Catherine Narracott
The Wife
The waiter brings my breakfast: scrambled eggs with wafer-thin shavings of black truffle.
Miss Marple turns to give me an approving nod.
She told me to keep my strength up, though I have little appetite.
I decided to risk coming down to breakfast this morning.
To ready myself for the occasional stare I still seem to attract, I have had my hair freshly set at the hotel’s coiffeuse and a manicure.
I am wearing a grey silk shirt and jet earrings.
Mummy was right: when times are hard, one’s wardrobe should work even harder.
I smile back at Miss Marple. There seemed to be some small confusion or upset among the three ladies, but now all is calm again.
I watch the companion as she turns away from them.
As she does, her face changes. The smile slips to a grimace.
It reminds me of something. Then it comes to me.
It’s what my husband used to do, when he was speaking to constituents.
He’d put on what I thought of as his politician’s mask, his elderly-lady charming smile.
Then, as soon as he was out of sight, he would let it drop – usually with some muttered remark about the low intelligence and breeding of the average person.
She stands and leaves the table. I watch her, thinking that she seems somehow very different to the woman who arrived here.
As though – how to put it? – some camouflage or pretence has fallen away.
It isn’t the clothes. They are just as dreadful as before, quite frankly.
It is the woman inside them. She seemed rather meek and mousey that first day in Reception, but now I have the sense of someone steely …
strong. She passes by my table, her gaze fixed on the door that leads out of the room.
The phrase wolf in sheep’s clothing floats through my mind.