The First Wife (20 page)

When Harry arrived, with a bottle of wine in a metal cooler gripped between his left arm and his body, and two glasses and a menu in his right hand, I looked up and vowed that I would do whatever it took to hang on to him.

‘What was your school like?’ I asked, as he poured the wine.

He looked up, surprised. ‘My school? Why?’

‘Because I want to know all about you.’

He smiled and poured the wine. ‘OK. School. It wasn’t fun. I went away at eleven. I hated it, to be honest. I’m two years older than Fergus, so I was shipped away while he got to stay at home with Mother. That was how I saw it, at that age. She wanted
me
out of the house but she let
him
stay. Of course, I settled in, and during the holidays I lorded it over him, and when he came to school two years later, I was delighted to see him snivelling around the place.’

‘You went to boarding school?’

‘Oh, yes. Didn’t I say?’

‘Seriously? That still happens?’

‘Well, we’re going back more years than I’d like to remember, but yes, of course it does. Still supposed to be character-forming. Only in a certain sector of society, of course. The monied classes get to neglect their children. And the schools today, apparently, are a million miles away from what they used to be, depending on where you go. Eton, for instance, gives a fantastic all-round education. Lily?’

I frowned. ‘What?’

‘Please would you stop looking at me like that?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like a gun-toting revolutionary Communist confronted with a member of the bourgeoisie?’

I shook myself and rearranged my features. ‘Sorry,’ I told him. ‘It’s just – Eton? I thought you’d say you’d been to private school, but . . .’

He made a sad face. ‘Am I too posh?’

‘Don’t be silly. I’m just, I suppose, very aware that although my family were as middle-class as anything, I’ve only got a clutch of GCSEs to my name, and no A levels at all. I’m feeling excited about starting a pathetic little access course. Talk of Eton makes me feel a bit inadequate.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You nursed two old people until they died.’

‘Which doesn’t make me sound like much of a nurse.’

‘Admittedly not, but you know what I mean. You’re stronger than anyone I’ve ever met. And I was handed an education on a plate, I realise that. You couldn’t go to my school and not come out with good grades. But I suppose boarding school brings an entirely different set of problems, all of its own.’

‘Oh, I’m sure it does. No child of mine would ever be packed away to school.’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said, in the calmest of voices. ‘I propose a compromise. Let’s pick the happy medium, between expensive neglect and lack of opportunity. We’ll take the middle option and send our children to private day school.’

I tried to keep my demeanour as casual as his.

‘They’ll have to go to Truro then,’ I said. ‘That’s where the posh schools are, isn’t it?’

‘We’ll get you a little car. You can drop them off.’

‘Unfortunately,’ I said, breathing deeply, staying determinedly unruffled, ‘I can’t drive.’

He laughed. ‘You can’t drive?’

‘We had an old Mini but I never learned to drive it. By the time I was old enough I was a full-time nursemaid.’

‘Of course you were. Everyone needs to be able to drive. We’ll get you some lessons. I’ll ask around. I think there’s a woman with a driving school somewhere about. You’d probably be more comfortable with that?’

‘Sure.’ I tried to imagine myself, driving. Changing gears, steering round corners.

‘While we’re on that subject,’ Harry said, ‘you know what I hate?’

‘No, I don’t. What do you hate?’

‘I hate men who can’t drive.’ He looked suddenly animated. ‘I hate a man who declares: “Oh, I don’t drive,” because they all say “don’t” instead of “can’t”, as if it’s a choice and not a failing. In the modern world, driving is a vital skill, especially for a man. Those men who pretend to be all lofty and “not drive” are pathetic, effeminate nancies.’

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘You really
do
hate them.’

He looked rueful. ‘Sorry It’s one of my bugbears.’

‘Clearly.’

‘Now you think I’m homophobic too. And you have a gay best friend.’

‘I don’t think you’re homophobic. “Pathetic, effeminate nancies” is a fine turn of phrase.’

‘Like this guy, for instance,’ Harry whispered.

I looked up, and there was Al, heading towards the table. Many pairs of eyes were following him, and he did look more striking than usual. He was wearing a pair of tight shorts and a vest. This was the first time I had seen him in anything other than sober, ordinary clothes. His eye was twitching visibly.

I looked quickly at Harry.

‘Al!’ I said. ‘Harry, this is the very friend we were just talking about. Al, this is Harry. Al, you look different.’

Harry laughed and stood up, and I wondered whether I ought to leap to my feet as well, but decided that I would just look stupid if I did. I watched as he shook Al’s hand. I watched Al checking him out.

‘Nice to meet you, Al,’ Harry said, in his formal voice. I looked at both of them. Al was so different from the sensible man I had met last year. He was like a different person. ‘Would you care to join us for a drink?’ he continued. ‘I’ll go and fetch another glass.’

‘Al doesn’t drink alcohol,’ I said quickly.

‘Oh, one glass will be fine,’ Al said, just as hastily. He took a chair from a neighbouring table without asking, and sat down. The moment Harry was out of earshot, he leaned across to me and said: ‘He’s better-looking in real life.’

‘He’s lovely, isn’t he?’

‘If you hadn’t got in there first, I’d have had him myself. A touch of the Nigel Havers. I love a posh bloke.’

‘Al,’ I said quickly, ‘what’s going on? Where are you going? And what are you dressed like that for?’

‘Like I said before. Time to move on. Reinvent myself. Boris is busy playing the happy hetero, so I thought I’d go to the other extreme. That way, things get balanced out.’ He leaned back in his seat and looked at the ceiling. ‘Boris and his wife got an injunction against me,’ he said quietly. ‘So it’s time to get the fuck out of here.’

‘What did you do?’

He shrugged. ‘I may have turned up at their house a few times too many. You know that. But so what? They’re the ones living a bloody lie, not me.’

‘Oh, Al.’

He smiled, which was clearly an effort. ‘So,’ he said. ‘I’ve met someone online. He lives in Scotland. I’m heading up there. Trying my luck. Got to be worth a go, and tearing myself away from Truro can only be a good thing. Putting hundreds of miles between us, before I do something properly crazy.’

‘Are you sure? Is it safe, meeting people online?’

‘Lily Bellybutton. I can look after myself, believe me.’ ‘You shouldn’t be drinking.’

‘I’m fine. New start, clean slate. The odd drink is OK. Can’t go to Scotland, of all places, without being able to put away the odd drink. I’ve given up work. Taken my own advice about benefits.’

‘Will you be all right? Stay in touch.’

‘I’ve got my phone. Only a text away. Or a call. Any time you like.’

Harry poured Al a glass of wine and handed it to him. Al thanked him politely. We all took a sip, and a difficult silence descended.

‘Harry,’ I said, in a false voice that I did not like at all,

‘Al’s going away tonight. To live in Scotland.’

Ah. Scotland. Always liked it. Edinburgh or Glasgow? Though I gather there are other parts to that fine country too.’

‘Glasgow,’ Al said. He knocked back the contents of his glass and stood up. ‘In fact, I’m off now. Don’t want to screw up your nice evening. Bye then, lovebirds. Lily, don’t forget me, will you? I might be back. You never know. Might not be able to keep away.’

His sudden exit took me by surprise. I stood up and kissed his cheek, and he was gone.

When we got back to Harry’s house, much later, we were both a bit drunk. We were almost always a bit drunk. Harry opened the door and blinked hard, focusing his mind so that he would be able to turn off the alarm successfully.

‘Do those numbers mean anything?’ I asked him. ‘81181825?’

He laughed. ‘Do you know what? You’ll think I’m an egotistical freak. It’s my name, translated into numbers. H is the eighth letter of the alphabet. A the first. Two Rs: eighteen, eighteen. Then a Y. Does that make you hate me?’

When the beeping stopped, I crossed the threshold too.

I laughed. ‘I wish you’d told me that before. I’d have found it much easier to remember.’

‘Gorgeous girl!’ he exclaimed, and he pulled me inside. He kicked the door, and it closed with a bang. ‘You are adorable, you know. You’ll be all right without your friend Al in town.’

I stepped back.

‘I know I will. It’s him I’m worried about.’ I took the key from Harry’s hand, and double-locked us into the house. ‘Really worried. I think I should go after him, before he gets on the train, and check on him. He should not have been drinking.’

‘Well,’ said Harry, and he was smiling at me so tenderly that I hardly listened to what he was saying. ‘He’s an adult. Honestly, I’ve been around a lot of years, and I can see that he’s someone who can look after himself. You’re not his mum and he wouldn’t thank you for running after him. Keep in touch, be at the end of a phone, but don’t tie yourself up in knots.’

I was about to point out that I owed Al a huge amount, but then Harry leaned down and kissed me.

‘How about a nightcap?’ he asked.

‘OK’

‘A glass of your special sherry?’

‘Thank you.’

I was shocked at how quickly I had got used to Harry’s lifestyle. I accepted expensive drinks without a second thought. My wide-eyed excitement at going to restaurants and bars was already beginning to fade. I had always assumed that if I were able to afford that sort of lifestyle, I would be constantly entirely happy, but I was beginning to realise just how quickly luxury became normal.

I followed him into the kitchen, and while he fixed the drinks, I pulled myself up onto the worktop, swinging my legs, watching.

He frowned with concentration as he poured the drinks, and I thought how much I liked the small wrinkles and lines on his face. They showed that he had lived – that, unlike me, he had experienced life, and this was reassuring.

He noticed me sitting there and, as I had known he would, he immediately put down the bottle and walked over to me. He pulled my hips to the edge of the worktop and kissed me again. I put my arms around his shoulders.

This was the strangest thing: the physical compatibility. I had never imagined I could feel like this about anyone, but with Harry it was perfect.

‘I used to have such a crush on you,’ I told him, nuzzling his neck.

‘Used to?’ he echoed, pretending to be hurt.

‘Well, it’s not a “crush” any more, is it?’ I murmured. ‘A crush is something that happens from a distance, that’s unreciprocated. When I spoke to you I’d get all jittery and scared and I went bright red, I know I did.’

He laughed and stepped away, looking extremely pleased.

‘Well, I must admit,’ he said, handing me a glass of sherry, ‘I thought beetroot was your natural colour.’

‘But you were married, and you were happy, and I knew . . .’

Harry took me by the shoulders, suddenly serious.

‘Lily,’ he said quietly, in a tone I had never heard him use before, ‘there is so much you don’t know about my marriage. We made an effort to show the world that we were perfect and happy. That was our “thing”. The shared goal that probably kept us together. But the things that went on behind closed doors . . . It’s easy, with hindsight, to see that Sarah was unbalanced. Obviously she was. And, looking back on it, it got worse year by year. I would tiptoe around. You must have noticed how much crockery we got through, when you were cleaning the house. Plates and cups smashed all the time. It’s – it’s hard to get over how different life is, now.’

‘It didn’t look that way.’

‘Of course it didn’t. She was a spectacular actress. Another thing: I always wanted children. She didn’t. I used to hope she’d leave me. I tried to leave, myself, more than once. But she threatened to . . . well, to do the very thing that she did, in the end, do. It was no idle threat and I knew that. But Lily: something happened in Barcelona that I never thought I was going to tell anybody. The missing part of the jigsaw. In Barcelona, I told her I was leaving her. And I actually meant it, and she knew that I did.’

He picked up his glass of sherry, knocked it back, and winced.

‘That Christmas party was the last straw,’ he continued, one hand on my waist. ‘Things had been bad for years, but when we were there, acting the gracious hosts, I looked at you, so sweet, so genuine, and then at her, and I thought, What the hell am I doing here? And I knew it was time to get out.’

‘You were leaving her . . . ?’

‘I wasn’t leaving her
for you.
But I was leaving her because you made me realise that there were other women out there. You made me suspect that I could have a different life. And I started thinking about what it would be like not to be tiptoeing around, second guessing someone . . .’

‘She actually killed herself. Because of me.’

‘No. She killed herself because of me. Because of herself. That’s the only reason there is, isn’t it?’

Nothing was quite the way it seemed. I had played a role in Sarah’s death. The knowledge made me shiver violently. No wonder I felt her angry presence all over the house. I looked at the glasses on the side, expecting them to be dashed to the floor there and then.

‘Move in with me, Lily,’ he said suddenly. ‘It’s been messy, but we’re left with the best thing that’s ever happened to either of us. Please, darling, don’t dwell on what I just told you. I only told you because I didn’t want there to be secrets. It’s stupid that you pay for your room in that house and you never go there. Give them notice. We’ll go over this weekend and pack all your stuff into the car. We may not have a lot of boot space, but I’m ready to hazard a guess that there’s not much to go in there anyway. I love you, Lily Button. Move in with me. Grow old with me. Have my children.’