The Wife Before Me(39)

Twenty-One





The nightmares became more frequent. Each time Amelia thrust herself awake, John was sitting on the edge of her bed, his hand cool on her forehead.

‘The screams awaken me,’ she confided to Nicholas. ‘At least, that’s what I think, but my father insists I’m just whimpering. He says it reminds him of kittens. I used to think he had a sixth sense because he’s always there when I open my eyes, but he believes it’s my mother telling him to go and comfort me.’

‘And does he comfort you?’

‘Always. When I was younger, he’d stay with me until I drifted off again. Sometimes, he’d still be there when I awoke in the morning.’

‘In bed with you?’ He drew back slightly, his eyes opening wide in shock.

‘Not in bed.’ She was startled by his assumption. ‘Sleeping on top of the bed.’

‘He nodded, his expression grave, concerned. ‘He must have missed your mother very much.’

‘I used to wish he’d meet someone else who would make him happy again,’ she admitted. ‘But he never made any effort to do so.’

‘He had you to love.’

‘Loving a child is not the same as loving a wife. His loneliness…’ Amelia paused, remembering the effect his aloneness had had on her childhood and teenage years. The impossibility of repairing a fracture that had been caused by her carelessness.

‘That loneliness must have been very acute,’ said Nicholas. ‘And frustrating for a young man to lose his wife so suddenly.’

‘I never thought of that when I was a child.’ She smiled, self-consciously. ‘To me, being in your thirties was old. Obviously, when I got to being a teenager I’d a better sense of what he’d lost when Jennifer died.’

‘You’re very precious to him, Amelia. You’ve carried a heavy responsibility all those years.’

‘He never made me feel like that,’ she protested.

‘Your mother’s death obviously created a special bond between the two of you.’ Nicholas held her protectively in his arms. ‘And you’re still trying to compensate for his loss. You can share anything with me, Amelia. Anything.’

What had she left to share? At times, she felt as if Nicholas had burrowed down to her bones, his attention never wavering when she described the sense of loss that she had blocked from her memory for so many years.

Amelia’s uneasiness after such conversations grew as the animosity between the two men she loved became more obvious. No matter how carefully John tried to disguise his hostility, Nicholas had an uncanny ability to recognise what was hidden in the discretion of silence.

One evening, when she returned from work to Woodbine with him, the tension round the table at dinner became impossible to ignore. John rejected the efforts they both made to include him in conversation, his face set sternly when Nicholas mentioned the banking crisis that had plunged the country into recession after the reckless years of the Celtic Tiger. As a fund manager, he was not in favour of burning the bondholders. He believed the media and politicians would fan the flames of a bigger financial crisis if they kept demanding so-called ‘retribution.’ The argument that followed startled Amelia. Her father accused Nicholas of being another ‘smug, fat-cat banker’ along with other insults, which Nicholas took on the chin without once losing his temper.

‘He’s jealous,’ he said when John left for the pub. ‘He sees me as a threat to the control he’s always had over you.’

Amelia was startled that that was how he viewed her father; yet, when she thought about it, she decided Nicholas was right. John’s sense of aloneness had never allowed her a reprieve. Guilt was her caul and Amelia had accepted its tyranny as the natural order of her life. All those dreams, the same theme: guilt… guilt… guilt.

‘He’s never prevented me doing anything I wanted.’ Rushing to John’s defence, she wondered why she needed to justify their father–daughter relationship, and why, in doing so, her voice rose to a higher pitch. ‘Just give him time to know you. Everything will be all right, I promise.’

‘Why are you making things so difficult for me and Nicholas?’ she asked John that night when he returned from the pub.

‘Do you ever look deeply into his eyes?’ her father asked.

‘Yes, of course I do,’ she replied.

‘What do you see?’

‘Enough love to last me for the rest of my life.’

‘I see only emptiness, Amelia. And that emptiness will break your heart.’

‘You’re so wrong. He’s the man I love and you won’t make the slightest effort to get to know him. Everyone likes him except you. Why is that so?’

‘I’m your father, that’s the difference. I’m able to see beyond his superficial charms and it worries―’

‘You’re jealous,’ she snapped.

‘Jealous? Why on earth should I be jealous? Haven’t I welcomed every young man you’ve brought to this house?’

‘Only because you knew they weren’t a threat to you. But Nicholas is.’

‘You loved Jay. You cried in my arms for weeks after he left.’

‘We were sixteen. This is different. Nicholas is the first man I’ve truly loved and you can’t bear it.’