Sleeping Arrangements (8 page)

'What are you thinking about?' she said, before she could stop herself, and Philip started guiltily.

'Nothing,' he said. 'Nothing at all.' He turned his face towards her and gave her a half-smile, but Chloe couldn't smile back.

'I'm going out,' she said abruptly, and pulled away from his touch. 'I think I'll have a wander round the garden.'

'OK,' said Philip. 'I'll pop down to the kitchen in a moment and start some supper for us.'

'Fine,' said Chloe, without looking back. 'Whatever.'

Hugh stood by the bath in the second bedroom suite, watching as Amanda scrubbed sun cream off Octavia's shoulders.

'It's too bad,' she was saying jerkily. 'I mean, look at us. Cooped up in here . . .'

'Hardly cooped,' said Hugh, looking around the spacious marble bathroom. 'And they're perfectly entitled to have that room.'

'I know,' said Amanda. 'But we didn't come on holiday in order to be turned out of our room by people we've never even met. I mean, it's not as if they're friends. We don't know anything about them!'

'They seem perfectly nice,' said Hugh after a pause. 'Perfectly nice people.'

'You think everyone's nice,' said Amanda dismissively. 'You thought that woman across the road was nice.'

'Mummee!' wailed Octavia. 'You're hurting me!'

'Amanda, why don't you let me do that?' said Hugh, taking a step towards the bath.

'No, it's OK,' said Amanda, sighing slightly. 'You go and have your gin and tonic. I won't be long. And Jenna will be along in a moment.'

'I don't mind,' said Hugh. 'I could put the children to bed, too.'

'Look, Hugh,' said Amanda, turning on her haunches. 'I've had a long enough day as it is. I just want to get the children in bed as quickly as possible and then maybe we can relax. OK?'

'OK,' said Hugh after a pause. He forced himself to smile. 'Well . . . goodnight, girls. Sweet dreams.'

'Good night, Daddy,' chorused the girls dutifully, barely looking up, and Hugh backed quietly out of the bathroom, feeling a small, familiar gnawing in his chest.

As he walked to the door, he passed Jenna coming in with two pairs of pyjamas.

'Hi,' she said, and held them up. 'Are these the right ones, d'you know?'

For a few moments, Hugh gazed at the sprigged cotton pyjamas; at the tiny sleeves, the miniature pockets.

'I dare say they are,' he said eventually. 'Not really my area.' And he walked quickly away before the girl could say anything else to him. He went down to the kitchen, found a cabinet full of bottles and slowly, methodically, began to mix a gin and tonic.

Not really his area. The truth was, nothing to do with his daughters was his area. Somehow, over the five years since Octavia's birth, he had fossilized into a father who didn't know his own children. A father who spent so much time at the office, he often went a whole week without clapping an eye on either daughter. A father who had no idea what his children liked to play with, or what they watched on television, or even what they liked to eat. Who was too embarrassed, at this late stage, to ask.

Hugh took a deep swig of gin, closing his eyes and savouring the aromatic flavour. A gin and tonic every night had become one of his habitual props, along with his newspaper and, lately, e-mail. When Beatrice refused to come to him for a bedtime story and wailed tearfully for Mummy, he would turn away and hide his expressionless face behind the paper. While the girls and Amanda went to ballet class every Saturday morning, he would sit at his computer, checking his e-mails and typing unnecessary replies. Sometimes he would read the same message ten times over.

When this was done, and they were still not back, he would turn to whichever corporate challenge had most recently been drawn to his attention. He would read the data and process the information, then shut his eyes and submerge himself in the world he knew better than any other. He would sit in complete silence, working out alternate strategies like a chess player, like a military general. The more complicated, the more distracting, the better. Some of his most inspired work was done on a Saturday.

Amanda, he knew, often described him as a workaholic, rolling her eyes heavenwards.

Her friends would sit, drinking coffee in her immaculate kitchen, and swap sympathetic comments. You're the equivalent of a single mother, they would say indignantly. What happened to New Men?

Three years ago, Hugh had come home, cold and weary, and with a proposition he had dreamed up on the train. That he should give up his full-time job and go freelance as a management consultant. The money wouldn't be as good—but he could work from home, and spend far more time with her and the children.

He had rarely seen Amanda look so appalled.

Hugh took another swig of his drink, then wandered out of the kitchen into the drawing room—then out of the french windows into the garden. The sky was a mid-blue, the air warm and quiet. Gerard's garden was obviously tended by those who knew what they were doing, he thought. Shrubs were trimmed, flowers arrayed neatly in beds, a small stone fountain trickled clear, cold water. He turned a corner, wondering how far it went, and stopped.

Chloe was standing by a wall, resting her head in her hands, as though in prayer. Immediately he tried to retreat, but she had heard a sound and looked up. Her cheeks were flushed; her blue eyes fierce with some emotion he couldn't fathom. For a few moments they gazed at one another in silence—then Hugh, tritely, raised his glass.

'Cheers. Here's to . . .' He shrugged.

'A happy holiday?' Hugh flinched at Chloe's sarcastic voice.

'Yes,' he said. 'A happy holiday. Why not?'

'Fine,' said Chloe. 'A happy holiday.'

Hugh took another sip of his gin and tonic. But it tasted wrong out here, sharp and dis-cordant. He should have been drinking a soft red wine.

'Why did you lie?' he said abruptly. 'Why did you pretend we haven't met?'

There was silence, and Chloe pushed her hands through her wispy, wavy hair. She looked tense, he suddenly thought. Tense and exhausted.

'I've come away with my family for a break,' she said, looking up. 'To get away from it all.

To forget about all our troubles and . . . and find ourselves again. To be alone. As a family.'

'What troubles?' Hugh put his drink down and took a step forward. 'Is something wrong?'

'It doesn't matter what troubles,' said Chloe curtly. 'They're nothing to do with you. The point is—' She broke off and closed her eyes. 'The point is, Philip and I—and the boys, for that matter—we need this time. We need it. And I don't want any complicating factors getting in the way.' She opened her eyes. 'Especially not some . . . crappy, meaningless little fling.'

Hugh stared at her.

'You thought it was meaningless.'

'Not at the time, no.' Chloe's face hardened slightly. 'But time teaches you what was actually important—and what wasn't. Time teaches you a lot of things. Don't you think?'

There was a still, taut pause. A drooping white flower behind Chloe's head swayed a little in the breeze, then, as Hugh watched, silently discarded a petal. He followed its path with his eyes; watched it land on the darkening ground.

'I never had a chance to explain myself properly,' he said, looking up, aware that his voice sounded awkward. 'I . . . I always felt bad.'

'You made yourself perfectly clear, Hugh.' Chloe's voice was light and scathing. 'Crystal clear, in fact. And it's really not important now.' Hugh opened his mouth to reply, and she raised a hand to halt him. 'Just . . . let's just you do your thing, and we'll do our thing. All right?

And maybe this will work out.'

'I'd really like to talk,' said Hugh. 'I'd really like to have a chance to—'

'Yes well, I'd like a lot of things,' said Chloe, cutting him off. And before he could reply she walked away, leaving him alone in the evening twilight.

The next morning, Hugh felt bleary and exhausted. He had found a bottle of Rioja the night before which he had proceeded almost singlehandedly to consume, telling himself he was on holiday. Now he lay on a recliner, a sunhat over his face, flinching every time a pinprick of light found its way through the mesh onto his closed eyelids. As though from a distance he could hear Amanda's voice, and occasionally Jenna's in reply.

'Remember to put sun cream on the girls' necks,' she was saying. 'And the backs of their legs.'

'Sure.'

'And the soles of their feet.'

'Already done.'

'Are you sure?' Hugh was vaguely aware of Amanda sitting up on the recliner next to him.

'I don't want to take any risks.'

'Mrs Stratton—' Jenna's voice sounded deliberately controlled. 'One thing I do know about is the dangers of the sun. I'm not about to take any risks either.'

'Good. Well.' There was a pause, then Amanda lay back down on her recliner. 'So,' she said in a low voice to Hugh. 'No sign of them yet.'

'Who?' murmured Hugh without opening his eyes.

'Them. The others. I have to say, I've no idea how it's all going to work out.'

Hugh removed his hat. Squinting in the sun, he struggled to a sitting position and looked at Amanda. 'What do you mean, "work out"?' he said. 'Here's the pool, here are the chairs, there's the sun . . .'

'I just mean . . .' Amanda frowned slightly. 'It might be awkward.'

'I don't see why,' said Hugh, watching as Jenna led Octavia and Beatrice down the shallow steps into the pool. 'I spoke to . . .' He paused. 'To Chloe. The wife.' He looked at Amanda. 'Last night, when you were bathing the girls.'

'Really? What did she say?'

'They want to do their own thing as much as us. There's no reason why we should get in each other's way.'

'We got in each other's way last night, didn't we?' said Amanda tightly. 'Last night was a bloody fiasco!'

Hugh shrugged and lay down again, closing his eyes. He had not been present in the kitchen the night before; had not witnessed the incident Amanda was referring to. Philip and Jenna had apparently each begun preparing supper for their respective families with their eye on the same chicken. At some point they had discovered this fact. (Had they reached for the chicken at the same time? Hugh now wondered. Had their hands collided around its neck? Or had it been more a slow, dawning realization?) As far as he could make out, Philip had immediately offered to find a substitute for his own dish and Jenna had gratefully thanked him.

Hardly a fiasco, in his eyes. But Amanda had taken this little event as confirmation that the entire holiday was to be ruined—indeed, had already been ruined. As they had eaten their supper in the dining room (Philip and Chloe had taken theirs outside to the terrace), she had repeated this opinion over and over in different variations, until Hugh could bear no more. He had retired to the balcony of their bedroom with his bottle of wine and had slowly drunk it down, until the sky was dark overhead. When he had come inside, Amanda was in bed, already asleep in front of a cable mini-series.

'Here we go.' Amanda's low voice interrupted his thoughts. 'Here they come.' She raised her voice. 'Morning!'

'Morning,' Hugh heard Philip reply.

'Lovely day,' came Chloe's voice.

'Isn't it?' said Amanda brightly. 'Absolutely stunning weather.'

There was silence, and Amanda lay down again.

'At least they aren't trying to chuck us off our sun-beds,' she said in an undertone to Hugh.

'Not yet, anyway.' There was a pause, filled by the creaking of her recliner as she found a comfortable sunbathing position, reached for her headphones and put them on. A moment later, she removed them and looked up. 'Hugh?'

'Mmm?'

'Can you pass me my Factor Eight?'

Hugh opened his eyes and sat up and froze. Across the pool, with her back to him, Chloe was unbuttoning her old cotton dress. As it fell from her body, pooling on the ground, Hugh gazed, transfixed. She was wearing an old-fashioned rose-patterned swimsuit, and her fair hair was caught back in a single flower. Her legs were pale and slender; her shoulders fragile and vulnerable, like a child's. As she turned round, he couldn't prevent his eyes from running up her body to the faintest glimpse of white breast.

'Hugh?' Beside him Amanda began to sit up; at the same time, Chloe looked across the pool, directly at him. As her eyes met his, Hugh felt a shocking stab of desire. Of guilt. The two seemed almost to be the same thing. Quickly he turned away.

'Here you are,' he said, reaching randomly for a bottle and passing it to Amanda.

'That isn't Factor Eight!' she said, impatiently. 'The big bottle.'

'Right.' Hugh scrabbled for the correct bottle, thrust it at his wife, and lay down again, his heart thumping. He couldn't rid his mind of Chloe's face, of her searing, slightly contemptuous blue eyes. Of course she knew what he was thinking. Chloe had always known exactly what he was thinking.

They had met fifteen years ago at an undergraduate party in London; a party full of eco-nomics and medical students, held in a shared flat in Stockwell. Gerard had been invited along as a friend of one of the economists—and, being Gerard, he had brought along a large uninvited crowd from his history of art degree course at the Courtauld. One of those was Chloe.

Looking back, it seemed to Hugh that he had fallen in love with her straight away. She had been wearing a dress with a slightly quaint look to it, which set her apart from the others.

They had begun talking about paintings, about which Hugh knew very little, and had somehow moved on to period costume—about which Hugh knew even less. Then, as an aside, Chloe had revealed that she herself had designed and made the dress she was wearing.

'I don't believe you,' Hugh had said, fuelled by several glasses of wine, and anxious to move the conversation away from nineteenth-century buttonhooks. 'Prove it to me.'

'All right, then,' Chloe had said, laughing slightly. She had reached down and lifted up the hem of her dress. 'Look at this seam. Look at the stitches. I put in every one of them by hand.'

Hugh had looked obediently—but had not seen a single stitch. He had caught a glimpse of Chloe's slender legs, encased in sheer stockings, and had felt a startling, overwhelming desire for her. He had taken a swig of wine, trying to regain his composure, then looked cautiously into her eyes, expecting indifference, even antagonism. Instead, he had seen cool blue awareness. Chloe had known exactly what he wanted. She had wanted it herself.