Chapter 47
You should try it sometime, Opal; it’s fucking liberating. Johan’s words were the first thing to rattle around Opal’s foggy head as she opened her eyes to the bright morning light pouring in through unclosed curtains.
The antics of the night before came next: the memories from dinner, and then after … She blushed at the thought of them, and then she remembered the argument itself.
She found that in the light of day, Opal couldn’t summon the rage she had felt the night before.
She felt too … satiated to sustain anger.
Opal stretched, and despite everything a smile spread across her face.
Gareth may have been right about a good fuck doing wonders for the soul.
She had to give that to Johan: he was a passionate lover, if a little distant.
That too, though, had been exhilarating.
It had been so long since she had been the object of somebody’s desire.
Perhaps there was something to be said for the kind of sex that was all about flesh.
In the waning years of her and Martin’s sex life, it had felt as though the act was about everything but. It was about commitment, about duty, about loss. When was the last time it had been just about pleasure? She couldn’t recall.
Opal hauled herself out of bed, downed a glass of water and popped a couple of aspirin.
It was the final day for her guests to finish their pieces and tomorrow was judgement day.
It was becoming increasingly urgent and impossible to ignore the fact that she needed to figure out some way of picking a winner.
It was a daunting task. She’d wanted to make a point of all art forms being equal, but now that it was her job to compare them, she realised what an impossible proposition she’d set up.
She made her way down to the orangery, and only then realised how early it still was, not even 6 a.m. Breakfast was still a couple of hours away and so she decided to make the most of the soft light, and set up her easel.
She positioned a bowl of fruit in front of her, pulling her kimono tightly around her as she studied it: the curve and colour of the plum, the freckles of the strawberry, the fuzz of the peach.
She didn’t notice the figure wandering across the lawn until he turned the latch and pushed through the large glass door.
The scene had a dreamlike quality and Opal felt calm as she watched Martin approach. He, on the other hand, looked sheepish.
‘You’re up early, darling.’ His shoes were wet from the morning dew. Opal had barely seen him since the party nearly three weeks ago. And she couldn’t shake the thought that he looked older.
‘Am I?’ Opal asked dreamily.
Martin glanced at his watch. ‘It’s barely 6 a.m., so yes, I’d say so.’
‘Not that part.’ Opal cocked her head to one side.
‘Am I your darling?’ She had imagined how this moment would play out a thousand times since that fateful afternoon, which now felt so long ago.
But as it happened, she felt almost outside of herself, a film director watching from the other side of the screen, unable, now that all the actors had memorised their scripts, to change the course of events.
‘I’m not sure I know what you mean, Pol.’ Martin couldn’t keep her gaze; maybe it was the being caught off guard sneaking back into the house that had unsettled him. For the first time, though, Opal could swear there was a glint of shame in his eyes.
‘I really hate it when you call me that.’
Martin looked exasperated. ‘Where is all this coming from? Not darling, not Pol, got it – what exactly should I call you then?’
‘How about by my name? It’s Opal, in case you’d forgotten.’ Opal’s tone was steady, unemotional, firm.
Martin seemed taken aback, stumbling over his words ‘OK, Opal, yes, of course; sorry I thought you liked that nickname …’ He trailed off, as though only now realising that this had nothing really to do with her name.
‘Where have you been, Martin?’
He ran his hands through his damp hair, and Opal found herself wondering if he’d gotten so comfortable in Debbie’s house that he was taking showers there.
‘I’ve been working, Pol … Opal – you know that.
’ His words were pleading, but there was no conviction in them.
‘And you’ve been busy anyway, haven’t you? With your little art school thing.’
Silence hung between them; Opal scrutinised his face, willing him to, at least now at this final point, show a bit of courage. His blank, dumb gaze made her stomach churn with contempt.
‘Something else you’ve shown absolutely no interest in …’ Opal muttered. Shaking her head, she turned back to her easel. She was done with this man.
‘Pol … Opal, I thought you wanted it for just you, and you know art isn’t my thing.’ There was something about the hint of self-pity in his voice just then that lit a fire in Opal. She turned back to him and he stepped back just a touch, alarmed by the blaze in her eyes.
‘So you have no opinion even on your portrait in the hallway?’ Opal realised she had been craving his reaction this whole time.
He had denied her so much, and even when she screamed for attention, in the form of a grotesque five-foot-tall naked portrait of him, hung for everyone to see, he couldn’t muster up enough care to even mention it.
Her dissatisfaction was invisible to him.
Martin shrugged, flustered now, as though he truly had no idea what he was supposed to say next. ‘Is that supposed to be of me?’ he mumbled finally. Opal thought for a second she might burst with white-hot rage. Instead she burst into maniacal laughter.
Martin stood, dumbfounded. ‘I think you’re losing it, Pol.’
‘My NAME IS OPAL,’ she screamed and the exertion of it, the thrill, left her feeling dizzy.
Martin just stood there blinking. She was never going to get what she needed from him; it was so obvious to her now.
No guiding, no coaxing, no instruction could rewire his behaviour into the kind of love she wanted. The kind of love she needed.
She was going to have to take matters into her own hands. Why had she been waiting so long for him to come clean? Why had she given him, even now, that last vestige of power over her life?
Opal took a deep breath, and held his grey gaze as she spoke the words: ‘I want a divorce, Martin.’
He looked down at his feet, and Opal continued, ‘I know about you and Agnes. I saw you in fact, at the beginning of the summer, fucking in the guest room. I don’t want this to drag on, so if you could move into the London flat permanently that would be appreciated. My lawyers will be in touch.’
As she spoke, Opal felt as though a coil of something dark and heavy was being unwound from around her heart.
The persistent knot in the pit of her stomach loosened, and the fog of her anxious thoughts began to clear.
Her mind had finally caught up with what her body already knew. She needed to cut Martin loose.
She was surprised to see that when Martin finally looked up at her, there were tears in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Opal, I … I didn’t mean for it to happen. I love you. I can be better.’
It was only once she heard him say the words that she understood that any hope she might have been tempted to hold on to was futile. It wasn’t only that she didn’t believe him, it was that she found him now irreproachably pathetic.
‘No need, Martin. I’ve realised, finally, that what matters now is that I can be better, and in fact that requires me to no longer be your wife.’ She turned and started walking away then, leaving him to snivel.
‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ he called, and she stopped, but didn’t turn around.
In that office they laugh at me, for my accent, for where I come from, for the fact that I live in my wife’s house.
All those old boys that went to the sorts of school that your family went to; they will never let me belong.
It doesn’t matter how much money I make for them, my blood will never be blue.
That Hong Kong trip, I got passed over and they didn’t say it but I know why; it’s the same reason I haven’t been promoted in two years.
’ Opal listened as he swallowed down a sob.
‘And the only other thing they can respect in me is …’
Now she turned to face him again. ‘Cheating on your wife with a fucking teenager?’ She finished his sentence for him and when he nodded meekly, she felt a renewed disgust. ‘So you’re telling me that the reason you’ve been having an affair in my house with my best friend’s daughter is to impress your colleagues? ’
It was laughable. Here Opal had been, imagining that maybe Martin carried some unhealed wound from the loss of their daughter that had putrefied into this perverse affair.
All the time, it had been simply about impressing other men.
It was almost comforting to know how little she had to do with his indiscretions.
Once again she felt a pang of pity for Agnes; hopefully it wouldn’t take her as long to see Martin’s true colours.
He sniffed and swiped at his nose with the cuff of his shirt. Opal couldn’t bear to look at him anymore. ‘You know where the door is.’
Opal marched up the stairs and into the master bedroom, the one she’d exiled herself from, and threw open the windows.
The cool early morning air wafted in and the soft light bathed her face.
Down below was the gravel drive and the fountain.
She giggled gleefully as she collected his things – suits, shoes, ties, jumpers – and flung them out the window.
She’d seen her mother do this once, with husband number four.
She’d been about sixteen then and remembered how overly dramatic and childish it had seemed to her.
When she was an adult she would never do such things, she’d thought.
But now, here she was, throwing a man’s life out the very same window.
And just like her mother before her, there was a grin on her face.
Quite opposed to being the image of a woman losing control, this was defiance. It was power; it was fucking liberating. Her only remaining regret was that she couldn’t share this moment with Debbie.