Moonlight

Six

The next few days were like the Ice Age. The coldness that gripped the house was overwhelming: it entered your bones, and it froze your mind. You couldn't think. You could only feel discomfort and could only worry about what to say, for fear that something might happen.

Alice and Tom didn't speak. The staff was on edge. The children too knew something was very wrong.

But it was the season for parties. Another few weeks, full of social engagements, then the weather would turn, the sun would set too early, and the air would be too cold, and it would all stop.

'We have that thing tonight. I'm afraid we can't get out of it,' Tom said.

The Prescotts, an American family in the hospital business. Tom shared an interest in the plastic supplier that made the syringes for them. They had to go.

Alice didn't reply, but after breakfast announced she was going out. Hair. Nails. Shopping for a new dress.

She spent the day out, running her errands almost mechanically. At times, she found herself wandering in an unfamiliar part of the city, surprised she had walked this far. She quite couldn't remember what she had been thinking about.

Why Tom? That's what she had been trying to remember.

Looking at Tom now, she couldn't quite believe she was capable of loving him. But she also felt a pang of terror, when she had to concede that she didn't believe that he had any feelings for her.

Was it her fault? Had she become distant, too distracted with the silly cares imposed on women like her to notice that he was drifting away? Like all the women in her circle, she was preoccupied with gossip: she had to know what embarrassing barbs people were being caught by, and she had to know how to avoid them. She obsessed over what to wear, or the right book to read, or what movie to watch before everybody began obsessing over it.

She was so worried about how people saw her, that she wasn't sure that she wanted to be that way in the first place. Why were those people so important to her, while her own husband was an opaque presence at the periphery?

She didn't know exactly when things had changed with Tom. After all, she was mad for him when they met. She was right out of high-school, and he was a few years old, about to finish university and about to join the family business.

But why Tom?

She couldn't quite remember now. There had been other men, but they hadn't ever achieved the same effect on her. What did Tom have?

They got married as soon as they could. They travelled, they partied, and they enjoyed life.

Now, of course, it was all different. They did the same things as before, they had no cares and had time and money to indulge every whim, but there was no joy. There was nothing she looked forward to. She was jaded and he was dulled by the endless drinking.

The party was held on the rooftop near the river. The Prescotts owned and occupied the whole building.

Alice was wearing a long chainmail dress. Everything she wore was bright platinum, except for an elaborate necklace with various precious stones of many colours.

As they walked out of the staircase onto the terrace, the fresh air hit them.

'They will talk,' Alice had forecast in the car. Those were the only words she had uttered to him since the incident.

Tom knew she was right. People had only heard Vincent's side of the story, how Alice had tried to seduce him. Laughs from the guests made him turn his head. He was quickly uncomfortable, feeling the scrutiny. Alice thought he had fleas: he kept moving jerkily, as if itchy. He kept looking over his shoulders hoping to catch someone as they gossiped about them. But he soon disappeared with their host, a glass of whisky in hand.