Laura sat on the sofa in the back row of the cinema room, wondering how it was that Cat made even slobbing-out look chic. She was wearing a winter-white cashmere tracksuit with baby-blue and white striped cashmere socks. Laura looked down at her own ensemble: dark green Jack Wills trackie bums bought in the sale and a navy and green flannel lumberjack-type shirt that had already lost a button and so had to be either closed up to the neck or left flopping open and dangerously close to exposing her M&S bra.
Laura dragged her eyes back to the screen and watched dispassionately as George Clooney performed a masterclass in being handsome and funny at the same time. He usually did it for her, but tonight she was more interested in the men who were busy being handsome and funny in this blacked-out room. Since her revelatory interview with Alex, and the contretemps with Rob, she felt like she was on shifting sands. She didn’t understand Rob’s persisting anger with her, any more than she understood why Alex was going to marry a woman he didn’t love.
Alex, sitting in the middle of the three rows, had started a popcorn fight and kept landing perfect aims on Orlando, but more particularly Rob. David didn’t stop texting, driving Sam to despair as his bright screen interrupted her concentration until eventually she confiscated it from him altogether.
‘On the naughty step, David?’ Alex chuckled, lobbing a piece of popcorn at him so that it landed in his beer.
Laura watched in silence, happy to be protected by the darkness. Now that she had some context, Alex’s behaviour was easy to read: the joking, happy-go-lucky, inveterate flirt – they were all modes that kept attention on what he was doing and deflected attention from how he might be feeling.
Isabella snuggled into him, yesterday’s fight already forgiven and forgotten. Maybe she knew what she was dealing with. Women were intuitive in these matters. Perhaps she accepted the off-screen role that Cat played in their lives. Cat was married, after all, and posed no direct threat to their relationship. It was Alex’s fantasies and memories she had to contend with, not the woman herself.
Laura’s eyes drifted over to Rob, the man living Alex’s dream. Cat was stretched out on him, her head in his lap, and she kept intermittently feeding him. Occasionally, Laura would see Cat’s arm snake up to his neck, bending him down to her for a kiss, even though he seemed more interested in the film.
A wave of loneliness broke over her in the back row, closely followed by exhaustion, and she wasn’t sure she could manage several more hours of keeping a smile on her face. She had to go to bed. She’d already seen the film they were watching anyway. Quietly, she rose to go, placing a finger on her lips as Kitty looked across at her questioningly. Laura put her hands to the side of her cheek, indicating she was going to bed. Kitty nodded and winked as Laura tiptoed along the back row.
The spray of light as she opened the door into the hall was only momentary, and she ran lightly up the corridor towards the spa and lift. She stepped in, pressing the ‘up’ button and leaning against the back wall. Would it be wasteful to run another bath?
The doors were just closing when a hand suddenly shot between them and Rob followed in after her.
‘Rob!’ she said in alarm.
‘I need to talk to you,’ he panted as the doors closed behind him.
She sank against the back wall with no desire to do anything of the sort after his sharp words earlier. ‘I’ve done all the interviews, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ she sighed. ‘I’ve spoken to everyone I need to here and I’ll talk to Min and Olive when I get b—’
‘No. I don’t mean that.’ He coughed into his hand and she knew now that meant, Cue real emotion. ‘I have to apologize for the way I spoke to you earlier in the bedroom. It was unforgivable. A complete overreaction. I’m not even sure why I was so—’
‘It’s fine. You don’t have to explain!’
‘Yes I do! I was harsh on you,’ he insisted vehemently. He shifted his weight, staring at her in bafflement. ‘Why do you do that? Why do you think it’s okay for people to treat you badly?’
A long moment passed as Laura tried to find a way out of this conversation. ‘Is this some kind of corporate team-bonding thing where we’re all supposed to pull together and increase our self-esteem?’
She tried to pass it off as a joke but her sarcasm angered him. ‘Don’t try to fob me off this time. Why don’t you think you’re worth more than that?’ he demanded.
The doors opened and she went to move out, but Rob barred the way with his arm.
‘Rob!’ she laughed nervously.
But he just stared back at her.
‘T-This is ridiculous!’ she stammered.
Another awkward moment passed between them and she found she couldn’t hold his stare. ‘Where did you jet-ski, then?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘On the skidoo earlier, you told Alex you’d jet-skied. Where?’
She held out her hands questioningly in a WTF gesture that only infuriated him further.
‘In the British Virgin Islands,’ she said finally. ‘Why?’
‘What were you doing there?’
Laura tipped her head to the side, feeling her own temper beginning to surface. ‘We were closing on a deal with a client. Okay? Is that enough for you?’ she asked huffily. ‘Do you want to know what I was wearing too? What I’d had for breakfast that day? What is this? Why do you even care?’
‘I don’t care, I just don’t understand how the woman who skied with me on the glacier today can be the same one tiptoeing around like she wants to be invisible. I watch you with everyone here and you’re so supplicating and submissive, as though what you think or feel doesn’t matter.’
‘Because it doesn’t.’
‘How can you think that?’ he demanded angrily, taking a step towards her.
‘I don’t understand why you’re shouting at me,’ she said quietly, shrinking back. ‘You said you wanted to apologize, but now you’re angry with me. Again.’
‘Because I want to understand why you’re so determined to deny the fact that you’re talented and brave and daring. I mean, you’re just . . . you’re . . .’ His voice broke and his eyes roamed her face, hungry for the answers to his questions. ‘You’re incredible.’
His words appeared to stun him as much as her as they stood together in the tiny lift, their reflections mirrored back to them a hundred-fold. Neither of them dared breathe, blink, speak . . . The very air between them felt combustible, as though words would ignite into flames in here. He looked away first, his breath coming fast and Laura willed herself to move. She stepped to the side to get past him as he stood stock still, hands on his hips, his head dropped – in shock? Embarrassment? Shame? She didn’t know what – when she felt his hand grip her arm and swing her back into him. The coppered glass of the lift was cold against her back, but his lips were hot as he kissed her with a passion that made all the colours and noises and desires she’d drained from herself spring like a riot. That tangential difference between surviving and living hit her again like a punch, and for one moment – two – three – she went with it. She couldn’t not. Every impulse in her body was fighting for it as if it was the breath that sustained her.
But it couldn’t last. She couldn’t let it. She pulled away from him violently, feeling the vitality that he made rise in her ebb instantly. It was like moving away from a fire, the heat falling with every step. ‘No,’ she whispered, edging past him, her hands feeling for the open doors and the space she needed to escape him. This.
‘Laura,’ he implored, his chest heaving with the effort it took not to grab her again, but she shook her head, desperately.
‘No . . .’
‘Laura, I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean to . . . Just talk to me!’
But the woman she knew he’d glimpsed in their kiss had already gone. The woman he was so intent upon finding, she was equally determined to hide.