The First Wife (27 page)

He almost snorted. ‘I don’t think that’s quite what Constanza meant. Look, you make him happy because you are pretty, young and adorable. He makes you happy because he’s wild about you, and he’s older and he makes you feel safe. Why don’t you just live with him a while longer and see what happens? Don’t look at me like that, Lily. I’m just trying to help.’

I tried to smile. ‘I know. But being with Harry is the one thing that I feel certain of. It really is. I’m not like Sarah.’

He lowered his voice. ‘The first time I met you – the only time I’ve met you before – you were so lovely, and you exuded this sense that things were going to happen for you. It was enchanting. Don’t look so surprised. One of the enchanting things was the fact that you had no idea. And, well, I would never have guessed that now, only a year or so later, you’d be getting ready to marry my brother.’

We walked on for a while, passing some people with a big brown dog.

‘I want you to go places.’

‘Is that what you wanted to say?’ I asked.

‘Pretty much.’

‘I appreciate that you’re looking out for me. Now can we talk about something else? Tell me about your children.’

He sighed. ‘OK. You’ll have to meet them. I’ll bring them to Cornwall next time Jasmine lets me take them anywhere. They’ll be at your wedding of course, assuming . . . but it would be nice for you to get to know them sooner.’

‘Would your daughter like to be a bridesmaid? I don’t even know her name.’

He laughed. ‘Of course she bloody would. She’s a little girl. That’s all they ever think of, apparently. Her name’s Arabella. It was her mother’s idea.’ He paused, then said in a different tone, ‘Look – what happened with Sarah: what has he told you?’

‘Well, that he’d just told her he was leaving. And that’s why she did it.’

‘Ah,’ said Fergus. ‘Right. Well, I wasn’t there.’

‘But you came out afterwards. You were there when they pulled her out of the water. You identified the body.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes. And then I had the body cremated.’

‘You liked her,’ I said. ‘Didn’t you?’

‘She was a brilliant woman. My brother has excellent taste in wives.’

I tried to work out how much I could say to Fergus. I was not sure whether I could trust him, or what it was that he wasn’t telling me.

‘Did you have an affair with Sarah?’

He laughed at that, and the tension lifted for a moment.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Of course I didn’t. My brother’s wife? She was a good friend though. I’d do anything for her. I would have done anything for her.’

He walked fast, away from me, taking long strides until he caught up with Harry and Nina. I saw Harry look back at me, and then slow his pace until I caught him up. I blinked hard.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Are you all right, Lily? What’s Fergus been saying?’

I made an effort. ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Honestly, nothing. I’m fine.’

‘If he’s upset you . . .’

‘He hasn’t.’ I thought quickly. ‘I’m just not used to being happy.’

He squeezed my hand. ‘Good. Because anyone who upsets my Lily, even if they don’t mean to, will have me to deal with.’

They did not look as though they had been there long. They were looking at the door as if expecting someone to answer it. There were two of them: a man and a woman. I knew who they were, what they were, at once. They were in black, in uniform black. I wanted to turn and run, but as I stood, rooted to the spot, the man turned around and saw me. There was no escape. I walked slowly up the path towards them.

It was Harry. Something had happened to Harry: I knew it. This was how it worked. The police turned up, and your life was torn apart by the information they imparted.

I looked up and thought I caught a glimpse of Constanza watching from the upstairs window, next door.

‘Hello,’ called the policeman as I approached. ‘You’re Miss Button?’

‘Yes,’ I said. This man should not be smiling and looking so reassuring.

‘No need to worry,’ said the woman, who had an open face and a happy air. ‘Could we come in for a moment?’

I cast my mind around wildly. I could not think of a valid reason for saying no. ‘All right,’ I said, and I unlocked the door and led them to the kitchen.

‘Gosh, these houses are something, aren’t they?’ the woman said with a sigh.

‘They are,’ I agreed, seeing my surroundings through strangers’ eyes and being bowled over all over again.

They introduced themselves, but I forgot their names at once.

‘Coffee?’ I asked, biting my lip. ‘Tea?’

‘Oh, yes,’ the man said. ‘I’d murder a cup of tea. Thanks.’

As I boiled the kettle and got cups out, I tried to anticipate what might be coming. They had said there was nothing to worry about. It suddenly occurred to me that it might be Al.

‘Here you go.’ I put the cups down. We all looked as they trembled like butterflies in my hands.

‘Right,’ said the woman. ‘You have no idea why we’re here and we’re making you nervous.’

‘Is it Al?’

‘No. Nothing to do with anybody of that name. This is just a routine check and you are not in any trouble at all. This is going back a bit, I know,’ she said, ‘but Lily, can you remember what you were doing on the evening of December the twenty-third last year? The day before Christmas Eve?’

‘I . . . December?’

‘Yes.’

‘December the twenty-third?’

‘Yes.’

The clock on the wall ticked the seconds away, and my mind was entirely blank. It took me a long time to take myself back to last December, nearly a year earlier.

It came to me in the end: 23 December had been the night of Harry and Sarah’s drinks party. That was the last time anyone in this town had seen Sarah.

‘I was here,’ I said. ‘Harry’s wife, Sarah, was still alive, and they had a party. I handed out drinks and things. I was here from about six o’clock, working for her. She paid me.’

‘You were here? And Mr and Mrs Summer were here too?’

‘Yes.’

‘For the entire evening?’

‘Yes.’

The man cleared his throat. ‘Could either of them have left the house for a while at some point? Early in the evening, perhaps?’

‘No.’

They had, of course. Harry went out for champagne. He came back empty-handed. I tried not to think about the direction in which this might be going. I could not say anything that might get him in any sort of trouble.

‘No,’ I said again. ‘I was here. I was in the kitchen a lot of the time, but I know they were both in the house. The guests began to arrive at about a quarter to eight. Lots of the neighbours came. I’m sure they’d all help you if they could.’

The woman was looking at me hard.

‘You’re absolutely certain that neither Mr nor Mrs Summer could possibly have left the house, at around seven o’clock?’

‘I’d say I’m ninety-five per cent certain,’ I said. ‘Like I say, I wasn’t in the same room as them for a lot of the time.’

‘Lily, can you drive?’

‘No. I’ve never learned.’

‘OK, that’s all. Thank you. Can we take your contact details in case we need to speak to you again?’

‘Of course. I’ll write my numbers down for you.’

‘And don’t worry,’ she said again. ‘This is nothing that you need to be anxious about.’

As soon as they left, I called Harry. His mobile rang and rang, then diverted to voicemail. His work line went to his voicemail straight away. I tried to make my voice casual as I left him a message. ‘The police just called by,’ I said. ‘That was weird. They wanted to know about that Christmas party last year. I didn’t say anything much because there wasn’t anything to say. Anyway, see you later. Love you.’

I paced the house for a while. Harry had gone out, and I was the only one who could possibly know. My internal compass seemed to be spinning wildly. I had no idea what I ought to do.

My mobile rang, and I snatched it up, but it was not him.

‘Hello,’ said a nervous female voice. ‘Is that Lily?’

I wanted her off the phone, whoever she was. ‘Yes?’

‘It’s Emma Finnigan.’

It took me a moment to place her. ‘Oh, Emma. Are you all right?’

‘Yes. Look, I know Stan has sent a message to your friend. But I just wanted to let you know that I’ve asked him to move out again, for a while. It was all too much. We both needed a break from each other. So if you hear from him . . . well, I just wanted to let you know.’ She paused. ‘And if . . . well, if you do hear from your friend,’ she could not bear to say Al’s name, ‘and if he turns out to be with Stanley, would you let me know? I’m sorry to involve you.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, of course. Emma, are you all right?’

‘You know, when he left before, I was so certain that if I could get him to come back, everything would be all right. Now that he’s gone, I can breathe again.’ And she hung up.

I tried Al’s phone again, but it went straight to voicemail. Then I put my phone where I would definitely hear it, and decided to get on with the ironing.

I spent a peaceful hour straightening out a week’s worth of Harry’s work clothes and a few of my things, while listening to an afternoon play about time travellers. I forgot about Al and Boris and Emma. I forgot the police. I forgot everything apart from the fact that I was, here at least, capable of taking something messy and restoring order. I had found a spray called ‘ironing water’ at the back of a shelf, and I used it now, spraying each item before I ironed it. It had a gentle smell of lavender about it, and even though it had clearly belonged to Sarah, I liked it.

When the play ended, I hung everything up in the right place and, almost in a trance, poured a glass of water and went upstairs to sit at the desk and think. I had been trying to block it out, but I was afraid.

I had been uneasy when Harry went out in the car after drinking. Sarah had been, too; but he had gone anyway. Then he came back and poured himself a massive drink.

There was no place in my head for so treacherous a thought. I banished it, and turned to the more pressing problem of Sarah, instead.

She had bought a book about learning Catalan. She had marked places on a map that was now hidden at the bottom of my underwear drawer. She had written a note about teaching. From this, I drew the only possible conclusion: Sarah had deceived my beloved Harry. She had secretly learned Catalan, and slipped away from her old life. I had no idea why, nor where she could be now, but if she was not dead, I could not marry Harry; because he was still unwittingly married to her.

I took out the map from its new place, spread it before me and looked at the points she had marked on it. I did not have a clue what was at any of them. It made no sense to me at all.

I had loved being in London. I wanted to see it all, to see more. I had money, now, because Harry had set up a bank account for me and filled it with funds. I could think of no better use for it than this: to save him from bigamy. If she was dead, I would feel silly and delighted, and I would be able to marry him with my head held high, and live happily ever after.

I went downstairs and sat at the computer. Then I stood up. My computer skills were not good enough, yet, for me to do something like this and erase the traces. I would go somewhere else to do it. I would protect him from all of it, until I discovered something that he had to know.

The police’s visit played on my mind more than I wanted. I called him again. There was still no answer. This time I did not leave a message.

Jack was ‘personable’, apparently. That was what they said, and that was why the very language school at which he had done his TEFL course offered him an actual teaching job the moment he was qualified. He was still not completely sure about his past conditional, but he was not going to point that out to anyone.

‘More people are wanting to learn English than ever before,’ said Hugh, one of the bosses. ‘We can take you on for, say, forty-two hours a week. How does that sound?’

Jack totted up the money. It sounded good. Although there was no payslip or health insurance or anything, he was soon earning more than enough to support himself, so he sent home a chunk of his savings for Rachel and the kids.

He had to move to a different apartment, because the first one was kept for people doing the TEFL course. He moved by cramming everything into his backpack, going across town on the Metro, unpacking it in his new room, then repeating the manoeuvre, twice.

Peter moved with him. Their new flat was big but, somehow, also poky. They shared with a Serbian woman, a Polish girl and a man from Mali. They were all on top of each other, and it was not exactly luxury, but it was home. Soon there was nothing Jack liked more than kicking back with a beer after work, hanging out in their little kitchen and chatting to whoever happened to be there. Sometimes they chatted in bad Spanish, sometimes in bad Catalan, sometimes in English. The other thing he liked to do was to cook. This was a revelation to him, because when he was married, Rachel had done all the cooking, and it had never occurred to either of them that it could be any other way. She was a terrible chef, but he never minded. Often he would come home from ten straight hours of fixing people’s plumbing, to find a plate of clammy pasta, with soup made from a packet, poured all over the top of it. He would wash it down with beer and thank her anyway.

Now, however, things were different. Peter showed him that he could order books from British websites, and have them shipped out here, and when he realised how easy it was, he had started shopping. One of his books was a thick cookbook called
Appetite,
and from the moment he made himself a shopping list for the ingredients he was going to need for haddock fishcakes, he knew he had found his new love. He loved nothing better than cooking. He knew the shops now, knew which day to go to the best market for vegetables, knew where to get meat and fish, and who had the best cheeses. He would swerve out of his way after work, and come back to the flat with bags full of red peppers and filleted fish, herbs and spices and the vegetables that had looked good. Then he would get to work. He fed his flatmates most days, and they happily gave him money towards ingredients and did the washing up.