Fiona Barton - The Widow

I persuaded Glen to make a gate between the back gardens for them to come in and out, and I bought a paddling pool one summer. Glen was nice with them, but he didn’t get involved like I did, really. He’d watch them through the window sometimes and wave. He didn’t try to stop them coming around, and sometimes, when Lisa had a date—she went on those websites to try to find the perfect man—they stayed in the spare room, sleeping top to tail. I would do fish fingers and peas and tomato sauce for dinner and watch a Disney DVD with them.

Then, when they settled down in bed, I’d sit and watch them go to sleep, drinking them in. Glen didn’t like that. Said I was acting creepy. But every moment with them was special. Even changing their nappies when they were little. As they got older they called me “Geegee” because they couldn’t get their tongue round Jean, and they would fling themselves at my legs when they came around, so I had to walk with one on each of my feet. My “sweet peas,” I called them. And they’d laugh.

Glen would go up to his study when our games got too wild—“too much noise,” he’d say—but I didn’t mind. I preferred having them to myself.

I even thought about giving up my job and looking after them full-time so Lisa could go out to work, but Glen put his foot down.

“We need your money, Jean. And they’re not our kids.”

And he stopped apologizing for being infertile and started saying: “At least we have each other, Jean. We’re lucky really.”

I tried to feel lucky, but I didn’t.

I’ve always believed in luck. I love the fact that people can change their lives instantly. Look at Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? And the lottery. One minute ordinary woman on the street. Next, millionaire. I buy a ticket every week and could while away a morning fantasizing about winning. I know what I’d do. I’d buy a big house at the seaside—somewhere sunny, maybe abroad—and adopt orphans. Glen didn’t really figure in my plans—he wouldn’t have approved, and I didn’t want those pursed lips wrecking my daydreams. Glen stayed as part of my reality.

The thing was that the two of us weren’t enough for me, but he was hurt that I needed anyone but him. That was probably why he wouldn’t consider adoption—“I’m not having someone prying into our lives. No one’s business but ours, Jeanie”—let alone something as “extreme” as artificial insemination or surrogacy. Lisa and I had discussed it one evening over a bottle of wine, and it all sounded possible. I tried to introduce it casually into a conversation with Glen.

“Disgusting ideas, if you ask me,” he said. End of discussion.

So I stopped crying in front of him, but every time a friend or a relative said they were pregnant, it was like having my heart ripped out. My dreams were filled with babies, lost babies, endless searches for them, and sometimes I’d wake up still feeling the weight of a baby in my arms.

I began to dread sleep and was losing weight. I went back to the doctor, and he gave me tablets to make me feel better. I didn’t tell Glen. I didn’t want him to be ashamed of me.

And I began my collection, quietly tearing out the pictures and slipping them in my handbag. Then, when there were too many, I started sticking them in my books. I’d wait until I was alone and get them out and sit on the floor, stroking each picture and saying their names. I could spend hours like that, pretending they were mine.

The police said Glen did the same thing on his computer.

He told me the day he shouted at me about the scrapbooks that I drove him to look for porn on the computer. It was a wicked thing to say, but he was so angry it just came out.

He said I’d shut him out because of my obsession with having a baby. That he’d had to look for comfort elsewhere.

“It’s just porn,” he said to me when he realized he’d gone too far. When he saw my face. “All blokes like a bit of porn, don’t they, Jeanie? It doesn’t do any harm to anyone. Just a bit of fun.”

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know all blokes liked porn. The subject had never come up in the salon.

When I cried, he told me it wasn’t his fault. He’d been drawn into online porn by the Internet—they shouldn’t allow these things on the Web. It was a trap for innocent men. He’d become addicted to it—“It’s a medical condition, Jeanie, an addiction.” He couldn’t help himself, but he’d never looked at children. Those images just ended up on his computer—like a virus.

I didn’t want to think about it anymore. It was too hard to keep everything apart in my head. My Glen and this other man the police talked about. I needed to keep things straight.

I wanted to believe him. I loved Glen. He was my world. I was his, he said. We were each other’s.

And the idea of me being guilty of pushing him to look at those horrible photos grew in my head, crowding out the questions about Glen. Of course, I didn’t find out about his “addiction” until after the police came knocking on our door that day before Easter, and then it was too late to say or do anything.

I had to keep his secrets as well as mine.

TWENTY

The Widow

FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 2010

We have croissants and fruit salad for breakfast at the hotel. Big linen napkins and a pot of proper coffee.

Kate won’t let me eat on my own. “I’ll keep you company,” she says, and plonks herself down at the table. She gets a cup from the tea and coffee tray under the television and pours herself a coffee.

She’s all businesslike now. “We really need to sort out the contract today, Jean,” she says. “The paper would like to get the formalities out of the way so we can get on with the interview. It’s Friday already, and they want to publish it tomorrow. I’ve printed a copy of the contract for you to sign. It’s quite straightforward. You agree to give us an exclusive interview for an agreed fee.”

I can’t really remember when I’d said yes. Maybe I hadn’t. “But,” I say. But she just passes me several sheets of paper and I start to read them because I don’t know what else to do. It is all “the first party” and “the second party” and lots of clauses. “I haven’t got a clue what it means,” I say. Glen was the one who dealt with all the paperwork and signed everything.

She looks anxious and starts to try to explain the legal terms. “It really is very simple,” she says. She really wants me to sign it. She must be getting grief from her boss, but I put the contract down and shake my head and she sighs.

“Would you like a lawyer to have a look at it for you?” she asks. And I nod. “Do you know one?” she says, and I nod again. I call Tom Payne. Glen’s lawyer. It’s been a while—must be two years—but I still have his number on my mobile.

“Jean! How are you? I was sorry to hear about Glen’s accident,” he says when the secretary finally puts me through.

“Thank you, Tom. That’s kind of you. Look, I need your help. The Daily Post wants me to do an exclusive interview with them and they want me to sign a contract. Will you look at it for me?”

There is a pause, and I can imagine the surprise on his face.

“An interview?” he says. “Are you sure you’re doing the right thing, Jean? Have you thought this through?”

His real questions remain unasked, and I’m grateful to him for that. I tell him I’ve thought about it and this is the only way to get the press off my doorstep. I’m starting to sound like Kate. I don’t really need the money. Glen got a quarter of a million in compensation for the trick the police pulled—dirty money we put away in a savings account—and there’ll be the insurance money from his death. But I might as well take the fifty thousand pounds the paper wants to pay me.