The second wives club, p.5
The Second Wives Club, page 5
“So what did you do?” Fiona directed the question at Julia, who had now given up trying to attract the attention of the waitress and had turned back to face them. “Come on, spill the beans.”
Julia pursed her lips disapprovingly for a few seconds, reluctant to admit to a moment of weakness. But then she remembered their motto, “What’s said at the club, stays in the club,” and she broke out into a broad smile.
“Oh, what the hell.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “When the stupid cow was paying for the shoes, I noticed she had written her name and address on the store’s mailing list. So I took a peek and memorized it.”
She paused for dramatic effect, noting with great satisfaction that Alison had the expectant look of someone waiting to be told whether the ticket she’d mistakenly put through the wash was valid enough to secure a lottery win.
“I then spent a hugely enjoyable afternoon on the phone, requesting leaflets on her behalf from Viagra suppliers, impotence help lines, genital wart cures, and S&M mail-order catalogs.”
There was an eerie silence for a couple of beats, then Fiona clapped her hands and burst out laughing. “Inspired! Truly inspired. I got the M&S catalog the other day—that wasn’t from you, was it?”
“Well, I am dyslexic,” Julia purred truthfully. “And you know what that means…never having to say you’re syrro.”
Fiona and Susan groaned loudly while Alison simply looked confused, painfully unused to Julia’s politically incorrect humor.
Attracted by the noise, the gormless waitress finally materialized at their side, order book poised at the ready.
After she’d gone, Julia smoothed down her skirt and rested her elbows on the table. “Anyway, that was just a bit of harmless fun on my part. Hardly on a par with storming a wedding and dragging your kids away.”
Fiona nodded. “True. But, Julia, may I humbly suggest that until you actually have children of your own, you won’t understand the deep feelings motherhood stirs up. It’s a protection thing.”
Julia made a small scoffing noise. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. If a child is trapped under a car, a mother will find the power to lift it. But kicking up a scene about her kids being page boys? That’s nothing to do with protection and everything to do with her bitterness. She can’t move on.”
Susan laid a hand on Alison’s forearm, indicating that she was about to speak. “Am I right in thinking she didn’t know about the wedding?”
Alison, still feeling a little intimidated by Julia, was grateful for the softer approach. “Yes.” She smiled nervously. “I thought the boys were there with her permission, but I found out that Luca had kept the entire thing a secret and told her he was taking them to the park.”
“Well, that’s why she was pissed off, because she’d been lied to about her own children.” Susan directed the remark at Julia, who was slowly shaking her head.
“I’ll bet she’d been lied to for the simple reason that…Luca, is it?” Julia looked at Alison, who nodded, “…knew full well that if he’d asked her permission, she would have rather marinated her own eyeballs in vegetable oil than give it. Am I right?”
Unsure about the vegetable oil bit, Alison winced slightly before speaking. “Yes. We’ve been together just under three years now, and the boys have only been out with us a handful of times, mostly at the start of our relationship, when they were very young.”
“And unable to report back to their mother,” Julia interjected. “I’ll bet you as soon as they came home and uttered the words ‘nice lady Alison,’ it was curtains.” She drew a finger across the front of her throat.
“Got it in one.” Alison smiled ruefully. “Luca mostly sees them on his own these days.”
The starters arrived at the table. A Caesar salad minus dressing or croutons for Julia—in other words, a bowl of lettuce—chicken soup for Alison, and two portions of prosciutto con melone for Fiona and Susan. They started to tuck in.
“Right.” Fiona used her little finger to wipe away a small blob of cranberry from the corner of her mouth. “Let’s officially open the meeting, shall we? Alison, as you’re new to the club, let me explain that its purpose is simply for second wives to get together and let off steam.”
Julia made the high-pitched noise of a whistling kettle and grinned broadly.
“It came to life six months ago,” Fiona continued, “not long after Susan and I met at the local swimming pool with our kids in tow. We got to talking, rapidly established that we were both with men who had been married before, and bingo! We soon came to look forward to our meetings, just so we could let off steam.” She looked to Susan for confirmation.
“We did indeed. The only difference is that I’m not married to Nick…we just live together,” said Susan apologetically. “So I’m an honorary member of the club, if you like.”
“A founding honorary member,” corrected Fiona. “And about four months ago she brought Julia along, so then we were three.”
“I came up with the concept and name for the club,” said Julia proudly. “Before that we were just three women whining with no purpose.”
“Purpose?” Alison looked baffled. “Is there a purpose to the club then?”
“Not as such, no.” Fiona pursed her lips. “It’s just a bit of therapy for us all, really, a chance to get first-wife issues off our chest. After witnessing Sofia in full flight at the wedding, I felt you might need a little support, and if you ever meet anyone else who you feel is a deserving candidate for membership, do bring them along.”
“Thanks, I will.”
“So.” Fiona looked at Susan. “Why don’t you start?”
“Um, well, dare I say it’s not been a bad couple of weeks for me, but that’s probably because Caitlin’s parents haven’t been to stay for the past couple of weekends. They’re coming this Saturday, so no doubt I’ll have plenty to moan about next time.”
Alison looked puzzled. “Who’s Caitlin?”
“Nick’s wife.”
“Has their divorce not been finalized yet?” Alison looked confused.
Susan had just popped an extra-large slice of prosciutto into her mouth. She swallowed hard. “I should explain. Caitlin died of a brain hemorrhage four years ago…”
Alison clamped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, that’s terrible.”
“Yes, it is.” Even now, Susan felt she might cry. “She and Nick had a daughter, Ellie, who’s nearly six and, quite understandably, Caitlin’s parents adore her…. It’s very hard for them, as Caitlin was their only child.”
“It must be hard for you too, though.” Alison’s eyes were full of compassion. “That’s a tough situation to be in.”
“Yes.” Susan nodded emphatically. “Hardest of all is that I feel I can never moan about my lot because there’s always someone in the background, i.e., Caitlin, who died. So the only place I can really talk about my feelings and not feel guilty about it…is here.” She gestured at the others.
Julia poked a finger in the air. “Well, if you haven’t had a bad week, then get off the pot and let me do an almighty shit in it. Because I am just one Valium away from sending Deborah a funeral wreath, then gunning her down on the front step when she opens the door to accept it.”
“That bad, huh?” Fiona shot Alison a look that intimated Julia was prone to exaggeration. “What’s she done now?”
“I can hardly bring myself to tell you,” Julia said dramatically, pushing her half-eaten dish of lettuce to one side. “She cut James’s hair.”
There was silence for a few moments.
“Is that it?” said Susan finally, voicing what everyone was secretly thinking.
“Excuse me?” Julia placed a palm flat against her chest in indignation. “I have a husband whose haircut makes Oscar the Grouch look like Orlando Bloom and you ask me if that’s it?”
Susan wrinkled her nose. “What, he’s got green hair?”
Julia raised her eyes heavenward. “No, it’s just a hideously unattractive cut. I mean, name me another man who stops off on his way home from work so his ex-wife can cut his hair?”
She looked defiantly around the table, everyone shaking their heads to indicate that, no, none of their husbands ever did anything like that.
“It could be worse, I suppose.” Alison ventured a lone, brave voice, on account of the fact that she did not know Julia as well as the others, who were wisely staying silent.
“No…Alison, wasn’t it?” Julia fixed her with an icy glare. “It could not be worse. I’m doing my absolute best to make my marriage work, and all the time I have this drab leech hanging around, sucking the lifeblood out of it.”
“Sorry,” Alison simpered slightly. “Now you put it like that…”
Fiona smiled benevolently. “Julia, you’re tall, slim, extremely beautiful, and nobody’s fool. If, as you say, she’s a drab little thing, why let her get to you? Rise above it.”
“Easier said than done.” Julia took a brush from her bag and ran it through her hair, ignoring the fact that Susan was still plowing her way through the last vestiges of her starter. “I don’t for one minute think he’d go back to her, but their continued contact is very undermining.”
“Inevitable, though, when children are involved.” It was Alison again, and the others winced slightly at her misinterpretation. But Julia took it better than they anticipated.
“That’s just it,” she said. “There aren’t any children involved. James chooses to stay in contact with Deborah simply because he…well…likes her.”
“Oh, I see.”
“You see my predicament?” Julia laid a hand over Alison’s, seeking an understanding. “All of you around this table have husbands who have to stay in touch with their exes or their family, for the sake of the children. But I…I…have a husband who hangs around with his ex for no other reason than he finds her company pleasurable. It’s a curse, it really is.” She stopped speaking and stared off into the middle distance of the café, as if holding a moment’s silence for the death of reason.
But the effect was lost amid the clatter of plates as the waitress arrived with the main courses.
“Fish?” She held the plate aloft.
Susan, Alison, and Fiona all shook their heads.
“Fish?” she repeated louder, aiming her words at the side of Julia’s head.
“Did you order fish?” asked Alison, tapping Julia’s shoulder.
Julia snapped out of her reverie and focused on the offering being held in front of her. “I ordered Dover sole.”
“As I said,” the waitress intoned defiantly. “Fish.” She placed the plate in front of Julia and turned on her heel back toward the kitchen.
Susan watched her go with bemusement, then turned back to the table. “Fiona, how are things with you?”
“Oooh, now there’s a question.” She grimaced slightly. “Not much to report, really, except that Jake nearly killed Lily.”
Her throwaway remark hung in the air for a couple of seconds until it computed with the others, and they began spluttering instantaneously on impact.
“Whaaaaat?” Susan looked horrified. “You’re kidding, right?”
Fiona shrugged. “Not really.”
She spent the next five minutes bringing them up to speed on the events following her return from Alison and Luca’s wedding, right up to the point that she and David had ended up in separate bedrooms.
“Jesus,” muttered Julia. “And I thought I had problems. Thank God James doesn’t have any children.”
“Have you spoken to Jake since?” Susan extracted a piece of particularly sinewy steak from between her front teeth.
Fiona shook her head. “No, I still can’t bring myself to. David has, but then he was never angry with him in the first place. I suppose I should, you know, rise above it…” She petered out, clearly unconvinced by her own suggestion now that it pertained to her own life.
“Bollocks to that,” scoffed Julia. “Jake’s sixteen, not six. He was totally in the wrong, and David’s doing everyone a disservice if he’s pretending otherwise.”
“I guess so.” Fiona shrugged and gave an expression of hopelessness. “But I do feel dreadful for having struck him.”
“Why?” It was Julia again. “He deserved it. All that nonsense about never hitting a child in anger. When are you supposed to do it, Christmas Day when they’re thanking you for their presents?”
Fiona sighed. “Anyway, I don’t think an apology will be forthcoming, so eventually I’ll just have to get on with it.”
Neither Susan nor Julia contradicted her, knowing from previous conversations that Jake was a law unto himself.
“Funny, isn’t it?” mused Fiona. “We spend the first two years of our children’s lives teaching them to walk and talk, then the next sixteen telling them to sit down and shut up. I now know why some animals eat their young.”
“Perhaps I’m lucky that Paolo and Giorgio aren’t allowed to stay over,” said Alison. Noting Julia’s blank look, she added: “They’re Luca’s sons.”
Fiona smiled but shook her head. “I appreciate why you might say that, but you’re wrong. However much of a pain in the arse Jake is—and believe me, he really is—I still want him to be a strong presence in mine and David’s life.”
“Really?” Julia looked incredulous. “Why?”
Fiona gave a wry smile. “Because if he wasn’t, it would mean that a huge part of my husband’s life was closed off in his life with me. And that would never do.”
She looked imploringly around the table. “If his only son wasn’t a part of our life, if I made it difficult for them to have a relationship—whatever problems he causes between us—what kind of a marriage would we have?”
“A much safer, happier one by the sound of it,” said Julia, stirring her mint tea. “I’m afraid I’d cast the little shit out into the wilderness.”
“There speaks the earth mother.” Susan laughed. The others joined in, including Julia herself.
“Seriously, though.” Fiona directed her gaze toward Alison. “You really must insist that Luca stand up to Sofia about the boys staying over. Because if you don’t, then it will become the accepted norm. Allowances have to be made, of course, but your marriage should be the central relationship now. If you allow the old broken one to call the shots, you’re in a no-win situation.”
Alison nodded slowly. “Thanks for that advice. I’ll do my best. In fact, I should probably address the issue sooner rather than later.” She held her wineglass in the air. “Sofia, watch out.”
“Attagirl!” Julia banged her cup of mint tea against it. “Here’s to second wives ruling the roost.”
“Don’t we all wish.” Fiona laughed.
take a divorce letter,
miss jones
Alison padded quietly from the bed through to the spacious bathroom of their hotel suite at the trendy Babington House Hotel in Somerset, an antidote to a particularly stressful week throughout which Sofia had outdone herself in her attempts to disrupt their life. “You don’t know a woman until you’ve met her in court,” Alison’s father, Alasdair, had once told her, and his words now resonated loud and clear.
The assault had started on Monday morning with the arrival of yet another lawyer’s letter, stressing that unless Luca increased his monthly payments by another £400, Sofia wouldn’t be able to cope and would have no alternative but to return to court. Luca ran his own telecommunications business and was, by most people’s standards, well off. But his bank account wasn’t—as Sofia seemed to think—a bottomless well. There were two sets of school fees to pay, two large mortgages, and Sofia’s “living” expenses, which, much to Alison’s annoyance, seemed to include regular visits to Gucci, Chanel, and a very expensive private health club. So the thought of yet more money going in Sofia’s direction was galling in the extreme.
“Refuse to pay it,” she’d said to Luca as he sat, head in hands, after reading the letter. “The court will probably back you up and keep the payments as they are.”
Luca had sighed, such a long, deep expiration that Alison feared he might not have any air left in his body. “No point,” he’d said wearily. “Even if it went to court and, as you say, they did see my point of view, the legal fees to get to that stage would probably make it counterproductive. I may as well just cough it up. You’re right, I don’t have to agree, but it will be a lot quicker and a lot cheaper in the long run.”
“But when will it stop? Will she be happily dipping into your bank account for the rest of our lives?” Alison kept her voice reasonable, but inside she felt like shouting the words with all the force of someone trying to protect another from an oncoming train.
“I’m afraid that’s what happens when you have children with someone.” Luca had shrugged. “We always knew it was going to be like this. That’s the price you and I pay for being together.”
Alison didn’t disagree that there was a price to pay, she just didn’t see why it should be such an iniquitously high one. The marriages of the other second wives didn’t seem to have such an unreasonable blot on their landscape. Nevertheless, she said nothing.
Tuesday had passed by without incident. Then, on Wednesday, just half an hour before Luca and Alison were due to leave for a dinner with Patricia, a friend of Alison’s from work, and her husband, the phone had rung. Alison answered.
“Get me Luca,” barked the voice on the other end. It was Sofia, as usual devoid of any pleasantries whenever she encountered her successor.
Alison grimaced and stuck her tongue out at the receiver. Childish, she knew, but it made her feel better.
“It’s Cruella de Ville for you.” She gently threw the hands-free phone to Luca as he emerged from the bathroom, towel-drying his hair.
For the next few minutes she busied herself getting ready but kept one ear locked into their conversation, trying as always to guess what was being said on the other end and what latest problem of Sofia’s making was about to jump up and bite them.
“Okay, I’ll be around in half an hour,” she heard Luca say before ending the call and replacing the handset on its cradle by the bed.
