by Karen Swan
Nursery. Dimly lit by a white rabbit light. Narrow wardrobe with pink gingham fabric doors, a crib with a lace-frilled hood.
The camera moves towards the crib. Rocking. Cooing sound, like a pigeon.
Ella, lying on her back, chewing on her own foot. Hair fuzzy and dark. A fluffy pink pig beside her. Eyes look large in her head. Blue now.
She sees the camera – or the person behind it – and coos.
‘My little love dove.’
She coos again. And smiles. One tooth.
Blackness.
09/17/2010
10h38
‘And here we see the Marina in her natural habitat – an air-conditioned boutique with dense growth of overpriced clothes. Watch how she moves, fleet of foot, eyes alert to every colour offer and sale sign, the wheels of the stroller in perpetual motion, never stopping lest the dominant male should try to oust her from the store.’ Ted. Low-voiced.
Marina looks over. Holds up a pale lemon fake-fur coat with matching bonnet. ‘What do you think?’
‘Too small for you.’
Rolls her eyes. ‘For Ella.’
‘Too big for her.’
Marina picks up similar coat in ivory. Holds them up side by side.
‘The blue.’
Marina narrows her eyes, turns back to the rack. Camera zooms out.
‘The male is in danger now. The first of the warning signs has been emitted and he must proceed with caution or risk incurring the wrath of the female, who is never more deadly, more ferocious than in this arena.’ Camera swings to a couple of women chatting by the tills. ‘Witness how the females guard the area, patrolling in packs and keeping the males away.’
‘You are a child.’ Marina.
Camera swings back. Marina is looking down at him. Navy overcoat. Blonde hair swept onto one shoulder. Shades worn like Alice band. Smile.
‘I’m going for the yellow.’ Holds up coat and bonnet.
‘My clear favourite.’
‘It’s such a great colour on her. Very few babies really look good in it. Ella is one of the lucky few.’
‘I agree.’
Marina narrows her eyes again. ‘You will say literally anything to get out of here, won’t you?’
‘Literally anything.’
Laughter. Yellow fuzz on screen.
Blackness.
09/19/2010
12h57
‘Look at him, Ella. Does Daddy look funny?’ Marina.
Camera zooms in on Ted, running, orange kite bumping on ground behind him. Park. Speed-walkers. Runners. Small dogs. Ted waves back to camera.
Camera jogs. Waving back?
Dog is chasing after Ted, snapping at the kite.
‘Hey!’ Ted. Pulling on string, trying to lift kite into air. No wind.
Camera jogs. Giggling. Marina.
Ted running faster. Dog owner joins chase. Dog gaining on kite.
‘Oh my gosh . . . no . . . ’ Marina.
Dog leaps. Catches kites. Owner reaches him. Dog won’t release kite.
Camera pans to path. Navy buckled flats. Laughing. Hard. Marina. ‘Oh no, don’t look at Daddy, Ella. Don’t look.’
Camera swings back up. Ted remonstrating with owner. Hands on hips. Dog holding on to kite. Owner lifts dog. Dog still holding kite. Ted pulls on kite. Rips. Throws hands in air. Dismissive. Owner walks off, stroking dog’s head. Dog holding kite. Ted, alone. No kite.
‘Oh, baby, may you never remember seeing your daddy lose against a pug.’ Marina laughing.
Camera pans round hood of buggy. Ella sleeping. Lemon-yellow bonnet and coat. Thumb in mouth. Pink pig, less fluffy. Rosy cheeks.
‘Aaah. Lucky Daddy.’
Blackness.
‘What do you think? Too much?’
Bobbi was standing on Ro’s bed, trying to see her shoes in the mirror on top of the chest of drawers. She was wearing a peacock-coloured short silk kaftan with turquoise feathered sandals that laced up her slim calves, Pocahontas-style, and large gold hoop earrings with tiny beads on them, flashing in her hair.
‘No, I . . . Amazing.’ Ro shrugged, wondering whether she was underdressed – ‘casual’ to her meant jeans that fit and a clean T-shirt, so she was wearing her new red skinny jeans, new striped Breton top and new wedges. It was this or the sequin dress.
Bobbi jumped off the bed, beaming. ‘Great. Great.’ She rubbed her hands together distractedly. ‘Or maybe . . . Do you think the peach shorts suit?’
Ro shook her head. ‘No. That’s perfect.’ She felt strangely protective to see Bobbi so nervous. ‘Come on. The boys are waiting,’ she said, picking up one of Matt’s jumpers from the bed and tucking it under her arm.
‘Why the hell is Greg coming, anyway?’
‘Because he’s our housemate and Melodie invited the whole house,’ Ro sighed.
‘But he doesn’t belong with us and we all know it. He’s using Hump’s house as a hotel.’
‘And technically speaking, he can. I agree it’s a shame we don’t see more of him, but he’s paid for his room and there’s no contractual obligation for him to hang out with us.’
‘He’s only going so he can add Brook Whitmore to his contacts. You know who Brook is, right? You Googled him yet?’
Ro gave her an ‘as if’ look that didn’t appear to translate – or compute.
‘It’ll just be something for him to brag about in the office on Monday.’
Ro tutted and gave her a stern look. What was tonight about if not for Bobbi to add Brook to her own list of contacts? Hadn’t she already said she wanted to tap up Brook through Melodie’s yoga classes?
Ro put her hand on Bobbi’s arm as they paused at the door. ‘Look, you don’t need to be best mates with him, just be tolerant. I don’t want anything to be awkward for Melodie tonight.’
Bobbi sighed dramatically. Relations between Bobbi and Greg had plummeted from cool to downright chilly, and whatever had drawn them together so fiercely that first night was now just as fiercely repelling them. Something had happened either at the club or back home afterwards, even Hump agreed that, and the atmosphere between them was becoming – as he had feared – openly hostile. Ro was half convinced that it was Bobbi’s attitude that meant he was spending more and more time with the Southampton crowd every weekend.
‘Fine, fine. I’ll be civil. But for one night only.’ She grabbed Matt’s jumper from Ro’s grip. ‘And gimme that,’ she said, throwing it across the room, out of sight and out of reach.
They wandered downstairs, where Hump and Greg were leaning against the porch veranda – Greg in his usual preppy chinos and white Oxford, Hump in long check shorts, a linen shirt and yellow flip-flops. Greg stood to attention as the girls joined them; Hump wolf-whistled.
‘Go, Ro!’ Hump crooned, not calling her Big Foot for once, as he walked round her like she was a vintage car, his hands bouncing her bob lightly. Her extreme haircut had rendered him speechless for a full seven seconds when she’d hopped off the Jitney yesterday, but she had persisted in wearing Matt’s clothes at the studio today, and this was the first time he, or anyone, was seeing her as Bobbi had truly envisioned. ‘Hey, so you are a girl. I just couldn’t be sure before. You sure you’re going to be OK walking in those shoes?’
She should have known! There was always a tease with him. ‘Bog off, Hump,’ she grinned.
Ro saw Greg’s eyes slide over to Bobbi. There was a natural opportunity for him to compliment Bobbi too – especially for someone with manners like his – but whether or not he intended to say anything, he didn’t get the chance.
‘House photo!’ Bobbi ordered, getting her phone out of her bag. ‘You can take it, Greg.’
‘Sure.’
Ro shot her a look – Bobbi’s point was clear – but Bobbi just smiled back with innocent eyes, sending the photo out into the ethernet as soon as the phone was back in her hands again. Just as Ro needed a camera lens to validate her life, so Bobbi, it seemed, needed social media.
‘And I’m sitting in the front,’ Bobbi said bossily, climbing into the front seat of the yellow Defender before Greg could.
Ro deliberately pulled her hair as she got in, in the back.
‘Ow!’
‘Sorry.’ Ro smiled, but messaged, ‘Behave!’ with her eyes.
Hump rolled the car down the drive and they swept through the wide lanes in the early evening sun, shades on and the radio blasting. They passed a large, gold-tinted pond with a family of swans gliding across it, waving back at the cyclists in bikinis and board shorts who cheered at the sight of the Hamptons’ already-beloved Humper. Ro closed her eyes happily. It was the all-American dream she’d been sold in films all her life, and here she was doing it, living it. The only thing stopping it from being perfect was Matt not being here to share it with her.
Greg, on her right, kept checking his phone.
‘What are your friends up to tonight?’ Ro asked, leaning in to him slightly.
He looked up bashfully and pocketed his phone. ‘They’re at a gala charity dinner. It’s a couples thing.’
‘Oh . . . Well, it’s great you could come to this. Melodie’s become a really good friend.’ She felt like she was bragging, but she couldn’t hide how proud she was to have someone like Melodie in her life. ‘Do you know her?’
‘By family reputation only. Barrington Dredging is a big local company. I’m looking forward to meeting her husband too. He’s an influential man and has really put a voice to all those people worst affected by Sandy. You know there’s a grass-roots campaign to get him to run for senator next year?’ Greg added.
Bobbi whipped round in her seat, an accusing but silent ‘See?’ in her eyes, just as Hump pulled up a short pitch to a pair of reddish solid-wood gates at least two metres high. Nowhere was far from anywhere in the Hamptons. He leaned over and spoke into the intercom. The gates swung back and they rolled in.
Everyone was silent as they parked in front of an angular building so low slung its roof couldn’t be seen from the road. The house was constructed from the same reddish wood as the gates and had huge plates of green-tinted glass. It looked, to Ro, like toddlers’ stacking cubes on a giant scale, the upper levels set at seemingly random angles and overhanging the ground floor to create shaded loggias below.
‘Fuck . . . me,’ Bobbi muttered not so under her breath, fiddling with her seat belt. ‘That’s only a Moji Fukayama design. You know who he is, right?’ She looked across at Hump, who shrugged. ‘He won the International Architecture Award – it’s the most prestigious mantle out there. He takes on, like, one project a year. One! We’re all scrabbling around trying to do bigger, bolder, more, and he takes one per year and even then not always.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Hump nodded, clearly totally disinterested and spotting Melodie waiting for them by the door. She was looking radiant in a lipstick-pink origami-folded silk dress, her lustrous hair left down. Next to her was a handsome young waiter who looked like he did day shifts in the Ralph Lauren store and bench-pressed ponies, holding a tray of pink champagne. ‘Now let’s party.’
‘I thought we said “casual”,’ Ro said under her breath as she and Melodie kissed their hellos. ‘Casual to me means marmalade on toast, not –’ she gestured to the handsome waiter who was waiting for Bobbi to choose a drink ‘– him.’
Melodie patted her arm. ‘This is casual. Rather than me stressing about it, I delegate. You see? Casual.’
Casual, Hamptons-style maybe. What would every person here think if they saw what passed for casual back home? Lap trays, pyjamas and fleecy socks, and a box set of Borgen.
Ro made the introductions to Bobbi and Greg, and they all followed Melodie through into an open-plan all-white sitting room that was, Ro imagined, just like walking into heaven. On the angled, vaulted ceiling, a ghostly pink haze rippled along it like a light show. There was no music playing, but there was sound and she saw, to her left, a wall with pink-lit water skinning down the length and width of it. Her eye followed the water’s fall and she saw how it fed into a deep, narrow groove that was cut through the polished concrete floor like a Mondrian line, dissecting it with arrow-straight precision to the glass wall opposite, where it dashed underneath to the pool outdoors.
Ro had never seen anything like it, and she looked over at Bobbi to check she was still remembering to breathe in and out. It was debatable – Bobbi was rotating on the spot, open-mouthed. The house somehow appeared to have two fasciae: inside the house, the irregular angles of the walls were in contrast to the cuboid parallelograms of the exterior, and Ro could almost see Bobbi’s mind whirling at the engineering and advanced maths involved in building a house like this.
‘Would you like me to pinch you?’ Melodie asked her, bringing her over the drink that she had been too distracted to collect on her way in.
‘I just can’t believe it. I can’t believe I’m standing here. I can’t believe this is your home. It’s part of architectural legend.’ Bobbi smacked a hand over her heart. ‘It is because of buildings like this that I do what I do.’
‘It’s official. She really does love her job more than I do mine,’ Greg murmured, watching from the sidelines.
‘It’s certainly a very interesting house to live in.’ Melodie smiled modestly.
‘Did you and your husband commission it, or did it come onto the market? I know that the architect is incredibly controlling about who he will build for. I mean, he actually interviews his clients first, right?’
‘Well, it never came onto the open market, but we bought it quite soon after it had been built. The previous owners divorced and couldn’t afford to keep it.’
‘Luckily for us,’ Brook said, picking up the conversation as he walked into the room. ‘So long as we don’t divorce,’ he grinned, squeezing the back of Melodie’s neck affectionately.
‘That’s not likely, darling,’ Melodie said, a wicked gleam in her eye. ‘Obviously, I only married you for your money.’
Brook laughed expansively. ‘The other way round more like.’ He turned to face the small group, all looking on politely. ‘Now, you must be Bobbi,’ he said, beaming with bonhomie and holding out a hand.
‘Yes, Bobbi Winkleman. A pleasure,’ Bobbi said, stepping smartly forward from the group and staking her claim.
‘And Ro, of course,’ Brook said, turning to her. ‘Well, I say of course, but . . . your hair.’
‘I had a dramatic cut this week, yes. I guess I must look quite different from when we met at the Wölffer party.’ Ro’s hands patted it soothingly.
‘Indeed, but all for the better if I may say.’
She smiled and relaxed.
Hump held out his hand. ‘Hump, we met last weekend too at the—’
‘I remember. The entrepreneur. We’re going to have lunch, aren’t we?’
‘Yes, we are.’ Hump grinned, clearly delighted that a suggestion of drinks had been accidentally upgraded to lunch. ‘I’ll set it up.’
Greg held his hand out, in turn. ‘Greg Livingston.’
Brook looked at him through interested eyes, immediately discerning Greg’s more reserved manners and professional demeanour. He never seemed fully ‘off’, as though he could chair a board meeting at any moment. ‘Now, we haven’t met.’
‘No, sir.’
‘And what is it you do, Greg?’
‘I’m senior attorney at Overy & Chambers.’
‘Overy & Chambers. I’ve heard of them. Environmental practice, right?’ Brook said thoughtfully.
‘I’m flattered you know that. Most people have never heard of us. We’re below radar compared to the corporate behemoths.’
‘Ah, but you guys are smarter than them. You’re at the coalface of federal policy. Leave those sharks to chasing paltry dollars in discrimination lawsuits. The future is environmental – global warming, carbon emissions, polar navigation rights, natural-disaster relief . . . They’re the big issues that affect the planet’s billions of normal people, not just multinationals. You guys are
the G8 of law.’
‘Well, I’ve not heard it described like that before. I’ll have it put on my cards,’ Greg laughed. ‘Which field are you in, Mr Whitmore?’
‘Call me Brook. I’m an insurance man, I’m afraid: the grey man in the grey suit.’
‘You’re so not grey,’ Ro said, looking at his deep tan. He was certainly well into his late fifties, if not early sixties, but looked fitter and better than most forty-year-olds.
‘That’s because of the twice-monthly trips to Bermuda to play golf,’ Melodie said, patting her husband’s arm.
‘My wife doesn’t believe me when I tell her ninety-eight per cent of my business is conducted on the golf course.’
Melodie rolled her eyes. ‘Meanwhile, most other people are out there working for a living . . .’
‘As I recall, you don’t seem to mind the trips yourself, Songbird. And besides, you do play a little golf too.’ He stepped back to his wife and rested his arm over her shoulder. ‘Her yoga flexibility gives her a wonderful swing.’
Melodie’s smile seemed to fix in place. ‘Well . . . why don’t we go outside and enjoy the fresh air rather than standing in here?’ she suggested, motioning towards the terrace.
Hump joined her, his large foot straddling the groove in the floor; Bobbi followed, but – still distracted by the avant-garde building – she stepped without looking and her thin heel caught in the gap as she walked. She shrieked as her forward momentum was thrown and her ankle twisted, her knee buckling.
‘I’ve got you!’ Greg said, lunging forward and catching her one-handed – for he was holding his drink too – by the elbow. He held her still for a moment while she recovered her balance. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yeah,’ Bobbi murmured, embarrassed, as Brook rushed over and took her by the other elbow. Bobbi stood between the two men, both her elbows supported, until Greg, realizing the ridiculousness of the situation, took a step back, demurring to their host.
‘Is your ankle hurt?’ Brook asked solicitously at the sight of her foot completely free of her shoe and attached only by the calf straps.
