The Almost Wife: An absolutely gripping and emotional summer read Read online

  Poor, lovely Mum. I’m not sure she’s hearing a word of what’s being said today. For the forty-five minutes the service lasts, she thinks of nothing other than my first day at school. How she polished my smart patent shoes that morning, bunched my hair, proudly walked me through the school gates then failed to occupy herself until she could race back there at 3 p.m. to collect me.

  Dad listens to everything. Then he stands, Lord knows how, in front of a sea of sad, contorted faces and tells them all how wonderful I am, how every single day since I was born he’s felt the rush of love that only an adoring father can, refusing to use the past tense.

  Then there’s Sarah Blake, impeccably smart in a black crepe suit. She’s still carrying the weight of all that guilt, preventing her from making eye contact with my parents, friends for decades and now with such a huge hurdle to overcome. I’m not sure Sarah ever will. Helen leaves the service before the end, unable to cope with it all and I watch as one of Dad’s best friends who she’s been sharing an order of service with follows her out. He’s comforting her, turning her tears to a soft smile while something is thawing inside of her.

  Several of the children from nursery are sat cross-legged at the front of the church and when four-year-old Peter gets up to read a poem I force my eyes closed. I sit at the very back, next to a pile of dusty hymn books and try so very hard not to hear him talk about my rosy cheeks and how I make the best jam sandwiches. He’ll forget me in a couple of weeks, I know he will, but for now his cherubic face is fighting back the tears, bottom lip shaking out the words he’s probably been rehearsing all week while his eyes flick to his mum in the third row for support. The tears are streaming down her face too.

  Perhaps it’s because I’ve spent the day absorbing everyone else’s emotions but I’m starting to feel weaker and less able to read the pulse of the room than I was a week ago. I’m fading. Perhaps when the first shovel of earth lands on my coffin that will be it. I’ll be gone.

  Except I’m not. I hang around all day and I’m still here watching Dad stare up at the ceiling as late night turns to early morning. He doesn’t let go of Mum’s hand for a single second until she stirs around 5 a.m. and cries all over his tartan pyjamas. But they’re going to be OK. I can feel that. They have each other and that’s all that matters for now.

  But there’s something more I need to see. Some conclusion that needs to be reached before I can go. I feel sure now that it’s Mark’s anger, which gets more ferocious with every day that passes. Last night he waited until my parents were both in bed, said he would let himself out and lock up when he was ready to leave. Then I watched as he sat in the darkness of my parents’ lounge and scrolled through every picture of me on his mobile phone, his angry face illuminated by the screen. By the time he got as far back as our engagement party he was struggling to breathe through the quiet rage that is eating him up. So he took the phone outside, hurled it at the stone patio then stamped hard on it several times until it was an unrecognisable tangle of wires and metal.

  This isn’t my Mark and I know now I can’t leave until I find him again.

  29

  Jessie

  Twenty-four hours to go

  The rehearsal dinner entrées haven’t even been served and already Henry is bringing the house down. He is standing at the head of the Coleridges’ giant dining table, looking exquisite in his dinner jacket, antique champagne coupe in one hand, the undivided attention of everyone else balanced tantalisingly in the other as he addresses them with his usual boom.

  ‘I’ve told Adam there are three things a husband must say as often as possible if he wants to have a happy marriage – and I know my darling Camilla will support me wholeheartedly on this.’

  Jessie’s eyes follow everyone else’s across the expanse of fine bone china and cut crystal to where a Chanel-clad Camilla is sitting, her warm, entirely unfazed smile indicating she knows exactly what’s coming. No embarrassing revelations about to be exposed here.

  ‘You are right. I am wrong. And I love you.’ Henry looks thoroughly pleased with himself as the belly laughs ring out around the room and Jessie can’t help but admire the man who, less than twenty-four hours from now, will become her father-in-law. She notices again the easy charm that radiates off Henry, so self-assured and never, it seems, having to work at being the most entertaining person in the room. Exactly the sort of person she wants regaling her guests during the wedding breakfast tomorrow. Not, sadly, her own dad who she can see is already wearing the downcast glaze of a man not really in the room, his thoughts, no doubt, on how he is going to follow this tomorrow. Surely it is kinder to save him from that? Why set him up to fail so horribly, so obviously?

  Everything about Henry’s demeanour suggests he is feeling the polar opposite of Jessie right now. She’s stiff with nerves, like someone has thrust a cold metal spike down the back of her feathered Oscar de la Renta dress, preventing her from moving freely through fear she might injure herself irreparably. She has pretty much zero chance of truly relaxing and enjoying the moment – this penultimate evening when all the excitement should build to an almost unbearable crescendo before the main event can finally, after so much planning, begin. And she will be declared Mrs Adam Coleridge. Assuming none of the Joneses do anything tonight to halt it.

  Adam is sitting next to Jessie’s mum, looking like a mini cut-out of Henry, every bit as handsome but positively glowing in his Tom Ford tux, his hair casual, as if he’s just raked his fingers through it, fresh from the shower. His arm is carelessly draped across the back of Margaret’s chair and Jessie can’t help but notice the sartorial gulf between them: Adam’s expertly hand-cut jacket that skims his contours as only a suit made just for you can, versus Margaret’s rainbow-bright lace dress that’s cutting into her upper arms and riding up her thighs causing her to wriggle self-consciously every three minutes. Margaret’s sensible shoes are colour-matched precisely to her bag, shawl, earrings and belt – mass-produced, factory made, priced cheaply to sell quickly. Why she wouldn’t just let Jessie dress her for tonight and the wedding still grates, but there’s not much Jessie can do about it now. This is happening and damage limitation is the best she can hope for.

  Now everyone is seated, Jessie can hear Adam asking her mother how she’s feeling about the big day tomorrow.

  ‘I just hope I don’t make too much fuss, Adam. I know Jessie hates that. She’s told me I’m not allowed to cry during the ceremony or it might start her off. Now I’m terrified I won’t manage it and ruin the moment for her.’

  She can see the stress on her mum’s face, all the pressure Jessie has put on her to behave well, not even allowing her mum to react in the same way a million mother-of-the-brides have done before her. Feeling a wave of guilt, she opens her mouth to reassure her mum, but is beaten to it by Adam, one step ahead of her again.

  ‘A wedding without tears? I’ll consider it a personal insult if I don’t see you squeezing out a few from the front row, Margaret!’

  She knows he’s only being his usual kind self but he’s also making Jessie look more heartless. Then Henry makes it worse.

  ‘You can cry all over me if it helps, Margaret!’

  As Jessie’s eyes glide along the table she can hear her mother ask Adam to just say the word when it’s time for her to serve the pudding she’s made. Despite endless protestations from Jessie, Margaret insisted on making her sherry trifle for everyone this evening. Jessie can only imagine Camilla’s irritation at losing control of her own menu planning. She probably intended to serve something light and simple – a meringue made with fresh berries from the estate’s kitchen gardens perhaps – not some seventies throwback full of shop-bought sponge fingers that in an hour or so from now will be glued to the back of everybody’s teeth.

  Jessie quickly dismisses the shot of guilt that’s trying to nestle in her chest and lets her eyes carry on up the table, her cheeks warming at just how glaringly obvious it is who is a Coleridge here – and who is not. She is bo
okended by two of Adam’s ushers, Sebastian and Harry, who are both well-schooled in the art of dinner party chitchat, allowing her attention to wander around the room while they try to out-banter each other. Jessie’s just grateful someone is enjoying the evening.

  Adam’s grandmother, Sophia, a neat woman in her late eighties who has the look of someone who knows where all the bodies are buried, has been seated next to Jessie’s brother, Jason, who appears to have upended an entire bottle of wet-look gel onto his hair tonight. Already Jessie can see the look of undisguised confusion creeping across her face at whatever it is he’s muttering into her ear. She can only watch in horror from across the table as Jason repeatedly drinks from Sophia’s wine glass, causing a member of the waiting staff to swoop in undetected each time and replace it. Not one other person at the table has noticed this farce, except Jessie. She tries to signal to Jason his mistake but all she elicits from him is a curt ‘What’s wrong with you!?’ and she has to give up before everyone else does notice.

  Then his fingers are all over granny’s bread roll and he doesn’t bother to wait until everyone has been served before his cutlery is clattering loudly into the fish course. If Jessie can just make it through tonight, maybe everything will be OK. Hopefully there won’t be the time or opportunity for this level of scrutiny tomorrow.

  ‘I trust you’ll be wheeling out some gorgeous bridesmaids for our entertainment tomorrow, Jessie?’ Seb is asking loudly so the entire table turns to hear the response.

  ‘No! I mean, I’m not really having bridesmaids. Well, I am but…’ The hesitation is coming from a good place, it really is, but it’s also causing hurt frowns from her mum and dad and a nasty scowl from Claire. Jason is too busy swigging back his third glass of Chablis to even register it. The last thing Jessie wants to do is out Claire as the much hoped-for gorgeous bridesmaid, only for her to register the awkward silence while everyone wonders how to verbally sidestep the fact that she doesn’t exactly fulfil the brief. Of course it’s down to Henry to kill the awkward moment.

  ‘Well, if what Claire here tells me is true then you boys better watch out!’ bellows Henry. ‘Do you know she holds the record at the Feathered Nest for the quickest yard of ale drunk on New Year’s Eve? Her name is actually engraved on a special plaque behind the bar, for goodness sake!’

  ‘Yes. It. Is!’ boasts Claire.

  And how proud your parents must be of you. Camilla isn’t saying it, but it’s etched all over her face for Jessie to see.

  Claire is the biggest surprise of the night so far, looking about as good as she ever has in one of Helen’s silk wrap dresses, one with gently flared sleeves in a beautiful shade of bluebell. She is seated next to Henry, and Adam’s best man Lucian, a lanky Old Etonian who looks like he might be prone to bouts of poetry writing. The three of them are cackling away as if Claire has just told the filthiest joke of all time – Christ, maybe she has. No, it’s actually worse than that. Far worse.

  ‘Jessie, can it really be true?’ Henry is asking across the table. ‘What your friends did to you on your eighteenth birthday? Claire is furnishing me with so much detail here, I feel I am finally getting to know the real you – and my goodness! I just wouldn’t have thought it possible—’

  ‘Yeah it’s true!’ pipes up Jason before Jessie even has a moment to compose her thoughts. ‘You should have seen the state of her.’

  The image of herself, semi-clothed and tied to a lamp-post on the estate is burning bright in Jessie’s mind, causing the heat to flare up inside her. Parcel tape wound around her so she couldn’t move, like some awful stag night prank, her friends forced a carrot into her mouth, wedged a huge cabbage between her legs and dangled a tampon from each ear before the flashbulbs started clicking.

  ‘Well, it was a long time ago, I was just a kid really.’ Jessie feels so deflated. Like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman when she gets all dolled up for the races only for someone to point out she’s still a prostitute. Another brutal reminder there’s no point pretending, she’s never going to be able to truly escape what has gone before, is she? There will always be someone from the past, a family anecdote, something ready to tear her down.

  Jessie says very little after this. She just watches as her mum slops trifle on to everyone’s plates, while the waiting staff stand by, not quite sure what to do with themselves – obviously a first. Still, it doesn’t stop Henry declaring it bloody delicious and asking for seconds, much to Margaret’s utter delight.

  Then Claire thinks she’s being helpful by attempting to clear the final plates from the table. She’s reaching for Henry and Lucian’s dishes, trying to scrape them off and stack them in front of her before a member of staff swoops in. Not before Camilla has clocked it though. Does the woman miss anything? Then Dad passes the port the wrong way around the table, causing even greater confusion to an already baffled Sophia who looks like she’s way past her bedtime.

  By the time they are all filing out of the dining room for a nightcap in the library, Jessie has had enough. She’s ready to wrap this up, get back over to Willow Manor and on with the rest of her life. Wake up tomorrow to what will surely be a less embarrassing future. While everyone else is getting a refill of port and collapsing into generously upholstered chairs, trying to take the weight off bellies full of leaden trifle – at least Mum didn’t bring the squirty cream with her, her favoured garnish – Jessie sits in a large winged armchair, wondering how best to collar her dad. She needs to explain that Henry will be doing the main speech tomorrow and then get the all clear from Henry, who, no doubt, will be delighted. Someone like him hardly needs time to prepare. But this is going to be tricky. Her dad and Henry are holed up in a corner, Henry showing him some old pictures of how the house used to look before the current Coleridges breathed refined life in to it – that is, spent a fortune on it.

  ‘So, big day tomorrow then, Graham, how’s that father-of-the-bride speech coming along?’

  Oh God, Henry is pre-empting her chat.

  ‘Well, it’s all written, has been for months, actually, Henry,’

  Shit, this is not helping. Jessie sits, undetected by the pair of them, panicking now about whether to jump up and reveal herself before her dad can say another word.

  ‘Marvellous! Sadly not an experience I am ever going to enjoy, having only one son, but I will be rooting for you.’ Surprisingly, it’s all back-slaps, bonding and the clinking of heavy glass tumblers between the two of them,

  ‘That’s good to know because I am feeling nervous about it, not that I’ve told Jessie that, obviously.’ OK, too late, she needs to stay hidden. He’s lowering his voice conspiratorially now. ‘As I’m sure you’ve worked out, she has quite high expectations and I’m so worried I’m going to let her down.’

  ‘You’re her father, I’m not sure that’s even possible.’

  ‘In this case, I think it might be. The truth is, Henry, I feel like she’s been slipping through my fingers for years, growing up and further away from me, from us. It’s like the clock has been ticking for a long time and it’s about to stop tomorrow.’ There is a sadness to her dad’s voice, that forces Jessie’s mouth open, ready to tell him he’s got it all wrong, making her twist in her seat, so close to stopping him say anything more…

  ‘We’re becoming less and less important in her life. From tomorrow I wonder if we will factor at all. Every day closer to this wedding has felt like a day closer to losing her really. More than anything I’ve just wanted time to slow down. Is that an awful thing to say?’

  Oh Dad.

  ‘Of course not. She’s your daughter. I can only imagine how hard this must be for you.’

  Why is it everything that comes out of Henry’s mouth is so instantly believable, spoken as fact, never opinion? Jessie wonders.

  ‘I keep asking myself, will Adam want to spend time with us? Will they ever want to come to us for Christmas when they could be here? I don’t want her old school photos to be all I have of her now that she’s marrying in
to your family, Henry. But I know I need to face the fact that you’re the people she has chosen to spend her life with, not the ones who have been foisted on her.’

  This is almost unbearable. Jessie has spent many wistful hours fantasising about how Christmases at Swell Park Estate will be the stuff of her childhood dreams. Big lavish, magical affairs full of every conceivable luxury. A giant real fir tree, kissing the ceiling of the drawing room, filling the room with its fresh pine scent and adorned with hundreds of co-ordinated Liberty decorations. Nothing like the fake thing her mum drags out of a broken cardboard box every year to cover in highly flammable tinsel. She genuinely hasn’t given a thought to how her parents might feel about her never being home for Christmas. She was more concerned with how not to invite them to the Coleridges’. The fact her dad has second-guessed her so accurately makes her stiffen in the armchair then try to sink silently lower.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, I admire her greatly. She’s made me a better father actually. You can’t watch someone with that much drive and determination and not want to work harder for them.’

  Jessie feels a small swell of pride, laced with a much stronger sense of remorse – like every one of the sacrifices she knows he’s made, sacrifices she has been selfishly unappreciative of, are pricking at her conscience.

  ‘If she needed a bigger desk, I worked overtime. When the schoolbooks got more expensive, I started working weekends…’