Lucy Gordon - His Pretend Wife

Then she thought how that meeting would be: full of the remembered humiliation of their last encounter. Was that pain worth it, just to see him one more time?

Yes, anything was worth it.

As she headed back to the house Elinor became aware that there was someone else in the garden. It was a tall, dark-haired woman, expensively dressed and with an air of ease that came from always having money. Elinor had seen that look often enough in her customers. The stranger watched her approach, unabashed at being discovered intruding. A few feet away Elinor stopped and the two women regarded each other.

‘Who are you?’ they both said.

The woman laughed. ‘I’ll answer first, although I don’t know why I should, since it’s my home.’

‘This-? You’re-?’

‘I’m Myra Blake. And I should have said this used to be my home. I moved most of my things out months ago. It doesn’t really bother me who’s here now, but, just for the record, who are you?’

‘I’m Elinor Landers,’ she said carefully.

‘And when did Andrew move you in? I must say, this kind of caper isn’t normally in his line. Too much of a puritan. In fact, that’s what-well, it’s old history.’

‘I’m only here because he operated on my little girl,’ Elinor hastened to say, ‘and while she was in hospital our home burned down. I had nowhere else to go, and he was very kind.’

Myra Blake gave a crack of laughter. ‘Oh, yes, of course. I was forgetting how often he takes in waifs and strays from the hospital.’ Her voice was heavy with irony.

‘Mrs Blake, I promise you this isn’t how it looks. Besides I shall be l-’

‘Good grief, what do I care how it looks? Let’s go inside and you can make me some tea.’

She turned and led the way to the house, the picture of confidence. Elinor followed, her head in a spin. But since Myra Blake wasn’t flustered by the situation she determined that she wouldn’t be either.

She made tea and carried it into the room overlooking the garden where Myra had removed her luxurious cashmere coat and tossed it onto a chair. She’d seated herself on the sofa and now leaned back, surveying Elinor from dark eyes that gleamed with malicious fun. She was lovely, with black shining hair, cut elegantly and just touching her shoulders. As a beautician Elinor had become a connoisseur of other women’s looks, and professionally she had to admire Myra. Her legs were long and elegant, sheathed in black silk and ending in impossibly high heels. Her curvaceous figure looked as though she worked hard keeping it trim, her complexion was perfect and her face had been made up with great skill.

So this woman had been Andrew’s wife, had shared his life, his home, his bed. He’d said it hadn’t been a happy marriage, even implied that he’d married cynically, but at some point he must surely have been enraptured by her beauty, and whispered words of passion into her ears as they’d danced at their wedding.

‘Smashing!’ Myra said suddenly, and Elinor stared at hearing the down-to-earth word from this picture of elegance. ‘Smashing tea! Best I ever tasted.’ She was sipping enthusiastically.

‘I’m glad you like it, Mrs Blake,’ Elinor said politely, seating herself.

‘Myra, please.’

‘Myra, there’s a lot I don’t understand.’

‘Like how I just managed to walk in? I still have a key.’ She leaned forward to put her cup on the low table, but suddenly she stopped, frowning as she looked at Elinor. ‘Have we ever met before?’

‘No, never.’

‘Funny, you look familiar somehow. Never mind. So what am I doing here? I want to collect a few things that I left. And I thought Andrew might be around somewhere, although I can’t imagine why. He never was around. I need to talk to him. So come on, tell me. What gives?’

‘What gives?’

‘You and Andrew.’

‘There is no me and Andrew,’ she said firmly. ‘My daughter needed a heart transplant. She was originally a patient of Sir Elmer Rylance.’

‘My uncle,’ Myra said casually.

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Andrew told you that much, then. Go on.’

‘He was ill when a heart became available for my daughter, so Andrew did the operation. And, as I told you, my home caught fire-’

‘And he played the Good Samaritan. Well, well!’ Myra was looking her over with a look that was hard to read, amused, cynical, but not unfriendly.

‘It’s a wonderful place for Hetta,’ Elinor urged. ‘So quiet and peaceful, which is what she needs to recover-’

‘And Andrew here to keep an eye on her.’

‘He doesn’t live here,’ Elinor said quickly.

‘But he visits?’

‘Only once to see how we were doing. It’s just Hetta and me. He says he has this little apartment near the hospital-’

‘Oh, sure, I know it. A real monk’s cell. He spent most of his time there even when we were officially together. When he did come back it was just to see Simon, our son. Don’t look like that. I don’t suppose I’m telling you anything you didn’t know. Andrew’s obviously discussed me with you. Hell, I don’t mind! In fact it rather suits me. Did he tell you I was getting married again?’

‘No.’

‘Well, I am. Cyrus Hellerman from Detroit. He’s big in motors, and I mean big.’

‘A millionaire?’

‘Please! A million dollars gets you nowhere these days. Multi-multi-multi, if you know what I mean.’

‘I think I do,’ Elinor said. ‘This wasn’t enough, then?’ She indicated the house.

‘This? Nice little cottage, but I felt the need to spread my wings. Enter Cyrus. His wife had died a few months back, he was lonely, and why hang around?’

‘For someone else to snap him up?’

‘Right,’ Myra said, unabashed. ‘Of course, Andrew is very successful in his way, and when I married him I was really in awe of him. Uncle Elmer said he was the best of his generation, but he had some funny ideas. He’s never made as much money as he should have done because he does so much for free. Well, I respect that. I really do. But it got kind of boring when I wanted to remodel the house.’

‘What did Uncle Elmer say about his unpaid work?’

‘He was all for it. Said it enhanced Andrew’s reputation.’

‘But if he was helping people for nothing surely he was thinking of them, not himself?’

‘Oh, please! I got all that high-minded stuff from him. I can’t tell you how desperate I was to get away from it.’ She looked at Elinor suspiciously. ‘Are you high-minded?’

‘Andrew has just saved my daughter’s life, so I’m bound to be a bit high-minded about what he does.’

‘Uh-huh! Well, I guess you can’t help it, then,’ Myra said, as though excusing some social flaw. ‘I’m not that way myself.’

‘But don’t you come from a medical family?’

‘Yes, and I can’t tell you how that stuff got on my wick all these years. Andrew briefly made me find it acceptable, but the fact is that I misread him as he misread me, and the best thing we ever did was get a divorce.’

‘But what about your son?’

‘I’m coming to him. You could do me a favour.’ She spoke as though it were a given that Elinor would want to. ‘Simon is seven years old. What about your little girl?’

‘Seven too. And thanks to Andrew she’s going to be eight, and nine, and ten.’

‘Uncle Elmer says he’s the best surgeon he knows for operating on young children. It’s a special skill, because everything’s so small. Oddly enough, he’s good at talking to them as well.’

‘Why is that odd?’

‘Because his own son is a closed book to him. Mind you, it would help if he spent some more time with him.’

‘But there must be so many demands on him. Surely he manages as much as he can.’

‘What do you know about it? Were you there on Simon’s fifth birthday? Or his sixth, come to that. Have you seen the look on that child’s face when his father has put him last yet again? Andrew’s digging the grave of that relationship, and if I was the bitch some people think I am I’d sit back and let him do it. As it is, I’m here to do him a favour.’

MYRA waited for an answer to this last remark, but Elinor decided to play it safe with silence. She was apprehensive about the ‘favour’ Myra was proposing to do for Andrew. To her relief Myra didn’t pursue the point.

‘What do you think of this house?’ she asked, going to look out of the window to where the garden was at its best.

‘I love it.’

‘Where are you sleeping?’

Dangerous ground. ‘Well, I-’

‘I expect you’re in my room. It’s a hoot, isn’t it? That was my Victorian period, except for the bathroom, which was my Egyptian period. If I’d stayed on here I’d have changed them both. Is your daughter around now?’

‘She’s upstairs,’ Elinor said, disconcerted by the abrupt change of subject. ‘Oh, no, I think that’s her.’

There was a noise in the hall, and the next moment Hetta wandered in, a toy in each hand, and with a cheerful smile that brightened as she saw a visitor.

‘Come here, darling,’ Elinor called.

Hetta came to her side and stood regarding the visitor with a wide-eyed stare that would have disconcerted someone less at ease than Myra.

‘I’m Myra,’ she said. ‘I used to live here, and I’ve just been making friends with your mummy.’

‘How do you do?’ Hetta said politely.

‘Do you like it here?’

Hetta nodded.

‘Must be a bit lonely, though,’ Myra suggested. ‘No kids of your own age. No animals. Do you like dogs?’

Hetta nodded again with unmistakable eagerness.

‘Then you’d get on well with my son, Simon. He’s your age and he’s got a puppy. Care to meet him?’

‘And the puppy?’ Hetta asked at once.

‘And the puppy.’ Myra flicked open a cell phone and spoke into it. ‘OK, Joe.’

Elinor’s suspicions were rising by the minute. ‘Now, wait a moment-’