The Third Wife by Lisa Jewell Read Free Book Online Page A

How had he not noticed? There it was, in red pen:
Strada Upper Street 6.30 p.m
.
    He came back into the kitchen and sat down heavily. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘you’re right. This is weird.’
    ‘Stalker,’ she said, folding her arms conclusively across her chest.
    ‘Disappearing stalker,’ he replied.
    ‘Probably just as well.’ Her eyes drifted over his shoulder. ‘That soup is boiling, Dad.’
    Adrian leaped to his feet and turned off the heat under the soup. Then he poured it into two mugs and handed one to Pearl with a bread roll. This was their special thing: once a week, after skate training, Adrian picked her up and brought her here, gave her tomato soup and a bread roll. He did the same with the boys too; each had their own night. Another idea of Maya’s. One-on-one time, she’d called it.
    ‘Are you going to try and find her?’
    Adrian tore off a corner of his bread roll and held it suspended above his soup. ‘I don’t know,’ he said non-committally. ‘Maybe. I’ve bought a charger. For her phone. I’m going to keep it charged, in case she tries calling.’
    ‘What’s she like? Is she nice?’
    ‘Oh, really, I hardly know her. I mean, we literally had three very short conversations.’
    ‘Maybe she was stalking me to see if she’d like me to be her stepdaughter?’
    Adrian laughed. ‘I doubt that very much.’
    Pearl dropped her gaze to the floor and sighed. ‘I don’t know if I want another stepmother.’
    ‘Oh, Pearl, darling, you really don’t need to be thinking about stuff like that. Honestly. Three wives is enough for one man in one lifetime I think.’
    Adrian rested his spoon in his bowl and closed his eyes. After his spiky lunch with Cat he was aware that he needed to handle this subject with a deft touch. ‘You know, all the women I married, I married because they were absolutely the right person for me to be with at the time I was with them. I had no doubts about any of my marriages; I went into all of them wide-eyed with love and hope. And maybe that will never happen to me again. Maybe I’ll meet women and I’ll think they’re nice but they won’t be right for me like Susie was, like your mum was. And like Maya was.’
    Pearl studied him intensely. ‘You will get married again,’ she said. ‘You’re a love addict.’
    Adrian swallowed back a smile at the sound of Caroline’s words being funnelled through his youngest daughter. ‘Well, whatever happens, I promise I won’t do anything to make you unhappy.’
    ‘You can’t promise that,’ said Pearl, shaking her head. ‘You totally can’t promise that.’

Eight
    The first weekend of May brought with it two birthdays, back to back: Caroline’s forty-fourth and Cat’s twentieth.
    Adrian arrived at the townhouse in Islington holding the rope handles of two gift bags and a carrier bag full of champagne. It was a beautiful day: cool on the street, but red-hot in the suntrap of Caroline’s south-facing back garden. Susie was already there, looking incredibly old for a woman not yet fifty, her skin the wind-beaten hide of the seaside-dwelling gardener, her clothes not quite right for a birthday party: floppy canvas trousers and a rather worn-out muslin camisole which showed her bra. But her fine bone structure still took the eye, and her brilliant blue eyes.
    ‘Hello, Suse,’ he said, approaching her and kissing her lightly on each cheek. ‘You look great.’
    ‘No, I look awful. I wanted to see what would happen to my hair if I stopped dying it. And now I know.’
    The smaller children were on a large trampoline at the bottom of the garden and Cat and Luke sat side by side on a blanket, staring at Luke’s smartphone.
    ‘Luke,’ he said in greeting.
    Luke looked up at him and started to get to his feet.
    ‘Don’t get up. It’s OK.’
    But Luke ignored him and approached him with open arms. Adrian felt vaguely alarmed by him. Where Cat was bursting out all over the place with lumps and bumps and