The Sudden Departure of the Frasers

by Louise Candlish

  ‘Must be costing a packet,’ Rob said. (That was his only comment?)

  ‘Well, you don’t have to worry about that,’ I said smoothly. ‘Why don’t you open the champagne?’

  ‘You do it.’

  I obliged, refusing to be irritated by the thought that he might have Pippa on his mind, that he might be having misgivings about this, about me. As confident of my allure as I’d ever been, I had prepared as if for a wedding night, getting massaged with perfumed oils and perfecting my hair and make-up before dressing in a silk robe to await him, and yet he’d hardly bothered to glance at me.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘you really don’t need to sweep for hazards. It’s just us. No one knows where we are. No one knows what we’ll be doing.’

  As I eased the bottle back into the ice bucket, he at last flung down the bag and turned his scrutiny to me. ‘Just as well, I would’ve thought,’ he growled.

  That was more like it. The way he looked at me was as he had in the beginning – there was insolence and lust, that unconcealed taste for debasement combined with recognition of a match well met – and I knew this had been an inspired idea.

  I placed the champagne glasses to the side.

  ‘You’re all oily,’ he said, investigating under my robe.

  ‘I’ve just had a massage.’

  ‘It’s going to get on my clothes.’

  ‘Take them off then. Anyway, there’s no one to notice, is there? It’s not like she’s doing your laundry, whatsername?’

  ‘You know her name, Amber.’

  Undressed, he smelled different from usual. The scent of his hair, his skin, his sweat, I was familiar with, but I caught also traces of female. I grasped a handful of his hair, turned him roughly to look me in the eye. ‘You were with her this morning? You haven’t even showered?’

  ‘So what?’

  It should have revolted me, it should have insulted me, but being with him like this, here in this secret den, had tipped me into some animal derangement and I liked it, I liked that he was dirty and used, that he pretended not to care. Because it was my name he spoke now. Soon he’d sacrifice all thoughts of her, just as I would all thoughts of clinically prescribed abstinence as I rang for vodka and more champagne. As promised, the order was sent up in the dumb waiter: no staff, no observers, no complicating third parties. We had complete privacy.

  Naked, we wandered outside and filled the tub, lowered ourselves into the water and faced one another as if in ritual. The hot water released mists of steam into the winter air and I dipped lower and lower, up to my chin, scented bubbles popping in my eyes.

  ‘I could get used to this,’ Rob said. ‘You clearly already have.’

  ‘I love it,’ I said. ‘It’s my natural habitat.’

  He looked out at the treetops, the last vestiges of autumnal red and ochre touching the dusk sky. ‘Which? The eye-wateringly expensive luxury or the wild woods?’

  ‘Both, maybe.’

  ‘Both definitely.’ And he gazed at me in abject admiration, which was precisely my preference as gazes went – and a long time coming.

  I didn’t like to think how close I’d come to having lost it forever.

  ‘You’re unbelievable, do you know that?’ he said. ‘I honestly don’t know how you get away with it. You’re like my dream female of the species.’

  ‘Only like?’ But this was getting better by the syllable, and I could feel the euphoria radiating from me. How blissful it was to have him back, the old Rob, my kindred soul and sinner. ‘You haven’t been around much lately,’ I said, careful not to make a question of it.

  ‘Busy with work,’ he said, shrugging. ‘Some of us do have bills to pay, you know.’

  He enjoyed the notion that I was wealthy and he struggling, but we both knew that the truth was he’d never suffered a moment’s financial anxiety in his life. I alone understood what it was to have nothing, to look into the greedy, heartless future and have no idea how you were going to survive. In this crime of ours, the risk was all mine.

  ‘Unless your husband wants to take care of mine as well … ?’ he added, casually impudent.

  ‘He’ll pay this one,’ I said. We’d drained our glasses, drinking fast, recklessly, and I poured more, plying him, plying us.

  ‘You’ll have to thank him for me. In your own special way, of course.’

  And I knew he would want to know what that special way would be, for me to demonstrate on him. It was only then, you see, that I began to intuit that he was excited by Jeremy’s role in this; our relationship was more triangular than I’d believed. I had not told him about the misunderstanding with the texts, but I knew now that I would: I would save it for when I needed it.

  He eyed me with his laziest smile. ‘I’d love to know how it feels to do what you’re doing.’

  ‘Well, since you’re doing exactly the same, I’m guessing it feels exactly the same.’

  ‘I doubt it. You’re the only one of us cheating on a legal mate.’

  I spread out my arms and splayed my fingers over the soft bubbles, feeling that freeing weightless sensation of flotation. ‘I agree it’s not my finest hour, but I’m not sure it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done to someone.’

  ‘No?’ His gaze settled brazenly on my nipples as they popped above the water line into the chill of December. ‘Go on then, tell me your worst.’

  I wondered which one to choose, frankly. Matt’s face surfaced, and so did Phil’s. But who was I kidding, the victims who mattered were those I’d never pictured, the wives and girlfriends (and, occasionally, children) whose feelings I’d never dignified with a thought, much less an action. ‘OK, let’s see … I once slept with someone on his honeymoon.’

  He whistled. ‘I assume you don’t mean your own?’

  ‘No. On my own I only slept with the person I was supposed to sleep with. I have some standards.’

  ‘So we’re talking pre-Jeremy?’

  ‘Of course, when I was still a bit wild.’

  ‘A bit wild?’ Rob smirked, delighted. ‘Unlike now, eh? Because you’re completely domesticated now, aren’t you? Totally under the thumb.’

  Under yours, I thought, closing my eyes to a psychedelic blaze of light and colour, for the combination of Rob and alcohol was the best high of my life, exhilarating, consciousness-expanding, addictive. And to open my eyes again and find him watching me, it was pure rapture. As we ogled each other across the surface of the water a forbidden thought came in an unstoppable explosion: I love you. Shocked enough for my face to redden, I extinguished the words before they could be recorded – or repeated.

  And Rob, mercifully, noticed nothing. ‘So this other bridegroom you seduced, didn’t you feel guilty when you saw his new wife wandering about the hotel in an oblivious romantic haze?’

  ‘I suppose I would have felt guilty if she’d known, but she didn’t. She was having a facial at the time. It didn’t affect her enjoyment of her honeymoon at all.’

  He grinned. ‘That’s your defence, is it? Unless the victim discovers he or she has been wronged, then it isn’t a crime?’

  ‘No, it is a crime, it just doesn’t hurt anybody. I think a lot of people operate that way. Little white lies, big white lies: in the end, they’re all the same colour. Blurting the truth just to relieve your own guilt, I think that can do more harm than good.’

  Fascinated, Rob slid towards me, his voice low and conspiratorial, even though we were completely alone. ‘That’s the classic justification of the deceiver, do you realize that?’ Under the water his fingers were between my legs. ‘Making yourself feel like a hero by telling yourself you’re doing the right thing by being discreet.’

  ‘Discretion is a good thing,’ I said.

  ‘No, a good thing is to not commit the deception in the first place. They call it self-control, Mrs Fraser.’

  ‘Oh, self-control.’ I gasped. ‘You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?’

  After he’d shown me what he knew,
right there in the tub, we moved back indoors, closed up the cabin to the thick and silent wood and climbed into bed. Maybe it was the setting, as remote and romantic as you could wish for, with the warm sweet scent of wood burner, the flickering candlelight reflected on every polished surface, or maybe it was that leaked sentiment I hadn’t quite managed to banish, but I felt very close to him, as close as I ever had with Jeremy. To me it was not only a return to old intimacy but also a progression of it; in spite of circumstances that pointed to the very opposite, it felt like the very wedding night for which I’d beautified myself.

  Our sweet nothings, though, were rather different from those of newlyweds, as you might imagine.

  ‘Your turn now,’ I said. ‘Come on, tell me your worst crime.’

  ‘That’s easy,’ Rob said. ‘This.’

  ‘This doesn’t count, I already know about your misdeeds with me. Tell me something else.’ In retrospect, I think I was daring him to say he loved me, that his infraction concerned the violation of my original rules. I think I was hoping that if he said it then I could say it too and with its release everything might change once more.

  Our faces were pressed together and I was aware of an intake of breath, a decision being made; I felt the feeling of free fall as my heart opened, ready to receive.

  Then he said, ‘Why don’t I tell you the worst thing I’ve been accused of doing?’

  ‘OK.’ Wrong-footed, I adjusted.

  ‘I was once accused of rape,’ he said.

  Now it was I who sucked in my breath, holding it painfully in my lungs until I feared they might rupture. I’d hoped for love and I’d got …

  ‘Rape? ’

  As I drew back, I saw in the candlelight that his eyes had darkened. He was not looking at me; his focal point was a different time and place, a different woman.

  ‘That’s what I said. A whole different league from lying to your husband, isn’t it?’

  ‘But you didn’t do it?’

  He recoiled. ‘Of course I didn’t. Do you even need to ask?’

  I frowned, but gently. ‘I’d be crazy not to.’

  ‘It was a malicious allegation,’ he said grimly.

  ‘Who by?’

  ‘An ex-girlfriend. At university.’

  I could feel his pulse quickening and sense his skin firing as he related the details, the first time I’d ever known him to become angry. He’d ended their relationship when he’d met someone else, he said, she’d sworn revenge, and the next thing he knew the police had turned up at his door and were taking him into custody. Just as his parents were arranging legal representation, their family’s harmony devastated overnight, the claim had been withdrawn.

  ‘That must have been horrendous,’ I said.

  ‘To put it mildly.’

  I placed my fingertips at the pulse in his neck, felt its livid beat. ‘Thank God it didn’t go anywhere. There can’t have been any physical evidence, presumably? You can tell if there’s been force, right? Bruising, that kind of thing.’

  ‘I suppose she could have done that to herself if she wanted,’ Rob said, and I sensed the power she still had over him; it was quite clear that, unknown to me till now, this girl had been – and remained – his Achilles heel. ‘But she admitted she’d made it up. I think she got scared when the police started interviewing our friends and she knew she might have to be cross-examined in court, which is frightening enough if you’re telling the truth. I was lucky, though, in the end. Some people would go through with the false claim rather than admit they lied. As it was, she ended up being cautioned.’

  ‘Wow.’ Between us the air felt thin and deoxygenated, burned hotter than five minutes ago. ‘You hear of women doing that, but why? I know you said revenge, but if what she actually wanted was to get you back, then it’s a terrible tactic.’ I didn’t add that all this girl had needed was a hotel room, an oiled body, an insistence on victory. ‘Who would forgive something like that?’ I asked. ‘You’d never trust her again.’

  ‘It’s not a rational strategy. It’s spite and cruelty and they’re not rational things. Lashing out when you’re wounded, it’s a kind of self-preservation.’ His voice was hard, splintering the tender silence of the cabin. ‘Accuse someone you know of rape or abuse and it’s your word against theirs. It’s one of the best ways to destroy an innocent person’s life. People think there’s no smoke without fire. Often there isn’t.’

  I considered this. ‘Maybe when you make an accusation like that you start to believe it yourself.’

  Rob narrowed his eyes, the lashes almost meeting, and yet the intensity was undimmed. ‘I imagine you do. Which makes it even worse, because if you believe it you’re so much more likely to be able to convince others.’

  ‘Were you thrown out of college?’

  ‘I was suspended for those few weeks, but reinstated as soon as I was in the clear. She decided to transfer to another university for her final year.’

  ‘And there’s no police record? It didn’t affect your finding work or anything like that?’

  ‘No.’

  I suppose I could have felt threatened, up in an isolated tree house with a man who’d once been accused of rape, but for someone who’d often made poor choices in her men I’d always had keen instincts about my own safety – and I knew I was safe with him. Not only did I believe he was telling the truth, but I was also moved by it, by his unprecedented display of vulnerability, which may sound distasteful given the subject matter, yet – I feel the need to repeat this – I was utterly convinced of his honesty. He was hardly a noble man, but he was certainly not a vicious one. As far as I was concerned, he was no more capable of rape than Jeremy was.

  A thought occurred, a loose end that needed tying: ‘She’s not that girl who turned up at Kenny and Joanne’s? The one who got upset and left?’

  ‘What on earth makes you think that?’

  Because there’d been that implication of brutality, of a full story best left untold. ‘It’s just that there was obviously history between you,’ I said evenly.

  ‘I told you,’ he said, irritated, ‘she was just a one-night thing from a few years ago. She was embarrassed to see me, I think, not very good at forgiving and forgetting.’

  ‘Right.’ I burrowed into him, hoping that my demonstration of unconstrained trust might be a source of comfort to him. ‘After this college girl, it must have been a while before you could get close to someone again?’

  Did he get close? I thought. Was this the reason for his keeping women at arm’s length, for his hot and cold handling of them, for his not feeling towards Jeremy the jealousy I had felt towards Pippa?

  ‘I suppose it was,’ he said, finally. ‘But it’s a long time ago now, and since then I’ve been a lot clearer about asking.’

  ‘Asking? You mean you ask permission?’

  ‘Every girl, every time.’

  ‘What do you say, exactly?’

  ‘I don’t know. “Do you want it?” Something like that.’

  ‘Even if it’s someone you’ve been seeing for a while?’

  ‘Especially if it is,’ Rob said. ‘Given the history.’

  ‘So you’ll still say, every time, “Do you want it?”’

  ‘Or words to that effect. It’s not that hard to work into the scenario.’

  I was fascinated by the idea of formally asking permission to take someone to bed. ‘And when you ask, do you record the “yes”?’ I was relaxing into our more usual playful repartee, but he resisted the gear change, answering me quite curtly.

  ‘No, that wouldn’t be permissible in court – unless I get her consent for the recording, as well. Let’s not joke about this, Amber. I hate being thought of as a rapist, however falsely, however briefly.’

  ‘No one thinks that,’ I assured him. ‘I’m sure no one ever did. You need to forget it ever happened.’

  ‘I thought I had. Until your stupid game.’

  ‘Hey, don’t be cross with me.’ I pressed against him, pliant
, ingratiating. ‘Or only a little bit, anyway.’

  ‘A little bit?’ He began caressing me with the backs of his fingers, a feather-light skimming contact that produced an unbearable sensation just short of tickling, but every time I shifted from them, the fingers tracked me.

  ‘You don’t ask me every time,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Because you’re different. You’re exempt. You’ve never felt a split second of uncertainty in your life.’

  ‘Haven’t I?’ Not the uncertainty he meant, no.

  His fingers continued to toy with me in their slow, indifferent way, making my breath come faster, my thoughts draw closer to my tongue. But even as I missed my chance I knew I had always been going to miss it; some unnameable emotion held me from exposing myself, something between self-pity and melancholy. Did he really not feel an inkling of what I did that night? This simulation of the connection between a man and a woman when they have forsaken all others – this counterfeit that was so convincing it was impossible to tell it from the original? Who but true soulmates exchanged confidences like ours?

  ‘Ask me anyway,’ I said, at last. ‘Ask me if I want it.’

  And so he did ask me, to his credit waiting for me to say yes before he began. ‘Do you remember this from before, Amber?’ he murmured, and kept on murmuring that night. ‘Do you remember?’

  ‘I remember,’ I lied.

  In the morning, breakfast was delivered by dumb waiter, the empty bottles and other detritus of our night’s debauchery dispatched by the same method. We lounged in front of the polished picture window, drank coffee, picked at the papers. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, patterning Rob’s torso as if with a giant stencil. I sat in the shade, sated and content.

  ‘You have an uncharacteristically romantic expression on your face,’ he said. After last night’s intensities, he was back to his wry best, it seemed. I wondered if he regretted his confession. ‘Don’t forget your rules,’ he added. ‘No love.’