I wake at 4 a.m. I don’t know where I am. The first thing I see are the numbers blinking on the little alarm beside the bed. At first I think I’m at home, but then I realise it’s too quiet for that: in the city there’d be that background music of sirens and car engines, however late at night. I’m not sure what has woken me. I don’t actually remember falling asleep. I’m still in the jumper and slippers, I realise, lying on top of the coverlet. The light is on, in the hallway. Did I leave it on? I can’t remember.
Then I see a figure standing in the dark by the doorway. I scrabble backwards, away from him. Then he steps forward and I see that it’s Julien. His cheeks are red from the cold. His eyes are oddly blank.
I sit up. ‘Julien?’ My voice comes out small and reedy; it does not sound like my own. I see him start at the sound of my voice. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I went for a walk.’
‘In the middle of the night?’
‘Well yes – to clear my head. Those fucking pills – and then I got the come-down, started worrying about everything. I walked the whole way around the loch.’ He runs a hand through his hair. ‘Oh, and I saw that weirdo, the gamekeeper.’
‘You did?’ I remember now how unnerved I was by his silhouette in the lit-up window on my walk back.
‘He was creeping around the edge of the loch – coming out of the really dense bit of forest. He had dogs with him. What on earth could he have been doing? Honestly, I think he might be a bit of a nut job. I think you should stay away from him.’
I am both touched and irritated by this chauvinistic display of protection. At least it shows he cares, I think, then I catch myself. Have I become so uncertain of his affection recently that I have become that needy?
‘He’s not the one to worry about,’ I say.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Mark. He came on to me in the loo. He grabbed my arm. Here.’ I pull up the sleeve of the jumper to show him. ‘He said he knew your dirty little secret. Yes, that’s how he put it.’
I see him flinch.
‘Does he mean what I think he does?’ I ask. ‘Did you tell him? We’ve gone over this before, Julien, you can’t tell anyone. It would destroy everything. And don’t tell me I’m being paranoid. The moment you decided to use me you made me part of it, like it or not.’
There is a longish pause. Then, ‘Look, Manda,’ Julien says, pushing his hand through his hair and sighing, ‘we all had a lot to drink … and then the pills—’
I feel a flush of anger. ‘Are you saying I’m making this up? That you don’t believe me?’
‘No – no. What I’m saying is that he might not have really meant it, to hurt you, that is. He’s a big guy, sometimes he just throws his weight around a bit too much. I mean, how long have we known him?’
‘Hang on a second,’ I say, ‘it sounds to me like you’re defending him.’
‘I’m not, I promise I’m not. But … look, is it really worth spoiling everything for ourselves because of his stupidity? He’s one of my oldest friends. Don’t you think we should give him the benefit of the doubt?’
I suddenly see what he’s doing. He isn’t protecting Mark. He’s protecting himself. Because if Mark really does know his – our – secret, and Julien challenges him, Mark might use it against him.
I should be outraged. But suddenly I just feel very tired.
He’s undressed now. He takes out his pyjamas. They’re very chic ones, a present from my mother, who likes to be up on any new style trend: a Christmas purchase from Mr Porter. Nevertheless, there was a time – not so long ago – when he wouldn’t have worn anything in bed, not even boxers. We liked to lie skin to skin.
‘Don’t,’ I say, as he goes to shrug the trousers on. He stands for a minute looking particularly naked and confused. ‘It’s cold,’ he says.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘But you can put them on … afterwards.’ I suddenly want the comfort of his arms around me, his weight on top of me, his mouth on mine: I want to obliterate that odd, creeping feeling I’ve had since this evening.
For emphasis I pull the jumper over my head. I’m naked underneath. I lie back and let my legs fall open, so he can be in no doubt about what I have in mind. ‘Come here,’ I say, beckoning him.
But he makes a kind of grimace, his mouth pulling down at the edges. ‘I’m really tired, Manda.’
I feel my skin prickle with the chill of his rejection.
In the first few years of knowing each other, of being together, it was always me who turned him down. Perhaps just twice in eight years it was the other way around: the exception that proved the rule, when he had the flu, say, or an interview the next day. But lately I’ve been keeping count. The last ten times, perhaps more, it has been him.
I have two separate underwear drawers at home. One is for everyday: my M&S undies and bras, made exclusively for comfort. Julien used to cringe in horror at my beige T-shirt bras as they came out of the wash. Then another drawer: froths of Agent Provocateur and Kiki de Montparnasse, Myla, and Coco de Mer. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands of pounds’ worth of silk and lace. The sort of lingerie that is not meant to be worn under clothes, that is meant only to grace your flesh for a few minutes before it is whipped off. I realised, packing for this trip, that I had not worn any of those pieces for as long as I could remember. I was half-tempted to chuck them out: they seemed to be mocking me. Instead, I gathered the whole lot into my arms and dumped them into the suitcase. Armour, for a desperate – last ditch? – offensive.
I suppose it makes a kind of sense that Julien’s gone off sex. He has a lot on his plate – though most of it’s his own fault – and there’s been my insistence on getting pregnant. But here, in this beautiful wilderness, fuelled by champagne and pills, I thought it would be different. I feel a tiny tremor of fear as he lies down next to me and rolls away to face the wall.
I move towards him, to borrow some of his warmth. I reach out a hand to touch the back of his head. My palm comes away damp. ‘Your hair,’ I say.
‘What?’ His voice doesn’t even sound sleepy. I wonder if he’s been pretending, lying there awake, like me.
‘It’s damp, here, at the back.’
‘Oh, well – it started raining on the way over.’
As I lie there I think of the clear sky and my walk to the cabin, and think the clouds must have come over very quickly for it to have started raining. It’s too cold to rain anyway, surely. It would have been snow. I’m suddenly sure he’s lying. Though what about, and why, I have no idea. I tell myself that there’s no point in worrying. I already know his worst secret, after all.
It was about a year ago that Julien said, very casually, one evening, ‘I’ve got a friend. He’d love you to design a website for him. He’s left the City and he’s trying to set up a business. What do you reckon?’
Did I know, even then, that there was something off about it? It’s only with hindsight that I can see the way he asked it was a little too casual. That he was drumming his fingers against the kitchen counter: a direct contrast to his tone. That he would hardly look at me as he spoke. There was also the fact that he had never up to that point seemed to think much of my skills in website design, or my little business idea: to set it up as a company, seek out commissions. He had called it my ‘project’, as though I were making a quilt.