Opal held his gaze for a moment, searching his face maybe for the glint of remorse that didn’t quite materialise.
She laughed, but it was a cold sound. She began to gather her clothing from the floor. ‘I guess I should commend you for your dedication to the craft. You are an artist before everything, Johan. A true artist. Maybe that’s the part I could never hack, being a selfish arsehole.’
Johan understood that he was supposed to be hurt by this comment, or even be angered by it. But he didn’t feel much of anything, apart from the satisfaction of being called a true artist. He knew enough by now to know that he shouldn’t laugh at Opal, even though her little tantrum was somewhat amusing.
He’d once heard that empathy was the most importantquality for an artist. He’d thought that preposterous then, as he did now. If he was to really capture the human experience – the dark, the deep and the ecstatic – how could he allow himself to be distracted by empathy? Empathy would require him to reach for the tissue, or the bandage, or a comforting hugbeforehe reached for the camera, and that would mean the shot would be lost.
‘You should try it sometime, Opal; it’s fucking liberating,’ he called as Opal stormed out the room, slamming the door as she went.
Chapter 46
Heather lay in bed, her racing thoughts chasing away any prospects of sleep.
It had been the same story all week. Heather lying in bed each night, as the end of the competition grew ever closer, and instead of coming up with any decent ideas for a final piece she would instead go over and over the details of their last conversation. Thinking not of what materials she might need, or how to compose her artwork but instead trying to work out exactly what she could or should have said to Ruby inthatmoment to stop the derailment.
On a couple of occasions she was sure that she heard footsteps outside her door. She found herself holding her breath, hoping and maybe dreading that it was Ruby. It never was.
Usually this sort of discontent was good for her work, but this time around she could find no solace even in that. With each passing day, the prospect of being able to create anything felt vanishingly possible. Mostly she spent hours mixing cement aimlessly, submerging various body parts into plaster and chain smoking.
Now it was only two days before the final showcase andHeather had nothing.Fuck you, Ruby.How had she managed to so easily get distracted from the life-changing pot of money at the end of this farcical experiment? How was she going to explain to her sister that she’d thrown it all away because of one pretty girl?
During the days when Heather remained confined, unproductively, to her studio, she would occasionally sneak into the house to help herself to the leftovers from the meal she had avoided. She found herself often hoping that she had mistimed one of these trips and she would bump into Ruby and then they would be forced into a confrontation. But thankfully, or frustratingly, they had managed not to cross paths at all.
Heather had been snubbed by indecisive straight women before, and she had never taken it this hard. But then again this was different in a few ways. The first being that there was just no way Ruby was straight. Heather understood that a hatred of men did not a lesbian make, but Heather felt sure that Ruby could never feel content with a man as a partner. There was too much contempt there, too much generational disappointment.
And then there was the glaring fact that Ruby wasn’t like anyone she had ever met before.
She was fierce, and almost as angry at the world as Heather was herself. Ruby was of course beautiful, but more than that she was smart enough to understand her own beauty for what it was: a political tool and a curse. Ruby had a way of seeing not just the world around her, but also the way that the world saw her. Sometimes she could harness it beautifully, and other times it drove her mad.
Heather had been thrilled at the chance to understand such a mind, to have access to it, and maybe even to soften its hardest edges with love.
Heather sat up suddenly. Clarity suddenly flooded through her. She had not entirely considered the possibility that she loved Ruby, mostly because it was absurd. But then this whole place, this house, this summer had been wholly absurd, and now that she was thinking it, it made more sense than much of anything had made in a while. Heather felt strangely calm for the first time in weeks, the serenity that comes with knowing, rather than thinking.
She got out of bed and pulled a jumper on. She needed to see Ruby. She wasn’t sure yet if she was going to admit her feelings. It seemed more likely that doing so would scare Ruby away, but she at least needed to clear the air. Maybe if she could show Ruby she wasn’t angry anymore, if they could swallow their pride and forgive, they could work something out. Heather felt hopeful, and excited by the thought of seeing Ruby’s face again.
She knocked lightly on Ruby’s door at first, but when there was no answer, she rapped her knuckles louder against the wood. She waited, impatient now for a reunion, wondering why she had put this off for so many days. She imagined how they would one day joke about how stubborn they both were.
Still there was no answer. Heather gently opened the door, but the room was dark. Inside the bed was unmade, as though someone had recently left it. Heather headed downstairs and looked for Ruby in the kitchen. And then the dining room and the orangery. Back upstairs and turning right, Heather checked the library, but Ruby was nowhere to be found. AsHeather walked back towards the east wing of the house, where all the guests’ bedrooms were, she lingered at the junction. To her right were her own bedroom and Ruby’s empty one. To her left, the boys’ quarters. It was in that split second that she heard the grunt of a man’s voice.
Heather was frozen in place as she realised in horror what the medley of sounds she could hear meant. The rhythmic sound of a headboard against the wall, the soft moans of a woman’s pleasure, and then Johan’s unmistakable timbre. She couldn’t make out the words exactly but she could guess the genre of filth he was muttering.
Heather felt sick. She rushed back to her room and locked her door, as though that might protect her from the truth of what she had just witnessed. And the worst part? She only had herself to blame really. Had it not been her who told Ruby explicitly to go back to his bed?
Chapter 47
You should try it sometime, Opal; it’s fucking liberating.Johan’s words were the first thing to rattle around Opal’s foggy head as she opened her eyes to the bright morning light pouring in through unclosed curtains.
The antics of the night before came next: the memories from dinner, and then after … She blushed at the thought of them, and then she remembered the argument itself.
She found that in the light of day, Opal couldn’t summon the rage she had felt the night before. She felt too … satiated to sustain anger. Opal stretched, and despite everything a smile spread across her face. Gareth may have been right about a good fuck doing wonders for the soul. She had to give that to Johan: he was a passionate lover, if a little distant. That too, though, had been exhilarating. It had been so long since she had been theobjectof somebody’s desire. Perhaps there was something to be said for the kind of sex that was all about flesh.
In the waning years of her and Martin’s sex life, it had felt as though the act was about everything but. It was about commitment, about duty, about loss. When was the last time it had been just about pleasure? She couldn’t recall.
Opal hauled herself out of bed, downed a glass of waterand popped a couple of aspirin. It was the final day for her guests to finish their pieces and tomorrow was judgement day. It was becoming increasingly urgent and impossible to ignore the fact that she needed to figure out some way of picking a winner. It was a daunting task. She’d wanted to make a point of all art forms being equal, but now that it was her job to compare them, she realised what an impossible proposition she’d set up.
She made her way down to the orangery, and only then realised how early it still was, not even 6 a.m. Breakfast was still a couple of hours away and so she decided to make the most of the soft light, and set up her easel.
She positioned a bowl of fruit in front of her, pulling her kimono tightly around her as she studied it: the curve and colour of the plum, the freckles of the strawberry, the fuzz of the peach. She didn’t notice the figure wandering across the lawn until he turned the latch and pushed through the large glass door.
