His Perfect Wife Read online

“Maybe it’s not,” Paula said, stifling a yawn. “It’s for the public and critics to decide. But that’s an interesting thing too, because as far as I’m aware no artist to date has done anything quite despicable enough to provoke a unanimous outcry. I imagine at some point someone will push the boundaries that bit too far and someone will have to turn around and say: ‘Enough! This is no longer art.’ But as soon as they say that, I suppose it will go down in the history books as the ultimate piece of art.”

  “So there are no limits?” Marc said, thinking about Pip’s questions about morality and art. Had I told her about Amelia, described this piece? “What about as a human being? Art can’t just trump pain and feelings and empathy. Alex would never have accepted that. How could she be friends with this woman?”

  Paula sighed. “I don’t know. Look, Marc, it’s late and I’m conjecturing off the top of my head. Can we continue this tomorrow?”

  “Of course,” he said, wincing at his insensitivity. “Sorry, thank you, sorry!”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Paula said. She hesitated, then added, “Marc, I’m worried about you. Maybe you should give the letters a rest for a bit.”

  Marc hung up and sank back into his pillows, trying to make sense of Paula’s justifications and wondering if he should take her advice. He tried to imagine what I would have contributed to the conversation. He pictured me laughing at his old-fashioned views of what constituted art, but he couldn’t imagine me condoning Amelia’s actions. He knew me as a friend. I was loyal and trustworthy. I bent over backward not to renege on my word. He wanted to know how I replied to this letter, whether I felt reservations in congratulating my friend on her latest success, why I’d never mentioned this piece to him. He lay awake for a long time before reaching for his phone. “Amelia Heldt friendship piece” brought up a dozen reviews of varying enthusiasm. One had a photograph of and a quote from the agent, naming her as Serena Graves, Gallerist. A few more clicks brought up a professional profile. Without thinking too much about his motives or the consequences, Marc sent a short email mentioning me and Amelia and asking her to get in touch. As dawn approached, he fell into a fitful sleep, his dreams tormented by yapping terriers and sobbing women.

  * * *

  “I have something for you.”

  He looks different. Expectant.

  “Aren’t you curious?” he says.

  I try to keep my face still. The backs of my eyes prickle. My tongue scrapes on the roof of my mouth.

  He hands me a folded newspaper clipping.

  I smooth out the crease and look at an inky picture of six schoolchildren holding certificates. Second to the left is my daughter. She’s taller than the boy next to her. She’s shot up. And her face is thinner, those chubby cheeks smoothing over the bones. Her smile is the same, though. My baby grinning out at me. I read the caption. She got a silver in the Junior Math Challenge, placed in the national top fifty.

  “Clever little Lizzie,” he says and I want to scrub the name from his lips.

  I place my finger over her face, try to picture how I would have congratulated her. I can’t hold back my tears.

  “You can’t keep it, I’m afraid,” he says.

  I look up. “Why not?”

  He just stares at me, that patiently patronizing look, as if the rules of this place—his rules—are obvious.

  2005

  11/3/05

  Al!

  How are you? How are Marc and the girls? Is Charlotte letting you sleep yet? I’m sorry your mom’s getting so much worse. I know your feelings about her are complex, but you really don’t owe her anything, you know? You have every right to prioritize yourself, even now. Especially now.

  Congratulations on Marc’s promotion. I guess that’s kind of a big deal for him. You’re good to be such a supportive wife. Behind every great man and all that…Seriously, you are a supportive wife. I know you doubt yourself, I know you think Marc’s some saintly being who’s just the most brilliant dad while you’re fumbling around getting everything wrong, but you’re better than you think, Al. As a wife, as a mother, as a teacher, as a friend.

  There’s a class being taught about me, can you believe it? Not just me, of course, but my work in context with some other modern performance artists. Can you picture our old professors doling out handouts with my name at the top, analyzing my performances from whatever perspective? It almost makes me feel like an adult, you know, a proper artist. Not really, though.

  The piece I just set up is totally childish. A little gallery in Chelsea asked me to do something for them and I really had no ideas. I had, like, four days before I was flying out of New York and I had to come up with something. I was staying in a hotel uptown. I’d decided to explore the city from a tourist’s perspective, you know? Stay in a hotel, strap my camera to my neck and get in line for the Empire State Building, hop the Staten Island Ferry, find inspiration somewhere along the way.

  But I caught this terrible fever and woke up on that first morning feeling like death. I ordered room service and stayed in bed watching cable. So, I watched, like, three days of trash reality TV. On the fourth day I still felt hideous, but I had to summon the energy to talk to the gallery people. I had nothing, not a single idea in my cotton-candy head. So I pick up the phone and they’re all like, “Dahling this, Dahling that,” and I was like, Jeez, I’m dealing with this type. But I opened my mouth and this bullshit idea came pouring out. I told them I wanted to put a rifle up in the roof (they’ve got this high ceiling in the gallery and this gorgeous balcony around the perimeter), like properly stealth and serious-looking. The gallery visitors would be privately invited by an attendant, one at a time, to climb up to the spot and choose their victim. They’d be encouraged to aim at anyone in the gallery and pull the trigger, with no idea what would happen if they did. If they had the balls to do it, then the gun would rain down paper confetti on their victim. The piece would be called A Shot at Love and documented by hidden cameras. I blathered about making a social comment on the commodification of love and combining America’s gun worship with its embracement of the world of celebrity.

  I mean, shit, I was doped up on Tylenol, I could have been saying anything, but my head was pounding and I had the shivers and I just didn’t care. Anyway, those dumbfuck dahling types ate it up. They loved it, so the piece is going ahead. I felt like a student again, pulling something out of my ass at the last minute.

  I’m curious to see what it produces, though. One of the curators worried nobody would actually shoot the gun. I disagree. I think, deep down, we all have the ability to pull a trigger; we’re just looking to be told it’s okay.

  Anyway, my DAHLING, I’ll let you get back to your lovely life. Kiss the rugrats from Auntie Amelia, tell them how fabulous I am and that one day I’ll come and steal them away so they can live like artists in the much more fun New York.

  Love you!

  Am x

  THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2005

  I stepped through the front door and paused. Charlotte was asleep. I shook my arms from my coat, toed off my shoes and snuggled my feet into slippers. I picked Marc’s slippers from the floor, placed them on the radiator. I stroked Charlotte’s soft hair and headed for the kitchen. I filled the kettle, checked the clock. I had forty-five minutes before I needed to pick up Lizzie from the babysitter. Marc should be home in about an hour, two if he was going for a drink. If I turned on my phone, there’d probably be a message letting me know. I’d left my bag in the hall, though.

  I poured myself tea, cupped my hands around the mug to warm my fingers. I could make a start on dinner, plan something nice, set the table and light candles. I could lie on the sofa and make use of Charlotte’s nap to have one of my own. But time alone was rare. I lifted Char gently from her pram and carried her up to her cot. She stirred and gurgled but didn’t wake. I left the door open and stepped into the office. I sat down and
reached to the back of the middle drawer for Amelia’s last letter. I placed it on the keyboard and took a blank sheet of paper from Marc’s printer. I thought about New York and her latest gallery show, about the distance between being reviewed in The New York Times and wiping shit from the changing table. Amelia was filling in grant applications and being invited to parties. My life was listening to Lizzie’s jealous screams as Charlotte sucked my nipples raw. I picked up a pen, rolled it between my fingers a couple of times.

  I posted the letter on the way to the babysitter’s, stopped to buy a pizza from the supermarket on the way back. Lizzie had a tantrum in the dairy aisle because I wouldn’t let her out of the stroller. I reached down to soothe her and she bit my arm, leaving a neat circle of teeth marks on my skin.

  “You fucking little—” I found myself shouting before I could stop myself, then hurried to the checkout, aware of strangers’ stares. Marc was home by the time I wheeled the stroller through the door, Lizzie still screaming and pulling at the straps holding her in. Charlotte had kicked off her socks.

  “How was your day?” Marc said, kissing me on the lips before crouching down to release Lizzie. She calmed to a whimper in her daddy’s arms, nuzzling into his neck.

  I rolled my eyes. “Fine,” I said. “Char and I went to group, sang ‘Incy Wincy Spider’ several hundred times, took a walk along the river, cried at a goose. Pretty standard.”

  Marc laughed. “And what’s all this about?” he said into Lizzie’s hair. She let out a little moan.

  “I wouldn’t let her run around the supermarket, so she bit me,” I said, showing him my arm. This was so often how our evenings started: me relaying all the ways our daughter had tormented me, while she nuzzled, sweet as an angel, into Marc’s forgiving arms.

  “How was your day?” I said, attempting to shake my mood.

  “Well,” Marc said, lifting Lizzie to the ceiling and making her giggle through her tears. “It was pretty good actually. Richard has finally decided to retire at the end of this year. I spoke to the dean and he said he wants me to apply for head of department.”

  “Wow,” I said, stretching my cheeks into a smile. I dug inside for my “proud wife” performance, the one I’d perfected at faculty dinners, family occasions and every time Marc published a paper. Tonight, I’m going to be a woman who’s delighted her husband has a thriving career while she sits home with their children.

  I stepped over to kiss Marc. He shifted Lizzie to his hip and she leant away to watch as he reached his hand up to cup my cheek. I felt the slight roughness of the scar on his little finger, the jolt of a memory making me turn to our daughter. Her cheeks were still red from crying, but her mood had lifted and she looked sweet and adorable in Marc’s arm. What was wrong with me? This was great news. I was delighted for Marc, for both of us. I smiled at Lizzie and she smiled back. “That’s amazing,” I said, wondering what I could concoct that would be more celebratory than oven pizza for dinner, how I might properly congratulate Marc once the girls were in bed.

  “Samazing,” said Lizzie, making us both laugh.

  July

  Five Months Gone

  On Friday, July 26, Marc received news. He’d wanted and feared news for almost five months, but when it arrived he didn’t know how to categorize it. It fell into neither the good nor the bad pile, just the general heap of confusion that was his life.

  Nicola and DI Jones said little as he let them in and refused cups of tea for the first time since their original interviews back in February. He wondered if their visit had anything to do with the email he’d woken up to that morning. More than a month after he’d contacted her, he’d finally received a reply from Serena Graves. He’d read it multiple times, but still couldn’t make proper sense of it.

  Dear Mr. Southwood

  I kindly ask you respect my privacy and make no further contact with me regarding Amelia Heldt. I have already made the same request to the British police and was, therefore, distressed to be contacted by you as well. I have suffered a great deal at the hands of Amelia and I advise you to stay away from her. If your wife is involved with Amelia, then I feel sorry for both her and you. The woman is not to be trusted. She’s dangerous and I want nothing further to do with her or you.

  On the advice of my legal representative, I need to inform you that should you harass me further I will be taking legal action.

  Sincerely

  Serena Graves

  Marc perched on the sofa feeling foolish. Of course DI Jones would have got in touch with Serena Graves before him; it hadn’t exactly been hard to find her details. What other avenues had they already explored? Who else had they talked to? How much did they know that he didn’t?

  But DI Jones and Nicola weren’t there to talk about Serena. It took a while for what they were saying to make sense. Even once Marc had deciphered the meaning of each individual word, their sentences remained incomprehensible. But they showed him a copy of the death certificate, so it had to be true.

  My mother had been dead since 2007. She died in hospital, after being brought from her home. She did have dementia, but she didn’t live long enough for it to progress as far as I’d implied.

  “We discovered through a cross-referencing coincidence,” Nicola told him. “We made some inquiries at the beginning of the investigation, but had no reason to question the death that was reported this year.”

  An unrelated inquiry by a different jurisdiction, however, had cause to examine records at Bridport hospital. “By chance,” Nicola said, “one of the officers assigned to that case has recently moved from the North Yorkshire force. He was speaking to a nurse at Bridport hospital who brought up your wife’s case and asked if he’d worked on it. She said she was asking because she remembered meeting your wife when her mother was brought in. Our officer asked her if she was sure. She said she was certain and she remembered it because the name Carlisle stuck in her head because it was where she was from.”

  Nicola paused and DI Jones cut in impatiently: “The nurse dug out the records and they show Alexandra’s mother had a stroke on the seventh of April, 2007.”

  “I knew that already,” Marc said. He focused his attention on Nicola, but felt DI Jones’s eyes on him.

  “She died two days later,” Nicola said.

  Marc stared at the certificate. Nicola and DI Jones were silent. Marc wondered if they could read his thoughts. His skin felt hot.

  “What does this mean?” he said, eventually. He knew he should tell them about the letters, about the things he’d learned about my mother, about my scar. But, he rationalized, what difference would it make now? The woman was dead.

  DI Jones cleared his throat. “Are you positive Alexandra said her mother was alive?”

  “Of course,” Marc said, too fast, too defensive. “She went to visit her.”

  “How long ago was her last visit?” Nicola said.

  Marc frowned as what they’d told him finally sank in. I’d lied to him. Not just about my mother’s death—which frankly he didn’t care too much about—but about where I’d been going for almost six years.

  “It would really help if you could remember,” Nicola said gently.

  “December,” he said, his brain in emergency shutdown. “After term broke up but before Christmas. She spent five days with her.”

  Nicola and DI Jones exchanged a look.

  “It seems your wife wasn’t entirely honest with you.”

  Was Marc imagining it, or did DI Jones seem pleased? “She wouldn’t…” he began, but trailed off.

  “We don’t know what it means yet,” Nicola said. “It could indicate a number of things.”

  “We’ll begin by investigating the area around Alexandra’s mother’s home. It seems she never sold the house, so perhaps she did visit at some point. It would be helpful if you could give us the exact dates of her trips. Ultimately, we’d l
ike to determine what your wife’s intentions were.” The word “intentions” made Marc look into DI Jones’s face again. He imagined he could see another word—“affair”—playing on his lips.

  “What about the carer? She told me…” Marc couldn’t finish. His thoughts felt like they had knots in them.

  “We’ll certainly be looking to speak to Miss Morse. If nothing else, she gave misleading information to an ongoing investigation, which could lead to charges for perverting the course of justice and wasting police time. We’ll be looking to establish her motive for lying and what links her to your wife.”

  Marc stared at him. He didn’t want to talk about motives or ongoing investigations; he wanted to know right then what the fuck all of this meant. He wanted to shake DI Jones until the truth rattled out of him. He wanted to punch his patronizing, insinuating, perfectly calm face. He wanted to cry out and scream and smash something and ask me what on earth I was thinking keeping something like this from him.

  He had a hard time sleeping that night. He’d scanned through all of the letters he’d read, looking for any and all mentions of my mum, relieved if nothing else that I didn’t seem to have disclosed the truth to Amelia either. He wasn’t sure if he felt upset or angry or what, but he lay awake, his eyes closed while his mind tried desperately to arrange the puzzle pieces of our marriage into something recognizable. Eventually he gave up and crept down to the office. He opened the archive box he’d heaved from the attic and shuffled through the files until he found my mother’s. He stared at the photograph, studying the trees in the background for clues. When was it taken? 1975, he supposed. The baby must have been me, but it was so small, still in that alien, personless form. He concentrated instead on the woman. He searched for something to recognize. She looked a little like me, he thought, perhaps in the nose and mouth, but maybe he only wanted her to. She had thick, straight, dark hair, bobbed at her shoulders, a black turtleneck making her pale face float in a shadowy frame, only her pink cheeks fighting the monochrome as she smiled at the person behind the camera. My father? Marc wondered what he looked like back then. He knew him as an old man, wearing Argyle and corduroy, bespectacled and respectable. What was he like when I was young, when my parents shared a house, when my mother remembered me? What was my parents’ life together before my mother started drinking? Were they happy? Did they take one another for granted? I’d told Marc one of the saddest things I felt after they split up was that all the good times, all my childhood memories, every moment of affection, had to be erased to make way for the present. Nothing could survive the nuclear holocaust that was their divorce. What would my father have done back then, though, if his wife had not come home one day?