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

the new bits of herself that seemed to arrive daily, the flesh that spilled from between her bra strap and the armholes of her vest, the swell of her belly – someone had asked her the other day if she was pregnant – and the meaty squash between her thighs. She sighed and decided to love them. She had to love them. If she didn’t love them she’d have to go on a diet. If she didn’t love them she would not be able to wear trousers with the word HOT on the bum.
    This was her third kick-boxing class in as many weeks. She was aching and hurting and elements of her interior physiology felt as though they were on fire even when she was sitting down. There were a surprising number of kick-boxing classes in the Highgate area. Six in total, at various locations and times. The last two classes had uncovered nothing beyond the fact that she was almost fatally unfit. No women with mismatched eyes. No women called Jane. No women called Tiffy. But still, two down, four to go, she was getting closer every week.
    She aimed one more kick at her reflection, checked her shoulder bag for her Oyster card and deodorant, put on an extra layer of mascara and headed to Highgate.
    The class was held in a community centre in the heart of a sprawling estate. It was the kind of place where a grasp of the martial arts probably came in quite handy, Cat thought, clutching her big bag against her body. A group of young boys in baggy clothes approached. She tried looking like the kind of girl who’d been brought up on an estate instead of the kind of girl who’d been brought up in a cottage in Hove. The four boys swivelled around as she passed, taking in the pure everythingness of her, making appreciative noises with their tongues and their teeth.
    ‘Hot,’ said one, reading from the back of her trousers. ‘That you are.
That you are
.’
    She turned and said, ‘I’m old enough to be your mother.’
    ‘Ha, yeah, if your boyfriend was a
paedophile
.’
    The boys laughed and so did Cat. She walked away, backwards, holding up a hand in what felt to her like a very street kind of gesture. The boys blew her kisses. Then she smiled, feeling the love again for her own flesh, turned round and walked straight into the path of a blonde woman carrying a gym bag. ‘Sorry!’ she said.
    ‘No problem,’ said the woman.
    Cat looked at the woman curiously. There was something about her. Something that seemed familiar. And then she inhaled sharply at the realisation that the woman had one blue eye and one blue and amber.
    ‘Jane?’ she gasped.
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘Are you Jane?’
    ‘No,’ said the woman. ‘Sorry. My name is A … Amanda.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Cat. ‘Right. Sorry. Are you going to the kick-boxing class?’
    The woman looked at Cat and then at the hall behind her. She nudged her rucksack slightly so that it disappeared behind her back. She cleared her throat and said, ‘No. No. I’m not.’
    And then she walked away. Cat stood still for a moment. She felt torn between conflicting urges: the urge to chase the woman and shout into her face that of course she was Jane and why was she lying about it; and the urge to stay where she was and let this perfectly innocent woman called Amanda walk to her destination in peace. Then she saw the middle-ground option. She could follow her. At a discreet distance. She was dressed for it, after all. She pulled her mobile phone from her hand and dialled in her dad’s number, holding it to her ear as she walked.
    ‘Dad,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve got her! I’m following her!’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Jane, of course! She was just about to walk into the hall where the kick-boxing class was. I bumped into her. She had the eyes, like you said! She told me her name was Amanda. But it’s her. I know it is!’
    ‘Where are you?’
    ‘God, I don’t know. Some estate in Highgate.’ She was approaching the same group of teenage boys. They smiled as they saw her and one of them shouted out, ‘She just couldn’t keep