‘Yes, it really is the best community,’ I say, my thoughts darting to when we had just arrived and I was welcomed so generously by Wimbledon’s Scandi ladies. ‘You must come to Scandi Ladies Night. And Thursday coffee in the village after drop off. And we could do lunch sometime.’ I feel a little self-conscious even as I speak, like I have no friends and am way too eager to make Bianka one.
‘Sure,’ she says, and flashes me that wide smile again. ‘I’m going to do a little round, say hi to everyone. Catch you later.’
‘Wait,’ I say, and she stops and turns back to me with a little exaggerated twirl, like a ballerina. ‘Who do I remind you of?’ Bianka laughs, a deep rumble erupting from her, and she takes several steps closer before leaning in to whisper in my ear. I laugh too; she’s just so commanding. I take a sip of my drink and her breath brushes the hair around my ear when she speaks.
‘This woman I used to sleep with,’ she whispers. I splutter, spraying Bianka’s cheek with champagne and vodka. She throws her head back and laughs again. ‘Best sex I ever had,’ she adds, much louder, and I sense the people standing close to us turn at the mention of sex.
She moves into the crowd, stopping several times on her way over to where Emil is standing amid a group of guys, talking and laughing, everyone’s eyes on her still. I’m so shocked, I can barely move, but more than that, I suppose I’m amused and fascinated because I burst out laughing and I can’t stop for a very long time, even when I get drawn into conversation with a group of ladies I know from the PTA at school, who are the radical opposite of Bianka; conventional, modest, boring.
*
It’s past two a.m. and in my walk-in wardrobe I slip my dress off and hang it back up among the many similar white dresses. Andreas is in the bedroom, and rubs his face, looking exhausted and a little unsteady. I’ve always loved these moments with my husband, when we’re finally alone after a party when everyone has gone home and we share a little gossip and debrief. They remind me of when we were first married, though almost everything else feels different now. Today was a big success, everyone said so, and like any good party it went on into the early hours, getting a little rowdy at the end, when Anette insisted on tequila slammers until Linda and her husband Richard eventually dragged her into a taxi.
Andreas and I go into the bathroom and stand at the side-by-side washbasins, our eyes meeting in the mirror.
‘So. What did you think of Bianka?’ asks Andreas before inserting his toothbrush into his mouth.
‘I thought she was… interesting. She’s certainly different.’ An image of Bianka appears in my mind again, laughing unselfconsciously at my surprise at what she said. This woman I used to sleep with… I feel myself blush and bend down to splash water on my face. I wonder what Andreas would say if I told him what she said, but I know I won’t.
Andreas nods, circling his mouth with the toothbrush, little bubbles appearing at the edges of his mouth. After a long while, he spits, rinses, then speaks.
‘I mean, what’s the story there? I wanted to speak to her more but there were so many people to catch up with that I didn’t get a chance. Did you notice how much attention she got? It was like everyone was watching her.’
I nod and Andreas smiles at himself in the mirror, his straight, white teeth glinting.
‘Yeah, I noticed that,’ I say. ‘She really is quite different. It was as though she just appeared from another universe. I can’t really put my finger on it. It’s like she just doesn’t have the same references as my usual crowd, or that she doesn’t care, rather. She was quite refreshing.’
Refreshing feels like a rather big understatement. I keep replaying in my mind the way she looked at me, and the brazenness of what she said. Usually, I’d instinctively dislike someone who takes up that much space, but there was something about Bianka that brought balance to her way of being; I think it was her perceptiveness, her fine-tuned ability to really see someone. Yes, that’s it – I felt really seen by her. I glance at my husband and he meets my gaze in the mirror. I put my arms around his bare waist from behind and rest my head on his back. I want him to turn around, and respond to my touch. And yet, he never does. Like I knew he would, he breaks the embrace by removing my hands, turns me around to face him, then pulls me in for a quick hug.
‘I’m heading to bed,’ he says. I take a step closer, perhaps emboldened by Bianka’s way of being, and place my hand on Andreas’s chest, just above his heart.
‘I’ll be there in a sec,’ I say. ‘Don’t go to sleep.’
I leave the bedroom and walk quickly across the cool parquet, then down the stairs. I can’t go to bed without my little ritual, not even tonight when I’m happy and exhausted and still a little drunk. Downstairs, I turn off all the lights in my usual order, except for the gold antique window lamp which belonged to my mother. I always keep this light on. I stare into its bulb for a long moment, letting its light imprint itself on my retina, then I hurry back upstairs, irrationally uncomfortable at being in the vast space of interlinked living rooms in near darkness. In the bedroom, I slip beneath the covers and cozy up to Andreas.
‘Hey baby,’ I whisper, letting my right hand travel from his waist down across his buttocks, but even though I’ve been gone less than a couple of minutes, my husband is apparently already fast asleep. I feel the usual pang of disappointment – it’s been so, so long since he’s touched me. I lie back and watch the moon weave in and out of fast-moving, gauzy cloud, listening to the soft murmur of Andreas’s breath.
Three
Charlotte
I wake after what can’t have been more than a couple of hours of sleep. I feel surprisingly okay. I’m used to little rest and a full-on, productive life. I can hear the faint hum of family life from downstairs; our au pair Ayla will be busy getting the kids fed and off to school, and Andreas will have left already. I have a quick shower and by the time I’ve gotten dressed the house is quiet. I drive to the shopping centre by the train station and park my car, then I hop on the first Waterloo train, and manage to find a window seat. I watch the suburbs streak past in a blur of grey and brown outside, droplets of rain gathering into little rivers on the window glass. I look at my face reflected back to me, my hair still wet and my face bare of makeup, and am pleased to note that in spite of the very late night and the numerous drinks, I still look fairly fresh-faced and definitely younger than my forty-two years, no doubt thanks to my strict regime, which I have turned into a very successful career. And Botox, of course; lots of it.
The TV studio is in Vauxhall, just yards from the train station, and I’m greeted with hugs from the team, and a huge black Americano is shoved into my hand as they get to work on my face and hair. I pinch myself, glancing around the set as the team prepare me for the camera. Quite the contrast to the early days of my keto journey, when I struggled to find a decent mayonnaise without the satanic seed oils and realized I’d have to make it myself. And here we are today, about to shoot the ad for my own-brand version, which will launch at Waitrose next month.
Shooting the ad takes all morning and the director, Jules, keeps telling me to ‘switch it on’. Take after take, I walk into the room clutching the bright-pink pot of my mayonnaise and say the same sentence: ‘Believe me, you haven’t had mayo until you’ve had my mayo.’ And again and again, Jules shouts, ‘Cut.’
‘I’m wondering if what’s missing is a sense of fun. You know, spontaneity. We need it to be just a little more peppy. Do you know what I mean?’
I nod, though I don’t exactly know what he means. I open my mouth to object, to say that my mayo definitely isn’t about fun, it’s about quality and, frankly – skinny. My company, at the end of the day, is always going to be about skinny. Then something occurs to me: How about if we could make skinny fun? It’s the eternal struggle in my industry – control and discipline aren’t exactly synonymous with fun, but what if we could angle it so the consumer feels it could be?
Suddenly, Bianka appears in my mind. How would this ad look if it was her own-brand mayonnaise, if she was the Keto Queen, not me? I imagine she’d make it peppy. Fun. I decide to take a leaf out of her book.
‘I’m ready,’ I say to Jules, who’s peering at the reels on his Mac, frowning. ‘You’re right,’ I continue. ‘We need to make it lighter, more sassy. Like this tube of mayo is the thing that makes an otherwise rigid diet feel indulgent. Fun.’
‘Yes,’ says Jules, excitement in his eyes. ‘That’s it exactly.’ I stand up and release my hair from its usual tight bun, letting it flow around my shoulders. Jules whistles softly and laughs.
‘Can you give me a red lip?’ I ask the makeup artist, Elias, who’s Jules’s boyfriend. He nods excitedly and begins rifling through his arsenal of lipsticks before settling on a bold scarlet.
‘Let’s do this,’ I say when he’s done, lingering for a moment in front of this new me in the mirror. I realize that I look much more like my mother, who was never afraid of taking up space and was no stranger to a bright-red lip, but instantly swat that thought away.
The camera starts to roll and Jules counts down from five. Instead of the scripted line, I improvise. In my mind, I see Bianka, laughing unselfconsciously, claiming the centre stage at a party full of strangers, blatantly ignoring the unspoken dress code and drinking from the hostess’s glass without even waiting for permission.
‘Are you ready to feel like you’re breaking all the rules? Isn’t it time to bring fun into keto?’
‘And cut,’ shouts Jules, theatrically clapping his smooth, well-kept hands, face beaming. ‘Nailed it. You should do carefree and sexy more often. Suits ya.’
I laugh and hang out with the crew for another hour, before checking my phone – it’s been hours since I even glanced at it and I need to ask Ayla to handle dinner and take Oscar to tennis practice. There’s a friend request on Facebook from Bianka Langeland and a message on Messenger reading So, when are we going to hang out? I place the phone back in my bag and smile at Elias, feeling my face flush behind the veneer of the thick foundation.
Four
Storm
The plane takes off with an unexpected lurch followed by several minutes of noticeable turbulence, and though he noticed a brisk wind when he stepped out of the school bus which had brought him to the airport, Storm sits up straighter in his window seat at the back of the plane and presses his face to the plastic glass to calm his suddenly racing heart. After a couple of minutes, the plane turns sharply west, giving a clear view of central Oslo, and Storm busies himself picking out the landmarks he knows: Tryvann tower in the woods at the top of the city; the museum island of Bygdøy with its real estate coveted by Norway’s billionaires; the huge, symmetrical Vigeland park dominating the western city centre. From his vantage point and thanks to the beautiful weather, Storm can see all the way to the mountains north of Oslo, and he’s able to pick out one of the distinctive peaks not far from his school; it has a curious, twisted summit, making it easily recognizable.
Storm reflects on the two weeks since his father and Bianka moved to London and sent him to school in Lillehammer. He’d both wanted to go and felt resentful at having to, especially since Bianka had seemed so excited about the opportunity in London. His father had at least had the decency to hesitate over the job offer and what it might mean for his son, who not only still lived at home, but also had a place on the Norwegian national Super G ski team and most certainly wouldn’t be able to come with them for such a move. And Bianka had seemed like she couldn’t get away from Oslo, and her job, and – Storm supposes – her stepson, soon enough.
The last two weeks had been good. Great, even. He’d found that in spite of his reticence it felt right to be surrounded by other kids pursuing their sport at the same level as him. For years, he’d been used to being the odd one out at his old school, the one who had to miss classes for weeks on end in the winter when he travelled to various locations for competitions. When his classmates listened to the slow Texan drawl of Miss Kemp in English class or copied Mr Eskildsen’s incomprehensible geometrical shapes in math class, Storm would be hurtling down a mountain in Courchevel or Innsbruck or Cortina, closely watched by Europe’s sports media. In PE class at school, he’d often have to go for a gentle jog or do adapted exercises to avoid sustaining a freak injury in an innocent game of softball. But now, at the new sports college, Storm finds himself surrounded by others like himself, kids who’ll compete at the world championships and the Olympics, and who are as focused and diligent as he is.
