A Second Wife by Rosemary Friedman

Author:Rosemary Friedman [Rosemary Friedman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781909807044
Publisher: Arcadia Books Limited
Published: 2013-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

Packing up my flat had not been easy. It was like purging Victor, personally. I sold it to a QC and his wife who had a house in the country, as a pied-à-terre. In the bathroom, eyeing Victor’s aftershave, I heard him say ‘she must be a widow’. They bought the carpets and curtains but they didn’t want the furniture, they had their own.

A house clearance man came, a stub of a pencil behind his ear. On this sofa, I wanted to say, we listened to Bach and Vivaldi; in winter, warmed by this fire, we made love; that table, by the window, was where Victor spread his evening newspaper, if he got home before I. The man named a sum. To cover the goods and chattels. I was selling memories.

‘This chair…’ I touched it protectively.

It was as if Victor was in it. I wondered should I take it to Maida Vale, to my new home.

The man waited. The chair, faded blue, somewhat threadbare at the arms, was of no great value. I let it go by default.

He replaced the pencil. I knew I had sold everything far too cheaply, but I did not care.

I packed up the souvenirs, the Buddhas and the boxes, the coral and the starfish, the sediment from the good wine of my life. They went into a tea-chest, together with Gerald’s letters, ready for Richard’s attic. Only the watercolour of the lake where I had spent my first weekend with Victor – May Higgins, I wondered was she still alive – would be displayed on Richard’s wall.

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