The Single Mums' Secrets - Janet Hoggarth Page 0,20
fortune as a hedge fund manager, but there was always the cushion of his dad’s wealth should he gamble it all away on a flaky deal. It was probably why he had been so successful: he had no fear of insolvency, professionally or personally.
Louise had never really understood the complexities of what Nigel did for a living. She just knew he worked late, earned a fortune and that they could probably afford to live in a flashier area with a bigger house and employ a gardener and a cleaner. But he’d wanted to send the boys to his alma mater one day, and she preferred South East London and to do her own cleaning – no one could live up to her exacting standards. Smeared mirrors were not part of her life.
When Louise had thought of hedge funds, she’d always pictured hedge porn instead – the outmoded way one passed on one’s porno mags to other users pre-internet days. A kind of leafy library with rolled-up smutty magazines stashed inside awaiting prospective readers to retrieve them from the tightly packed branches. She’d told him this once and he’d henceforth referred to his job as a hedge porn manager. Louise’s throat clenched recalling the memory of his boisterous laugh.
Tears pooled behind her eyes, tipping over her lashes and sluicing down her cheeks. The incessant ache in her chest flared up to breaking point, threatening to push her towards hysteria. This wasn’t what she’d thought it would feel like to be a widow. She’d fantasised about Nigel dying countless times when she’d believed she’d had enough of their one-sided marriage, and even sometimes when she’d been happy, just to try it on for size. In the fantasy he would get a virulent cancer and die soon after diagnosis. She would nobly care for him until the end while looking amazing, then be devastated, mourn beautifully, hunker down with the children and pull together.
All the while James (sometimes Tom Hardy or the good-looking newsreader on London Tonight) would wait patiently at a respectful distance until she was ready to receive them like a heroine in a Jane Austen novel. Then she would discard her widow’s weeds and step into happiness once more, and hopefully copious amounts of wild sex.
However, the reality was very different. Being told by two policemen young enough to be her sons that her husband had died in a road traffic accident while on his way back from golf, dropping her favourite mug on the floor, then screaming at them both they must be mistaken, didn’t feature in the fantasy at all. Nothing from the fantasy rang true. The only thing that was vaguely recognisable was the fact that she couldn’t eat so had inadvertently lost a stone and now fitted into all her pre-children clothes, thus in Louise’s eyes, looking better than she ought to. The fantasy hadn’t prepared her for this behemoth of grief hanging round her neck that she felt didn’t belong to her.
‘If I could have him back now, would I?’ she timorously asked the dark out loud, half expecting an answer. Even though she’d complained to Christa about James’ cold-shouldering earlier, lying here in the marital bed, he was actually the last thing she wanted. It had all been a massive foil. What she wanted was her husband when she’d first met him, that devilishly handsome man who’d jumped out of his black Audi and apologised obsequiously for not seeing her on her bike as she’d pedalled to the station. She had been balancing on the cliff edge of her last relationship, and bumping into Nigel had been the nudge (and broken arm) that she’d needed to leap off, leaving another poor fiancé in the lurch to nurse his bruised heart.
Nigel had been older, had an extremely well-paid job, his own two-bed house, a flash but tasteful car and a very full and busy existence. His potential as a husband trounced all previous suitors, but not due to the trappings of financial success (that was the cherry on top). It was because he was so self-contained (Louise now realised that had not been a good omen) and hadn’t expected her to redirect her life just because she was with him. He’d wanted kids, just as she did, and she’d thought they met seamlessly in the middle.
‘Imagine it, Lou, two little dark-haired rug rats running round the place, creating mayhem like me and Phil used to. It’ll be perfect, just like you.’