New Year’s Eve: midday
Yasmin
Yasmin Lloyd can’t wait to be divorced. If she’s completely honest (which she rarely is), she hasn’t wanted to be married for a long time, but things have now come to a head. She has been utterly betrayed by her husband, and although she appreciates the irony of that, she simply can’t stay with him another minute.
Except she has to. Yasmin isn’t a monster, and it will hit Tabby and Felicia hard when she and Rhys separate. The least she can do is let them enjoy the party tonight. As the girls are fond of pointing out, there’s nothing else to do around here, and it would be cruel to ruin the festivities by announcing on New Year’s Eve that their parents are splitting up.
Yasmin gazes out from the bedroom balcony. A lone boat tacks lazily across the water, and a flock of birds are diving for fish. On the opposite shore, someone is perched on a stool, painting or drawing. Yasmin sighs. She no longer sees the beauty in the lake or in the sharp outlines of the surrounding mountains. She no longer cares for the reflection of the trees or the lodges, mirrored in the silvery water. The novelty of The Shore wore off when the nights drew in and the decks were no longer sun-kissed. She thinks wistfully of Tuscan villas and Caribbean beaches.
Yasmin steps back inside and closes the door, walking through Rhys’s study toward the stairs. On his desk is a stack of mail ready to be posted to fans all over the world. Yasmin shuffles the post into a neat pile, straightens the chair, and picks up a throw that is supposed to be draped artfully over one arm but that Rhys insists on sitting on and creasing. She steps back and eyes the room critically. She’s very proud of her design work at The Shore and is looking forward to showing it off to tonight’s party guests. If only it were possible to pick up the lodge and put it somewhere more interesting. There must be lakes in the Home Counties, surely?
She tweaks the curtains for symmetry. Outside on the drive, her husband is talking to Dee, and Yasmin can tell from his stance that he wants to get away. She could rescue him, she supposes, as she makes her way downstairs, but why should she, after what he’s done? She makes a few adjustments to the cushions in the sitting room and turns the table arrangement to face the door. It’s funny how all the lodges are the same and yet look so different. Take the Charltons’ place: Blythe talks a lot about aesthetics, but the woman has no eye for color.
Yasmin takes a bottle of brandy from the kitchen. Rhys’s agent sends him an extraordinarily expensive one every Christmas, which Rhys opens on New Year’s Eve to bring him luck for the forthcoming year. Yasmin always joins him. Rhys’s career needs more than a glass of superstition, but it happens to be excellent brandy.
By the time Yasmin gets outside, Rhys is marching toward the lake with his phone clamped to his ear, and Dee is nowhere to be seen. Yasmin can imagine how the conversation went.
So sorry, Dee, I have to call my agent back.
Oh, of course, dear, don’t let me stop you.
Rhys is forever getting out of dull social situations by fabricating urgent calls with Fleur. She can see him now, through the trees, pacing the little cove and talking furiously into his mobile. Doesn’t he realize Dee has gone back inside and his little act is being wasted?
“Yasmin, where’s that naughty husband of yours?” Blythe says the moment Yasmin joins the others in the Charltons’ lodge. “Jonty needs help putting more lights up.”
“We’re not joined at the hip,” Yasmin says tartly. She resumes the balloon blowing she’d half hoped someone might have finished in her absence. Privately she thinks balloons are terribly naff, but Blythe has had a hundred delivered, in The Shore’s signature green and off-white, and put Yasmin in charge of creating an arch.
“That tent’s a bloody eyesore,” Jonty mutters. Yasmin couldn’t agree more.
“It frames the lake,” Blythe says.
Jonty stomps through the bifolds with a box of lights. “It blocks the bloody lake!”
The local girl is on canapés. They arrived in a Fortnum & Mason van half an hour ago, and Mia’s transferring them from their boxes onto platters. Blythe has issued strict instructions to all the lodge owners to clear their fridges to allow for storage—it truly is a military operation.
“Imagine if nobody comes!” Yasmin says. She laughs to show it’s just a joke, but it’s too late for the flash of panic that crosses Blythe’s face at the prospect of such social embarrassment.
“Course they’ll come.” Bobby is moving drinks around with a marked lack of haste. He’s probably avoiding Ashleigh, who has been conspicuously absent during the party preparations. “They’ll all want a nosy at the poshos.”
“No one will be troubling you, then,” Jonty murmurs. He’s fired up the log burner, but every five minutes, Mia takes more food out, or Jonty comes in for more lights, and an icy blast blows through the lodge. Above the lake, thick clouds hold the promise of snow.
Where is Rhys? Yasmin is torn between not wanting to be anywhere near her husband and resenting the fact that she’s blowing up bloody balloons while he skives off for pretend phone calls. He’ll have skulked back to his study, no doubt, messing it up so she’ll have to tidy up again before people arrive. After the divorce, she’ll repurpose his office at home. Perhaps she’ll take up art: it would make a stunning studio, and Yasmin could source one of those antique easels as a centerpiece.
Rhys will try to take the house, of course, but Yasmin will be ready for him. He won’t want his shameful behavior splashed across the papers. As soon as the holidays are over, she’ll lawyer up; if Rhys thinks he’s coming out of this better than Yasmin, he’s got another think coming.
Clemmie is at the drinks table, taking the bottles Bobby and Caleb dump on the kitchen counter and arranging them into neat rows. Yasmin swoops up Rhys’s brandy just as Clemmie spots it. “Sorry, this one’s personal use only.” Yasmin smiles, then turns to Blythe. “Darling, can I stash this somewhere?”
“Here, I’ll hide it behind the cans.” Blythe puts the brandy in a cupboard. “I can’t imagine anyone will be rooting through the chickpeas at a party.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Jonty says. “Some of them probably aren’t even house-trained.” He laughs raucously and Yasmin notices Mia’s eyes on him from the other side of the room. She notices something else too. Yasmin waits for Jonty to look in her direction, then discreetly gestures to her own neck and nods toward Jonty’s collar. Jonty frowns, then looks down and clamps a hand over the smear of lipstick on his shirt before slinking gratefully out of the room. Such a cliché. Yasmin wonders if Blythe has noticed. Maybe she doesn’t care. You never know what people’s marriages are like beneath the surface.
It takes Yasmin three hours to inflate all the balloons and arrange them to Blythe’s satisfaction, her progress hindered by demands to carry this and move that, andWould you mind popping to get some more cheese?She smiles tightly at this last—surely the cleaner could do that?—but slips on her shoes and finds her coat.
As she reaches the hall, she hears a car engine revving angrily. By the time she’s opened the Charltons’ front door, the car’s disappearing around the corner, a black cloud of exhaust smoke in its wake. As if that wasn’t extraordinary enough—this is The Shore, not some public housing project—her husband is on his knees in the middle of the drive.
For a second, she forgets what he’s done and that she hates him for it. She forgets that she’s restless, that she’s frustrated by his lack of success. She forgets that she wants a divorce. She runs to him, panic making her stumble. “What’s happened?” He looks at her wordlessly. Is he having a heart attack? “Who was in that car?”
The question seems to galvanize Rhys. He gets shakily to his feet, but he still doesn’t answer, and now Yasmin is annoyed. He clearly isn’t having a heart attack; she almost twisted her ankle for no good reason.