Page 32 of Such a Good Couple
‘It’s just that this meeting is important for me.’ Just then behind them Maggie and Conor’s buggy approached. As they turned to wave, Fionn leaned down slightly and muttered, ‘Don’t tell Maggie that I called this a “meeting”.’
‘Come in, come in!’
Clara peered around Fionn’s broad back to see the source of the tinkly voice that was beckoning them warmly from the crooked little door at the top of the stairs. A stunning woman of about seventy stood there in bare feet wearing a yellow dress with a long orange suede waistcoat. Her white hair was cut into a blunt bob and she had a pronounced gap between her two front teeth that gave her beauty a sweetly girlish quality.
‘Oh, I’m so glad to meet you all. I’m Pauline, Edwin’s wife. Well done for getting here in one piece.’ She stood to the side and ushered them past her into the long, candle-lit timber room that served as a kitchen, living and dining room. Pauline shut the door after them all, drew a thick woven curtain across it and turned to face them. ‘You’re all so young and gorgeous! Sit, sit.’
Clara and Maggie joined Annie and Ollie, who were already on the bench seat that ran down one side of the wooden table. Clara was glad to avoid sitting beside Ollie, though she knew shewas going to have to scream at him sooner or later.
Conor located a stool and perched at the other end of the room in front of a large curtain that hung from the beam of a loft above and divided the space, while Fionn took a chair at the head of the table.
Pauline smiled pleasantly as each of them introduced themselves and Clara took the opportunity to take in the curious space around them. Every tiny shelf and neat little nook had a purpose. The ladder up to the loft doubled up as a bookshelf, home to dozens and dozens of faded paperbacks. In the window above the sink sat a planter of mint, basil and parsley above which was a rack for drying the dishes. From where she sat she could see that the freshly washed plates from dinner were dripping water down onto the herbs below. The whole place was like a little domestic ecosystem all of its own.
Pauline, it seemed, had noticed her looking. ‘Oh, we don’t waste a drop of fresh water out here! Most of the shacks have a well but ours is a bit of a walk! We share it with Cuttlers’ shack – they’re one of the original Provincetown families who’ve been out here for generations.’
‘We learned all about them on our tour today,’ Maggie said.
Clara hadn’t heard Maggie say a word since they’d arrived and she sounded a little stiff and awkward.
As she should, Clara thought, annoyed.As nice as this Pauline woman is, why the fuck are we all out here?
The shack was cute but it wasn’t screaming ‘Craic!’
Did they even have any booze? She thought longingly of the mansion on the beach where they could’ve been sipping something crisp and cold. Instead they were here in small-talk hell.
‘Yes, the tours are fun, aren’t they?’ Pauline smiled, then glanced discreetly towards the curtain behind Conor. Clara followed her gaze.Is yer man Edwin behind the curtain?Clara wondered, remembering what Geraldo had said about the voyeur.
‘So,’ Ollie spoke up from further down the bench, ‘are you in movies as well?’
‘No, no,’ Pauline wafted towards Ollie, ‘I’m a painter.’ She was apparently uninterested in talking about herself as she continued along the table to Conor. ‘You look like a serious one.’ She crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue at him.
‘She has to be micro-dosing,’ Clara whispered to Maggie. ‘I want some.’
Conor looked boyish, less buttoned-up than his usual self, blushing under Pauline’s gaze, and Clara could better see what Annie saw in him.
‘I’m not serious.’ Conor gave a neat, formal little laugh.
Of the whole group, Clara knew she and Conor probably had the least in common. He was so corporate, as she often said to Maggie privately on their own thread. You’d think the robotic sex-schedule thing would be suiting him but it was clear he and Annie were not in sync on that front.
‘And you’re Maggie, aren’t you?’ Pauline had drifted back up the table. ‘We’ve heard about you. Aren’t you very tolerant of your husband working on holidays! I don’t think I’d have been that patient with Edwin doing that back when the boys were young.’ Pauline turned her head to the curtain and added loudly, ‘I can barely tolerate it now!’
If that toady little director is squatting behind that curtain, I will actually lose it. Every man in here is a selfish little fecker.Clara fumed, spotting Maggie’s eyes shoot over to Fionn, who was wiping his mouth nervously.
‘Well,’ Maggie muttered, ‘I guess I didn’trealisethat I was being so tolerant, Pauline. I don’t think I was aware that hewasworking.’
‘Pauline,’ Clara, by now feeling utterly mutinous, raised herhand like in school, ‘I can’tnotask … Is your husband … hiding? Behind that curtain there?’
‘He is,’ Pauline said, with a vaguely withering smile in that direction.
‘Right.’ Clara nodded, ignoring Fionn’s pleading look. ‘So, follow-up question – and I guess this is more of a rhetorical one – but is there a man in here whoisn’tbeing somewhat of a complete dick right now?’
‘Clara, stop.’ Maggie’s tone was placating rather than angry. But Clara’s blood was up now. Plus there was, as she would later reflect, probably quite a bit of the day’s alcohol still swirling around in it.
‘I won’t stop, Maggie. This is all bullshit. Pauline’s husband is making her entertain a bunch of strangers while he plays with himself behind a curtain. Fionn hasn’t seen you and the girls in ages but instead of spending time with you is taking a work meeting. A work meeting he planned this whole trip around, by the way. Conor meanwhile has literally one job to do and can’t fucking finish. And Ollie is giving someone else “their best time ever” while I raise his kids and use the only alone time I ever get to scream into pillows inside the hot press. So, no, I won’t stop. And Ollie,’ Clara stared her husband down, ‘just so you know, two people can cheat. I scored a really hot guy today and he said my breasts were, and I quote, “to die for”.’ Clara stopped to draw a ragged breath.
The shack was totally silent, until a disembodied voice with a German accent said, ‘I am not playing with myself. This is a crucial part of my casting process.’
CHAPTER 9
