My Husband's Wife(31)

Mamma no longer had to put a note under Lily’s door. It seemed to be accepted that on the Lord’s Day she went to Ed and Lily’s, while Mamma went to work.

‘Soon,’ promised Ed, after she’d finished admiring Lily’s new picture, ‘I will draw you again. But I need to go out now.’

‘Really?’ asked Lily, lifting her head. ‘Where?’

Ed shrugged. ‘Just out. You know. To get some inspiration.’

Carla didn’t mind him going. He wasn’t her favourite person. That was Lily. Lily who had time for her instead of constantly drawing and getting out a sketchpad when they were meant to be walking.

But it wasn’t long before Lily was busy too. ‘I need to go through some work papers,’ she said. ‘Can you read to yourself for a bit?’

Carla stuck out her bottom lip. This was usually effective in getting her way. ‘But I’ve left my book behind.’

‘Do you have a key?’

‘There’s one on the ledge above the front door.’

‘Can you get that then?’ Lily barely looked up as she spoke.

‘OK.’

‘Thanks.’ Lily beamed at her. Instantly Carla felt full of warmth again.

‘Shall I come with you?’

‘You’re busy.’ Carla was keen to please. ‘I can do it.’

As soon as she put the key in the lock, Carla heard the moaning. Someone was in pain! Was it Mamma sent home ill from work? The sound was coming from her room.

Carla opened the door and then stopped dead. That was Larry’s hat on the floor. The rest of him was on top of Mamma. Except that it didn’t look like her. Her face was red. Her hair was wet. And her eyes were so wide that they looked as though they were going to pop right out there on to the floor. Was Larry hurting Mamma? But Mamma didn’t seem sad. She didn’t really seem like Mamma at all.

Carla turned and ran.

‘Where is your book?’ asked Lily when she returned.

‘I couldn’t find it.’

‘Are you all right? You seem very quiet.’

‘May I just watch television?’

‘Of course.’

‘And could I stay here. For the night?’

Lily gave her a cuddle. ‘We’ve only got one bedroom, poppet.’

Poppet? Lily had called her that before. Carla didn’t know what it was, but it sounded nice.

Then Lily shut her books. ‘Tell you what. I’ll do this later. Why don’t we make some fudge again? Then you can give your mother a piece when she comes home from work.’

There was the sound of a bell and a voice cooing through the letterbox. ‘Piccola? It is me.’

Carla’s heart sank. Instinctively, she knew Mamma was here because Carla had seen her at home when she was meant to be at work. And although Mamma’s voice sounded nice, she was bound to be cross when they were alone together.

‘In fact,’ said Lily brightly, ‘it looks like she’s back early.’





13


Lily


I’m running after Davina in the park. She’s holding something and I need to get it off her or my marriage to Ed is over. She’s slowing down, but every time I speed up, she zips ahead. Then she starts sneezing. So loudly that the thing she is holding falls out of her hand. I reach down to get it, but it keeps slipping out of my hand. Finally, in the light of the moon, I manage to pick it up. It’s a wedding ring. Just like the one that Ed gave me. The one that had belonged to his great-grandmother. But as I hold it, the ring crumbles in my hand. I try to piece it back together but it’s no good. The pieces dissolve into dust. Then Davina laughs. A high-pitched shriek of a laugh …

‘Can you turn it off?’

Ed’s sleepy voice comes from the other side of the bed. Slowly it dawns on me – what a relief! – that Davina’s laugh is the alarm clock. The light filtering in through the window is indeed the moon, but even so, it is time to get up. It’s 6 a.m. I need to get an earlier bus because I have a meeting with Tony Gordon. The man who might, or might not, help me release Joe Thomas from prison.

‘Let’s go over the facts one more time.’

Tony Gordon is the type of tall, imposing man who would be equally at home on the cinema screen as he is in his Lincoln’s Inn chambers. It isn’t just his breadth of shoulders or the assured way he wears his dark-grey suit. It’s also his deep, authoritative voice with its hint of gravel. His manner of walking that suggests an inborn confidence. His crisp, expensive-looking shirts (today it’s a baby-pink stripe that might look effeminate on anyone else). The unhurried way in which he answers the phone, even when under pressure. I wouldn’t mind betting this reassures the person at the other end. It certainly reassures me.

The longer I work with him, the more I feel that this is a man who knows what he’s doing, whether driving a car, hanging a picture, fighting for the release of a convicted murderer or making love to a woman.

Where did that last thought come from? As I listen to Tony go over the statistics – boiler figures; timing of the ‘incident’ – my thoughts skittle back to Ed’s cheek which I had barely brushed with my lips in the form of a goodbye that morning.

I am already dreading going home to my husband. On the outside, we seem fine. We go supermarket shopping together on Friday nights, watch our favourite TV shows next to each other on the sofa after work, and look after little Carla on Sundays. I make sure I give Ed space to paint in his spare time because that’s all he wants to do. How he resents working ‘for morons’ during the week. But it’s hard not to notice that his two glasses of wine a night have now become three or four. Or that he hardly ever tries to touch me any more.