Page 14 of Such a Good Couple
‘I know, I know.’ Maggie threw her arm around Annie. Even though a cacophony of worries clanged in her head –could Fionn cheat with a co-star? Is he really that predictable?– she didn’t want the holiday to totally crumble into drama before it even began. ‘Look, the story is of course bullshit,’ she said, with a confidence she wished she truly felt. ‘I think what gets to me more than the gossip is that Fionn doesn’t know because of his whole “need to stay in the moment when on location” rule. He brings an old flip phone, for God’s sake.Andmostly keeps it off. So I’m, like, out here trying to deal with people saying this stuff and saying my marriage is a piece of shit and he’s just oblivious.’
‘That is a fucking outrageous rule,’ Clara announced. ‘What a fuckingmanthing to insist on. Like, you have kids, mate, what if one of them needed an organ?’
‘Or one ofus, his lifelong friends?’ Annie chimed in. ‘Fionn and I are both B-negative. I’ve had my eye on his right kidney for a while now.’
Maggie giggled, feeling a powerful rush of affection for them. ‘It is shit, right? Like, you become a parent, your lifedoeshave to change a bit.’
‘Not for men,’ Clara seethed. ‘This is going to sound totally unreasonable but I’m really not happy with Ollie doing anything for himself, which, God love him, he barely does – a few pints here and there. I know, I’m a bitch, but it’s how I feel. I’m in the shit 24/7, I want him to be in the shit 24/7. I feel like there is an invisible leaderboard tracking who gets to have time to themselves and if either of us gets ahead of the other, it can getveerrrrytense. And to be clear here, a trip to the supermarketsanskids counts as time to ourselves. I went for drinks with the gang from work ages ago and Ollie was at me about it in the taxitoday. Like, how long had he been storing upthatlittlegrievance? They’re all a bag of dicks.’
Maggie grinned, already feeling a bit calmer. She was happy that at least this shit had arisen while she was with them instead of by herself rattling around the LA house with too much time to ruminate, but she didn’t want them raging at Fionn when he finally joined them. She wanted this trip to be perfect. ‘Look, it’s only a couple more days. Fionn will be here on Friday and we can talk about this whole no communication thing then. I know he’s super excited to see you all. He moved mountains to get this break written into his contract.’
‘C’mon.’ Annie headed back out to the corridor. ‘We only have half an hour left in our beloved Meat Room. The waiter said we’d arrive in Provincetown very soon.’
CHAPTER 4
The bedroom was dark when Clara woke up groggy from a champagne and cured meat hangover. She was so parched, her tongue literally felt like a thick slice of Serrano ham flopping around in her mouth. For a couple of disorientating moments she wondered if she was still on the boat, until she realised the slight feeling of listing was just the after-effects of the journey over the previous night. This was no boat cabin but an enormous bedroom furnished entirely in white – a daring decor choice for a rental. The Venetian blinds on two big picture windows were just about holding the searing morning sun at bay. Clara turned to rouse Ollie, only to find him already gone from the bed.
Her throat tightened slightly. Was it weird that he hadn’t woken her? On the very first morning of the holiday? Hadn’t he wanted to lounge in bed with her? She’d considered telling Maggie and Annie about her building disquiet about Ollie the night before but had instead papered over her real feelings with jokes about the parental leaderboard.
She rolled over and tried to bury the thoughts. An affair just seemed so not Ollie’s style. He was a good husband.
Also, he had always been extremely outspoken about his feelings on what he called ‘the shittiest thing you could do to another person’. When Ollie was a teenager, his dad had cheated on his mum and the family came apart. Ollie, to this day, kept his interactions with Don to the absolute bare minimum.
Plus, she and Ollie had always been such ateam. Not likebloody Fionn, who she was not impressed with at all at that moment. She’d be scheduling in a word with him at some point for sure, if he ever even appeared.
She took a breath and forced herself to return to this moment of pure luxury; she wanted to savour it. As much as it felt uncomfortable to be indebted to their friends for this reprieve from the grind of life, she needed to soak it up. She breathed deeply and made a conscious effort to release the tension in her jaw. Mortgage thoughts and bills thoughts were not going to smother her. She needed this.
She stretched out and pondered how strange it was to not be woken up by every one of her children bounding around her bed and lovingly breathing morning fug into her face. On this trip, all the kids were staying in two rooms on the lower floor of the house along with a small team of childcare professionals. This was Maggie and Fionn’s world: parental obligation and discomfort simply did not exist.
Clara rooted through the bedclothes to find her phone. 10.30 a.m. Jesus, when was the last time she’d slept past seven? With the time difference, 10.30 a.m. was really 3.30 p.m. but so far no weirdy jetlag feelings were circling, though as the day wore on they might set in. Nothing a nap and more booze wouldn’t solve. The thought of all the delicious empty hours stretching ahead was intoxicating. Clara could practicallyfeelher chest loosening. She knew her workload and the mountain of housework and family admin was still waiting for her at home, but for now she could forget about it all. Though as she untethered herself from the sheets, another glance at Ollie’s empty side caused a further unwelcome niggle of worry. Maybe he’d felt uncomfortable with the nannies doing all the work with getting the boys up and went to help?
That must be it. She shook off the thoughts and got up.
Pulling down the long George Michael T-shirt she wore tobed, she padded to the windows and began a trying battle to open the huge blinds. She had a vague memory of a button or some kind of clapping sequence closing them the night before. She searched the walls around the frames. She was dying to see the view – it had been total darkness when they’d arrived on Provincetown’s wooden pier the night before.
Even in the darkness, the sheerAmerican-ness of it all had been delightful. By the light of the tall white lamps dotted along the walkway – each adorned with a proud American flag – they could see the little shuttered clapboard huts that during the day sold seashell ornaments and tickets for cruises and paintings by local artists.
Two huge vans with blacked-out windows had met them where the pier ran out and the main street of Provincetown began. While the port was deserted and draped in shadows, the main street had been hopping. Music had blared from every bar and club – Gaga, Chappell, Harry and Beyoncé were all jostling for dominance. On Commercial Street, the ubiquitous American flags were joined by pride flags, and gangs of gorgeous young gays, theys and gals were strutting, arms linked, into town. Clara had tried then and there to abandon bedtime and persuade everyone to go for a dance but sense had prevailed in the form of Annie shooting agitated looks at Conor (no doubt they had mandatory sex planned) and Maggie looking drawn. Instead they’d all been whisked in the opposite direction, soon leaving the buzz of a July night in P-town behind them. The vans had headed along Shore Road which hugged the coast and curved south before turning down what appeared to be effectively a single-lane back road that ran for miles with houses dotted between dunes and occasional glimpses of the dark and glittering ocean to the right. The rest of the north side of the island lay to the left.
The house they’d arrived at was beautiful. Its white clapboardexterior had glowed in the moonlight. It was straight out of an American movie about rich people ‘summering’. Verandas and balconies wreathed the many stories and a large wooden deck extended on stilts out over the beach to the rear. Waves could be heard crashing from the fathomless black of the ocean somewhere out in the night beyond the pearlescent sands.
Now, the sound of the door opening behind her drew Clara back to the present. ‘Good morning,’ Ollie called.
‘Hey.’ She turned. ‘How do you open these?’
He seemed to be hanging back by the door – keeping away for some reason?Or maybe he’s just standing there, Clara! Paranoid much?she silently admonished herself.
‘There’s a remote on the bedside table there.’ He pointed.
Clara located the slim silver device and pressed the arrow pointing up. The room gradually filled with light. As Clara’s eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness, the vast blue sea materialised like a mirage in front of them.
‘Fuck,’ she breathed. Beaming, she turned to make her way to Ollie but he was already ducking towards the bathroom.
‘Quick shower,’ he said, disappearing behind the door.
‘Cool,’ Clara replied, as the door shut abruptly. ‘It’d be terrible to share a bloody moment here.’ Her words dissolved in the glare of the room.
Her phone buzzed with a message from Maggie in the P-town group chat they’d created for the trip:
