Muddy Waters (31 page)

‘No. No, it's not that,' he'd admitted but just as she'd thought he might be about to shed some explanatory light he'd changed his mind and gone stomping out to the summerhouse from where he'd forgotten that all his work had been removed for the weekend. Perhaps it was that, perhaps without his office he felt ousted and rootless, Stella concluded as she rowed round the northern tip of the island and headed back down towards the rowing club and the ferry again.

It was the thing Abigail had said, that was what was troubling him. Adrian sat on the wall by the river, wishing he knew quite how to interpret it. It was when he'd answered the phone, when Stella had gone off to the Post Office. He'd forgotten that he was supposed to be avoiding it. He'd felt stupid, nervously standing next to the kitchen phone and awkwardly pretending not to notice its ring while Ruth, an extra couple of yards away from it, got up from a chair with dramatic fuss and flounce, crossed the room to answer it and then asked him with deserved sarcasm what his last slave died of.

‘Well, it's never usually for me anyway,' he'd tried as an excuse to Ruth in what he thought was a jokey sit-com father-of-teenagers way. But of course this time when it rang, with no one else around and the possibility, indeed likelihood, that it would be his agent, Adrian had no choice.

‘Oh, I did so hope it would be you,' he'd heard Abigail's voice with a brittle but horribly intimate laugh. ‘I think it's time, now, don't you?' she then said mysteriously while he wondered what it was time for. He caught himself looking at his watch, thinking that there might be a train he should meet, or another he should catch.

‘And, of course, this time it's yes,' she said, the laugh sounding through every breath she took. The laughter made him feel there was an uneasy joke that only she was party to. If there was, it was obviously on him. She sounded odd, manic. She might have thought it funny to put a bomb under his wheel-arch, send a circular to the neighbours telling the shaming truth about his job, anything. Anything but, please God, don't tell Stella about that night . . .

‘Yes to
what
?' he asked, terrified as to what the question had been that she was saying yes to. He couldn't think of one. He forced himself to go back over the best-forgotten facts. All he could remember was that he'd asked her if she was comfortable enough, that night under the willows (the recent night on the Lord's picnic rug, not the long-ago one on the Afghan coat – that had been back in the days before such middle-aged concern), and he'd asked her in the pub if she fancied a bag of dry roasted nuts. She hadn't, as far as he could recall, found either question particularly hilarious, and they hadn't been particularly memorable. If there were any nuts to say yes to now, they were obviously going to be
his
.

He was being horrible to Stella and he hated himself for it. She hadn't done anything to deserve his mood, she was just
there
, being normal and wonderful and all the things he loved her for. She drifted round the house, looking better than she had in ages and he didn't even dare touch her. It felt all wrong, after what he'd done. He felt like someone who'd gone and won a new car the day after they'd lost their licence. None of the characters in his books ever went through all this – as their creator, and mindful of sales, he'd obviously had to make them far better endowed with penis than with conscience. Right now, he wondered if he'd be able to write one of his tawdry, guilt-free books, ever again.

‘Cup of tea?' Stella put a mug down next to him, climbed onto the wall and sat beside him, waiting for him to be companionable, out of his black mood, back to normal. He shifted up slightly, scared of being thigh to thigh and feeling her tempting warm skin. Perhaps it would be better if I just came out and told her, fast and honest and over in a second, he thought, like having teeth pulled. But who exactly
would
feel better after – probably not Stella, certainly not him, not for long, not after she'd told him to get lost, started divorce proceedings, changed the locks and thrown his computer into the river.

‘Do
try
and be nice to her, won't you,' Stella began, ‘it's not for long, and the children are quite sweet. They've no idea their daddy has gone off and left them.'

Adrian smiled, rather sadly she thought, but then said bitterly, ‘There you go again, trying to get everyone to be nice to each other. You'd live in a real little Pollyanna world if you could, wouldn't you?'

‘
Bastard
,' Stella suddenly shouted at him, viciously knocking his mug of tea out of his hand into the river. Adrian licked at his scalded hand and peered down in blank surprise, watching the blue and white mug drifting through the shallow water to join the riverbed debris. Stella climbed back off the wall, ‘You're so knowing and
smug,
Adrian. What's so Pollyanna about having your marriage break up? If it happened to me I hope
I'd
have friends who'd take a bit of care of me, not give me three days max, followed by making it clear it was chucking-out time.'

She was halfway up the garden by the time Adrian thought of something to say. It was a feeble ‘Sorry' that probably didn't carry that far. The kitchen door slammed and Stella disappeared, leaving Adrian alone on the wall, feeling a lot sorrier about the wasted tea and lost mug than he did about his attitude to Abigail.

Ruth and Melissa struggled from Toby's car with the first pair of dressmaker's dummies, borrowed after much persuading, from the college's textiles department. ‘How many are there? How many trips will this take?' Melissa gasped as she hauled a stained and torn old beige torso onto the ferry. ‘Pity they don't have hands, then they could hold onto the safety rail all by themselves,' she added, putting an arm round one to steady it. ‘They don't seem too steady on their feet, I think they're pissed. Keep still, Mabel!' she ordered with a giggle, as the body tottered on its stand.

‘Sorry. There's only the other two back at the college – and Toby said he could manage those on his own,' Ruth said, plonking another one down next to the first. ‘As soon as I saw them I thought they were just so perfect for necklaces, or brooches or whatever. They're genuine old pre-some-war, not those tacky plasticky things with two hundred little screws that you get now.'

‘Necklaces I grant you, brooches definitely,' Melissa commented, ‘bit bloody useless for earrings though,' she said, patting the headless neck. ‘They're gross, like rotting old bodies the river police wash up.' Melissa turned the ferry handle while Ruth pretended to dance with her dummy. ‘Come fly with me, let's float down to Peru . . .' she crooned to its rigid body. ‘Maybe I should have music in the summerhouse too. It's so awful looking at things in complete silence. When I'm in a quiet shop my tummy always rumbles, extra loud, does yours?'

‘Mm,' Melissa agreed vaguely. ‘Look, over there, getting out of that silver Merc by Toby's garage, isn't that the friend of your mother's that was staying here before?'

‘Oh shit. Yes it is. I'd forgotten she was coming back. They've turfed Toby out of his room so her brats can have it. That Abigail cow is going to be just across the landing from me. I don't know if I can stand it.' Ruth jumped off the ferry, dragging the dummy with her. ‘I wish we could cut the ferry chain, then she couldn't get over here – but then neither could all the people who are going to make me rich. Tell you what, I'm going to sleep in the summerhouse till she's gone again. I'll tell Mum I'm guarding my work.' She giggled, ‘Just me and these headless women.'

‘What do you think?' Willow asked Stella who had called at the gallery to see how the exhibition was looking. At least one sample of every artist's best work was included, both as a taster for the public and to show off the wide range of talents. The press preferred everything to be in one place too, then they didn't have to trek from house to house pretending they were really fascinated. Charlotte's scenes of the town made the place look bright and jolly and Enzo's ‘First Supper,' a massive construction of agonized metal and rotting wood, extended almost to the ceiling. Stella wondered how on earth he'd got it in at all, and then noticed large strangely workmanlike bolts connecting the top half to the bottom. The stark long white side wall opposite the door (prime site, as ever) was hung, at intervals large enough to suggest he'd been seriously slacking, with Bernard's big canvases covered in splody nudes of his various teenage models. Some, she thought, were on the candid side, though she didn't want to appear prudish. It was just that these girls were so obviously very young. But she supposed if it was artistically essential for a girl to spread her legs
that
far (congratulations to her for even being able to, in the one where a leg was held above her head against a wall, like someone warming up for a vigorous cancan) it would seem philistine to complain. At the far end of the room, hanging like bas-relief on the white wall, was Willow's collection of plaster bottoms.

‘They've turned out different from how I'd first imagined them. But of course that's
art
, it's all about
progression
in concept and application,' she explained earnestly. ‘I meant to do all sorts of things with them, casting some in bronze maybe, or chocolate, whatever the owner of each of them suggested.' She looked round towards the door to see if anyone lurked and listened, ‘Ellen MacIver, now
hers
was crying out to be painted exactly like a wet dishcloth, don't you think? A
trompe I'oeil
of a J-cloth perhaps? But in the end, I just thought, well white plaster – it's so honest. This way you can admire the differences in shape and structure without being distracted by fancy techniques. And I haven't had much time, of course.' She smiled a secret little smile. Stella watched her hands stroking lovingly over one of the plaster buttocks. It was the smoothest and tightest and its solid muscle tone could be seen clearly. ‘It's your Toby's,' Willow suddenly said, startling Stella, ‘I put it next to Giuliana's, hers is just like a peach, don't you think?' She patted it softly and added in a loud whisper, ‘I hope putting them together will work. They do
go
so well, don't they.' Stella could only agree, though the ‘going' that they did so well, just lately, had started to involve the studying of maps. The night before, there they'd been at the kitchen table, talking about whether Luxemburg was worth a visit, and whether it was politically all right to have a quick look at Turkey. It made her sad, especially with Adrian being so distant, to think that her son was now seriously organizing his long-awaited getaway. Like Ruth in the pub, she realized that this was a true leaving of home, that he would never really settle with them back on the island again. She wanted to talk it over with Adrian, see if he felt the same but he continued to be jittery and unapproachable. It was just possible, she thought, more in hope than in certainty, that he was feeling the same despondency about Toby's going, and perhaps not wanting to dump that feeling on her if she hadn't already felt it. Interpreting his mood that way felt like straw-clutching.

She wandered home from the boathouse, slowly and miserably. She knew she'd get over Toby going away, convince herself in time that it was a natural process, she wasn't really losing him. What crossed her mind though now, was that she might instead be losing Adrian and that, she was sure, she wouldn't get over.

‘Stella! Lovely to see you again!' Abigail was at the gate when she got back, about two hours earlier than she'd said she'd arrive. She rushed up and hugged Stella. ‘The children are
enchanted
by the whole place, adored the ferry and Venetia's thrilled to see her cat again.'

Stella smiled as brightly as she could, trying to be welcoming while her heart sank at the prospect of Adrian's venomous hostility to Abigail. God, she thought, how long can a weekend be?

‘Have they found their room?' she asked, resorting to neutral hospitality. ‘Will they be all right with Toby's shambolic mess? I did try to get him to tidy it up. He's promised to stay somewhere else for the weekend.' Leading Abigail into the kitchen, she said, ‘Let's have a drink,' glancing at the clock and not caring that it was only four o'clock. She pulled a bottle of white wine from the fridge.

‘This is my fault, isn't it,' Abigail said, reaching into the cupboard over the sink for glasses, ‘giving you afternoon drinks at my place, decadence by the pool.'

Stella's bad temper snapped, ‘No it's
not
. I can make decisions myself, you know. I'm not some easily-led child. I just fancy a drink
now,
that's all.'

Abigail looked contrite and pulled up a chair close to Stella. She put an arm round her shoulder and looked at her closely, ‘I'm sorry. Look what's wrong? Is it us being here, because if it is . . .'

‘No. Sorry, it's nothing. Just a bit pissed off, you know.'

‘Yeah, I know,' Abigail grinned, removing her arm and playing with her little gold watch. ‘It's Adrian, isn't it? You don't have to tell me, I recognize that “bloody husbands” look. Tell Auntie Abigail all about it. It'll make a change for it to be this way round.'

Stella didn't, on consideration, think she could tell Abigail anything at all. On the one hand, she didn't want to hurt her by confessing that Adrian just didn't want her around and that that was what it was all about, but on the other, it was Abigail she blamed for having to battle with Adrian in the first place. Abigail was looking at her expectantly, eagerly, waiting to hear that she wasn't the only person in the world who couldn't keep a husband. She's waiting to gloat, Stella thought crossly, looking at the excited eyes, the flickering hands. Deep down she's just waiting to be able to say, ‘See, not so smug now, are you?' And no, no she wasn't smug but she sure as hell wasn't going to have Abigail point it out to her.