Chapter 71

71

Corrine

Corrine used a napkin to dab at the corners of her mouth as the guests seated around her dining-room table ate their desserts. She had long lost her appetite but, for appearances’ sake, took a couple of spoonfuls of the dark chocolate truffle panna cotta and vanilla mascarpone. A long sip from a glass of Chardonnay followed.

As the chatter bounced from wall to wall, she took a moment to survey the guests she had once considered friends. Karen had always been shrill but it hadn’t bothered Corrine until tonight. Now her voice irritated like the squeaking wheel of a supermarket trolley. Corrine recalled how she, Hayley and Sara had spent many a weekend together being pampered on spa breaks. The thought of being that woman again ran across her skin like a blade. Next to them sat Shanelle and Johnny. Most weeks, she’d joined them for spin or step classes at the gym, then to reward themselves for a job well done, they’d polish off a bottle of Bollinger over a restaurant lunch. There was Jakub, who she had learned to ballroom dance with, and Taylor and Carlos with whom she’d set up a book club. And finally Derek, the man who had divorced her former friend Maisy and married another woman while Maisy was fighting cancer. She loathed this gutless man. Yet she had little choice but to exchange pleasantries with him and his new wife all night as if nothing had ever happened.

Corrine’s cheeks pinched from hours of feigned smiles. And as the soirée dragged on longer and longer, it was becoming harder to continue with the charade. She desperately wanted to sneak upstairs, bury herself under the duvet and sleep for the next hundred years. However, the night wasn’t over yet. Not until Mitchell said it was.

The get-together had been his idea, announcing the perfect way to celebrate their marriage upgrade with their closest friends. Corrine protested that she had nothing to celebrate and reiterated how much she had grown apart from their neighbours. But Mitchell wasn’t interested. And, as punishment, he gave housekeeper Elena the weekend off and cancelled the private catering company they hired for functions. Instead, Corrine was to prepare the dinner herself, using a menu of his choice. At least Freya had returned from university to assist.

Three long weeks had passed since Corrine had reluctantly withdrawn divorce proceedings and agreed to continue with their Smart Marriage. In that time, she had grown to despise a new facial expression Mitchell had developed – an insidious eyebrow raise that said ‘Argue with me about this and I’ll use that video to ruin you’. Gone from her life were her Freedom for All branch meetings and new friends like Yan. They had been replaced with Audites and recordable technology that forced her to consider her words and made her every move trackable like an electronically tagged prisoner. The only saving grace of this marital mockery was that Mitchell was once again paying for his children’s further education.

Finally, when Corrine could no longer tune out the incessant dinner-table jabbering, she offered to make coffees and memorized the orders of those who said yes.

‘Can I help?’ asked Karen.

‘No, it’s fine, honestly,’ she said a little too sharply before faking another smile and making her way into the kitchen alone. As the coffee machine percolated, she poured herself another glass of wine and stood by an open window taking in the cool evening air.

Mitchell’s voice appeared from behind her. ‘Probably best if that’s your last,’ he began, pointing to the bottle. ‘You can get a little opinionated when you’ve had too many.’

‘Are you asking me or telling me?’

He gave her that eyebrow raise she despised again and it was all she could do to stop herself from hurling the bottle at his head.

‘What would you like to monitor next? How much air I inhale?’

‘Now, now, Corrine.’ He puffed on a cigar and turned his head towards the dining room. ‘It’s just like old times out there, isn’t it?’

She sighed. ‘It certainly is.’

‘Have you enjoyed any of it?’

‘You know my answer to that. It’s why you organized it.’

He shrugged. ‘Not everything revolves around you. Perhaps this was for me. Maybe I needed it.’

‘Why?’

He hesitated as he considered his words. ‘To remind me things weren’t always like this between us. That, once upon a time, we were better than what we became. That we worked. And that we might still work again.’

Corrine waited for the punchline but it didn’t arrive. It was the closest Mitchell had come to sincerity in as long as she cared to remember. Not so long ago, she would have longed to hear him say something like this: an admission that she hadn’t imagined the happiness they had once shared. Once, it might have thawed her. Now, she remained frozen.

‘You had plenty of time to repair us,’ she said sharply. ‘But you didn’t. You broke us. And we are beyond repair.’

Mitchell’s shoulders slumped ever so slightly before he regained his posture and offered a nod towards a wall-mounted Audite.

‘You forgot to take my coffee order,’ he added. ‘Black. And you might want to hurry it up, our guests are waiting.’

As Mitchell shuffled away, leaving a cloud of smoke in his wake, Corrine cursed Eleanor Harrison for her inaction. In return for deletion of the footage of her attempted sexual assault on a young waiter, she had promised to use her Government contacts to put pressure on Mitchell to allow Corrine a divorce. However, Corrine had heard nothing since. Short of releasing the video clips and potentially incriminating herself, she was at a loss over what to do next. So she drained the remaining wine in her glass and returned to the dining room with a tray full of coffees and another painted smile.