Serena opens the clinic’s app on her phone to check her next appointment. She has an hour free before lunch and decides she willwalk out to the jetty on the lake and lie on one of the sun-loungers. She picks up the branded tote bag the clinic leaves in every room, filled with all the belongings she needs for the day – swimsuit, sunglasses, book, phone and a large pot of chalky magnesium powder she has to drink dissolved in water every few hours – and makes her way outside.
It is sunny and clear, with only the faintest wisps of cumulus across the sky. The lake is encircled by craggy grey-brown mountains and wooden chalets, built on stilts over the water. There is only one other person on the sun-loungers – a tanned, grey-haired man in Speedos with a gold medallion around his neck. He’s sleeping, emitting irregular whistling snores. She goes right to the end of the jetty, choosing the lounger furthest away from him and lies back on the striped cushions. She is about to follow the advice of the mindfulness tutor to breathe in to the count of four and admire the landscape, but her phone is vibrating. She fishes it out of the bag. Ben’s name flashes on the screen. They haven’t spoken for over a week: he’d been in London and she’d been in Tipworth and he’d tried calling her, but she had sent the calls straight to voicemail. She hadn’t even told him she was coming here. She presses ‘decline’ and chucks the phone back in her bag. She puts on her shades and tries to be calm and aware and grateful and all the things they’ve been telling her to be, which just ends up making her feel more anxious and like she’s failing even at the most basic tasks. Why is she so hopeless? The prickle of tears again. She’s tired of being this emotional. Maybe she needs to go back to her gynaecologist and insist on some more testosterone. It can’t be right to be feeling so completely out of control all the time, surely? And now the elderly man with the medallion has woken up and is staring at her, so she tries to mop away the tears by sweeping the cuff of her bathrobe underneath her sunglasses. She bites down on her lip, hoping to replace the destabilising mental pain with the more straightforward physical kind.
Footsteps on the jetty. She worries the older man is coming to check on her and braces herself, tightening the belt on her robe. The footsteps come to a halt and a shadow falls over her. She squints and turns,ready to shut down any flirtatious overtures, but it isn’t who she thinks it is. The medallion-sporting guest is still on his lounger, turned onto his side now, sagging buttocks proudly on display. And the man standing behind her is Ben.
‘Hello,’ he says, one hand shielding his eyes from the sun. He’s in a dark blue suit and grey tie, hair swept back from this temples and looking more prime ministerial by the day. ‘My wife, it seems, is a difficult woman to find.’
She is so surprised to see him she momentarily forgets to be angry.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Well, tempting as it was to book in for a full-body colonic …’
‘They don’t actually do colonics,’ she says.
‘… I came to see you. Can we talk? I think we need to.’
Perhaps it’s the IV drip or the contemplation enforced by the scenery or that she’s expended too much energy already on being furious with him, or perhaps it’s just that she is moved by this gesture to track her down and the implication that, after all, he still needs her – but, whatever the reason, she agrees to hear him out. Ben sits on the lounger opposite, facing her. He takes her hands in his. She wants to resist and yet it’s nice to be touching him again.
‘The first thing I want to say is that I’m sorry,’ Ben starts. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Cosima and those bloody muesli-munchers. I think I thought it would all play itself out and she’d get tired of it or they’d get tired of her and I didn’t want to worry you.’
‘You don’t trust me,’ Serena says.
‘No, that’s not it.’
‘I thought we were a team, Ben. It was always meant to be the two of us against everyone else, wasn’t it? And then I find out you’ve known all along about Cosima—’
‘Not all along, it was—’ he begins to protest. She glares at him. He wisely falls silent.
‘You didn’t tell me and that hurt. It bloody well hurt, Ben.’ Serena is infuriated to hear her voice cracking. ‘Now she doesn’t want anything to do with us – our own daughter! And I felt like you didn’t needme anymore. That you were shutting me out. Just like you did with the leadership bid. With Violet.’
She can hear how silly she sounds, how whiney. She can’t remember a time she’s ever spoken with such vulnerability to him. He fell in love with her because she gave the impression of never needing him, the fortress of her emotional self impossible to scale. Now she is weak.
But, strangely, her truthfulness doesn’t seem to repel him. He leans closer in to her.
‘You are the centre of my life,’ Ben says. ‘I can’t do any of this without you. You’ve always been the strong one.’ He brushes his lips against the inside of her wrist. ‘I’ve been distracted and I’ve been thoughtless,’ he continues.
‘And selfish,’ she adds.
‘Selfish, too,’ he agrees. ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you. I thought I was protecting you. And I’m especially sorry about the Violet nonsense. I hate myself for hurting you. I know we’d agreed no dalliances with people in our circle …’
Serena flinches. It was her chance.
‘In a way, I got my revenge for that,’ she says.
Ben raises his eyebrows.
‘I should tell you. Jarvis and I—’
‘Jarvis?’ His face tightens. ‘Fucking Jarvis?’
‘It just … happened. I wanted some affection and attention and he …’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Ben says, pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘My own wife! That little fucker has some weird obsession with the Fitzmaurice women.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He and Fliss had a thing.’
