The Wife Before Me(31)
‘If Susie told you I was unhappy, she’s wrong. And Steve… meeting an ex-boyfriend when you’re with the person you love is never easy.’ Where does the truth lie in all of this? Her thoughts surge and clash and threaten to undo her. ‘I want to hear about your new promotion. Senior advertising executive! Sounds pretty impressive. Steve says he wants to poach you but you’re incorruptible.’
Tara looks as anxious as she does now to change the subject. The talk turns to office politics and an agency full of creative, dysfunctional geniuses, who drive her crazy. It sounds exhilarating. Like the rush of the Big Wave. Nicholas will be home soon. His evening meal needs to be ready, the kitchen spotless.
After a little while, Tara phones for a taxi to take her back to the train station. ‘You will ring me if you ever need to talk, won’t you?’ Her fierce embrace suggests she hasn’t been deceived in the slightest by her friend’s explanation.
Elena closes the front door and leans against it. The setting sun slants through the fan-light. She has squandered precious hours with Tara, whose life is independent, free, well-paid, stimulating. She slaps her hand to her forehead, as if force will dislocate her envy, and winces as pain shoots through her head.
* * *
‘How was your day?’ Nicholas asks, as he does every evening.
‘Same as usual.’ Elena checks her watch. He likes his fillet steak rare, two and half minutes each side.
‘Exactly the same as usual.’ He closes the fridge door and stands too close behind her.
‘Almost. Apart from Grace emptying the coal scuttle and doing a pretty good imitation of a chimney girl from a Dickens novel.’
‘Were you too drunk to notice what she was doing?’
‘Drunk?’
‘On white wine? At a rough guess, you had at least two glasses.’
‘Oh, that…’ The oil sizzles hotly as she flips the steak. ‘Tara called in.’
‘So, your day wasn’t the same as usual?’
‘She was only here for a short while.’ Elena walks to the sink and sieves the potatoes, lowers the heat on the mushrooms, gives the onions a final toss. Golden brown, exactly as he expects. She had been afraid to remove the wine bottle from the fridge, so had just hoped he wouldn’t notice the dropped level. His awareness of everything in his house no longer astonishes her. Instead, it terrifies her. He is still shadowing her, demanding to know what they discussed.
‘Her father’s party. And her promotion to senior advertising executive.’ She carries his dinner to the table, waits for him to sit down.
‘Did you talk about us?’
Elena shrugs. ‘We’re not that important in Tara’s scheme of things.’
‘Answer my question.’
What do you think we discussed? That you’ve beggared me with your reckless Ponzi schemes. That you lift your hand or your foot to me every time I mention your dead wife. That you monitor every aspect of my miserable existence yet I’m afraid to run from this haunted house and become homeless with two babies.
‘She asked if I was happy. I said I was. Ecstatic.’
‘I hope you sounded more convincing than you do now.’
‘Nicholas, eat your dinner before it gets cold.’
‘Did you tell her I’m a failure?’ He flings the chair out from the table and sits down. ‘Isn’t that what you really believe? You don’t trust me to recoup your losses, even though I’m working flat out to make it up to you.’
‘I know you are. I didn’t discuss our personal business with her. Why are you trying to start another argument when there’s no reason to do so?’
‘This is not an argument. It’s purely a discussion as to whether or not I can trust you to be honest with me.’
Joel cries. It’s time to feed him again. Nicholas grabs her arm as she moves past him. ‘Don’t lie to me again, Elena. I will always find out and that will upset me very much. Do we understand each other?’
‘Perfectly.’ She is free to go. Joel’s scrunched face relaxes as she feeds him. Her tiny protector. He is unaware of how often he keeps her safe.
Seventeen
Elena sits on the patio in the back garden and watches Grace run with growing confidence across the flagstones. Joel, in his buggy, lies under the shade of the apple tree. He laughs when the breeze blows through the branches and sets the glass butterflies tinkling. Their rhythm is disturbed when two pieces, placed too closely together, collide. This has happened before, but today the sound clangs through Elena’s head. Pain jabs her temples, sudden flashes that blur her vision.
She settles Joel down for his afternoon nap in the living room. The French doors are open, so she will hear him if he awakens. Grace is still playing on the patio when Elena enters the garden shed. She pauses in the doorway to survey the order with which Nicholas organises his tools. Each item has a specific hook, shelf or drawer. This is the same symmetry she saw during her brief intrusion into Amelia’s bedroom and she now applies it to Woodbine herself. Her old habits of leaving unwashed dishes in the sink or splaying the pages of newspapers over the table only displeases him.
He won’t miss one butterfly from the cluster, she thinks as she searches for a wire-cutter and a ladder. Is this the same ladder Amelia climbed to paint the ceiling in the nursery? It’s heavy to carry but Elena manages to drag it across the lawn towards the apple tree. The constant colliding has cracked the wing of one of the butterflies. She cuts it down and shoves it to the bottom of the wheelie bin. What is she doing, hiding evidence like a deranged criminal? Crazy… stultifying craziness. Where is it going to end? He almost drowned her. Almost crashed his car when she was beside him. Pushed her down the stairs— no, he didn’t, it was an accident, her own fault, and the car was just a stunt, showing off, and in the water, not knowing his own strength. Frantically, she replaces the ladder and runs a rake over the grass, trying to eradicate the telltale grooves. She opens the organic bin and flings the leaves she has raked into it. She grimaces as the smell of rotting food is released. A bunch of dahlias, crushed and wilting, lie among the potato peelings. They are the distinctive shade of purple that Billy grows in his garden and lays out on the grassy bank. She remembers Billy’s expression on the only occasion they met; the certainty in his voice when he told her the flowers wouldn’t last long. Was that what he meant? Is Nicholas the person who constantly removes them from the embankment? Why would he dump them in the bin?