Page 73 of Such a Good Couple
‘“Focus on us?”’ Clara laughed. ‘Paul. I met you six hours ago.’
He ignored this and took her hand. The clack of the camera zooming in joined the growl of the car’s ignition. The driverpulled away from the villa and Clara stared at Paul’s hand, feeling deeply conflicted. She knew she should put on a good show for the viewers and make them root for her and Ollie. But root for what? Them to win a divorce? That was the name of the game, after all. For the first time it occurred to her to seriously wonder: was she actually able for this?
The date with Paul was an endurance test. He was a Bio-Hacking Bro, which in Clara’s book was worse than an incel. Who knew there was quite so much to say about Hyrox? Or macros? Or mouth taping? His preoccupation with protein intake bordered on mania and Clara found her mind constantly drifting to thoughts of Ollie on his date somewhere else on the island. She wondered if Mary was prettier than her but it was hard to gauge – they looked nothing alike. All the couples were objectively attractive but Mary was Clara’s opposite in every way: she was tall and more athletic while Clara was small with big boobs. As Derek had so cruelly noted, Mary did look like a woman who’d had three kids, but then so did Clara. As was to be expected of two women who had had three kids!
Even the beautiful surroundings provided no distraction from her fretting – they were being served a delicious dinner of grilled fish, flatbreads and grilled peach and feta salad on a large, tiled terrace overlooking the Aegean Sea. But she had no appetite and Paul’s monologuing was unceasing. The camera hovered in and around them at all times.
‘Do you use the powders?’ Paul’s baffling question brought Clara back to the present.
‘The powders?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, the protein powders? I find it very hard to hit my protein goals without them.’
‘I eat yogurt?’ Clara replied.
‘That won’t do it, Clara. You need to be consuming one to twograms per kilo of body weight. And that’s per day.’
‘Right.’ Clara nodded, forking some tabbouleh into her mouth just so she wouldn’t have to say any more.
Finally, mercifully, the date concluded with them doing a few shots walking hand-in-hand on the beach in the sunset and then it was back to Casa Amore No More for the on-camera debrief with Ollie.
Each of the couples were being called into the Confession Pod separately while the others sat around the lounge. Ollie was in deep conversation with Rob – probably about the gays that’d been shipped in. She made a beeline for an empty sofa, delighted to avoid Ollie. She was nervous of looking at him and potentially seeing in his face that he’d enjoyed his date.
She gazed at her hands in her lap, until a camera drifted into her field of vision and she immediately rearranged her features into what she hoped looked like a not-too-forced approximation of insouciance.
Mary appeared to her right and asked to join her. The camera continued to hover and Clara made herself smile at Mary.
‘Sure, sit.’ Clara patted the space beside her.
Mary curled up in a girlish pose, feet tucked up under her. ‘How was your date?’
‘It was grand.’ Clara pressed her lips together, then added, ‘Paul’s … very … eh … chatty. I didn’t really have to say much.’
Mary nodded, then leaned toward her. ‘Clara, can I just say, you are so lucky with Ollie.’ Mary clapped her hands together. ‘He’ssofunny! We just laughed all afternoon.’
‘Great,’ Clara responded weakly.
‘I cannot even imagine why you would want to split up with him.’
‘Well … it’s complicated.’
‘I know.’ Mary tilted her head sympathetically. ‘He told me.’
‘Right.’ Clara cringed inwardly at the thought of Ollieconfiding in this woman. ‘Well then, maybe you can imagine why we’re here.’ Clara tried not to sound snippy.
‘But he’s just so …fun!’ Mary was not getting the hint that Clara wasn’t enjoying this conversation. Of course Clara knew how good Ollie was on a date. She had bloody first-hand experience of how fun he could be. She remembered the days when they were in their twenties and would get stoned and play mini golf – an activity that, on paper, probably sounded boring but with Ollie was hilarious. She used to have a literal pain in her face from laughing. Spending time with him back then when they first got together had her in a perpetual state of excitement. Between dates, she’d be tormented by giddy anticipation for the next day they’d spend together. When she wasn’t around him, she talked about him so much that Maggie eventually had to put the foot down and instate a rule that Clara could only mention him three times in each conversation. Marriage seemed to have a way of completely stamping out all that lovely exuberance.
Maybe if we’d kept on going on dates?she thought sadly. All the websites and relationship podcasts were flat out banging on about the mythical, problem-eradicating properties of ‘a regular date night’. But who had the time, money or energy?
‘Clara? Ollie? You’re up,’ a production assistant called from the door leading to the pod. Darina and Richie sauntered out, looking vaguely victorious. Charlatans.
‘Good luck!’ Mary whispered, which Clara didn’t bother replying to.
She and Ollie followed the production assistant into the pod, which was snug. There was a much-too-small couch for them to squish into – clearly a ploy to ensure that the couples were uncomfortably close. In front of them hung a large mirror, behind which they’d been told sat the director and a psychologist who would offer commentary to the viewers on body language and such. Cast members couldn’t hear what was being saidbehind the mirror except when the director spoke into the microphone to ask probing questions.
‘Clara, Ollie,’ Mickey’s disembodied voice filled the pod, ‘you each went on dates with another person today. Clara, let’s start with you. How did it go?’
‘It was fine.’ Clara shifted a little, conscious that she might be squishing Ollie. She was hyper-aware of the heat of him and his particular Ollie smell, a smell she realised she hadn’t noticed in a long time. They simply hadn’t been this physically close since Provincetown.
