The Silent Wife(5)
Francesca looked at me as though I’d suggested we ran up a quick spaceman’s costume and launched ourselves off to Mars. With perfect timing, Sam sneezed at the same time as having a mouthful of water, splattering half-chewed spaghetti onto Francesca’s plate. She slammed her chair back and stormed upstairs. There was a five-second delay before the door banging off its hinges made Caitlin’s line-up of pastel jugs rattle on the sideboard.
‘Sam! If you know you’re going to sneeze you need to put your hand in front of your face and turn away from the table.’
But Sam killed himself with the naughty laughter beloved of ten-year-old boys. Little particles of bacon, mushroom chunks and strands of spaghetti all competed to remain within the boundaries of his mouth.
‘For God’s sake. Close your mouth. That’s disgusting.’ My tone was harsher than normal. I didn’t want Nico thinking he’d invited an unruly zoo into his life.
But Nico handed Sam a piece of kitchen roll and said, ‘Go and get yourself tidied up, you little tinker.’
As Sam went to the downstairs cloakroom to sort himself out, we turned to each other and said at the same time, ‘Sorry about that,’ which made us both laugh.
Nico pulled me close to him. ‘I really am sorry. She shouldn’t speak to you like that. But I don’t know whether to come down on her like a ton of bricks or to try and ignore it.’
Just feeling his cheek against the top of my head banished some of the despair in my heart. I wanted to ask him if he regretted marrying me, if he wished we’d just carried on seeing each other when the kids weren’t around. But sitting there with a table splattered with spaghetti strands, and stomping feet threatening to crash through the ceiling from the bedroom above probably wasn’t going to serve up the answer I wanted to hear. Instead I relaxed into him, savoured the moment, the snatched fragment of time when we could be a couple – touch, hug, love – without filtering ourselves into ‘strategic steps for building a happy step-family’.
At the sound of Sam’s X-Box starting up in the sitting room, Nico released his hold on me, picking at the fraying sleeve on his jumper. He’d apologised for his scruffiness when we were first together – ‘Used to drive Caitlin mad’ – but I loved the way he was happiest in faded jeans and old T-shirts. I couldn’t imagine being with a bloke like Massimo with his navy suits and shirts with cufflinks.
A couple of loose threads and slightly bigger hole later, Nico finally looked up. His lips were moving as though they were trying to find the right words to arrange themselves around. ‘I’m not really sure how to deal with this, but it’s the anniversary of Caitlin’s death in two weekends’ time. My mother wants us all to go to the cemetery together and then have lunch at hers afterwards.’
Never let it be said that my social life didn’t rock through the roof. Grooving at the graveyard with the ex-wife’s family.
‘That wouldn’t include me though, would it?’
‘You’d be very welcome.’
Yeah. Right. Not to mention it would be a bit bloody weird. I didn’t actually need to witness the concrete evidence that everyone, possibly including my husband, was still wishing Caitlin had never died, that their lives had never had to break open and include me. No, I could think of things I’d rather do. Like sniff chilli up my nose, mistake Deep Heat for Canesten, sever a limb with a cheese wire.
‘I think that would just be awkward. Francesca won’t want me there anyway.’
The tightness around his eyes loosened. ‘Thank you for making it easy for me. I know it’s not ideal. I’m hoping we’ll be able to persuade Francesca to go. She’s refused point blank to visit Caitlin’s grave so far, but it might, I don’t know, reaffirm in her mind she’s not coming back and she has to get on with the here and now, stop her being so angry.’
‘And what about you?’
He kissed the top of my head. ‘I’ve been lucky to get a second chance. I don’t feel angry any more. Just sad for anyone who dies too young and misses out on the life they could have had.’ He tried to make a joke. ‘You know, all that quality time with Francesca.’
I still didn’t know what face to put on when anyone talked about Caitlin. I felt caught between apology and guilt. Though we started going out long after Caitlin died, no one believed us. And it was ironic that I’d only met Nico because his wife was ill and my mum had helped out with the cleaning and shopping. And sat with her towards the end.
When I went to pick Mum up, Nico would invite me in if she hadn’t quite finished. After the first couple of times when I nearly keeled over with the effort of not asking anything to which the response could be ‘shit’, ‘crap’ or ‘what do you bloody think?’ I texted Mum instead of knocking on the door so I could wait in the car. Mum, though, saw owning a mobile as an exercise in battery conservation rather than a vehicle for communication. So with no agenda, Nico and I got to know each other at the worse time of his life until I looked forward to seeing him every day. And nearly a year after Caitlin had died, we’d bumped into each other in town, had a coffee and remembered how much we enjoyed each other’s company.
No doubt I wasn’t the only one who felt uncomfortable about the circumstances. But I probably needed to knock that on the head sooner rather than later so we didn’t creep forward with Caitlin’s name seeping between us like an embarrassing smell everyone was trying to ignore.