The Third Wife (32 page)

Luke stood pressed up against the wall, his arms pinned behind his back, as though there was a lunatic with a loaded weapon in the room. He stared fearfully at the various members of his family as they played out the next scene: Pearl holding his father in her arms, Caroline patting his back, Cat fetching him water, Otis staring at them all from the sofa. He had no idea what was about to happen. A few hours earlier Otis had confessed to a revelation from a strange woman about Maya being in love with another man. And now his father was standing five feet away from him crying about a meeting with another strange woman in a pub in central London. Somewhere between the two meetings, he feared, lay the truth about him and Maya. Was it about to be revealed? That the whole thing was his fault? That he’d taken Maya’s love away from his father? That his failure to finish his relationship with Charlotte properly had led Charlotte to write Maya those terrible emails? That he was duplicitous and weak, as bad as his father? His breath was red hot, his heart a beating hammer. He waited to hear what his father had to say, waited for his just desserts.

Otis sat on the sofa, watching his father’s dramatic entrance with fear and awe. What had that woman said to him? It was his fault. He knew it was. It was all his fault. And it was all about to come out. He thought back to that last day, when Maya had babysat them all, when he and Beau had been really horrible to her. He remembered finding Maya in Mum’s room, touching her dresses and he remembered her looking so confused, telling him she was trying to work things out. He could have said something different; he could have helped her. He’d replayed it in his head, time after time, day after day, imagined himself sitting down with her on his mum’s bed, asking her if she was OK. Maybe she wouldn’t have opened up to him about being in love with somebody else, but she might have felt a bit better about things. Instead he’d gone up to his room and had that really mean Skype chat with Cat. Said things he totally didn’t mean. Forgotten that he’d left Skype running on the laptop downstairs. And then five minutes later – BAM – Maya was dead.

He watched as Cat passed his dad a glass of water. She was looking at Adrian really strangely, almost as though she was feeling as scared as him.

He hadn’t told anyone about the Skype thing. Only Charlotte. It was weird how he and Charlotte had become kind of friends. She’d PMed him on Facebook a couple of weeks after Maya died, just to say she hoped he was OK, that Cat had told her he was feeling bad, that she was always there for him if he wanted to talk. He’d felt kind of proud having her as a Facebook friend. She was so pretty. And also, you know, his big brother’s girlfriend. It was like a link to Luke somehow. Because up until recently there hadn’t been much of a link between them. So he’d written to Charlotte a lot, told her how he was feeling, how he hated himself, how he held a pin next to his skin sometimes and thought about dragging it through his flesh. But he never did, because he was a coward.

Then Cat had moved in and he hadn’t needed Charlotte so much; they’d kind of stopped writing to each other. Until the thing about the emails had exploded in the family and he’d started feeling bad all over again. Not that he’d written the emails. But he had a feeling he knew who had. And that he was part of the whole stinking thing. Charlotte had written back and said, No, no, Otis, it was nothing to do with you. It was nothing to do with those emails. I know what it was.
I know why she died
. She wouldn’t tell him online so she’d met him outside the Tube one morning, told him about Maya being in love with somebody else. Someone she couldn’t be with, could never tell anyone about. And that was why she’d got drunk and walked into a bus.

It hadn’t made any sense at first. Otis had sat on the bench outside the Tube for ages, he didn’t know how long, just watching the people and trying to make sense of it all. It had made him cross. Really cross. Why had his dad left their whole family to go off with a woman who wasn’t even in love with him? Surely, he’d thought bitterly, surely if you were going to do that to all the people you loved you should at least be sure it was, you know,
for ever
.

And now his dad was standing in the kitchen crying and nobody knew what he was going to say and Otis knew, he just knew, that it was all about to go down. It would all come out. And it was all his fault. All of it.

Cat passed her father a glass of water and then stepped away from him, as if he were radioactive. He was crying, hysterically, and it was freaking her out. He hadn’t even cried like that at Maya’s funeral. Pearl had her arms around him and was holding on to him tight. Otis was sitting on the sofa looking wide-eyed and terrified and Luke was standing pinned up against the wall, watching their father through narrowed eyes. And still Adrian hadn’t said a word. He was crying too hard to talk.

Cat wanted to go. She wanted to pick up her jacket and her bag and just run. Anywhere. It didn’t matter where. She just wanted to be away from here. Because it was obvious to her that whoever the hell that woman was, the woman with the phone and the odd-coloured eyes, she had just told her father something revelatory and deeply distressing. And she suspected that it was something to do with her. And what she’d done.

Killed Maya.

That’s what she’d done. She’d killed her, as sure as if she’d stood behind her on Charing Cross Road and given her a little shove. Cat hadn’t been a human being these past sixteen months. She’d been a murderer. When she looked in the mirror she saw a murderer. When she heard her name being called she heard a murderer’s name. When people stared at her on the street, when they caught her eye for longer than a second, she felt like they were thinking
look at that murderer
.

She’d been an animal, hiding away from the world in the bosom of Caroline’s family. Eating. And eating. And eating some more. From the moment she’d sent that very first email back in 2010 she’d been waiting for this. She remembered the breathless rush of adrenalin as she pressed send, the sense that she was about to change everything, for ever. But then the days had passed and nothing had happened. No reply. No accusations. No consequences. So she’d sent another. And then another. And then another. She’d become addicted to the feeling of power and control. To the euphoria of getting away with it. And then she’d watched with sick satisfaction as Maya had grown smaller and smaller, quieter and quieter, less and less of the person she’d originally been, until that last holiday in Suffolk when it was almost as if Maya wasn’t there at all. She’d seen the distance between Maya and her father and the coldness in Maya’s eyes and she’d thought,
Any minute now, any minute now, she’ll be gone, it’s just a matter of time
.

She’d sent one more email, just after they got back, just to be sure, just to give Maya that final kick towards the exit doors. And then she’d gone and got herself killed. And the happy ending that Cat had dreamed about, the one where Maya left and her dad moved back in with Caroline and everything went back to the way it had been before – which wasn’t exactly conventional, but which she had been happy with – had been ripped from beneath her feet. Instead of being the anonymous, conquering heroine, the one who’d saved the family from the dark compromises of a three-family existence, she had become instead an unspeakable monster.

Her father was beginning to calm down now. She could hear his breathing levelling itself out. She risked a glance in his direction. He was forming his first words. She caught her breath, clenched her fists and waited to hear what they would be.

Adrian placed the glass of water on the kitchen counter and pressed the paper towel that Caroline was offering him against his eyes. He hadn’t been expecting the wave of emotion that had hit him like a shovel to the head as he’d walked into the kitchen and seen his family all there, all safe, all in one place. As his tears subsided and his vision cleared he could see fear in their eyes.

He crossed the room towards Otis and sat down next to him. ‘So,’ he said, ‘how was your little adventure?’

Otis tutted. ‘It wasn’t an adventure.’

‘Well, whatever it was. Are you feeling OK?’

He shrugged. ‘Bit tired,’ he said.

‘I bet.’ He drew himself closer to Otis and tried tentatively for a hug, but his son’s body stiffened against his touch. Adrian looked up and saw everyone looking at him. There was a strange wariness in their expressions.

Adrian smiled. All he wanted to do now was to make everyone feel OK. ‘Listen,’ he said, looking from child to child. ‘I’ve heard something tonight that changes everything. Maya didn’t kill herself.’ He looked around again, saw heads slowly rising, eyes finally meeting his. ‘That woman, Abby, she was the last person to see Maya alive. She spent an hour with her, in a pub, talking to her. About everything. And she told me: so now I know. It was nothing to do with not being able to have a baby and it was nothing to do with those emails. She didn’t walk out in front of that bus on purpose. She fell. She slipped. Because she was drunk. And she was drunk because she was too nervous to come home. To come home and tell me that she didn’t love me any more and that she wanted to leave me.’

‘So it wasn’t about the emails?’ said Cat, her full, open face etched with fear.

Adrian took a breath. Here was where it ended. All of it. No more blame on anyone apart from him. ‘No,’ he said carefully. ‘Abby said that Maya didn’t take the emails very seriously. She said that Maya had no bad feelings towards anyone in the family. It was all about me,’ he said, looking at Cat, making sure she looked at him. ‘All of it. Nothing to do with anyone else. At all.’

A sob caught in the back of Cat’s throat, loud enough to make Pearl jump. By his side, Adrian felt Otis’s stiff little body slump and soften and suddenly Otis’s arms were around Adrian’s chest, his head buried beneath his arms, tears soaking through his shirt. Adrian felt his heart swell at the earnestness of the gesture. He had not felt his boy’s arms around him for a very long time. Otis pulled away after a moment and stared up at his dad through tear-streaked eyes. He rubbed them away with the heels of his hands and said, ‘I love you, Dad.’

Cat walked towards Adrian and Otis, tears spilling down her face, ‘Dad,’ she began, ‘those emails … those emails …’

‘We’re not going to talk about the emails,’ said Adrian. His tone was firm, final.

He saw Luke staring at him desperately from the other side of the room, still pinned to the wall. He saw the terror in his eyes and directed his next words at his eldest son: ‘We’re not going to talk about any of it. OK? What we’re going to do is this: we’re going to blame me for everything. What happened to Maya is my fault. Every bad feeling any of you has ever had is my fault. Any bad thing any of you has ever done is my fault. OK?’

Nobody said anything.

‘OK?’ Adrian repeated.

Everyone nodded their heads.

‘A fresh start. Yes?’

More nods.

‘I am so sorry.’ He held his hand out to Caroline, who took it and squeezed it uncertainly. ‘I’m so sorry that I’ve spent my life putting myself first. I just always thought that if I was a “nice guy” then people would be happy for me, whatever I decided to do. That’s what my mum always said to me: “As long as you’re happy, darling, that’s all that matters.” But she didn’t teach me that happiness should be dependent on the happiness of people I loved. But now,’ he said, ‘I want you lot to decide what I should do.’ He rubbed Otis’s hair and smiled at Pearl. ‘I want you all to write me a letter, from the heart, no holds barred, and tell me how to be what you want me to be. It can be as stupid as you like. You know’ – he smiled at Luke – ‘maybe you’d like me to dress differently.’ He looked at Pearl. ‘Or maybe learn to skate. Or maybe take a vow of celibacy.’ He squeezed Caroline’s hand. ‘Just anything you can think of. And I’ll try to do it.’

Beau stirred from his sleep and looked up and around in awed shock. ‘What?’ he said. ‘What’s happening?’

Adrian looked down at his youngest child and smiled. ‘We’re all just talking. About what we want Daddy to do so that we can all be happy again.’

‘Are you coming home? To live?’

Adrian smiled. ‘I don’t know about that. But I’ll do whatever anyone wants me to do.’

Beau nodded. ‘OK,’ he said, yawning. Then he turned his big eyes to Adrian and he said, ‘Can you carry me? Up to my bed?’

Adrian was about to say: Oh no, big boy, you’re too heavy for that now. But he stopped himself. He thought of all the nights when Beau had been small enough to be carried to bed and he’d been watching TV in a flat two miles away with another woman.

He got to his feet, turned around and said, ‘OK then, big boy, up you jump.’

Beau hooked his arms around Adrian’s neck and his legs around Adrian’s waist and tucked his chin into Adrian’s shoulder.

‘Night, night everyone,’ said Beau.

Adrian carried this boy-giant, the tallest in his class and the heaviest, carried him up three flights of stairs and placed him in his bed, as if he was no more than a bag of air.

He put him into his pyjamas and he kissed his cheek and tucked him in under his duvet.

‘Night night, my baby boy,’ he said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

And under his breath, too quietly for Beau to hear, he said:
And hopefully all the tomorrows after that
.

The following morning Adrian answered a knock at his front door. He was expecting a postal delivery or a local politician but instead he found a beautiful blonde.

‘Carrie,’ he said, his eyes taking in the statuesque lines of her, the warmth in her eyes, her scruffy red car double-parked in the street with its hazards flashing. ‘Do you want to …?’

‘No’ – she gestured at the car – ‘I’m in a terrible rush. I just, er, the children – they wrote their letters. Here.’ She pulled them from her handbag. ‘One from Cat, from Pearl, one from Luke and this one is Beau’s. Otis was still working on his when I left.’ She shrugged.

Adrian took them from her and smiled. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

Caroline craned her neck to check her car and then turned back to Adrian. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘we should talk. You and I. What are you doing tonight?’