by Lucy Foley
It used to be enough. Just to be me. To look the way I do, and to be a bloody Oxbridge graduate, and to be able to talk with fluency about current affairs or the state of the economy and the new trend for body con or slip dresses.
But I woke up one morning and realised I was supposed to have something more: to be something more. To have, specifically, ‘A Career’. ‘What do you do?’: that’s the first question at any drinks gathering or wedding or supper. It used to sound so pretentious when someone asked this – in our early twenties, when we were all just playing at being adults. But suddenly it wasn’t enough to be Miranda Adams. People expected you to be ‘Miranda Adams: insert space for something high powered’. An editor, say, or a lawyer, or a banker or an app designer. I tried for a while to say casually that I was writing a novel. But that only led to the inevitable questions: ‘Have you got an agent? A publisher? A book deal?’ Then, ‘Oh.’ (Silently) So, you’re not really a writer, are you?
I stopped bothering.
Sometimes, for shock-value, I’ll say, ‘Oh, you know, I’m a housewife. I just like to keep things nice at home for Julien, and look after him, make sure he’s comfortable.’ And I’ll pretend to myself that I am very amused by the appalled silence that follows.
That was why you flirted with Mark. To prove you’ve still got it. To prove you’re not a … whisper it … has-been.
It was stupid. I mean, I flirt with pretty much everyone: something Katie pointed out when we were first at university. But I know it’s different with Mark – that I shouldn’t lead him on.
I hear footsteps in the corridor. Perhaps it’s Julien, come to check I’m all right. Or Katie, like in the olden days. But when the door opens, slowly, it is the last person I want to see.
He’s so tall; I always forget this. He’s blocking the doorway with his frame.
‘What the fuck, Mark?’ I hiss. ‘What was that? You groping me out there?’
I wait for him to plead with me not to tell Emma, claim he was too out of it to realise what he was doing.
Instead, he says, ‘He doesn’t deserve you, Manda.’
‘What?’ I glare at him. ‘And you do, I suppose?’ I feel filled with righteous anger and shove out at him. ‘Let me past.’
He moves aside. But as he does he reaches out, quick as a flash, to grab my upper arm. I try to twist away from him, but his fingers only tighten, gripping me so hard it stings like a Chinese burn. I feel a shot of adrenaline and pure fear. He wouldn’t try anything, would he? Not here, with the others only in the next room?
‘Get the fuck off me, Mark,’ I say, my voice low and dangerous. He’s never been like this before – not with me, anyway. I try to tug my arm away, but his grip is vice-like. I think of all those useless body combat sessions I’ve done in the gym: I am so weak compared to him.
He bends down to my ear. ‘All this time, I’ve been there for him. Since Oxford. Looking out for him, covering for him if necessary. And does he look out for me? Does he help me out when I ask him to? To have something of my own, for once? No. I’m sick of it. I’m not lying for him any longer.’
He sounds completely sober, his words clear-cut. It’s as if the pill hasn’t affected him at all. In comparison I feel fuggy and confused. Except for the pain in my arm, anchoring me.
‘What do you mean?’ I ask him. I feel as if I’m several minutes behind.
‘I know about him. I know his little secret. Shall I tell you what he’s been up to?’
I’m shaking, with a mixture of fear and anger. It’s important, here, to pretend I don’t know anything – don’t want to know anything.
‘Whatever it is,’ I say, ‘I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want anything to do with it.’
He looks momentarily taken aback. His grip slackens, and I wrench my arm away. ‘I …’ he fumbles, ‘you mean – you really don’t want to know?’
Does he really imagine that my own husband wouldn’t have let me in on his shameful little secret? Still, definitely best to play dumb. Just in case there comes a time when I need to distance myself from it all, to insist on my own innocence.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t want to know.’
‘Fine,’ he says, looking genuinely astonished, all the bluster gone out of him. He steps back. ‘If that’s really what you want.’
I stumble on unsteady legs back into the dining room, sure that someone will notice the expression on my face and ask me what the matter is – I’m not sure whether I want their attention right now, or not.
No one sees me at first. There’s another game of Twister going on, and they’re all cackling with laughter as Giles tries to straddle Bo. The atmosphere is exactly the same as it was before – everyone joyful, riding the high of booze and pills. But suddenly I’m on the outside looking in, and it all seems ridiculous … false even, like they’re all trying too hard to show what a good time they’re having.
Emma turns and sees me standing in the doorway. ‘Are you OK, Manda?’ she asks.
‘We thought you’d got stuck in there,’ Giles says, with a stupid, goofy grin. ‘So Mark went to check you were all right.’
‘Oh God,’ Emma says, ‘Manda – do remember that time someone had a house party and you got stuck in the loo?’
‘No,’ I say. But even as I do I realise that I do remember it, vaguely. The feeling of humiliation when someone had to crowbar me out. God – mortifying. I could swear it happened at least a decade ago. But if Emma remembers it, it must have been much more recently. ‘When was that?’
‘Hmm,’ Emma says, ‘it must have been in London at some point. The days when everyone actually had house parties – when we were fun, you remember? So recent, and yet it feels like centuries ago.’
I nod, but something about the mention of it has given me an odd, uneasy feeling. But I cannot work out why.
‘Are you all right?’ Emma asks again.
Her tone’s so maternal, so caring … so fucking patronising. ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘why wouldn’t I be?’
Perhaps it comes out as sharply as I meant it: she looks stung.
I sit it out for an hour or so. I’ve done better than Katie – she must have gone back to her cabin while I was in the bathroom. And yet she’s the one I want to talk to about what just happened – more so than my own husband, somehow. I could go and find her … she might still be awake. But if I leave I might show Mark that he has me rattled, and I don’t want that. The effects of the pill have completely worn off for me, and I look enviously at the others, blissed out, beaming at each other.
Finally, when I decide I’ve stuck it out long enough, I turn to Julien. ‘I’m tired,’ I say. He nods, vaguely, but I think he has barely registered the fact that I’ve spoken. Pills have always affected him strongly. I’d half meant it as an invitation to walk me back to the cabin, but I’m not going to embarrass myself in front of the others by making that clear now.
When I step outside, the moon shines full and the loch is lit up silver. It’s a clear night, except for a band of cloud on the horizon where the light of the stars disappears, as though a shroud has been pulled over them.
I think about Mark, and what just happened. The top of my arm still aches where he grabbed me. I’m sure there will be bruises in the morning: the reminders of his fingers.
I fish the iPhone from my pocket and turn on the torch. It casts a weak stream of light in front of me; a small comfort, a lantern against the dark. Several times I have to turn around and look behind me to check that no one is following. It’s silly, probably – but I’m on edge, and the silence out here feels watchful, somehow. I am reminded of dark, drunken walks home in London in the early clubbing days, keys between my knuckles. Just in case. But here I’m in the middle of nowhere, with no one except my closest friends. The silence here, the expanses, seem suddenly hostile. That’s a ridiculous thought, isn’t it? In the morning, it will all seem different, I tell myself.
Or we could leave in the morning. I could tell Julien, and we co
uld leave. He wouldn’t like it – I’m sure he’s been looking forward to this trip. We both have, actually – perhaps me even more so. I think he would agree, if I explained everything. We could go back to the house and have champagne and maybe order something in and watch the Westminster fireworks over the rooftops. I realise that when I think of this I’m not imagining our current home: the grown-up, stuccoed house. I’m actually thinking of our first flat in London: before I failed to do anything interesting with my life, became an also-ran. Before Julien got so busy with making money.
It might be fun.
But it would also be giving up. It should be Mark who is ashamed, who has to leave. Not me. The thought fills me with rage. Then I think of that moment, looking at myself in the mirror – seeing more than I wanted to, beyond the effects of the pill. Even before that, even before Mark groped me during Twister, I’d been feeling like I wasn’t enjoying myself quite as much as I should have done. There was Samira, talking my ear off about sleep schedules and breast pumps, showing me the stains on her baggy old T-shirt. This, from the girl whose nickname at Oxford was Princess Samira, because she was always so perfectly coiffed, glamorously tailored, even at nineteen. I loved what a stir we’d cause going into a pub or bar together, or even just the Junior Common Room; the two of us roughly the same height, one dark, one blonde, dressed in the best clothes. Birds of a feather.
Then there’s Katie – so distant since we got here, probably thinking of something much more important, something at work. Acting like she is better than all of us: the successful lawyer. I’d had this sudden, rushing sense of being left behind. That was why I’d got everyone dancing. It was why I’d brought the pills out when I did. I’d been saving them for tomorrow, in fact, for New Year’s Eve. But suddenly I needed to be the one in control again, dictating the order of things.
As I round the corner I see in the distance three rectangles of bright light, blazing out into the dark. It’s the gamekeeper’s cottage, of course. When I walked there earlier I didn’t realise quite how far away it is from the other buildings, almost at the foot of the mountain. As I continue to look, a dark figure appears in the central window, haloed in light. It must be the gamekeeper, Doug, still up. But from this distance he is featureless and spectral. I take a step back, which is ridiculous: even if he can see the tiny pinprick of light from my phone, he can’t see me. But it feels as though he is looking straight at me. And it’s nothing like earlier, when I went and knocked on his door. Right now, with what just happened, I feel vulnerable, displaced, the landscape so vast and alien and silent around me. I long for the noise and lights and bustle of the city.
I half run the rest of the way along the path. Inside the cabin I feel safe for a moment. But only briefly, because when I go to bolt the door I realise that there is no lock.
I get ready for bed, and when I next look out of the windows I can see that lights have gone on now in the other cabins. Everyone must have chosen to go to bed shortly after me. So where is Julien? Presumably on his way back along the path – but he’s taking his time about it.
Half an hour passes, then an hour. My arm aches where Mark grabbed it. I pull on a jumper, some big silly fluffy slippers that Julien hates because they make me look ‘like a suburban sixties housewife’ and yet I have never got rid of because they’re too bloody comfortable. My teeth are chattering, I realise – even though I’m not really cold.
I wake at 4 a.m. I don’t know where I am. The first thing I see are the numbers blinking on the little alarm beside the bed. At first I think I’m at home, but then I realise it’s too quiet for that: in the city there’d be that background music of sirens and car engines, however late at night. I’m not sure what has woken me. I don’t actually remember falling asleep. I’m still in the jumper and slippers, I realise, lying on top of the coverlet. The light is on, in the hallway. Did I leave it on? I can’t remember.
Then I see a figure standing in the dark by the doorway. I scrabble backwards, away from him. Then he steps forward and I see that it’s Julien. His cheeks are red from the cold. His eyes are oddly blank.
I sit up. ‘Julien?’ My voice comes out small and reedy; it does not sound like my own. I see him start at the sound of my voice. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I went for a walk.’
‘In the middle of the night?’
‘Well yes – to clear my head. Those fucking pills – and then I got the come-down, started worrying about everything. I walked the whole way around the loch.’ He runs a hand through his hair. ‘Oh, and I saw that weirdo, the gamekeeper.’
‘You did?’ I remember now how unnerved I was by his silhouette in the lit-up window on my walk back.
‘He was creeping around the edge of the loch – coming out of the really dense bit of forest. He had dogs with him. What on earth could he have been doing? Honestly, I think he might be a bit of a nut job. I think you should stay away from him.’
I am both touched and irritated by this chauvinistic display of protection. At least it shows he cares, I think, then I catch myself. Have I become so uncertain of his affection recently that I have become that needy?
‘He’s not the one to worry about,’ I say.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Mark. He came on to me in the loo. He grabbed my arm. Here.’ I pull up the sleeve of the jumper to show him. ‘He said he knew your dirty little secret. Yes, that’s how he put it.’
I see him flinch.
‘Does he mean what I think he does?’ I ask. ‘Did you tell him? We’ve gone over this before, Julien, you can’t tell anyone. It would destroy everything. And don’t tell me I’m being paranoid. The moment you decided to use me you made me part of it, like it or not.’
There is a longish pause. Then, ‘Look, Manda,’ Julien says, pushing his hand through his hair and sighing, ‘we all had a lot to drink … and then the pills—’
I feel a flush of anger. ‘Are you saying I’m making this up? That you don’t believe me?’
‘No – no. What I’m saying is that he might not have really meant it, to hurt you, that is. He’s a big guy, sometimes he just throws his weight around a bit too much. I mean, how long have we known him?’
‘Hang on a second,’ I say, ‘it sounds to me like you’re defending him.’
‘I’m not, I promise I’m not. But … look, is it really worth spoiling everything for ourselves because of his stupidity? He’s one of my oldest friends. Don’t you think we should give him the benefit of the doubt?’
I suddenly see what he’s doing. He isn’t protecting Mark. He’s protecting himself. Because if Mark really does know his – our – secret, and Julien challenges him, Mark might use it against him.
I should be outraged. But suddenly I just feel very tired.
He’s undressed now. He takes out his pyjamas. They’re very chic ones, a present from my mother, who likes to be up on any new style trend: a Christmas purchase from Mr Porter. Nevertheless, there was a time – not so long ago – when he wouldn’t have worn anything in bed, not even boxers. We liked to lie skin to skin.
‘Don’t,’ I say, as he goes to shrug the trousers on. He stands for a minute looking particularly naked and confused. ‘It’s cold,’ he says.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘But you can put them on … afterwards.’ I suddenly want the comfort of his arms around me, his weight on top of me, his mouth on mine: I want to obliterate that odd, creeping feeling I’ve had since this evening.
For emphasis I pull the jumper over my head. I’m naked underneath. I lie back and let my legs fall open, so he can be in no doubt about what I have in mind. ‘Come here,’ I say, beckoning him.
But he makes a kind of grimace, his mouth pulling down at the edges. ‘I’m really tired, Manda.’
I feel my skin prickle with the chill of his rejection.
In the first few years of knowing each other, of being together, it was always me who turned him down. Perhaps just twice in eight years it wa
s the other way around: the exception that proved the rule, when he had the flu, say, or an interview the next day. But lately I’ve been keeping count. The last ten times, perhaps more, it has been him.
I have two separate underwear drawers at home. One is for everyday: my M&S undies and bras, made exclusively for comfort. Julien used to cringe in horror at my beige T-shirt bras as they came out of the wash. Then another drawer: froths of Agent Provocateur and Kiki de Montparnasse, Myla, and Coco de Mer. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands of pounds’ worth of silk and lace. The sort of lingerie that is not meant to be worn under clothes, that is meant only to grace your flesh for a few minutes before it is whipped off. I realised, packing for this trip, that I had not worn any of those pieces for as long as I could remember. I was half-tempted to chuck them out: they seemed to be mocking me. Instead, I gathered the whole lot into my arms and dumped them into the suitcase. Armour, for a desperate – last ditch? – offensive.
I suppose it makes a kind of sense that Julien’s gone off sex. He has a lot on his plate – though most of it’s his own fault – and there’s been my insistence on getting pregnant. But here, in this beautiful wilderness, fuelled by champagne and pills, I thought it would be different. I feel a tiny tremor of fear as he lies down next to me and rolls away to face the wall.
I move towards him, to borrow some of his warmth. I reach out a hand to touch the back of his head. My palm comes away damp. ‘Your hair,’ I say.
‘What?’ His voice doesn’t even sound sleepy. I wonder if he’s been pretending, lying there awake, like me.
‘It’s damp, here, at the back.’
‘Oh, well – it started raining on the way over.’
As I lie there I think of the clear sky and my walk to the cabin, and think the clouds must have come over very quickly for it to have started raining. It’s too cold to rain anyway, surely. It would have been snow. I’m suddenly sure he’s lying. Though what about, and why, I have no idea. I tell myself that there’s no point in worrying. I already know his worst secret, after all.