My Husband's Wife(2)

Or is it because I’m trying to pretend I’m not terrified of what lies ahead this morning? A shiver passes down my spine as I spray duty-free Chanel No. 5 on the inside of both wrists. (A present from Ed, using another wedding-gift cheque.) Last month, a solicitor from a rival firm was stabbed in both lungs when he went to see a client in Wandsworth. It happens.

‘Come on,’ I say, anxiety sharpening my usually light voice. ‘We’re both going to be late.’

Reluctantly, he rises from the rickety chair which the former owner of our flat had left behind. He’s a tall man, my new husband. Lanky, with an almost apologetic way of walking, as if he would really rather be somewhere else. As a child, apparently, his hair was as golden as mine is today (‘We knew you were a “Lily” the first time we saw you,’ my mother has always said), but now it’s sandy. And he has thick fingers that betray no hint of the artist he yearns to be.

We all need our dreams. Lilies are meant to be beautiful. Graceful. I look all right from the top bit up, thanks to my naturally blonde hair and what my now-deceased grandmother used to kindly call an ‘elegant swan neck’. But look below, and you’ll find leftover puppy fat instead of a slender stem. No matter what I do, I’m stuck on the size 16 rail – and that’s if I’m lucky. I know I shouldn’t care. Ed says my shape is ‘part of me’. He means it nicely. I think. But my weight niggles. Always has done.

On the way out, my eye falls on the stack of wedding cards propped up against Ed’s record deck. Mr and Mrs E. Macdonald. The name seems so unfamiliar.

Mrs Ed Macdonald.

Lily Macdonald.

I’ve spent ages trying to perfect my signature, looping the ‘y’ through the ‘M’, but somehow it still doesn’t seem quite right. The names don’t go together that well. I hope it’s not a bad sign.

Meanwhile, each card requires a thank-you letter to be sent by the end of the week. If my mother has taught me anything, it is to be polite.

One of the cards has a particularly ‘look at me!’ flamboyant scrawl, in turquoise ink. ‘Davina was a girlfriend once,’ Ed explained before she turned up at our engagement party. ‘But now we’re just friends.’

I think of Davina with her horsey laugh and artfully styled auburn locks that make her look like a pre-Raphaelite model. Davina who works in Events, organizing parties to which all the ‘nice girls’ go. Davina who narrowed her violet eyes when we were introduced, as if wondering why Ed would bother with the too-tall, too-plump, tousle-haired image that I see in the mirror every day.

Can a man ever be just friends with a woman when the relationship is over?

I decide to leave my predecessor’s letter until last. Ed married me, not her, I remind myself.

My new husband’s warm hand now squeezes mine as if reading my need for reassurance. ‘It will be all right, you know.’

For a minute, I wonder if he is referring to our marriage. Then I remember. My first criminal client. Joe Thomas.

‘Thanks.’ It’s comforting that Ed isn’t taken in by my earlier bravado. And worrying, too.

Together, we shut the front door, checking it twice because it’s all so unfamiliar to us, and walk briskly down the ground-floor corridor leading out of our block of flats. As we do so, another door opens and a little girl with long, dark, glossy hair swinging in a ponytail comes out with her mother. I’ve seen them before, but when I said ‘hello’, they didn’t reply. Both have beautiful olive skin and walk with a grace that makes them appear to be floating.

We hit the sharp autumn air together. The four of us are heading in the same direction but mother and daughter are now slightly ahead because Ed is scribbling something in his sketchbook as we walk. The pair, I notice, seem like carbon copies of each other, except that the woman is wearing a too-short black skirt and the little girl – who’s whining for something – is dressed in a navy-blue school uniform. When we have children, I tell myself, we’ll teach them not to whine.

I shiver as we approach the stop: the pale autumn sun is so different from the honeymoon heat. But it’s the prospect of our separation that tightens my chest. After one week of togetherness, the thought of managing for eight hours without my new husband is almost scary.

I find this unnerving. Not so long ago, I was independent. Content with my own company. But from the minute that Ed and I first spoke at that party six months ago (just six months!), I’ve felt both strengthened and weakened at the same time.

We pause and I steel myself for the inevitable. My bus goes one way. His, the other. Ed is off to the advertising company where he spends his days coming up with slogans to make the public buy something it never intended to.

And I’m off to prison in my navy-blue skirt suit and suntan.

‘It won’t be so scary when you’re there,’ says my new husband – how I never thought I’d say that word! – before kissing me on the mouth. He tastes of Rice Krispies and that strong toothpaste of his which I still haven’t got used to.

‘I know,’ I say before he peels off to the bus stop on the other side of the road, his eyes now on the oak tree on the corner as he takes in its colour and shape.

Two lies. Small white ones. Designed to make the other feel better.

But that’s how some lies start. Small. Well meaning. Until they get too big to handle.