The Widow(36)

The police said Glen did the same thing on his computer.

He told me the day he shouted at me about the scrapbooks that I drove him to look for porn on the computer. It was a wicked thing to say, but he was so angry it just came out.

He said I’d shut him out because of my obsession with having a baby. That he’d had to look for comfort elsewhere.

“It’s just porn,” he said to me when he realized he’d gone too far. When he saw my face. “All blokes like a bit of porn, don’t they, Jeanie? It doesn’t do any harm to anyone. Just a bit of fun.”

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know all blokes liked porn. The subject had never come up in the salon.

When I cried, he told me it wasn’t his fault. He’d been drawn into online porn by the Internet—they shouldn’t allow these things on the Web. It was a trap for innocent men. He’d become addicted to it—“It’s a medical condition, Jeanie, an addiction.” He couldn’t help himself, but he’d never looked at children. Those images just ended up on his computer—like a virus.

I didn’t want to think about it anymore. It was too hard to keep everything apart in my head. My Glen and this other man the police talked about. I needed to keep things straight.

I wanted to believe him. I loved Glen. He was my world. I was his, he said. We were each other’s.

And the idea of me being guilty of pushing him to look at those horrible photos grew in my head, crowding out the questions about Glen. Of course, I didn’t find out about his “addiction” until after the police came knocking on our door that day before Easter, and then it was too late to say or do anything.

I had to keep his secrets as well as mine.





TWENTY


The Widow

FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 2010


We have croissants and fruit salad for breakfast at the hotel. Big linen napkins and a pot of proper coffee.

Kate won’t let me eat on my own. “I’ll keep you company,” she says, and plonks herself down at the table. She gets a cup from the tea and coffee tray under the television and pours herself a coffee.

She’s all businesslike now. “We really need to sort out the contract today, Jean,” she says. “The paper would like to get the formalities out of the way so we can get on with the interview. It’s Friday already, and they want to publish it tomorrow. I’ve printed a copy of the contract for you to sign. It’s quite straightforward. You agree to give us an exclusive interview for an agreed fee.”

I can’t really remember when I’d said yes. Maybe I hadn’t. “But,” I say. But she just passes me several sheets of paper and I start to read them because I don’t know what else to do. It is all “the first party” and “the second party” and lots of clauses. “I haven’t got a clue what it means,” I say. Glen was the one who dealt with all the paperwork and signed everything.

She looks anxious and starts to try to explain the legal terms. “It really is very simple,” she says. She really wants me to sign it. She must be getting grief from her boss, but I put the contract down and shake my head and she sighs.

“Would you like a lawyer to have a look at it for you?” she asks. And I nod. “Do you know one?” she says, and I nod again. I call Tom Payne. Glen’s lawyer. It’s been a while—must be two years—but I still have his number on my mobile.

“Jean! How are you? I was sorry to hear about Glen’s accident,” he says when the secretary finally puts me through.

“Thank you, Tom. That’s kind of you. Look, I need your help. The Daily Post wants me to do an exclusive interview with them and they want me to sign a contract. Will you look at it for me?”

There is a pause, and I can imagine the surprise on his face.

“An interview?” he says. “Are you sure you’re doing the right thing, Jean? Have you thought this through?”

His real questions remain unasked, and I’m grateful to him for that. I tell him I’ve thought about it and this is the only way to get the press off my doorstep. I’m starting to sound like Kate. I don’t really need the money. Glen got a quarter of a million in compensation for the trick the police pulled—dirty money we put away in a savings account—and there’ll be the insurance money from his death. But I might as well take the fifty thousand pounds the paper wants to pay me.

Tom sounds unconvinced, but he agrees to read the contract, and Kate e-mails it over to him. We sit and wait, and she tries to persuade me to have a facial or something. I don’t want to be fiddled with again, so I say no and just sit there.

Tom and I have had a special bond since the day Glen’s case ended.

We stood together waiting for him to be released by the court, and Tom couldn’t look at me. I think he was scared what he’d see in my eyes.

I can see us standing there. The end of the ordeal but not the end really. I’d been so grateful for the order that the court case had given my life. Every day planned out. Every day setting out from home at eight a.m., dressed smartly, like I was going to work in an office. Every day, home at five thirty. My job was to be supportive and say nothing.

The court was like a sanctuary. I liked the echoing halls and the breezes wafting the notices on the boards and the canteen chatter.

Tom had taken me before Glen was due to appear there, to be committed for trial, so I could see what it was like. I’d seen the Old Bailey on the telly—on the news with a reporter standing on the pavement in front of it, talking about a murderer or a terrorist or something, and the inside, in police dramas. But it was still nothing like I expected. Dim, smaller than it looked on TV, dusty-smelling like a classroom, old-fashioned with lots of dark wood.