The Younger Wife(37)

‘Oh God,’ Stephen exclaimed. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘No! I’m fine. I mean . . . I think I’m fine.’

‘Did you hit your head?’

‘No.’ She had banged her side quite badly, and she would later find a bruise, but she definitely had not hit her head.

‘Are you certain you didn’t hit your head?’ Stephen repeated, surveying her with a doctorly gaze.

‘I’m certain. But . . . oh no! You’re bleeding.’

The elbow of his white business shirt was soaked through with blood. ‘Just a graze,’ he said. ‘But if you are hurt, please tell me and I’ll take you to the hospital.’

‘I’m fine. Really. But I have bandaids in my car. Come and let me fix up your elbow.’

They finished their meeting in Heather’s car that day. And, after that interaction, things were a bit different between them. At each meeting Heather asked how Pam was, and Stephen would answer honestly, if sadly. When Heather gently probed as to whether Stephen would like to take another look at the plans – as Pam was unlikely to spend much time in the house, it was still possible to change the style to something more to his personal taste – he agreed this wasn’t a bad idea.

‘You know, you’re right. No point mourning my wife in a house that I hate.’

A not-unpleasant side effect of this was that the late changes required several more meetings. Some of these meetings happened in the hospital cafeteria. A couple of times they met at funny little shops that sold specialist taps or hardware. On one such occasion, a salesperson confused Heather and Stephen for husband and wife. As Heather hurriedly opened her mouth to correct them, Stephen chimed in, ‘Yes, you’re right. Happy wife, happy life.’ And he threw her a wink.

Slowly, a closeness grew between them. It was never romantic – at least, not from Stephen’s point of view, as far as Heather could tell. But he had a charming way of letting his guard down around her. Usually it was when he was talking about Pam, and the latest challenge. He was always respectful, never revealing anything that could be seen as humiliating her. That, combined with stories about lives he’d saved (always prised from him, he was very humble) meant Heather was soon ruined for all other men.

They had been supposed to meet the afternoon after Pamela moved into the nursing home. Stephen had moved into the house by then, but there were a few little i’s to dot and t’s to cross. Heather had suggested they change the time of the meeting, but he’d insisted they go ahead, saying he’d need something to take his mind off things.

She arrived just after 3 pm, as agreed, to find Stephen in his sweatpants, drinking a glass of wine.

‘Sorry. Didn’t we . . . did we have a meeting?’

‘Yes. Excuse the informality.’ He gestured to his clothes. ‘I took the day off today. Will you have a glass of wine? I just opened a bottle.’

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Why not?’

They didn’t even pretend to talk about interior design that afternoon. When Heather left a couple of hours and a bottle of wine later, they hugged on the doorstep. And in the morning, when she stepped out of her front door, she found a bunch of flowers. Thank you, said the accompanying card. I needed that.

Three months later, after clinking their glasses in celebration of the new, minimalist house, he kissed her, right in the modern streamlined living room that she’d designed. The living room that was about to become hers.

*

Heather was moving in with Stephen. Moving into a mansion on the beach in the nicest neighbourhood around. She wondered what her parents would say if they knew. ‘Let’s pop the bubbly,’ probably. Heather would’ve liked to. She’d gone back and forth for hours, wondering whether to suggest it to Stephen. It was a special occasion, after all. It would make it more special to celebrate with bubbles. Then again, after her behaviour the other night, she was fairly sure the suggestion wouldn’t be well received.

‘Another box?’ Stephen moaned, gesturing to the one in front of her.

The question was tongue-in-cheek. He was in a wonderful mood. There was no need for him to be helping the men they’d hired to do the move. Heather had hardly brought enough stuff to justify hiring them, in any case. There were her clothes (several boxes of those). Some crockery. Some photographs and memorabilia. And two pieces of furniture – a mid-century modern sideboard that she’d been gifted by a client, and a marble coffee table gifted by another client. The rest of her furniture – her bed, sofa and dining table – was old and didn’t match the house, so she’d donated it to a charity for women in need.

She and Stephen probably could have transported everything in the back of his Porsche in a couple of trips, but that wasn’t how the upper-middle class did things. The upper-middle class hired people to help them pack, take away the things they didn’t need, and unpack again at the other end. In addition to paying them handsomely, Stephen had given the movers a slab of premium beer and instructed her to order pizzas for them. That had been particularly eye-opening. Heather had assumed – from movies and the like – that the more money people had, the worse they treated the staff, but she understood now that wasn’t generally the case. She also understood why. When you were comfortable, you could afford to be magnanimous. Poorer people didn’t help the movers unpack because they were tired from working two jobs. If the movers broke something, poorer people were mad, because they couldn’t afford to replace it. They didn’t order pizza or premium beer for the movers, because when was the last time someone did that for them? It was strange, seeing the world from both sides. Strange, and eye-opening. So few people got to see things from her vantage point. It seemed, to Heather, an awful shame.