The Dream Wife Read online

  ‘Soon, yes, I have a board meeting at ten. Business doesn’t stop because you’ve had a baby, unfortunately. And anyway, Mother will be here soon to help.’

  My shoulders slumped. His mother. My mother-in-law. Maggie.

  A straining of electric engine and an ominous grinding rouses me from my thoughts. I turn the vacuum cleaner off and tug at the tube where I’ve been diligently cleaning under the wardrobe. I’m at the end of my chores, finishing off the floor in my room and looking forward to doing something with my boy. He looks up as I stop, Rabbit clutched in one hand and one of the attachments from the vacuum in the other. He has a big box of garish Duplo bricks in front of him, but the forbidden dirty pieces of the cleaner are far more attractive to a two-year-old boy.

  I tug at the tube again and it slowly comes free, trailing a black cable and a large mound of dust that’s been sucked up from the back. I pull the cable out of the vacuum and tug to find its source, squinting behind the wardrobe at the power socket I know is located there. The wardrobe is too big for me to move, so I yank again, and something clatters high up, a sound of plastic against wood. I stare upwards, debating how much I care to investigate, and hear another series of bangs, one after another. Peering round the door, I see my son, yellow brick in one hand and red in the other, standing at the gate at the top of the stairs. He looks at me and smiles, then chucks the two bricks: I hear the thudding and the sound of them hitting the floor at the bottom.

  ‘Game,’ he tells me, and laughs, refreshing his ammunition from the box and chucking them over the gate. One brick hits a picture frame on the way down; I pull myself to my feet at the sound of the plastic against glass.

  He’s bored and I can’t blame him. I push the black cable back under the wardrobe, out of sight, and pack up the vacuum cleaner.

  ‘Come on, little man,’ I say. ‘Let’s go to the park.’

  Our hospital curtain swished open and the midwife appeared. ‘Right, Dad, you can look after little David, and Mum can go for a shower.’

  ‘Johnny,’ I said quickly. ‘We’re going to call him Johnny.’

  The midwife looked confused, stealing another look at the notes.

  ‘We agreed he would be called David,’ my husband said. ‘David John. Same as me, same as my father.’

  ‘Yes, but we can hardly have two Davids in the house. I would have to start calling you Dave.’ David, a stickler for formality, bristled. ‘Or Dad,’ I suggested.

  ‘Johnny is fine. As long as we use his proper name for public events.’

  I nodded, no idea what these public events were.

  ‘Anyway,’ said the midwife, ‘shower time.’

  She whisked Johnny out of my arms and held him out to David, forcing him to part with his coffee and BlackBerry onto the nightstand. He stood rigid, with Johnny against him, unaccustomed to being told what to do.

  Moving at a pace faster than a shuffle was impossible due to the gash running across my middle. Every movement towards the shower pulled at it, forcing me to take a quick intake of breath. I hunched, one arm across my stomach, and slowly moved one foot in front of the other.

  But it was a wonderful shower. The water was lukewarm and came out in little more than a trickle, but there was just enough to wash away the sweat from my distorted body and the blood out of my hair. It felt fantastic to be clean and smell nice; the water ran red under me as my body attempted to clear itself out in other places too. And it was so unfamiliar. For the last nine months I had seen it grow gradually; now, suddenly, it was all changed again. The bump was still there, but now flaccid pale flesh sagged around my belly button, and a surgical dressing held me together. The cut on my forehead stung from the shampoo. My breasts were tender and rock hard; my eyes were sore from lack of sleep. Nothing was good about my body; nothing was mine any more.

  I wobbled back to my bed, passing other shuffling mums, giving them a knowing nod as I went. Everyone looked as shocked as I imagined I did. From behind my curtain I could hear David talking, and the unmistakable shrill of my mother-in-law. The dulcet tones of the midwife interrupted them and I paused outside, steeling myself before I went back to my reality.

  ‘What I mean is, when will she look normal?’ David asked.

  There was a pause. ‘She’s just had a baby; things don’t simply bounce back,’ said the midwife. ‘Not to mention a nasty knock on the head.’

  My hand went up to the large red bump on my forehead and I touched it gingerly. It stung, still tender and raw. I could feel the stubbly patch of hair where they had cut it to make way for the stitches.

  ‘But she still looks like she’s pregnant.’

  ‘Yes, that’s normal.’

  ‘I can’t go out with her looking like that.’

  ‘The two of you have a newborn baby to look after. I doubt you’ll be going far,’ said the midwife. I almost laughed.

  ‘What my son is trying to say,’ said my mother-in-law, ‘is she doesn’t look like she used to, and he is wondering when she might be back to her former self.’

  ‘She’s an embarrassment,’ David blustered.

  I felt blood rush to my face, and a lump form in my throat. My hands went protectively to the flabby mess where my baby used to be. Tears prickled but I pushed them down, deep into the bottom of my mind where those feelings went, where I was accustomed to hiding them so nobody could see.

  Having heard enough, I pulled the curtain open.

  ‘Better?’ said the midwife, slightly too loudly.

  ‘Yes, much, thank you,’ I replied. David quickly handed Johnny back to me as I tried to pull myself onto the bed. Things become a lot harder without stomach muscles. I noticed that in my absence the sheets had been changed, and everything was looking much less sweaty. David picked up his BlackBerry.

  ‘I must be off, I’m late already,’ he said. ‘Mother will look after you, won’t you, Mother?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, her smile slow to catch up with her words.

  ‘Actually,’ the midwife said, ‘you’ll need to come back later. Visiting hours for non-parents are between one and three p.m.’

  Maggie was ushered away, and I could hear her arguing long after she had left the ward. The midwife returned and helped me and Johnny into bed.

  ‘Don’t worry, love, we’ll let you see your mum when she arrives.’

  ‘My mum?’ I said. ‘No, she won’t be coming. She’s dead.’

  The midwife looked at me for a long time. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay, it was a long time ago.’

  She put her hand on my arm. ‘I’ll go get you another cup of tea,’ she said. ‘And maybe a chocolate biscuit. Just don’t tell anyone.’ She smiled.

  I nodded and the curtain was pulled back around us. I looked down at Johnny, and he opened his eyes slowly and looked at me.

  ‘It’s just you and me, little man,’ I said quietly. ‘Just you and me.’

  3

  On a Tuesday I do the laundry, piles and piles of laundry. I bleach and I soak. I wash and I dry. I line up the freshly washed towels in the cupboard, all precise, all neat, all just right. I iron, great piles of shirts and polo shirts, and hang them in the wardrobe, all the right way, neatly spaced and ready for the days ahead. I check his suits for stains, send them to the dry cleaner’s and collect the ones I dropped off last week. I sew on buttons and mend trouser hems that have fallen down with David’s lack of attention. Everything all ready for him to get up and put on in the morning, to create the image of the powerful businessman we all know he is.

  David doesn’t wear T-shirts, he considers them too sloppy. He only owns one pair of jeans, preferring chinos and tailored trousers at the weekend. He tells me, ‘Always be aware of the image you are presenting. Always on, always ready.’ I am ready for nothing, in my tracksuit trousers and stained T-shirt.

  I stop now, in the middle of my ironing, and look at myself in the mirror. A strange face stares back. A face devoid of make-up, slightly red from the steam
, grey pallor and black bags under my eyes. I can still see the place on my forehead where the stitches used to be, a faint white line sneaking down past my hairline. Long mousy-brown hair, needing a cut. A fringe half grown out, scraped back from my face with a tatty black hairband. Long gone are the regular trims and colours from days of old. Scraggy eyebrows, blue eyes, reasonably long eyelashes, could do with a bit of mascara. A few freckles hanging on from the summer, tan long departed.

  ‘Annie Sullivan,’ I say to myself in the mirror, depressed at what I see. ‘Look at the state of you.’

  For a moment I think back to the time when I was described as cute. Petite, delicate, carefully styled hair, a bit of make-up, natural. Cute. Attractive men would smile at me in the supermarket, with my hand basket and meals for one. My colleagues would flirt with me, women would confide in me, cosying up for chats in the ladies’. Now, people would stay away, nobody would give me a second glance.

  A brisk knock on the door diverts my attention. I put down the shirt I am still holding, and carefully place the iron on its end, where it lets out a great plume of steam. I am not expecting any visitors, not today, not any day for that matter. Before opening the door, I briefly glance upstairs to where Johnny lies napping. Everything is quiet; I have a few more moments of peace before he wakes and demands my attention.

  A woman stands on my doorstep. At first I don’t recognise her, buried in hat, scarf and a coat pulled up to her ears. Outside it is raining, big heavy droplets of sleet, and a few of the icicles rest on her grey woolly hat. She pulls it off and thrusts a pink envelope towards me.

  ‘Helen?’ I stutter. ‘What are you doing here?’ I haven’t seen her in years, and the surprise of seeing the mother of my best friend, now ex-best friend, instantly regresses me to my childhood.

  She waves the envelope again and I take it, holding it between two fingers like a bomb that might explode. The handwriting on the envelope is heart-stoppingly familiar, large fat bubble letters forming my name.

  ‘Becca wanted you to have it.’ She scowls. ‘I don’t know why, after … Anyway, I wanted to give it to you personally. See you face to face.’

  Her grey hair is shorter, her ample bosom hidden under a layer of warm coat, but I can tell by the look on her face that she hasn’t changed. She is looking at me in the same way she would look at me then: when I had done something wrong, something I knew I shouldn’t have, and she was disappointed in me.

  ‘Would you like to come in?’ I ask tentatively, when a hug isn’t forthcoming.

  ‘No.’ She is abrupt and goes to leave, then turns back to face me. ‘How could you shut her out like that? After everything she has done for you. After everything we have done?’

  I look at the envelope again, confused. ‘I haven’t heard from Becca in years.’

  She studies me, her blue-grey eyes taking in my flushed face, the scraggy hair, the messy T-shirt and trousers. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

  ‘I never liked it when you lied, Annabelle,’ she spat, ‘but you do it so easily. I rather hoped you had changed, but obviously not.’ She walks back to her car, keys in hand, then turns before she climbs in. ‘If that’s how you’re going to be, then stay away. Becca is better off without you.’ I watch as she slams the door, starts the engine and heads off down the road, out of sight.

  I close the front door, and lean back against the wall, feeling a lump form in my throat. I turn the envelope over and open it, pulling out a party invitation, pink and glittery, covered in cartoon animals: an invitation to a first birthday party.

  It’s Becca’s handwriting, those childish round bubbles of letters, filling in just my name, and the date and address. Her address has changed, and seemingly so has everything else. She’s had a baby; she is a mum now, like me. I always imagined us being pregnant together, comparing notes, swapping baby names, mutual sympathy for the aches and pains. We used to spend every waking moment joined at the hip, Helen looking after me as naturally as she would an adopted child, so it seemed inevitable that we would do all of that together too. But I have missed it. Those moments have gone.

  I knew Becca was mad at me, and it made sense Helen would be too – she is her mother after all – but the strength of her anger has taken me by surprise. I feel eleven again, told off by Helen for skipping school, or fourteen, receiving a look of disapproval for shoplifting a nail varnish. But that was then: I was no more than a child, silly and foolish.

  This time, I am an adult. I am grown-up and responsible, and I am standing crying in my hallway. And this time, I have no idea what I have done so very wrong.

  4

  Wednesday, and more washing. On a Wednesday I wash and change both beds, mine and David’s. It’s been a while since we slept in the same place. Now it’s only when he wants something, and even then I’ll crawl back to my own bed when I know he’s safely asleep, my job done and my husband satisfied.

  I take the sheets off, put them on to wash, then into the tumble dryer and back on before David gets home. White and pristine, all ready for him to drop coffee on, dribble on the pillowcases and leave great yellow marks I have to soak to get white again.

  Today, before the sheets go back on my bed, Johnny and I make a den. The back of a chair, the edge of the radiator and the top of the bed are our walls, and we climb under, lying beneath the blanket of white. It sags – it’s a poor effort – but it’s strangely relaxing, being cut off from the rest of the world. I lie on my back, staring up at the blank space, my mind drifting, while Johnny lines up his favourite animals – Dog, Duck, Teddy and Rabbit – and talks to them, half garbled rubbish and the odd word I recognise. I hide my face outside the den and peek round, causing him to laugh hysterically at the disappearing and reappearing Mummy. I envy the simplicity of his life and his eagerness to laugh. His joy is infectious. I tickle his ribs and he cackles, his mouth open wide, soft, perfect hands pushing me away.

  After a while, we settle down on pillows captured from above, and I grab a book. I roll over and lie on my front, him sitting next to me, Rabbit clutched under one arm. We are warm and cosy, the rain peppering the windowpane, sky overcast, and I feel Johnny’s eyes on me as I read. It is a book he knows; he is waiting for the final word of each line.

  ‘Whoosh,’ I say.

  ‘They gone,’ he finishes. He nods and turns the page.

  ‘Coo-ee! Anyone home?’

  Johnny looks at me, confused. I sigh.

  ‘Dragon?’ Johnny says, gesturing towards the page.

  ‘How right you are,’ I mutter.

  I hear footsteps on the stairs. ‘Up here, Maggie,’ I shout back, closing the book slowly and shuffling out of the den. I emerge as Maggie pokes her head round the door.

  ‘My! What’s going on here?’

  Maggie is wearing a light grey jumper, white blouse, collar poking over the top, and a string of neat shiny pearls. Camel-coloured … slacks? I’m not sure how else to describe them, with brown slip-on leather shoes. Her hair is a perfect grey helmet of rigid waves, held in place with a small silver clip behind each ear.

  ‘Doesn’t look like much laundry is getting done.’

  I pull myself up and kneel in front of her before getting to my feet. Johnny still hasn’t emerged from the den.

  ‘All finished, Maggie,’ I say.

  ‘You’re going to need to do them again,’ she comments with a wave of her hand at the sheets. ‘Cup of tea,’ she says, an instruction rather than an offer.

  She turns and I hear her precise footsteps as she goes downstairs, carefully placing one foot next to the other on the step before moving onto the next. Slow, measured, exact.

  I crouch down at the entrance of the den. Johnny is sitting inside, the book in his lap, turning the pages one by one, looking at the pictures.

  ‘Johnny, sweetie, we need to go downstairs and see Grandma Maggie.’

  He looks at me sternly, all trace of laughter vanished. ‘No,’ he says succinctly and goes back to his book.
I wish I could join him.

  I sigh. ‘We’re going downstairs now.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Johnny, I’m not going to tell you again.’

  He looks up and assesses my face. Deciding I mean business, he puts the book down, already showing characteristics I know I will recognise when he is a stroppy teenager.

  We shuffle out and the sheet collapses in a tangled heap. I throw it on my bed, knowing it probably won’t get made until I’m worn out at the end of the day, all my chores done.

  ‘Carry,’ Johnny demands, holding his arms out to me, his final rebellion. I pick him up, feeling his arms go round my neck and chubby fingers grab my hair. I stop for a moment at the top of the stairs and put my nose into his neck, inhaling his scent. He smells of laundry powder, his shampoo and the bolognese from lunchtime. He smells of me and where we live, individual and unmistakable.

  ‘You indulge that boy,’ Maggie states when we get downstairs and I put Johnny back down on the floor. ‘How’s he going to grow up to be a man when you treat him like a child?’

  ‘He’s two, Maggie. He has plenty of time to become a man.’

  She is sitting on the sofa, hands neatly folded in her lap, handbag to her side. Johnny takes one look at her and makes a dash for freedom towards his playroom.

  I go into the kitchen to make her Earl Grey. The proper cup and saucer from the carefully lined rows on the shelf – a wedding present from Maggie and David Senior only a few years ago, rarely used and a pain to dust. I turn the cup gently, the handle to the right-hand side.

  The kettle clicks off and I pour boiling water onto Maggie’s tea bag. I stop a centimetre from the top of the cup. I cut a lemon in half and divide a slice into two, removing the pip and placing the slice neatly on the side of the saucer with a teaspoon. I pour milk into a tiny jug and put it with the cup and my own mug of builder’s tea, strong and toxic, on a tray, taking it through to the living room where Maggie is still sitting immobile.