The Wife Before Me(65)
A squad car is coming. Blue lights flash and the silver-haired woman, returning with her dogs, stops and then hurries onwards, afraid, no doubt, that burglars have been at work while she was out walking. Elena watches through the leaves as the squad car pulls up outside Stonyedge. Two policemen in hi-vis jackets walk up the driveway to where Henry is waiting for them. At the end of the road, there is a shortcut into a shopping centre. He points towards it and when the squad car disappears in that direction, Elena moves from her hiding place and walks away.
Is Henry watching her? If you have another truth, then go and find it. Did he really utter those words? Is it possible that he believes her? Does he know the truth about Amelia’s marriage? Unlike Elena, she had not been too proud to confide in a friend. A few sentences from a torn letter. Elena tries to remember the order in which she read them. It’s time you stopped pretending you can force him to leave… His violence is inexcusable… please…please listen…
Thirty-Five
Henry is a tormented man. I met him only once, and that was shortly after my conversation with Amelia. I’d returned to Kilfarran for Mark’s thirtieth birthday, which he was celebrating at his parent’s home with his partner, Graham, who would soon become his husband. Amelia and Nicholas had also been invited on that Saturday night but Nicholas had phoned late that afternoon to explain why they would be unable to attend. Amelia, it seemed, had a migraine.
The following day I called to Woodbine in the afternoon. When no one answered the doorbell, it was obvious from the cars in the driveway, three, to be exact, that they were at home. I heard voices and followed the sound round the side of the house to the back garden, where a barbecue was underway. His parents were present and Nicholas, masking his displeasure, made me welcome. Amelia flung her arms around me and held me too tight. ‘Stay,’ she whispered. ‘Please stay.’
The sun shone for the afternoon and Nicholas, in a butcher’s apron and chef’s hat, made a great show of cooking steaks, burgers, sausages, kebabs. His charm was effortless, an embracing web of strands that Amelia seemed unable to break. I’d no appetite but he piled my plate, even though all I managed to eat was a kebab. He remarked on the weight I had lost and claimed I was just a few pounds off being scraggy. He was right about my weight. Climbing a headland and bending into the wind blowing off the Atlantic burned energy. I saw the look Amelia gave him. The anger that flared in her eyes but died away just as quickly.
Yvonne’s manner towards her that Sunday afternoon was chillingly polite. They had argued over Nicholas. Amelia didn’t go into the details but it was obvious that bitter words had been exchanged between them.
Later, when I was sitting alone in a bower on a bench for two, Henry joined me. I still don’t know what possessed me to tell him about Nicholas. It needed to be said but there was no easy way to explain what was going on between him and Amelia. What did I hope would happen? That a father would turn against his beloved only son? Henry’s face became ever more austere as he listened to my stammered suggestions that he speak to Nicholas about his violence. He accused me of being jealous.
‘I know you have feelings for my daughter-in-law,’ he said. ‘But that’s no reason to tell such slanderous and hateful lies about my son.’ He said much more than that, and I to him, our voices pitched low, as if our argument would strike a tinderbox if overheard. That is why I think he believed me. We parted on bad terms. A weak man like my father, living with his own illusions. Most of us do, one way or another. We mould the world to our own reality and then wonder why it leaves us on the outside looking on in bewilderment.
Thirty-Six
Elena wheels the mountain bike that once belonged to Rosemary’s husband from the garage. Unused since his death four years previously, it needs dusting off but it’s still in working order. The journey to Woodbine takes over an hour. She is flushed and sweating by the time she reaches Kilfarran Lane. A canopy of bare branches twine overhead and the sun spangles the country road. The jittery feeling in her stomach is almost unbearable as she nears the old house. As usual, a bunch of fresh flowers lies on the grassy embankment. Nicholas mustn’t have had a chance to dump them in the bin yet; and even when he does so, Billy will just ensure that new fresh flowers will be on the same spot tomorrow.
‘He’s remembering his friend,’ she said to Nicholas once. ‘Why should you object to that?’
‘For reasons I’m not prepared to discuss with you,’ he’d replied in the flat, expressionless voice he used when she irritated him. ‘Don’t ask me again.’ His warning was implicit. As well as silencing her, it prevented her accepting Billy’s invitation to have tea at his house. This fear had caused her to walk straight past him whenever they saw each other on the road or in the village. She had always kept her head down on these occasions, fearful that, if she talked to him, Nicholas would discover she’d disobeyed him. Even when he was abroad on business, his eerie ability to know when she was lying or hiding something from him had had a paralysing effect on her.
Christmas had passed without Elena’s custodial case being heard, cancelled again on a technicality his barrister unearthed. The new year slid into spring and Grace’s second birthday in March came and went without Elena being able to see her daughter. She had resisted the urge to lurk outside Stonyedge on the day, knowing she would be unable to restrain herself if she saw balloons attached to the gate. Joel’s first birthday came shortly afterwards. As it had been with Grace, the card and present Elena sent were returned to Rosemary’s address, unopened. Once again, she had resisted the temptation to see them. Henry would have been watching out for her. No more second chances with him. She still finds it hard to believe he did not report her breakin to the police. He can’t have told Nicholas or Yvonne; if he had done so, Elena would be incarcerated by now and not free to break her bail conditions once again.