The Wife Before Me(12)
Afterwards, his voice muted, as if he fears that the mention of Amelia’s name will disturb the barricades he has erected around his anguish, he says, ‘She was the love of my life. I never thought I could recover from her loss. Then I met you. Do you remember that glance we exchanged as your mother was laid to rest? That’s when my heart began to beat again. You must have known. How could you not feel that shift? Don’t ever leave me, Elena. I love you… love you. I believed my life was spent when Amelia died. I don’t ever want to feel so lost again.’
Finally, he is able to confide in her. She understands why they argued. In order for him to emerge from his crevasse of grief, it had been necessary to punish Elena for forcing him to confront his loss.
She listens, hungrily, when he speaks about his marriage. He refuses to discuss the accident, the memory still too painful, but he tells her about the three blissful years he shared with Amelia before she was snatched so savagely from him. Beautiful, intelligent, charming, kind, gifted: these are the terms he uses to describe her.
‘Be careful what you wish for,’ Isabelle used to say and add, warningly, ‘Granted wishes can often demand a premium price.’
As Elena listens to him, she wonders if the premium on Amelia Madison will be higher than she has anticipated. She tries to find the same tolerance Nicholas had shown when she discussed Zac, revealing more about their difficult relationship than she’d ever intended. In contrast, his marriage sounded like an oasis of tranquillity in their busy lives. This belief is confirmed when she visits his home for the first time.
Five
Woodbine is a two-storey period cottage with ivied walls and a long, rambling garden at the back. Wide lawns on either side of the driveway slope towards a high boundary wall. The sense of Amelia is everywhere. She had studied fine art before she switched to interior design and her paintings, a clash of flamboyant colours, hang in all the rooms. Photographs arranged on the antique mantlepiece, on sideboards and occasional tables, prove that Nicholas has not been exaggerating her beauty. Her mouth was slightly on the wide side, a flaw that only amplified her interesting face and gave her a radiance that time can never diminish. Nicholas is in many of the photographs, smiling, hugging, gazing confidently into her eyes. Why did he not remove those photographs before Elena arrived? Have they become part of the furnishings, no longer noticed? If so, how is that possible?
He takes white wine from the fridge and carries the glasses to the terrace. Spicy cooking smells waft from the open kitchen window. Pots of coriander, tarragon, mint and basil grow along the windowsill. He lists the spices he uses in cooking: sumac, saffron, grains of paradise, amchur powder, carom seeds, cardamom; most of the names are unknown to Elena.
‘I didn’t realise you were a cordon bleu.’ She tastes the wine, Italian, perfectly chilled. ‘I’m impressed.’
‘Amelia was the cordon bleu,’ he says. ‘The tagine I’m making is her recipe. Moroccan.’
‘Sounds delicious.’
‘As long as I follow her instructions, it’ll taste delicious, too.’
The late-September sunshine streams through stained-glass butterflies hanging from an apple tree. Honeysuckle twines around a trellis and misshapen but eye-catching animal sculptures, set among the shrubbery, are examples of the attempts Amelia made at sculpting in metal during her student days. What she has left behind, her creativity, her garden, her house with its distinctive décor, have an added poignancy when viewed against the abrupt ending to her life. Elena won’t be overwhelmed by her, yet she battles against each revelation Nicholas makes about their blissful years together.
The tagine is as tasty as he predicted. Amelia’s hands might as well have cooked this dish. He shows Elena the recipe in a cookbook, one of many, all neatly stacked on a kitchen shelf, spine out. This book is stained from Amelia’s floured hands. Old spills of liquid pucker the paper. Recipes that failed or needed an extra pinch of some obscure spice she must have picked up in an Asian market are annotated. Elena hands the book back to him and makes a non-committal comment. She chooses her words carefully, anxious to avoid another Amelia anecdote.
Amelia Madison, she thinks, is the ghost who will never be found out. She will never have to answer for bad decisions, develop irritating habits, have her heart broken or lose the allure of youth while those who remain behind wither into old age. How can Elena ever hope to compete with a woman who died before she reached the age of disillusion?
They take a bath together, soaking in hydro jets that pummel and soothe her. Did he and Amelia bathe together? Did she make love to him with the same wanton passion as bubbles frothed and the water whirled around them? The bathroom intrigues her. It’s ostentatious in this house of understated elegance and well-worn antiques. Blue lights on a wall panel that can be dimmed add to the contemporary design and cast his face in shadowy, unfamiliar grooves. She wonders if she looks equally unsettling to him but he shows no signs of restraint as he glides the sponge over the breasts and downwards over her stomach, so taut and flat once again. Later, she sleeps with him in one of the spare bedrooms. She can tell by its exactness, the pristine coordinated décor and empty wardrobes, that this room is seldom used.
* * *
He has already left for work when she awakens next morning. She opens the curtains to a view of the Sugar Loaf, its gentle hump rising beyond the trees at the end of the back garden. The glass butterflies shimmer in the morning sunlight and starlings ribbon the sky. She walks along the corridor and opens doors. Only one is locked. The bedroom he shared with Amelia. The handle clunks back into place when she releases it.