‘I wonder if the second Mrs P will have such big breasts,’ Mary said.
Or she said: ‘That definitely looks more like the third Mrs P than the second.’
A tall slim adolescent was walking by. Thomas hadn’t noticed till his wife spoke. These were the early days of their marriage. It was a joke.
Now, with hindsight, he wondered if she hadn’t always foreseen the end. Or if by mentioning the possibility, light-heartedly, she meant to prevent him from going where she imagined all men wanted to go, even though at the time no such notion had occurred to him. He was too busy being married and starting a family and pushing forward his career.
‘I wonder if the second Mrs P will have dreadlocks,’ Mary laughed. ‘Or a tongue-piercing.’
‘Oh, I doubt if she is born yet,’ he said, joining in the fun.
And in the end, of course, this had turned out to be the case. What will Mary think when she finally finds out? Thomas wondered, boarding the train that will take him to a home that is home no more.
Looking out of the window at the familiar landscape, Thomas reflected that he had commuted too long between the old life and the new. Was that cruel of him, or just inept? And on her part? Was it cruel of her to tease him with second Mrs Ps, to let him have such a long leash, but nevertheless insist it was a leash? Had that been smart? Perhaps the truth was they had both somehow come to have a double narrative of their marriage: they would continue man and wife into ripe old age; they would sink and split. Both stories had felt true. Logically, they were mutually exclusive, but that didn’t stop them believing in both. Like knowing you will die but living as though you are immortal.
The occasion of his visit today was the sale of the flat that had once served as his office. Both signatures were required. They had decided to meet beforehand at the house to discuss the division of the furniture. In the past Thomas would have had his car waiting at the station, or Mary would have come to pick him up, or one of the children when they were old enough. Or at a push he would have taken a bus. But now the weather was sweltering and he felt impatient. On impulse he went to the taxi stand, which would cost him £45. ‘I can barely afford one Mrs P,’ he remembered joking years ago, ‘never mind two.’
‘I guess it will have to wait till you’re chairman of the board,’ she laughed.
‘Just after the bend, on the right,’ Thomas told the driver and was overwhelmed by the thought that what he should have said was that he loved her and that all this talk of a second Mrs P was nonsense and she should never mention the idea again. You should have forbidden her from ever bringing up the idea at all, Thomas thought, climbing out of the cab. That would have reassured her. Instead you fooled around, and so confirmed her suspicion. What could she do in response but start to disinvest in the relationship? Which in turn would prompt him to feel that something was badly wrong and that he had better prepare for the worst. You made a terrible mistake, Thomas thought. Despite the heat he was in a cold sweat. Worse than a mistake, a crime. Destroying a family. Thomas gave the taxi driver a large tip.
Beyond the wicket gate the familiar garden was in full bloom. Roses flamed over the front windows. The lawn was the brilliant green that betrays a chemical fertiliser. But Thomas was surprised to see the French window closed. Why? Both Mary and their daughter Sally loved to sit in the breeze by the open window. It was such a fine spring day.
Thomas put his nose against the glass, but the room was empty. And had changed, he thought. Perhaps some piece of furniture had been moved. Or a picture. He couldn’t quite see what.
Going round the side of the house he reflected that Mary had not had any trouble replacing his gardening skills. Both jasmine and wisteria were very neatly tied up. Suddenly he was struck by a strange silence hanging about the place. Everything was perfect, but very still, as in a photograph, or a film set before the actors arrive. Or after they have gone, perhaps. He pushed the doorbell. Even through the heavy door the ring was loud.
Immediately there was a response. But it came from the garden behind him, behind the jasmine. A dog whined. Thomas had always hated this dog, a Dobermann, which was left out all night in the next yard and often barked. What was its name? He couldn’t remember. Meanwhile there was no sign of movement in the house. This was irritating. He rang the bell again. Again the dog whined. It scratched at the fence. The sounds only made the stillness heavier. She will be in the bathroom, Thomas thought. Mark must be out. Though actually he was a little late for lunch and Mary had assured him Mark would be there, otherwise he wouldn’t have accepted the invitation. He would never have agreed to have lunch with Mary on her own.
Waiting, he turned to look over the fence at the dog he hated. Why, he wondered, had Mary got rid of her dog, Ricky, shortly after they had separated? It was strange. Just when you thought she would have been grateful for the company of the animal she got rid of him. Life was mysterious. Thomas looked over the fence at the Dobermann and remembered its name was Rocky. Rocky and Ricky. He’d never noticed that the names were so similar. Such close neighbours. Seeing the face appear over the jasmine, Rocky barked loudly and ran around his stump of a tail in excitement. The bark echoed painfully between the two houses. Thomas hated it, but nevertheless felt a certain affection for the dog, seeing it after so long. For its doggie nervousness, its disquiet.
But why was no one answering the door? It wasn’t like her. He was nervous too. Listening to the bell respond to his finger for the third time, Thomas suddenly realised what had happened. She had killed herself.
The film set – for the whole thing has taken on an eerie theatricality now – comes complete with a glass-paned lean-to against the wall by the front door. This narrow shed is a clutter of garden tools. Tracked by a camera overhead, Thomas moves swiftly towards it. He untwists a wire that keeps the latch on its hook and steps inside among spades and garden forks and crusty old work boots. Now there is a close-up of his staring eyes as he rummages through old flowerpots on the shelves. Where have they left it? Cobwebs stick to his fingers. Then he has the spare key.
She has hanged herself. She knew he was coming. She knew he would be the one to find her. Aware of the camera focusing on his trembling hand as he tries to push the key into the lock, he knows these are moments he will remember for ever. The lock turns. Inside, the silent perfection of the place convinces him that an awful revelation is at hand. Rocky has stopped barking. The stillness is uncanny. Mark too? he thinks, as the camera tracks round the empty room. Please God, no. The piano is where he left it four years ago. The chairs, the shelves, are all where he left them. There is no blood on the floor. ‘Mary?’ he calls. His voice in the overhead mike is courageously firm. ‘Mark?’ He turns left to the kitchen. It is neat and clean. There is no sign of cooking. They never meant to eat.
Thomas raises his voice. ‘Mary!’ Later he will recall how extraordinarily aware of his body and posture he was as he started to climb the stairs, tensed for nightmare. Each turn of the staircase – and there are three floors – takes a year off his life as a new part of the old house falls into his field of vision. Nothing. Nothing at the first turn, nothing at the second. But then, how could they have hanged themselves here, when there is no place in the ceiling to attach a rope? No banister to dangle from.
The bathtub scarlet with blood. He pushes the toilet door, ready to vomit. A bright beam of sunlight glistens on the white enamel. Mark’s room, then. Another door to push. It’s a shocking mess, but that in itself is hardly a shock. On the contrary. The camera behind his left shoulder now, Thomas gazes at piles of clothes overflowing from an open cupboard, papers everywhere, the computer on the floor where he always puts it when he sits with his back to the bed. Seventeen years ago Thomas had sat in that very spot singing a tiny child to sleep. Now he is in a cold sweat.
To the right the small guest room waits with dusty patience for guests. This is where Thomas slept when he could no longer bear the conjugal bed. A guest in his own house. But why is he wasting time here? He slams the door shut, very aware that he has merely been putting off the only two rooms that matter, the only rooms with rafters.
The camera holds his anxious face as he pauses on the landing. Thomas looks into the lens. Eyes and camera seem to be questioning one another. What is all this about? Decisively he moves to his daughter’s old room, long empty at the back of the house where the roof comes down low and the ceiling is wooden slats with one large beam near the outer wall. Thomas pushes the door determinedly. Nothing. The room is breathlessly still. Except, moving into the middle, Thomas catches the movement of his own body in the floor-to-ceiling mirror his daughter once asked for so she could watch herself dancing. The very emptiness of the place seems to demand her ghost.
So it must be in their own bedroom, under the roof up the last flight of stairs, that she has done it. But you knew that, Thomas realises. Where else? In the sanctum of their withered intimacy. The camera knows it too, turning before he does to track along the passageway.
‘Mary!’
The house is drawing him upwards. Everything else has been a diversion, or a preparation. The scene is set. In confirmation, the camera fuses with his eyes, his point of view. They will discover the slaughter together. Her feet, swinging from the big central beam on which the roof rested, dangling over the bed where love had been made countless times, where Mark himself was conceived.
Tom!’ a voice called. ‘Is that you, To-om?’
Thomas closed his eyes and sighed deeply. The call came from behind and below him.
‘Really not smart,’ Mary was shaking her head as he reached the bottom stair. ‘Leaving the front door wide open. With all the stray cats around here. Not to mention the cat burglars!’
Mark went to his father and they hugged.
‘What were you doing in my bedroom? I’d prefer it if you didn’t go up there without asking.’
‘You’re sweating, Dad,’ Mark stepped back. ‘God, you’re soaked. Let me give you some deodorant.’ Laughing, the boy pulled his father into the downstairs toilet and began to spray something icy cold into his damp armpits.
As he came out, Mary unleashed a wry smile.
‘Alone still? I half thought we might have to provide luncheon for the second Mrs P.’
Turning to the kitchen, she began to open a big pack of sushi. She hadn’t felt like cooking.
‘I’ve decided to skip the second Mrs P,’ Thomas found himself on automatic pilot, ‘and go straight for number three, or even four.’
Mary laughed good-heartedly.
For a moment then it was hard to tell which of those two old stories of their marriage they were presently in.