Jane Corry 1 страница

Jane Corry

My Husband's Wife

This book is dedicated to my amazing second husband, Shaun. Never a dull moment! Not only do you make me laugh but you also give me space to write.

This dedication is also shared with my wonderful children, who inspire me every day.

Prologue

Flash of metal.

Thunder in my ears.

‘This is the five o’clock news. ’

The radio, chirping merrily from the pine dresser laden with photographs (holidays, graduation, wedding); a pretty blue and pink plate; a quarter bottle of Jack Daniel’s, partially hidden by a birthday card.

My head is killing me. My right wrist as well. The pain in my chest is scary. So, too, is the blood.

I slump to the floor, soothed by the cold of the black slate. And I shake.

Above me, on the wall, is a white house in Italy, studded with purple bougainvillea. A honeymoon memento.

Can a marriage end in murder? Even if it’s already dead?

That painting will be the last thing I see. But in my mind, I am reliving my life.

So it’s true what they say about dying. The past comes back to go with you.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPHTuesday 20 October 2015

The artist Ed Macdonald has been found stabbed to death in his home. It is thought that…

Part One

FIFTEEN YEARS EARLIER

1 Lily

September 2000

‘Nervous? ’ Ed asks.

He’s pouring out his favourite breakfast cereal. Rice Krispies. Usually I like them too. (Crispy, without milk. ) As a child, I was obsessed by the elfin-faced figures on the packet, and the magic hasn’t quite left.

But today I don’t have the stomach to eat anything.

‘Nervous? ’ I repeat, fastening my pearl earrings in the little mirror next to the sink. Our flat is small. Compromises had to be made.

Of what? I almost add. Nervous of the first day of married life, perhaps. Proper married life in the first year of a brand-new century. Nervous because we should have taken more time to find a better flat instead of one in the wrong part of Clapham, with a drunk as a neighbour across the landing, where both bedroom and bathroom are so small that my one tube of Rimmel foundation (soft beige) and my two lipsticks (rose pink and ruby red) snuggle up next to the teaspoons in the cutlery drawer.

Or nervous about going back to work after our honeymoon in Italy? A week in Sicily, knocking back bottles of Marsala, grilled sardines and slabs of pecorino cheese in a hotel paid for by Ed’s grandmother.

Maybe I’m nervous about all these things.

Normally, I love my work. Until recently, I was in employment law, helping people – especially women – who had been unfairly sacked. Looking after the underdog. That’s me. I nearly became a social worker like Dad, but, thanks to a determined careers teacher at school and, let’s say, certain events in my life, here I am. A 25-year-old newly qualified solicitor on a minimum wage. Struggling to do up the button at the back of my navy-blue skirt. No one wears bright colours in a law office, apart from the secretaries. It sends out the wrong message – or so I was told when I started. Law can be a great career, but there are occasions when it seems ridiculously behind the times.

‘We’re moving you to Criminal, ’ my boss announced by way of a wedding gift. ‘We think you’ll be good at it. ’

So now, on my first day back from our honeymoon, I’m preparing to go to prison. To see a man who’s been accused of murder. I’ve never been inside a prison before. Never wanted to. It’s an unknown world. One reserved for people who have done wrong. I’m the kind of person who goes straight back if someone has given me too much change in the newsagent when I buy my monthly copy of Cosmo.

Ed is doodling now. His head is bent slightly to the left as he sketches on a notepad next to his cereal. My husband is always drawing. It was one of the first things that attracted me to him. ‘Advertising, ’ he said with a rueful shrug when I asked what he did. ‘On the creative side. But I’m going to be a full-time artist one day. This is just temporary – to pay the bills. ’

I liked that. A man who knew where he was going. But in a way I was wrong. When he’s drawing or painting, Ed doesn’t even know which planet he’s on. Right now, he’s forgotten he even asked me a question. But suddenly it’s important for me to answer it.

‘Nervous? No, I’m not nervous. ’

There’s a nod, but I’m not sure he’s really heard me. When Ed’s in the zone, the rest of the world doesn’t matter. Not even my fib.

Why, I ask, as I take his left hand – the one with the shiny gold wedding ring – don’t I really tell him how I feel? Why not confess that I feel sick and that I need to go to the loo even though I’ve only just been? Is it because I want to pretend that our week away from the world still exists in the ‘now’, instead of in the souvenirs we brought back, like the pretty blue and pink plate that Ed is now sketching in more detail?

Or is it because I’m trying to pretend I’m not terrified of what lies ahead this morning? A shiver passes down my spine as I spray duty-free Chanel No. 5 on the inside of both wrists. (A present from Ed, using another wedding-gift cheque. ) Last month, a solicitor from a rival firm was stabbed in both lungs when he went to see a client in Wandsworth. It happens.

‘Come on, ’ I say, anxiety sharpening my usually light voice. ‘We’re both going to be late. ’

Reluctantly, he rises from the rickety chair which the former owner of our flat had left behind. He’s a tall man, my new husband. Lanky, with an almost apologetic way of walking, as if he would really rather be somewhere else. As a child, apparently, his hair was as golden as mine is today (‘We knew you were a “Lily” the first time we saw you, ’ my mother has always said), but now it’s sandy. And he has thick fingers that betray no hint of the artist he yearns to be.

We all need our dreams. Lilies are meant to be beautiful. Graceful. I look all right from the top bit up, thanks to my naturally blonde hair and what my now-deceased grandmother used to kindly call an ‘elegant swan neck’. But look below, and you’ll find leftover puppy fat instead of a slender stem. No matter what I do, I’m stuck on the size 16 rail – and that’s if I’m lucky. I know I shouldn’t care. Ed says my shape is ‘part of me’. He means it nicely. I think. But my weight niggles. Always has done.

On the way out, my eye falls on the stack of wedding cards propped up against Ed’s record deck. Mr and Mrs E. Macdonald. The name seems so unfamiliar.

Mrs Ed Macdonald.

Lily Macdonald.

I’ve spent ages trying to perfect my signature, looping the ‘y’ through the ‘M’, but somehow it still doesn’t seem quite right. The names don’t go together that well. I hope it’s not a bad sign.

Meanwhile, each card requires a thank-you letter to be sent by the end of the week. If my mother has taught me anything, it is to be polite.

One of the cards has a particularly ‘look at me! ’ flamboyant scrawl, in turquoise ink. ‘Davina was a girlfriend once, ’ Ed explained before she turned up at our engagement party. ‘But now we’re just friends. ’

I think of Davina with her horsey laugh and artfully styled auburn locks that make her look like a pre-Raphaelite model. Davina who works in Events, organizing parties to which all the ‘nice girls’ go. Davina who narrowed her violet eyes when we were introduced, as if wondering why Ed would bother with the too-tall, too-plump, tousle-haired image that I see in the mirror every day.

Can a man ever be just friends with a woman when the relationship is over?

I decide to leave my predecessor’s letter until last. Ed married me, not her, I remind myself.

My new husband’s warm hand now squeezes mine as if reading my need for reassurance. ‘It will be all right, you know. ’

For a minute, I wonder if he is referring to our marriage. Then I remember. My first criminal client. Joe Thomas.

‘Thanks. ’ It’s comforting that Ed isn’t taken in by my earlier bravado. And worrying, too.

Together, we shut the front door, checking it twice because it’s all so unfamiliar to us, and walk briskly down the ground-floor corridor leading out of our block of flats. As we do so, another door opens and a little girl with long, dark, glossy hair swinging in a ponytail comes out with her mother. I’ve seen them before, but when I said ‘hello’, they didn’t reply. Both have beautiful olive skin and walk with a grace that makes them appear to be floating.

We hit the sharp autumn air together. The four of us are heading in the same direction but mother and daughter are now slightly ahead because Ed is scribbling something in his sketchbook as we walk. The pair, I notice, seem like carbon copies of each other, except that the woman is wearing a too-short black skirt and the little girl – who’s whining for something – is dressed in a navy-blue school uniform. When we have children, I tell myself, we’ll teach them not to whine.

I shiver as we approach the stop: the pale autumn sun is so different from the honeymoon heat. But it’s the prospect of our separation that tightens my chest. After one week of togetherness, the thought of managing for eight hours without my new husband is almost scary.

I find this unnerving. Not so long ago, I was independent. Content with my own company. But from the minute that Ed and I first spoke at that party six months ago (just six months! ), I’ve felt both strengthened and weakened at the same time.

We pause and I steel myself for the inevitable. My bus goes one way. His, the other. Ed is off to the advertising company where he spends his days coming up with slogans to make the public buy something it never intended to.

And I’m off to prison in my navy-blue skirt suit and suntan.

‘It won’t be so scary when you’re there, ’ says my new husband – how I never thought I’d say that word! – before kissing me on the mouth. He tastes of Rice Krispies and that strong toothpaste of his which I still haven’t got used to.

‘I know, ’ I say before he peels off to the bus stop on the other side of the road, his eyes now on the oak tree on the corner as he takes in its colour and shape.

Two lies. Small white ones. Designed to make the other feel better.

But that’s how some lies start. Small. Well meaning. Until they get too big to handle.

2 Carla

‘Why? ’ Carla whined as she dragged behind, pulling her mother’s hand in a bid to stop this steady, determined pace towards school. ‘Why do I have to go? ’

If she went on making a fuss, her mother might give in out of exhaustion. It had worked last week, although that had been a saint’s day. Mamma had been more tearful than usual. Birthdays and saints’ days and Christmas and Easter always did that to her.

‘Where has the time gone? ’ Mamma would groan in that heavy, rich accent which was so different from all the other children’s mothers’ at school. ‘Nine and a half years without your father. Nine long years. ’

For as far back as she could remember, Carla had known that her father was in heaven with the angels. It was because he had broken a promise when she’d been born.

Once she had asked what kind of promise he had broken.

‘It was the sort that cannot be mended, ’ Mamma had sniffed.

Like the beautiful blue teacup with the golden handle, Carla thought. It had slipped out of her hand the other week when she had offered to do the drying up. Mamma had cried because the cup had come from Italy.

It was sad that Papa was with the angels. But she still had Mamma! Once, a man on the bus had mistaken them for sisters. That had made Mamma laugh. ‘He was just flattering me, ’ she’d said, her cheeks red. But then she had let Carla stay up late as a special treat. It taught Carla that when Mamma was very happy, it was a good time to ask for something.

It also worked when she was sad.

Like now. The start of a new century. They’d learned all about it in school.

Ever since term had started, Carla’s heart had ached for a caterpillar pencil case, made of soft green furry stuff, like everyone else had at school. Then the others might stop teasing her. Different was bad. Different was being smaller than any of the others in class. Titch! (A strange word which wasn’t in the Children’s Dictionary that she’d persuaded Mamma to buy from the second-hand shop on the corner. ) Different was having thick black eyebrows. Hairy Mary! Different was having a name that wasn’t like anyone else’s.

Carla Cavoletti.

Or ‘Spagoletti’, as the other kids called it.

Hairy Carla Spagoletti!

‘Why can’t we stay at home today? ’ she continued. Our real home, she almost added. Not like the one in Italy which Mamma kept talking about and which she, Carla, had never even seen.

Mamma stopped briefly as their neighbour with the golden hair walked past, shooting her a disapproving glance.

Carla knew that look. It was the same one that the teachers gave her at school when she didn’t know her nine times table. ‘I’m not good with numbers either, ’ Mamma would say, dismissively, when Carla asked for some help with her homework. ‘But it does not matter as long as you do not eat cakes and get fat. Women like us, all we need is to be beautiful. ’

The man with the shiny car and the big brown hat was always telling Mamma she was beautiful.

When he came to visit, Mamma would never cry. She’d loosen her long dark curls, spray herself with her favourite Apple Blossom perfume and make her eyes dance. The record player would be turned on so that their feet tapped, although Carla’s weren’t allowed to tap for long.

‘Bed, cara mia, ’ Mamma would sing. And then Carla would have to leave her mother and guest to tap their feet around the little sitting room all on their own, while pictures of her mother’s family glared down from the cracked walls. Often their cold faces visited her in the nightmares that interrupted the dancing and made Mamma cross. ‘You are too old for such dreams. You must not bother Larry and me. ’

A little while ago, Carla had been given a school project called ‘My Mummy and Daddy’. When she’d come home, fired with excitement, Mamma had done a lot of tongue-clicking followed by a burst of crying with her head on the kitchen worktop. ‘I have to bring in an object for the class table, ’ Carla had persisted. ‘I can’t be the only one who doesn’t. ’

Eventually, Mamma had taken down the photograph of the stiff-backed man with a white collar and strict eyes. ‘We will send Papa, ’ she announced in a voice that sounded as though she’d got a boiled sweet stuck in her throat. Carla liked boiled sweets. Often the man with the shiny car brought her some in a white paper bag. But they stuck to her hand and then she had to spend ages washing off the stain.

Carla had held the photograph reverently in her hand. ‘He is my grandfather? ’

Even as she spoke, she knew the answer. Mamma had told her enough times. But it was good to know. Nice to be assured that she had a grandfather like her classmates, even though hers lived many miles away in the hills above Florence and never wrote back.

Carla’s mother had wrapped the photograph in an orange and red silk scarf that smelled of mothballs. She couldn’t wait to take it into class.

‘This is my nonno, ’ she’d announced proudly.

But everyone had laughed. ‘Nonno, nonno, ’ one boy had chanted. ‘Why don’t you have a granddad like us? And where is your father? ’

That had been just before the saint’s day when she’d persuaded her mother to phone in sick to work. One of the best days of her life! Together they had taken a picnic to a place called Hide Park where Mamma had sung songs and told her what it was like when she was a child in Italy.

‘My brothers would take me swimming, ’ she had said in a dreamy voice. ‘Sometimes we would catch fish for supper and then we would sing and dance and drink wine. ’

Carla, drunk with happiness at having escaped school, wove a strand of her mother’s dark hair round her little finger. ‘Was Papa there then too? ’

Suddenly her mother’s black dancing eyes stopped dancing. ‘No, my little one. He was not. ’ Then she started to gather the Thermos and the cheese from the red tartan rug on the ground. ‘Come. We must go home. ’

And suddenly it wasn’t the best day of her life any more.

Today didn’t look too good either. There was to be a test first thing, the teacher had warned. Maths and spelling. Two of her worst subjects. Carla’s grip on her mother’s hand, as they neared the bus stop, grew stronger.

‘You might be small for your age, ’ the man with the shiny car had said the other evening when she’d objected to going to bed early, ‘but you’re very determined, aren’t you? ’

And why not? she nearly replied.

‘You must be nice to Larry, ’ Mamma was always saying. ‘Without him, we could not live here. ’

‘Please can we stay at home together? Please? ’ she now begged.

But Mamma was having none of it. ‘I have to work. ’

‘But why? Larry will understand if you can’t meet him for lunch. ’

Usually she didn’t give him his name. It felt better to call him the man with the shiny car. It meant he wasn’t part of them.

Mamma turned round in the street, almost colliding with a lamp post. For a moment she looked almost angry. ‘Because, my little one, I still have some pride. ’ Her eyes lightened. ‘Besides, I like my job. ’

Mamma’s work was very important. She had to make plain women look pretty! She worked in a big shop that sold lipsticks and mascaras and special lotions that made your skin look ‘beautiful beige’ or ‘wistful white’ or something in between, depending on your colouring. Sometimes, Mamma would bring samples home and make up Carla’s face so that she looked much older than she was. It was all part of being beautiful, so that one day she would find a man with a shiny car who would dance with her round the sitting room.

That’s how Mamma had found Larry. She’d been on the perfume counter that day because someone was off sick. Sick was good, Mamma had said, if it meant you could step in instead. Larry had come to the shop to buy perfume for his wife. She was sick too. And now Mamma was doing the wife a favour because she was making Larry happy again. He was good to Carla as well, wasn’t he? He brought her sweets.

But right now, as they walked towards the bus stop where the woman with golden hair was waiting (the neighbour who, according to Mamma, must eat too many cakes), Carla wanted something else.

‘Can I ask Larry for a caterpillar pencil case? ’

‘No. ’ Mamma made a sweeping gesture with her long arms and red fingernails. ‘You cannot. ’

It wasn’t fair. Carla could almost feel its soft fur as she stroked it in her mind. She could almost hear it too: I should belong to you. Then everyone will like us. Come on, Carla. You can find a way.

3 Lily

The prison is at the end of the District line, followed by a long bus ride. Its gentle woody-green on the Underground map makes me feel safe; not like the Central red, which is brash and shrieks of danger. Right now, my train is stopping at Barking and I stiffen, searching the platform through rain-streaked windows, seeking familiar faces from my childhood.

But there are none. Only flocks of baggy-eyed commuters like wrinkled crows in raincoats, and a woman, shepherding a small boy in a smart red and grey uniform.

Once upon a time, I had a normal life not far from here. I can still see the house in my head: pebble-dash, 1950s build with primrose-yellow window frames that argued with its neighbour’s more orthodox cream. Still remember trotting down the high street, hand in hand with my mother on the way to the library. I recall with startling clarity my father telling me that soon I was going to have a new brother or sister. At last! Now I would be like all the others in class; the ones from exciting, noisy, bustling families. So different from our own quiet threesome.

For some reason, I am reminded of the whining little girl in the navy-blue uniform from our block this morning, and her mother with those bee-stung lips, black mane and perfect white teeth. They’d been speaking in Italian. I’d been half tempted to stop and tell them we’d just been there on honeymoon.

Often, I wonder about other people’s lives. What kind of job does that beautiful woman do? A model perhaps? But today I can’t stop my thoughts from turning back to myself. To my own life. What would my life be like if I’d become that social worker instead of a lawyer? What if, just after moving to London, I hadn’t gone to that party with my new flatmate, something I’d normally always say no to? What if I hadn’t spilled my wine on the beige carpet? What if the kindly sandy-haired man (‘Hi, I’m Ed’) with the navy cravat and well-educated voice hadn’t helped me to mop it up, telling me that in his view the carpet was very dull anyway and needed ‘livening up’. What if I hadn’t been so drunk (out of nerves) that I told him about my brother’s death when he’d asked about my own family? What if this funny man who made me laugh, but listened at the same time, hadn’t proposed on the second date? What if his arty, privileged world (so clearly different from mine) hadn’t represented an escape from all the horrors of my past…

Are you telling me the truth about your brother? My mother’s voice cuts through the swathes of commuter crows and pulls me on an invisible towline away from London to Devon, where we moved two years after Daniel had arrived.

I wrap my grown-up coat around me and throw her voice out of the window, on to the tracks. I don’t have to listen to it now. I’m an adult. Married. I have a proper job with responsibilities. Responsibilities I should be paying attention to now, rather than going back in time. ‘You need to picture what the prosecution is thinking, ’ the senior partner is always saying. ‘Get one stage ahead. ’

Shuffling in an attempt to make room between two sets of sturdy, grey-trousered knees – one on either side of my seat – I open my bulging black briefcase. No easy task in a crammed carriage. Shielding the case summary with my hand (we’re not meant to read private documents in public), I scan it to refresh my memory.

CONFIDENTIAL

Pro Bono case

Joe Thomas, 30, insurance salesman. Convicted in 1998 of murdering Sarah Evans, 26, fashion sales assistant and girlfriend of the accused, by pushing her into a scalding-hot bath. Heart failure combined with severe burns the cause of death. Neighbours testified to sounds of a violent argument. Bruises on the body consistent with being forcibly pushed.

It’s the water bit that freaks me out. Murder should be committed with something nasty like a sharp blade or a rock, or poison, like the Borgias. But a bath should be safe. Comforting. Like the woody-green District line. Like honeymoons.

The train jolts erratically and I’m thrown against the knees on my left and then those on my right. My papers scatter on the wet floor. Horrified, I gather them up, but it’s too late. The owner of the trousers on my right is handing back the case summary, but not before his eyes have taken in the neat typed writing.

My first murder trial, I want to say, if only to smooth the wary look in his eyes.

But instead I blush furiously and stuff the papers back into my bag, aware that if my boss was present I would be sacked on the spot.

All too soon, the train stops. It’s time to get out. Time to try and save a man whom I already loathe – a bath! – when all I want is to be back in Italy. To live our honeymoon again.

To get it right this time.

Whenever I’ve thought about a prison, I’ve always imagined something like Colditz. Not a long drive that reminds me of Ed’s parents’ rambling pile in Gloucestershire. I’ve only been there once, but that was enough. The atmosphere was freezing, and I’m not just talking about the absence of central heating.

‘Are you sure this is right? ’ I ask the taxi driver.

He nods, and I can feel his grin even though I can’t see it from behind.

‘Everyone’s surprised when they see this place. Used to be a private home till Her Majesty’s Prison Service took over. ’ Then his voice grows dark. ‘Pack of bleeding nutters in there now, and I don’t just mean the criminals inside. ’

I sit forward. My initial worry about putting a taxi on expenses (the bus didn’t go far enough, as it turned out) has been dissipated by this rather intriguing information. Of course I knew that HMP Breakville has a high proportion of psychopaths and that it specializes in psychological counselling. But a bit of local knowledge might be useful.

‘Are you talking about the staff? ’ I venture.

There’s a snort as we carry on up the drive, past a row of what appear to be council houses. ‘You can say that again. My brother-in-law used to be a prison officer here before he had his breakdown. Lived in one of those, he did. ’

My driver jerks his head at the council houses. Then we round another corner. On the left rises one of the most beautiful houses I’ve seen, with lovely sash windows and a stunning golden-red ivy climbing up the outside. At a rough guess, I’d say it was Edwardian. It’s certainly a complete contrast to the crop of Portakabins on my right.

‘You check in there, ’ says the taxi man, pointing at the house. I scrabble in my purse, feeling obliged to tip him if only for the extra information.

‘Ta. ’ His voice is pleased but his eyes are troubled. ‘Prison visiting, are you? ’

I hesitate. Is that what he has me down as? One of those do-gooders who feel it’s their duty to befriend the wicked?

‘Sort of. ’

He shakes his head. ‘Take care. Those blokes… they’re in there for a reason, you know. ’

Then he’s off. I watch the taxi go back down the drive, my last link to the outside world. It’s only when I start to walk towards the house that I realize I forgot to ask for a fare receipt. If I couldn’t get that right, what hope is there for Joe Thomas?

And, more importantly, does he deserve any?

‘Sugar? Sellotape? Crisps? Sharp implements? ’ barks the man on the other side of the glass divide.

For a moment, I wonder if I’ve heard right. My mind is still reeling from the strange journey I’ve just taken. I’d gone towards the lovely house, relieved that prison wasn’t that terrifying after all. But when I got there, someone directed me back across the grounds, past the Portakabins and towards a high wall with curled-up barbed wire on top that I hadn’t noticed before. My heart thudding, I walked along it until I reached a small door.

Ring, instructed the sign on the wall.

My breath coming shorter, I did so. The door opened automatically and I found myself in a little room, not that different from the waiting area in a small domestic airport. On one side was a glass partition, which is where I am right now.

‘Sugar, Sellotape, crisps, sharp implements? ’ repeats the man. Then he looks at my briefcase. ‘It saves time if you get them out before you’re searched. ’

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