The Wife Before Me(22)
‘How could you speak about Amelia in that way?’ he roars. ‘I’ve begged you not to mention her, yet you persist in defying me. Why can’t you realise how difficult this is for me? I didn’t mean to hit you. It’s just… just…’ He pauses, seems to be searching for ways to make her understand his desperation. ‘I want us to be happy more than anything in the world but you seem determined to torture me. If only you’d let her rest in peace, I could build on this life we have together.’
His voice comes at her from a great distance. She tries to understand the point he is making. Is he blaming her for his violence? She finds the strength to lift Grace from her carrycot and hold her.
‘I can’t feed Grace with you in the room,’ she says, quietly. ‘We’ll talk about this later.’
She hears him above her, his footsteps crossing the master bedroom. The bed creaks when he lies down. His love for a dead woman is breaking her heart. She has to leave him. It is the only solution. She must take Grace and run to a safe place. She coaxes her daughter to feed from breasts that will soon be devoid of nourishment – how can they be otherwise when fear is curdling her milk? She cradles Grace and rocks backwards, forwards, backwards, forwards, until he returns, contrite, ashamed, and takes the sleeping child from her arms.
* * *
The following morning, she comes downstairs after Nicholas has left for work. Sleepless and still devastated from the previous night as she is, it takes her a moment to realise that Amelia’s photographs have been removed. So too have her paintings and wall hangings. He must have risen in the small hours to make these changes. His apology is not in words but in deeds. Her ribs ache where he punched her, the bruise spreading from below her breasts to her stomach. Let him plead for understanding until he is hoarse, kneel until his knees ache. She will never forgive him.
That evening, when he returns from work, he sweeps his arm towards the faded squares where Amelia’s paintings had hung.
‘Forgive me’ he says. ‘Please, Elena, you have to forgive me.’ His eyes remind her of pebbles, bleached lustreless by tides. He will never strike her again. He has suspected for some time that he is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Why should that be, Elena rages silently? It was Amelia who drowned, not him. But what does she know about anything? She wasn’t combing the shoreline, longing for a solution, good or bad, to the interminable wait.
Post-traumatic stress. It’s an obvious explanation. Her love for him rolls over her anger and fear. It quells her awareness that his violence is barely contained and will break out again if she unwittingly provokes him. She has to believe his promises, his declarations of love, his determination to seek help from a therapist. Someone who will lift his memories from him and tame them.
Fishermen had spoken knowledgeably to him about the shoreline where a body could be washed in on the tide. On two occasions, he believed the search was over but the bodies that were recovered from the deep had the wrong dental records. Tooth enamel, it appears, is still death’s main identity card.
Ten
Grace adjusts to the bottle, feeding just as lustily as she had at Elena’s breast. Elena tries not to feel resentful that this decision has been forced upon her and Yvonne, after declaring that such rude behaviour is understandable when a new mother is highly strung and struggling to cope, decides to forgive Elena’s outburst by offering to babysit.
‘It’s time the two of you went out for a meal to celebrate your daughter’s arrival,’ she says. ‘Bring the romance back into your relationship again. Men can feel neglected if baby continues to get all the attention.’
She and Henry arrive at the house the following evening. The restaurant Nicholas has booked for their meal is renowned for its organic cuisine. Mirrors glimmer on the walls and candlelight adds to the opulent atmosphere. The ma?tre’d, a stately woman in a black trouser suit, welcomes Nicholas like an old friend and leads them to their table. He must have dined here with Amelia on many occasions, if her effusive greeting is any indication. Elena will not let this fact spoil their night together.
They talk about Grace. So much to discuss. Their daughter is an unending source of fascination to them and it is easy to laugh with delight over her antics. Elena won’t spoil the atmosphere by mentioning the ugliness of their last row, which, like the others, seems more unreal with every day that passes. When their meal is over, the ma?tre’d offers them after-dinner drinks on the house. The hum of quiet conversation is broken by laughter from a group of women, who are enjoying their night out. It seems so long ago since Elena shared a meal with her friends, who are all scattered now. The yearning that sweeps through her for those careless nights must have travelled by osmosis towards another group of diners, who are being guided to their table by the ma?tre’d.
‘Laney Langdon!’ Elena swings her head round, startled to hear a name that only one person has ever used.
‘Oh, my God. Steve!’ She stands, overjoyed to see him coming towards her.
She met Steve Darcy on her first day at university. Lost in a bewildering maze of lecture halls and corridors, she asked directions from him. He, too, was just beginning his course, the same one as Elena, but he appeared to have a built-in sonar system that led them unhesitatingly towards the right lecture hall. He made her laugh and forget her shyness, which had caused her so much grief in secondary school. He drew others towards him and Elena; Tara, Susie and Killian, the five of them forming a tight-knit circle that lasted until they graduated.