As everyone is readying to leave, Julien motions us all to sit back down. He’s had a bit too much to drink; he sways slightly as he stands.
‘Darling,’ Miranda says, in her most silken tones, ‘what are you doing?’ I wonder if she’s remembering last New Year – in the exclusive environs of Fera at Claridge’s restaurant – when he stood up out of his seat without looking, only to send a waiter’s entire tray of food crashing to the ground.
‘I want to say a few words,’ he says. ‘I want to thank Emma …’ he raises his glass at me, ‘for picking such a fantastic place—’
‘Oh,’ I say, ‘I haven’t really done anything …’
‘And I want to say how special it is to have everyone here, together. It’s nice to know that some things never change, that some friends are always there for you. It hasn’t been the easiest year—’
‘Darling,’ Miranda says again, with a laugh, ‘I think everyone gets the idea. But I absolutely agree. Here’s to old friends—’ she raises her glass. Then she remembers, and turns to me. ‘And new, of course. Cheers!’
Everyone echoes her, including Ingvar – though of course she did not mean him. But even his interjection doesn’t spoil it. The toast has rescued the atmosphere, somehow – it’s brought a sense of occasion to the meal. And I feel, again, that special little glow of pride.
DOUG
About an hour after the dinner there’s a knock on his door. The dogs, Griffin and Volley, go crazy at this unexpected excitement: no one ever comes to his cottage. He checks his watch: midnight.
‘What the—’
It’s the beautiful one, the tall blonde who sat next to him at the meal. Who touched her hand to his, which was, as it happens, the first time anyone has touched his skin in a long time. She smiles, her hand lifted, as though ready to knock again. He can smell trouble coming off her.
Griffin barrels past him and leaps up at her even as Doug roars, ‘Down!’ She throws her arms up, and as she does her sweater lifts, exposing a taut sliver of stomach, the tight-furled bud of her navel. The dog’s nose leaves a wet slick across the skin.
She seems embarrassed by her reaction of fear; she bends to caress Griffin’s head, a show of bravado. ‘Pretty girl,’ she says, sounding less than completely convinced. She grins up at him, all her white teeth. Look at me, the grin says, look how relaxed I am. ‘Hi. Hope you don’t mind my interrupting you like this.’
‘What is it?’
Her smile falters. Too late, he remembers that this is a guest, that he owes her a service, even if it is ridiculously late for her to be asking anything of him. He attempts some damage limitation with the next question. ‘How can I help?’
‘I was wondering if you could help us make a fire,’ she says, ‘in the Lodge.’
He stares at her. He cannot imagine how nine people might not have the skills between them to set a fire.
‘We’ve been trying to make one,’ she says, ‘but without much luck.’ She leans one arm against the doorpost, slouching her hip. Her jumper has ridden up again. ‘We’re Londoners, you see. I know you’d make it much better than we ever could.’
‘Fine,’ he says, curtly, and then remembers again that she is a customer. A guest. ‘Of course.’
He senses that she is the sort of woman who is used to getting her way. He can feel her trying to peer into the interior of the cottage. He is not used to this: he blocks her view with his body and closes the door behind him so quickly that he only just avoids Griffin’s eager nose.
She crooks her finger at him, inviting him to follow. Just toward the Lodge, to light the bloody fire … but still. He knows what she is offering up to him. Not the act itself, perhaps, but the whisper, the hint, the wink of it.
How long has it been? A long time. More than a year – maybe a lot more.
As he follows he catches that scent of her perfume again, the church-like smokiness of it. It smells to him like trouble.
He follows her back to the Lodge. As he kneels in the grate, the big guy – Mark? – comes over and says in a man-to-man way, ‘Waste of your time, mate. She insisted on going and getting you. But I practically had it going. The wood’s just a bit damp, that’s all.’
He looks at the haphazard arrangement of logs in the grate, the twenty or so burned matches scattered around, and says nothing.
‘Want some help?’ the man asks.
‘No, thanks.’
‘Suit yourself, mate.’ The man’s face has reddened in a matter of seconds with either embarrassment, or, Doug suspects, anger. Short fuse on that one, he thinks. Takes one to know one.
NOW
2nd January 2019
HEATHER
Normally the water of the loch reflects the landscape as perfectly as if the mountains and trees and lodge were peering into a mirror. Sometimes in this reflection they look somehow more crisp, more perfect than they do in reality. But today the surface is clouded, blind, scarred by ice. Please, I think, following Doug around the bend of the path beside the water, don’t let it be the loch. Don’t let him have found the body there.
The loch is my sanctuary, my church.
The first time I wandered into those freezing depths I didn’t intend on coming back out. It was in the early days here, when I realised that I hadn’t been able to outrun everything. But something happened, as my clothes became weighed down, and the cold surrounded me in its terrible grip. Some essential urge, beyond my control, to kick, to fight. Here was life, suddenly: inside me, powerful, insuperable. The feeling was – is – addictive. It is one of the few times that I do not feel that I am drowning.
I have my routine down pat now. I get myself up and get straight into my swimming costume, a chaste one-piece like those we used to wear for swimming lessons at school. I’m not trying to impress anyone, and it’s the most coverage I can get for warmth without resorting to a full wetsuit. I go every morning of the year. I do it especially when it is below freezing – like now – and when I have to break the ice on the surface of the loch. When the water is so cold that it grips you like a vice and squeezes all thoughts from your mind, and your heart seems to be beating so hard it might explode. That’s when I am most myself, without the weight of everything upon me. The one time these days when I really feel alive.
Afterwards I dry off and go back to my cottage. By then every nerve ending in my body is tingling pleasantly. I suppose you could say it’s the next best thing to sex.
I saw Doug swimming in the loch, just once. I have an uninterrupted view of the water from my cottage. He went right to the edge and stripped off down to his boxers, revealing powerful shoulders, skin pale as milk. When he swam – not a moment’s hesitation at the cold – it looked as though his body was a machine specifically designed to cut through the water with the greatest possible speed. When he stepped out his face was grim.
As I watched I felt a powerful sense of shame, as though I had intruded upon some private moment of his, even though all it took was a glance from the window. And shame too, because it felt like a disloyalty. Because I had looked, and kept on looking, and had not been immune to the sight of my co-worker’s body. Because I had held the image of it in my mind when I took a bath, later, and gave myself the first orgasm I had had in more than a year.
Now Doug turns around, to check I’m following, and I feel the heat rise instantly to my cheeks. Hopefully the sting of the cold will be enough to justify it.