by Clare Boyd
At the end of the night, Jude had not sold his triptych and Elizabeth had offered to buy it herself.
‘You’d be doing it out of sympathy,’ Jude had said.
‘Not at all. I think they’re the most beautiful paintings I’ve ever seen.’
‘Then you can have them.’
‘That’s silly. I’ll pay for them. You’re broke.’
‘I don’t mind being broke.’
‘I insist on giving you what they’re worth.’
‘It’ll be Lucas’s money.’
‘Technically.’
‘It’s your birthday next month. I’ll wrap them up for you.’
He had, and they were still wrapped up. And they were now worth a lot of money, which gave Elizabeth an idea.
‘You know we’re selling Jude’s triptych,’ she told Bo. As she blurted it out, she felt a twinge in her heart. Those paintings were her most precious possessions. She loved them more than anything she owned. But she loved Isla more.
Bo leapt on it. ‘Are you kidding me?’
‘Lucas is having them valued this week,’ she said, even though Lucas had forgotten they existed.
‘You’re serious, right? I never forgave myself for listening to Walt at the Wigram. Walt’s tastes are so Republican, it drives me nuts. That lame Healing painting’s in our john now. It does nothing for me.’
Bo’s rejection of Walt’s Texan conservatism and her spurning of her own Martha’s Vineyard upbringing – albeit not her inheritance – was everything to her. She wore her nonconformist image as a badge. It gave her credibility and integrity in the art world, setting her apart from the WASP housewives she spoke so scathingly about.
‘They’re here on the wall,’ Elizabeth lied. ‘You could take a look at them when you come to the party. I’m sure Lucas would prefer to make a private sale.’ Lucas would sell his grandmother to ensure his deal with Walt Seacart went ahead, she thought.
‘Let me get my diary,’ Bo said.
Waiting for Bo to return to the phone was exciting. Elizabeth knew she’d read her correctly. Bo meditated in silk rather than Lycra; served up her Downward Dogs at the Harbour Club rather than the incense-infused yoga centre downtown; threw charity lunches to help the poor rather than question Walt’s offshore accounts; forced her son to go to Harvard rather than let him travel the world with his guitar. She would want Jude’s paintings more than ever now that the triptych – which she could have picked up for a couple of thousand pounds five years ago – had proven investment potential and was on sale.
‘I’m going to do it in the shallow end!’ Isla cried.
Elizabeth’s attention shifted vaguely to the pool while she thought about how she might break the good news to Lucas when he returned from London later. Then her mind wandered to the renovations in the barn. Her mood board included a cream woodburner, tongue-and-groove whitewashed walls, a Scandi-style sofa, a gallery bed under the skylights, a cow-hide rug. Her brother’s three paintings on the wall, like a promise.
‘No, Isla,’ Agata said.
‘You’re too chicken, chubby buttons!’ Hugo taunted, diving in with the expert of a child many years his senior.
‘Not there,’ Agata said, wading at speed towards Isla, who hovered, dripping, on the side of the shallow end, bending into a crouching position for her dive. Elizabeth had a fleeting worry about the creases in her daughter’s stomach and promised herself she’d give her fewer sweets.
‘That’s not how you do it!’ Hugo laughed.
Bo’s voice returned into Elizabeth’s ear. ‘I guess I could move that … and that …’
Elizabeth laid her head back against the cushion, held her breath and dug her nails into her palm, imagining Bo as the wind beneath Walt’s superyacht’s sails and Walt as putty in Bo’s namaste-pressed hands.
‘Walt and I could do with some fun, I guess. The Bridgehampton party scene is lame these days.’
Feigning an afterthought, Elizabeth said, ‘Obviously you’d stay here in our guest house. Piotr can drive you up to town. And the roses will be in full bloom.’
There was a long pause. As she dared to hope that Bo would confirm, she heard Isla and Hugo’s altercation grow louder.
‘You know, between me and you, honey, I can’t stand all the hot dogs and the flag-waving,’ Bo continued. ‘I’m a terrible American.’
‘Come to the UK and escape it then. We can have a midnight swim with Benjamin Healing and Jude to sober us up,’ Elizabeth teased, amazed that she was capable of such shameless manipulation.
There was a spluttering scream from Isla.
Elizabeth shot up from her chair. Isla’s body bobbed to the surface. The water turned pink around her contorted face. Her mouth twisted for air. Deaf to Bo’s next question, Elizabeth dropped the phone, tore off her sweater and ran, jumping in with her jeans still on. Piotr had come out of nowhere and dived in with her.
Isla flailed and splashed, and Elizabeth gulped down water, spluttering it out as she dragged her daughter out of the pool, helped by Piotr, whose bare skin met hers fleetingly.
On the side, Isla’s head was on Elizabeth’s thighs. Safe. Alive. Trickles of watery blood from what looked like a small cut on her forehead wove down her cheek and onto Elizabeth’s jeans. Drips from Piotr’s face splashed onto Elizabeth’s bare arm as he bent over her. His chest heaved. Elizabeth took her eyes away.
‘You must have hit your head on the steps. You’re okay, my darling, you’re okay,’ she soothed, pulling Isla up into a hug, feeling the shuddering of her body, skin against skin. She buried her face in her daughter’s neck. Through the chlorine, Isla’s hair smelled of strawberry shampoo. She inhaled it and kissed her daughter just in the spot where it tickled.
‘Stop it, Mummy!’ Isla giggled, wriggling free.
‘Here, have this, for the shock,’ Elizabeth said, handing her one of the mint humbugs from her wet pocket, taking another herself, offering the remaining two to Agata and Hugo.
‘Sorry, Piotr,’ she said. His eyes left hers to trail down to her neck. She felt the bruises throb under his gaze.
‘She could have drowned, Mummy!’ Hugo cried, a little too gleefully.
‘She okay. Your mummy is a hero,’ Piotr said.
Hugo’s little face became serious as he sucked on his sweet. Agata took his prescription goggles off and wrapped him in a towel. Elizabeth bunched another towel carefully around her own neck.
Her panic and shock dissipated. The memory of her abandoned phone call to Bo charged back into her mind. Her handset lay by the sunlounger. She could not let go of Isla yet. For certain, the line would have been lost when she dropped it. Bo would have moved on, to another acquaintance, another party, another painting, another million-dollar deal, and Elizabeth would have failed Lucas.
‘Come on, let’s get a plaster from the house.’ She stood, leaving her phone on the grass, and held on to Isla, who walked woozily next to her.
Leaving Piotr behind, the group shuffled through the small gate that was cut into the laurel hedge. Out of nowhere, a tall, lanky young woman with a trail of auburn hair ran up to them.
‘I heard the scream all the way from the meadow. Is everything okay?’ she asked, panting.
Heather’s skin was pink under the freckles of her cheekbones. Her almond eyes darted across each child’s face. Her lashes – rust-coloured like her hair – fluttered wildly when she saw Isla’s forehead. Her beauty was enhanced by the concern in her eyes. The kindness there distracted Elizabeth, for a moment, from what she knew about her.
Gathering herself, she pulled Isla closer and replied, ‘Just a little graze.’ Then she moved on, leaving Heather behind.
‘Who was that pretty girl, Mummy?’
‘The new gardener,’ she replied, unable to utter her name.
* * *
They were quiet as they dripped into the house. While Elizabeth and Agata searched for a plaster, Isla lay on the sofa in her wet costume. Elizabeth let it go.
‘I’ll look for the plasters, Agata. Could you sit with her and make sure the blood doesn’t drip anywhere. You’re drier than me.’
After searching through the drawers in her sodden jeans, a little shaky still from the shock, she concluded they had run out. ‘I’ll pop to the shops.’ It would give her a chance to call Bo back to explain.
‘Elizabeth …’ Agata began. ‘I have …’ She pointed outside, towards the barn.
‘You have some in the camper van?’
She nodded. ‘Me go?’
‘I’ll go. You stay with Isla.’
On the way to the van, Elizabeth detoured to the poolside to retrieve her phone. She noticed the four sweet wrappers floating on the surface of the water, fluttering, catching the light, like real gold but precious to nobody.
She pressed Bo’s number. She would explain what had happened. It went straight to voicemail. She waited for the beep and then left her message. ‘I’m so sorry about that, Bo. Isla hurt herself in the pool. She’s fine now. Do call me back to talk about the summer, if you have a chance.’
But as soon as she hung up, she had the feeling that the moment to persuade her had passed. The more pressing issue was Isla’s injury, which Lucas would immediately suspect was Elizabeth’s fault. It would be true that she hadn’t been concentrating, that she had neglected to keep her daughter safe. This failure drained her. Walking the last few feet to the camper van left her quite breathless.
The door swung loose on its hinges, and she noticed how dilapidated the van had become since Agata and Piotr had arrived three months ago. She hesitated, then trudged up the two narrow steps; a bag of rocks on her back in the form of the confession she would make to Lucas later.
Inside, the ceiling was low. She sucked in her breath and covered her nose and mouth. The smell of air freshener could not hide the reek of mould and toilet odour. Moss edged the windows, inside and out. The interior decor was dingy in dirty brown and mustard, ingrained with many years of dirt. Everywhere she turned, she saw broken hinges, loose metal strips and taped-up drawers. A rolled duvet was stuffed beneath the foldaway table, and two thin pillows lay across the seats. By the small tin sink Agata had placed a vase of pink blooming ‘Red Dragon’, which had been sown by Gordon in the meadow at the bottom of the garden. In this context, the flowers looked spiteful. Their beauty could not spread cheer in such a cold, sunless place. It was not a home, it was a health hazard.
Elizabeth felt sick when she compared this cramped existence to how she and Lucas lived only a few yards away. She reminded herself that it was not her fault that Agata and Piotr had refused to live in the house beyond that first week. And it was true that Agata spent most of her time working, while Piotr often left for London early, with his head-torch beam bobbing out of the gates, returning home too late to care where he laid his head. Nevertheless, for the few hours that they slept in this dirty space, Elizabeth could not imagine how their weary minds and bodies found rest enough to work hard day after day after day.
She shuddered and found the box of fabric plasters in one of the two broken drawers under the sink, then hurried out of the van.
Much to her annoyance, Heather Shaw was there again, removing the ladder from the back wall of the barn.
‘Oh! Hello,’ she said. She fumbled with the ladder, straining with its weight under one arm.
‘Isla needed plasters,’ Elizabeth explained, strangely humiliated, as though caught out where she wasn’t supposed to be.
‘I hope she feels better,’ Heather said, glancing beyond Elizabeth at the camper van under the tree.
Elizabeth wanted to explain to her that Agata and Piotr would be moving into the converted barn after the party. But she didn’t. It was none of Heather Shaw’s business.
* * *
Up at the house, Elizabeth tended to Isla. She felt awkward around Agata and was unable to look her in the eye. If she had acted on her true feelings, something might have tumbled loose inside her. She might have burned down their camper van and begged the young couple back into the warmth of their home. But she put her sympathy away for now; a problem she couldn’t currently solve. Agata had refused their hospitality and was staying in the van of her own free will.
Her immediate problem was Isla, whom she would teach to dive. It seemed of utmost importance, all of a sudden, that the little girl should perform a dive as well as her younger brother. Elizabeth did not want Isla to live in Hugo’s shadow for the rest of her life. If she tried harder, she had the potential to be just as sporty as her brother, just as capable.
‘Let’s go back in the pool, Isla,’ she said. ‘I’m going to teach you to dive myself.’
‘No!’ wailed Isla, pulling at Elizabeth’s towel. ‘I’m too scared to swim!’
Agata’s mouth fell open. Her eyes were fixed on Elizabeth’s lurid bruises. The towel had fallen off one shoulder.
Pointlessly, Elizabeth pulled it back into position. ‘Agata, will you take them back to the pool while I change into my swimsuit?’
An hour later, after watching too many of Isla’s belly-flops, Elizabeth gave up. The sun was dropping and their teeth were chattering. It had been a futile exercise. She had sought equality for Isla in the wrong arena, at the wrong time, projecting onto her a need of her own. Empowering her daughter with the same skills as her male sibling would not counterbalance her own sense of inadequacy next to Lucas. It had been unfair on Isla, and it had taken away none of the dread she felt about telling Lucas she’d made a mess of inviting Bo to the summer party.
* * *
When Lucas finally arrived home, the two children were at the breakfast bar, showered and in their pyjamas, eating sushi rolls, headphones plugged in, screens on. Elizabeth was behind her laptop, chewing a salted liquorice, searching for companies that specialised in pool renovations. The wobbly paving stone was going to be her excuse. She planned to exaggerate the dangers of leaving the pool in its current state and insist they fix it. Implicit in this demand would be a veiled accusation: Lucas’s refusal to spend money on the pool had been negligent and played a part in the unfortunate mishap that had led to Isla’s accident, and to the transatlantic hang-up and the potential fallout with Bo. If she tapped into his guilt, he might not be so disappointed in her.
The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up and a London tabloid was tucked under one arm. He smelt of a new aftershave, which made her smile. He was endlessly buying them, cluttering up the bathroom shelves, never able to settle on one that he liked. Never had she seen him dishevelled from his commute like the other men she would watch piling out from the train station, looking sweaty and grim.
‘Here, I brought you this. I know you like the magazine bit,’ he said, placing the newspaper on her keyboard, kissing the children on their foreheads, saying hello to Agata.
Neither Isla nor Hugo reacted to his presence: Hugo giggled at his screen and Isla passed a hand over the plaster, which Lucas didn’t notice.
‘Thanks,’ Elizabeth said, closing her laptop to flick through the magazine and fret quietly.
‘Anybody want one of these?’ Lucas asked, offering two cans of Coke to Isla and Hugo.
Their attention shifted. Screens and headphones were abandoned.
‘Thanks, Dad!’ They grinned at each other. Lucas never allowed them to have sugary drinks and usually frowned at Elizabeth when she gave them sweets.
Agata handed Isla and Hugo plastic glasses with ice. She raised one of her pencilled eyebrows at Elizabeth, seemingly as surprised by Lucas’s gesture as Elizabeth was.
He leant casually into the worktop and passed Agata two beers. ‘Will you open these for us? I never know where you squirrel away the thingamajig.’
Agata opened the beers and handed one to Elizabeth. Before Elizabeth had a chance to begin her convoluted excuses about the wobbly tile and Isla’s split forehead and the abandoned handset, Lucas whispered in her ear, ‘Come on, let’s go for a swim.’
He tugged her hand and she let him lead her
into the night and down to the pool. But she could not relax until she knew why he was not asking her about Bo. ‘We haven’t got costumes,’ she said.
‘Who cares?’ He was pulling her to him, kissing her and undoing her jeans as they walked.
The water was lit up bright blue. It would be cold.
After he had peeled off her jumper, he felt in her back pocket and pulled out her phone.
‘Oh look, a missed call,’ he grinned, handing it to her, tugging his trousers off.
Elizabeth’s stomach flipped. A missed call from Bo Seacart.
‘I’ll listen to it later,’ she said, bending down to take her jeans off.
‘Go on,’ he said. He removed his watch, even though it was waterproof. ‘Put it on speaker,’ he added.
She stood opposite him, face to face. She wanted to cry, but did as she was told, pressing the speaker button to hear Bo’s message. Lucas unbuttoned his shirt. Silvery watermarks shimmered over his face, masking his expression. She couldn’t read his features. His lips were pink and wet. He was like an angel, with his blond curls and big eyes. Her feelings for him were heightened, as intense as they could get, less love than reverence. Bo’s voice message came between them.
‘Oh Elizabeth! I heard everything! You were so awesome and brave. Oh my, her scream was just horrible! It was the most awful thing I ever heard, and when you said she was okay, oh my God, honey. What a super mom! Saving your little girl like that. I’m off to the Harbour Club now to recover from the trauma. Can’t wait to hear all about it in July. My assistant is booking our flights right now! But I’m sure Lucas has told you by now. Bye for now, honey. Namaste!’
Elizabeth pressed end. ‘You knew?’
‘Walt called me this evening,’ he said, unclipping her bra, kissing her neck tenderly over the bruises. ‘They’re coming to the party, Elizabeth! The deal is moving forward thanks to your brilliant idea of throwing in your brother’s paintings as incentive. Not to mention your heroics today.’
Elizabeth laughed, mostly to herself. ‘Walt would have called you anyway,’ she said.
