The Wife Before Me(14)

‘Oh dear.’ Yvonne slaps her hand over a photograph. ‘I don’t know how that got in here. It belongs to a different album entirely.’

‘Can I see?’ Elena knows it’s a photograph of Amelia and Yvonne, seeing her interest, slowly slides her hand away.

A couple on holiday, a mountain in the background. The breeze – Elena imagines its warm friskiness – had flattened Amelia’s dress against the curve of her stomach.

‘So sad.’ Yvonne blinks and closes the album. ‘We were thrilled with the thought of becoming grandparents.’

‘Oh, God! Was Amelia pregnant when she―’

‘No, no.’ Yvonne glances nervously towards the men in the garden. ‘Thank goodness her miscarriage happened a year before the accident. She lost the baby at four months. There was a chance, slight as it was, that he – Nicholas was convinced she was expecting a boy – would survive the fall―’

‘Amelia fell?’

‘From a ladder.’ Yvonne is angry, her fingers tapping the photograph. ‘I’ll never understand what possessed her to paint a ceiling at that stage of her pregnancy.’

‘How awful.’ Amelia feels hot, embarrassed, remembering how compulsively she had talked to him about her own early miscarriage.

‘Hasn’t he told you about it?’ Yvonne closes the album without having come to the end of it.

‘No.’ Elena shakes her head. What other secrets has he kept from her? ‘He’s never mentioned it.’

‘I guess it’s too painful to recall.’ Yvonne’s eyes glisten. ‘He was heartbroken, poor boy. And Amelia too, of course. Don’t hurt him, Elena. He’s suffered so much already.’

‘I’d never hurt him, Yvonne.’

‘I can see that. You’ve a kind face. Amelia was…’ She pauses, as if seeking a precise description. ‘Headstrong.’

‘How?’ A flaw at last.

‘She had a will of her own.’

‘Surely that’s a good thing.’

‘I agree with you.’ Yvonne sounds doubtful. ‘But she was always trying to prove some point or other.’

‘In what way?’

‘What does it matter now?’ She returns the album to the drawer. ‘She’s gone from us and far be it from me to speak ill of the dead.’

‘I appreciate that. I hope you don’t think I’m snooping.’

‘Nonsense. It’s natural for you to be curious.’ She sits down beside Elena again and studies her hands. For once, she seems stuck for words. Elena should be grateful for this short respite but she is greedy for more information.

‘Amelia must have been very talented. I saw her sculptures at Woodbine.’

‘She was multifaceted. Isn’t that the modern term?’ says Yvonne. ‘But she was also a diva who loved attention. When she didn’t get it, she’d create a drama from nothing. Her behaviour took its toll on Nicholas. Not that he would ever hear a bad word said against her and it’s not the place of a mother to interfere. I’m all for women’s equality and everything that goes with it but a man doesn’t like to be constantly outshone by his wife. That’s why Henry and I are so thrilled he’s met you— oh, dear…’ She flutters her fingers to her lips. ‘That came out the wrong way. We’re thrilled because you’re a considerate and caring young woman. Nicholas needs someone who is compatible with him. I can see a change in him already and we’ve to thank you for that.’

Elena knows she will never like this woman, but Yvonne’s opinion has at least reduced Amelia to a ghost she can handle.

‘It’s a lovely evening.’ Yvonne rises and flings open the French doors. ‘Would you like to see the roses? They’re Henry’s pride and joy.’

Elena follows her into the back garden, where Nicholas is deep in conversation with his father. One look at her face alerts him that it’s time to go. He overrides Yvonne’s protests and they leave shortly afterwards.

‘You look as if you’ve had a baptism by fire,’ he says as he drives away.

Elena shrugs. ‘Yvonne was just trying to make me welcome.’

‘I can’t believe she produced that album again.’

‘Again? Is this a regular ordeal when your girlfriends visit?’

‘Past tense.’ He squeezes her knee and grins. ‘My teens were blighted by that album when anyone in earrings called… and that was just the boys.’

Elena laughs with him. He’s relaxed, glad that the first meeting with his parents is over. She should embrace the moment but the photograph of Amelia, the dreamy expression on her face as she presses her hands against her stomach, soothing a movement, maybe, demands an explanation. To climb a ladder, lean back to paint a ceiling, lose her balance… such recklessness. Elena feels her own stomach lurch in sympathy, and there is anger, too. Why, when she had confided in him and described an empty space that seemed boundless, had he not identified with her loss?

‘Do you know that there’s a photograph of Amelia in that album?’ she asks. ‘She was pregnant, Nicholas.’

‘Oh.’ He clenches the steering wheel, a tiny reflex action, but she notices it and, for reasons she doesn’t understand, her heart skids.