Pretenders. The

by Zaza, Agatha

She’d stepped away to give him his privacy.

  ‘Something happened?’ she’d asked as he looked at his phone, suddenly seeming tired, and put it in his pocket.

  ‘Work,’ he’d said.

  Ovidia had known he was lying. It was a subtle exchange; he kept her from Jasper and Jasper from her. She knew not every call he received or emergency meeting was from work. She knew that it was work if he was specific: Stocks are down or my director’s in hospital. She knew if Jasper’s calls or visits were planned, Edmund would say: I’m meeting Jasper for lunch or I’m going down to my parents’ for the weekend.

  However, other times he was vague. Or other times he lied — like this one. When he hadn’t made eye contact with her, when his jaw had become tense, and he’d glared at the sky as if it were somehow at fault. She didn’t know how he decided it was something he shouldn’t tell her. Maybe when he’d felt that Jasper’s needs had been intruding too often, or when it had clashed directly with something they had planned. A few times, she’d happened upon his phone, showing Jasper or Lucinda’s numbers coinciding with a call that he’d received previously that had made him leave in a hurry.

  ‘Do you have to go?’ She could have asked, Is he okay? But that would have been unfair. She could see he was flustered; work never made him flustered — it excited him.

  ‘Yes. I have to go right away. Can you hire a car for the day or something?’

  ‘I’ll manage,’ she’d said. ‘I might spend the night and come back tomorrow. I’m still a little sore.’

  ‘You will,’ he’d looked relieved. She’d offered him more time to be with his brother, whose unhappiness she was responsible for.

  ‘I love you,’ he’d said and turned, hurrying up the beach towards the car park.

  27

  It had been Holly.

  The crisis.

  Edmund had driven back as fast as the speed limits would let him, terrified that this time would be that time. The time that he’d be too late, too far away.

  Edmund had vacillated between excitement at the prospect of Jasper finally finding someone and the fear that she might be awful to him.

  Perhaps, he’d thought, cruising towards his brother’s flat, he should have put his reservations aside and made an effort to meet her. From a nearer vantage point, he’d be able to keep a better watch on the two of them. While Jasper had been with Ovidia, the distance that she created between the brothers helped mask the situation he was in for much longer. That his brother’s state was Ovidia’s fault was something he couldn’t run away from, but he tried. Still, at times like this, he found himself on the verge of resenting her.

  Edmund had let himself in the flat. He’d jingled the keys in his hands, delaying his mission for just a moment. Then, as had become a habit, he’d checked himself for any traces of Ovidia, though there never was. He’d imagined sometimes that Jasper might recognise a stray hair, an image on his phone, or a receipt for a dinner for two.

  Jasper had called, saying in a monotone that she was gone and life wasn’t worth living. No crying, no hysterics.

  All the lights had been on.

  ‘Jas,’ he’d called as he shut the door behind him

  He’d heard a moan in response and felt a wave of relief.

  The smell of vomit had hit him as he moved towards the living room. He’d found Jasper lying on the sofa, a soft blue blanket over him. The television had been on, showing American reality TV.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Edmund had asked.

  ‘Nothing, let me sleep.’ Jasper’s breathing had been laboured, as if exhausted.

  ‘Holly?’

  ‘Gone.’ Jasper had wiped his nose and turned over.

  Carefully examining the sofa before sitting down beside his brother, Edmund had tried to think of what to say or ask.

  Edmund had never told Ovidia of the state Jasper had ended up in. He’d never told her the extent of the wreck she’d left behind. She’d believed that Jasper, as Edmund had said, had a tendency to depressive episodes, describing them as him feeling low and just needing to withdraw and finding someone to talk to. Edmund had told her that Jasper needed propping up every now and then, wanting her to believe that Jasper was an attention seeker, demanding to be centre of Edmund and their parents’ attention, though he was sure she didn’t believe him.

  Edmund hadn’t told her how low those lows were, the whispered contemplations of ending it all, the internet browsing history that terrified him with its graphic instructions in order to leave as little to clean up as possible.

  He’d been honest when he said Holly had made it better. Now when they spoke, it was quite often normal, about the trivialities of life, the mundane as well as the exciting. Jasper’s face showed life.

  ‘How did we get here, Jasper?’

  He’d received a groan in answer.

  ‘How long are we supposed to continue like this? What happened with Holly?’ His voice had rung louder than he wanted.

  Nothing.

  ‘Did she get fed up and walk out?’ he’d demanded.

  Jasper had lain deadly still.

  ‘Did she say she just couldn’t take it anymore? That she’d had enough, and she needed to get her own life?’

  Jasper had shifted his weight, pulling the blanket off his face.

  Edmund calmed down, reminding himself that Jasper wasn’t just being difficult, as his mother had gently suggested.

  ‘What do you expect from her? Do you expect her to just put up with whatever you throw at her? She has nothing to do with what brought you here. You can’t expect her undying patience.’

  ‘I know,’ Jasper had whispered, turning on to his back.

  ‘I’ve run out of things to say.’ His and Jasper’s eyes had met. ‘I’m out of possible solutions.’

  ‘If she doesn’t come back,’ Jasper had said, ‘I don’t know what I’ll do.’

  ‘Neither do I.’

  Edmund had picked up the remote and turned down the sound on the TV. Keeping it on had almost been an extra presence in the room, so that he wasn’t alone with his brother.

  ‘I should clean myself up. What if she’s forgotten something and comes back?’ Jasper had shifted his weight but remained as he was.

  He spoke minutes later, raising himself into a seated position. ‘I,’ his voice had hovered, ‘don’t want her to ever know how weak and stupid I’ve been.’

  Edmund had risen, his mouth opening to protest. Jasper had never told him what happened between him and Ovidia, but at times he referred to it without putting it in words.

  ‘And I don’t want her to ever see me like this. With Holly and the new places we go and the new people I meet, I feel as if I am something like a normal man.’

  Edmund had dropped his face into his hands.

  ‘When I think about it,’ a manic look had crept onto Jasper’s face, ‘it’s good that no one knew, right?’

  Jasper’s speech had descended into a babble that Edmund stopped following. It had happened before, the resolutions, the declarations, the looking on the bright side of things and having a meaningful, lifelong relationship with Holly. It would wear off, and he’d be back on the sofa begging his body to sleep.

  Edmund had successfully put off any opportunity to meet Holly — sometimes by forces outside his control, work commitments, Ovidia’s races disguised as obligations — but other times he’d simply lied. He had no idea what he’d say to this woman, what he was supposed to say to her. ‘You know me — work, work, and crossword puzzles.’ He’d always tried to find out if Holly would be there when his parents would invite him and Jasper for the weekend. A few times he’d found himself in the company of Anne and John, both to whom he felt a certain gratitude for maintaining a friendship with Jasper — though he hadn’t the time or energy to spare to get to know them.

  But Edmund had been to see Holly several times, though she didn’t know it.

  He’d been to her office. He’d gone up to the door. The office took up two floors of
a concrete and dark glass building that had been built at the height of the sixties’ modernism; its heritage appreciated only by a few aficionados. He’d found a large room styled as an open plan office. Whoever was designated to receive guests had been absent, and only two of three heads were visible, bent over their work. He had glanced around the room, careful, knowing that his resemblance to his brother would have given him away if she saw him.

  ‘Can I help you?’ An older woman had peeped over her partition.

  ‘I’m looking for Holly?’

  ‘They’ve all gone out for coffee, I think,’ she’d said.

  ‘Right, thanks,’ he’d said and turned to leave, knowing she’d ask if he wanted to wait or leave a message.

  His plan had been to speak to her, try to learn something about her. Instead, he’d emerged from the building and quickly turned left as he saw a clutch of people, a blonde at their centre, returning. He’d had a good idea of what she looked like, as he’d frequently scanned her Facebook page. He’d gone through her LinkedIn profile and various other sites. He’d read her work; it was all in entertainment and art. She knew her subject matter and wrote well, but nothing she wrote was memorable. Her professional profile photo did her looks a disservice — she’d appeared a bland blonde woman in a staid, high-necked top. She was far more attractive in person.

  He’d sat on a bench and watched her, as the little group had come to a halt outside the building. They’d seemed to be waiting for one of their number to finish a cigarette, each of them with a reusable mug. The conversation was animated, though he couldn’t make out their words. He’d wanted to assign certain characteristics to the way she moved, the way she giggled with her hand hovering over her mouth. His first impression of her was honest and innocent. She’d seemed, in a single word, nice. But that to him sounded as if he was saying Ovidia wasn’t those things. Ovidia was honest, boldly honest, the kind of woman who left an imprint in conversations about politics and morality. He’d realised he was searching for the reason Jasper would love Holly. Had Jasper chosen a woman that was the antithesis of Ovidia?

  Edmund had been shocked at how much of an impact Jasper’s relationship with Ovidia had had on his brother’s life. He’d never imagined that an individual could rend a life apart. No matter how much he loved her — Edmund was realistic — Ovidia would always be that speck less than perfect, ever so slightly tarnished by her relationship with his brother.

  Holly was offering his brother a new life, but Edmund couldn’t bring himself to invest in their relationship. He was afraid, yes. Afraid that Holly would prove as destructive a force in Jasper’s life as Ovidia had been, and, if that happened, he wasn’t sure Jasper would survive.

  Holly had seemed benign. On Facebook, she’d announced the places she went to and what she did casually; long weekend trips to popular spots on the continent, a weekend at home hillwalking with her parents, an art exhibition, and media training at a local charity. Her tastes were in no way exceptional, neither were they mediocre.

  He’d turned back to Holly. She had been standing full height. She was taller than Ovidia, and her clothes in pale summery colours.

  As he’d watched Holly, he’d pondered his own relationship with Ovidia .They were settled, considering the future, hinting ‘when we are old’ or ‘it’s the kind of place we should retire to’. They’d spoken of themselves as single unit.

  He wanted that for Jasper. But what would happen when Jasper saw Ovidia again, when he recalled how vivacious she was, or how when he made love to her, the rest of the world, the history and the future became irrelevant? What happened when he remembered when she sang songs from musicals badly?

  Would Holly hold up to the comparison?

  It was okay. His thoughts were his own, he’d reminded himself. Ovidia was his, perfect for him. She had been completely wrong for Jasper. If Jasper was serious about Holly, he must have felt that there was something different about her, that she was good.

  His gaze having shifted to the street, his attention had been drawn back to the group. Holly had burst into laughter, a sudden violent eruption, during which she gently shoved her colleague’s shoulder. Edmund had steeled himself at that move. The colleague had laughed along.

  In his brother’s flat, as Jasper — emboldened by some trick of serotonin or dopamine or whatever brain chemical the latest theory assigned his raging to — had paced the room, Edmund had made himself a cup of tea and settled on the sofa, listening and then not listening to his brother, imagining what Ovidia was doing in a village outside Weston-Super-Mare on a rainy evening.

  Jasper had sat down, eyeing Edmund’s feet.

  ‘Don’t ever tell Holly, please?’ he’d asked, his eyes imploring.

  Sitting in his extension, neat and friendly, Holly seemed everything Edmund wanted for his brother. He wondered what she would do next. Jasper wouldn’t be the same after today. Holly had never met the Jasper of before. She didn’t know what Edmund had lost.

  28

  Anne smiled at Jasper as he came downstairs to the kitchen and joined Holly and her. She saw him stroke Holly’s shoulder, and Holly whispered something to him, smiling. Holly handed him a plate, and Anne saw his reluctance. He picked up a slice of pizza with a fork and let it lie there untouched. She recalled the Jasper she’d first met, emaciated and miserable who took half an hour to finish a bowl of soup and wondered what it would take for him to descend into those depths again. She looked at the time on her watch and realised that, though it was early afternoon, for a group of friends celebrating an engagement, it felt ages since they’d arrived.

  As Holly kissed Jasper, Anne escaped saying, ‘second helping,’ though it was her third as she scooted past them to pick up another slice of pizza before returning to the annex.

  ‘Come on,’ Holly said, and she and Jasper followed Anne out of the door.

  There John was explaining what it took to write a book. ‘It’s difficult to say. It was harder and easier than I thought it would be.’

  Ovidia was twisting about in her seat, looking for something. She seized Edmund’s lapel, her other hand aimed at his pocket.

  ‘I said I don’t have it,’ Edmund whispered loudly to Ovidia, interrupting John. He brushed her away. ‘It’s not in my pocket. You called for pizza, remember?’

  ‘Lucky, there was a bit of developmental support, too,’ John continued. ‘The editor helped to really flesh out the concept.’

  Ovidia went to the kitchen and called to Edmund from the door. ‘It’s not here.’

  Edmund looked annoyed briefly, stood and followed her inside. ‘You’ve just left it on the table somewhere.’

  ‘That editor, who kept calling me “darling”,’ Anne said. She was pretending now that Ovidia and Edmund weren’t acting odder than before. ‘I can’t see how she could have been any help.’

  ‘He’s taken it — the delivery guy.’ Ovidia’s raised, tense voice came through the open doors.

  Edmund’s voice was raised too, but he was further away, and Anne couldn’t hear what he said in response.

  ‘My pictures,’ Ovidia said. ‘It has my pictures — I need them. Call the restaurant.’

  ‘Well, let’s make sure it’s really gone. We don’t want to embarrass ourselves.’ He must have moved closer to the doors, as they heard him clearly.

  Edmund returned to the annex. Now they were all watching. Without speaking, he started rifling through the cushions in his chair and examined the space in which Ovidia had been sitting.

  ‘I want it back, my pictures,’ Ovidia’s voice rang.

  ‘Phone gone?’ John asked, as everyone watched.

  ‘She thinks it’s the delivery guy. Do people still do that? I thought mobiles had no resale value.’ Edmund looked annoyed and inconvenienced. He sat down again, looking as tired and dejected as when they’d found him that morning.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Anne said as the colour drained from Edmund’s face. ‘Guys, could we all look around? It’s probably just
lying around somewhere.’

  Jasper appeared to hesitate, but he left when Holly gently tugged his hand.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Anne repeated, sitting on the stool at Edmund’s side where Ovidia had been.

  ‘Fine,’ Edmund replied after a moment, taking several deep breaths and rising.

  ‘No, sit,’ Anne ordered, and Edmund acquiesced. The tone of her voice came from being accustomed to dealing with reluctant patients, people who wanted their own way, or to escape their hospital beds. ‘The others will find it.’

  ‘It’s just a bloody phone,’ Edmund said, his teeth gritted.

  ‘It isn’t just a phone, is it?’ Anne asked, and Edmund realised that she knew it wasn’t.

  ‘I kept telling her to back up her things, download her pictures of …’ he paused ‘… her photos. But, she never gets round to anything. She was an engineer, for heaven’s sake, now she can’t find a bloody cable for her hard drive.’

  He stopped abruptly, his eyes unfocused. Anne knew how it felt the first time you spoke negatively about your spouse aloud — that jolt of pain when you first admitted to the rest of the world that he or she was less than perfect.

  ‘I don’t know her, but she looks capable of getting herself together. She probably just needs time,’ said Anne. ‘When we were in the kitchen, she referred to herself as assertive, and I could see what she meant.’

  ‘She’s fallen apart,’ Edmund said.

  ‘And why not? So what if Ovidia’s clever, witty, beautiful — it doesn’t mean losing a child would be any easier for her than anyone else,’ said Anne.

  Edmund stiffened, his eyes narrowing.

  Anne’s hand went to her breast. ‘I’m so sorry … I found something in the kitchen … I didn’t mean …’ she said, fumbling her words. ‘I haven’t said anything to the others. Really I haven’t.’

  He leaned back silently.

  ‘Can I ask …’

  ‘No,’ he snapped, loud and fierce enough to frighten her.

  In the brief silence that followed, Anne thought for a moment that she should leave but remembered she was with a man who’d spent most of a day with his brother unable or unwilling to tell him that he had a child that was dying. She couldn’t conceive of a reason Edmund should choose to suffer in silence, except maybe that he was trying to protect his brother from the enormity of his lie.