‘I’m sorry. I had no idea it was so bad.’
They stare at each other, both of them breathless. Then the girls run over and grab her hands and attempt to pull her towards the pool. She tries to shake them off, close to tears.
‘OK. That’s enough,’ Tom says sharply. ‘Leave Amber alone. Off you go.’
‘That’s not fair,’ Sophie says. ‘You throw us in.’
‘You enjoy it.’
Vicky has come up behind her, Josh in one arm, Amber’s sarong in her free hand.
‘It’s a phobia,’ Amber says, taking it and tying it round her hips. ‘I should have explained properly before, but I’ve always been embarrassed about it.’ She sits down on the side of the lounger and hugs her body. ‘I’m sorry, Tom. Did I hurt you?’
‘No more than I deserved.’
24
Friday, 2 April 2010
ON THEIR FINAL evening Robert insists on cooking. After a blokey outing to the market with Tom, he’s doing a Catalan stew with pork and aubergine and the mouth-watering aroma of frying meat, onions and garlic fills the entire house. At seven Tom disappears off to have a soak in the bath and Amber goes up to read with the kids, leaving me alone with Robert. He hands me a glass of wine and pours another one. He seems tense.
‘For the wife,’ he says. ‘Could you take it up?’
I leave mine sitting on the table and carry hers upstairs, grateful for an excuse to go. The master-bedroom door is wide open; the room that ought to have been mine tinged a pinkish orange by the setting sun. I pause, chewing my bottom lip. The moment she leaves I’m going to strip the bed and put on fresh linen, hoover and dust, clean the bathroom and then put my feet up and sink into the pillows. Perhaps it’s mean-spirited, but then perhaps I’m also imagining that the flirting between Amber and Tom is threatening to cross a line.
I shrug and go to say goodnight to the girls, stopping outside their door at the sound of Amber’s voice. She’s telling them a story. Three little princesses called Emily, Sophie and Polly run through woods populated with fairies and goblins, chased by a wicked queen and helped on their way by a fairy and the fairy, of course, is called Amber. The wicked queen is called Tor and she has their kind father held prisoner in her dungeon and won’t let him go unless she is allowed to keep one of the princesses as her own little daughter.
Tor is short for Victoria. It hurts, but I shrug it off. Amber is merely telling them a story they can engage with, by adding our names. It’s fun and it’s working because they love it. I look round the door and a movement to the right of the room snags my attention. It’s a bare foot. A man’s foot. Tom’s foot, in fact. He must be leaning against the bedroom wall, listening to the story and watching Amber’s delicately carved, animated profile, dwelling on her ruby lips and sun-bleached hair. I’m beginning to experience a growing sense of alienation when the two of them are together. I back away and go silently downstairs, only realizing when I enter the kitchen that I’m still holding the warmed stem of her glass. Robert glances at it as he stirs the stew.
‘She’s telling them a story. I didn’t like to disturb her.’
‘Amber’s good at those,’ he replies. ‘I keep telling her she should write them down. She has a wonderful imagination.’
He pauses and I sense that he has more to say. I don’t want him to think I’m avoiding being on my own with him after our heart-to-heart in Jenny’s garden, so I wait. He smiles at me and I smile back and sip my drink.
‘Amber told me,’ he says.
My stomach flips. ‘Told you what?’
‘That she asked you to consider lending us money towards the deposit. I’m so sorry, Vicky. I’m very angry with her and embarrassed. Please forget she ever said it.’
‘Of course I will, but you mustn’t be embarrassed. I’m only sorry we can’t help. I know it’s tough.’ I hesitate, trying to find the most tactful way of putting this. ‘Sometimes I do things that I regret too. I get all worked up about something and for a moment nothing else matters. And I make mistakes. Amber is only human.’
Tom appears, his hair still damp. The sun-caught redness of his skin has mellowed into a healthy tan. When Amber comes in I get the distinct feeling she knew all along that I was up there listening. I look at her and wonder: is this friendship worth fighting for?
‘Very retro,’ Tom comments on her floaty green dress.
‘Camden Lock,’ she explains. ‘It’s seventies.’
Her hair has been messily screwed away from her face and clasped in a tortoiseshell claw. She looks like she’s escaped from one of her fairy tales.
I’m wearing cropped trousers and a pink linen shirt that looked great when I put it on a couple of hours ago but is now crumpled so that the part around my middle is ridged like a paper fan. I pull my tummy in and instinctively run my fingers through my hair. They snag.
While I clean up after Robert, washing the pans and cutting boards, Amber makes a salad, halving an avocado and running the knife in parallel lines through the flesh before scooping it out of the skin with a spoon. She arranges the pale-green crescents on a bed of leaves and adds the tomatoes while Tom mixes up a dressing. Now that I’m consciously looking for signs, they are everywhere. The way she sucks a smear of avocado off her finger, the way she turns her head or lifts her chin, elongating her elegant neck, the way she looks at him and then casts her eyes down. Has it always been like this or am I being paranoid? Not so long ago I was laughing off Jenny’s anxiety, telling her that it’s just the way Amber is. Why aren’t I laughing now?
‘I was thinking,’ Robert says, as we wipe morsels of bread around our plates to scoop up the last of his stew. ‘I know I’ve got to get back because I’m off to Singapore, but there’s no reason Amber and Sophie couldn’t stay on.’
The table goes quiet. I put my glass down carefully and glance at Tom. He doesn’t react.
‘Robert,’ Amber says.
She sounds as though she’s chiding him, but I suspect it’s for show.
‘Don’t you have to be back at work?’ I say.
Robert turns to me with a pained smile, and I get the message loud and clear. This was not his idea. Odd. It isn’t like Robert to be disloyal.
‘No,’ he says. ‘She has next week off as well, don’t you, Amber?’
She nods but doesn’t say a word, leaving her husband floundering.
‘It would help me because I wouldn’t feel so bad about leaving them during the holidays. And Sophie has been so happy this week, hanging out with your girls. It would be a shame to split them up. Anyway, it’s up to you two. This is your holiday and we certainly don’t want to encroach where we’re not wanted.’ His voice peters out.