Blog Tour
for
My Husband's Wife
by
Jane Corry
Today I'm delighted to be a part of the Blog Tour for Jane Corry's novel My Husband's Wife. I have chapter one for you to have a sneaky peak at!
‘Nervous?’ Ed asks.
He’s pouring out his favourite breakfast cereal. Rice
Krispies. Usually I like them too. (Crispy, without milk.)
As a child, I was obsessed by the elfin-faced figures on the
packet, and the magic hasn’t quite left.
But today I don’t have the stomach to eat anything.
‘Nervous?’ I repeat, fastening my pearl earrings in the
little mirror next to the sink. Our flat is small. Compromises
had to be made.
Of what? I almost add. Nervous of the first day of
married life, perhaps. Proper married life in the first
year of a brand-new century. Nervous because we should
have taken more time to find a better flat instead of one
in the wrong part of Clapham, with a drunk as a neighbour
across the landing, where both bedroom and
bathroom are so small that my one tube of Rimmel foundation
(soft beige) and my two lipsticks (rose pink and
ruby red) snuggle up next to the teaspoons in the cutlery
drawer.
Or nervous about going back to work after our honeymoon
in Italy? A week in Sicily, knocking back bottles of Marsala, grilled sardines and slabs of pecorino cheese in a
hotel paid for by Ed’s grandmother.
Maybe I’m nervous about all these things.
Normally, I love my work. Until recently, I was in
employment law, helping people – especially women –
who had been unfairly sacked. Looking after the underdog.
That’s me. I nearly became a social worker like Dad, but,
thanks to a determined careers teacher at school and, let’s
say, certain events in my life, here I am. A 25- year-old
newly qualified solicitor on a minimum wage. Struggling
to do up the button at the back of my navy-blue skirt. No
one wears bright colours in a law office, apart from the
secretaries. It sends out the wrong message – or so I was
told when I started. Law can be a great career, but there
are occasions when it seems ridiculously behind the times.
‘We’re moving you to Criminal,’ my boss announced
by way of a wedding gift. ‘We think you’ll be good at it.’
So now, on my first day back from our honeymoon, I’m
preparing to go to prison. To see a man who’s been accused
of murder. I’ve never been inside a prison before. Never
wanted to. It’s an unknown world. One reserved for people
who have done wrong. I’m the kind of person who goes
straight back if someone has given me too much change in
the newsagent when I buy my monthly copy of Cosmo.
Ed is doodling now. His head is bent slightly to the left
as he sketches on a notepad next to his cereal. My husband
is always drawing. It was one of the first things that
attracted me to him. ‘Advertising,’ he said with a rueful
shrug when I asked what he did. ‘On the creative side.
But I’m going to be a full-time artist one day. This is just
temporary – to pay the bills.’ I liked that. A man who knew where he was going. But
in a way I was wrong. When he’s drawing or painting, Ed
doesn’t even know which planet he’s on.
Right now, he’s
forgotten he even asked me a question. But suddenly it’s
important for me to answer it.
‘Nervous? No, I’m not nervous.’
There’s a nod, but I’m not sure he’s really heard me.
When Ed’s in the zone, the rest of the world doesn’t matter.
Not even my fib.
Why, I ask, as I take his left hand – the one with the
shiny gold wedding ring – don’t I really tell him how I
feel? Why not confess that I feel sick and that I need to go
to the loo even though I’ve only just been? Is it because I
want to pretend that our week away from the world still
exists in the ‘now’, instead of in the souvenirs we brought
back, like the pretty blue and pink plate that Ed is now
sketching in more detail?
Or is it because I’m trying to pretend I’m not terrified
of what lies ahead this morning? A shiver passes down
my spine as I spray duty-free Chanel No. 5 on the inside
of both wrists. (A present from Ed, using another
wedding-gift cheque.)
Last month, a solicitor from a rival
firm was stabbed in both lungs when he went to see a client
in Wandsworth. It happens.
‘Come on,’ I say, anxiety sharpening my usually light
voice. ‘We’re both going to be late.’
Reluctantly, he rises from the rickety chair which the
former owner of our flat had left behind. He’s a tall man,
my new husband. Lanky, with an almost apologetic way
of walking, as if he would really rather be somewhere else.
As a child, apparently, his hair was as golden as mine is today (‘We knew you were a “Lily” the first time we saw
you,’ my mother has always said), but now it’s sandy. And
he has thick fingers that betray no hint of the artist he
yearns to be.
We all need our dreams. Lilies are meant to be beautiful.
Graceful. I look all right from the top bit up, thanks
to my naturally blonde hair and what my now-deceased
grandmother used to kindly call ‘elegant swan neck’. But
look below, and you’ll find leftover puppy fat instead of a
slender stem. No matter what I do, I’m stuck on the size
16 rail – and that’s if I’m lucky. I know I shouldn’t care. Ed
says my shape is ‘part of me’. He means it nicely. I think.
But my weight niggles. Always has done.
On the way out, my eye falls on the stack of wedding
cards propped up against Ed’s record deck. Mr and Mrs E.
Macdonald. The name seems so unfamiliar.
Mrs Ed Macdonald.
Lily Macdonald.
I’ve spent ages trying to perfect my signature, looping
the ‘y’ through the ‘M’, but somehow it still doesn’t seem
quite right. The names don’t go together that well. I hope
it’s not a bad sign.
Meanwhile, each card requires a thank-you letter to be
sent by the end of the week. If my mother has taught me
anything, it is to be polite.
One of the cards has a particularly ‘look at me!’ flamboyant
scrawl, in turquoise ink. ‘Davina was a girlfriend
once,’ Ed explained before she turned up at our engagement
party. ‘But now we’re just friends.’
I think of Davina with her horsey laugh and artfully
styled auburn locks that make her look like a pre-Raphaelite model. Davina who works in Events, organizing parties
to which all the ‘nice girls’ go. Davina who narrowed
her violet eyes when we were introduced, as if wondering
why Ed would bother with the too-tall, too-plump, touslehaired
image that I see in the mirror every day.
Can a man ever be just friends with a woman when the
relationship is over?
I decide to leave my predecessor’s letter until last. Ed
married me, not her, I remind myself.
My new husband’s warm hand now squeezes mine as if
reading my need for reassurance. ‘It will be all right, you
know.’
For a minute, I wonder if he is referring to our marriage.
Then I remember. My first criminal client. Joe Thomas.
‘Thanks.’ It’s comforting that Ed isn’t taken in by my
earlier bravado. And worrying, too.
Together, we shut the front door, checking it twice
because it’s all so unfamiliar to us, and walk briskly down
the ground-floor corridor leading out of our block of flats.
As we do so, another door opens and a little girl with long,
dark, glossy hair swinging in a ponytail comes out with her
mother. I’ve seen them before, but when I said ‘hello’ ,
they didn’t reply. Both have beautiful olive skin and walk
with a grace that makes them appear to be floating.
We hit the sharp autumn air together. The four of us
are heading in the same direction but mother and daughter
are now slightly ahead because Ed is scribbling
something in his sketchbook as we walk. The pair, I
notice, seem like carbon copies of each other, except that
the woman is wearing a too-short black skirt and the little
girl – who’s whining for something – is dressed in a navy-blue school uniform. When we have children, I tell
myself, we’ll teach them not to whine.
I shiver as we approach the stop: the pale autumn sun
is so different from the honeymoon heat. But it’s the prospect
of our separation that tightens my chest.
After one
week of togetherness, the thought of managing for eight
hours without my new husband is almost scary.
I find this unnerving. Not so long ago, I was independent.
Content with my own company. But from the minute
that Ed and I first spoke at that party six months ago (just
six months!), I’ve felt both strengthened and weakened at
the same time.
We pause and I steel myself for the inevitable. My bus
goes one way. His, the other. Ed is off to the advertising
company where he spends his days coming up with slogans
to make the public buy something it never intended to.
And I’m off to prison in my navy-blue skirt suit and
suntan.
‘It won’t be so scary when you’re there,’ says my new
husband – how I never thought I’d say that word! – before
kissing me on the mouth. He tastes of Rice Krispies and
that strong toothpaste of his which I still haven’t got
used to.
‘I know,’ I say before he peels off to the bus stop on the
other side of the road, his eyes now on the oak tree on the
corner as he takes in its colour and shape.
Two lies. Small white ones. Designed to make the other
feel better.
But that’s how some lies start. Small. Well meaning.
Until they get too big to handle.
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