The Third Wife Read Online Free PDF Page B

button. Adrian stared at the button. He felt suddenly as though it were a part of him, that button. He could see the coat as it had looked draped casually over his armchair, in the relaxed intimacy of a Sunday morning, with no men called Matthew, no children.
    ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said, finally restored to a sense of his own usual self. ‘Well, we’d better get on.’
    ‘Yes,’ she said. She smiled and linked her arm back through the crook of Matthew’s. ‘Off you go. Have fun, all of you. And happy birthday, Pearl.’
    Adrian was about to walk on, to slip back into the smooth passage of his evening, when she stopped, tugged Matthew back by the arm and said, ‘Oh, by the way, how are you and Billie getting on?’
    ‘Really well,’ he said. ‘Really well.’
    Her smile changed then, to a smile that matched the familiarity of their previous encounters. ‘That’s great,’ she said. ‘Just great. Well, have fun.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Adrian. ‘Yes, you too.’
    His face felt flushed as they walked on. There was something about that woman. Something that both unsettled and comforted him.
    ‘Why are you giving Billie away?’ said Pearl.
    ‘I’m not.’
    ‘But that woman said she wanted to adopt her.’
    ‘I know. But I changed my mind. That woman made me change my mind.’
    Pearl thought about this for a moment. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’m glad. You can’t give Maya’s cat away. You can’t.’
    ‘I’m not going to, Pearl.’
    ‘That woman reminded me of her.’
    ‘Of who – Billie?’
    ‘No!’ Pearl did not appreciate jokes that were not on her own terms. ‘Of Maya.’
    ‘Really?’ Adrian asked this cautiously. Pearl frequently saw women she thought were Maya. Sometimes she’d tug his arm and point:
Look, Dad, look, it’s her!
Only to find herself pointing at a red-haired stranger bearing no similarity to Maya whatsoever, her face already falling with disappointment. ‘I can’t see it myself.’
    ‘No, I mean, this isn’t that thing that I do, when I think I see her. I know it’s not her. I just think there’s something about her that’s a bit like Maya.’
    Adrian brought his arm around Pearl’s shoulders and squeezed them. She shook him off, gently.
    ‘I really miss Maya,’ said Beau with a sigh. ‘I really, really do.’
    ‘Oh God,’ said Adrian, stopping and staring down into Beau’s guileless grey eyes. ‘Oh yes. So do I. So do I.’
    When Adrian returned home alone, three hours later, his flat greeted him with shadows and empty spaces. He unfurled his scarf, unbuttoned his coat, hung his things on his coat rack. There was Maya’s coat, just as she’d left it, on the warm spring day almost a year ago when she’d gone out to Caroline’s house and never come back. It was a simple black thing, padded with down, with a fur-trimmed hood and a belted waist. He thought of her face peering from the hood on snowy days, her hands tucked in her pockets, snowflakes sitting on her copper fringe, her blue eyes full of mysteries.
    And then he thought of Jane. His mind blew about with images of her glowing face, the rose in her hand, the button on her coat. She didn’t look like anyone he’d ever known before. He had never gone for glamour. Glamour in women tended to throw him off course, like a driver coming towards him with their full beams on. He’d always gone for earthy but sexy women, women with strong features, good legs, throaty voices, thick hair, women happy to leave the house in oatmeal socks and an old fleece. Vikings, he called them, the type of women he liked. Maya had not been a Viking, but she had been low-key and natural, her hair a no-nonsense, coppery bob, jeans and a cardigan, make-up only after dark. He liked the sort of understated beauty he could feel he’d discovered, a secret between just the two of them. But Jane: she glimmered and gleamed. Every bit of her looked as though it had been dipped in gold dust. She was not a Viking, she was a princess.
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