The Third Wife by Lisa Jewell Page A

folded towels.
    ‘Paul’s not her boyfriend,’ said Pearl crossly.
    ‘Yeah he is,’ Otis retaliated. ‘I saw him touch her face.’
    Pearl tutted, put her hand out and stroked Otis’s face. ‘There,’ she said, ‘I touched your face. Does that mean I’m your girlfriend now?’
    He backed away from her in horror. ‘Oh my God, Pearl. You’re such a sick weirdo.’ He rubbed her touch from his face and headed back to the trampoline, moodily kicking a football ahead of him.
    Paul was in the garden now. Adrian looked up at him and blanched. He was at least ten years younger than Adrian. He looked away and unthinkingly pulled the small, hovering figure of Beau up on to his lap, almost like a talisman, or a kind of credential for being here. Beau burrowed his hot body against his father’s and Adrian felt it then, a little bubble of yearning for the compactness of babies, the baby he and Maya had never had.
    ‘Everyone,’ Caroline was saying brightly, ‘this is Paul Wilson. Paul, this is my ex-husband Adrian, and this is Adrian’s other ex-wife Susie who’s come up from Hove for the day. And this is my stepson, Luke, Cat’s brother.’
    Adrian gave Paul Wilson what he hoped was the smile of a man confident and comfortable in his own skin, whilst also using body language to explain the fact that he would be unable to get to his feet because he had a child on his lap. ‘Good to meet you, Paul.’
    ‘So these are all your kids?’ said Paul, his nice face opening up in awe.
    ‘Er. Yeah. At least, so I’ve been told.’
    Paul laughed. ‘You’ve been busy.’
    ‘Well,’ said Adrian, giving Beau a little squeeze, ‘it’s been a long-term project. I got started on it quite a long time ago.’
    ‘Christ,’ said Paul. ‘I’d better crack on myself. I’m forty next year.’
    Adrian swallowed down hard on his impulse to suggest that Paul also better ‘crack on’ with a younger woman if babies were his aim.
    Caroline erected another fold-up chair for Paul and Luke poured him out a plastic glassful of champagne.
    ‘This is pretty amazing,’ said Paul, looking keenly from person to person. ‘All of you, getting together en masse like this. Nobody killing anybody.’
    Caroline and Susie exchanged a glance and laughed.
    ‘No, I mean seriously. What’s your secret?’
    ‘We all just like each other, I suppose,’ said Susie.
    ‘And we all like Adrian, which helps,’ said Caroline.
    ‘Wow,’ said Paul, nodding in wonderment. ‘That’s quite a testimonial. Honestly, I’ve known a few broken families in my time; in fact I am the product of one. And I’ve never heard of a family getting away with it before. You know. The messy aftermath.’ He shook his head from side to side and smiled. ‘Carrie tells me you all go on holiday together, too?’
    ‘Well, we try,’ said Adrian, starting to feel oddly defensive. ‘At least once a year. For the children. Helps them to bond when they don’t live together.’
    ‘Wow,’ said Paul again. ‘Amazing. Makes you wonder though, you know,
what lurks beneath
. Who’s got the secret voodoo dolly.’ He mimed someone sticking pins into a doll and laughed extra loud to ensure that everyone knew he was joking. Caroline squeezed his knee in a cautionary gesture and Adrian eyed him uncertainly.
    ‘Oh,’ he said lightly, ‘I think you’ll find there’re no dark secrets buried here. I think you’ll find we’re all very open with each other.’
    Paul smiled at him and nodded. ‘Good for you,’ he said, ‘good for all of you.’
    Over the top of Beau’s shaggy mop of hair, Adrian observed Paul and Caroline closely. She had always been the most beautiful of his three wives and he had imagined her living out her life in elegant, just-so singularity in this enchanted house, pruning her fruit trees, walking her dogs, tending to the needs of her family. And as he thought of Caroline’s dogs, one of them appeared from where it had been sleeping under the table and