Next to him, Rosie sighs, her eyes fixed on herself in the photo, the woman she hardly recognizes. The wine is making her maudlin. For a mad moment he thinks about picking her up and carrying her home. He wants to lie skin to skin, wants to feel the mysterious electric pulse of her, the pulse that will remind him of his own precious aliveness. Rosie glances at her phone and he knows she doesn’t want that. She never wants that any more. As she reads a message, he looks at her and tries to imagine how it used to be, Rosie naked and lovely on top of him, her head thrown back, immersed in pleasure. For a long time, that image had been almost painfully erotic but now, mostly, it makes him sad. He’d tried everything he could think of. He’d tried talking, not talking, he’d back off and then he’d come on strong – buying Rosie an expensive silk nightie he thought she’d love but which she said made her feel like mutton – and so he’d retreated into despair. He was usually so good at being who people wanted him to be, expert at denying himself to make others happy, but this – this sex thing – and Rosie’s complete detachment – no, her complete rejection of him – gnawed at him until he felt he was disappearing inside his wanting.
In the first few months they hadn’t had sex, she said she was ‘touched out’ – the kids still grabbing, so demanding of physical touch. Now they are all at school, she has more time without them, but nothing has changed. She still flinches every time he even touches her hand. It’s the confusion that is slowly dissolving him. The feeling that she is wilfully keeping him from understanding. She says it isn’t that she doesn’t desire him, it’s that she has to relearn what she wants, what will turn her on. She needs time to figure that out. That’s as far as they’ve got and nothing – as far as Seb knows – has changed in months. What has become clear – crushingly, devastatingly clear for Seb – is that sex, and specifically their sex life, is, for Rosie at least, simply not that important.
Vita and Patrick shift furniture around to make a tiny dance floor and Eddy puts a Prince record on. He’s trying to pull Anna up to dance with him, but she’s squirming away, saying, ‘No, Eddy! I don’t want to, stop!’
Eddy gives up on his wife and instead grabs Rosie’s hand. Rosie drops her phone back into her bag again and because it’s Prince and because it’s Eddy’s birthday, she lets herself be led to the makeshift dance floor in front of the sofa. Rosie loves to dance. Her body flows like liquid, natural and free as she lets the music pour through her. Seb looks at Rosie – she’s laughing and for the first time tonight she seems at ease, like she’s shrugged something heavy off her shoulders – and, as he looks at her, he feels for an insane moment like he might cry, because all he can think, when he sees his wife’s happiness, is:
Chapter 2
‘Taadaa!’ Rosie says, turning her palm skywards, revealing Waverly to Abi like a flamboyant waiter. It’s hot, one of those syrupy summer days of autumn, and they’re puffed and sticky from walking up the steep footpath to the best viewing spot in town. Abi makes her way to a bench, reading the little inscription, says, ‘Thanks, Barry,’ before she sits down.
‘It’s gorgeous.’ Abi extends her legs, crossing them at the ankles. She lifts her arms to get the breeze in the hollow of her unshaved armpits, dropping her denim jacket on to Barry’s bench. She’s wearing Birkenstock sandals, her feet tattooed in a beautiful lattice-like design, her skin still tanned, carrying the memory of summer. The letters ‘L’ and ‘M’ are tattooed on her inner arm. There’s something wonderfully unstudied about Abi that makes Rosie want to stare. She has a tousled look to her but whenever Rosie looks into Abi’s eyes she knows the other woman is as solid as a rock.
Rosie sits next to her feeling pimply and pale but glad to be here, away from the kids, away from work, away from Seb. Just here with her new intriguing friend.