The Second Wife Read online

  She stands quite still for a few moments, and then she turns and runs, back up towards the station and down a side street where she knows there is a chemist. She makes straight for the family planning section and snatches up the nearest test, then pays for it, fumbling with her wallet and snapping at the saleslady who is so slow with finding a bag that in the end she just grabs the test and rushes out of the store again. She makes a run for the pub across the street, elbows her way past the little clutches of people gathered outside. Swerving past the bar, she finds the toilet and locks herself in the cubicle, panting and catching her breath. Her bladder is full to bursting and she lets the stream flow, her fingers shaking as she holds the test in place and then stares at it, counting the seconds in her head. She has heard that most people like to hide it until the three minutes are up, to prepare for a moment of sudden revelation. But she isn’t like most people and she doesn’t take her eyes off the stick, and so she sees every millimetre of the change, the slowly shifting coloured molecules that start off grey and slowly coalesce into a pale pink line, faint but unmistakeable.

  She holds it tightly in her hands, trying to breathe deeply. She’s on the pill, of course, but she knows it’s not foolproof. And yet this has never happened to her before. It’s no coincidence that it has happened now, with him. It’s meant to be. Her eyes fill up with tears as she tucks the stick carefully into her handbag and picks up her mobile. She’s never contacted him unprompted before, but this is different. Kas, I need to talk to you, she types. Can we meet as soon as possible? S xx.

  It’s less than a minute before the phone buzzes in response. I can be at Camden market in an hour. This is important, yes? You wouldn’t ask otherwise.

  Something about the message unsettles her a little – there’s a hint of a threat, an intimation that whatever this is had better be worth his time. All the same, she’s thrilled at the prospect of seeing him so soon. She quickly redoes her make-up in the cloakroom mirror, painting her lips with strawberry gloss and drawing her eyeliner thickly. Her eyes are sparkling, and as she turns and pushes her way back through the pub and out on to the street she’s aware that she’s never looked so good – that people are turning their heads as she walks by and craning their necks to watch her, and a laugh bubbles in her throat because she’s finally feeling happy.

  The Tube takes a long time, wheezing its way between stops and frequently sitting for minutes at a time. At first she doesn’t mind, but the longer she sits there, surrounded by irritable commuters sighing and fidgeting, the more the edge starts to wear off her elation. A sliver of doubt worms its way in, sharp and cool as a knife. Kas isn’t a single man, after all. His situation is complex; it won’t be easy to resolve. She tries to push the doubt away, to imagine them together this time next year … Imagine him cradling their baby, a baby with dark olive skin like his and the same gleaming, liquid eyes. But it’s hard to put him into this picture. For an instant, she’s uncomfortably reminded of the fear that shot through her when he came back into the basement, the few seconds before he kissed her. Is this man cut out to be a father? Does she really want this, after all?

  It’s these questions that are still hammering in her head as she steps off the Tube and takes the lift up to the platform, and that she still can’t find the answers to as she weaves her way through the streets towards the lock. She stops by the edge of the market, leaning back against the side of a juice stall, breathing in the sharp scent of freshly squeezed orange mixed with the faint sweetness of marijuana on the air. Something is closing over her, darkening her vision, and in that moment she has almost decided that this is a mistake. But as she pushes herself slowly away from the wall, preparing to leave just so that she can have a little more time to think this over, she sees him.

  He’s leaning against the opposite wall, scanning the far side of the street, the smoke from his cigarette curling elegantly up through the air. A dark jacket is slung around his shoulders over a tight black T-shirt and jeans that would look ordinary on anyone else. In the few seconds before he turns his head and sees her, Sadie gazes at him: the aristocratic slash of his cheekbones, the sensuous curve of his lip. Her stomach clenches and she can feel her heart thudding against her ribs, and by the time he notices her she’s already hurrying towards him. As soon as she nears him she can smell his aftershave, cutting through the heavily scented air with its familiar note of cinnamon.

  ‘Sadie,’ he says, tossing the cigarette to the ground and grinding it out. He reaches out and touches the side of her face, a lazily charming movement. The cold of his fingers makes her shudder. ‘I had meant to contact you before this. You know, it was only for your sake that I asked you to stay away. You realize this? In these matters, it is best to take precautions.’

  She nods mutely, and for a moment she has to fight an inappropriate urge to laugh. It’s the unknowing irony in what he’s said – the reminder of the one precaution he failed to take. She bites her lip, sucking in hard, and she sees his eyes flick coolly down to follow the movement before returning to hers. Desire rushes up through her body, and she takes a long breath. Kas is smiling faintly, his head tipped slightly to one side.

  ‘So,’ he says, seemingly more at ease now that he can see that she isn’t angry or distressed, ‘why are we here? I don’t flatter myself that you only wanted to see me.’

  ‘No,’ she says, although he must know she’d walk over broken glass to get to him if there was no other way. ‘I – I have something to tell you.’ She hesitates a moment, feeling the space between them electrically charged with expectation. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she says at last. On the way here she’s rehearsed several ways into this, but now they all seem redundant. ‘It’s your baby. There’s been no one else for ages now.’

  He is absolutely silent for more than ten seconds, and in this space she realizes just how long time can stretch. It feels like an eternity. His expression is entirely unreadable, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully and studying her, evaluating what she has just said.

  ‘Well,’ he says eventually. ‘Life is full of surprises.’ His tone is blandly neutral; he could be commenting on a news story of passing interest. When she doesn’t reply, he smiles again, a little tightly. ‘It is natural, I suppose, that you wanted to inform me,’ he says, and she is briefly struck by the stilted elegance of the way he speaks, the only sign that English is not his first language. ‘But I am not sure what you want from me.’

  She swallows, tasting something bitter at the back of her throat. ‘I thought that you would want to know,’ she says. ‘I thought …’ She realizes that there is no point being coy. If she wants this, she is going to have to ask for it. ‘I want to be with you,’ she says, loudly and clearly. ‘I want us to be together, to have this baby and be a family.’

  Kas raises his eyebrows and smiles again, a glittering, incredulous smile that fades as quickly as it has appeared when he sees that her own expression has not changed. He brings the tips of his fingers to his mouth, rubbing lightly across the skin. ‘Sadie,’ he says quietly, so low that she has to lean in to hear him. ‘You know that cannot happen. I am married.’ For the first time, she is aware of the dull gold ring on his fourth finger; a plain, wide band that looks a little loose, as if it would be easy to slip off and toss away into the gutter.

  ‘I know,’ she says, forcing herself to remain calm. She takes a moment, looks beyond him at the brightly coloured clothes hanging from the roof of the market stall, swaying faintly in the breeze. ‘But you and I, we have something, don’t we? There’s something between us that …’ She trails off. She has never felt so young and so vulnerable. She has no idea how to express what is swirling inside her, the conviction that she needs him to feel as much as she does herself.

  His face softens now, and he reaches out for her, pulling her against him, putting his mouth close to her ear. ‘Something, of course,’ he murmurs, and she feels him hardening against her thigh, his fingers gripping her waist. ‘But one does not throw away a marriage
for this kind of something, Sadie. You must understand that. I have my life. I have my duty.’ He seems pleased with this word, listening to its echo, giving a brief nod to himself. ‘I am sorry,’ he says, releasing her, ‘but you must see that this is impossible.’ His voice is lightly regretful now, and he moves away, taking the warmth and the heat of his body with him, stepping back from her.

  ‘But, Kas,’ she says, hearing the crack in her voice and knowing that she is about to cry. ‘I don’t know what to do. I’m only nineteen, for fuck’s sake. I’m not ready for a baby! I can’t do this without you …’

  He shakes his head, and he’s backing off fast now, raising his hands palms outwards in an expression of defeat. ‘If only things were different,’ he says smoothly, ‘but they are not, Sadie, and the best I can advise you is that you deal with the situation in the sensible way and put all of this behind you. Think it over, and let me know when it is done.’ And with that parting shot he turns on his heel and walks confidently away, moving the crowds apart with the force of his stride. She sees the heads turn – the sparks of interest and apprehension that flare up around him – and she sees how he ignores them all, locked off inside his own force field, uncompromising, untouchable.

  Rachel

  12 January 2000

  SHE’S DEVELOPED A kind of instinct for when Sadie is in trouble – a prickly, uncomfortable sense that makes it impossible for her to sit still and which scratches at her whatever she’s doing. Today it’s more insistent than usual. She doesn’t know where her sister is; she thinks she mumbled something about going to the shops round the Covent Garden market, but that was hours ago now and she still isn’t back. In itself this isn’t unusual. She’s used to Sadie changing her plans on a whim and not bothering to inform anyone, but there’s something about the way she’s been recently – detached to the point of remoteness, but at the same time less defiant, more pliant than normal – which sets Rachel on edge. She doesn’t know what to do about it, and ever since the disastrous interview she set up for Sadie at the office, which has resulted in more than one awkward conversation with her boss, she’s felt less and less inclined to do anything at all.

  She makes herself some dinner, watches a cookery show on TV. It’s half past ten and she thinks about going to bed, but something tells her not to get undressed just yet. She finds herself glancing at her phone repeatedly, almost daring it to buzz, and when it does and she sees Sadie’s name flash up on the screen she feels nothing but a kind of internal hardening, a knowledge that this is going to be a bad one.

  The message is barely coherent. Its all fucked what the hell am I going to do. Im in the three crowns where are you?? The name is vaguely familiar; Rachel has a shaky image of a black frontage, diamond-patterned windows. She’s sure she’s seen it before, on the way to the club with Sadie, and when she looks it up her suspicions are confirmed; it’s a pub in Camden, not far from Kaspar’s.

  She looks out of the window. It’s drizzling, slapping softly against the glass, and the tree branches that criss-cross the streetlamps move sluggishly back and forth in the wind. She remembers being outside earlier, the startling cold of the air cutting through her clothes. There is almost nothing she would rather do less than go out again now, take the Tube across London and pull her drunken sister from a pub. Instead, she could have a bath, luxuriating in the heat and warmth, and then go to bed with a book and drift off into sleep, ready for work in the morning. She’s still thinking about this possibility as she pulls on her boots and searches for a scarf. Why can’t she do it? Sadie is nineteen, not quite an adult perhaps in the way that most people are, but not a child. If Rachel wasn’t there, she would have to manage. These thoughts circle around her head, increasing in indignation with every rotation, but she still can’t translate them into action. The old brute force of responsibility is propelling her, driving her out of the flat and down the freezing streets towards the station.

  The journey isn’t a long one but there are delays on the Tube and by the time she gets to Camden it’s well past eleven. She has visions of Sadie cast out on the street, lying in a gutter. But when she gets to the pub it’s clear that this isn’t the sort of place that abides too much by last orders. It’s a total dive, full of bruised-looking men who are barely even talking to their companions, just downing their drinks in vicious silence. She pushes her way past them, spotting her sister as soon as she turns the corner. She’s sitting on her own at the back of the bar, dressed in a tight scarlet T-shirt with matching lipstick, mascara smudging the corners of her eyes. Rachel sees a young man hanging around, running an appraising eye over Sadie, but her sister looks up lazily and stares at him with such contempt that he hastily backs off, his expression wary, sliding off her like wheels off black ice.

  Rachel wraps her arms around herself and steps forward. ‘Not a good night, then?’

  Sadie looks up with a start, her eyes dazed and unfriendly. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘You told me to come.’ It isn’t true, actually, Rachel realizes, but it might as well be. ‘So here I am.’

  A beat of silence, as Sadie takes this in, and then, inexplicably, she’s laughing uncontrollably, almost bent double over the table, her eyes streaming. Her breath is coming in gulps, and as Rachel watches her she’s no longer sure if this is laughter at all, or something closer to grief.

  She sits down and reaches out across the table, pulling her sister’s hands into hers. They hardly ever touch, and the contact feels strange, skin burning on skin. ‘Tell me what’s happened,’ she says quietly, ‘and don’t even think about lying to me.’

  Sadie looks surprised, almost offended. ‘I wouldn’t,’ she says, and silently Rachel acknowledges that this is fair enough, because to the best of her knowledge lying isn’t something her sister does a lot of, except perhaps by omission. She’s never been concerned with covering up her behaviour.

  ‘Go on then,’ Rachel prompts. She can see that this isn’t just a drunken panic. There’s something specific, stirring between them, waiting to erupt.

  Sadie draws in a long, slow breath and shrugs. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she says, ‘and he doesn’t want anything to do with it.’

  At the same time as she registers the shock and dismay, Rachel is also conscious of a creeping little thought that it is a wonder this hasn’t happened before. Because of course this is what happens to girls like Sadie, girls who don’t give a shit about anything and who put their animal instincts above anything else. But it hasn’t happened, not until now. And actually, her sister isn’t stupid. She’s cynical about men, wary of being trapped. So even as she draws in breath and asks, ‘Who?’ she already has a nasty feeling that she knows. There’s only one person who Sadie would have dropped her guard like this for. ‘Not Kas,’ she says flatly in the wake of her sister’s silence, and Sadie winces and looks down, acknowledging it.

  ‘Don’t be angry,’ she mumbles.

  ‘It’s not you I’m angry with,’ Rachel says automatically, finding that it’s true. Right now, looking at Sadie’s tear-stained face and the lost, glazed look in her eyes, she can’t feel anything but pity. An image of Kas swims into her head; the hard, muscular bulk of him, the way that everything about him seems designed to intimidate. She can’t imagine wanting this man anywhere near her.

  ‘I don’t want you to be angry with him either!’ Sadie fires back. ‘You don’t understand, He can’t do anything about it, his hands are tied. He’s married to that bitch Melanie and he can’t leave her, because he isn’t like that. He doesn’t just – shirk his responsibilities!’ It’s like she’s reading from a script.

  Rachel is silent for a moment, dropping her head into her hands and massaging her temples, gently pushing her fingers into her skin. ‘Sadie, listen to yourself,’ she says eventually. ‘What you’re saying is ridiculous. You’re talking like this is a man with incredibly strong morals, but that clearly isn’t the case. If it was, you wouldn’t be in this position, would you, because—’

>   ‘You don’t understand,’ Sadie says again, her voice rising. She stands up, reaching a hand out to steady herself against the table. ‘It’s not him. It’s her. I’m going to find her right now, I’m going to tell her everything.’

  Rachel jumps up. ‘Don’t be insane,’ she says. ‘Why would you do that? He isn’t going to thank you for it, you know. It’s not going to change anything.’

  ‘Yes it will,’ Sadie argues. ‘It will, because then I’m taking it out of his hands, aren’t I? He can’t do it himself, but I can do it for him. I know where he lives. I’m going to his house right now, I’m going to find her.’ Abruptly she pushes the table away from her and strides through the bar.

  There’s a split-second when Rachel thinks that she might let her go. A weariness comes over her, settles like cloud. These mercurial spikes of anger that Sadie has are powerful, and she knows her well enough to realize that if she’s fuelled by this energy then there’s absolutely nothing that can be done to talk her out of it. But then she thinks about the reality of this situation. Her sister is stumbling out drunk, looking for a fight with a woman she knows nothing about, a woman who’s married to a potentially dangerous man. There isn’t a choice here. Just like she’s always done, she’s going to try her best to minimize the damage.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ she hisses under her breath, and she makes her heavy limbs move and hurry after Sadie, out of the bar.