In typical contrary fashion, I finally managed to sleep just as everyone else was getting up. Lucas left me in bed and I stayed there for another hour and a half, drifting in and out of a dreamless exhaustion. In the end I could put it off no longer, got dressed and went downstairs.
The smell of bacon drew me to the kitchen. From the corridor I could hear the sound of it crackling under the grill and the sawing of a loaf of bread. As I rounded the corner I saw that it was Greg and Rachel who were cooking. I had to stop myself running from the room.
‘Morning, Jo,’ Rachel said, with a normality of tone that told me that she hadn’t seen me last night and Greg hadn’t said anything to her.
Greg looked up from the tin of tomatoes he was opening. He was standing behind her and could have pulled any number of expressions. His face was completely straight. ‘Morning.’ He emptied the tomatoes into a saucepan.
I muttered something about finding Lucas and back-tracked out of the room, retracing my steps along the passage to the hall. Under that ceiling I could feel the rushing in my ears again, the pounding of blood too fast. It seemed to be resolving into a sort of beat now, like quiet tribal drums, full of menace. The floor was rising up to meet me, the walls crowding in. I had only fainted a couple of times in my life but here was the candyfloss feeling at the top of my head, the chequering at the edges of my vision. Instinct told me to kneel down before I fell, but even in that state I had another, stronger instinct: I didn’t want to be alone under that painting. I looked up and saw Zeus looking down at me with judgement in his eyes. He knew. Panic whipped through me. I staggered the last few steps to the drawing room and half sat, half fell on to the nearest chesterfield.
Martha and Michael were reading the Sunday Times in companionable silence on the other sofa, she with the news review section, he with travel. They were sitting at either end, facing one another, their socked feet intertwined.
‘You OK, Jo?’ asked Michael. ‘You look pale.’ He lowered the paper and looked at me over the top of his glasses.
‘Oh, I’m fine. Just tired.’ I rested my head on the edge of the sofa and waited for the buzzing to pass. Today I wasn’t sure if it was my nervousness at seeing Greg, fury with Danny or the house itself that was causing it. Martha was still looking at me, concerned. ‘Honestly,’ I said, ‘I’m OK.’ As soon as I could, I picked up the main section of the paper and took it over to the window-seat. It was cold away from the fire and I could see that the garden was full of a low-lying mist.
Rachel called to tell us breakfast was ready. I got up, feeling steadier on my feet, but Lucas came in and held me back. He waited until the others had gone then sat down on the arm of the sofa and pulled me in front of him. ‘Jo, about last night …’
My mind raced. What was he going to say? Had Danny spoken to him? ‘I’m sorry,’ I said quickly, the first words to come into my head. I realised that it was an apology, however feeble, for a crime he knew nothing about.
‘No, I am. I didn’t think enough about what it would mean for us, my moving out here so soon. If I had, I might have left it longer, until we were more established.’
‘Lucas, I don’t …’ Relief was coursing through me.
‘Ssh.’ He wouldn’t let me speak. ‘What I want to say is that I’m sorry. Also I love you and I’m committed to making it work between us.’
Trapped. The word flashed into my mind and out again almost before I had a chance to register it. I was shocked; I’d never thought that was a reaction I could have to the idea of being with him, especially as my instinct was to fight tooth and nail to prove Danny wrong about us. I made my eyes meet his. His pupils were dilating, as if to take more of me in. I could see myself in them, the big round head, the body disappearing underneath it like a seal’s. I hated that person. I wanted things to be pure again, to be starting out on something with him that wasn’t compromised. I didn’t want to have seen Greg last night or to have the new feeling – whatever it was – about him. Lucas’s face was balanced, full of expectation but not sure of what. He was preparing to hear that it was over between us but hoping that he’d said enough for it not to happen. I made a decision. I would not give up yet. I would stand my ground against Danny. He wouldn’t have Lucas to himself to use and manipulate, not while I had any influence. And besides, there was too much that was good to let it go easily. I couldn’t throw away all those years of loving Lucas before I knew I had really tried to make it work. I gave him a tentative smile. ‘Let’s try it,’ I said.
The look of relief and happiness on his face told me I’d made the right decision. And made me feel like a bitch.
Over breakfast I began to think that maybe Greg hadn’t seen me after all. He gave me no reason to think that anything out of the ordinary had happened. I was acutely conscious of him, aware of the way his hands moved as he served the bacon and sausages on to plates, watching the shape of his shoulders and back when he turned to cut more bread. Of course I’d known before that he was attractive but that morning it was like seeing him in an extra dimension. I was terrified that he would catch me staring at him but at the same time I couldn’t look away.
I was also aware of Danny, whose usual morning malaise had today been replaced with an uncharacteristic energy. Presumably he thought victory was imminent. Well, he would learn otherwise.
I reached for a slice of toast, realising too late that the butter was on the other side of the table, between Lucas and Greg. ‘Lucas,’ I said, ‘could I have the butter, please?’
Greg reached for it and held it out to me. I hesitated, nervous of catching his eye and seeing either accusation or, perhaps even worse, what I had read as the amusement in his smile of the night before. Again, though, there was nothing. Maybe I was off the hook. Maybe he had just happened to raise his head at that moment, his expression one of pleasure, nothing to do with me at all. I blushed nonetheless and as the blood rose from my neck to my face Danny looked at me and raised the corner of an eyebrow. A thought occurred to me: did he see my reaction? I felt suddenly as exposed as if I had been lying naked across the table. If Danny discovered that, he would make my life unlivable.
‘Lions match today,’ said Lucas.
‘We’re going to miss it, I’m afraid,’ said Rachel, applying jam to her toast. ‘I’ve got this designer who’s over from New York and the only time we could meet was this afternoon.’
‘Bad luck, mate,’ said Danny, clapping a hand on Greg’s shoulder.
Greg shrugged. ‘Perils of having a successful girlfriend.’
Martha looked as if she’d had a bright idea. ‘Why doesn’t Greg come back with us? He can watch the match here and then get a lift with Jo later on. If you don’t have any other plans? That wouldn’t be a problem at all, would it, Jo?’
I looked up, feeling the flush intensify. I caught his eye. Surely this time? But again there was nothing to suggest he knew me as the horrible voyeur I was.
‘If you’re sure you don’t mind?’ he said. ‘I’d really like to see the match.’
‘No,’ I heard myself say. ‘Of course.’
‘And you’ll want to see the match, won’t you, Jo?’ said Danny. ‘You’ll want to watch?’
I loved the bathroom that Lucas and I shared at Stoneborough. It was tiny compared to the other rooms, even to most of the other bathrooms. A huge cast-iron radiator belched out heat at all hours of night and day and the tropical feel was enhanced by a six-foot yucca plant and a collection of shells and sea urchins on the glass shelf over the sink. The bath was on the outside wall and the sash window was set low enough for me to lie there and look out across the garden. I ran a full tub and lowered myself gently in, acclimatising my skin and watching the water lap at the overflow hole. As it settled, there was total peace. The others were downstairs watching the match but I couldn’t bear the idea of being in the same room as Danny any longer than necessary. My nerves were completely frayed. After breakfast, I’d washed up and then we’d waved Rachel off. As she’d rounded the corner in the drive, out of sight of the house, she’d given a pip on her horn. I’d jumped visibly. ‘Jo,’ Lucas had said with concern, ‘try to relax.’
I picked up my copy of Bleak House and attempted to find where I had left off. After five or so minutes, my eyes on the same half-page, I gave up and tossed the book over the side. Something else was bothering me. Had Lucas really talked to Danny about our relationship, as he had claimed last night? I hated the thought that he would do that, discuss something so personal and expose me. But I could imagine it. He wouldn’t have started the conversation; instead Danny would have invited his confidences, presented himself as a concerned friend, all the time storing the information gleefully, hungry for ammunition. Lucas wouldn’t have suspected him at all, would have seen only someone trying to help. I found the idea intensely painful. Danny’s presence made me want to fight him but when I was by myself the seeds of doubt he planted began to germinate.
The bathroom was full of steam; I had run the water a little too hot even for me. Outside, the mist of earlier that morning had slunk away and an intense rain was falling. The dark trees at the end of the lawn looked as if they had been brushed up into the sky. I slipped down deeper into the water, feeling the embrace of it around my shoulders.
My sleepless night and all its emotions caught up with me. My eyes closed and I let the water take the weight of my limbs. I tried to imagine the stress running down from my shoulders and leaving my body at the fingertips, draining away into the bath. To some extent it worked and I began to feel calmer. It looked like Greg hadn’t seen me after all and Lucas still wanted to make a go of things. Don’t fall asleep in the bath, I thought, as drowsiness pulled me harder towards it.
I came round conscious that something was different. I opened my eyes and saw why: Greg was sitting on the edge of the tub. ‘Christ.’ I pulled myself into a foetal position.
‘That’s not fair,’ he said. ‘How come you get to see me naked but I’m not allowed to see you?’
I was totally exposed, without so much as a sponge for cover. He loomed above me, fully clothed. My skin glowed up through the water, the hyperreal deathly pale of Millais’s Ophelia. I looked at my legs, their image distorted as it reached the surface. I wanted to look better than this: white and rounded like an albino whale. My mind presented me with Rachel’s long, lean image. For a moment neither of us said anything. The water that I had disturbed by my sudden movement slapped at the edges of the tub and the cold tap dripped into the waves.
‘Is this some sort of revenge attack?’ I said. ‘I’m really sorry about last night – beyond sorry. I couldn’t sleep and came down to make some tea. When I heard a noise in the library, I thought someone else was up …’
‘I know. I just came to say I didn’t mind.’ He reached down into the water and traced his fingertip over my left nipple. I felt it stiffen treacherously under his touch. The cuff of his shirt was wet, the damp turning the pale-blue material a vivid turquoise. He smiled at me and walked away, shutting the door behind him.
I stayed in the bath until the water was almost cold. The tap was still dripping, but now the surface was flat and rings spread out across it, cause and effect. I focused on the way that the meniscus clung around my body where it rose from the water and the fine hairs that stood up on my arms as I got cold. I couldn’t quite believe what had just happened. And again my response had been to feel sexually enlivened in a way I’d never experienced before. My skin was humming, my nipple the centre of a little quake. There was a bang on the door and I jumped, sending the water splashing again.
‘Are you still in the bath?’ Lucas’s voice. ‘The match has finished – you’ve been in there for hours. I’ve brought you some tea.’
‘I won’t be a minute.’
‘Come to my room, I’ll help you get dry.’
I pulled out the plug and watched the water twist away, the plumbing swallowing it rapaciously. I knew what I was about to do was wrong but to have refused Lucas then would have set us right back again and I couldn’t let it happen. I would show Danny just how wrong he was about us. When the bath was empty I got out, shivering, and wrapped myself in the nursery comfort of a towel straight from the radiator. My feet left damp prints on the carpet as I walked slowly along the corridor.
I made love to Lucas that afternoon with a reel of images of Greg in my mind: in front of the fire smiling down at Rachel, leaning forward to touch me as I lay in the bath. My body was as dishonest as my mind. It responded at the slightest touch and I was ready at once. The look of pleasure on Lucas’s face was almost unbearable.
We left Stoneborough just after seven. The rain had stopped but there was still thick cloud cover and the stars were completely hidden. A great night for wreckers. I leaned against the side of the car while Michael and Martha clambered into the back seat. It had been decided that Greg needed the extra legroom afforded by the footwell on the passenger side. Lucas came round to say goodbye. It must have been obvious to everyone that we’d spent much of the afternoon having sex; although I was trying to hide it, he had an easy, slightly knackered smile and was kissing me more obviously in front of the others than I could remember him having done before. Now he pushed the hair away from my ear and leaned in, pressing me against the car with the full weight of his body, his pelvis hard against mine. ‘Thank you for giving us another chance,’ he said.
Greg came down the path, carrying his rucksack. I caught his eye over Lucas’s shoulder. He quickly looked away as if embarrassed to have impinged on our privacy and ducked round to the back of the car to put his bag in the boot.
Danny was striding up and down on the gravel like a husband who has suffered his in-laws all weekend and now can’t wait for them finally to clear off. As soon as I knew Greg wouldn’t see, I pulled Lucas towards me again and kissed him hard, taking him a little by surprise. It had the desired effect: Danny spun on his heel and stalked back into the house, determined not to give me the satisfaction of an audience.
Michael was quiet in the car as we tacked across country back to the main road. In the rearview mirror, I saw him lean his head on the window, a deliberately expressionless look on his face. Martha tried to engage him and he answered her in short polite sentences that offered no leads to further conversation. I could guess at how he must be feeling as we drove away, leaving Danny in his new fiefdom.
It was clear to me that Martha really liked Greg. She leant forward between the seats, asking him questions as we drove. Their conversation gave me the opportunity to shoot an occasional sideways glance at him. His voice was warm and low in the semi-darkness, his face lit now and again by the angling beams of the headlights of the cars on the road behind us. His physical proximity was disturbing; I had to keep dragging my concentration back to the driving. I felt as though the thoughts about him that had been running through my brain all afternoon had somehow escaped my head and were at large, liable at any moment to make themselves known to him. They were so intense and vivid to me that I couldn’t believe others wouldn’t be aware of them. I was conscious of every minor movement of his body, the shape of his thighs in his jeans, just on the periphery of my vision. If I had shifted my hand just a few inches I could have touched him.
We reached the outskirts of London and crawled past Gipsy Corner and the Hanger Lane underpass, inching up to the rear lights of the car in front. As we approached the Shepherd’s Bush roundabout, Michael came out of his reverie and asked to be dropped in Notting Hill Gate. I stopped in a side road and got out to pull my seat forward. He retrieved his burgundy-leather weekend bag from the boot and kissed my cheek. ‘Thanks, Jo,’ he said quietly. ‘Sorry for being such a misery.’
‘You’re not.’ I hugged him. ‘You could never be. Are you going to be OK?’
He nodded. ‘I’m going to go and see a friend of mine. Talk to someone removed from it all.’
I hugged him again and watched him go round the corner. Even if I hadn’t known how he was feeling, his posture would have told me he was very down. I hesitated for a second or two, then got back into the car and did up my seatbelt. I felt another flash of pure hatred for Danny, for bulldozing into other people’s lives as if they didn’t have feelings, not giving a toss about anything as long as his own needs were satisfied.
‘Are you hungry?’ Martha was saying. ‘Jo and I were thinking of getting some fish and chips to eat back at ours.’
He turned and looked at me again. Martha’s question hadn’t brought me out in the panic I would have expected. Instead, looking at his face in the glow of the streetlight, I found I was willing him to say yes.
‘I’d love to – thank you – but I’d better not. I’ve got a couple of hours’ work to do tonight. Actually, I’ll hop out here.’
‘Where do you live?’ I asked.
‘Shepherd’s Bush, walking distance.’
‘I’ll drop you there,’ I said.
‘God, don’t worry. It’s very kind of you to have brought me this far.’
‘I’d like to,’ I heard myself say, and we looked at each other in surprise.
‘Thanks,’ he said.