The Last Wife by Karen Hamilton

Author:Karen Hamilton [Hamilton, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472244352
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2020-06-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Stuart takes an absolute age to go to sleep. The box lies beneath me. I had a peek while he was in the bathroom; it contains Nina’s journals. When I’m certain he’s been asleep for a good ten minutes, I lock myself in the baby’s nursery.

There are two five-year diaries, four lines for each day, starting from when we were both ten, until she switches to plain notebooks with more sporadic entries. I skim, but can’t help stopping every few pages or so when something funny or poignant catches my eye. Nina changed pen colours: green, red, blue, black depending on her mood. (Black, of course, is sad. Red for things she wants to remember. I know this because she underlines them.) It’s strange seeing memorable events written from her point of view. It distorts my own memory.

Realizing that this will take me weeks, I skip to the last diaries. It’s compelling and fascinating, this insight into Nina’s mind. I justify this by telling myself that I may find useful things that will help with Felix and Emily. There’s a lot of mother-guilt: deep, unsettling, contradictory emotions, the remorseful kind.

In the months leading up to her death, Nina rewrote parts of her old diaries. She’s named the rewriting process Hindsight. It’s fascinating, as I flick back and forth through the befores and afters, the different viewpoints, I read faster as if to trying reach the end of a book.

I’m back in Ibiza. Naturally, Charlie’s disappearance and death clouds the end. Except, it’s more than that. Another chapter has been inserted. I know I should stop reading, that if I continue, something big will shift, but I can’t. I open my eyes wider, read faster. Nina’s voice from the grave is dominant, she is back here with me.

Original: Spending time at the villa, it was almost like Stuart and his friends hadn’t left. Dan said we could use his villa during the daytime. After lunch, I lay on the lilo, my feet dangling over the edge in the pool. Bliss. I’m so going to be rich! But now, lying on the sun lounger, I feel restless. If Stuart was here, we’d be having a cheeky so-called siesta or heading out on his friend’s boat. Perhaps I’ll take the key . . . ha ha. I am good at handling it. Stuart said I am a natural, said I hardly need any lessons.

Hindsight: Reading these words makes me want to cry. I want to go back and stop my younger self at this point. We were living the dream, until we weren’t.

Why? I remember that day. I was glad Stuart had gone because it meant that I could bend Nina’s ear about my concerns regarding Charlie and Camilla.

We did take the key to the boat. Well, Nina did, but the rest of us encouraged her. We went out a lot with Stuart and his friends; we’d hang out with others on their boats or yachts, too, jumping off the edge every now and then to cool off.

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