Pretenders. The

by Zaza, Agatha

  ‘When Jasper finds out …’ she began, but she couldn’t continue. Edmund didn’t respond. She was aware he knew far better than she what might happen.

  She changed direction, her words stumbling out. ‘If we leave, you two can have some time to yourselves.’

  ‘Then who’ll tell Jasper?’ Edmund asked, his voice flat.

  ‘Well, maybe Jasper shouldn’t be your priority right now. Maybe think of yourself and Ovidia.’

  Edmund looked at the ceiling, and they were both silent.

  Edmund stood purposefully. ‘Thank you,’ he said to Anne as she also rose.

  She followed him back into the kitchen.

  ‘Found it!’ Holly chirped cheerfully. The four of them stood in the kitchen, Jasper stone faced, John chewing his lip as if trying not to smile. Ovidia, apart from them, held her phone in her hand, looking at it.

  ‘Can we get back to lunch?’ John looked amused as he marched back to Anne. He stopped beside her and whispered to her, ‘This woman’s lost the plot.’

  Anne nodded.

  ‘Jasper’s not far behind,’ he continued.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said vaguely.

  ‘I think we should go,’ John said.

  ‘How?’ she replied, her eyes locking with his. ‘We can’t leave Jasper.’

  29

  Edmund waited for the others to file back into the annex, leaving him with Ovidia.

  ‘That was embarrassing,’ she said. ‘It was right there. I don’t know how I didn’t see it.’ She leaned back against the counter and looked to the floor.

  He took a few steps towards her but didn’t touch her. She looked tired or, rather, defeated.

  ‘They must think I’ve lost it.’

  Edmund thought back to what Anne had just said. ‘Maybe you have.’

  She started, looking up at him, annoyed.

  ‘Which isn’t what I meant to say,’ he said. He let himself touch her. ‘We don’t have to pretend anymore. There’s nothing left to hide, not even our madness.’

  ‘You, mad?’ She put her arm around his waist and sighed.

  ‘You’ve no idea how desperately hard it’s been to take care of you and to keep going to work, to keep functioning and pretending that nothing has happened when all I want to do is crawl into bed and never get up again.’ He said this quietly, refusing to look at her, gazing instead at the wall where pictures were once affixed.

  He felt her arm tighten around him.

  ‘I have been so lonely,’ he said. ‘You don’t stop to see how I am, to see if I need help. There’s no one to —’ he stopped. ‘Anyway, I’m not leaving you because I blame you,’ Edmund said. It came out bluntly. It wasn’t something they’d put in words, but he knew it was inevitable. ‘No, that’s a lie. I do blame you. I wish we could continue, but I just don’t see how we can.’

  ‘If we want to badly enough …’ she began, but Edmund interrupted.

  ‘It’s not about wanting to anymore. It’s about no longer deluding ourselves. It’s about waking up from a fantasy.’

  ‘This is not a fantasy, it’s my life.’

  ‘It’s my life, too.’ His voice rose. He felt agitated, but he paused, took a deep breath, and continued. ‘This mess we’re in is my fault. I should never have texted you, never have come to your flat. I have been lying to Jasper and the world every day for the last four years, because I love you, and now I’m going to lose you, too.’

  Ovidia let go, pulling away from him.

  ‘And you know what? It’s perfectly fair,’ Edmund said, wishing he could stop. ‘If you could have seen what Jasper became because of what you did to him —’

  ‘Stop,’ Ovidia barked. ‘Not today. Tell me this any day but today. I know it’s all my fault, but today’s not about Jasper.’

  He stopped. He heard Holly’s laugh from outside. Though the others were so nearby, the kitchen felt like a marble mausoleum, devoid of life yet created beautifully. He couldn’t go outside to face Anne now she’d seen behind his mask. He glanced at the clock — it was almost time.

  ‘But Jasper and I did talk, by the way,’ Ovidia said, clearing her throat.

  Edmund lifted his head in response.

  ‘It wasn’t very constructive,’ Ovidia continued. ‘But it’s done. We’ve finally met that first time.’

  Edmund nodded.

  ‘Could you tell him I’m sorry?’ she said. ‘I don’t think I actually told him I was sorry.’

  ‘It would be more meaningful if you told him yourself,’ Edmund replied after a moment. ‘And took responsibility for your actions.’

  ‘I’ve got so much to apologise for,’ she replied. ‘I’ve had five years to do it. I shouldn’t have waited until now.’

  Edmund put his arm around her waist. ‘We did what worked. If I’d any idea he’d show up at my house with his fiancée one morning, maybe I’d have done some things differently. I’ve had the most wonderful years of my life with you. I won’t apologise for that.’

  Ovidia smiled at him, whispering thank you.

  They stood still — time arrested. Edmund felt as if something had changed. The heaviness in the air had dissipated, if only a little. He let her go reluctantly, knowing they could not stand there forever.

  He hesitated at the door to the extension.

  ‘Why don’t you go upstairs, take a long shower or something?’ Ovidia said after a moment. She must have sensed his reluctance.

  ‘You want to go out there on your own?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, raising herself to full height. ‘I do.’ She stepped in front of him and exited.

  He almost followed her, but then turned away, slowly making his way to their bedroom. There, he sat and waited.

  I’m ready, he said to himself after what felt like an eternity, and he rose to get changed.

  Ovidia had used the bathroom since he’d last been in it. Her white towel, now dry, hung on the towel rack. The one he’d abandoned on the floor earlier that morning had been thrown on the back of a chair. Her shower-gel tube was open, and her sponge placed precariously on the edge of the shower rack. He showered, dried his hair, and returned to his usual uniform.

  He sat on their bed as he pulled his socks on, wondering when he’d last read the books that lay beside it. He tried to recall when he and Ovidia last sat in bed talking, books abandoned, bedside lamps on, the rest of the world seeming so far away. Now either he or she would already be in bed with their back turned, and the other would be unable or unwilling to instigate a conversation. They’d made love the previous night, and he’d held her tightly. It had been months since the last time — four months at least.

  He was lying in this bed year and half ago when she’d prodded him awake one morning, waving a home pregnancy test inches from his face.

  ‘You’re joking?’ he’d demanded, wiping the sleep from his eyes and prying the stick from her hand, wanting to see the evidence for himself. She’d let him have it, her eyes wet with tears.

  Now, he looked in the mirror, relieved that he at least looked like himself again. He entered the kitchen, forcing his shoulders back as if going to war. Then he looked at them all through the window, back in the annex, their postures and expressions revealing various degrees of tension or confusion. He knew it would be impolite, he knew it was unfair to Jasper and to Holly, but he decided to give himself a little longer alone. He turned into a corridor and found a wall to lean against and waited.

  30

  John hung up his mobile again. His daughters were demanding to know when they could go home, bickering with their grandparents. He’d reassured them that he would take them somewhere amazing the next day, though he couldn’t imagine at that point where that would be.

  He stayed on the line longer than he should, revelling in their voices yet knowing he had to get back to Jasper. He peered back into the annex, realising he was reluctant to return. It was warm outside and he’d ambled to and fro across the clipped garden lawn as he spoke, hoping the others would thi
nk he simply wanted a quiet place to speak. He’d made it as far as the pile of wooden debris, poked at it with his foot and was certain it was not a garden room as they’d been told.

  His friendship with Jasper rode crests and falls, but it had never been tested as today. He didn’t know the details, but he knew Jasper well enough to know he was suffering.

  When he’d met Jasper, he could easily have handed him a business card and the two of them would have become client and therapist, but he didn’t — not that Jasper would have been ready to accept it. Instead, Jasper became the first person in John’s adult life that he would have considered a best friend. It wasn’t about him ‘helping’ Jasper; it was a mutual relationship. Jasper was someone with whom time spent felt fulfilling, full of camaraderie and trust.

  Watching the group, John could see Jasper pretending to listen to Holly, his lack of attention given away by his furtive glances at the annex door and constant kneading of his knee with his fingers. Holly looked resigned to his inattention. John could tell that Edmund’s revelation had struck Jasper in the heart — why, then, wouldn’t he just leave? He focused on the others in the annex. From where he stood, they seemed at ease, even happy — a stranger looking through the glass would have no reason to think they were anything but friends. The last few hours had been spent discussing anything between the mundane and the exciting, emotions had risen and fallen but never too high or too low — the undercurrent of Jasper’s unhappiness and Edmund’s deceit masked by conversation. Ovidia had given them glimpses into her intelligence and wit — only glimpses, he felt — yet she no longer seemed like such an unlikely partner for Edmund.

  ‘I still feel as if we should leave, but I don’t want to be the one to suggest it,’ he whispered to Anne as she came out into the garden and asked if he was all right. He glanced at the time on his phone and it was almost half past three. He thought how he felt as if so much more time had passed, but it hadn’t. ‘By the way Lucy wants ice-cream, and your mum won’t give her any. I suggest we have a tub of it by the time she gets home.’

  ‘There’s a reason Mum won’t give her any; it’s not healthy,’ Anne replied. ‘We should stop indulging her. I keep telling you.’

  ‘You know how much she hates being away from us …’ John changed the subject. ‘Do you think they’ll survive this?’

  Anne looked startled. ‘Who? Edmund and Ovidia?’

  John looked at her. ‘No, Jasper and Holly.’

  ‘Oh, no. This is between Jasper and Edmund — Holly will just have to put up with some sulking for a few days, and they’ll be fine,’ Anne said.

  ‘But what about if she won’t put up with it? This is the first day of her engagement — what if she realises that this is it, that Jasper is always going to be hard work, even if he does love her?’

  ‘He’s just found out his brother’s been lying to him for four years — I’d be pissed off, too.’

  ‘Yes, but look at him, he’s completely miserable. He’s the only one who can let us out of here. He knows I can’t leave him here and neither can Holly.’ John paused. ‘Edmund must know how vulnerable Jasper is. How could he lie like that?’

  ‘Don’t you judge — you of all people.’

  John recoiled at the ferocity of Anne’s words. ‘What do you mean?’ He knew how to make himself appear confused and offended, as if she had accused him of the unthinkable. Nonetheless, she’d never spoken with such vehemence before.

  Anne waved him away with a quick sweep of her hand and turned, leaving him to face the back of her head. She marched toward the splintered building and looked down at it, her back straight and forbidding. For a moment he felt lost, an unfamiliar feeling when with Anne.

  John followed and stood quietly beside her for a while and then took her hand. For the first time since Singapore, she shook it away.

  ‘Listen,’ he said calmly, leaning towards her. ‘The world is full of crazy stories. Jasper’s never going to be the same again and probably neither is Holly. But we can’t let today affect us. These are our friends, but we are not them. We were together before we ever knew them.’

  He gently sought her hand again. This time she let him take it. He relaxed knowing she couldn’t hold anything against him for long.

  ‘I can’t imagine how Edmund’s done this to his own brother, I really can’t,’ he said again as they returned to the annex. In his work, his clients described far worse acts that brother wreaked upon brother — violence, manipulation, stupidity — however, it was all relayed to him sometimes years after the event. In his own experience, his family life, his friends — until now — brothers didn’t keep such secrets from each other.

  They smiled at the others as they sat down, but Holly’s tale continued despite the distraction.

  They watched Jasper and Holly for a moment. The urge to leave was growing, but all he could think of was to say, ‘I really need to pee.’ He slapped her thigh playfully and she nodded, touching his hand in return. Yes, another breather, he thought. He’d take as long about this as Anne had taken about the tea.

  He followed the same directions Anne had been given, unfazed by the house. To him, it was a show house from an era when houses were meant to impress and even intimidate guests and neighbours, an exhibition of wealth. He sneered at the clawfoot tub — did they expect guests to take a quick bath when they came to visit?

  He washed his hands and rubbed them on his jeans, not wanting to have to neatly fold the hand towels again. The house probably wasn’t as ostentatious as he wanted to believe it was. Maybe for now he wanted to resent everything about Edmund. Perhaps, in other circumstances, he’d have appreciated the house and its décor. When he’d arrived this morning, John had felt a hint of the attraction he’d had to Edmund, but, after witnessing Edmund’s manipulative and even cruel behaviour to his own brother, the attraction had soured.

  John was coming back from the bathroom, taking his time examining the details of the house, when Edmund passed returning to his guests.

  ‘Just having a sniff around,’ he smiled, still trying to compensate for the gaffe two years ago that Edmund, without a word, would not let him forget. He had never felt entirely comfortable in Edmund’s presence since.

  ‘I see,’ Edmund said, disinterested, moving on.

  ‘Edmund,’ John stopped him, ‘this is my business, so don’t tell me it’s not. Jasper’s my friend. Are you going to apologise to him? Somehow iron this out?’

  He was surprised when Edmund responded.

  ‘I can’t imagine how I can iron it out, but, yes, I am going to apologise to him. I’ve hurt him, and I’m not proud of what I’ve done.’

  ‘But why, for god’s sake, didn’t you just tell him all this time?’

  ‘Because, John.’ Edmund looked down at him, his expression one John had seen on him many times before — calm and reassured. ‘No matter how clever I am, successful or wealthy — I can’t tell the future. If I’d had any idea that one morning you lot would show up on my doorstop, I may have done things differently. But, I didn’t. And now I have to deal with the consequences.’

  Edmund continued his interrupted journey, leaving John in the corridor.

  An explanation so simple that it had to be true. John watched him walk away wishing Edmund had brushed him off or lied.

  31

  Ovidia left when Edmund returned. He sat down in his armchair as she stood. He squeezed her hand and immediately let go. Jasper looked as if he’d decided once again to indulge Holly, contorting his face into some semblance of cheerfulness while his eyes remained flat and distant.

  He’d whispered to Holly inches from her face and wiggled his eyebrows. Holly had punched his arm happily, perhaps hoping that the day was getting better. Ovidia had felt a stab of regret, recalling that he used to do the same to her.

  Ovidia glanced back at him as she left. He was trying too hard to be funny yet sitting much too rigidly in his seat and every now and then attacking his nails with his teeth. She wonde
red why he didn’t leave. She guessed he was still looking for an explanation — that he still didn’t believe what he was seeing.

  It was her turn to change her clothes. She rifled through the walk-in wardrobe for something suitable. It was difficult. The clothes she was happiest in were bright and colourful. She was forced to root through the clothes she’d worn when she used to work. When she finally settled on a charcoal black suit, she decided she looked much too sombre. She tried on an orange scarf, but looking at herself in the mirror the colour screamed back at her, garish and inappropriate. The scarf was a favourite, and she’d once worn it often to brighten up outfits in black or blue. Today, it refused to sit in harmony with the rest of her clothes.

  Ovidia returned to the group in the new outfit, having settled for a grey dress that ended just above her knees. The conversation had continued without her: Holly’s mother’s love of Christmas decorating, Anne and John’s daughters who didn’t believe in Santa Claus, and how hard it was to find the perfect gift.

  Ovidia had stopped at the French doors with one foot in the kitchen. When Edmund turned and saw her, he checked his watch.

  ‘I’m sorry. We have to go,’ Edmund said to his guests, rising to his feet. ‘Please lock the door behind you, if we’re not back by the time you leave.’

  They all started in their seats.

  ‘What?’ Holly said, springing up. ‘Right now?’

  ‘Something better to do?’ Jasper asked in a loud, accusing voice.

  Edmund joined Ovidia at the door without answering either question. He was beside Ovidia when she found herself rooted where she stood, incapable of movement.

  ‘No,’ she said, her voice strangled, barely audible.

  Edmund said nothing. He put an arm around her and gently tried to steer her away into the kitchen.