Sleeping Arrangements (13 page)

'So it looks like it's just the two of us,' said Hugh to Chloe.

'Yes,' said Chloe after a pause. 'Yes, it does.' She took a sip of wine and then another.

'Well, never mind,' said Jenna. 'All the more for you two! Right, I'll just go and see how this chilli's doing.'

She left the room, closing the door behind her. Chloe took a deep breath, intending to say something light and breezy and impersonal. But suddenly she could not speak; the phrases withered away as they reached her tongue. As her eyes met Hugh's she saw that he could not speak, either. The entire room seemed temporarily immobilized, as though in a still-life painting. The candlelit table, the gleaming glassware; the two of them, transfixed.

Forcing herself to break the spell, Chloe took another sip of wine, draining her glass.

Without speaking, Hugh reached for the bottle and replenished it.

'Thank you,' muttered Chloe.

'You're welcome.'

There was another, unreal pause.

'I think I'll have some guacamole.' Chloe reached for the dish and spooned a dollop of the green substance onto her plate.

'You look beautiful,' said Hugh in a low voice.

A bullet of emotion shot through Chloe before she could stop it.

'Thank you,' she said without looking up, ladling another dollop of guacamole onto her plate. 'You always were one for the insincerities.'

'I'm not—' retorted Hugh angrily, then stopped himself. 'Chloe—I want to talk. About . . .'

He paused. 'About what I did.'

There was silence. Very deliberately, Chloe spooned a third dollop of green mush onto her plate.

'I want you to know why I acted like that,' said Hugh. 'And . . . and how hard the decision was . . .'

'Was it hard?' said Chloe tonelessly. 'You poor thing.' Hugh winced.

'I was a different person then,' he said. 'I was young.'

'I was young, too,' said Chloe. She reached for a fourth spoonful, then paused and put the spoon down.

'I didn't have any idea about life, about people—'

'The thing is, Hugh,' interrupted Chloe, 'I'm not interested.' She looked up and met his eyes. 'I'm really not interested in . . . in what you thought or why you did what you did. As you say, it was a very long time ago.' She took a sip of wine and shoved the guacamole dish towards him. 'Have some slime.'

'Chloe, just listen,' said Hugh, leaning forward urgently. 'If I could just explain the way I felt, the way I panicked—'

'What do you want, Hugh?' snapped Chloe, feeling a flash of anger. 'What do you want?

Forgiveness? Absolution?'

'I don't know,' said Hugh defensively. 'Maybe I just want to . . . talk to you.'

'Why?'

There was silence. Hugh picked up a fork and examined it intently for a moment, then lifted his eyes.

'Maybe I'd like to get to know you again. And for you to get to know me. The person I am now,' Chloe stared at him, then shook her head incredulously.

'You,' she said, 'are on very dangerous territory.'

'I know I am.' Hugh took a sip of wine, keeping his gaze fixed on hers.

Chloe reached for her glass and did the same, trying to keep composed. But the conversation was rattling her more than she could have predicted. Beneath her calm demeanour, she could feel the old hurt returning; the old raw vulnerability. She wanted to yell at Hugh, to wound him; to give him some of the pain he had given her.

'Chloe.' She raised her head, to see Hugh looking at her gravely. 'I'm sorry. I'm . . . so sorry.'

The words hit Chloe like a thunderbolt. To her horror, she felt a sudden hotness around her eyes.

'I'm sorry for everything I did,' Hugh was continuing. 'If I could just . . . I don't know, go back in time . . .'

'No!' Chloe's voice lashed out like a self-defence kick. She took a deep breath and shook her head. 'Just . . . just stop right there. Sorry is irrelevant. There's no point being sorry about something unless you can do something about it. And you can't. We can't go back in time. We can't change what happened.'

She stopped, aware that she was pink in the face and panting slightly. She glanced at Hugh; he was staring at her with a hungry expression as though waiting for her to speak again.

'We can't go back in time,' she said, more calmly. 'We can't change what happened.' She pushed back her chair, stood up and looked at Hugh with a dispassionate gaze. 'And I wouldn't want to anyway.'

She dropped her napkin on the table and strode out of the door. As she left the room she saw Jenna heading towards it, a large oval dish in her hands.

'Excuse me,' she said abruptly, and walked straight past.

As Jenna entered the room, Hugh was staring blankly down at the table.

'So,' she said. 'All ready to have your tongue burned off?' She put down the dish and grinned. 'Joke! It's not that hot. I was quite easy with the chillies. In fact, there's Tabasco in the kitchen if it's too mild. It all depends what you like . . .' She reached for a spoon. 'How much do you think Chloe wants?'

'Actually,' said Hugh, looking up as though with a great effort. 'Actually, I don't think Chloe's coming back.'

'Oh,' said Jenna, hand poised on the lid handle. 'Right. So—it's just you, is it?'

Hugh gazed silently around the empty table. Then he looked up.

'You know what, Jenna, I think I'll take a rain check, too. I'm sure it's absolutely delicious .

. .' he gestured to the dish '. . . but I'm just not that hungry.'

'I see,' said Jenna. For a few moments she stared down at the dish, her spoon still poised above it. 'Well,' she said at last. 'I expect it'll get eaten up tomorrow.'

'I'm sorry,' said Hugh, getting up from his chair. 'I know you went to a lot of trouble . . .'

'Oh, that's no problem!' said Jenna brightly. It's your holiday—if you don't want to eat, you don't want to eat!'

'Thanks for seeing it that way,' said Hugh. He gave her a rather taut smile, then left the room.

As the door closed, Jenna's smile disappeared. In silence, she looked at the carefully laid table; the untouched food; the crumpled, discarded napkins.

'Well, great,' she said aloud. 'That's just great. That's just fucking . . . excellent.'

She sank down into a chair and stared morosely ahead for a few minutes. Then she reached out and took the lid off the chilli dish. The words HAPPY HOLIDAYS, FOLKS! spelled out in peas and sweetcorn, stared jauntily back at her.

Chloe woke up to a still, dim silence. She lay in bed for a while, staring at the ceiling, allowing the fragments of thoughts and dreams floating around her mind to separate themselves out and slowly sink to rest in their correct places. Bits of memories, tail ends of emotions, half-thought-out wishes, all slowly sinking into their places like silver balls in a game. Only when she was sure that moving her head would not dislodge any of them did she allow herself to sit up and survey the empty room.

Light was filtering in through the wooden blinds, covering the tiled floor in stripes. As she stared at the pattern she noticed a piece of white paper placed in the centre of the room, presumably for her to find. A note from Philip, she thought detachedly, and wondered whether she wanted to read it. She assumed that he had spent some portion of the night by her side—but she couldn't be sure of it. After leaving the dinner table the night before, she had gone straight to their bedroom. Finding it empty, she had taken a long bath, and read several chapters of a book of whose plot she could not now remember any detail. Eventually she had switched off the light and lain with her eyes open in the dark. At some point, probably sooner than she thought, she had fallen asleep.

A muted flash of anger went through her as she remembered the frustration she'd felt at having no Philip to talk to. She had sat, heart thumping, mentally composing arguments, lifting her head at every sound of footsteps. But Philip had not appeared. The longer she waited, the more determined she had become not to go and find him. If he didn't wish to be with her—well then, that was his decision. If he wanted to get drunk and pick fights, that was his decision also.

With a sudden briskness, she got out of bed, picked up the note and scanned it.

Dearest Chloe, You deserve a day without me. I've taken the boys down to the coast.

Have a lovely time and we'll talk this evening. I'm sorry.

Philip

Chloe stared at the familiar writing for a second, then crumpled the note in her hand. This letter was a cue for wifely fondness; for a rueful shake of the head and forgiveness. But she could feel none of it. All she could feel was irritation.

She opened the blinds and looked down at the garden. The flowerbeds looked immaculate from above; the pool was a gleaming blue; the loungers were spread out invitingly. But Chloe knew she didn't want it. She didn't want any of it. Her gaze rose further, to the mountains, and she felt a sudden longing to be out. To be away from this house and its occupants; its tensions and frictions and claustrophobic concerns. She wanted to be herself, anonymous, in this foreign, rugged countryside.

Swiftly she put on an old cotton frock and a pair of sandals. She rubbed sun cream into her skin, picked up a sunhat and poured the water from her bedside jug into an Evian bottle which she put into her basket.

As she walked down the stairs, the house was still and quiet, with no sign of life. She felt like Alice, walking through a charmed land with its own rules. If I can just get out of the gate without talking to anyone, she thought superstitiously. If I can get out of the gate . . . then everything will be all right.

She closed the heavy front door behind her and began to walk down the shaded driveway towards the main gate. Her mind began to blank out and she was aware of nothing but her footsteps, one after the other, like a hypnotic ticking.

'Hey! Chloe!'

Chloe's head jerked up in shock and she peered around, heart thudding, looking for the source of the voice. But she could see no-one. Was her own head mocking her? Was she going mad?

'Over here!'

Chloe saw Jenna's face peeping over a hedge, and felt a dart of relief, mingled with annoyance.

'We were just playing hide-and-seek,' continued Jenna. 'Weren't we, Octavia?' She grinned down at an unseen Octavia, then looked curiously at Chloe's hat and basket. 'Are you going out?'

'Yes,' said Chloe reluctantly.

'Oh right. Where are you headed?'

'I don't know,' said Chloe. She forced a pleasant smile, and before Jenna could ask any more, raised her hand in farewell and carried on down the drive.

The road outside was silent and empty, shimmering in the searing heat. Chloe crossed, and began to walk along the edge, scuffing the sandy earth, not bothering to think where she might be heading. She came to a bend in the road and paused, looking first at the road, curving in front of her, then at the mountainside, which sheered down sharply to her left. She only hesitated for a moment. Stepping over the barrier, she began to walk, then run, down the slope of the mountain. As she gained momentum she found herself slipping on the dry, sandy soil, moving faster and faster, nearly losing her balance altogether. At a small rocky outcrop she stopped for a few minutes, panting slightly. When she glanced back up to the road, she was shocked and exhilarated at how far she had come in such a short time. Already she felt a sense of escape, a sense of liberation. She was out; she was free.

She perched on a huge white boulder and looked around the dry, silent countryside. The arid soil was scorched by the sun; shrivelled bushes grew in the shade of bare, twiggy trees.

In the distance she could hear the bells of goats being led to feed; looking around the sparse vegetation, she wondered what on earth they were going to eat.

The bells died away and she sat again in silence, letting the sun beat down on her head.

On impulse she picked up a stone and threw it as hard as she could, down the mountainside.

She threw another, and another, feeling her shoulder almost wrench out of her socket. As each stone skittered down the mountain and disappeared from view she felt a strange, powerful release. She reached for another, then stopped herself. Three was enough.

She sat for a while longer, taking occasional swigs from her water bottle, allowing her mind to roam idly. Letting herself become part of the landscape. A small lizard ran across the top of the boulder she was sitting on, then ran back. The third time it ran across, it took a short cut across her hand—and she felt an unexpected dart of pleasure at being accepted so easily.

Eventually she stood up, stretched, and continued walking, deliberately taking the difficult path; deliberately setting herself challenges. The sun was hammering down on her head—hotter even than it had been yesterday, she thought. Soon her legs began to ache and her arms to sweat. But still she continued, striding more and more quickly as though trying to beat her own record. She felt almost feverish, as if she had to get as far away as possible.

Over the mountains, into another land. She was barely aware of her surroundings, barely aware of anything save the rhythm of her steps, the in and out of her breath, the sweat on her brow. Then, as she idly glanced up, following the flight of a butterfly, she stopped in shock.

Up to her right, out of nowhere, had appeared a cluster of stark white houses, crowned by a bell tower. The village they had passed on the way up, of course, she realized. What was its name? San something. San Luis. For a few moments, Chloe was too thrown to move. She had not meant to visit San Luis; she had meant to lose herself in the mountains. But now she felt overlooked. Someone at one of those dark slits of windows would be watching her, wondering what that mad woman striding about the mountainside below was doing. Perhaps even sending for the local doctor.

A motorbike roared past on the road above and she jumped, feeling foolish. She took a few steps forward, trying to regain her rhythm, then stopped again. Some new thoughts were twining about in her mind. The sun was high overhead; it must be nearly noon. There would be a restaurant in San Luis. A cool glass of wine, perhaps a plate of chorizo. Marinated mush-rooms. Prawns steeped in garlic. Suddenly Chloe felt ravenous; it occurred to her that she had had no supper the night before and no breakfast this morning. Hastily she checked in her bag for her purse, then turned her steps upwards, towards the village.