My Husband's Wives (16 page)

‘But there must be a black version somewhere, surely in this day and age?'

‘We sold the very last one this morning. I've just had a stylist looking for the same dress for a client and it's nowhere to be found.' She moved in closer, as though they were friends, ‘And let me tell you, her client would have it flown from Australia if it was available – filthy rich.'

‘So that's that?' Annalise was deflated; it really was the perfect dress. ‘There's nothing we can do to track it down?'

‘I'm afraid not. It's just impossible.' She glanced at Annalise, finally recognizing her. ‘I'm sorry; I heard your husband died.' She scanned the shop, her eyes racing across the rails. ‘But maybe, maybe that dress was a bit too classic for you.'

‘Excuse me?' Annalise felt as if she had been struck.

‘I mean, too old-fashioned; it's a bit twinset actually. You should be aiming for something a little more daring?'

‘Oh, I don't think so. I'm after something for my husband's…' It was too hard to finish the sentence.

‘I mean, still respectable – we don't have anything here that would make you look cheap, but you could be chic and cool.' She looked across the rails. ‘I couldn't imagine Cara Delevingne wearing anything from
that
section.' She cast a critical eye towards the navy dress that was steadfastly in the hands of a fifty-something in need of more than magic knickers to carry it off. ‘Or Kate Moss, or Karlie Kloss or…' The girl was pulling down black dresses from a rail of mixed designers.

‘Or Miranda Kerr?' So Miranda was dark-haired and more successful than her? But they both had children. They were the same age and Miranda had managed to bag Orlando. For that alone, she was a hero. ‘Okay, show me what you've got.' In the end, she settled for a version of the navy dress, only a little shorter, a little lower at the neck and sleeveless. She picked up a pair of Jimmy's and a bright red bag – because, as the assistant assured her, every girl needs a colour pop.

Annalise was back in time to pick up the boys. The whole trip had taken less than two hours. At least it was one job done, she told herself, even if she wasn't entirely confident that she'd come out with the best dress in the shop. She was just about to put some frozen chips in the oven for the boys when her phone pinged. A tweet from Gail. She opened it quickly, and then felt the blood rush from her head. A cold sweat overtook her whole body. The tweet had a link to Celebrity Post: a new site that carried all the latest celeb photos from around the world, with a small side panel for current Irish news. Annalise did not have to trawl through the site, because there, at the very top, was the most unflattering photo of her. Her tan make-up and careful bronzing could have come from a gypsy wedding promo. Still, the blue scarf managed to drain her, so the dark shadows beneath her eyes were huge. Her expensively honey-highlighted hair resembled bleached straw and her slumped posture shouted ‘dumpling, dumpling'. Everything about the image was wrong. It was all wrong. ‘Grieving Model Still Makes Time To Shop'. The headline was enough to warn her that even if the photo editor was going to be kind about her appearance, the sentiments were not. She did not look as if she was in mourning. The images veered from making her resemble a truculent teenager to a vacant gamer – none of them flattering.

‘Oh my God.' Annalise could hardly breathe as she heard Gail Rosenstock pick up on her mobile.

‘Indeed.' Gail breathed deep. ‘Not exactly what we're going for. I thought we could aim for cookery programmes, parenting advice for single mums and maybe some Boden work.'

‘Oh God. I cannot believe that guy. I even posed for him; he promised me he wouldn't use anything that wasn't flattering.'

‘Annalise, sometimes you can be so dim. He'll make most money on the bad ones. The good ones, anything you posed for, are ten a penny. And it looks as though there was an agenda…'

‘What?'

‘Well, it seems a little vicious. Have you read the article?'

‘Oh no.' Annalise clicked back into the site. It was a litany of abuse, taking apart her whole image, then it moved on to Paul's death and the fact that there were no funeral arrangements yet. ‘Where do they get off?' Annalise had felt the wrath of the press before. It seemed a long time ago, but this was even worse. They were calling into question her marriage to Paul, her good character, even her role as a caring mother.

‘It's almost litigious – but not quite. They manage to get the message across without actually saying the words. It's all down to the images…'

‘It looks bad, I can see that. But I really only went out so I could pick up something for the funeral.'

‘Look, it's a one-off. We can fix this. In fact, if we play our cards right, we might even be able to make it work in your favour. Look at all the Hollywood stars, they're constantly complaining about being papped. They've even started up their own lobby group to get the laws changed so this kind of thing can't happen when people are off duty.' Perhaps Gail was already on the road to fixing things in her mind. ‘Don't worry, darling; we'll set things straight. But for the next while, do a Mossie on it as we said, okay?'

‘Never complain, never explain,' Annalise recited. Same as the prayers she once said each day at the convent school; they meant nothing, but they didn't leave you easily.

*

Grace Kennedy had left a message for her to say they would meet at Evie's house in the afternoon to agree on the funeral arrangements. Annalise just wanted to run away and hide. Instead she sat down in the centre of a large train set Paul had been putting together for the boys and lost herself for a couple of hours while they raced the trains and rearranged the various miniature houses and trees along the line. All thoughts of Kasia Petrescu and Grace Kennedy and Evie Considine fell out of her head for those few blissful hours. She almost expected Paul to arrive in the door and tell her it had all been some terrible mistake. She pulled down her laptop and began to browse through photos of herself and Paul in happier times. She found a head and shoulders shot of their wedding day. It was a beautiful black and white portrait. The quality was a little grainy – the camera was not designed for wedding snaps, but at the time, it didn't seem to matter. They stared lovingly into each other's eyes. A secret smile played about both of their lips; they had just embarked on their ‘happy ever after'. She posted the image to her Twitter account, added in a few words about her love for Paul and closed down her computer. Enough.

*

Annalise Connolly put away her e-cigarette; she had a feeling that Evie would not approve. Menthol. All the girls were smoking them. It wouldn't be so easy to keep her figure once she turned thirty. She knew girls who ate nothing for four days a week, apart from coffee and menthol cigarettes, and still they managed to put on weight. She was lucky. Lucky? Well, she pinged back after each pregnancy, but that was it now. No more. Grace Kennedy was wise, stopping after one.

She didn't like Grace Kennedy. Not from the moment she set eyes on her in that awful hospital. Truthfully, her dislike predated ever actually meeting her. Too much arty coolness mixed with sophistication for Annalise to handle with sang-froid. She tried to tell herself the woman was just a walking cliché; she wore charcoal urbane clothes and expensive hair, silver clanging jewellery and edgy rich perfume. God! She wasn't looking forward to this. What would it be? A showdown? Paul never spoke about Grace or when they'd been married. He never spoke about Delilah and Annalise was glad of that. Sometimes she pretended that he'd forgotten Grace Kennedy. Annalise always thought that must be a good thing. It was obvious that Grace Kennedy was not the kind of woman men ever forgot. Despite her youth and her pretty face, Annalise hadn't the advantage, after all, in a comparison with that intimidating woman. Annalise had a feeling that nothing would overwhelm Grace.

And bloody hell, there was Evie as well. Annalise couldn't think about Evie Considine. She couldn't believe that Paul might once have been married to someone older than Madeline. Each time Evie threatened to rise up in her consciousness, she pushed her down as swiftly and fiercely as her emotional strength would allow. Annalise wasn't even going to try to get her head around that union.

Madeline had said she didn't think Annalise had taken it in yet. ‘The shock, darling. It's natural. You need time. I'll take the boys home. You have a bath. You need to come to terms with it. Call me if you need me. But darling, you need to grieve. It's important.' She'd said words like those over and over again, as though trying to convince herself as much as her daughter. And she was right to have left her alone. Annalise was beginning to feel the enormity of it all hitting her. Paul was dead. In a car accident. With some girl young enough to be his daughter, for Gods sake. Some foreign girl that Annalise had never heard of before, travelling in Paul's car in the dead of night. A pregnant girl. Had Paul known? Was it Paul's? Her brain, the rational part, was telling her that it couldn't be.

And she had to come to terms with the fact that Paul Starr had never really married her. How could he have, not when it looked as if he never divorced Evie? He had never truly married Grace Kennedy either, and now it seemed as if he had been about to move on again. With Kasia Petrescu. Was it really that simple? And with his death, it was out in the open now.

Part of her, the part that could not make up her mind if she loved or hated him anymore, wanted to pick up the phone and tell the world. Well, tell her agent at least. She was not sure what had stopped her so far.

Bastard! Dying, with some strange woman, leaving her condition of matrimony in doubt! Had he even loved her?

Had she loved him? Sure, she'd needed him; he took care of her, and protected her from the harsh world in which she'd found herself back then. Her knight. Her hero. So, gratitude, yes. But love?

And now she had to trail all the way out to Evie Considine's house. The funeral would be an understated blip with her in charge. Not what she wanted for her husband, not what she'd have chosen if he'd actually been hers. She stood, straight and rigid. If the Connollys were old money, she could imagine her grandmother living somewhere like Carlinville. While her own father's mother lived in a small cottage, one in a row of seven with a narrow backyard that ended too close to the railway tracks. She could imagine lounging across one of Evie's antique sofas, telling some awestruck reporter about her family's illustrious lineage. Ahh well.

But when she arrived at Carlinville later that day, Annalise found something that surprised her. Although prosperity was visible in Carlinville House, there was also something else here. It reeked of decay and desperateness. Annalise couldn't quite articulate what it was at first, but she only had to look at Evie, then she knew. She knew without any doubt. This is what it was like when you had nothing and no one to live for. Loneliness pervaded everything; a silent, stealthy presence that eventually overtook everything else.

The Romanian girl arrived first. ‘It is the Dart – I am still getting used to the timetables here. In Romania, either you are there early, or better to stay at home. In Dublin, I always seem to be too early for everything – or maybe it is just that everyone else is late?' She laughed; her heavy eastern accent was at odds with the timidity that hung behind her eyes. She was an angular girl, pretty, with auburn hair that pulled the colour of her eyes to a warmer brown than Evie had ever seen before. It seemed she smiled more than she should, her lips never quite covering her milky-white teeth. When Evie shook her hand, she was surprised not by the coolness of her skin, but rather by the strength in such delicate-looking hands. How had this girl come into Paul's life without her knowing?

‘We're lucky to have it. When I was young, it was as if we lived at world's end; the bus connections brought you about the county just for sport.'

‘You never drove?' Kasia peered at her quizzically. She'd spotted the photograph hidden behind all the others – the house was full of black and white prints of relatives long since dead. This one, a smiling Evie, pictured behind the wheel of the mustard Mercedes echoed back to a time of innocence, maybe happiness too. A faded, instamatic snap, taken on a sunny afternoon long before she met Paul.

‘Oh, that was a long time ago.' Evie warmed at the memory. It surprised her that, still, when she thought of those days, they could raise a smile on her unwilling lips.

‘That is a beautiful car.' Kasia reached in for the small photograph.

‘It was my father's. I'm afraid it caused a bit of bother at the time.' It was so long since she'd even thought about it.

‘Oh?' Kasia raised her eyes, only slightly from the picture in her hand. ‘You have to tell me, I am – what is that word – fascinating now.'

‘You are fascinated?'

‘Yes, if that is how you say it.' She smiled a shy quiver on her lips. ‘I am not forgetting your story of the car that caused the trouble.'

‘Oh, it's a silly story. It was a ridiculous thing – I was just a stupid girl with too much freedom too soon. Oh, but I loved to drive that car,' Evie whispered wistfully. She'd taken the picture out only a few months earlier, mostly left it in one of the lesser-used rooms. She had a feeling Paul would not approve. ‘The locals weren't keen on how I drove: Too fast. Then one evening, I managed to overtake the local sergeant on his way home and he came up to Carlinville to complain to my father. I'd been doing over eighty – which was a fair old speed back then, especially on the roads about here.' The memory made Evie smile. ‘Of course, I wasn't laughing at the time. My father grounded me for months, took the car off me and told me to put any more daft notions out of my head. Oh, I cried bitterly, but when I look back, of course, he was right. It was all too outrageous; who ever heard the likes?' Evie shook her head, but when she thought about those times, she could almost feel the exhilaration come back to her.