Liz Fielding - A Wife on Paper

‘Hypocrite,’ she replied as, looking neither to left nor right, she swept past him.

She looked brittle. Insubstantial. Like spun glass. Altered out of all recognition from the vital young woman who’d changed his life in a moment with just one look.

Thin watery sunlight filtered through the October sky to light up her pale hair, emphasise the translucence of her skin, as she stood by the church doorway, shaking hands with those who’d taken the time to come and pay their respects. Inviting them back to the house. Cool, composed, apparently in control. The only moment when she’d seemed real, herself, had been that quick angry flush to her cheeks when he’d spoken her name. The rest was all just a role she was playing, he thought, a performance to get her through the nightmare.

One tap and she’d shatter…

He hung back, waiting until the others had moved off, before he stepped out of the shadows of the porch. She knew he was there, but he’d given her the chance to walk away, ignore him. But she was waiting for him to say his piece. Maybe she hoped he’d explain, but what could he say?

The words for what he was feeling hadn’t yet been invented. The loss, the pain, the regret that the last time he’d seen his brother, Steve had been at his worst. It had been deliberate, of course. A ploy to make him angry. And he’d risen self-righteously to the bait…

Neither of them had come out of it with any glory.

But she’d lost the man she loved. The father of her child. How much worse must it be for her…

He stepped forward. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner, Francesca.’

‘Ten days. Time enough to have got from almost anywhere, I would have thought.’

He wanted to ask her why she’d left it so late. Too late.

‘I wish I could have relieved you of the burden of organising this.’ His voice seemed to belong to someone else. Someone cold, distant…

‘Oh, please. Don’t apologise. Your secretary rang, offering to help— I imagine Steven’s lawyer must have called your office—but a funeral is a family thing. Not something for strangers.’

He wasn’t talking about the funeral, but the months before that, when Steve had been dying and he’d been on the other side of the world, unaware of the tragedy about to overtake them all. By the time the message that his brother was running out of time had reached him, it was too late.

‘It took me days to get to any kind of landing strip when the message came through about Steve.’ He sounded, even to himself, as if he were making excuses. ‘I’ve come straight from the airport.’

Finally she turned to look at him. Acknowledge him.

‘You really needn’t have bothered. We’ve managed perfectly well without you for the last three years. The last six months changed nothing.’

Her voice was cold, too. Every word an ice dagger striking at his heart. But this wasn’t about him. His feelings.

Right now all he cared about was her. He wanted to say that she was all he’d cared about for the last three years. Instead he said, ‘Are you going to be all right?’

‘All right?’ She repeated the words carefully, as if testing them. Trying to divine his meaning. ‘In what way could I possibly be “all right”? Steven is dead. Toby’s daddy is dead…’

‘Financially,’ he said, pressing on, even though he knew that he was making things immeasurably worse. Or perhaps not. How could they possibly be worse?

Her silver-grey eyes regarded him with utter disdain. ‘I should have known your only concern would be for the practicalities. Ensuring that I did it by the book. It isn’t feelings that matter with you, is it, Guy? It’s appearances.’

Which answered that question.

Smothering the pain, he pressed on. ‘Practicalities have to be addressed, Francesca.’

Listen to him! He should be putting his arms around her, offering her comfort, taking a little for himself, but since that was denied him he was talking like a lawyer. If he’d been a lawyer there would be some excuse…

‘Please don’t concern yourself about us, Guy. By your standards I’m about as “all right” as it’s possible to be. The house. Life insurance… That is what you mean, isn’t it?’ With that, she turned and crossed to the waiting limousine. The driver held the door for her, but she didn’t get in, just stood there for a moment, head bowed, as if gathering herself for the ordeal ahead. After a moment or two she straightened, glanced back at him, then with a lift of her shoulders she said, ‘I suppose you’d better come back to the house. For appearances.’

Then she climbed into the car and waited for him to follow her.

He didn’t mistake her invitation for a thaw but he abandoned the car that had been waiting for him at the airport without hesitation.

‘Thank you,’ he said as he joined her.

‘I don’t want your thanks. He was your brother. I haven’t forgotten that, even if you did.’ And she shifted to the farthest end of the seat, putting the maximum distance between them, not that he had any intention of crowding her. Offering comfort that she clearly didn’t want—at least, not from him. But he had to say something.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here.’

That earned him another look to freeze his heart. ‘That’s just guilt talking, Guy. If you’d cared about him you wouldn’t have stayed away. Why did you do that?’ For a long moment she challenged him. Then, in the shadowy interior of the limousine, he saw a faint colour smudge her pale cheeks before, with the smallest lift of her shoulders, she let it go. ‘The cancer was virulent. Faster than anyone anticipated. I asked him if he wanted me to call you, but he said there was plenty of time.’

Instinctively he reached to hold her, comfort her as he’d hold anyone in distress, but her eyes flashed a warning. It was like hitting a force field at speed. Shocking. Painful.

He’d intended only to reassure her but realised that anything he did or said would simply fuel her resentment that he was alive, while the man she loved was dead. She clearly thought him capable of feeling nothing but guilt. And that only at a stretch.

‘He was so sure that you’d come,’ she said.

‘I’m not clairvoyant.’

‘No. Just absent.’

He bit back the need to defend himself. She needed to strike out at someone and he was a handy target. If he could do nothing else for her, he could take the blame.

When he didn’t say anything—and he didn’t believe she expected or wanted him to respond—she looked away, staring out of the windows at the passing urban landscape as if anything was better than looking at him. Talking to him. Only a tiny betraying sigh escaped her lips as they turned into the elegant city street with its tall white stuccoed houses, where she and Steve had made their home.

The sound cut deeper than any words—no matter how much they were intended to wound.

The car drew up at the kerb and he climbed out, hesitating between offering his hand and the certainty that she would ignore it. But as she stepped on to the pavement her legs buckled momentarily beneath her and neither of them had much choice in the matter. He caught her elbow beneath his hand. She felt insubstantial, fragile, weightless as, briefly, she allowed him to support her.

‘Why don’t you give this a miss?’ he said. ‘I can handle it.’

Maybe, if he had been someone else, she might have surrendered control, leaned against him, allowed him to take the strain. But she gathered herself, shook off his support and said, ‘Steven managed without you, so can I.’ Then she walked quickly up the steps to her front door to join the subdued gathering.

Francesca paused on the threshold of her drawing room to catch her breath. She had never felt so alone in her life and, unable to help herself, she glanced back to where Guy was shedding his coat. For a moment their eyes met and she glimpsed his pain. But she buried her guilt. She’d meant to hurt him, wound him for staying away, and not just for Steven. Then someone said her name, put an arm around her, and she allowed herself to be wrapped up in this show of care from virtual strangers, no matter how shallow their sentiments, how empty their words of support.