Chapter 12
For the past fortnight, she had kept her distance but less obviously than she had in the immediate aftermath of her discovery.
The morning after he’d seen the painting, he had left before she’d come downstairs.
A note on the kitchen table announced that he was at the golf course with Patrick all day.
She was both relieved and disappointed that he was not there to confront her about his distorted portrait in the hall.
It was only after she’d finished it in the orangery, no longer sitting in front of the male model from the class, that she realised the monstrous figure on her canvas resembled her husband. Same grey eyes, same angular jaw, same dark quiff of hair.
And so she decided to play him at his own game.
He was going to keep calm and carry on as normal; she was going to keep calmer.
Suddenly her schedule was packed. There were more mornings spent at the club.
More afternoons in town, more evenings at Debbie’s.
They got into a routine of increasingly passive-aggressive notes left on the kitchen table.
Each more nonchalant and scant on information than the last.
On this particular morning, Opal had come down to find a scrap of paper with only the words ‘out ’til later’ scribbled on it.
When Noah’s arrival details, written on paper that smelt equally but differently captivating to the first, had landed on the welcome mat a few days prior, Opal had compartmentalised this secret scheme of hers to the back of her mind.
When Gareth called, she would diligently discuss all the necessary arrangements and preparations needed. He had been sceptical that Ruby would come round – ‘but we can still go ahead with the ones we’ve got so far,’ he’d said.
Opal had been unsure. In her mind there needed to be the five of them, and the girl with the gemstone name completed the vision.
When she thought these thoughts, though, she worried that it sounded like the kind of logic her mother might engage in, and so she had kept them to herself.
Reassuring Gareth that nothing was going to change her mind and all the while conducting her real life as though the tournament was a sort of abstract thought experiment and not something that was days away from landing on her doorstep.
It was that last letter that dragged her out of the daze.
The final piece of the puzzle, the girl who had inspired the whole mad idea was actually on board and now she was going to have to tell Martin, the other person who lived in this house, that five strangers were arriving in a few days … To stay for six weeks.
Opal figured that ‘later’ would at least imply after midday and so she decided that maybe it was finally time to christen the pool for the summer.
In other, less turbulent years, Opal and Martin had created a tradition.
One of them would push the other into the water in order to ‘open the swimming season’.
It wasn’t as simple as it sounded. The pusher would need to sneak out undetected and remove the tarpaulin and then coax the pushee outside, whilst they remained unsuspecting.
That hadn’t happened this summer. May had passed without any hint of that kind of playfulness and so Opal changed into her simple black bathing suit and made her way out through the orangery and over to the pool.
In the mid-morning sunshine, the pale green tiles seemed to glow as she wound the cover off. The water was still.
She left her hair loose and dived in. Unexposed to the sun, the water was cool enough to take her breath away.
After a few lengths her limbs numbed to the cold and she felt that familiar exhilaration of being submerged.
Growing up, this pool had been her happy place.
Saffie hated getting wet. Most often she would sit in the orangery and chain-smoke as she watched her daughter splash around.
Opal thought fondly of those memories – she and her mother peacefully co-existing but buffered by a pane of glass. She had felt watched over but not smothered. Free but safe. It was a welcome pang of nostalgia, a reminder that she had been in troubled waters before and survived.
‘Took the plunge did you, Pol?’
Opal was coming up to the end of her lap.
She turned to see Martin, standing on the steps of the orangery.
His bag of golf clubs were slung over his shoulder and he was wearing one of those argyll vests that Opal hated.
This particular specimen was a bright yellow, pink and turquoise combo.
The matching socks peeked out below the hem of his sand-coloured trousers.
‘Seemed like a waste, sitting here covered up all summer.’ Opal scraped her hair back. She hadn’t expected him home this early.
‘Can I join you?’ Martin was already pulling his shoes off. The question surprised her.
‘Of course.’ Her reply was automatic and on second thought, she realised that she’d rather he didn’t.
He undressed as he walked towards her, finally shedding his boxer shorts as he reached the fanned steps into the pool.
Opal averted her eyes. The sight of her husband’s naked body now only reminded her of his indiscretions, driving her to imagine looking at it through Agnes’s eyes.
It was the same feeling as seeing your home through the eyes of a visitor, the backdrop of your life suddenly thrust into sharp, scrutinised focus.
Martin winced as the water lapped around his calves.
He took a quick breath and then launched himself fully into the pool.
He resurfaced by her side, his dark hair dripping.
He smiled at her and she must have smiled back because before she knew it, his lips were on hers and his hands were grasping at her arse.
She pulled back, jerking out of his grip. She caught a flash of hurt on his face.
The silence was magnified by the gentle lapping of water against the tiles.
‘What’s gotten into you recently, Pol? Ever since I got back from my trip, you’ve been acting strange.
’ He seemed genuinely perplexed, exasperated even.
‘Was it that stupid comment I made about my mother? Because I’m sorry, I was just jet-lagged and not thinking straight.
It was a very unfair thing for me to say. ’
Opal was slightly taken aback. Martin was not one to apologise unprompted in this way.
Usually Opal would either sit him down and have to explain exactly what he had done to hurt her, or she’d simply move on, accepting that whatever thoughtless comment had wounded her was just that: thoughtless.
She’d always tried to avoid ‘sulking’. It was yet another lesson learnt from her mother’s many failed marriages.
Now it occurred to her that that was exactly what she had been doing – and infuriatingly it had garnered a result, though not the one she wanted.
‘It’s not that, Martin.’ Opal spoke quietly, holding his gaze.
‘Then what, Pol? This is killing me; it’s not like us to be like this.’
He actually feels sorry for himself, Opal realised. It was nauseating, and Opal recoiled.
‘There’s something I need to tell you …’ This was her moment. If she dropped the bombshell about the tournament now, it would distract him from this line of questioning.
‘Oh Christ, Pol, is there someone else?’ It took a moment for the accusation to sink in.
Opal felt that same dissociation she had felt with him in the bedroom.
She was looking down at the scene again.
Two figures framed by a sage green rectangle of water, one in black turned away and the other naked, hands on his head, looking to all the world like the victim.
‘What if there was?’ She didn’t turn around.
Martin spluttered, seemingly in disbelief. ‘Pol, are you serious?’
Now she faced him, searching his face for something, although she wasn’t sure what. Maybe some kind of reflection of her own sense of betrayal. How would he deal with it if she had done to him what he had to her? Mostly, though, what she saw was shock and incredulity. It enraged her even more.
‘I want to host an artists’ retreat over the summer, starting next Saturday, the 14th.’ Martin dropped his hands petulantly into the water. It was an almost comical scene, his dick floating on the surface of the water as he splashed with indignation.
‘What the fuck, Pol. I’m sorry, I am not at all following the thread of this conversation. Are you fucking someone else? Or …’ he huffed ‘… is this all some sort of midlife crisis, breakdown crap? A retreat? In this house? For the summer? I’m so fucking confused.’
‘I’m not fucking anyone, Martin. You of all people should know that.
’ Opal’s tone was scathing. ‘And no, I’m only thirty-six, remember, Martin.
If either of us is in the depths of midlife-crisis territory it’s you.
And to all your other questions, the answer is yes.
’ She was breathless, but there was one more thing to be said: ‘Don’t forget that this is my house. ’
Martin didn’t respond. He stared and sighed and splashed and climbed out of the water. She watched as his pale bum retreated towards the French doors. He picked up his clothes as he went and then turned.
‘Have your little retreat, Pol, a nice little fantasy to convince yourself that you’re not the pearl-clutching Home Counties wife that you know you are.
It’s perfect really. You can babble all your bohemian artist bullshit without ever having to sacrifice on the comfort of your hereditary estate.
Your mother would be proud.’ He slammed the doors and the glass rattled.
Opal sank under the water. For the first time in a very long time, she wished her mother were here.