‘Less than a year,’ Heidi interjects with a splutter of disbelief. She tuts and shakes her head. It’s a familiar gesture; her teenagers are often on the wrong end of it, as are tardy serving staff in restaurants. The condemnation is loud and clear.
I probe. It’s like pulling at a loose thread on your favourite jumper. You know you shouldn’t, because the whole thing will unravel, but you do it anyhow. ‘What’s your point?’
‘Is he definitely ready to move on? It’s just that rebound relationships are fun, but they never last, do they? You seem unusually excited about this. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.’ To be fair, she does look as though it pains her to say this. Still, I bristle.
‘It doesn’t feel like a rebound thing.’
‘So didn’t he like her much?’ she asks bluntly.
‘He loved her deeply,’ I’m embarrassed by how heavy that sentence is. He loved her deeply and he still does, but she’s gone. The thought causes a tightness in my throat. I force myself to say, ‘We’ve only been seeing each other a few weeks. It’s not a big deal. I’m just having fun. I was simply explaining why I’ve been unavailable.’ I feel disloyal talking about us in this way. Backtracking, making out it’s not as important as I think it is. We have in fact been seeing each other for two months, and it feels longer. Still, my lie works. Heidi looks relieved.
‘Understood. We can’t compete with new-relationship sex,’ she says with a grin, willing to let me off the hook. She doesn’t want to think I’m heading for trouble. Besides, she knows I’m always calm and assured around men. I can look after myself.
‘All those lovely orgasms,’ adds Gina. ‘I really can’t remember when I last had one for real. I’m so tired all the time, I just fake them to get Mick to get on with it so we can go to sleep.’
Heidi laughs, but doesn’t go into detail about her orgasm situation with Leon. Instead she starts to tell us about the latest row she’s having with her youngest, Aaliyah, who aged fourteen is outraged by the suggested curfew time of 11 p.m. Gina then vents about an ongoing row she’s having with her neighbour about planning permission for her kitchen extension. Our conversation mooches around how tricky it is to get a dentist appointment, how incredibly convenient it is to renew prescriptions on the NHS app, and the latest MP leaked text scandal. I don’t join in much. Largely I stay in my head.
Where Matthew is.
When the night has bled away, we split the tab. It’s a shame that this process always creates a moment’s tension that we each studiously pretend to ignore. I could easily pay the bill, and I itch to offer to do so, but experience has shown me that it’s best not to. Only rich people say money doesn’t matter.
As I stuff my arms into my coat, Gina pulls me into a big hug and asks, ‘So how did the wife die? You never said.’
‘She fell off a ladder at work. She was a theatre set designer, a really talented one.’ Those were Matthew’s words. ‘She did lots of big Broadway shows.’
‘Broadway?’
‘They were living in New York at the time. Had been for about four years. She was working late one night. The show was about to open, but they were woefully behind schedule. Everyone was under pressure. Matthew thinks she was most likely tired. Exhausted.’ My friends wear masks of polite sympathy, the sort of expressions that confirm a death is always tragic, but reveal that they can’t get heavily involved because they didn’t know her. ‘They think she noticed a problem with the chandelier. Not a real one, a prop, part of the set design. They deduced as much because a bulb was out.’
‘She was on her own?’ Heidi asks.
‘The rest of her team had gone home. She’d urged them to. Apparently, that was very like her. Diligent, hard-working to a fault.’ I repeat these compliments Matthew has bestowed on Becky. I’ve heard many. His conversations are littered with them. She apparently was ‘incredibly funny’, ‘could tell a story brilliantly, had people hanging on her every word’, ‘was very aware of other people’s feelings. You know, watched them closely.’ With every positive review he gives her, I smile back widely and nod.
Once I pushed myself to say, ‘She sounds like my sort of woman. I bet I’d have liked her.’ But my generosity was not enough. Matthew replied, ‘Of course. Everyone did.’
As we step into the cold, black night and pull the door of the pub behind us, shutting in the good-time noise and adjusting to the comparatively quiet street, I reveal something else Matthew told me about Becky’s death. ‘They didn’t find her until the next day. If help had come sooner, they might have saved her.’
‘Tragic,’ murmurs Gina, shaking her head solemnly.
‘Yes, yes, it is,’ I agree.
For Becky.
8
I live in Hampshire. I moved out of London when I turned forty, which was the same year I became CEO of AirBright. I had wanted to live in the country for many years, but I wasn’t quite brave enough to make the move. I clung to London’s grubby, vibrant streets to ward off something that people might call loneliness but for me was more of a fear of being directionless or unnoticed. Forgotten. My twenties had been a whirl of long hours clawing up the career ladder, and when I wasn’t working, I dashed from brunches to lunches, to matinee movies, to cocktail bars and nightclubs. I worked equally long hours in my thirties, but my recreational time became more about attending lectures at the Royal Geographical Society or going on marches and demonstrations highlighting environmental concerns; evenings were spent at theatres, concerts and jazz clubs. There is always something to do in London, something to amuse and distract. Time flew by. I felt busy, full. I worried that if I moved out of the capital, I would lose that.
Becoming CEO was the badge I needed that unequivocally announced I was a grown-up, and that even though I did not have a partner or the fecundity that necessitated a bigger home, I was successful in terms of my career and did not need to cling to London to provide a sense of meaning. I had purpose, and I knew that would move with me, emanate from me, no matter where I lived. What I needed next was a space to think, to strategise, to grow. I wanted a home that reflected my values, status and achievements. It was satisfying to realise that being settled was not a matter of settling down or settling for.
I bought a plot of land in a remote part of Hampshire, the county where I was born and lived until my parents’ deaths. On some level I was ‘going home’. I recognised the names of familiar towns and villages on signposts, and the curve of some roads; I remembered being driven along them by my parents. I hired an architect and set about building my own state-of-theart eco-friendly house on the edge of the New Forest. I called it Woodview. Not the most imaginative of names, but I am not the most imaginative person. Far from it.
My beautiful home gives me so much emotional satisfaction. At the time of building, Heidi and Gina referred to the house project as my ‘baby’, which wasn’t entirely inaccurate. I certainly lavished money, time and attention. It was important to me that the build was as efficient and sustainable as possible. To cut down on the carbon footprint and to support local industry, I insisted that all the materials and workforce were sourced from within a forty-mile radius of the property. Wherever possible, I opted for natural, non-toxic, sustainable materials. The energy is all solar- or wind-generated. I installed systems to allow rainwater harvesting and used the latest innovation in wall insulation.
The house is sparsely furnished, mostly with salvaged 1950s wooden pieces; the soft furnishings reflect the environment outside, a series of calm neutrals or verdant green fabrics. I invest in art and sculpture, but no one would know. Most people assume my Hockneys and Dalís are posters. I don’t have curtains. The floor-to-ceiling windows are vacuum-glazed, so there’s no need in terms of warmth, and as I don’t have neighbours for a few miles, there’s no issue regarding privacy. I like clean, fresh, straight lines. No fuss. Where other houses might have internal brick walls, I have mostly glass ones. These glass walls and the enormous windows allow me to enjoy spectacular views of the woods. After years of being concerned that I might find the remoteness lonely, I realise I like it. Having attended boarding school, where I was forced to share my space but learnt to keep my thoughts to myself, I now value privacy and am comfortable in my own company. I enjoy feeling closer to nature.
Matthew is away this week, in Snowdonia. He has a three-day job with the tourist board taking scenic pictures, and he’s tagged on an extra couple of days to go hiking. I’m encouraging him to pick up his hobby again. He hasn’t explicitly said, but I think he stopped hiking when he moved to New York with Becky. He didn’t have any of his kit here in the UK, so I surprised him by buying him an entire wardrobe of Patagonia base layers, shell jackets, merino wool layers, trousers and boots. I miss him, but I have plenty of work to keep me occupied, and midweek Heidi calls me and says she’ll pop over and stay for the night. We occasionally have ‘just the two of us’ evenings.
Later, I will cook and we’ll share a bottle of wine, but the first thing Heidi likes to do when she arrives is hop in the pool. She’s a great swimmer and appreciates the change from swimming in water that is fifty per cent urine, fifty per cent chlorine, which she swears is the case in her local council-run pool. She’s exaggerating, but I agree that standing on someone else’s discarded foot plaster in a communal changing room is the worst.
Heidi is happy to pootle along, swimming for miles if she has a good true-crime podcast playing through the speakers. I can’t do endless lengths in a pool. I get bored. I swim thirty lengths at speed and then get out. ‘I’ll spend ten minutes in the sauna, then shower and start prepping supper. You stay in as long as you like. No rush,’ I tell her.
‘I am not in any,’ she says with a big grin. I love having Heidi here as a guest because I know she treats the place as her own and that’s the biggest compliment she can pay me. We’re utterly comfortable with one another. I realise I’m incredibly lucky to have a private pool and sauna. Both are solar-powered, and the sauna was built with the sustainable forestry seal, something I remind myself every time I feel a twinge of guilt about having this level of luxury to myself. I like both things better when someone is here sharing them with me. I guess it’s one of the many benefits of having Matthew around so often. I’ve never felt lonely in my big home, but I’ve often felt spoilt, and that’s equally uncomfortable. As though Heidi is reading my mind, she yells at me, ‘You’ve worked hard, you deserve this space.’
‘Thanks for the reminder.’ I smile at her and leave her to her lengths.
In the small room near the pool, I step out of my wet costume and leave it dripping from a hook, then slip on a cotton robe. I always have Jo Malone myrrh and tonka diffusers in the sauna, and between the heady scent, the warmth and the darkness it is impossible not to feel wonderfully swaddled the moment you enter. I scoop a ladle of water out of the bucket and douse the rock heater to produce a burst of humidity. Then I place a big fluffy towel on the highest bench and lie flat on my back.
Normally I listen to some chill-out tunes when I’m in here, but the sound system is such that I have to listen to the podcast Heidi is playing in the pool. It destroys my vibe, because listening to details about gory unsolved murders is not conducive to relaxation. This particular podcast is about a husband who brutally murdered his wife and then buried her in the garden. She wasn’t discovered until years later, when he sold the house and the new owners began to build an extension. He is still at large. The couple who bought the house were so upset by the incident that the wife had a breakdown, they ended up divorced. I really do question Heidi’s choice of entertainment. I’m sure I’ve heard this podcast before, or maybe they’re all about husbands murdering their wives. I make an effort to block out the words, and instead think about Matthew. It’s not hard; recently I’ve found my difficulty is not thinking about him.
When he kisses me, he often cradles my face. I love that; it feels so purposeful. Then his fingers slowly move down my neck, lingering for the longest time just above the swell of my breasts. I had no idea how erotic that part of my body was until he started spending time there. I untie my cotton robe and let my fingers trail across my body, following the route he would take if he was here with me. My fingers move through the film of sweat, the silky slip of my touch made even better as I imagine his. I’ve never been into masturbation. It takes a bold teen to discover her own pleasure in a dormitory of seven other teenage girls. Besides, I don’t have the necessary vision. I’ve never indulged in fantasising, imagining or projecting about anything in life; I prefer to concentrate on practicalities, realities and facts. I guess this insistence on staying with what is accountable is a form of self-protection, an attempt to create an emotional barrier against chaos, since chaos was the mainstay of my childhood. However, since I’ve met Matthew, I find I’m more open to both self-pleasure and daydreaming. He is making me feel more secure than I have before.
Safe in the knowledge that Heidi will be in the pool for ages, and anyway she’s famously loud and I’ll hear her coming long before she arrives, I close my eyes and let the darkness and heat ease me into some delicious, sexy thoughts. As I’m having great and regular sex at the moment, I find it isn’t difficult to reach a breathless and exciting place. For some minutes I imagine his kisses, his touch, his tongue on my hips, tits and clit. I feel the swell of lust and joy that he always pulls out of me. My body shivers and quivers as waves of pleasure flood through me. My breathing quickens. I feel a jerk of excitement low in my abdomen, I shudder.
Spent, I stroke my sticky skin and stay flat on my back. It’s hot in the sauna, and after coming, I know that if I move too quickly, I’m likely to feel a bit dizzy. I wait for a couple more minutes, just luxuriating in the afterglow, then slowly sit up.
The air has tipped from pleasant to prickly. It feels hotter in here than usual. I suppose that might be something to do with how I’ve been amusing myself. I move to the bench closest to the floor, as it’s generally cooler, and take a deep, slow breath. However, it isn’t at all refreshing. The air is arid, and my nose and mouth feel tight and closed. The podcast continues to drone on. Words such as dental records, blood loss, fractured skull float around the room. It’s unsettling. I check the thermometer. Could it be broken? I set the temperature at 75 Celsius and it currently reads 85. I guess Matthew must have nudged it to a higher point. Since we’ve been dating, and he’s spent more time here, I have noticed little things like that occasionally. He leaves windows open that I would close, he moves my reading glasses or the remote to places I think are illogical. Those things aren’t important, but the sauna temperature is too much for me. As predicted, I do feel a little light-headed. I want a cold shower and something to eat. Time to go.
I push the door, anticipating the relief of the cool air outside. It doesn’t budge. I push it again, harder. And again. It still doesn’t give. There is a lock on the sauna. I wasn’t going to bother with one, but I had visions of my godchildren coming in here unaccompanied and I wanted to avoid an accident. When they were younger, I used to lock the door from the outside if they visited, but I haven’t done that for a while. Lottie has no interest in going in on her own – she prefers to stay wherever there are the most people – and Heidi’s three are old enough to behave responsibly if they do want to use it. The lock requires a key. The key is not kept in the door; it is kept in the small room that leads into the pool, the place where people change into their swimsuits. It’s hung on the antlers of a wooden carving of a stag head, along with the keys to the bifold windows and the outhouses. It doesn’t seem at all likely that the door has been accidentally locked. It must simply be stuck.
