He grinned as he said it so she wasn’t sure whether he meant it as an expression of love or disappointment. Either way, Serena had never forgotten it. She must have been ten or eleven. She realised, on some unspoken level, that her father didn’t want her to grow older; that he wanted her to stay child-like – at least in the way she looked. The realisation pinched at her the way a new shoe blisters your ankle. She couldn’t shake it. So instead she gave in to it. She became thinner and thinner. At her all-girls’ boarding school, where anorexia was deemed a competitive sport, she ate nothing but six cucumber slices powdered with salt every day for weeks. During the holidays, her father told her she looked like a supermodel. Order was restored. Serena was forever after a willowy blonde with a tiny appetite. But she had lost something along the way. Kindness, perhaps. As her own physical presence shrank,she discovered an innate ability to make other people feel small, especially those she never deemed worthy of being in her circle. Martin, for instance, and his dowdy little wife, Lucy. She had always thought Martin was a man who rose without trace to attach himself to Ben’s coat-tails, while Lucy was judgemental and intellectually superior. Plus Lucy had a terrible sense of style – shapeless denim dresses with pockets and 60-denier tights. Birkenstocks. Swimsuits worn so many times they bobbled and gaped. Awful.
But it was Lucy who had shocked Serena the most in the end. She still has a faint white scar on her left temple where Lucy hit her with a champagne bottle. The pain was so vicious she can only remember the idea of it. Like childbirth.
For a while, Serena had wanted to press charges. It was Ben – always Ben – who convinced her it would be wiser to sweep the incident under the carpet. Given his ambitions. Given what Martin knew about his past. And Serena, back then, had agreed. The Fitzmaurice name had to be protected, she understood that. She understood, too, her role in Ben’s life as he scaled the political heights. She was the wife who looked good in Sunday newspaper supplement photoshoots while keeping all the necessary secrets. A charming host who knew how to table-scape. A breeder. It was what her father would have expected of her. It was what Ben wanted from her. It was what, in truth, she had wanted for herself.
Lately, she’s been reassessing. Being Ben’s plus one no longer satisfies her in the way that it used to. It’s inconvenient to feel like this, but it’s also inescapable. Everyone always assumes she shares Ben’s politics. She’s viewed like a Ming vase: beautiful but empty; a little fragile. This lack of an individual identity never used to bother her. She had long thought of politics as an overgrown debating club and had looked down on it as a ridiculous kind of pastime. Now, the ridicule has calcified into annoyance. Considering all those many, many hours Ben has spent in the House of Commons, and all the sacrifices (financial and personal) they have made for him to sit on those green benches pompously arguing over import tariffs and border controls,it’s baffling how little ever actually changes. Why, when all these powerful MPs claim so confidently to have the answers, are there still mothers going to food banks and children being sent to school on empty stomachs and homeless people huddled on almost every street corner? Shouldn’t things be getting better, not worse? Shouldn’t Ben be doing something? Shouldn’t he at least be asking her what she thinks?
Instead, he is distracted. Shortly before leaving for the Wurttensee, she walked into Ben’s study at Tipworth and found him, well … compromised. She was meant to be in London but had caught an earlier train home, driven by a sudden pang to see Bear before he left for school. She wanted to nuzzle the back of his neck, catching the smell of grass and small-boy dirt while she still had the chance. Ben wasn’t supposed to be there either. It was one of his constituency surgery days, when he would usually be listening to complaints involving illegal conservatory extensions and the infrequency of bin collections while doing his best to appear interested.
She had heard noises coming from Ben’s study and assumed he had left the windows open again. His boarding-school belief in the restorative power of fresh air had more than once led to a broken ornament or rain-drenched book spines. So when she pushed on the heavy wooden door, her attention was at first focused on the windows. She didn’t register the jerking movements on the blue velvet sofa until a few seconds later.
‘Fuck,’ Ben said. ‘Serena. Hi.’
His arms were spread expansively across the cushions, his trousers unbuttoned and pushed down to his knees. His pupils were dilated. Kneeling in front of him, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, was Violet.
Serena, shocked into stillness, remained standing in the doorway as Violet unravelled herself and started speaking in apologetic tones. She was wearing a Lycra co-ord workout set that Serena had given her. It was oatmeal in colour, and she noticed a damp stain just above Violet’s erect left nipple.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she babbled, with the nasal inflection that Serena had always loathed. ‘I didn’t mean—’
‘To inhale my husband’s cock?’ Serena said. ‘No, I’m sure you didn’t.’
It was curious. Her rage felt deathly calm. She watched as Ben zipped himself up and swept his hair back. He wouldn’t catch her eye and she was grateful he didn’t try to say anything. Violet, by contrast, could not stop talking.
‘Oh God, Serena, it isn’t what you think, it’s only been once, well … a couple of times … and we both love you so much, we really do, it’s not that, it’s just sex …’
‘I’d stop talking if I were you,’ Serena said, pushing the door wide and motioning for Violet to leave.
Violet, now struggling to put one of her trashy gold hoop earrings back into the piercing in her lobe, looked frightened. She rushed from Ben without a second glance and was forced to hunch her shoulders to fit underneath Serena’s arm which held the door open. Serena got a mouthful of her oud-scented perfume as Violet clattered down the corridor. Then Serena stepped into the study, letting the door swing shut behind her.
Ben was still on the sofa, head hanging. A posture of shame. She braced herself for the inevitable patter.
‘I’m pathetic, I know I am,’ he said, still refusing to meet her gaze. ‘I’m a terrible person, an awful husband. I don’t know why you put up with me, darling, I really don’t, but you know – you know – it’s only ever been you. This was just a stupid indiscretion. It was easy – she’s so lonely. I’m embarrassed I allowed her to appeal to my sympathy.’
Serena spat out a laugh.
He looked at her with the same brown eyes that Bear now had, which had once been so irresistible to her.
‘It’s true. You don’t have to believe me. God knows, I’ve lost all right to your belief in the things I say. But, the thing is—’
‘I don’t care what “the thing” is, Ben. Why Violet? Of all people?’
It wasn’t that she felt especially close to Violet. Serena never felt especially close to anyone other than her children. But she so rarely had friends, that for Ben to choose to fuck one of them seemed unnecessary. These were the terms of their agreement. No one in their inner circle.
Ben shook his head slowly.
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
It was the most honest he’d been in months.
He rose from the sofa and came across to the fireplace, standing a couple of feet from her. He made no attempt to touch her.
‘Do you hate me?’ he asked, plaintive.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t have the energy.’
There was a flash of something then, across his face. Not quite anger but irritation. They stared at each other, waiting. The silence was broken by the vibration of Ben’s phone.
‘Shit – probably constituency stuff,’ he said, removing it from his suit pocket. ‘Sorry.’
