The Wife Before Me(13)
Last night, they left the dishes on the table and hurried upstairs, laughing and slightly drunk on wine and desire. He has cleared everything away before leaving for work. The dishwasher hums quietly and the kitchen window is open to clear the air.
‘He’ll exhaust himself and talk Amelia out of his system,’ Tara says when Elena phones her. ‘Just like you did with Zac.’
‘Not exactly,’ Elena replies. ‘Zac is alive and, therefore, fair game for being called a dickhead. Amelia Madison is beyond reproach. I’ll never measure up to his memories of her.’
‘Then don’t even think of trying. No one can outdo perfection so just be yourself.’
‘I don’t know what that is any more.’
‘Yes, you do. You just need time.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘It’s a cliché, I know, but true, nonetheless,’ Tara insists. ‘Susie is afraid you’ve rushed into this relationship. She’s worried that it’s too soon after everything that’s happened to you.’
‘I’d be in a deep depression now if Nicholas hadn’t been there for me.’ She wants Tara to understand that he has drawn her back from the jaws of the black dog. Wasn’t that what someone once called depression, Churchill or some such warrior, who had heard the long howl? Nicholas’s reminiscences of Amelia are difficult to endure but Elena will cope with them for ever rather than return to that darkness.
He has left a note on the kitchen table. His parents are hoping to meet her and he has arranged for the introduction to take place on Saturday. If that is okay with Elena, he will collect her at five.
* * *
Nicholas pulls up outside high double gates with the word Stonyedge visible on the gatepost and escorts Elena up the driveway.
‘No need to be so nervous,’ he says. ‘My parents are going to love you.’
‘Welcome… welcome.’ Yvonne Madison greets her with a hug. She’s small and effusive, a talker, as Nicholas warned Elena on the drive to Stonyedge.
‘Nicholas has told me so many wonderful things about you.’ She draws Elena into the hall. ‘Come in and meet Henry. And this is Pedro. Don’t mind him barking at you. He’ll get used to you quickly enough. Oh, my golly, he’s licking your hand already. A good judge of character, is our Pedro. Down Pedro, down… down.’
Nicholas shrugs, throws his eyes upwards as Yvonne flaps the red setter away and flings open the living room door.
‘Elena, this is Henry. He’s been looking forward so much to meeting you. We both have. Isn’t she a sweet girl, Henry? Sit down, Elena. Henry will get you a drink. What would you like? Gin? It’s everyone’s favourite these days, wonderful with cucumber and juniper berries, I believe, though, personally I prefer vodka―’
‘Let the girl get a word in edgeways.’ Henry rises from his chair and shakes Elena’s hand. His cropped hair and craggy face reflect how Nicholas will look in another thirty years.
Yvonne enters the kitchen and continues talking. An open hatch in the wall allows her access to the dining room. She refuses Elena’s offer to help, preferring, she shouts cheerfully, to have hysterics in private when her soufflé collapses. No danger of that happening. As Elena suspects, Yvonne is an unflappable cook, who serves starters, mains and desserts with noisy efficiency. Her hands are in constant motion, in contrast to her seamless face. Botox, Elena wonders. Yvonne’s hair, blonde and spiked, has that same rigidity. Elena gives up trying to follow her meandering stories about the lives of strangers, suspecting that Yvonne doesn’t need a reaction. A nod or a murmur of agreement suffices. When she asks about Australia she interrupts Elena’s reply to describe the experience of her friend’s daughter, who fell into seriously bad company in Perth.
As soon as the meal is over, she takes a photo album from a drawer in the sideboard.
‘Get a grip, Mother.’ Nicholas groans when he sees it. ‘Elena doesn’t want to look at me running around the beach in the nip.’
‘I think that could be very interesting.’ Elena laughs and sits beside Yvonne on the sofa.
The album is heavy and large, each page crammed with photographs. Yvonne has catalogued them with a place and date. She turns page after page, detailing each holiday, each celebration. They are a well-travelled family and the beaches she discusses are in Thailand or on Caribbean islands, the cities Asian and cosmopolitan. The family configuration never changes: a young Nicholas standing in front, each parent with a hand on one of his shoulders. He grows older, his boyish face replaced by a more angular profile and, later again, that roughness smoothing out into the authoritative face of a young adult.
‘I never realised you were a biker!’ Elena exclaims when she comes across a photograph of him in leather, leaning against a Harley-Davidson.
‘Do I look like a biker?’ he asks. ‘Hanging out with the grizzly and obese was never my thing. Biking was a phase of short duration.’
‘He gave up the leather but he kept the bike,’ says Yvonne. ‘It was in the garage for years afterwards. I thought he’d never get rid of it. That was just one of many interests.’ She shows photographs of Nicholas rock-climbing, another one of him white-water rafting.
Elena is bored by the repetitiveness of these photos. What is it with Yvonne, this compulsion to fill the slightest silence with words and shrill laughter? She reminds Elena of a marionette, those small, busy hands and restless mouth, the tight, floral-patterned dress riding high above her skinny knees. Nicholas has left the room and is outside studying a rose bush with his father. He glances towards the French doors, as if he knows the ordeal Yvonne is putting her through.