The Dead Wife's Handbook (32 page)

A shard of discomfort pierces Harriet’s eyes and I can’t tell whether it’s due to unease or irritation.

‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure most people are in possession of enough narcissism to want to have children, whether or not they resist it. And narcissism’s not something you’re generally short of, is it Connor?’

‘Touché. Although I could never see you giving up your freedom to gurgle at babies and wipe up their sick and change their stinking nappies, Harriet. Let alone give up your job or your social life or that crazy shoe collection you’ve got going on.’

‘Well, maybe it’s not the dark ages any more and women don’t have to give up everything for the sake of motherhood. God, Connor, someone has let you know that we’re in the twenty-first century now, haven’t they?’

Harriet empties her wine glass in one defiant mouthful while Max and Eve watch on, wryly entertained, apparently viewing the argument as a conversational amuse-bouche.

‘Look, I’m just telling it how it is. Women can delude themselves all they like that parenthood is now some happy-clappy world of libertarian equality but the fact is it’s women who have the kids and women who stay home to look after them when they’re small. You can’t argue with biology, however many feminist books you read. I’m right, aren’t I, Eve?’

Eve suddenly pulls herself to attention as though she hadn’t expected to play a part in this particular pantomime.

‘No, Connor, you’re playing devil’s advocate, as well you know. If you say that women’s choices haven’t changed in the past fifty years then you’re clearly talking nonsense and you’re just trying to wind us both up.’

There’s a moment’s silence and I wonder if Connor’s going to take offence at being put in his place. But he looks at Eve and bursts out laughing.

‘Well, that told me. Although I’m not being deliberately contrary. I do think that women’s choices are a lot less free than we all like to pretend they are. I’m a feminist – I’m on your side.’

Harriet practically explodes next to him.

‘A feminist? You? Ha! I don’t think someone who picks up a different woman every Saturday night only never to
see her again after Sunday morning can legitimately describe himself as a feminist.’

‘What are you talking about? That’s the sexual revolution for you. We’ve got your lot to thank for that.’

‘God, if feminism’s got you in its corner then it really is a lost cause.’

‘Very funny. Anyway, I don’t know why you’re getting so hot under the collar. You’re the standard-bearer for a woman’s right to choose, aren’t you, Harriet?’

‘I’d like to choose not to be having this conversation with you, if that were possible.’

Eve laughs, and she and Harriet share a complicit smile. I’m not sure how I feel about my best friend and my husband’s new girlfriend forming an allegiance, even if it is a one-off in opposition to Connor at his most irritating.

‘You love our little disagreements, Harriet – don’t even bother denying it. Anyway, all this is an academic argument for you. How old were you last birthday? Thirty-eight? Your biological clock would be in need of some serious winding if you suddenly had a change of heart now.’

Connor laughs obstreperously at his own joke. Max allows him a half-smile of social support but both Harriet and Eve avert their eyes, Harriet out of the window and Eve on to the dessert menu enclosed in a perspex stand on the table. I know why Eve might be finding this conversation awkward but I’m not sure what’s rankled Harriet so much. It must be the reference to her age that’s riled her; she’s always had a certain vanity about each accumulated year so perhaps she doesn’t appreciate the reminder, not least in the presence of a woman nearly a decade younger.

‘Right, before you manage to offend both women at the table, I suggest we go to the bar and sort food since it doesn’t look like anyone’s coming to take our orders.’

‘Offend anyone? Moi? I don’t know what you mean. Excuse us, ladies. Back in a tick.’

As Max and Connor head off to the bar, I see Harriet get up and walk towards the toilet. Perhaps she’s not quite ready for a one-on-one with Eve just yet. I join Max and Connor, where they’re both ordering rib-eye and chips for themselves.

‘She’s a knockout, Max. I thought so at Ellie’s party but she seems a lot more relaxed today. I’ve no idea how you managed to pull someone so far above your station, but well done, mate. She’s a keeper.’

‘Thanks for the backhanded compliment. But seriously, that means a lot. She is pretty amazing, isn’t she?’

‘I think you mean she’s pretty
and
amazing. God, I can’t believe you’re going to end up with someone who looks like a bloody model. I thought that was my prerogative.’

Connor laughs at his own joke again but Max shifts uncomfortably from one foot to the other while the colour of his cheeks suggest that someone’s suddenly turned up the heating very high.

‘What? What did I say now?’

‘It just feels weird, you talking about me “ending up” with someone. I always thought that someone was going to be Rachel.’

Connor settles a fraternal arm around Max’s shoulder, a rare gesture of genuine affection rather than the play-fighting that typically substitutes for it.

‘I know, mate. But life moves on. And I think you’re doing a bloody brilliant job of that at the moment, so don’t start beating yourself up.’

Max inhales a deep breath that he lets out very slowly, as if to expel a whole head of thoughts he doesn’t want in his possession.

‘I know it’s probably stupid, but I just can’t stop feeling guilty.’

‘Guilty about what? It’s not like you’re being unfaithful, for god’s sake.’

‘Well you say that but it feels like I am. I still spend so much time thinking about Rachel, even when I’m with Eve; in a way it does feel like a kind of infidelity.’

I know it’s probably wrong of me, but I can’t help indulging a small flutter of gratification; I’d thought I was as far out of Max’s mind as I am out of sight. It’s a surprise – a rare, nice surprise – to know that my presence in Max’s thoughts hasn’t been entirely eclipsed by Eve.

‘Max, if we start facing charges of infidelity because of what we think rather than what we do then every man on the planet is going to find himself condemned.’

Connor smiles mischievously but his attempt to introduce a note of levity bypasses Max.

‘I’m just so used to Rachel being the person I discuss everything with. It’s like there’s a part of my brain reserved for the question “What would Rachel think or do or say?” I even find myself asking her opinion of Eve. How wrong is that?’

Connor opens his mouth and I can sense that there’s a flippant comment on the verge of escaping but then he
thinks better of it and I see on his face a decisive and deliberate shift towards solemnity.

‘Yeah, okay, that is pretty wrong. But it’s still early days with Eve. What is it? Six months? Give it a bit more time and you’ll stop thinking about Rachel so much, I’m sure.’

‘Seven. But that’s just it. I’m not sure I want to. I kind of like the fact that she’s somehow still alive in my head, that I can still talk to her about stuff. I don’t actually want to lose that.’

And I don’t want you to lose it either, Max. Because as long as I’m alive in your head it’s like I never really left you. And leaving you is the last thing I ever wanted to do.

‘So let me get this straight. You feel bad because you’re thinking about Rachel all the time but you don’t actually want to stop thinking about Rachel. But you do want to be with Eve even though you’re thinking about Rachel all the time. God, this is precisely the reason I steer clear of relationships – they’re so bloody complicated.’

‘Yeah, of course I want to be with Eve. It’s just that I feel guilty to Rachel for falling for Eve and guilty to Eve for thinking about Rachel as much as I do. It’s not that complicated, is it?’

‘Max, it’s pretty confusing from where I’m standing. Seems to me you feel guilty for being happy and guilty for grieving. That sounds like a lose–lose situation to me.’

‘I never said it was logical. But what do you think I should do?’

‘Well I know what you shouldn’t do. Don’t tell Eve that you’re still thinking about Rachel all the time, however much that overactive conscience of yours says you should.
I know what you’re like. But trust me, she won’t want to hear it.’

‘So I just carry on with Eve as though there’s nothing going on?’

‘Max, there
is
nothing going on. Like I said, you can’t be held accountable for thoughts out of your control.’

‘I don’t know. It just feels a bit … dishonest.’

‘Yeah, well, sometimes dishonesty is the best policy. Now, I suggest you get back over to the table where that stunningly beautiful woman who you’ve somehow managed to dupe into being your girlfriend is sitting all on her own. God knows what Harriet’s been doing in the ladies’ all this time. I’ll get the drinks in and bring them over.’

Max obediently complies with his brother’s instructions, passing Harriet on her way back from the toilets, who makes a detour to join Connor at the bar.

‘What have you been doing in there all that time? Whoa – what did you do to your face?’

‘Ever the charmer, Connor. I put on some lipstick, that’s all.’

‘No, it’s great. Smoking, in fact. You should wear lipstick more often.’

Harriet lets the compliment hang in the air, whether to allow it to linger or to encourage it to dissolve I’m not quite sure.

‘So, how am I doing on the playing nicely front? I feel like I’m on my best bloody behaviour.’

‘A shaky start but you’re warming up. It’s not so hard to be nice now, Harriet, is it?’

Harriet delivers one of her withering looks, a look which to most people is a clear sign to shut up but which
to Connor is usually little more than a challenge. She jumps in before Connor has the chance to continue.

‘Listen, while I’ve got you on your own there’s something I wanted to talk to you about. It’s about Celia. I don’t know if you can have a subtle word with Max – and I mean, subtle, Connor, none of your usual bull-in-china-shop clumsiness – but she’s feeling really vulnerable at the moment and I think she could do with a bit of TLC.’

‘Vulnerable about what?’

‘You know – Max and Eve, her relationship with Ellie, whether she’s going to be pushed out if Eve plants her feet firmly under the table. She’s really down about it.’

‘But that’s ridiculous. Max would never stop her seeing Ellie.’

‘Well, that’s easy for you to say. You’re on the right side of the family. She’s not. I don’t think it’s totally irrational of her to worry about her place in the family if the configuration starts to take on a new shape, do you?’

Connor’s face is full of scepticism but I’m grateful to Harriet for watching Mum’s back. There’s no one else to keep an eye on her now, after all.

‘Are you sure this is about Celia? Sounds like there might be someone else who’s feeling a little bit left out.’

Harriet visibly bristles. I don’t suspect either of us is used to competent levels of emotional literacy from Connor.

‘Yes, thanks for that, Dr Freud, but we’re talking about Celia. So, will you talk to Max or not?’

‘Okay, okay. I’ll have a word with him. Now, can you take the glasses over to the table and I’ll bring the bucket?’

‘You ordered champagne? What are we celebrating?’

‘I dunno. The weekend? Freedom? Saturday lunch with two beautiful women?’

Harriet shoves Connor playfully on the arm and as the two of them head back to the table a shaft of precocious spring sunlight streams confidently through the window and blinds my view temporarily. It takes a few seconds to pass and, when it does, I find it’s taken my access with it.

I think about the four of them having lunch together and feel a potent, querulous envy that I’m no longer a member of the quartet that was such a substantial part of my life for a decade.

I think about the fact that it’s been almost two years since I had a conversation with anyone, since I was in the same room as someone else, since I stood face-to-face with another human being and looked them in the eye, and had them look back at me. It’s only now, observing an event so familiar and yet now so remote, that I’m reminded of what that feels like. And how much I miss it.

I think about Max’s confession and wonder whether Connor’s right, whether Max’s memory of me will fade as the days since I died accumulate until he’s not able to recall my voice in his head even if he wanted to. Because if that happened I think it would be a death worse than the one that I’ve already known.

Chapter 23

I’m in a bedroom I don’t recognize and the reason I’m sure I don’t recognize it is because it’s nicer than any bedroom I’ve ever been in before, dead or alive.

The bed is a carved mahogany four-poster and the room is all polished wooden floorboards and open fire-places and a roll-top bath sitting proudly in the corner as though someone forgot to tell it it’s supposed to have a room of its own. It’s the kind of hotel room I’ve only been able to fantasize about since Ellie was born, that decisive moment when dirty weekends at country house hotels gave way to playgrounds and parks and gratitude to the organizers of family activity days at London galleries.

In the bed, under a purple damask bedspread and dazzling white duvet lie Max and Eve, their sleeping bodies entwined, each facing the majestic Georgian windows hung with heavy silk curtains, her back to him, his chest and arms enveloping her, the outline of their plaited legs indistinguishable from one another.

I know I shouldn’t be here. I know there are lines – private lines, moral lines – that even the dead should endeavour not to cross. I know I should try to will myself away, that I should try even if I fail, that it’s the intention that matters more than the outcome. But I can’t. Because the knowledge that I should leave is overpowered by my desire, however masochistic, to stay.

I try to recall the sensation of being where Eve is now, of feeling the heat of Max’s body warm the small of my back, of slumbering under the heavy weight of his arm draped protectively across my shoulder, the only occasional chill in the air when he’d stir, disrupting the duvet that encased our sleeping limbs, allowing the briefest blast of the world outside to penetrate our privacy. Those moments under the covers in the dark were, I used to think, some of the most peaceful any couple could ever know.