“I miss her laugh. She had a weird laugh. Fast and loud,” he muses, mushily. The drink means he bounces about emotionally. One minute furious, the next wistful. No one could expect him to be stable, though, considering the circumstances. “Leigh made the house warmer and happier. Her absence was always felt, you know, when she went to work. What we thought was work,” he adds. Fiona bites her tongue. She hasn’t really heard Mark talk about Leigh this way before she vanished, or at least not for a very long time. He sounds sentimental, syrupy. It is the sort of tone reserved men use when they are forced to make public declarations—at their wedding speeches, for instance. No less sincere for that but slightly awkward to listen to. Mark’s usual tone with and about Leigh is more pedestrian as a rule. He is sometimes teasingly affectionate, but never mawkish. Fiona has heard him use the syrupy voice often enough, though, about Frances. His ex-wife. His dead wife. Does he think Leigh is an ex-wife?
A dead wife?
He carries on, “The boys should be used to her not being here, since she was always gone half the week, but they’re not doing well,” Mark continues. “It’s different now, obviously. No one is expecting her to walk through the door at any moment.”
“Aren’t they?” Fiona asks.
Mark shrugs. “No, not really.” He takes another swig of alcohol. “You can feel their anger in the air.”
Fiona thinks this is true. You can almost taste it, but it is not just the boys’ anger. It is Mark’s too. Without her, the house is drenched in an ominous vibe. “God, she was manipulative. Right? I mean, she had us all fooled. What a bitch, hey, Fiona?”
“Yeah,” Fiona admits. “She’s my best friend but she’s a bitch. I can’t really deny that.”
“She’s my wife but I was the first to say it.” He looks around as though surprised by her absence, all over again. Then he buries his head into the throw. Fiona thinks he’s crying at first, but he’s not. He is taking a long, deep breath in. Perhaps trying to soothe himself. Perhaps trying to catch Leigh’s smell on the fabric. A theory that is confirmed when he sits up. Slick-eyed, but not vacant, he is alert; twitching like a dog that listens for footsteps on the street, a squeak of the gate that indicates his mistress is home. But there are no footsteps on the street; Leigh is not home. Mark mumbles, “I can still smell her in the rooms. That’s something.” He sighs, admitting that it’s not much really.
“I do understand,” says Fiona. Mark flinches, looks skeptical. “Well, not completely, obviously, but I feel betrayed too. I can’t believe this is happening, that something has gone so horribly wrong in our worlds, when we were all just going about our business, you know? How has she kept me out of her life like that, so absolutely?”
“Half her life,” says Mark with a sardonic smirk.
“Her life,” Fiona insists. “She’s a bigamist, so I’d argue she’s defined by that. That is her life. I didn’t know I was out of her life. That I didn’t exist for her. She’s left me feeling, I don’t know, sort of less. Do you know what I mean? I feel cheated.” Mark nods ruefully. “Oh crap, sorry. I’m going on about my feelings. I can only imagine how diminished you must feel.” Mark shrugs and holds Fiona’s gaze, and something flitters between them. Not just comfort or empathy. Something more stirring. The air is tight, brittle. Fiona feels one wrong move or word, and it would all shatter. Quietly, carefully, she asks, “Would you take her back? You know…if she came back. If she walked through that door right now, would you take her back?”
“She’s not coming back, Fiona,” says Mark and then he leans forward. The tight, brittle air explodes as he kisses her. It takes a moment and then she kisses him back.
37
Kylie
Daan is standing in the room demanding I make a list for him too. “Keep things fair!” he is shouting, which is out of character. He’s normally supremely confident and would not demand, or even acknowledge, the need for an even playing field, happy to play all odds, even if the odds are stacked against him, which in all honestly, they rarely are. Tall, handsome, rich, male—normally all the odds are in his favor.
But of course, that was him before he knew about Mark. Now he has discovered he doesn’t know me, it’s fair to assume I don’t know him. That he is other.
“Get on with the fucking list!” His mass and blondness swell and fill the room, he’s pulsing with vitality and irritation. I am reminded of how it is to be with him when people are late, and he feels they undervalue his time. Normally generous and charming he becomes irate and struggles to hide his annoyance. Except, he is not in the room. He has gone again, and I can’t be sure he was ever here. Was it just my imagination?
Am I hallucinating? Lack of food, dehydration?
The room sways, puckers as though it is being folded away like a concertina fan. One moment voluminous, the next cramped. Have I been drugged again? Something in the chicken sandwich or the water. What can I trust? What do I know? My head is pounding, pulsing with pain. But then, so does my hand, my ribs, my shoulder.
The list. The list. What is it like being married to Daan? What does it mean? Upgraded body consciousness, so intense and regular workouts. Trying to turn back time, or at least the effects of it on my body and face. Not because he asks me to or because he is younger than me, but because he thinks I am beautiful and he tells me so all the time. I like basking in his praise. I want that to last as long as possible. Expensive restaurants. Well-cut, beautiful clothes. A feeling that there will never be anything that he can’t tackle, that he can’t win. Cleaners, a concierge, a personal coach, staff to cater for dinner parties. Dinner parties! Jo Malone candles. It strikes me that the list seems to be mostly about the things he can buy, but he is not that at all. I focus.
A sense of humor that is like mine. Dry, sharp. We spar intellectually. Freedom. Time. A big but autonomous family who are in equal parts frighteningly competitive and successful. They demand nothing of me beyond glossy hair and straight teeth so that I fit in, other than that they come free of all obligation including love or hate. Rooftop terraces. Champagne and cocktails. Lots of phone sex. Text sex. Anticipated sex.
The memory is simultaneously urgent and yet distant. I can’t imagine desire right now. Lust. I know it was there, a force to be reckoned with or capitulated to, but I can’t feel the breathless pressure of it anymore. The list. The list. What else is on his list?
A willingness to hear the plot of a novel I enjoyed but, like Mark, an unwillingness to read the damn novel. A sense that when I’m with him everything is possible.
It is not possible to leave the room. I am not beautiful, right now, bruised and fetid.
I am in hell. He is the devil.
38
Mark
Monday 23rd March
Mark gets up early and leaves Fiona sleeping. Both the boys being out of the house provides him an opportunity. Since Fiona confessed to her involvement with Daan, he has known exactly what he has to do. He needs to do it quickly. No one else can do this for him.
Mark finds himself carefully studying Fiona as she sleeps. The bridge of her nose, the crown of her head, her usually well-maintained lowlights—that subdue the copper of her hair—are growing out, there’s a smidge of hair striped through with gray. He finds it moving. Honest. He notes that sleeping Fiona looks vaguely anxious. What a shame. He wonders if that is because of what happened last night between the two of them. He shouldn’t have kissed her. Or maybe he should. He doesn’t know. Nothing is clear-cut anymore. He no longer has any idea of what should or should not happen, what he should or should not do. Most likely, her look of anxiety is due to the fact she is worrying about Leigh’s whereabouts. Or maybe, she lives with some ever-present level of concern—work, money, aging parents, the drag of unrealized ambitions. Most people have something.