A health resort. Yoga and hot springs. He didn’t get it. But Jessica had said they needed to do something dramatic and this would fix things. She said they needed to detox their minds and their bodies to save their marriage. They were going to eat organic lettuce and get ‘couples counselling’. It was going to be ten days of pure torture.
Some celebrity couple had come to this place and saved their marriage. They had ‘achieved inner peace’ and got back in touch with their ‘true selves’. What a load of crap. They may as well have handed over their money to Nigerian email scammers. Ben had a horrible feeling the celebrity couple might have got together on The Bachelorette. Jessica loved celebrities. He used to think it was sweet, a dumb interest for a smart girl. But now she was making too many life decisions based on what celebrities did, or what it was reported they did; it was probably all crap anyway, they were probably getting paid to support products on their Instagram accounts. And there was Jessica, his poor innocent, hopeful Jessica, soaking it all up.
Now it was like she thought she was one of those people. She was imagining herself at those trashy red-carpet events. Every time she got her photo taken these days she put her hand on her hip, like she was doing the actions for ‘I’m a Little Teapot’, then turned side on and thrust out her jaw with this maniacal smile. It was the weirdest thing. And the time she took setting up these photographs. The other day she had spent forty-two minutes (he’d timed it) taking a photo of her feet.
One of their biggest fights recently had been about one of her Instagram posts. It was a photo of her in a bikini top, leaning over, pushing her arms together so her new boobs looked even bigger and pouting her puffy new lips at the camera. She’d asked what he thought of the photo, her face all hopeful, and because of her hopeful face he hadn’t said what he really thought – that it looked like she was advertising a cheap escort service. He’d just shrugged and said, ‘It’s okay.’
Her hopeful face fell. You’d think he’d called her a name. Next thing he knew she was screaming at him (these days she could go from zero to a hundred in a second) and he felt sucker-punched, unable to understand what had just happened. So he’d walked away while she was in the middle of yelling and went upstairs to play the Xbox. He thought walking away was a good thing to do. A mature, manly thing to do. To disengage and give her time to calm down. He kept getting these things wrong. She ran up the stairs after him and grabbed the back of his t-shirt before he reached the top.
‘Look at me!’ she screamed. ‘You don’t even look at me anymore!’
And it killed him to hear her say that, because it was true. He avoided looking at her. He was trying really hard to get over that. There were men who stayed married to women who were disfigured by accidents, burns or scars or whatever. It shouldn’t make a difference that Jessica was disfigured by her own hand. Not literally her own hand. Her own credit card. Wilful disfigurement.
And then all her stupid friends encouraged her. ‘Oh my God, Jessica, you look incredible.’
He wanted to yell at them, ‘Are you blind? She looks like a chipmunk!’
The thought of separating from Jessica was like having his guts ripped out, but these days being married to Jessica was like having his guts ripped out. Whatever way you looked at it: guts ripped out.
If this retreat worked, if they got back to the way they used to be, it was even worth the damage to the car. Obviously, it was worth it. Jessica was meant to be the mother of his children – his future children.
He thought of the day of the robbery, two years ago now. He remembered the way her face – it was still her own beautiful face back then – had crumpled like a little kid’s, and the rage he’d felt. He’d wanted to find those fuckwits and smash their faces.
If not for the robbery, if not for the fuckwits, they wouldn’t be at this place. He wouldn’t have the car, but at least he wouldn’t be stuck here for the next ten days.
On balance, he still wanted to smash their faces.
‘Ben!’
Jessica beckoned him over. She was all social and smiley, like they hadn’t just been yelling at each other. She was so good at that. They could drive to a party and fight all the way, not say a word to each other as they walked up someone’s stairs, and then the door of the apartment opens and – bang – different person. Laughing, joking, teasing him, touching him, taking selfies, like they were so having sex tonight, when they were so not having sex tonight.
Then, back in the car on the way home, she’d restart the fight. It was like flicking a switch on and off. It freaked him out. ‘It’s just good manners,’ she told him. ‘You don’t take your fight to a party. It’s no-one else’s business.’
He straightened up, adjusted his cap and went over to stand beside Jessica to perform like her monkey.
‘This is my husband, Ben,’ said Jessica. ‘Ben, this is Frances. She’s doing the same retreat as us. Well, probably not exactly the same . . .’
The lady smiled up at him from the driver’s seat. ‘That’s a very fancy car, Ben,’ she said. She spoke as if she already knew him. Her voice was snuffly and hoarse, the tip of her nose bright red. ‘It’s like something from a movie.’ He could see straight down the huge chasm of her cleavage; he couldn’t help it, there was literally nowhere else to look. It wasn’t bad, but she was old, so it wasn’t good either. She wore red lipstick and had a lot of curly gold-coloured hair pulled back in a ponytail. She reminded him of one of his mum’s tennis friends. He liked his mum’s tennis friends – they were uncomplicated and didn’t expect him to say much – but he preferred them not to have cleavage.
‘Thanks,’ he said, trying to focus on her very shiny, friendly eyes. ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘What sort of car is it?’ asked Frances.
‘It’s a Lamborghini.’
‘Ooh la la – a Lamborghini!’ She grinned up at him. ‘This here is a Peugeot.’
‘Uh, yeah, I know,’ he said, pained.
‘Don’t think much of the Peugeot?’ She tilted her head to one side.
‘It’s a heap of shit,’ said Ben.
‘Ben!’ said Jessica, but Frances laughed delightedly.
‘I love my little Peugeot,’ purred Frances as she caressed her steering wheel.
‘Well,’ said Ben. ‘Each to their own.’
‘Frances says nobody is answering the intercom,’ said Jessica. ‘She’s been sitting out here waiting for twenty minutes.’
Jessica was using her posh new voice, where she made each word sound as fat and round as an apple. She was using it almost exclusively now, except when she really lost her temper or got upset, like last night, when she forgot to be posh and yelled at him, ‘Why can’t you just be happy? Why are you ruining this?’
‘Have you phoned them?’ he said now to the cleavage lady. ‘Maybe there’s something wrong with the intercom.’
‘I’ve left a message,’ said Frances.
‘I wonder if this is like a test,’ said Jessica. ‘Maybe it’s part of our treatment plan.’ She lifted her hair up to cool her neck. Sometimes, when she spoke normally, when she was just being herself, he could forget the frozen forehead, the blowfish lips, the puffy cheeks, the camel eyelashes (‘eyelash extensions’), the fake hair (‘hair extensions’) and fake boobs and there, for just a moment, was his sweet Jessica, the Jessica he’d known since high school.
‘I thought that too!’ said Frances.
Ben turned to look at the intercom.
‘I could hardly read the instructions,’ said Frances. ‘They were so tiny.’
Ben could read them perfectly well. He punched in the code and pressed the green button.
‘I will be absolutely furious if it works for you,’ said Frances.
A tinny voice sprang from the intercom. ‘Namaste and welcome to Tranquillum House. How may I help you?’
‘What the hell?’ Frances mouthed in comical disbelief.
Ben shrugged. ‘Just needed a man’s touch.’
‘Oh you,’ she said. She reached out of the car and flicked his arm with her hand.