Catherine Narracott
The Wife
It must be morning. White light lances in through the gap in the curtains.
The sound of church bells – there’s a small chapel for the nuns up here, I heard.
Perhaps I’m letting my imagination run away with me but it seems there’s something foreboding in the sound.
For whom the bell tolls … was that John Donne?
I was always rather good on the poets at school.
I used to daydream about studying them at university …
becoming a real bluestocking. Smoking while riding a bicycle.
Taking lovers. Rather thrilling at the thought of how angry it would make my parents.
I was in love, once, but it was a completely unsuitable match.
A gardener, for one thing. In fact, it nearly caused a minor scandal …
and was the reason Mummy and Daddy thought it would be good to get me as Finished as possible – and married off soon after that.
I turn over and stare up at the ceiling. It really is rather oppressive, all this wood. It feels as though it’s bearing down on one. Anthony snores beside me; he snores often, in fact (I would never tell him because he would detest knowing it).
A few moments later he stirs. I close my eyes and pretend to be asleep.
I can’t quite face talking to him yet. He leaps out of bed with one athletic bound, not a stitch of clothing on his body, and prowls across the room.
He isn’t limping. The limp only really appears in public; especially when, as yesterday, he is speaking to the public.
When he wants to remind them of the war hero, given the Victoria Cross for courage under fire.
One of the only survivors in a skirmish between a small band of brave British fighters and the Nazis, just over the mountains from here, in occupied France.
Funny thing, I’ve noticed that the story changes a little every time he tells it.
I watch him secretly, through nearly closed eyes, as he crosses to the mirror and smiles at himself.
It’s a closed-mouth smile, the sort you might give someone if you politely disagreed with what they said.
Then wider, revealing a few more teeth, and then, biggest of all, the smile he gave the elderly ladies at the Reception.
He is practising these expressions … like a dancer practising positions, an actor practising a part.
I close my eyes again. I don’t want him to catch me watching him.
There are times as a wife, Mummy used to say, where one must be extremely attentive to one’s husband.
And there are other times in which it is really far wiser to look the other way.
Becoming the best sort of wife is about knowing when to do which.
After a few minutes I let out a little sigh and stretch, so he knows I’m awake.
‘Good morning, darling,’ he says. He is being solicitous. ‘Oh, look at you, sleepy head! You took one of your pills? You’re dead to the world with them. I find it rather alarming at times. When I came back last night—’
‘Oh,’ I say, rubbing my eyes and sitting up against the pillows. ‘Were you late?’
‘Not very. Just a nightcap in the bar afterwards, with Bruno.’
‘I’m sorry about yesterday evening,’ I say. ‘The scene … in the restaurant. I’m terribly ashamed. I think I had too much wine, and with my pills—’
‘We won’t talk of it again,’ he says, a little sharply.
‘We will pay that … that person no attention, because that is what she wants. I cannot understand what she is doing here. I think it must be because she wants to make trouble for me. It’s what she does.
Beneath the veneer of the actress is a …
a vamp, a seductress.’ And then, with a great effort he says, in his politician’s voice: ‘I apologise, for any … indiscretion on my part.’
Then after a pause he stretches: all is forgotten. ‘Ready for a beautiful day on the mountain?’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘But the wind’s terrible this morning. Besides, I heard there’s snow coming in a couple of hours and I hate skiing in a white-out. I’m going to the spa.’
‘Well yes,’ he says. ‘You’re a perfect bluebird skier, darling, but a white-out does rather sort the experts from the amateurs.’
He proceeds to do his warm-up exercises.
Any other human would look a complete fool wearing nothing and throwing themselves into all sorts of strange shapes, but he looks more like an Ancient Greek athlete limbering himself up for the Games.
Afterwards he dresses in his skiwear and throws open the curtains with a grand flourish. ‘Time to greet the morning—’
But the last word seems to die on his lips. He freezes: it is as though I can see the chill passing over his flesh as he takes in something outside the window.
‘What is it, darling?’ I ask.
‘Nothing,’ he says, quickly. A little too quickly?
I pull my robe about me and move to stand at the window.
Now I can see it too: a flag has been run up the flag pole, which usually flies the Swiss flag.
Black, with a central white triangle, the symbol of a howling wolf inside the triangle and letters apparently stitched onto it beneath the symbol, reading:
Les loups des montagnes
It looks like an antique, too: torn and frayed in places, the loose ragged pieces dancing in the wind.
I say the words aloud and I’m sure I see my husband flinch. I am almost fascinated by the effect these words have upon him, the power I feel over him, speaking them. It’s so unfamiliar. I say it again in English: ‘The wolves of the mountain.’
‘I know what it says,’ he says in a hiss, rounding on me. This time the change in him is unmistakable: the dread in his expression.
‘Sorry, darling,’ I say. ‘Are … are you all right?’
‘Of course I’m all right!’
‘But what a strange thing,’ I say. ‘I wonder what it means?’
‘It doesn’t mean anything!’ he cries. ‘It’s some damn fool practical joke.
’ These are almost the same words he used when that jar of rat poison appeared in our room.
Then, with a furious yanking motion he draws the curtains closed again and stalks into the bathroom, as though completely unaware of the fact that his action has just given the lie to his words.
Why would my husband feel the need to obscure that stunning morning view of the mountains, plunging the room into darkness again, if it weren’t for the fact that something in that view had seriously disturbed him?