The First Wife (33 page)

‘May as well give it a go,’ Jack said, and I gave him the photo.

I stood in the doorway as he found the manager and showed Sarah’s picture to him. The man nodded. He was talking fast to Jack, pointing down the road. They talked for a couple of minutes, and then Jack came back. I bit my lip and looked at him questioningly.

‘He said she looks like a woman called Alicia,’ Jack said, as we came back out onto the pavement. ‘Apparently she does the odd bit of waitressing work for him. And Lily?’ I looked at him. ‘Alicia is English.’

‘Does he know where she lives?’

‘No.’

‘Oh.’

Armed with a name, we retraced our steps to the Tower Bridge School of English, where one of their staff had recognised her. It was half an hour away, and the night was cold. I wanted to take Jack’s arm as we walked, for warmth and companionship, but I stopped myself. I was betraying Harry just by being here. I could not walk around holding onto another man, even though it was purely platonic.

‘You know New Zealand?’ I asked, after a while. It was easier to ask this in the dark.

‘Yes, I do,’ he agreed.

‘Have you heard of a place called Mount Eden?’

‘Mount Eden? I think that’s up by Auckland. Why, do you know it?’

‘No. Well. I’ve sent a few letters there. It’s where my parents live. I think.’

‘Seriously?’

Our feet clopped softly on the pavement, side by side.

‘I’ve dreamed of Mount Eden. It’s like they’re half-dead, living on some paradise mountain.’

I could hear the smile in his voice. ‘There’s a prison there, I know that much. Sorry. I shouldn’t shatter your illusions.’

‘A prison?’ I thought of my lost inheritance. I thought of things that take a lot of money. I pushed the thought aside.

‘But I’m sure it’s a perfectly nice place too,’ he said quickly. ‘I live on the other island, the South Island. Can I ask how come you’ve never been to see them over there?’

‘They left me behind,’ I told him. ‘It doesn’t matter. I got over it ages ago. I just want to see them again. I’m sure they’ve been living happily there, the two of them. They were so wrapped up in each other. That’s what my grandparents said and that’s the way I remember it too. They were madly in love, in a bit of a freaky way. There was no room for me.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Right. That’s like the— doesn’t matter.’

‘No, tell me. There’s not many things my parents are “like”. No one ever compares them to anything. Normally people just shuffle a bit and change the subject.’

‘No, it’s nothing. There’s just some sick fucks, famous in New Zealand. They’re called the Monsters of Auckland. They ignored their baby until he died.’

It could not be. I knew it couldn’t. I would put it from my mind.

‘What was their name?’ I asked, instead.

‘Smith.’

‘Right.’ I shook my head, doing my best to dislodge the distressing thought. I was relieved when we arrived at the Tower Bridge English School.

A lesson had just finished, and there were students, adults who looked like working people, spilling out into the road. Jack held me back.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘We need her address. They won’t give it to us. When we were in just now, there was a filing cabinet over in the corner, and one of the labels said
Teachers
on it. I’ll distract our guy. You find it. Are you OK with that?’

I did not hesitate. ‘Let’s do it.’ I realised that I had never done anything like this before. I had never broken the rules and potentially been caught red-handed in someone else’s stuff. It was exciting.

Jack walked up to the man.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Hello again. Found her yet?’

‘No joy. But mate, I do TEFL too, and I’m with Business English.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Could I have a quick word with you in private?’

The man looked interested. ‘This is perfectly private,’ he said, as the last few students emptied out into the street. The office was completely visible through the glass doors to the outside world.

‘More private?’

The man hesitated. ‘Well, it sounds intriguing. Why not?’

‘I’ll wait out here,’ I offered, and the man took Jack off into a side room. I vaguely wondered what Jack was going to say, to keep him out of the way for long enough. The moment the door clicked shut behind them, I was in front of the filing cabinet. I did not want to think about those people in Auckland. I was going to get this right. Nothing else mattered. I would think about it later, much later, when things were calm.

It took me ages to find her, without a surname. There was a section of the cabinet called
Freelances,
and inside it, everything seemed to be jumbled up. I sifted through the papers, awaiting their return at any moment, hoping no one was watching from the street.

At last, a sheet of paper with the words
Alicia Johns
was in my hand. As I looked at it, I heard the door click open. Jack’s voice was coming through it, and I knew he was trying to give me as much time as possible. I shoved the file back into the cabinet, pushed the drawer shut, and crumpled Alicia’s sheet back into my pocket.

There was no time to get back to the right side of the desk, so I sat in the chair behind the table and spun myself round.

‘Sorry,’ I said, breathless, as they both came through the door. ‘I was just playing on your swivel chair.’

The man laughed. ‘You’re a much more attractive receptionist than I am,’ he said. ‘We should hire you.’

‘Thanks anyway,’ said Jack. ‘Bye then, mate.’

‘Bye,’ I called, and we almost ran out of the front door.

We were outside a big building, a proper apartment block which rose high into the air. It had balconies running along the front of it, and it was at least eight storeys high. The city was all around me, people piled up on top of one another everywhere. It was a place in which to lose yourself.

But why on earth would she have stayed here? Why would she have done that, when she could have gone anywhere, buried herself in any city on earth and never been found?

I was almost convinced it could not possibly be her. Barcelona was filled with stylish people, and there could easily be someone who looked like Sarah, but with different hair. I hoped it was not her. I hoped that nobody in the world would have it in them to do something as callous as the thing that Sarah, were she alive, had done to Harry.

We stood outside and waited. The air was static with expectation.

A female voice came through on the intercom.

‘Si?’

‘Hi, Alicia?’ said Jack.

‘Yeah?’

And with that one word, the world shifted on its axis. Harry was not a widower. Sarah had not thrown herself into the water. I was not going to be married next month. There was a metallic taste in my mouth as I bit my lip so hard that blood trickled out.

Jack was, of course, less affected.

‘Hi there,’ he said. ‘Alicia, it’s Jack – from Tower Bridge English School? James told me where to find you. Just wondering if you need any work as we’re a bit short-handed and have got a big project on.’

According to Jack, any TEFL teacher would jump at this approach.

‘Oh, Christ,’ she said. ‘I’d bite your hand off for some work. Come on up. Fourth floor.’

The door buzzed. This was the last moment at which I could run away, pretend I did not know. I was petrified to be coming face to face with someone whom I knew to be a monster. I could not walk in through the door. I turned and looked down the street. There were shadows in doorways. I could walk away but it would make no difference. I knew the truth.

My sheltered life seemed like the biggest handicap. Jack had experience of people behaving outrageously, from what he said about his ex-wife, and indeed his father. I did not. I had no idea how to deal with a person who was likely to attack me and throw things around.

‘Come on,’ Jack said, in such a gentle voice that I stared into his eyes for longer than I should have done.

‘OK.’

He put a hand on my shoulder and steered me into the foyer. We walked up the stairs side by side. I wanted to run away, every step of the way, but it was too late for that. As we turned the corner of the staircase, I waited to hear the sound of the front door slamming shut behind us, but it seemed to close silently.

By the time we were approaching the fourth floor, I was several steps ahead of Jack. I strode around the corner, and stopped.

She recognised me instantly. Everyone remembered me because of my hair. I was expecting that; but I had been prepared for rage and fury, and not at all prepared for what actually happened.

I had heard of people turning green, but I had never seen it happen. Likewise, I had heard of people shaking like a leaf, but now I saw it. Sarah, or Alicia, was shaking like the last leaf on a tree in autumn. The colour drained from her face so completely that she was left properly green. She stared at me, and I stared back.

Her hair was short and black, cropped in a pixie-ish cut. She was dressed differently from the way she had dressed on the one occasion on which I had met her – in a pair of faded, baggy jeans and a huge mohair jumper, and she had put on a lot of weight.

I tried to see the anger in her eyes, but there was only fear. She was, I realised, far more afraid than I was; and I was terrified.

I could not say anything. Neither could she. As I reached for some words, because insanely, I had not prepared a speech for this moment, she slammed the door.

Jack stepped forward and put his foot on the threshold, and the door bounced back. He barged straight in, and I went after him.

It was silent. I expected to hear her scuffling around, running away, but already, it seemed, we were too late. I looked at Jack. He appeared to be at a loss, and I tried to smile, because I had no idea how a stranger had become a friend so quickly. He was now almost as deeply into this as I was.

I ran through the months since Sarah’s ‘suicide’. Harry had grieved for six ugly months, and I knew that his grief had been genuine. He had no idea. I was going to have to tell him the truth, and then I would have to explain how I, too, had deceived him and come to Barcelona in secret.

This flat was different from Jack’s, which was my only experience, so far, of a Barcelona home. This one was spacious and light, with plants in pots and high ceilings.

Jack motioned to me to stay by the door, but I was not scared any more, and so I walked right up to him, and past him, and into the room at the end of the hall.

Someone else lived here with her, somebody with a child. There was a brightly-coloured mat on the floor, with toys and mirrors hanging down above it. On the table, a little woollen hat and some tiny mittens waited innocently for an outing.

On the table, there was a vase of red gerberas.

Jack was no longer behind me. When I looked at him, he was back in the hallway, trying a different door, opening and then closing it. I went back towards him, and opened another door myself.

This room was a bedroom, a child’s room with a cot in it. It was empty. Yet I heard a sound, a little mewing whimper, more like a cat than a person. It was so close that I gasped loudly. I stepped away from the open door, and pulled it closed again.

She was standing there, and she was holding someone’s child. The child was just a tiny baby. I had no idea how old it was, but it was the sort of baby that could not do anything at all for itself. The kind that just lies there and eats and sleeps. She was holding it close and staring.

‘Jack!’ I yelled.

‘No!’ She could not attack me because she was holding the baby, but I could see it in her eyes: if she could have, she would be leaping on me right now. She would be attacking me until I could do nothing, ever again, and then she would be running away.

‘Sarah,’ I said, and I edged away from her, hoping that Jack was somewhere behind me. ‘It’s all right.’

Her voice was low and dangerous. ‘Where is he?’

‘Jack?’

‘Where is he?’ We stared at each other. Neither of us moved. ‘Where is Harry?’

‘Harry?’

‘He’s with you.’

‘No! No, he’s not. He doesn’t even know I’m here.’ She looked like a hunted animal, trying to work out what to do, how to escape. I supposed the idea of facing up to the man she had widowed was not appealing. I tried to say the right thing. ‘I came here to see if you were alive. I’m supposed to be . . .’ I paused.
Marrying your husband
sounded like a crass thing to say, but it was the truth. ‘Marrying your husband. Next month. But I can’t, can I? Because he’s still married to you.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Lily. You’ve no business to be mixed up in this. When Constanza said you were marrying him, I just . . .’ We stared at each other, at deadlock. With my peripheral vision, I saw Jack edging into the room, felt him standing just behind me. He was the one who spoke next.

‘You have a baby,’ he said. ‘I remember, when you came to the language school, you had a baby then too. I hadn’t realised it was you.’

Until now, I had not processed this simple truth. This was Harry’s baby.

‘You were pregnant?’ I said.

‘Yes, I was fucking pregnant. No, he has no idea. That was the entire point. But now you’re going to tell him. Lily, believe me, you are in way over your head. You do not want to be doing this.’

‘No, I’m fine. This isn’t about me, is it? It’s about you, and Harry. What happened?’

All three of us froze as the front door slammed.

‘I think I left it open,’ Jack said, and we exhaled.

Sarah spoke quickly. ‘I can get out along the balcony. I’ve practised. I have a plan. Let me and the baby go. If I go, you two, whoever
you
are,’ she was looking at Jack, ‘can distract him for a while and we can get away. I can’t believe that I was so fucking close . . .’

‘But,’ I said, ‘you don’t have to go anywhere. I can tell you don’t want to see Harry, but he has no idea I’m here. He’s in Cornwall. He thinks I’m on a little hen-weekend type of thing. I’ll have to tell him why we can’t get married, obviously, but—’

At that she shot me a look that was filled with despair.

‘Lily,’ she said, ‘I’m glad you have no idea about any of this, because it means it hasn’t started for you yet. But . . . .’ She tailed off. ‘Anyway. Just believe this: he does know you’re here. And that means I have to leave.’