The Dead Wife's Handbook (14 page)

I remember the feeling, from such a young age, of wanting Mum to be proud of me. It’s always felt like the very least I owed her. Even my move to London was, to my mind, about fulfilling that ambition, about repaying the debt of my upbringing through achievements I knew she valued: a loving partner whose company she appreciated, a successful career she could tell her friends about,
a comfortable home she was keen to visit, a stable family with whom she could enjoy spending time. Perhaps that’s a part of every child’s ambition. Perhaps all children – whatever their endeavours – are in some way hoping to prove that a lifetime’s parenting isn’t in vain. Perhaps mine was merely exacerbated by the loss that Mum had already suffered, by the disappointments that life had already apportioned her, by the knowledge that I really was all she had left.

Looking at Mum now, head in her hands, shoulders hunched with the weight of accumulated grief, I can’t imagine how on earth she’s borne yet another of life’s tragedies, how she can manage to forgive the world that’s robbed her of so much.

I spent my life not wanting to disappoint her and yet, in the end, I inflicted on her the worst form of punishment any child could.

Ellie appears in the doorway suddenly, complete with Scooby Doo rucksack on her back, ready for her Wiltshire adventure. She stops in her tracks, swiftly surveying the scene before her, a look of consternation settling unnervingly on her face.

‘What’s wrong? Why’s everyone sad? What’s happened?’

Max immediately picks up on her concern, attuned to the instinctive connection Ellie now makes between weeping adults and proximate tragedy.

‘Nothing’s happened, sweetheart. Nanna was just feeling a little bit upset and I was helping make her feel better. But you know what’s going to make her feel so much bet
ter? You two going to Salisbury and having a lovely four days together.’

Ellie smiles and climbs on to Mum’s lap where she wraps her arms around her grandmother’s neck and envelops her in the strongest clinch a seven-year-old could possibly muster.

‘You smell nice, Nanna.’

‘Thank you, Ellie. That will be my perfume. It’s called Chance by Chanel. Maybe we could let you put a little bit on when we get back home.’

That’s the perfume I used to wear too.

Ellie pulls her arms from around Mum’s neck and smiles impishly at her.

‘When we get to the café, can I have a jacket potato with melted cheese and a cake for afters?’

Mum returns her smile and pops her back on her feet.

‘Of course you can, darling. Now, have you got everything? Your nightie? And your toothbrush? And your special bear?’

‘I’ve got everything. Daddy helped pack most of my things earlier on.’

As Max stands on the doorstep to see them off, I feel the familiar fluctuation of air that signals I’ll be leaving soon too. I catch one last glimpse of Ellie in the front seat of Mum’s car, perched up on a booster cushion, blowing goodbye kisses to Max and waving excitedly through the window.

The clouds begin to gather beneath me, concealing Max from view and leaving me with nothing but anxious speculation as to what his evening ahead may hold in store.

Chapter 10

‘So, you’re an artist, Connor tells me? What made you decide to do that rather than something more – well – a bit more conventional, I suppose?’

Sadie, the ‘artist’, flicks her long, artificially blonde hair over her shoulders with a degree of affectation that suggests she’s expecting to be photographed by a swarm of paparazzi at any moment rather than what she’s actually doing, sitting anonymously at a small round table with my husband in the corner of the kind of nightclub Max has always hated, with its self-regarding clientele and its ostentatiously aloof barman. I’ve no doubt it was Connor’s choice of location given how much fun he seems to be having, lining up shot glasses at the bar in the company of a conspicuously beautiful woman.

Sadie, meanwhile, smiles at Max as if in deep contemplation of her answer, before waving her blonde locks around again like she’s auditioning for a shampoo commercial. She’s repeated this hair-tossing display several times in the few minutes since I arrived, which has proved more than long enough for me to deduce that Sadie’s the kind of woman for whom flirtation is as imperative as breathing.

‘Well, you know, in my humble opinion, becoming an artist isn’t something you choose. It’s something – I believe – that chooses you.’

She smiles coquettishly as though the idea that her opinion could be perceived as anything even vaguely resembling humble is clearly absurd.

‘And I can’t pretend to feel anything other than privileged that I’m one of the chosen ones. I do know how lucky I am. When I think of all those poor people traipsing off to their offices, you know, for their dull nine-to-five existences, I thank my lucky stars that my talents lie in other directions.’

As if to display – for the avoidance of any possible doubt – what one of her many self-confessed talents might include, Sadie pushes her chair back from the table, extracts her long, slim legs from underneath it, bare legs concealed only at the nether regions of her thighs by a skirt which might more accurately be described as a wide belt, and crosses them slowly, deliberately and – undeniably – seductively, for all the world to see.

My jaw would be on the floor if there was any chance of it reaching that far. Subtlety, it would seem, is not one of Sadie’s apparently numerous attributes.

‘Yes, well, you’ll have to tell me more about it. But can I get you another drink first?’

‘Ooh, yes, go on then. I’d love another gin and tonic. But go easy on the tonic.’

She flutters her faux-demure eyelashes and raises the corner of her lips just enough to suggest that it’s universally acknowledged that going easy on the tonic is the world’s best-known euphemism for morally questionable sexual practices.

Max potters off to the bar, seemingly oblivious to the fact that his date is emulating every clichéd characteristic employed by the stars of late-night, pay-TV movies.

Sadie is exactly the kind of woman I’d have expected Connor to set Max up with. In fact, if I had to pick out one of Connor’s female friends – or, who knows, former conquests – from a line-up of a hundred women, I’d have bet pretty good money on identifying Sadie. Not only artificially blonde, she’s also impeccably groomed and – I’d wager good money on it – surgically enhanced; those breasts can’t possibly be the ones nature bestowed upon her and I’m sure it’s rare to witness lips that plump if they haven’t seen the spike of a surgeon’s syringe.

If that weren’t enough, her outfit leaves so little to the imagination that she might as well be wearing a sandwich board advertising precisely what’s on offer. Except a sandwich board would cover up significantly more than she’s willing to conceal. She’s paired the teeny brown leather mini-skirt with a transparent cream chiff on blouse under-laid with nothing more than a lacy, cleavage-enhancing bra. A bra that I suspect was deliberately bought two sizes too small precisely for the effect it’s now creating.

She’s the kind of woman from whom most other women instantly recoil and to whom most men are instinctively – infuriatingly – attracted. But Max isn’t most men. Or at least in this regard, anyway, I sincerely hope he’s not.

‘So, how’s it going, Maxy? Are you charming the literal pants off our young Sadie, then?’

Connor drapes one arm around his date who looks like she’s walked straight out of the casting book of a leading modelling agency, while clasping the back of Max’s neck with his other hand.

‘We’re having a perfectly civilized chat, actually.’

Max’s inability to pronounce his consonants properly is as much indication as ever I’ve needed that he’s a little bit tipsy.

‘She’s a corker, though, isn’t she? I told you you could count on me, didn’t I, huh? You’ve got to trust your big brother on the really important things in life, haven’t you, Maxy?’

Connor ruffles his little brother’s hair, a fraternal tic that Max usually hates, but they both seem too drunk this evening to have remembered that.

‘You’re a very, very good big brother, Connor. Now, let me get to the bar so that I can get us some more drinks. Although it looks like you two might already be well catered for.’

Max edges his way past Connor and waits far too patiently for one of the unnecessarily handsome European barmen to acknowledge his presence. After he’s finally been served a few minutes later, he returns with the easy-on-the-tonic gin for Sadie and an overpriced bottle of lager for himself.

As he sits back down at the table, Sadie leans over and plucks what I’m almost certain is an imaginary piece of fluff from Max’s shirt, just to the right of his left nipple. As she theatrically flicks the non-existent detritus on to the floor, she smiles invitingly at him, as though she’s just saved him from a fate worse than death and is in need of some form of gratitude.

Max looks a little taken aback at having had his nipple unexpectedly fondled by this relative stranger, but he’s too well-mannered to do anything except smile politely.

‘So, what kind of art do you do?’

‘Well, my art is, you know, not really art in any conventional sense. There’s no stretching of canvases where I’m involved. I’m a performance artist.’

Sadie says this with a flourish in her voice as though delivering information that could only possibly be received with awe and admiration.

‘God, that’s different. So what kind of performances do you do?’

‘Well, you know, my art is all about challenging the objectification of the male gaze. So essentially it’s a dance performance which I combine with the power of undress, and with photography and video, to create a deeply subversive experience. Just as I’m down to my undies and they think I’m about to give them the full monty, I project images of women’s suffering throughout the ages around the room. The photos and videos interfere with my choreography and it creates, you know, a really unnerving juxtaposition between conflicting views of female empowerment and femininity. I suppose you’d call it feminist performance art but, you know, I prefer to eschew those kinds of labels.’

Sadie’s ‘performance art’ sounds disarmingly like burlesque to me. Or, to give it its proper, old-fashioned name: stripping.

‘So where do you do these performances? In galleries and stuff?’

‘No, my view has always been that art shouldn’t be confined to galleries. That it should be, you know, at the heart of the public arena, that it should be discovered rather than anticipated, that the element of surprise is key. I don’t think you should wait for people to come to art, but that
art should go to the people. So I go to pubs and clubs – sometimes even working men’s clubs – and cabaret nights. I think I have the most impact where, you know, I’m least expected.’

I wonder if Sadie says ‘you know’ every other sentence precisely because she’s aware somewhere – however deep down – that people haven’t got the foggiest idea what she’s going on about.

‘That sounds like powerful stuff. Very challenging. I mean, that’s what art’s all about, isn’t it – challenging perceptions?’

That’s another thing I love about Max: his ability to engage in topics he has absolutely no interest in. Because I’m pretty sure that fairly close to the top of the list of subjects Max would like never to have a conversation about is feminist performance art.

‘Yes, well, I like to think that I’m, you know, pushing boundaries and making people think about important issues while at the same time giving them something beautiful to watch.’

Sadie licks her lips, slowly and purposefully, just in case there was any doubt that the beauty she was referring to was her own. It’s as though she spent her entire adolescence at Seduction School and is now determined to put each and every lesson into practice.

Max’s eyes widen with a rabbit-in-the-headlights expression that suggests even he – who’s only been on one date in over a decade – is finding it impossible to ignore the blatant onslaught of flirtation being directed at him. What on earth was Connor thinking when he extracted Sadie from his little black book and decided
she’d be the perfect date for my husband? I can’t imagine how she could possibly be less his type.

‘Anyway, aren’t you a bit of an artist yourself, Max? That’s what Connor led me to believe, anyway.’

Max looks perplexed as though perhaps Sadie’s got him confused with someone else she’s in the process of being fixed up with by Connor.

‘Me, an artist? No, I’m afraid I’m just a humble history teacher.’

‘Oh, come now, you’re being modest. Connor told me you’re an amazing photographer. He thought we’d have artistic proclivities in common.’

So that’s the connection? Connor assumed that because Max used to like taking the odd photo in his spare time, he’d discover a natural affinity with a feminist performance artist?

Sadie appears to have given up on hair flicking in favour of twirling various strands around her red nail-varnished fingers, as if to demonstrate what might be possible should Max choose to let his own hands loose in it.

‘Well, I think my brother may have exaggerated a bit there. I used to dabble but really I’m just a rank amateur and I haven’t done much at all lately, to be honest.’

There’s a further, unspoken clause at the end of that sentence but Max elects to leave it unsaid. I’m relieved, on this occasion, not to be the topic of conversation with one more capricious stranger. Especially one whom I suspect wouldn’t have much patience with another woman encroaching on her territory, even conversationally, even if the other woman in question were dead.

‘So what are your favourite subjects? What most turns you on when you’re gazing down that long lens?’

Sadie draws Max’s eyes down towards the table where her hand is wrapped around the tall, slim, perspiring tumbler in front of her, rubbing it up and down in what can only be described as a simulating – if not necessarily stimulating – gesture.

It’s so absurd I don’t know how Max finds the self-restraint not to laugh.

‘Portraits mainly. Some landscapes, but generally only as a tourist – a nice sunset or a dramatic mountain range will invariably catch my eye. Mostly I’m interested in people’s faces.’