The Woman He Loved Before (53 page)

Yes. I think she could have, like a lot of people do, carried on ignoring the issues they had, hoping things would get better. But I think healthy relationships are about feeling loved, wanted, understood and cherished – otherwise what’s the point of being together? When Libby realised she really was second best to Eve, it made absolute sense for her to walk away. She loved Jack completely and knew she deserved to have that reciprocated. Also, it was only when she ended her marriage – and she wasn’t playing games, she meant it – that Jack realised how much he loved her and what he had lost.

Eve is a naturally sweet person, and I think the life she lived did take its toll on her, but she does remain grounded and lovely. I think it was growing up so loved by her mother, and having a good sense of self-esteem and the need to be kind to others, that helps her to stay nice. However, that’s also her undoing. She should have kicked out Elliot a long time earlier but felt so responsible for him she couldn’t.

Like I said, getting rid of Elliot would have made her life a lot easier, but I discovered from doing research on those types of relationships that a lot of women find that hard to do. They will keep trying and trying with a relationship, giving a man many, many chances because they love him and they believe he can change. If she had given up on Elliot sooner, she wouldn’t have been in a position of such extreme poverty at someone else’s hand. Having said that, it’s not in Eve’s nature to give up on people. Also, if she’d been honest with her mother about her life ‘Down South’ they would have reconciled a lot sooner.

Eve’s secret forces Jack to re-examine everything he’s ever thought about the people who did what Eve was forced to do. And it showed his capacity to love someone who isn’t perfect. It also makes him reassess his relationship with his father. Basically, Eve’s secret fundamentally messes up Jack’s mind and emotions. I’m not surprised he became cynical and callous after she died.

Eve and Libby are very similar in the sense of growing up poor, having a strong work ethic and always being determined to support themselves – even when they married a rich man they both carried on working in their low-paid jobs. Eve’s secret actually frightens Libby because it makes her realise that she could easily have ended up like Eve. I think a lot of us are like that, when we hear a story or read a book, we start to think, ‘There but for the grace of God, go I.’ Having written seven books and doing so much research, I firmly believe most of us are only a few ‘questionable’ decisions away from walking into life-altering situations that are difficult to escape.

I think Libby changes in the sense of realising that she needs to accept that she can’t control everything – life just isn’t like that. Her face, lack of hair and bruised body prove that her whole world can change in an instant. She’s also altered in that she can look at her marriage with a critical eye and realise that she’s been hoping for the best when things have been declining for a while. The change in her is doing what she has done before in relation to other things and walk away because it’s not right. It’s not easy because she loves Jack, but it’s necessary. The biggest change, of course, is learning to live her life with her for-ever-altered face and hair. She is someone else whenever she looks in the mirror and that is a change she starts to embrace during the book.

Jack changes in that he begins to accept that he can love Libby and still love Eve, but he has to focus on the wife who is alive. This is a big thing for him because he couldn’t let Eve go – not after she first died and he started sleeping around, and not after he married Libby and the first rush of being with her had died down. He changes in that he confronts how badly he has treated Libby by not being more open about how he felt about Eve and the impact Eve’s secrets and death had on him. Eve’s secrets were pretty darn big, but marriage is a big thing and if you can’t share things with the person you’ve promised to spend the rest of your life with, then is there really any point? Jack learns that.

This is a difficult question for me to answer because I don’t ever think murder is right. Was the killer justified? In their mind, I think so, which is as close to answer I’m going to be able to give. Yup, total cop out!

The themes I think are love, bereavement, inner versus outer beauty, the randomness of life, honesty and betrayal.

I’m sure I think that because I wrote it, it would be interesting to find out what thoughts you – yes,
you
– have on the themes, as well as your answers to the other questions.

You can email me your answers through the ‘contact me’ section of my website at:
www.dorothykoomson.co.uk

Thanks for reading.

Dorothy x

© Dorothy Koomson, 2011

chapter one

The postman jumped as I snatched open the front door to my block of flats and eagerly greeted him.

Usually when we came face to face, he’d have buzzed up to my first floor flat and I’d come shuffling down, pulling on my dressing gown as I tried to rub dried sleep drizzle off my face. Today, though, I’d been hanging out of my window waiting for him. I was still in my usual post-receiving attire of dressing gown and had sleep-sculpted hair, but this time my eyes weren’t barely open slits, I’d washed my face and I was smiling.

‘Special day, is it?’ he said without humour.

He clearly didn’t like this reversal of roles. He wanted me to be sedate and disorientated when he handed over my post. It was probably the only power trip he got of a day. Ahhh, that’s not fair. He was lovely, my postman. Most postmen are nice, aren’t they?

In fact, everyone in the world was lovely today.

‘It’s my birthday,’ I grinned, showing off my freshly cleaned teeth.

‘Happy birthday,’ he commented, dour as a priest at prayer time, and handed over the post for the four flats in our block. I keenly took the bundle that was bound up by a brown elastic band, noting that almost all of the envelopes were red or purple or blue. Basically, card coloured. ‘Twenty-one again, eh?’ the postie said, still unwilling to be infected by my good humour.

‘Nope, I’m thirty-two and proud,’ I replied. ‘Every birthday is a bonus! And anyway, today I get to wear gold sequins and high heels and brush gold dust all over my cleavage.’

The postie’s small brown eyes flicked down to my chest area. Even though it was the height of a long, hot, humid summer, I was wearing pyjamas and a big towelling dressing gown, so he didn’t see anything suggestive – he was lucky to get even a glimpse of my throat skin. That seemed to startle him, that the chest of which I spoke was highly covered, and he immediately snatched his eyes away again. It’d probably occurred to him that he shouldn’t be eyeing up the women on his delivery route – especially when said lady wasn’t even undressed enough to make it worth his while.

He started backing away. ‘Have a good day, love,’ he said. ‘I mean, dear. I mean, bye.’ And then he legged it down the garden path far quicker than a man of his girth and age should be able to.

The postman moved so fast he probably didn’t even hear me call ‘You too’ after him as I shut the door. I slung the letters that weren’t for me, but had the audacity to arrive at this address today, on the floor of the hallway. They landed unceremoniously on top of the other, older letters that sat like orphaned children, waiting, longing to be rescued. I usually felt sorry for those letters, wished the people they’d been sent to would give them a good home, but they weren’t my problem today. I barely gave them a second thought as I took the stairs two at a time back up to my flat.

In my bedroom I had already laid out my birthday breakfast feast: fresh croissants with smoked salmon, three chocolate truffles and a glass of Möet.

Everything had to be perfect today. Everything. I’d planned it that way. After I’d devoured my special brekky, I’d stay in bed until midday, opening birthday cards while receiving calls from well-wishing friends and relatives. Then I had an appointment at the hairdresser to get my hair washed, deep conditioned and cut. I was going for a radical change – ditching my usual chin-length bob for a style with long layers and a sweeping fringe. After that, I’d come back home and get dressed up. I really was going to wear a dress of gold sequins that set off my dark skin in a spectacular fashion. I was going to squeeze my feet into gold high heels and I was going to brush gold dust over my cleavage. And then a few of the girls from work were coming round for drinks and nibbles before we went into town to dance the night away.

I slipped carefully under the sheets, not wanting to spill any of the special spread, then took a swig of champagne before I tore through my cards like a child. Around me the pile of brightly coloured envelopes grew as I tugged out the cards and smiled at the words written inside.

It wasn’t dim of me, then, not to notice it. It was like all the others. Slipped in among the bundle, innocuous and innocent looking. And, like all the others, I didn’t really look at it, didn’t try to decipher the handwriting on envelope, ignored the picture on the front. I simply opened it, eager to receive the message of love that had been scrawled inside. My heart stopped. I recognised the handwriting before I read the words. The words I read with a racing heart.

Slamming it shut I registered for the first time that the card had ‘I love you’ on it instead of one of the usual birthday greetings.

The piece of glossy cardboard sailed across the room when I slung it as though it had burnt my fingers. It landed on the wicker laundry basket and sat there staring at me. With its white front and simple design, and three treacherous words, it sneered at me. Daring me to ignore it. Daring me to pretend the words inside weren’t carved into my brain like they were scored onto the card.

I took a slug of my champagne but it tasted like vinegar in my mouth. The croissant, carefully sliced and filled with smoked salmon, was like sawdust as I chewed. The truffles were paste on my tongue.

Still the card stared at me. Goading me.
Ignore me if you can
, it mocked.
Go on, try it
.

I threw back the covers, got out of bed and went over to the card. Dispassionately, I tore it in half. Then tore those pieces in half again. I stomped into the kitchen, stamped on the pedal bin to open it and dropped the remains on top of the rotting vegetables, the greasy leftovers and discarded wrappers.

‘There. That’s what I think of that! And you!’ I hissed at the card and its sender.

I returned to my bed. That was better. Much better. I sipped my champagne and ate my food. And everything was all right again. Perfect, even. Just like it should be on my birthday.

Nothing could ruin it. No matter how much anyone tried. And they were bloody trying, weren’t they? You don’t try much harder than with that message, dressed up as a birthday card. Very clever. Very bloody clever. Well it wasn’t going to work. I wasn’t falling for that nonsense. I was going to carry on with my plan. I was going to make my thirty-second more special than my eighteenth, twenty-first and thirtieth birthdays combined.

Because when I am thirty-two I shall wear gold sequins and six-inch stilettos and brush gold dust over my cleavage,
just as I promised myself ages ago.

*

The door was ajar and didn’t protest as I gently pushed on it. I didn’t knock. I never knocked on an already open door because to me it always said, ‘Come, no knocking required.’

From her place amongst her white pillows she smiled as I stepped into view. ‘I knew you’d come,’ she whispered.