Page 61 of Filter This
‘Of course.’ Adrienne unfurled and began to dispense small mirrors to the rounder women. ‘Maintaining eye contact is another option.’
‘Eye contact with …?’ Ali was looking mischievous.
‘With the vaginal opening, Alessandra.’ Adrienne could get very stern if she detected the slightest hint that someone wasn’t taking her instructions seriously. ‘The vaginal opening is the window to the womb. There is a flap in the front of your pants for access or you may practise this exercise in your rooms if you prefer.’
Shelly saw her chance and seized it. She had thought the odd little pants flap seemed ominous and now she knew why. She dragged herself up into standing, the decidedly ungraceful move compounded by a guttural oomph that escaped. The other women looked affronted by her lack of grace, something that ordinarily Shelly would be troubled by, but in the last few weeks she’d noticed a shift in her attitude. Amy would call it no-fucks and she would be most concerned about its effect on brand SHELLY. Shelly, on the other hand, was finding it kind of liberating. Losing your marriage could do that to a person.
‘I’m gonna do my vagina-gazing back in my room, thanks, Adrienne,’ Shelly announced. She was giddy at the thought of escaping back to her secret stash of chocolate. She gathered her letter and, feeling playful, finished with, ‘Wouldn’t want a poor, defenceless woodland creature accidentally wandering up there. Things aren’t what they used to be after Georgie ploughed her way out.’ She gave the group a wink and left them in stunned silence.
Back at her room, a little wood-panelled haven under the eaves, she hopped onto her bed. It was such luxury to be by herself, though her phone was pinging away incessantly. Shelly picked it up to kill the alarms and turn on airplane mode and then dropped it abruptly. Something was wrong. The background of the phone was different. Wasn’t it? Shelly struggled to remember the picture she’d had before. She knew it was her and Georgie but couldn’t remember the exact photo. She just knew it wasn’t this one. This one was taken at the Daddy Bears’ Picnic a few weeks ago. She peered closer. It was her and Georgie, taken from off to the side and close up, but now that she examined it, she was sure it hadn’t been taken by Amy. Why would Amy be taking pictures off to the side like that? And how had it got on her phone? What the hell was going on? She screen-grabbed the wallpaper and sent it to Amy, who’d gone on to stay with friends in Kerry.
Pretty sure my wallpaper just changed of its own accord? Is that possible? Do you know this picture?
She sat back against the crisp cotton sheets, all delight at her me-time evaporated. She shivered involuntarily. The wardrobe opposite the bed had doors with wooden slats and she found herself unable to take her eyes off the dark gaps. A horrible thought flashed across her mind, an image of herself sitting as she was right now on the bed, knees drawn up to her chest, as seen from inside the wardrobe.
The phone buzzed and she jumped. Keeping her eyes on the doors, she carefully picked up the phone and brought it close to her face so she could check Amy’s reply without looking away from the wardrobe. Could she hear breathing? But maybe that was just her own? She strained to listen, to differentiate her fretful breaths and the pounding in her ears from the sounds around her.
What had just a moment ago seemed like a sanctuary now felt very much like a lonely cabin in the woods. It wasn’t quite dark outside but the trees seemed to hunker down around the cottage, blocking out the last of the day and compounding the feeling of remote isolation. Calm down. You’re getting worked up. There are cottages to the right and more further up the lake towards the retreat centre. There’s no one here, she thought firmly.
She pulled her eyes away from the wardrobe to her phone. No WhatsApps from Amy but there was a DM on Insta. She clicked the little paper airplane in the top right of the app and a blurry image filled the screen. A strangled cry escaped her and she scrambled backwards. Wooden slats, darkness, a small light revealing a distant figure on a bed. Shelly moaned, startling herself. A sudden rush of wild energy erupted in her and she grabbed the bedside lamp, ripping it from the wall and flung herself across the room.
Somehow she found her feet and yanked the wardrobe doors open. The hangers clattered as she launched herself in, pushing the hanging clothes out of the way and feeling all the way to the back, fully expecting a foreign hand to grab her wrist at any moment. Nothing.
She staggered backwards until the bed connected with her calves and she slumped down. Her ragged breathing tore at her chest, the roar in her ears continued and she found she was crying. Her whole body was vibrating, coursing with fear. Dropping the lamp, she scooted back to the head of the bed, her shaking hands searching for the phone. She felt sick from the toxic flood of adrenaline. Calm, calm, calm, she whispered. She peered once again at the picture and forced herself to examine it.
They weren’t the slats of the wardrobe door. Of course they weren’t. She tried to quiet her racing heart. But what were they? And more importantly, where were they? Then it hit her. The Seomra had wooden Venetian blinds. She was looking through the window of the little house at the end of the garden and seeing her husband sleeping.
She dragged air into her body and started to shake, right as the phone began ringing. The sound seemed to rip through the stillness of the room and she quickly answered to silence it, irrationally fearful that she would alert someone – but who? – to her presence.
‘Hello?’ she whispered.
‘Shelly!’ A cheery greeting.
‘Who is this, please?’
‘Hee hee, wouldn’t you like to know!’ The voice was high and playful.
Shelly checked the screen and froze. Caller Unknown.
‘How’s Dan? Seeing much of him these days?’
Shelly cancelled the call.
25
Ali woke up to banging on the front door.
‘Rise, mama, it’s time for our final ceremony,’ roared Adrienne from outside as she moved between cottages. Ali rolled over in bed and reached to nudge the curtain out of the way. She could just about see Adrienne’s flowing white gown and some kind of vines braided in her hair. She banged on the next cottage with the large staff she was waving about.
Fucking hell. Ali settled back on the pillows. She’s so intense. For a place that was supposed to be all holistic, it was a fairly gruelling schedule. Ali had mixed feelings about leaving later. She was averaging one response for every five messages from Sam – she’d told him the signal was patchy so he wasn’t pestering her, as such, just endlessly sharing his thoughts, along with snaps of food he was eating and even a dick pic. Though, of course, it being Sam it wasn’t just any old dick pic but a dick video of his penis lip synching to ‘Fernando’ by ABBA. She’d innocently opened the message in the nourishment centre and nearly died laughing. She’d had to pretend she was choking to get out of explaining what was so funny.
Going home meant dealing with everything. It felt like things were accelerating and it was not pleasant. Mini had texted a few times to impart grim updates on Miles, and Ali felt both guilty and relieved at not being there. Of course, hiding in the woods hadn’t been the relaxing affair she’d anticipated. For one, Adrienne was completely batshit, an oddly tyrannical hippy, and had leaned on Ali pretty hard for lots of Instagram coverage.
Shelly, she noticed, had barely bothered with anything and was apparently unfazed by Adrienne’s snippy comments. Shelly’s whole account seemed to have slowed right down, which was interesting. Amy seemed to be taking something of a sabbatical, and several of Shelly’s clients had emailed Ali in the past week saying they were on the hunt for a new brand rep. One particularly indiscreet PR said they weren’t sure if Shelly was in keeping with their family values angle, which was definitely odd. Ali flashed back on the distant Dan at the Daddy Bears’ Picnic. The girl had said there was some talk but she couldn’t go into it. ‘I’ve already said too much, but let’s just say I’d be celebrating if I were you – you could be poised to clean up.’
Ali probably wouldn’t have thought much more of it had Shelly herself not been acting so weird the whole time they were there. Not even bad weird, Ali realised. She was actually just acting quite normal, making jokes and being quite irreverent, which was of course completely abnormal for Shelly. However, maybe she’d heard about the gossip because in the last day or two her demeanour had shifted again and she’d seemed watchful and nervy.
Ali could hear Adrienne passing back towards her and bounded out of bed and down the stairs to open the door before she could bang on it again.
