Page 4 of Wife After Wife

Katie’s family had attended Henry’s funeral, and there she saw Harry, almost eighteen years old, shattered by the loss of his parents and brother. He’d turned his sad, deep blue eyes on her, and she was lost.

Sometimes she wondered if it was a sound basis for a relationship. “Are you sure you’re not a mother substitute?” a friend had said at thetime. She’d spent the summer of 1981, before Harry went up to Oxford, coaxing him back to life, getting him to talk about his feelings (not something he was used to doing), until the hurt began to dull, that devastating smile reappeared, and the easy charm resurfaced. And as it had, she allowed the attraction that had been building to see the light of day.

She’d been a lot older than him, but Harry was tall and broad-shouldered, could pass for twenty-one or twenty-two, while she’d looked younger than her twenty-three years, being tiny and favoring the ubiquitous Lady Di hairdo and frilly collars.

Having had a sweet, celibate relationship with Art, and no boyfriends since, Katie had been poleaxed by the strength of feeling that swept through her each time she met up with this beautiful, damaged boy, all at once appalled and excited by the emotions and physical goings-on that overtook her.

“KATIE!”

“Sorry... what?” She’d zoned out again.

“I said, shall we walk to the pub?”

“I... want... my...” sang Sting as Dire Straits readied to rock.

“Oh, I like this one,” said Katie. “Why don’t we stay here and I’ll cook us something. They don’t have a TV in the pub. Thank goodness, actually. Dreadful trend.”

But as the crowd rocked along to “Money for Nothing,” Katie wondered if watching it on TV was just reminding Harry of what a good time Charles would be having without him.

“OK, we can go to the pub if you want.”

Trouble was, she knew what would happen. After several weeks in this village, they now knew many of the regulars, and she’d sit there, uncomfortably wedged behind a table, sipping her sad little orange juice while Harry downed pints of Hook Norton ale and yarned with the locals. It wasn’t his fault; people just liked being around Harry, and in a village you couldn’t be unsociable. In lessexpectanttimes she’d gladly have joined in, but right now she couldn’t work up the energy.

To the villagers, who’d never known her sans bump, she was just amum-to-be. Sometimes she’d chat with a wife or girlfriend, but the older ones only wanted to share their childbirth stories, which were invariably terrifying. Did she really need to hear yet again that it was like trying to poo a watermelon? Why did women assume that just because you had a baby bump, you wanted to hear their own grisly experiences?

They’d say, “No one tells you how hard motherhood is, you’re just expected to know what to do.” Actually, no.Everyonehad told her how hard it is.

Harry must have read her mind. He moved back to the sofa, put one arm around her shoulders, and gently stroked her bump.

“Sorry, I can see you’re knackered.” The softness in his eyes banished the negative thoughts. “Why would you want to sit in a smoky pub sipping a boring drink while your husband talks rugby with Farmer Thing from Thing Farm?” He kissed her hair, then rested his head on hers. “How about a takeaway? Chinese? Probably not Indian.”

“Actually, they say a strong curry can bring on labor,” said Katie. “And right now, I’d like to get it over with and drink a cider down the pub without taking up space for four people.”

But that wasn’t strictly true. As Harry fetched his car keys, she knew that if she could freeze time, she’d probably do so right now.

“If you hurry, you’ll be back in time for Queen,” she called. And then sang to herself, “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?”

CHAPTER 3

Harry

The baby was stillborn. A girl.

They called her Summer, in memory of those July days, when time had slowed and a languid torpor had settled over the cottage.

Already it felt like a lifetime ago.

Harry let himself in the front door and was met by a silence louder than any of the background sounds he’d grown used to, most often the tinny chatter of Radio 4 on the little set Katie took with her as she puttered around the cottage. He’d made fun of her premature middle age, but now he flicked on the red transistor sitting by the kettle, grateful as the evening news filled the kitchen.

Katie had gone to stay with her parents over in Gloucestershire. Germaine had insisted, and one didn’t argue with Katie’s formidable stepmother. It was probably for the best. Katie had been inconsolable, and all Harry had been able to do those first few days was hold her tight and cry with her. He was fairly sure Germaine didn’t consider male tears at all helpful.

His mother-in-law had swept into the hospital room, shooing away a grief counselor, on a mission to move things on. She’d organized Summer’s funeral, told Harry he needed to be strong for her daughter, and prescribed some time away from anything that would remind her of the baby she’d lost. Including Harry, it seemed.

“Of course it’s the most terrible thing, my darlings,” she’d said, “but there will be more babies; you’re young and healthy, one must move on. Chin up and all that.”

Harry thought Katie should be allowed plenty more chin-down days. But with a stiff smile he’d come home and packed up the denim booties, the clothes, blankets, mobiles, all the clobber they’d amassed since he’d graduated, sealing everything into cardboard boxes. Now they sat, together with the dismantled cot, in the smallest upstairs bedroom. Along with the baby things, he’d attempted to pack away his own grief, together with that for his mother, brother, and father.

He unloaded a bag of shopping onto the kitchen worktop, stabbed the lid of a meal-for-one with a fork, and put it in the microwave, turning up the radio so he could hear the news above the hum. He chuckled as the newsreader reported that production of the Sinclair C5 was to cease, as sales had been “disappointingly slow.” Slow? Harry had been keeping an eye on Sinclair’s invention and knew only a few thousand had been sold since its glitzy launch. The British media—and every bloke in every pub across the land—had pronounced the little electric vehicle ridiculous, so it had never stood a chance.