to the hospital. Martha followed him the first day and found driving behind him in peak-time traffic a challenge. She’d caused a bother to other drivers somehow, with car horns blaring at her for something she had done wrong. Since then she only drove to the house, as the car found its own way there, and watched the comings and goings of his new wife, just like she was doing now.
She was certainly full of energy, this new wife – light and quick as she came out of the front door and bounced on the balls of her feet in her running shoes. She stretched arms and legs, bending and pressing and limbering in her bright blue Lycra for over a minute, and then proceeded off at a pace down the road, her long dark hair up in a ponytail, swinging from side to side across her shoulders. Martha gazed after her and then, realising the house stood empty, she made her way up the drive to peer in through windows she once looked out of.
Her anguished cry trapped the air in her throat, and she had to relax the muscles in her face and purse her lips in order to breathe out. She had expected it to look different, changed from her memories of it, not for it to be exactly the same. The lamps, the paintings, all of the furniture – it was all just as before. He had changed nothing for his new wife.
Martha didn’t need to imagine what it felt like to be inside this house. She could feel, as if she was touching it now, the raised threads of the brocade fabric as she smoothed the arms of the small Queen Anne chair. Her chair, reserved for her when visiting. A tear in the fabric, where an arm was worn, had been mended with black thread for lack of silver, but was only noticeable if you knew where to look or where to touch.
A heavy sting inside her chest had her quickly fumbling in her coat pockets for the tiny pump bottle. Her memories had brought back to life images and sounds so real that if she knocked on the window they would see her standing there looking in, as clear as she could see them looking out. She could hear music, and her eyes darted to the corner of the room where the piano stood. His graceful hands were moving over the keyboard, playing a melody that once soothed her but now made her shiver.
Raising her tongue she sprayed liquid into her mouth, ignoring the slight burn as she repeated the action. She rested her forehead against the windowpane, waiting for the sharp stinging in her chest to ease. It would settle in a moment and then she would be on her way.
Her eyes closed to shut out the ghosts in the drawing room. How could he bring his new wife here and not change a thing? Had he no care to change it? Was he happy to have his new wife touch the same things, see the same things? Maybe he got a kick out of watching her walk around the house touching things, unsuspecting; felt pleasure at her not knowing? Martha suspected he did. He would not have changed. A leopard cannot change its spots. No more than this man can change his ways.
Adrift in the memory of it all, she lost time and stayed still, standing with eyes closed and memories open. She was startled out of her trance as something touched her shoulder, and she swung around too fast. The woman neatly saved her from falling, and Martha gratefully kept a grip of the hands holding her upright, trying to catch her breath and offer her gratitude. ‘Oh, my dear, you gave me a fright, but thank you for catching me.’
Up close, his wife had startlingly blue eyes, the same turquoise as the hydrangeas Martha chose for the grave.
Her smile was warm and generous, and her voice full of care. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you here to visit me?’
Martha shook her head. ‘No, my dear, I’m not. I thought this was my friend’s house till I peered in the window and saw that it isn’t. Silly me, I’ve got my roads mixed up, I think. Hers is the next road along.’
‘Do you want to come in and catch your breath, have a glass of water?’
Martha stepped back from the window. ‘No, thank you, dear.