by Zaza, Agatha
Anne knew too little about him to make assumptions about the woman in his kitchen. He hadn’t mentioned a partner on the occasions that they’d met, and she was sure Jasper would have told John and her if he had one. In fact, she was sure Jasper had said, just a few months earlier, Edmund didn’t have a partner.
In the short walk through the French doors, she decided the woman couldn’t be a prostitute — she scolded herself — sex worker — or a one-night stand. If she were, she wouldn’t be in his kitchen wearing workout clothes, at least in Anne’s limited knowledge of what sex workers did or didn’t do. Then Anne chided herself for thinking that this woman and Edmund were an unlikely pair, that she couldn’t be his partner because, Anne acknowledged her own prejudice, the woman was black.
They assembled themselves in the glass extension as Edmund left to fetch the champagne.
‘Knowing Edmund, it’s probably real-deal champers,’ John said. Anne glanced at him, wondering if John really could say he knew Edmund, since he seemed just as confused at the situation as she felt.
Anne followed John’s lead and sat beside him on the two-seater outdoor sofa, which was far more comfortable than its modern spindly legs and bucket design suggested. Jasper, with Holly, sat left of Edmund’s seat on a matching sofa built for three. Holly pressed herself against Jasper, despite the amount of room remaining on the chair they shared.
John whispered in Anne’s ear just as he offered her his cushion, ‘This is a little bizarre.’
Anne knew what he meant. Nothing was as it should be. She glanced at her watch; they’d only been there a few minutes, and wondered how long it would be before they could leave. She grimaced in response and took the cushion from John, playfully slapping him with it before putting it behind her and savouring its luxurious softness.
‘I wonder what that is,’ Holly mused, the moment the doors shut. Pointing to the detritus of blue wood in the corner of the garden, a sledgehammer leaning against its one remaining post. ‘Looks like one of those little garden rooms.’
They all turned to look at it, but no one answered, and they turned back in their seats.
‘This is not what I expected,’ John said, craning his neck to see the rest of the garden. ‘I thought Edmund’s place would be more of a bachelor pad. You know, leather and steel. This is more like a domestic haven. All that’s missing is three kids and a trampoline.’
‘I was thinking the same thing. Where’re the embalmed stag heads and the piles of Playboy?’ Anne agreed.
‘Who has Playboy anymore?’ Jasper asked. ‘It’s all online.’
Holly smacked his hand playfully, and Anne saw him flinch at her touch. ‘Who was the woman in the kitchen?’ Holly asked.
Jasper tensed at her question.
‘Girlfriend?’ Anne suggested, watching Jasper for clues. She couldn’t think of a second suggestion.
‘No way,’ John said, interrupting her.
‘Why not?’ Holly asked. ‘Except … Jasper, you’d have known, wouldn’t you?’ She turned slightly to face Jasper, who said nothing.
‘Well she’s too …’ John began.
‘Young?’ Anne proposed. ‘Black?’ She made the accusation, hoping that someone else, too, would reveal some underlying prejudice.
‘I was going to say “cool”.’ John lowered his voice. ‘I think they’d look funny together in public. He’s a bit staid and she looks,’ he paused, ‘exciting. Anyway, I don’t think she’s that young, probably our age, just better preserved maybe.’ He turned sideways from the waist to face Anne. ‘And why would her being black be an issue?’
‘It isn’t,’ Anne said, stiffening. She felt embarrassed. ‘It was just an observation.’
‘This is the twenty-first century. Why should her race be a factor in deciding what she is or isn’t?’ John said. Anne could hear the annoyance in his voice.
‘It isn’t a factor,’ she said with clenched teeth. She wanted to explain to John that he’d understood her wrong. But then he might ask her what she really meant — and she wasn’t sure.
‘I never realised how racist my parents were until I brought home an Indian guy when I was at uni,’ Holly said cheerfully. ‘When he turned out to be a complete bastard it was all, “we told you so, those people this and those people that” … In the meantime, my sister’s boyfriend was embezzling money from his boss, but no one said it was “because he was from Cornwall”.’
‘I didn’t know you dated someone Indian,’ Jasper said, glancing at her, his eyes leaving the doors that led to the kitchen.
‘I’ve told you all about him — Immanuel,’ Holly replied, with a casual air that suggested she’d never mentioned his race.
‘Right,’ Jasper said, and he dropped the subject.
Anne, too, was surprised but hid it, quickly turning to look at the rest of the garden behind her. She recalled Holly telling her about a man who left her for an heiress. Perhaps she’d described him as ‘dark’, but she’d never described him as being of a particular race, and Anne, she admitted to herself, simply assumed he was white. It wasn’t particularly important in itself; it just reminded her of how much she didn’t know about Holly.
‘Maybe she’s his assistant — the one you spoke to,’ Holly suggested, giggling as she spoke. ‘Getting some “overtime” in, maybe?’
‘She’s not his PA,’ Jasper interjected fiercely.
‘If your PA is half-dressed in your kitchen on a Saturday morning, then she’s not just your PA,’ John said, following Holly’s lead by trying to be funny.
‘Well maybe she’s not that important to him,’ Anne said reassuringly, seeing that Jasper was upset. ‘If she was, he’d have told you about her. She could be a houseguest? Or, maybe it’s a new thing — too new to have mentioned?’
‘Exactly,’ Holly said. ‘You haven’t seen him in a couple of months. Maybe she’s been keeping him busy.’
‘Who says they’re even sleeping together?’ John said.
‘Yeah — roommates!’ Holly continued in a jolly tone. She took Jasper’s hand, and he let it lie limp in hers.
‘More like a lodger to offset what this place costs,’ John said, and both Holly and Anne laughed.
‘He probably put an ad on Gumtree,’ Holly chuckled.
Their speculation ended with the noise of Edmund returning. He’d taken much too long to have just been fetching a bottle of champagne. His eyes were a little bit brighter, and the heaviness in his step had eased. He had a bottle tucked under one arm and carried six elegant champagne flutes.
‘Ovidia will be down in a bit, she’s just freshening up after her run,’ was his explanation. ‘She might take a while.’ He said this as if it were an afterthought, or even an apology indicating that Ovidia would definitely take a while. Edmund turned to Jasper and shrugged. ‘Well, what do you think? Quite a change from the last place.’
It seemed to Anne that, for a moment, Jasper’s shoulders relaxed.
He hiccoughed, but it was probably meant to be a laugh. ‘Wow, wait till I tell Mummy: Edmund’s got a place in the suburbs, a patio set, a woman …’ Jasper waved his hand towards the garden. ‘All you need is one of those little lawn mowers that you sit on like in Forrest Gump.’
They all laughed, and Anne felt her own tension ease as well. Edmund had answered both of her burning questions. Yes, it was his home, and, without explicitly saying so, Ovidia was in some way involved with him.
‘And a lovely patio set, too,’ Holly added. ‘The kind of thing Anne would choose. Almost mid-century. Wouldn’t you, Anne?’
‘Definitely,’ she said, distracted from the matter at hand and flattered that Holly would praise her taste to a stranger.
The others glanced at her, briefly, then their collective gaze returned to Edmund.
Edmund put down the champagne glasses. ‘She said not to wait for her.’ He said it as if confident they knew who ‘she’ referred to. He picked up the bottle and spoke as he peeled off its foil, and they all stood up in a
semi-circle with him at the fore.
‘Sorry I couldn’t make it for the big announcement. I had something on. If you’d just said, “I’m going to ask Holly to marry me”, I’d have dropped everything and come running.’ His voice seemed convincing, but, looking at him, Anne was not convinced of his words.
Mid-toast, his gaze drifted towards the horizon, towards the ruined playhouse, then he seemed to snatch his attention back from wherever it had wandered and continued.
‘Congratulations to my little brother, Jasper, and to Holly, my soon-to-be sister-in-law,’ he said, smiling at Holly. ‘Holly, you have brought a great deal of happiness into my brother’s life. Thank you.’
Holly smiled back happily.
To Anne, his wording had been too exact. He hadn’t said ‘you’ve made my brother a happy man’, but Holly’s face radiated so much joy that Anne knew she hadn’t caught the nuance of his phrasing.
A pop sent the cork into the air and effervescence spurted from the bottle, and they held their glasses out to be filled. After congratulating the couple once again, Anne saw Edmund glance back to the kitchen doors and leave Ovidia’s glass empty.
10
Edmund was right, Ovidia agreed, he couldn’t just ask the guests to leave. Not, at least, without an explanation. She had kissed Edmund again and left, hurrying upstairs to their bedroom, her feet nearly silent on the wood floors. She realised she hadn’t told Edmund that she’d return but continued up the stairs, telling herself she’d be as quick as she could. Still, she slowed as she neared the top of the stairs and visualised the safety and silence of her own flat across the road. She could exit unseen through the front door.
She paused with one foot on the top step. Why stop at her flat? She could go somewhere else, visit her parents or even check into a hotel for the night. She could even catch a flight somewhere not too far away — Paris, Berlin, Rome. She toyed with the idea of finding her passport and taking flight. She would come back in a few days’ time.
But it wouldn’t help anything. It wouldn’t stop anything.
The only consequence she could imagine would be that Edmund would trust her less than he already did. She knew Edmund was highly capable of taking on the small group that, with palpable discomfort, had shuffled past her into the glass extension. He was one of the best in his field, a financial expert that was lauded among his peers and paid for his intelligence, confidence, and professionalism. He’d find a way.
But this was most likely the last day they’d be together. She told herself she wasn’t going to abandon him today.
Ovidia peeled off her clothes as she crossed their bedroom.
She couldn’t recall the last time she was ready so quickly. After a few minutes of a hot shower, she massaged her skin with lotion and followed with a quick dusting of make-up. She combed through her short hair with mousse. Just as hurriedly, she opened the walk-in wardrobe and faced the rows of clothing, some hanging and some folded, most of which she had ignored for months. She’d made do with the same small pile of running clothes, a few pairs of distended winter tights, sweatshirts, and some now over-washed and worn-out dresses that the housekeeper had taken to placing just inside the wardrobe door where Ovidia could get to them without any effort.
Ovidia held one of those dresses up, examining it, turning it from back to front and back again. For the first time, she noticed that the elasticated waist was slack, the hemline broken, and the blue was fading to grey. It occurred to her that she’d left the house in that dress only a few days earlier — she’d allowed the world to see her in near rags. She’d always liked her clothes and liked to have fun with them, melding her own style with whatever was on trend. She used to shop especially in vintage shops or at eclectic local designers. These past few months were the only period in her adult life that she’d thrown clothes on without caring about their final effect or how a stranger walking past her would perceive her.
‘You’re not going outside in that,’ Ovidia told herself and threw the dress on the floor. Did it matter now because Jasper was outside? She told herself no, it wasn’t to do with him. As she rummaged through her clothes, she asked herself if it mattered that Jasper’s fiancée was there beside him. Perhaps? But, she told herself, the person she’d been before would never have greeted her guests in a torn, faded dress. She spun in her underwear slowly in front of a large floor-to-ceiling mirror and thought how she looked older, much older, than the last time she’d honestly looked at her reflection. She traced her fingers along the lines etched beside her mouth that ran downwards, like a sad clown.
She walked back to the bed and sat, reminding herself, I’ll get through today. She massaged her stomach trying to ease a knot of unhappiness.
Jasper was out there. She looked at her hands and realised they were trembling. She closed her eyes and studied the blackness.
When her heart stopped racing, she stood, dressed, and left the room.
Ovidia slowed down as she arrived in the kitchen. She waited after she entered, smoothing down her clothes and stretching her calves. She picked up her mobile and checked the time — it wasn’t even eleven. It had only been a few minutes since the last time she’d looked. She closed her eyes and inhaled.
She took a few steps towards the French doors and then retreated. She opened a few cabinet doors not looking for anything in particular.
Perhaps she should offer them tea, she thought, looking at a half packet of biscuits, her favourite type. She picked it up and realised she had no memory of eating them. She bit into one and it was stale.
‘Crisps,’ she said aloud. She was sure they had crisps somewhere. Ovidia stopped with her hand on a door. She was stalling. ‘You belong here,’ she repeated Edmund’s words. Next, she opened the wine-cooler door and pulled out the first wine bottle that she touched. She gripped it tightly by the neck, steeling herself almost as if were a weapon, not wanting to arrive to battle unarmed.
When Ovidia emerged through the French doors into the glass extension, she stole a glance at Jasper, before diverting her gaze to the rest of the guests. She caught him at that moment breathing deeply and deliberately, surreptitiously — maybe he was hoping that no one else was watching him. He looked tense. Ovidia was hoping that she didn’t, though her stomach hurt, and she felt a sense of dread, as if a spectre was bearing down on them all.
Olivia’s eyes leapt to Holly, whose smile seemed natural and who seemed at ease. Holly uncrossed her legs and planted them on the floor, as if she was expecting something, maybe a formal introduction. John straightened to attention, also in expectation, brushing his trousers with his fingers. Anne pulled gently away from her partner, a momentary look of annoyance visible on her face.
Edmund stood to meet her, his hand going lightly around her waist and steering her to where he sat. ‘You look lovely,’ he whispered in her ear. The familiarity of his touch helped her relax and she followed him. With a sweep of his hand, he offered her his seat. She shook her head.
11
The creak of the French doors announced Ovidia’s arrival. The garden chairs protested in an angry chorus as the little clutch of people all moved in some way to acknowledge her arrival.
To Jasper, the distance to those doors could have been an entire runway with her on display. He watched Ovidia walking towards them, taking in how much she had changed. Gone was the perfect form preserved in his memory. She was, as she’d been before, the rich dark brown that he had found glorious — he’d once called her a perfect shade of Twix. She’d found it funny and laughed, nudging him gently with her elbow. The event, the date and time, were lost in his memory, but he remembered every detail of her beside him.
In today’s incarnation, gone was her softly slender silhouette and the curve of her breasts and hips. In their place was a sinewy, androgynous outline, only a hint of bosom beneath her blouse. She stood and walked with a near-military posture, with the aura of an athlete. Her haircut tapered at the back, almost vanishing at her neck, shaven close
along the back of her head and made feminine only by a few inches of afro curls that covered the top of her head to her hairline. For a second, Jasper imagined that it was her near masculinity that appealed to Edmund, but he retracted the thought, embarrassed by his own spite.
Ovidia wore a loose-fitting skirt that ended just above her knees, and, true to the woman Jasper had known before, her top was a flurry of dark blue and orange. She had on discreet make-up, and she wore slippers — two large round-cheeked grey and white bunny heads encased each foot. To Jasper, she seemed to saunter in, showing no signs of tension or discomfort at his presence. He quietly cleared his throat when Edmund held Ovidia, or did Edmund clutch her? Glancing at Holly, he saw she’d made no response to the sound he’d made. She was, he saw, like the others, fixated on Ovidia.
Jasper smiled at the sight of the slippers flapping against the tiled floor, remembering a pair in the form of smiling purple hippos that she’d once had. He was mesmerised by the colours she wore. Ovidia had always loved colour and contrast. On their first date, she’d worn blue — which he later learned was her favourite colour — a trouser suit whose formality was ruined by a pair of orange and purple socks that screamed from above a pair of three-inch court heels. He’d never thought to ask her about her clothes, what inspired them, because it seemed integral to her personality, like how his brother wore dark colours.
He understood what John meant when he said Edmund and Ovidia would look odd together. Ovidia was splendid in her colours and petite, while Edmund was drab, his clothes conservative and unexciting. Jasper couldn’t imagine Edmund putting up with how much Ovidia talked. It had been one of the reasons Jasper was drawn to her, how at ease she was with her own personality, that she felt no reason to modulate her natural tendency to make conversation.