The Accidental Wife by Rowan Coleman Page A

Somehow the closer they got now as individuals, the further away the reality of the couple they once were seemed, and it was a loss that Catherine, at least, still mourned. Not because the relationship they had once shared was right, but because she had wanted it to be so much.
    ‘So are you staying for dinner then?’ she asked him finally, breaking the thread in two.
    Jimmy’s smile was weary. ‘I thought you were never going to ask.’
    It was past eight when Catherine finally got the girls into bed. It was Jimmy’s fault. After his quiet resolve in the kitchen he’d returned to his tall-tale self by the time Catherine served dessert, regaling the girls with stories of what a wonderful life they were going to lead as soon as the band was discovered and he hit the big time – which would be any time soon, now that they had the funds in place to make a new demo. Eloise asked for a pony and Jimmy told her she could have a field full if she wanted, and there was to be an unending supply of sweets for Leila who planned to distribute them to the world’s less privileged children.
    Jimmy and the girls had still been singing by the time Catherine finally managed to shepherd the little ones up the stairs, and she did have to admit, as they hummed whilst brushing their teeth, that Jimmy’s new song had a catchy tune. Jimmy was good at catchy tunes, but somehow they never seemed to fit his rock-and-roll image. Surely a man who wore leather trousers to go to the supermarket shouldn’t be writing soppy love songs; he should be writing about mayhem and devil worship and possibly drugs of some description. But Jimmy had never been like that. Yes, he had a skull and crossbones tattooed on his right shoulder, but it was wreathed in roses and once, many years ago, when Catherine had teased him about his rock credentials he’d replied, ‘I’m a lover, not a fighter, babe.’
    He’d more than proved himself right since then.
    When she came down Jimmy was still there strumming on his guitar and humming the now-familiar tune. He’d opened a bottle of wine and poured two glasses out, which meant he wasn’t planning on going back to the boat any time soon. Catherine realised that she was glad. They would sit and talk about the girls, and her job and the PTA, and he’d entertain her with stories of the band’s latest exploits or whichever kid he was teaching in Rock Club had the most promise, and things would be easy between them, and comfortable. What Catherine missed most about being with him was simply having him in the room on a weekday night sipping a glass of wine and talking. Loving each other had been a trick they had never quite pulled off, but even after everything that had happened they still had the knack of liking each other.
    ‘Do you mind?’ Jimmy asked her, nodding at the wine. ‘I’ll go back to the boat in a mo, but the forecast said frost overnight. I could do with a drink to help keep the cold out.’
    ‘You need a proper home, really,’ Catherine said as she sat down, picking up her glass.
    ‘I’ve got one,’ Jimmy said with a shrug. ‘It’s just that I don’t live in it any more.’
    Catherine took a sip of wine.
    ‘I mean, you need a proper home for you. You can’t go on living in that boat. It’s not even a proper boat, just some floating rust bucket that Billy cobbled together when he was half cut and off his face.’
    ‘Don’t talk that way about Billy,’ Jimmy said mildly. His oldest friend and one-time bandmate had died – some said deliberately, although never in front of Jimmy – from an alcohol and prescription drug overdose almost three years ago. ‘If anybody had a good reason to drink it was him. He went from the brightest, best-looking, most talented bloke I’ve ever known to a shell of himself in less than five years. He could never let go of what he had once been, that’s the worst tragedy of schizophrenia. He knew he’d never be that bloke again, never get married and