My Husband's Wife(70)

‘I can’t cope with two kids having tantrums,’ I snapped during one particularly nasty argument when Ed had told Tom to ‘get a grip’.

Tom’s face had creased into confusion. ‘But where do I find one?’ he had demanded. Language had to be crystal clear. ‘Pipe down’ got confused with my father’s pipe at home. ‘Having your head in the clouds’ meant, in Tom’s book, that you had somehow flown up into heaven and got stuck in the sky. ‘Can you go to bed’ meant ‘Are you capable of getting into bed?’ A question, rather than an instruction.

Anger or tears on our part did nothing. Tom seemed to have a problem recognizing other people’s emotions. ‘Why are they crying?’ he asked one day when seeing a stream of refugees on television.

‘Because they don’t have homes any more,’ I explained.

‘So why don’t they just get some new ones?’

Some of these questions might be normal in a very young child. But as Tom grew older, they became increasingly inappropriate.

It was exhausting. Almost like the bad old days at the beginning of our marriage when we had nearly split. But Mum’s suggestion saved us. Tom moved to Mum and Dad’s in Devon by the sea. There was a school down the road where my brother and I had gone. They’d had more ‘special children’ like him since then, the head told us brightly. We mustn’t worry. And Ed and I would come down every weekend to see him. There was no doubting what the move would do for my parents. Since Tom had been born, my mother no longer had spells when she thought Daniel was still alive. She had another mission now: her grandson.

Much as I hate to admit it, Tom’s absence also gave Ed and me a chance to be a couple again. There was time to talk over meals. To lie on the sofa in the evenings, my legs wrapped round his in companionable silence. To rediscover each other’s bodies in one bedroom. I can’t say it was – or is – wildly passionate. But it’s comfortable. Loving.

Meanwhile, Ed was still trying to make a name for himself. We’d both hoped it would happen sooner, especially after coming third in that award. But the market was slow, or so he was told. Every now and then he persuaded a gallery to let him display some of his work. But it was hard going until an anonymous buyer bought The Italian Girl. Finally Ed got enough money to achieve his dream – to start his own gallery.

Ironically, my career has blossomed since Tom’s birth. To my delight, I was made a partner on the back of my continued success after the Joe Thomas case, which led to a cluster of settlements throughout the country and a change in the law on health and safety. Our contribution has gone down in the law reports. I’ve made a name for myself.

Just as important, in my mind, has been the fact that Davina is now safely married to a Yorkshire landowner. We declined the wedding invitation. Ed swore blind that he had never been unfaithful to me with her, but I still felt awkward in her presence.

Still, Ed and I have become much stronger as a couple. They say that when you have an ill child or one who presents certain challenges, you either grow apart or together. Surprisingly we have done the latter.

‘MY SHOES! I can’t wear them now you’ve touched them!’

My son’s anger brings me sharply back to the present. If I don’t catch the early morning train to Waterloo, I’ll miss my meeting.

‘I’ll sort it,’ says Mum firmly. At times, I’m convinced she’s taken Tom on in order to get it right this time. She failed with Daniel, or so she thinks, but she won’t do the same with her grandson. ‘Here. I almost forgot. This letter came for you during the week.’

And so I go, coward that I am. I leap into the car where Dad is waiting, and I lean back, closing my eyes with relief.

‘Ed meeting you at the other end?’ he asks.

I shake my head. Unusually, my husband hasn’t come down with me this time. He was invited to attend a Sunday showing in an elite gallery off Covent Garden which is displaying a copy of The Italian Girl. There is something about that painting – the vibrant, almost harsh, colours, and the half-knowing, half-innocent look – that unsettles me every time I see it. Or is it just because I still feel irritated about Francesca using us as babysitters so that she could be with Tony Gordon? Or rather Larry. How could someone live two lives?

Now, as the train jolts through Sherborne, I turn over the envelope in my hand. I’m not going to let Joe Thomas touch me. Not even mentally. I’m not going to allow myself to think about my part in helping a guilty man to walk free. If I do that, I won’t be able to live with myself.

And that’s why, as soon as I get to London, I’m going to tear up this envelope, with my former client’s distinctive capital-letter writing on it, and drop it in the nearest bin.

When I reach my office, there’s the usual urgent, steady, controlled panic. I love every minute. Adult panic. Adult battle of wills. Adult adulation.

It’s not just my career that’s on the up. It’s my body too. Some women age badly, like Davina – I can’t stifle my grin of triumph – whose picture in Tatler’s Bystander column the other month showed her looking decidedly heavy jowled. Others, like me, appear to improve. Or so I’ve been told. ‘Middle age suits you,’ Ed told me the other morning as he gazed down at my flat stomach and slim thighs.

I’d tickled him with mock indignation. ‘Middle age? Forty is the new thirty, I’ll have you know. Or thirty-eight at the very least.’