A Copy of a Wife
“Are you sure it won’t be awkward for you?” asked Margaret, pausing on the doorway with a bag slung over her shoulder and a vaguely bewildered smile that Alice had never seen on her before. “I realise it’s inconvenient. I know.”
“Margaret, stop it. Come in already,” Alice replied, moving aside and holding the door. “The spare rooms free, James doesnt mind. Honestly, its fine.”
“James doesnt mind,” Margaret echoed, and there was something odd in her repetition. Not sarcasm. More like surprise. As if the words doesnt mind were unexpectedly significant.
“He rarely minds anything,” Alice said as she walked towards the kitchen. “Take off your shoes. Slippers are on the left.”
And so, it simply began.
Alice was fifty-two, Margaret, her old friend from university, fifty-one. They hadn’t seen much of each other for five yearsoccasional phone calls, sometimes a coffee in the city centrebut Alice always thought she knew Margaret well enough to open her door without second thoughts. Margaret had got divorced, her rented flat was up, the paperwork for a new place dragging. She just needed two or three weeksa month at mostto get herself sorted.
They lived in Cheltenham, not too big, not too small, where each area was a little like the other, and the shopkeepers recognised you by your voice. Alices flat was a three-bedroom on the third floor, windows overlooking a quiet street. Her husband James was a project manager for a construction firm, not high-profile but comfortably paid. Alice taught economics at the local further education college. Twenty-three years together. Their daughter had long since moved away. The flat was spacious and familiar, as any place is once everything is in its right spot and youre not anxious to change it.
Margaret arrived with one large bag and a box. She unpacked quietly, almost invisibly. Those first few days, Alice barely noticed her: she left early, came home late, ate little, spoke even less. James, on the first evening, simply said,
“For long?”
“About a month,” Alice answered.
“A month,” he repeated, his tone exactly like Margarets on the doorstep.
Alice ignored it. She was someone who didnt dwell on small things. Or she thought she wasnt.
The first hint of unease came in the second week. One morning, Alice went into the bathroom and found her favourite perfumeGardeniain the wrong place. Dark green bottle, silver lid, shed bought it at the chemist on Bath Road for three years. It wasnt on the little shelf on the left, but on the edge of the basin. She assumed shed moved it herself, put it back, and forgot.
By the third week, she noticed more.
Theyd started having breakfast together, all three. Alice made coffee her way: a little cold water first, then hot but never boiling, otherwise it went bitter. James knew and always praised it. That morning, Margaret had made the coffee because Alice was on the phone. James took a sip and said,
“This is good.”
“I copied Alice,” Margaret said, smiling. “She always does it this way.”
Alice glanced at her. Margaret smiled warmly. So harmless and friendly. Alice smiled back.
But something stuck. A wordless, inexplicable twist inside.
The weeks routine soon swept it away among timetables and marking student papers. Alice would come home to find the flat quiet and tidied. Apparently, Margaret had been cleaning, sorting things here and there. James adjusted to it faster than Alice expected.
“She cooked tonight,” he told her once, as though relaying good news. “Bean soup. Tasty.”
“I do bean soup,” Alice said.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Pretty similar.”
She didnt ask whose was better. He didnt tell her.
Margaret worked remotely, something with paperwork. Alice wasnt certain. Margaret spent her days in the spare room with a laptop, emerging for lunch to rustle up something simple, neat and well-presented by dinner. Not in loungewear, but proper clothes. Alice noticed because, by evening, shed usually changed into old joggers and a worn jumper, and realised, without meaning to, Margaret looked better than her, in her own home.
One evening, James sat beside Margaret to watch TV. Alice sorted exercise books in the bedroom and could overhear the easy flow of their conversation, her laughter echoing Alices own but softer. Alice caught herself thinking that, then brushed it off. Laughter sometimes sounds alike. So what?
But later, she thought about it again, without brushing it off.
Margaret started wearing her hair differently too. Once, she had a sharp, fashionable bob. Now she let it grow and styled it back, in a wavejust like Alice. Alice noticed standing with her at the hallway mirror. Both their reflections: Alice close, Margaret behind. The two were unmistakably similar, as an old and new photograph might be, taken in the same spot.
“That suits you,” Alice commented.
“Really?” Margaret adjusted a strand of hair. “Thought Id try it. Saw it on you.”
Again, “on you”. Again, this gentle, almost invisible copying. Alice managed a smile as she headed to the kitchen. Something inside her didnt smile.
That Sunday, she rang her daughter.
“Mum, how are you lot?”
“Fine. Margarets staying, remember?”
“Right. She still with you?”
“Yes. Paperworks dragging on.”
“Alright. And Dad?”
“Hes fine. He and Margaret get on.”
Pause.
“Is that…good or bad?” her daughter asked.
“Its good,” Alice replied. “Its good.”
Afterwards, Alice sat by the window with cold tea, thinking, “Get on”neutral words, yet shed said them warily, as if testing the ground beneath her feet.
In the fifth week, Margaret asked for a pie recipe.
“The one from last Sundaythe apple and cinnamon one.”
“I havent written it down, just do it by eye.”
“Can you explain? Ill jot it down.”
Alice explained, as exactly as she could. Margaret made notes in her phone. Three days later, she baked it. James ate and said, “Nice,” and Alice couldnt tell if he genuinely enjoyed the pie or didnt notice the difference in who baked it.
That evening, opening the hall cupboard, she found a light grey belted jacket, almost identical to her own. It must have been Margarets. Alice hung her jacket next to it, staring at the twin greys side by side.
She didnt ask. Not for fear of the answer, but because she didnt know how to phrase the question without sounding silly.
Work was hectica college inspection loomingand Alice spent evenings with paperwork while James lingered ever more in the lounge. Margaret too. Alice, behind her closed bedroom door, heard fragments of their voices. When she joined, conversation shifted but didnt stop, including her as a third party, not as the main one.
One night, she finally said to James, after Margaret had gone to her room:
“James, doesnt it strike you she copies me?”
He looked genuinely puzzled. “Who? Margaret?”
“Yes. Hair, jacket, recipes, perfume.”
“Women often pick up things from each other. Its perfectly normal.”
“I suppose,” Alice answered. “Maybe it is.”
He glanced down at his phone. Topic closed.
Alice lay awake, thinking James was most likely right. Friends do pick things up from each other. Perhaps she herself had done so with Margaret, but couldnt remember. She repeated, “Its normal,” as if saying it enough might make it true. It did not.
In the following days, Alice watched more closely and saw things shed missed. Margaret, listening to James, tilted her head rightjust like Alice. She said, “Well, exactly,” with the same drawn out emphasis. She drank her tea unsweetened, though Alice distinctly remembered she always took two sugars. Now, none.
That was no longer coincidence. It had become something else.
Alice called her colleague Janine, someone she talked to about more than just work.
“Janine, have you ever known someone start, almost, becoming you?”
“What do you meanimitating looks, gestures, habits?”
“Yes.”
“Thats called quiet envy,” Janine replied promptly. “I read about it. Some people want your life but cant take it outrightso they take parts, bit by bit.”
Alice was silent.
“Has this happened to you?”
“Not sure,” Alice lied. She already knew.
Margaret brought it up first, one evening as they shared tea in the kitchen.
“Alice, youre so complete. I look at you and think: thats how life ought to be. Flat, husband, jobeverything sorted.”
“I spent twenty years putting that sorted together,” Alice said.
“I know.” Margaret nodded. “You can see it, feel it. James as well…”
She trailed off.
“What about James?” Alice asked.
“He appreciates you. He told me youre fine together, you understand each other.”
Alice set her mug down.
“You talk with him about me?”
“Sometimes. Its just friendly. He praises you.”
“Thats nice,” Alice said, though she didnt feel that way at all.
She couldnt explain why. A husband praising his wife to a friendnothing wrong. And yet, everything was wrong. She knew itthe kind of female intuition shed sometimes mocked in others was now ringing out. She said nothing, because she didnt have the words.
At the end of week six, Margaret asked to borrow her “Gardenia” perfume.
“Mines finished,” she said. “No time to buy morecan I use yours a couple of times?”
“Of course,” Alice replied.
That evening, Alice opened the bottle and saw less than a third remainedshe remembered clearly it was over half, just a week ago.
She locked the perfume away in a bathroom cabinet, the tiny padlock unused for years. Looking at herself in the mirror, she thought, “Here I am, hiding perfume from my friend. What sort of person am I?”
But she didnt reopen the bottle.
James came home in high spirits, more often these days when Margaret was around. He brought cakenot for any reason, just because.
“A little treat,” he said.
Margaret was delighted, just as Alice would have been if her husband had brought cakeexactly delighted, not more nor less. Perfectly so. Alice, watching from the kitchen doorway, thought: Margaret reacts to everything just right. She praises the coffee the right way, laughs the right way, tilts her head perfectly, expresses surprise exactly right. She did everything Alice did, only slightly more eagerly, less tiredly, unburdened by twenty-three years of routine.
And James noticed, perhaps not consciously, but he noticed.
Alice joined them in the kitchen and ate the cakeit was goodand they chatted about nothing, everything seemingly normal. But inside, she was uneasy. It was like coming home and noticing all your things are in place, yet just not quite. Not moved, just nudged a centimetre off.
The business trip was unexpected. The college needed someone to go on a professional development course in Bristol for four days. The chair asked Alice on Friday; she agreed on Monday. She did pause: leave James and Margaret alone for four days. Then dismissed the thought. Adults. Nothing would happen. She was overthinking. She needed a break.
Before leaving, she told James in the kitchen,
“Ill be back Friday evening. Margaret can help with dinner, shes good at it.”
“Well manage,” he said. “Dont worry.”
“Im not worried,” Alice replied.
She watched him. He looked calm, ordinary. After twenty-three years, she knew every line of his facenow it seemed lighter, unbothered, somehow.
She left early Wednesday. On the train, she read teaching notes, sipped coffee from a paper cup, watched flat countryside slide by. The course dragged, dull but necessary. She called James most eveningsa brief check-in.
“Hows everything?”
“Fine. Dinners done. All good.”
“Is Margaret in?”
“Yep, in her room.”
“Alright. Goodnight.”
“Night.”
Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing unnecessary. She slept badly that night in the hotel, mind wandering over the course, her daughter, the broken mug she meant to replace, Margaret, two identical grey jackets, the perfume.
Thursday, mid-afternoon, her head offered:
“Alice, theres been a change. Tomorrows session is just recapyou know all this. Come home tonight, dont waste the day. Well clear it with the organisers.”
She was home by half-past nine. The train was early, the taxi quick, the roads clear.
She let herself in quietly. James might be asleep, she thought.
He wasnt.
Candles glowed in the loungenot all, just two on the coffee table. Plates, glasses, little bowls on the table; the scent of perfumeGardeniahung in the air. The bottle was locked away; Margaret must have bought her own.
James sat on the sofa. Margaret was beside him, in a blue dress Alice had never seen, the kind Alice wore, in Alices favourite shade. Her hair was styled in waves, her hands resting on her knees. They were talking. Both looked up when Alice opened the door.
A three-second pause.
“Youre early,” James said.
“Clearly,” Alice answered.
She set down her bag, put her coat on the rack with deliberate careher hands only steady when she paid attention to each motion.
“Alice, its just dinner,” Margaret said. “We ate and”
“I can see its dinner,” Alice said. “With candles.”
Another pause.
“Romantic,” Alice added, her tone calm and even. Even she was surprised.
James stood up.
“Theres no need to”
“James,” she whispered, “dont tell me what not to do.”
He fell silent. Margaret stared at the tablecloth.
Alice went to the kitchen. Poured a glass of water. Drank. She looked at the window sill, at the geranium she watered every Wednesdayyesterday shed been away, but it looked fine.
“Margaret watered it,” Alice realised.
She went back to the lounge.
“Margaret,” she said, “can you arrange to stay somewhere else tomorrow?”
Margaret looked up.
“Alice, I know this looks”
“Can you arrange it?” Alice repeated, voice level, just asking again.
“Yes,” Margaret said. “I can.”
“Good.”
Alice picked up her bag and walked to the bedroom, closed the doorjust closed, not locked. She lay on top of the duvet, fully clothed, staring at the ceiling. In the next room, something clinked softlyclearing away. Then silence. A door creakedthe spare room.
James didnt come to bed. She heard him settling on the lounge sofa. It spoke volumes.
In the morning, Alice got up earlier than usual. Brewed coffee and drank it alone at the window. The town slowly woke. Friday. A woman passed with a dog. Pigeons cooed on the neighbours ledge. Just a normal morning.
James appeared around eight, pausing in the kitchen doorway.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“Yes,” Alice said.
“Theres nothing between me and Margaret.”
“Maybe.”
“Not maybenothing at all.”
“James,” she replied, still watching the street, “you dont understand what Im saying. Its not about what did or didnt happen. Its about what I saw last night, and over the past six weeks.”
“And what was that?”
She turned.
“I saw someone moving into my house and gradually becoming me. My hair. My perfume. My recipes. My jacket. My gestures. And a husband who noticesand likes it. Because its me minus the tiredness. Minus the habit. Minus twenty-three years history.”
He said nothing.
“Its not a question,” Alice added. “Its just what I saw.”
“Youre making too much of this,” he said at last.
“Maybe,” she replied. “But Im heading to work. Id like Margarets things out of the spare room by the time Im back.”
“Alice”
“And another thing,” she said, buttoning her coat by the door. “Blind trust. Thats me. I trusted too muchboth of you.”
She left, quietly closing the door.
At work, she taught two lessons, answered questions, took the register. Had tea in the staffroom with Janine, who chattered away while Alice barely listened but nodded in the right bits. Janine, though, asked nothing but gave Alice a look that said she understood, so the question wasnt needed.
Alice got home around half three. The spare room was immaculatebeds made, no trace of Margaret. Shed left neatly, as if shed never been there. Only a white plastic comb on the bathroom shelf. Alice picked it up with two fingers and put it in the bin.
James was home, sitting in the lounge scrolling through his phone. When he saw her, he said,
“Shes gone.”
“I can see,” Alice replied.
“What now?”
She took off her coat, went into the kitchen and clattered pans, more as a need for action than intent to cook.
“Alice,” he followed, “weve been together twenty-three years. You cant just”
“I can,” she said. “Give me space. Let me think.”
“How long?”
“I dont know. A few days. I need to figure things out.”
A few days became a week. They shared the flat like polite strangers with only the same roof in common. Ate separately. Slept in different rooms. James tried several times to talk; Alice answered briefly, not out of anger but because she wasnt ready to put her thoughts into words yet. They were stacked inside, and she was afraid that speaking would loosen something she couldnt take back.
She thought a lot that week. About how it had started. Letting Margaret in without a thought because thats what you dowhen friends need you. Because it was “normal”. When the sense of wrongness had begun. Why she hadnt said the word. Quiet envy, Janine had said. Identity theftslow, subtle, without malice. Maybe not intentional. Someone who didnt have enough of her own life borrowing anothers. Bit by bita pie recipe, a splash of perfume.
What hurt most wasnt Margaret. It was James.
He could have ignored it. Or noticed and told Alice. Or not responded to this “improved version”, as she called it to herself, but he did. He brought cake. He sat and laughed with Margaret. He made dinner with candles while Alice was away. Perhaps without thinking. Perhaps just not thinking.
Early in the second week, Alice rang her daughter.
“Mum, whats wrong?” she asked.
“Why?”
“You sound different.”
“Your dad and I might split up.” For the first time, Alice said it aloud.
Long pause.
“Because of Margaret?”
“Not only. Margaret revealed what was already there.”
“What was that?”
“I cant explain. We got used to each other. Stopped really seeing. Then she arrived and became me, only fresher, more attentive. And he liked it.”
“Mum…”
“Its alright. Im not upset. Im explaining.”
“Youll be on your own?”
“For a while, yes. Thats alright.”
This time, when she said “alright”, it stuck. Because she chose it.
The conversation with James, Sunday evening, was simple.
“I think we need to live separately,” she said.
He was silent for a long time.
“Is that final?”
“I dont know. I need space. To find out who I am, apart from this flat, you, all of it.”
“This is about candles. Alice, it was just a meal.”
“James,” she said patiently, “its not about the candles. They were just the last straw. There was a lot before thatI watched, I stayed quiet, I kept saying its normal, but it wasnt normal.”
“I dont know what I did wrong.”
“Nothing specific. You just stopped seeing me. If youd seen me, youd have noticed someone else becoming your wife.”
He didnt replythere was nothing to say.
“I suppose well sell the flat,” Alice said. “Or Ill buy you out. Not now, later. Well sort it.”
“And where will you go?”
“Ill rent. Somewhere here, maybe, maybe not. Ill see.”
“Starting over at fifty-two,” he mused, voice tinged with pityshe wasnt sure for whom.
“Yes,” she said. “At fifty-two. People start over older than that.”
She went to the kitchen but stopped in the bathroom. Took out the locked Gardenia bottle, held it a moment. Then, in the hallway, she placed it in the binneatly, like a thing that has served its time.
She put the kettle on.
Over the next days, she was clinical. She rang estate agents about the flat, sought legal advice. Called on Janine, gave her the basic outline. Janine neither gasped nor shook her head, just listened and occasionally said “yes” in a way that meant “I understand.” Good people know how to say “yes” like that.
They sat in Janines kitchen.
“Are you angry with her?” Janine asked.
“Margaret?” Alice thought. “No. Not really. Angry at myself for not seeing it. For accepting normal when it wasnt normal.”
“Youre not to blame for trusting.”
“Blind trust,” Alice said. “Thats me.”
“Not blind. Just trusting. Theres a difference.”
“Maybe so.”
“And with James?”
“I am angry with James,” Alice admitted. “But its a quiet anger. Itll pass.”
“What will you do?”
“Find a new flat. Change my hairstyle. Buy different perfumeprobably not Gardenia.”
“Sensible,” said Janine.
“And work out what I actually like. Whats truly mine, not just habit.”
“That takes time.”
“I know. I have time.”
Janine poured more tea. Light rain fell outsidenot cold yet, just grey. Alice watched it, thinking that a few weeks ago, she knew exactly what her life looked like: the flat, James, her job, routines, recipes, a perfume bottle on the bathroom shelf. Now, that place wasnt so secure after all.
And Alice didnt feel empty, or lost, as perhaps she expected. She felt something elsestrange, almost a relief. Like taking off a coat youd long outgrown, and realising only now it had always pinched at the shoulders.
“You know, Janine,” Alice said, “for the first time in years I havent a clue what comes next. And thats… bearable.”
“Bearable,” Janine smiled. “Thats a good word.”
Another week passed. Alice found a small one-bedroom place across town, bright and overlooking a park. Pricey, but affordable. She went to viewings, lingered in the empty rooms, listened to the floor creak, and thought: I can live here.
“Ill take it,” she told the landlord, a tired-looking older lady.
“For long?”
“I dont know. A year, at least.”
The lady nodded.
Back home (the old one), Alice steadily sorted her things. Not as a performance, just separating hers from not-hers. Books, crockery, clothes. Some she got rid ofa blouse shed not worn in years but might come in handy. Looking at it now, she decided to give it away.
She donated the grey belted jacket as well and bought a different one, dark blue, a different style. She tried it on, checked the mirrornothing like Margarets. Good.
She didnt see Margaret again, nor did she call. Margaret sent one message: “Alice, I know I hurt you. Im sorry, if you can forgive me.” Alice read it, set the phone down, and didnt reply. Not because she couldnt forgive. She just wasnt ready. Or didnt want to. At least, not yet.
James stayed at the old flat. They spoke as needed, polite and calm. There was bitterness, but also liberation. Alice sensed he was lost, realising too late what hed lost.
On the Friday before moving, Alice went shopping for new perfume. She stood a long time by the glass, sampling testers. The shop assistant, young and patient, offered suggestions. Alice declined, unable to say why. Then she found it: a bottle called “Silver Cedar”. Not floral, a little woody, with a warm, strange undertone. Unlike anything shed worna deliberate choice.
“Nice pick,” said the assistant.
“Well see,” Alice replied.
The move took half a day. Janine helped with boxes. James offered too; Alice allowed it. They worked in silence. Soon, all her things were in the new flat, in new places she chose.
In the evening, alone, Alice dabbed on Silver Cedar. The scent was unfamiliar. Not unpleasant. Just different. She brought her wrist to her nose, thought, Ill get used to this. Or notperhaps its enough just to accept it.
Outside, the park was nearly bareNovember closing in. The streetlights flickered on, early as ever this time of year. Alice put on the kettle, found her unchipped mug and stood at the window.
Her phone ranga call from her daughter.
“So, Mum. Hows the new place? Settled in?”
“Im getting there.”
“Are you scared?”
Alice looked at the lamplit trees.
“No,” she said. “Funny thing, Im not.”
