace of life in this house exhausted me and made my head spin; but I was getting better at joining in. That had been my best breakfast-time yet. I had not hung back waiting my turn. I had just gone in there and done what I needed to do. I had excelled.

I had ten minutes spare, to sit by myself, and it felt luxurious. I ran upstairs to fetch a book. War poetry, I thought, would steel me for the day ahead.

The people I was cleaning for lived in the smart part of town. This job had come to me thanks to an advert in the local paper, placed by a cleaning agency. It appealed to me partly because I knew all about cleaning, and partly because I thought I would not have to banter with people if I worked as a cleaner. The idea of banter put me off applying for any job in a café or bar. I knew I would never have the confidence for that, or any idea what to say. But I had a job. At least, I had some work. I wanted to tell Al about this success, but I had picked up the phone and tapped in the CAB’s number twice, and both times he had been busy. I had not liked to leave a message because my news was not important.

I had expected a ‘cleaning agency’ to have sparkly offices with rows of buckets and mops and disinfectant sprays lined up like artillery. Instead, it had been one, abrasive woman.

‘As it happens,’ she said on the phone, in her scratchy voice, ‘I have an excellent job for somebody, and everyone seems to have buggered off. Let me have a look at you, and if you seem the right sort, it might be your lucky day.’

‘Be careful,’ said Julia, before I went to meet Mrs Keast at her house. I was secretly thrilled at how over-protective she sounded. I was meeting a woman, about a job, so of course I would be fine, but it was nice to know that Julia cared.

The house was not far from Julia’s, and everything in it looked pathologically clean. Mrs Keast was heavy-set, with short grey hair and a red face. Every time I answered one of her questions (‘so how would you tackle a bathroom?’) she took three steps back and looked at me through narrowed eyes as I stuttered out an answer about doing the floor last. Although I had never cleaned a house professionally in my life (or done anything whatsoever professionally in my life), I seemed to pass the test, because I did, after all, know my stuff.

‘The reason for the Spanish Inquisition,’ she said, in the end, ‘is because this is about Harry and Sarah Summer’s house.’ She paused – reverentially, I thought. ‘You seem like the right type for them, and I’ll take it as read that you can get things spotless.’

She looked at me, and I knew I was supposed to react. I took hold of a strand of my hair and pulled it roughly around my finger. I had no idea what to say. Her house smelled of chemicals, and I noticed an air freshener plugged into the wall, behind the sofa.

‘Harry and Sarah Summer?’ I echoed.

‘You know!’ She was cross. ‘Harry Summer – everyone knows him. Looks like a movie star. Used to be on the telly . . . ?’

I shook my head. She rolled her eyes, then instructed me on exactly what she wanted me to do. I was astonished to be trusted with a set of keys and the burglar-alarm code.

When I got back to the house, I tried the names out on Julia, and then I saw the reaction that Mrs Keast had wanted. She clapped a hand to her mouth.

‘Harry Summer?’ she echoed. ‘Seriously? You’re cleaning
their
house? My goodness, Lily, you’re certainly going in at the top. You’ll have to have a poke around and tell me everything.’

It turned out that Harry Summer was the local celebrity. Julia filled me in on his background: a trained lawyer, he had acted in a soap opera for five years, until, at the age of about thirty, he had suddenly quit, got married and moved to Cornwall. Julia seemed to think that there had been abundant rumours about what had actually gone on to make him leave London and the television, but she could not remember quite what they were.

‘And they’re probably not true anyway,’ she added. ‘He’s a lovely man. He went back to the law and he’s ever so respectable. We all love him.’

As soon as I stepped through the garden gate, I gasped. This was a different world. Behind the small trees that screened the house from the road, the garden path twisted, and there were lavender bushes and roses and other plants on either side of it. The path was covered with tiny pebbles, and my footsteps crunched, too loudly. I could smell the scent of all these plants, and the sea in the air, and it was like being in an enchanted kingdom. I thought of the little cottage that I had assumed would be mine. Although this was a different sort of house altogether, it was the same, too. There was something magical about both of them.

The house itself was white and smooth, with three storeys. I stood in the porch and rang the bell at first, but when nobody answered, as I knew they would not, I put the big square key into the first of the three locks.