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

only-just-controlled fat, Luke was like a wraith. Taller than Adrian by two inches, thin from every angle, he had Susie’s colouring and Adrian’s physique. And his eyes, the narrow, almost glacial eyes that had looked so extraordinary in his childish face, looked oddly unsettling now that his features had set.
    ‘Dad,’ he said, wrapping his Mr Tickle arms around Adrian and squeezing him. ‘It’s really good to see you.’
    Adrian smiled in surprise. Luke had been an affectionate child, but for the last year or so he had become distant from his father, almost hostile. ‘Absence making the heart grow fonder?’
    Luke put his hands into his trouser pockets and smiled. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it has been six months.’
    ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Adrian, ‘has it really?’
    Luke smiled at him from under his slightly fey fringe. ‘It sure has.’
    ‘God, I’m so sorry. What was it then, Christmas?’
    ‘No, not even Christmas. I was away over Christmas. It was my birthday.’
    ‘November, then?’
    Luke gave him a slow clap and then sat down again next to his sister. ‘Don’t tell me the Board of Harmony is letting you down?’
    ‘I think I might need to update the Board of Harmony,’ he said, sitting down in a chair that had been pulled across for him by Caroline and smiling his thanks to her. ‘It’s not good enough. Six months …’ He shook his head.
    The small children had cottoned on to his arrival and Beau and Pearl threw themselves off the trampoline and hurtled towards him crying, ‘
Daddy!
’ Pearl climbed on to his lap and Beau held his small arms around Adrian’s neck. They both smelled of scalp and sun-cream. Across from him Caroline sat down and pulled up the sleeves of her jersey dress. She looked radiant, her dark blond hair cut in a flattering style that showed off her cheekbones, long, toned legs in leggings, and wearing a dress decorated with flowers. Caroline rarely wore dresses. And certainly never ones decorated with flowers.
    ‘You look beautiful,’ he said.
    ‘Thank you,’ she said, accepting his compliment graciously. ‘You look worn out.’
    Adrian frowned. ‘Thanks a bundle.’
    Luke had opened one of Adrian’s bottles of champagne and passed him some in a plastic flute. ‘Cheers,’ he said, holding his own out towards the centre of the group. ‘Here’s to birthdays. To Cat.’ He turned and waved his flute towards his sister. ‘And to Caroline.’ He turned to his stepmother. ‘And to family. It’s been too long.’
    Otis finally approached and smiled shyly at his father. ‘Hello, Father,’ he said. He’d never called Adrian ‘Father’ before. Adrian took it as a thinly veiled expression of disenchantment.
    ‘Hello, son,’ he said, and grabbed him round the middle. Otis was his best-looking child. He absolutely should not have been able to discern such a thing; he should have been blind to the variances in his children’s physical attributes. But he wasn’t. He himself had been one of those unfortunate products of the early sixties who spent his seventies boyhood in mustard knitwear, sporting hair that looked like a wig. He’d had crooked teeth and freckles and studio photographs of him at the time showed him to be a slightly heartbreaking work-in-progress. Like every other boy of his age. Otis on the other hand looked as if he should be plastered to young girls’ bedroom walls in poster form. His face was perfectly symmetrical, his eyes mocha brown, half his face full of lips and dimples, the other half full of eyelashes and cheekbones.
    Adrian took a sip of his champagne and looked up briefly at the back of the townhouse. He could barely believe that this had once been his home, this beautiful white building with its tumble of windows, its garden of ancient fruit trees and frothing bushes of spring blossom. There was a white spiral staircase connecting the first-floor living room with the garden and Caroline had strung it with dozens of crystals and