The Silent Wife(3)

With a quiver of hat netting, Anna leaned forward and caught my eye. She was far too polished to pull a face that might be intercepted by anyone else – but I knew the dawn of new daughter-in-law comparisons was gearing up in the starting blocks. I might even have a chance of emerging victorious this time after so many years of ‘Caitlin got her figure back very well after Francesca was born. But then, you did have a caesarean, I don’t suppose that helped.’ Followed by some suggestions on how a scarf could ‘help disguise that tummy’ and the odd cutting from the Daily Mail entitled ‘Drop a dress size in ten days!’ left on my kitchen table. I’d also been found lacking in gardening, cooking and what Anna called ‘household administration’ so I hoped Maggie wouldn’t possess a huge array of secret skills to put me to shame.

Maggie didn’t give the impression that she cared what people thought of her very much. With the little rose tattoo on her ankle, her bright blue toenails and her corkscrew hair cascading down her back, she looked more like someone celebrating a pagan ritual at a New Moon party than a bride trying to integrate herself into a new family where the obstacles were already piled up against her. She was going to need a whole lot of self-belief to resist Anna’s decrees for ‘Farinelli family behaviour’.

If I knew Anna, she would have tried every which way to stop Nico marrying Maggie. ‘Two years is far too soon, you’re still grieving.’ ‘It’s not fair on Francesca. She doesn’t need a new mother; she needs a father to focus on her.’ ‘Do you really want to take on some other man’s bastard child?’ And she would probably have used those very words. Anything that didn’t fit with Anna’s world view would be singled out and shot.

But she obviously hadn’t managed to put Nico off Maggie. His face was ablaze with emotion, as though he couldn’t quite believe this carefree creature had come along to liven up the precise hallways of the Farinelli households. It was astonishing that Maggie was only thirty-five, the same age as me. She wore adulthood so lightly, as though it were a state to be dipped into when absolutely necessary, an interruption to having fun and letting tomorrow take care of itself. With my neat bob, pearly pink nails and the knee-length dresses Massimo loved, I could have passed for ten years her senior.

So despite Anna muttering about the marriage being ‘doomed’, I didn’t feel sorry for Maggie. I felt envious. Envious of that burning intensity of new love. Of their optimism. Of their hopes for the future.

I imagined Nico laughing at her singing to the radio, dropping a kiss onto her head as she sat at the table, tucking her scarf into her coat before she headed off to work. I felt a pang of nostalgia for the days when Massimo would slip into my office and sweep all the carefully documented papers off the desk, the minutiae of the accounts I’d been auditing receding, blocked out by the ferociousness of his kisses. The ‘working’ dinners where we’d be so absorbed in each other we’d only tear ourselves away when the waiters started sweeping up. I ached for the connection that opened the door to belonging, to feeling part of a family again.

I wished I’d let Dad come to this wedding. Massimo only had his best interests at heart: he didn’t want Dad to become confused by all the new faces, but Dad still loved music and this 1960s song was right up his street. Any recognition from him made my day. And I’d have loved to have seen him in his suit again, smart and smiling, like he used to be.

Like we all used to be.

I turned my attention back to Nico and Maggie as they began their vows, catching sight of Francesca’s rigid face as I did so. Despite Anna’s doom-mongering, I thought Nico marrying again was a good thing for Francesca. Given that my mother died when I was a toddler and now my dear old dad was fading like an ancient Polaroid photo, I’d have been delighted to have had a warm, jolly stepmother to help me along. Maybe if I’d had someone to talk to, rather than protect, I’d have had a different life all together.

But before I could disappear any further down that path of then and now, my seven-year-old son, Sandro, spotted a spider scuttling under the chair in front of him. Since our cat, Misty, had gone missing a few days earlier, Sandro was even more sensitive and clingy than usual, his pale face carrying the air of someone who’d read the instructions for aircraft evacuation and was just biding his time until the emergency presented itself. The exact opposite to the little I’d seen of Maggie’s son, Sam, who looked as though suppressing a mischievous chuckle was a daily challenge. Sandro started to fidget. He nudged me and pointed. I leant down and whispered that it was only a little spider, that it wouldn’t hurt him, when it suddenly encountered Beryl’s shoe and ran straight back towards him. He screamed, clambering up onto his chair.