Why would he lie?
There’s an atmosphere in Jonty and Blythe’s lodge – an undertow to the conversation – and Mia immediately thinks （as she always does, when she gets to work and discovers something is off） that people know. It’s self-centred of her, of course, but people in love are often self-centred.
‘。 . . sneaking around, up to no good,’ Blythe is saying. Mia freezes in the doorway, her heart pounding.
‘They’re just kids,’ Jonty says. ‘Didn’t you sneak around when you were a teenager?’
Mia relaxes. Sashays into the room with as much poise as she can muster in vertiginous heels, pretending she doesn’t know the effect she’s having.
‘Ding dong!’
Blythe glares at her husband. ‘I do wish you wouldn’t say that all the time. It’s so disgusting.’ She bears down on Mia with her bloody spreadsheet, and Mia grits her teeth. It’ll all be worth it, in the end.
The local guests aren’t due for another half-hour, but Rhys and Yasmin are here, talking to Bobby and Ashleigh. Mia tops up their champagne, and there it is again – that weird atmosphere, like something tugging beneath the surface.
‘。 . . said I was a natural, didn’t they, babe?’ Ashleigh is saying. ‘Even though Bobby’s the actor.’
‘Can we call someone an “actor”， when they’re essentially just playing themselves?’ Rhys says. He grins, as if it’s a joke, but his eyes are stony, and although Bobby laughs there’s a hardness to it.
‘Can we call someone a “singer”，’ he says, ‘when they’re essentially just an arsehole with a microphone?’
The two men turn to face one another, and it looks like the start of every pub brawl Mia has ever seen. Yasmin looks almost gleeful, as though her husband being beaten up by an actual champion boxer is the best thing ever. Whatever Rhys has done, it’s given Yasmin the right hump.
Ashleigh, of course, is oblivious. ‘You should get them to make a reality TV show about you, Rhys. It’s dead easy: they just follow you around for a few months, get shots of you at home with the kids, going to rehearsals, and that.’
‘That would assume he had some rehearsals to go to,’ Yasmin says, acidly.
Something is seriously up with that lot. Mia’s glad when Clemmie and Dee arrive. Clemmie’s wearing a dress which, as she tells anyone who will listen, is made from recycled plastic bottles, complete with flattened bottle tops as buttons.
‘Amazing,’ Mia says, which isn’t exactly a lie. ‘And you look fabulous, Mrs Huxley.’
Dee is wearing black velvet trousers and a white blouse with frills down the front. On her feet are shiny black dress shoes. ‘Fallen arches, dear,’ she tells Mia, when she sees her looking. ‘Besides, men’s shoes are so much more comfortable.’
Mia is supposed to hand food around, but none of the posh lot wants to eat, and the beautiful platters stay untouched until the locals arrive.
‘Holy crap,’ Eira says, when she walks in. ‘This place . . .’
‘I know, right?’ Mia feels a weird sense of pride, as though she lives here. For a second she imagines what it would be like if she did. If all this money, all this stuff were hers. Maybe it will be, one day.
It’s awkward, to begin with. Most of the locals don’t know anyone here, and so they stand in clusters, talking to each other and looking around. On the other side of the lodge, the Shore owners talk too loudly and laugh too hard, and it reminds Mia of school discos: boys on one side, girls on the other. Only Clemmie and Dee make an effort to welcome their guests, and slowly the two groups begin to mix.
‘。 . . the same layout, yes, but really they’re quite different,’ Yasmin says, to a couple Mia knows full well don’t give a shit about interiors. ‘I’ll give you a tour, if you like?’
‘That would be great,’ the pair say, desperate for a poke around.
It’s the start of an endless stream of people traipsing from one end of The Shore to the other. Mia’s feet hurt, and she’d like to take off her shoes, but she knows he’s watching her. Just now, she offered him a top-up and he whispered in her ear as she leaned forward. ‘I want you.’
He’ll find time for her later, she’s sure. She just has to be patient.
Someone has turned down the lights and turned up the music. The lodge throbs with heat and noise, bodies pressed against bodies. There’s an icy draught, as the bifold doors are yanked open, the side of the marquee left flapping. A load of lads from the pub stroll in, giving it the big I am and heading straight for the drinks table.