“I’m not up to anything!”
I crawl to the side of the swamp and dip my head in the fresh water of the adjoining pond, trying to calm my adrenaline rush. OK. Regroup. This was not the plan. I have to keep it together. This may be Demeter, but she’s a guest too. I cannot be having a mud fight with her. I mean, it really wouldn’t sound good on TripAdvisor.
Although—who’s to believe her word against mine? You know. If it came to it.
Feeling steadier, I lift my head from the fresh water. My face is clean, all traces of mud gone. My baseball cap’s disappeared somewhere, but never mind. I pull my dripping hair back and scrunch it into a knot. Right. Back to my professional tour-leader act.
“OK.” I turn to Demeter. “Well. I think we should finish the nature walk there. I do apologize for any—”
“Wait,” she says, her voice suddenly quivering. “Wait right there. Cath.”
My stomach does a loop the loop of terror.
“No, Cat.” Demeter corrects herself, her eyes like gimlets. “Cat. Isn’t it?”
“Who’s Cat?” I manage to keep in control of my voice.
“Don’t give me that!” Demeter sounds so incandescent, I almost feel my skin shrivel. “Cat Brenner. It’s you, isn’t it? I can see it now.”
I’ve wrecked my disguise, I realize with a sickening thud. The hat and the makeup and the curly hair. All gone. How could I have been so stupid?
For a few petrified seconds, my mind gallops around my options. Deny…run away…other…
“OK, it’s me,” I say at last, trying to sound nonchalant. “I changed my nickname. Is that against the law?”
A crow flaps past, cawing, but neither of us moves. We’re both standing motionless in the swamp, covered in mud, staring at each other as though life is on pause. My blood is pulsing in terror, but I feel a strange relief too. At least now she’ll know. She’ll know.
Demeter has her swivelly-eyed, has-the-world-gone-mad look. She keeps peering at me, then frowning, then going all distant, as though she’s consulting her memory.
Things could go anywhere from here. Anywhere. I feel almost exhilarated.
“OK, I don’t understand,” says Demeter, and I can tell she’s trying to stay calm, with difficulty. “I don’t. I’m trying to understand, I’m trying to get my head round this, but I can’t. What the hell is going on?”
“Nothing’s going on.”
“You engineered me into the swamp!” Demeter’s starting to sound agitated. “You told me to hurry so I would fall in. Do you have something against me?”
She looks so ignorant, so oblivious, that I draw breath. Do I have something against her? Where do I start?
“And catching me with that stick!” she exclaims, before I can respond. “That was on purpose too. This whole morning has been a vendetta, hasn’t it? Has this whole week been a vendetta?” I can see her thoughts working, tracking back, analyzing everything, until her eyes snap with suspicion. “Oh my God. Is Vedari a real thing?”
“Of course it’s not a real bloody thing!” I explode with pent-up frustration. “Only a totally pretentious early adopter like you would fall for something like that. It’s pitiful! I just had to mention Gwyneth Paltrow and you were all over it!”
“But the website!”
“I know.” I nod with satisfaction. “Good, wasn’t it?”
I feel a shaft of triumph as I see her face dropping. Ha. Gotcha.
“I see,” says Demeter, in the same controlled, even tones. “So you’ve taken me for a fool. Well, congratulations, Cat, or Katie, or whatever you call yourself. But what I still don’t understand is, why? Is this because you lost your job? Are you blaming me for that? Because, one, that was not my fault personally, and, two, as I said to you at the time, losing your job is really not the end of the world.”
She draws herself up tall, despite the swamp, casting herself as the tolerant, put-upon boss figure, and my rage simmers up again into a froth.
“You know something, Demeter?” I say, casting around for my own version of dignity. “When you don’t have any funds and you’d rather die than ask your parents for cash, then losing your job pretty much is the end of the world.”
“Nonsense!” says Demeter with asperity. “You’ll find another job.”
“I’ve applied and applied! I’ve got nothing! At least, nothing that pays. But I’m not like Flora; I can’t afford to work for no pay. All I ever wanted was to live in London, and that day my dream got squashed, and of course that wasn’t your fault. But it was your fault that you didn’t even remember if you’d let me go or not!” My voice rises in anguish. “That was my life you held in your hands, and you didn’t even remember! You were like, Ooh, unimportant junior person whose name I can’t recall, have I ruined your life today or not? Please remind me.”
“All right,” says Demeter after a pause. “I accept that. My behavior was…unfortunate. Things were very difficult for me at that time—”
“How could they be difficult?” I throw any remaining caution to the winds. “You’ve got the perfect bloody life! You’ve got everything!”
“What are you talking about?” Demeter stares at me.
“Oh, come on!” I explode. “Don’t look at me like that! You have the perfect life! You’ve got the job, the husband, the lover, the kids, the money, the looks, the trendy clothes, the celebrity friends, the invitations to parties, the haircut, the Farrow and Ball front door, the gorgeous stone steps, the holidays…” I run out of breath. “I mean, you’ve got it all. And you stand there and look at me like What perfect life?”
There’s another silence. I can hear my own breath coming, short and fast; I have never felt such tension in these woods, never. Then Demeter comes wading through the swamp to me. Her face is still plastered with mud, but I can see the fury simmering in her eyes.
“OK, Katie,” she spits. “You want my perfect life? You want to know about my perfect life? I’m tired all the time. All the time. My husband and I have a hellish struggle balancing two jobs, but we need the money because, yes, we bought ourselves a big family house with a big, crippling mortgage, and, yes, we redecorated it, which was probably a mistake, but everyone makes mistakes, right? I go to restaurant launches to network for my job. I sit on judging panels, ditto. Parties, ditto. I wear heels that give me backache and I look at my watch every half hour, wishing I could escape.”
I stare at her, dumbstruck. I’m remembering the Net-A-Porter boxes, the photos on Instagram, the upbeat tweets. Demeter here, there, and everywhere, being sparkling and brilliant. It never in a million years occurred to me that she might not enjoy it.
“I never have time to see my friends,” Demeter continues without missing a beat. “Every time I come home late, my children give me a hard time. I’ve missed so many moments of their lives, I’d weep if I could, but I’m beyond weeping over that particular issue. I’m an aging woman in a young people’s game, and one day that’s going to lose me my job. My hair is going gray, as you know. And I think I’m getting dementia. So fuck off with your ‘perfect life.’?”
“Dementia?” I stare at her.
“Oh, and those steps you mentioned? I hate those fucking steps more than anything in the world.” Demeter starts shaking all over. She seems to have reached a whole new level of anger. “Have you ever tried wheeling a pram up a flight of ten steps? Because it’s a nightmare. Those steps have been the bane of my existence. Do you know what happened the Christmas Eve that my daughter was five? I was bringing in the presents from the car and carrying them up the icy steps when I slipped and fell. I spent the whole of Christmas Day in hospital.”
“Oh,” I say nervously.
“So don’t talk to me about my fucking steps.”