The Dead Wife's Handbook (24 page)

I look at Ellie now, seated on Harriet’s lap in the middle of the table, and remind myself how lucky I am to be seeing her at all.

‘How old are you today, Hetty?’

‘Too old to be telling anyone, you little rotter. One day, in a very very long time, you’ll be my age too and then you’ll know why I’d rather keep that magic number to myself.’

‘But it’s not like you’re
really
old. Like a hundred or something.’

Harriet laughs.

‘No, indeed, I’m not a hundred. Thank you for that vote of confidence.’

Ellie beams as though in receipt of unmitigated praise.

‘You’re still really pretty, though. You’ve hardly got any wrinkles. And I like your sparkly earrings.’

Harriet pulls Ellie in for an even tighter squeeze.

‘And you, young lady, know how to say all the right things to a woman on her birthday. That’s why you’re my favourite person around this whole table. That and your impeccable taste, of course. These earrings were a birthday gift to myself. I figure who needs a man to buy me diamonds, when I can afford to buy them for myself?’

Ellie fiddles with the cluster of gems dangling from Harriet’s ears for a few seconds, an inquisitive expression on her face.

‘Hetty? Why don’t you have a husband?’

Harriet eyes my little girl with amused intrigue. If there’s one person who can handle Ellie’s irrepressible questions, it’s Harriet.

‘Well, grown-up girl, I just haven’t met anyone I want to marry.’

‘So is that why you don’t have any children of your own?’

Harriet hesitates for a second and I detect a rare faltering disquiet on her face before she settles into a reassuring smile.

‘Why do I need children of my own when I’ve got you to ask me awkward questions and admire my jewellery?’

Ellie pulls free of Harriet’s embrace, her nose wrinkled with the warning that her queries haven’t yet been fully answered.

‘No, but really. Don’t you get lonely all on your own?’

Harriet’s face softens, a momentary lapse in her customary self-assurance.

‘I think everyone gets lonely sometimes, Ellie. Even people with families of their own.’

It’s the first time I’ve ever heard Harriet admit to loneliness, even obliquely. Perhaps it’s symptomatic of the reflectiveness that often accompanies birthdays, however loudly they’re celebrated.

‘So do you think you’ll ever have babies? Because if you did they’d sort of be like my cousins, wouldn’t they? Because you’re sort of like my aunt. And I don’t have any cousins so that would be really cool.’

Harriet considers Ellie’s question for a beat longer than I’d imagine she needs to.

‘Oh, I don’t know, gorgeous girl. I think I’m probably a bit too old now, don’t you? That’s why I’m so nice to you, little lady, so I’ll have someone to come and visit me in the geriatrics’ home when I really am old and wrinkly and talking nonsense. That’s what goddaughters have to do, you know? It’s all part of the deal.’

Ellie smiles as if not entirely certain whether Harriet’s joking or not. I’m not really sure, either.

Connor saunters over and whisks Ellie away to the other end of the table where he involves her in a game with two of our university friends, which appears to involve identifying the less salubrious eating habits of other diners. I watch Ellie interacting so confidently with this group of adults and can’t help but feel proud of her. I don’t know where she gets that confidence from. Both Max and I were painfully shy as children. But that’s another revelation about childrearing that I didn’t know until I had my own; that children can be so much more than the sum
of their inherited parts, so much more accomplished, in so many ways, than both of their parents.

I notice, out of the corner of my distracted eye, that Max and Harriet are now standing apart from the rest of the group, huddled in the corner, engaged in what looks like a heated discussion. I leave Ellie in Connor’s capable hands to listen in.

‘What the hell are you talking about, she’s “special”? You weren’t supposed to meet someone “special”. You were just supposed to go out and have a bit of fun.’

I think I can probably guess who Harriet’s talking about and it sounds as though this may be the first she’s heard of her.

‘Harriet, I don’t get it. You badgered me for weeks, telling me I had to go and meet new people and, now that I have, you – of all people – seem to be surprised by this turn of events. What on earth did you think was going to happen?’

‘I expected you to go on a few dates, flirt a little, get a bit drunk now and again. Have some fun. Stop moping around the house. I certainly didn’t expect you to present me with a formal announcement that you’re now in possession of a girlfriend. A girlfriend, Max? For god’s sake, what about Rach?’

At last. I had wondered when – if at all – amidst all the excitement about Max’s rejuvenated love life, someone might do me the courtesy of remembering that I did once exist. Not even that long ago. Not in the grand scheme of things, anyway.

‘Oh come on, Harriet, you can’t have it both ways. I don’t remember you evoking Rachel’s memory a few months
back when you unilaterally set up a dating profile for me. And please don’t insult me by suggesting that just because I’m seeing someone new I’ve somehow forgotten about Rachel. You’ve no idea how much I miss her still.’

He’s right, I don’t. It’s reassuring, in all honesty, to hear him say that. I was beginning to feel that the only place I hold in Max’s mind these days is a repository of memories to be bequeathed to Ellie when the time is right.

‘Don’t you dare put the responsibility for your actions on my shoulders, Max. I don’t remember saying you had to go and fall in love with someone, for god’s sake.’

As soon as the words leave Harriet’s lips, a strawberry rash erupts on Max’s neck before travelling north to invade the rest of his face. His eyes betray a surprise at his own unease. But he’s not quite as astonished, I think, as I am.

He’s in love with her. Max has actually fallen in love with someone else. And, if his reaction is anything to go by, he hadn’t even been aware of it himself until a few seconds ago.

I feel like the non-existent ground beneath me has begun to shake, that whatever’s holding me up is about to let me down, that every part of my ethereal being has destabilized in an instant. It’s as though whatever quasi existence I’m still in possession of has rapidly, in one dramatic purge, drained out of me, leaving a vast, gaping chasm into which an invisible wind is now sweeping through, battering me from every conceivable angle.

‘Oh my god. You actually think you’re in love with her, don’t you? God, you idiot, Max. It’s too soon, can’t you see that?’

I can, yes, of course I can. I just wish you’d seen that, Harriet, when you set up that profile without so much as Max’s consent. I wish that sometimes you didn’t charge headlong into conducting situations that simply aren’t yours to orchestrate.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re jumping to silly conclusions. It’s only been a few months. There’s no need to get ahead of ourselves.’

‘I don’t think I’m the one getting ahead of myself, Max. God, if you could have seen your reaction to the mere mention of the L word. It was written all over your face. If you don’t want to admit it to me, fine, but I know what I saw.’

She’s right. There is no denying it. Max’s reaction was greater confirmation than a thousand words.

Harriet and Max fall into an uncomfortable silence, as if suddenly aware that there are twenty or so guests sitting at the table, getting drunk on Harriet’s champagne and enjoying the birthday she’s supposed to be celebrating.

‘So, what does Ellie make of her new stepmum-in-waiting? I imagine she’s completely freaked out, isn’t she?’

‘She doesn’t know yet. I haven’t told her. So I’d be grateful if we didn’t make a big deal of it today.’

‘Well, I suppose I should be grateful for the small mercies of common sense.’

Max takes a deep breath and I exhale a sigh of relief. I don’t think I’d dared acknowledge to myself quite how unprepared I was for the prospect of Ellie having met Eve in my absence. At least I know now they didn’t spend a pseudo-family Christmas together.

‘Well, actually, I’m planning to tell her pretty soon. We – Eve and I – have agreed that she should meet Ellie at half term.’

Please, Max, no. Not Ellie. Not yet. She’s not ready. It’s too great a risk; a risk of reigniting her fears that nothing’s stable in her life, that she can’t rely on anything to remain the same, even for a matter of months. And a danger that she’ll think you’re deserting her too, that she’s being abandoned in favour of another woman’s attentions. Don’t do it to her, not yet. She’s just not ready.

And neither am I.

‘You can’t, Max. Don’t be stupid. What you get up to with this Eve woman is your business, but it’s not fair to drag Ellie into it. It’s much too soon.’

‘Sorry, Harriet, but I disagree. By February, Eve and I will have been seeing each other for six months and Rachel will have been gone for nearly two years. I don’t think it’s too soon on either count.’

It’s that incomprehensible timeline again. The timeline with which every living person seems to be intimately familiar and yet which no one ever bothered to tell me about before I died. Where is it written that nearly two years is an acceptable interval after your wife’s untimely exit for the introduction of your new girlfriend to your motherless daughter?

‘Max, I know I can’t tell you what to do. Who am I, after all, but your wife’s bolshie best friend? All I can say is that I think it’s a mistake. As Ellie’s godmother, as someone who made a promise to both you and Rach that I’d always look out for her, I’m telling you – categorically and
unequivocally – that I think it’s too soon. And on that note, I’m going to go and get pissed because it’s my birthday and it’s a bloody outrage that I’m the only person here – apart from you and Ellie – who’s still sober.’

With that, Harriet strides over to the table where she positions herself on the lap of one of her devastatingly handsome male friends, sweeps the glass out of his hand and decisively downs its contents.

I hate seeing them argue, my husband and my best friend. I hate being the cause of their conflict. I hate not being able to mediate a resolution.

I turn my attention back towards Max but as I do the whiteness of the restaurant begins to blur, the tables, chairs, floors and walls merging into one amorphous, homogeneous mass, and I know that my access is rapidly receding. I catch one last, hazy glimpse of Max’s face before my view disappears altogether. He looks sad, the expression of a man acutely aware of his isolation in a room full of people. I wish I could have stayed with him just a little longer, just to see that he recovered without Ellie being any the wiser, just to ensure his and Harriet’s reconciliation.

I wish, in all honesty, that I could have seen Harriet convince Max that he was wrong and she was right, that I could have borne witness to Max’s change of heart, that I could have been reassured that Harriet had been able to unpick the mess that she is, after all, responsible for creating.

Now all I can do is sit and wait and hope that during the course of however long my absence, someone manages to convince Max that introducing Ellie to Eve isn’t in anyone’s best interests.

Chapter 17

I’ve arrived to find Max and Ellie sitting on the sofa watching one of Ellie’s favourite television programmes, a clips show of funny home movies which always has her in fits of giggles. This edition seems to be an animal special which is probably about as close to televisual heaven as Ellie can get.

‘Awww, Daddy, look at that puppy. He’s getting sprayed by that hose and is all wet. Silly dog.’

Ellie’s giggling uncontrollably, fidgeting with delight.

‘See, what did I tell you, munchkin? Dogs really aren’t all that clever.’

Ellie eyes Max suspiciously.

‘Daddy, that’s a puppy. Of course puppies are silly. But then they grow up into lovely, clever, cuddly dogs.’

‘Oh, do they now? I can’t think why you haven’t mentioned that before.’

Max smiles teasingly at Ellie who scrunches up her forehead to manufacture an unamused frown but she can’t help herself grinning.

As the end credits begin to roll, Max hits the mute button on the remote control.

‘Oh, Daddy, why did you do that? I love that music.’

‘Sorry, munchkin, but there’s something I want to talk to you about.’

Max sounds serious. Ellie looks annoyed. I feel preemptively anxious.

‘You know how sometimes you make new friends at school and you want me to meet them and sometimes you bring them home for tea?’

Ellie looks at him curiously. Rightly so.

‘Well, I’ve made a new friend who I think you’ll really like and I’d like you and her to get to know one another.’

So he’s going ahead with it. In spite of Harriet’s objections, in spite of common sense, in spite of the voice there must surely be in his head urging caution, he’s going to introduce my little girl to the woman who’s currently stealing a march on his heart. I’d had a horrible feeling that Max’s mind was going to be unchangeable on this subject.

Ellie squints at Max and it’s almost as if I can see the cogs of her nimble, hyperactive mind revolving behind the whites of her eyes.

‘What kind of friend? What’s her name?’

‘Her name’s Eve and she’s a special friend, someone I’ve been spending a lot of time with lately. I’ve told her so much about you that she’s dying to meet you. Do you think you might like to meet her too?’

That’s not really fair, Max. We both know that Ellie’s going to want to do whatever she thinks will please you. That’s what well-behaved, thoughtful seven-year-old daughters do.

‘What’s she like? Will I like her?’

‘Well, I hope you’ll like her. I’m sure she’ll like you. She’s a teacher, like me, and she’s very calm and kind and she’s lots of fun too. And you know those cupcakes we had the other day, the ones with the stars sprinkled on the top? Eve made those.’

‘I thought Granny made them?’

‘I know you did. But she didn’t, it was Eve. They were delicious, weren’t they? Eve’s a great cook. And she likes reading books and watching films and going for long walks in the country – all the things we like, really. She’s really easy to talk to, as well.’