The Aftermath: Chapter Two
Wherein Amory confronts some moral hard truths about herself...or not
Two
The facemask party had indeed been Chloe’s idea but Amory thrilled to it more than she let on to Hugo. In fact, the fact that Chloe had asked her to host it when The Ivy Chelsea Garden refused to break lockdown to accommodate them was, for Amory, like the ultimate gesture of Chloe’s acceptance of her. It had been a long time coming, too long as far as Amory was concerned, but now that she’d received the nod – had kissed the proverbial ring – Amory was prepared to let bygones be bygones, or at least those bygones that were convenient to stow away on the shelf of past but not forgotten slights and grievances to be trotted out and used at a later date and time, as allegiances evolved and the balance of power – always fluid – shifted.
This bequeathing of the hosting responsibilities had been followed by yet another affirmation of Amory’s rise in Chloe Templeton’s esteem – the private and very illicit referral to Chloe’s stylist Pascal for a haircut, the style of which, in truth, hadn’t been Amory’s choice or preference but rather Chloe’s diktat. Still, Amory had been more than happy to go along as it meant a further solidification of her presence in Chloe’s milieu. Sacrifices had to be made. They were expected. But Amory also knew that if all went according to plan, the time would come when the roles would be reversed and it would be Amory telling Chloe where to go, who to see, and how to look. At least that was the plan.
But then, plans had an inconvenient way of not always going according to one’s agenda, as recently demonstrated by Hugo’s early recovery and release from hospital. When Amory had agreed to host the facemask party three weeks ago, Hugo had just been put on the ventilator and his situation was touch and go, to put it optimistically. He’d already been in hospital and diagnosed with the virus for three weeks, and it actually looked like he was going to make a relatively speedy recovery. But then, like with the Prime Minister, things had taken a turn for the worst. And there ensued a forty-eight hour period where Amory had been convinced she was going to lose him, which was exactly when she’d decided to go along with Chloe’s idea to host the party herself, thinking that even if he managed to pull through, his condition would be so compromised and the chances of him leaving his bed or his ventilator were so slim, that she could host the party without having to worry too much about accommodating him and his antipathy towards anyone in her bubble. So when he rallied and then recovered with an alacrity that no one could have predicted, Amory found herself in a rather sticky conundrum. Amory didn’t like sticky conundrums. She didn’t like mess. For Amory, Hugo’s recovery was neither a cause for joy nor relief nor celebration. It was an inconvenience. But even worse than that was the fact that it made Amory feel like she was doing something terribly wrong and that at some God-determined point in the near or distant future, she was going to have to pay and pay big.
The night that Hugo’s primary care facilitator had called her to say that Hugo was being taken off the ventilator, Amory knew she was going to have to make a choice. She’d hoped – in fact, she’d planned – that the choice would be made for her. She’d hoped – again, planned – that the virus would take its toll and Hugo would become one of the numbers read out by the Health Secretary at the daily five o’clock press conferences on the BBC. She’d thus be relieved of her obligation, benefit from the well-intentioned but misplaced sympathy of those nearest and not-so-dearest to her, and she’d go on to live life as it suited her and with whom she felt she was best suited for, whoever that may be. In other words, Amory was looking forward to being a widow without actually having to be a widow.
And yet, perhaps incongruously, Amory was desperate to be a bride, and had actually thrilled to the fact of Hugo’s rather awkward and all too clichéd marriage proposal on New Year’s Eve at Chloe’s New Year’s Eve party at Annabel’s. He’d even gotten down on one knee. And of course Amory had said yes and had plastered the damn engagement all over Instagram and had racked up thousands of new followers and a sponsorship deal by some bridal boutique she’d never heard of, and all of it had felt very fulfilling and very empty at the same time. Amory had wanted a destination wedding but Chloe had offered them Templeton Manor in Dorset and Tatler had been so desperate for the exclusive that Amory had given in – it was Tatler after all! – and the planned wedding had morphed into being less about the nuptials and her loving future with Hugo and everything to do with sponsorships and influencers and social media, which of course Amory had to prioritize over anything else given who she was and what her followers expected.
Of course, she hadn’t told Hugo any of this. She’d planned to – sort of – but then, not six weeks later, Hugo had gotten sick. And the world had changed. And lockdown happened. And Amory discovered that while she still wanted the wedding and everything that came with it, she didn’t want the wedding to be with Hugo. The isolation and separation necessitated by his hospitalization had not made Amory’s heart grow fonder. In fact, the time spent in self-isolation, alone in her Chelsea townhouse off the King’s Road, had been if anything a period of blissful self-discovery. Amory felt liberated. She couldn’t imagine what it was like for those couples who had been forced by circumstance to self-isolate together. Amory couldn’t imagine anything worse. And while a part of her wasn’t entirely insensitive to the fact that people were scared, people were dying, people were losing their jobs, people were unable to see their parents and loved ones on Mother’s Day and Easter, people were terrified to leave their homes, people couldn’t even buy fucking loo rolls or flour, Amory reveled in the delicious oneness of it all. She was an influencer after all. She had her 1.6 million followers on Instagram, all of whom looked to her for guidance, for encouragement, for aspiration and a reason to get up and get out of bed in the morning, even if it was only to log onto their laptops or mobile devices because they had nowhere else to be.
For Amory, lockdown was power. She grew into herself. She finally realized her true potential. The virus was a Godsend, a catalyst for the best career decision she could have ever made. One point six million Instagram followers weren’t enough. Chloe told her it was just the beginning. Chloe told her the sky’s the limit. Chloe told her to ditch Hugo and become her own woman. Chloe, Chloe, Chloe. But Amory knew she had to start somewhere. She knew that in order to take herself to the next level, she needed a mentor – a strong, powerful, ambitious mentor. A woman, preferably a woman of color but even Amory knew she had to keep it real, so the next best thing – Chloe Templeton. And while she didn’t really like Chloe very much – Chloe wasn’t very relatable – Amory knew when not to look a gift horse in the mouth and Chloe Templeton was the fucking Triple Crown.
The night that Hugo’s primary care facilitator had called her to say they had taken Hugo off the ventilator, the first person Amory thought to Zoom after she hung up was Chloe. She thought she was going to have a breakdown. She’d already consumed a bottle of rather stale Prosecco leftover from her pre-lockdown engagement party and was about to pop open a second – or was it a third? – but thought better of it because Chloe didn’t have a lot of time for sloppiness and a third bottle of Prosecco would render Amory utterly sloppy, which wasn’t something she felt she could risk.
It was bad enough feeling as though she was somehow inconveniencing Chloe by Zooming her. The connection was a bit sketchy and Amory had an issue with the lighting and the angle of her webcam but she felt too burdened by the pending surprise return of Hugo to the world of the living to give it too much thought. She’d just try not to look at herself looking at herself on the screen. And it didn’t help that Chloe looked perfect as ever…and rather annoyed.
“Does this make me a terrible person?” Amory asked after she’d given Chloe a breathless accounting of her conversation with Hugo’s facilitator, punctuated by the occasional hiccup (courtesy of the Prosecco) and a slight sense of vertigo that made her grip the edge of the laptop screen and try to angle it in such a way that didn’t make her look like she had a double chin. “I mean, it’s not like I don’t care? I’ve done my bit. I’m doing my bit. I’ve clapped for the NHS every Thursday. The selfies prove it. And it’s not as though I wanted Hugo to die or anything. God forbid! I just didn’t anticipate that he would live. I mean, people are dying. I don’t know any of those people so I suppose it kind of doesn’t seem real to me? But people are dying. I mean, every day the death toll rises. The numbers don’t lie. I mean, even the PM almost died.”
Chloe nodded languidly and rolled her eyes. “But he didn’t though,” she said.
Amory wasn’t sure how to take Chloe’s response. “No, he didn’t. But he could have done. Just as Hugo could have…”
“But he didn’t.”
Amory felt as though Chloe was taking Hugo’s side. It caught her up short. She wondered if perhaps Chloe and Hugo had a secret alliance against her. What if they were having an affair and their evident disparagement of each other was nothing more than a covering tactic, a ruse to keep her off track? Amory didn’t really believe this, but then there was nothing to convince her that it wasn’t true. The way the world was going these days, Amory thought she could believe anything.
“It’s just I didn’t plan for this,” and still Amory kept on. “I thought when they put him on the ventilator, I thought this is it. This is the end. And of course they wouldn’t let me anywhere near the hospital, let alone his room, so I didn’t know what was going on. I could only assume the worst.”
Chloe plucked a stray hair from under the edge of her turban and stared at it with an absent kind of concentration that made Amory want to scream.
“You need to get a grip,” Chloe said. “And make up your mind as to what it is you really want. Commit to a plan of action and take the steps you need to execute that plan, and then don’t beat yourself up after.”
“But I did have a plan,” Amory persisted. “I do have a plan. At least I think I did…do.”
“Where you’ve gone wrong is that you don’t have a Plan B. You’re too rigid. And I’m sorry to be the one to remind you – and of course I truly believe this what you want to hear, otherwise you wouldn’t have Zoomed me – but you should have ended things with Hugo a long time ago. Certainly before he got the courage up to get down on his knee. You’re just not compatible. The energy, Amory. It’s toxic. I feel like I need a cleanse after only five minutes in the same room with the two of you.”
“Is it really that bad?”
Chloe just gave her a look.
“He’s not a bad person,” Amory said, suddenly feeling quite defensive of not just herself but, even more so and even more confusingly, of Hugo.
“He’s just not good for you.”
The truth of Chloe’s words sobered Amory in a heartbeat.
“I don’t think I can go on like this,” Amory said when the silence that followed Chloe’s wisdom threatened to topple Amory into another fit of anxiety. “I can’t stop him from coming home.”
“Whose home is it really, Amory?”
“What do you mean?”
“Who pays the mortgage?”
“We don’t have a mortgage. I paid for it outright. Cash.”
“Exactly.”
“But, I mean, he lives there too.”
“By your grace.” Chloe was a master of the artful pause. “I’m not saying kick him to the kerb or anything vulgar like that. You do live in Chelsea, after all. There’s a certain decorum one must adhere to, a status one must uphold. You’re made in Chelsea, not in Essex…or Cheshire.” Chloe shuddered.
“So what should I do?”
“I think you know what to do, you just don’t know that you know it. Or rather, you haven’t yet convinced yourself of your conviction.”
“Should I tell him about Fitz?”
“Do you want to tell him about Fitz?”
“I don’t know. Hugo doesn’t know Fitz. It might not have the desired impact. I mean, Fitz could be anybody to Hugo and I think Fitz has to be more than just anybody for Hugo to really, like, get it, if you know what I mean? Hugo isn’t very imaginative that way. He can be a bit thick.”
“So introduce them.”
“Where? How?”
Another languid roll of the eyes. Chloe lit a cigarette. Amory thought she looked very exotic sitting there in the flattering glow of her desk lamp in her suite at Templeton Manor with her turban and her cigarette. It was all so effortless and effortful at the same time. Amory wanted to reach through her laptop screen and rearrange all that too perfect perfection. She wanted to draw blood.
“The facemask party,” Chloe said. “I’ll invite Fitz. He’s more my friend than yours anyway. But I have to warn you. He’ll insist on bringing Clothilde.”
“Clothilde?” Amory could hardly pronounce the name. It sounded clumsy and foreign coming off her tongue.
“His plus one.”
“Fitz didn’t tell me he had a plus one.”
“Of course he didn’t. Knowing Fitzie, I don’t think he really thinks of her as a plus one or a plus anything. She’s just kind of there. She’s French.” As if her being French explained everything.
“Is she hatefully chic?” Amory asked. Hatefully chic French women with names like Clothilde inspired within Amory the deepest of inferiority complexes.
“Hatefully,” Chloe snarled. She sucked deep on her cigarette. Amory wondered if she could get away with cracking open another bottle of dull Prosecco.
“He told me he was a confirmed bachelor. He swore on it.”
Amory felt doubly wronged.
“Oh darling,” Chloe said, “men will swear on anything if they think it’ll get them into your pants.”
“Not Hugo.” Again, Amory didn’t know what was with the unexplainable loyalty to Hugo. Obviously there was more to her feelings about her fiancé than she was ready to admit. This realization only caused her to resent him all the more.
“And what exactly happened between you and Fitzie, if I may be so indiscreet?”
Good question. For the life of her, Amory couldn’t remember.
“Why? Why does it matter?” said more defensively than she’d intended.
Chloe shrugged and adjusted the neckline of her kimono so it revealed just enough of her delicate collarbone. It became Amory’s focal point. It obsessed her.
“I’m just a bit confused is all,” Chloe said.
“About what?”
“Well, according to Fitzie, nothing happened.”
“He told you that?”
“Fitzie tells me everything, darling.”
“Well then, nothing happened.”
“But I’m asking you.”
What had happened? What could have happened? Amory tried to think. It had been in the middle of the lockdown, that much she remembered. Right in the thick of it. A virtual art opening. Lots of abstract nudes stuttering across her laptop screen. Weird stuff. Stuff that Amory couldn’t get into. Piercings. Leather. Tattoos. That sort of thing. Vaguely S&M-ish. Like Mapplethorpe but distinctly female-focused. Whose art opening had it been? Someone Chloe knew. Of course. Rebecca something-or-whatever. Amory had only attended because it had been billed as the art opening of lockdown or something like that. All Zoom. Back when Zoom had been The Thing. Amory hated Zoom. She hated how she looked on camera. She hated virtual. But that night. What had happened? What. Had. Happened? Well, of course, Fitz had been there. Fitzgerald Kirkpatrick. She had wondered whether that was even his real name, or a stage name, a name to make himself sound more interesting, or alluring to his clients. He was an art dealer. It came back to her. Yes, of course. The artist, Rebecca-something-or-whatever, was one of his clients. She bussed tables or something at Edgar’s restaurant n Shoreditch. And they had met, virtually. And Amory had been drinking Prosecco and she’d done a bump before logging in, a bump for confidence, a bump to make her feel, well, worthy to be in such sophisticated company. A bump that had given her the boost to suggest to Fitz Kirkpatrick that they open their own chat window and continue the conversation in private mode.
That had been her undoing.
Amory gulped.
“What happens on Zoom stays on Zoom,” she said.
“Unless he recorded it.”
Trust Chloe.
“But as you said,” Chloe continued after one of her famous pauses and another pull on her cigarette, “nothing really happened. Nothing in the physical world, that is. Virtual infidelity is unchartered territory, as far as I’m concerned. It’s not for me because there are too many ambiguities, but I suppose I recognize the appeal. It’s like having your cake and eating it too.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Exactly. But if you really wanted to break things off with Hugo, there’s the video.”
“Of nothing happening.”
Chloe shrugged.
“It’s all semantics, I suppose,” she said.
The conversation was turning tedious. Amory was desperate for a way out. And conflicted. Yes, of course it would be easy if she arranged for Hugo and Fitz to meet at the facemask party and all would be revealed and she’d be off the hook (sort of) and Hugo would leave her and she’d be alone but there’d be Fitz (maybe) or not Fitz and she could start her post-lockdown life more-or-less as she wanted with a clean slate and a new outlook. The process of reinvention, first initiated during lockdown, could gain momentum and she’d find her legs in this new normal, utterly unencumbered and free. But Amory knew herself. She knew even without Hugo she wouldn’t really be free. She’d have her conscience to deal with and, as a Catholic (though thoroughly lapsed), her conscience wasn’t something that was easily dismissed. It would plague and haunt her. It would keep her up at night and keep her on the bottle and the bumps. It would take its toll. And then people would start to talk. They’d start posting negative things about her on social media. She had her reputation to consider, the preservation of which was more important than anything. It was bigger than her. It was bigger than Hugo. It was bigger than Fitz or Chloe. No, Hugo had pulled through. He was coming home. He’d survived. There was a reason for this, like a deus ex machine that again was bigger than her and out of her control.
But…there was always a but. But she wasn’t happy. She didn’t want Hugo to come home. She didn’t want to pick things up post-lockdown with where things had been before. She wanted – she needed – a change. So, what Chloe was proposing seemed like the most natural way out of her dilemma. The facemask party. Hugo’s first night back after six weeks in hospital. Fitz had to be there, with or without his plus one. Amory knew it made her seem heartless, but she was desperate and desperate times called for desperate measures…and all that. Of course, Chloe was right. Of course, Chloe presented the only reasonable option. Of course, Amory would go along with it. Of course, there really wasn’t any other alternative.
“Right,” she said. Her mind was made up, although to what exactly, Amory wasn’t entirely sure.
“It’ll all be handled with the utmost discretion,” Chloe purred. “And since we’ll all be wearing facemasks it’ll be a bit like Venice during carnival. Sort of. Maybe not really, but because we can’t actually travel anywhere we can use our imagination.”
“I’d rather be in Venice,” Amory replied.
Chloe sniffed. “It smells in Venice.”
“Hugo won’t be pleased. He’s antisocial at the best of times. I can’t imagine he’s going to be thrilled at all with the idea of a Venetian-themed facemask party on the night of the day he gets back from hospital. I wonder if I could convince them to keep him in for one day longer?”
“That’s defeating the point.”
“It’s not as if I want to get it off with Fitz though.”
“Again, you’re missing the point.”
“I mean, it sort of works between me and Hugo.”
“Mutual antipathy?”
Amory shrugged.
“I’d work the Clothilde angle.”
“What?”
Chloe shrugged and took another luxurious drag from her cigarette.
“And I’d also buy some books,” she said. “And a bookshelf. Preferably wall-sized and custom made. It doesn’t matter if you read the damn books or not. Hatchard’s has a subscription series. You might want to look into it.”
Amory stammered.
“Your Zoom backdrop,” Chloe explained. “It’ll make you look smarter.”
And with that Chloe clicked off and the conversation ended.
Amory popped open a fourth bottle of Prosecco and had then had to peel herself off the kitchen floor at four in the morning. It wasn’t one of her best moments. Her 1.6 million followers on Instagram wouldn’t have approved. There were no selfies taken that night.