The Man Who Forgot His Wife (8 page)

And now I stood before the family home once again, a place with so many memories, but none of them currently mine. My intention had been to march right up and ring the doorbell, but instead I found myself just taking a moment to summon up my courage. I was thrown by the fact that the bell was actually an intercom system, which meant that my first words to my wife might have to be through the alienating electronic filter of a voice-distorting microphone. When I had left Gary and Linda’s flat, it had seemed so clear to me that this was what I had to do. But now my finger was shaking as I reached for the button. I left it hovering there uncertainly. What if one of my children was off school and rushed down to say hello? I imagined the terrifying scenario of my daughter emerging with a friend and me not knowing which girl I was father of. It was not just my own mental health that was at issue here.

But it had to be done. I flattened my hair down, pulled my shirt straight and pressed the buzzer. To my surprise this prompted the sound of loud barking from the other side of the door. There was a dog! No one had said anything about a dog. But this was the furious bark of a guard dog in the house on his own – an angry defensive warning that was not mollified by any owner coming down the hallway, calling him away from the door. Maddy was
out.
I had just presumed she would be at home because she had been there earlier in the day. I realized that I didn’t even know if she worked or not – perhaps I had subconsciously presumed that she didn’t. I rang the doorbell again, on the unlikely off-chance that she had not heard the commotion the dog had caused downstairs, and this set the barking off all over again. I peered through the letterbox, calling an optimistic ‘Hello?’ and instantly the dog’s demeanour changed. Suddenly he was howling with joyful excitement as he recognized me; his tail was wagging so much the whole back half of his body wiggled from side to side to side. He was a big golden retriever, licking the hand that held open the letterbox, then breaking off to howl his emotional hellos, before manically kissing my hand all over again. I had never even thought about whether I liked dogs or not, but I instinctively felt affection for this one.

‘Hello, boy! What’s your name then? Yeah, it’s me! Remember me? Did I used to take you walkies?’

That word made the dog even more manic, and I felt momentarily guilty for getting him so excited when I was going to have to walk away again.

Back on the pavement I studied the house for any more clues about the people who lived there. I crossed the road to get a better view of the place. I noticed it was less well maintained than the houses around it: the paint was peeling on the balustrade, and the panels in the front door didn’t match; one was vintage patterned glass, the other was plain. Looking at this house and what it represented, I was struck by what a beautiful home we’d created. It was brimming with character, with brightly painted shutters and blooming window boxes. The quirky glazed turret that crowned the roof had space for perhaps just one person to sit and read or gaze out over the London skyline. Dormer windows peeked out from the slate-tiled roof, suggesting cosy teenage bedrooms with sloping ceilings. The middle floor had a balcony, and from the side I spotted a faded sun canopy, overlooking the back
garden
where a chaotic Virginia creeper was in its final blush of copper.

I tried to imagine myself sitting out on the balcony with Maddy, sharing a chilled bottle of white wine on a summer’s night, as the kids played in the garden. Was I recovering a vague memory, or was this some idealistic fantasy that our domestic problems had made impossible? Looking at it all with fresh eyes, I couldn’t help thinking it was the old Vaughan that had needed the psychiatric help for letting all this go.

So lost was I in speculation and fantasy that I almost didn’t notice a car drawing up a few spaces away. I felt terror-stricken and thrilled all at once when I realized who it was and dived behind a parked van. I crouched down out of sight and watched in the van’s wing mirror. Leaning out of her open window, Maddy reversed the slightly grubby car into the tightest of spaces, rather expertly, I thought, which strangely gave me a momentary flush of pride. She stepped out, wearing a funky orange coat that flared out below the waist. She looked classy and more professional than she had seemed before. Her hair was up and she wore small earrings.

And seeing her again, I couldn’t help but feel as if some enormous administrative mistake must have occurred – that the authorities were proceeding recklessly with the wrong divorce. Surely neither of us had ever requested such a thing. Why would I want to stop being married to such a beautiful woman? Well, now was my chance to meet her properly; this was my moment to introduce myself to my wife.

But just as I stepped out from behind the van, the passenger door of Maddy’s car opened, and now I slipped out of view again as I spied a man getting out. The two of them immediately set about taking large frames out of the back of the car and began carrying them up to the front door. Who was this? A business partner? A brother? A lover? The man was younger than me, and too snappily dressed to be a delivery man. He was very matter-of-fact
about
the job in hand, stacking the frames up by the front door and then going back for more. Was Maddy a painter? An art dealer? Why hadn’t Gary and Linda mentioned any of this? Or, rather, why hadn’t I asked? Crouched down on the pavement out of view, I felt increasingly uncomfortable and slightly dizzy, but I was transfixed as I eagerly scanned the situation for any further clues. He definitely knew her, but there was nothing to suggest that these two were in any sort of relationship. He was comfortable handling heavy-looking frames; my guess was that she had bought them off him and now he was helping to deliver them. But that was a more personal service than you’d expect from a high-street picture framer. I wanted to see if this man followed her into the house or whether he made his own way back.

Maddy unlocked the front door and patted the excited dog, who circled her, wagging his backside and emitting the extended howl with which he had greeted me. I was relieved to see that the family dog showed no affection for the man who was moving the larger frames into the hall. The dog manically sniffed the air as she went inside, but instead of following her, he started down the steps. Maddy called his name, but the dog had got the scent of something, and then I saw the panic in her face as he headed towards the road, ignoring her calls. She put down a smaller picture and started to chase after him; I could tell this behaviour was out of character, but the dog had clearly got something in his nostrils and looked unstoppable.

And that was the moment I realized that the scent the dog had picked up was mine. He could still smell the missing member of the family who’d been here a minute earlier, and he was running across the road towards where I was hiding. Maddy was following and would find me lurking there, and my first encounter with her since my breakdown would be as some creepy stalker with a bizarre mental illness. Behind me was a shady passageway that led down the side of the house opposite ours. I ran down there and dived around the back of a wooden shed. Almost immediately the
dog
caught up with me, excitedly wagging his tail and jumping up to try to lick my face.

‘Woody! Woody!’ Maddy was desperately calling, getting closer.

‘Go home, Woody,’ I whispered, but the dog took no notice.

‘Woody – come here!’ she shouted, getting closer.

‘WOODY, YOU BAD DOG!’ I scolded in hushed desperation. ‘GO HOME NOW, YOU BAD DOG, GO HOME!’ and, amazingly, a rather disappointed Woody turned around and scampered back in the direction he had come. I heard her say, ‘There you are, you naughty dog!’ and it was weird hearing her voice. She had a slight northern accent, Liverpool maybe – it was hard to tell.

But I was safe. She wouldn’t come down here, so I could wait a while until she was inside and then perhaps I should just slip away. I realized that more than anything I had just wanted to see her again, and now the idea of giving her bad news filled me with dread. I closed my eyes and leaned my head on the creosote-scented shed as I let out a huge sigh of relief.

‘Excuse me, what are you doing in my garden?’ said an indignant upper-class voice. I turned round to see a rotund, ruddy figure in his early sixties armed with what looked like a gin and tonic. ‘Oh, Vaughan, it’s you! Sorry, I thought it might be some sort of intruder. How the bloody hell are you? Haven’t seen you for ages.’

‘Oh, er – hello!’

‘I think I know …’ said this rather self-consciously raffish figure with a cravat under his open-neck shirt ‘… I know why you’re here.’ My mind was racing. How much did he know? Had he seen me spying on my own wife?

‘Do you?’ I stammered.

‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be!’ And with an expectant grin he gave me a knowing nod.

‘Er – Shakespeare?’

‘The bard himself! You want your thingamajig back, don’t you?’

‘My thingamajig?’

‘Yes, you know – God, what do they call those things?’

‘Um …’

‘God, I’ve gone completely blank. Umm …’

‘Yes, what are they called?’

‘I meant to bring it back ages ago – very remiss of me. Anyway, help yourself – it’s in the shed.’

I obediently opened the shed door and stared at the chaotic arrangement of garden furniture, abandoned lawnmowers, rusting barbecues and plant pots piled up before me. I wondered about making a guess; maybe I should just grab the old bicycle wheel and say, ‘Ah, there it is! Well, if you ever need to borrow it again, you know where we are …’

‘How’s Madeleine?’ he enquired, as I pretended to scan the space in front of me.

‘She’s, er, fine. Oh, actually, she’s just been out in the car!’ I blurted, perhaps slightly too proud that I did have one genuine snippet of information to share.

‘Oh. Anywhere special?’

‘Er, not sure. Collecting some big pictures?’

‘She never stops working, does she?’

‘Doesn’t she? No, I mean, she doesn’t, does she?’

‘Well, you two must come round for dinner soon.’

‘Thank you. That’s very nice of you.’

‘Really?’

I seemed to have given a reply that surprised him. In that moment I understood that previous offers must always have been rebuffed.

‘Great, well, what about this weekend? Arabella was just saying we hadn’t seen much of you and we’re not doing anything on Saturday.’

‘Ah no, Saturday … Saturday evening’s not good …’

‘Lunch then?’

Without even knowing him or his wife, I could already sense
that
the bitterness of my marital break-up would not be ameliorated by committing Maddy and myself to a dinner party with these neighbours.

‘Er, it’s a bit difficult at the moment, actually. Maddy and I are getting … erm, well, I think we’re going to be a bit preoccupied for a while …’ His silence demanded more details. ‘Well – we’re having a trial separation.’

‘A trial separation?’

‘Yeah, you know … and a trial divorce. Just to see how that goes for a while …’

At least this embarrassing news cut the conversation short. The neighbour put down his drink and came into the shed himself, where it turned out the thing I had come round to collect was right under my nose all the time. ‘Silly me!’ I tutted.

Ten minutes later I was standing on a busy underground train, noticing that people were giving me more space than might usually be expected. Perhaps it was the three-foot-long serrated blade of the electric hedge trimmer I was clutching. It was too heavy to carry back to Gary and Linda’s, so I had made the brave decision to take public transport. I attempted a faint smile at a nervous-looking mother, who then moved her children further down the carriage. I affected to carry the unwieldy weapon as if I was barely even aware that I was holding it, as if I often travelled on the tube during rush hour with a yard of sharpened steel teeth in my right hand. A couple of hoodies were eyeing me warily. ‘Respect!’ muttered one, as he got off at the next stop.

Chapter 7

I FELT AS
if I had stared at my bedroom clock for an entire night. Lying there, in the half-light of the nursery, everything was quiet and completely still except for the manic pendulum on the wall opposite. It featured a happy clown clinging on to a rainbow, swinging back and forth, for ever. His situation still seemed to make more sense than my own. By about half past three it became clear that the clown was not going to take a rest, so I got up and tiptoed into the kitchen for a glass of water.

When dawn came it would be the day of my court case. I sat at the pine table for a while, listening to the rhythmical dripping of the tap. I looked at the cooker. Did people still kill themselves by putting their heads in ovens, I wondered, or would that not work with an electric fan oven? There were little informative images beside the various settings – a fish, a chicken, but no picture of a depressed person’s head. Pinned on the noticeboard by the fridge was a telephone bill. ‘Have you updated your Friends and Family?’ it asked. I spotted Gary and Linda’s address book and I started to flick through the pages. ‘Vaughan and Maddy’ was filed under ‘V’, neatly typed, with the address set out underneath.
Then
a green biro had crossed my name out and scrawled a new address sideways down the margin. That had subsequently been crossed out and then another address scribbled in blue underneath that, which was so squeezed in, it was virtually illegible. No one had planned for any separate space for ‘Vaughan’ on this page; it just ruined everything. There was my family’s telephone number glaring at me from the yellowing paper, a series of digits that I must have effortlessly recited a thousand times. I could just dial that number right now and talk to Maddy. Although ringing up my ex-wife at half past three in the morning might not be the best way to reassure her of my sanity.

My personal effects had been rediscovered in a jacket pocket at the bottom of a bag of clothes and now, seated at the kitchen table, I carefully dealt out the cards from my wallet like some sort of sociological Tarot reader. ‘That’s the Blockbuster video card. It represents stability and culture – a sign that you might be the sort of person who would own a DVD player and enjoy renting movies. Combined as it is with a Lambeth Library Services card and a Clapham Picturehouse membership, this sequence suggests that you are quite a cultured person, although of course there is no card from the British Film Institute or Friends of the National Theatre. The Virgin Active Gym card would at first suggest that you are a health enthusiast, except you have to look at how the card is lying. It was actually stuck inside the wallet with the embossed numbers having imprinted their shape into the leather pocket, suggesting it has never actually been used. In terms of wealth, there is only one basic credit card, not a series of high-status gold or platinum cards. But on the plus side, your Caffè Nero loyalty card shows that you are only two stamps away from a free cappuccino …’