And still it had all gone to shit.
It hadn’t been Markus’s fault. Well, yes, it had, he had cut off the money just as some horses at the riding school fell ill, which combined with unexpected competition and unforeseen expenses made the hurdle too high. She’d had to close down the school, and it was time to find something new.
In more ways than one. She and Markus were not going to last much longer either.
Some say that when a couple start having sex less than once a week, it’s only a question of time before it’s over. Nonsense of course, it had been years since she and Markus had had sex more than once every six months.
Not that it bothered her. But the possible consequences bothered her. She had gone all out on this, on a life with Markus, on the riding school, to the extent that she had abandoned all her plan Bs and Cs. She hadn’t taken any of the educational paths so open to someone with her school grades. Hadn’t saved up money, but had in a sense made herself dependent on his. Not in a sense — she was dependent on his money. Not in order to survive, maybe, but... yes, in order to survive. In fact.
When was it she had lost her hold on him? Or to be more precise: when was it he had lost interest for her in bed? It could of course have to do with the reduced production of testosterone in a man who was over sixty, but she believed it had started when she began expressing a desire for children. She knew that for a man there was hardly a bigger turn-off than duty sex. But when he had informed her that children were out of the question, the celibacy merely continued. Given that her own appetite for sex with Markus, which had never been voracious, had also waned, it was no big problem. Even though she suspected he had begun to look other places to satisfy his needs. As long as he was discreet and didn’t make her a laughing stock, it was all right.
No, the problem was the two girls from the party. One had been found dead, and the other was still missing. And both of them could be connected to Markus. Their sugar daddy. The words had even appeared in print. The idiot — she could have ripped his head off! She wasn’t Hillary Clinton and this wasn’t the nineties, she couldn’t just ‘forgive’ her husband. Because these days women weren’t allowed to let the bastards get away with that sort of thing, it had to do with respect for yourself, your gender and the zeitgeist. Just her bloody luck not to be born a generation previous.
But even if she was ‘permitted’ to forgive him, would Markus have let her? Was this not what he had been waiting for, an exit from her that was neither particularly shameful nor honourable, given there were both positive and negative associations about a man over sixty who screws around? For someone like Markus Røed there were definitely worse things to be labelled than a virile bastard and womaniser. So shouldn’t she get a move on and leave before he did? That, after all, would be the ultimate defeat.
So she was on the lookout. It was unconscious, but she had caught herself doing it. Getting an overview of the men among the clientele. Determining which of them could — in a notional future situation — be of interest. People think they can hide behind their secrets, but the truth of course is that we all exhibit what we think and feel, and those that pay close attention will take it in.
So perhaps she shouldn’t have been surprised when a waiter stopped in front of her and placed a cocktail glass on the table.
‘Dirty martini,’ he said in Norrland-accented Swedish. ‘From him over there...’ He pointed towards a man sitting alone at the bar. He was looking out the window so she saw him in profile. The quality of his suit was perhaps a notch above the other male patrons, and he was a handsome man, no doubt about it. But young, probably around her own age, which was thirty-two. Though, it goes without saying, an enterprising man could have accomplished much in that time. She didn’t know why he wasn’t looking at her, maybe he was shy, or maybe it had been a while since he had ordered the drink and he didn’t think he could stare at her the whole time. Charming, if that was the case.
‘Were you the one who told him I usually drink a martini at the Monday lunch?’ she asked.
The waiter shook his head, but something in his smile made her doubt he was being completely sincere.
She nodded to the waiter that she accepted the drink, and he departed from her table. As things stood she was likely to be accepting several such drinks from admirers in the future, so why not start with someone that seemed appealing?
She raised the glass to her lips and noticed that it tasted different. Presumably it was the two olives at the bottom of the glass, the ingredients in making the drink ‘dirty’. Perhaps that was something she would also have to get used to, a different, dirtier taste to everything.
The man at the bar let his gaze drift over the room, as if he didn’t know where she was sitting. Helene raised her hand, caught his eye. Lifted the glass in a toast. He lifted his own, a plain glass of water, in response. But without smiling. Yes, he was probably the shy type. But then he got to his feet. Looked around as though making sure there were no others involved before approaching her.
Because of course he approached her. All men did sooner or later if Helene wanted them to. But as he drew closer, she felt that she didn’t want this, not yet. She had never been unfaithful to Markus, hadn’t even flirted with other men, and neither would she, not before everything was settled, finalised. She was upfront like that, a one-man woman, and always had been. Even if Markus was far from being a one-woman man. Because it wasn’t about what he thought of her, but about what she thought of herself.
The man stopped at her table, began to pull out the other chair.
‘Please don’t sit down.’ Helene looked up at him with a wide smile. ‘I just wanted to thank you for the drink.’
‘The drink?’ He smiled back, but looked confused.
‘This. Which you sent over. Yes?’
He shook his head with a laugh. ‘But shall we pretend as if I did? My name’s Filip.’
She laughed in return, and shook her head as well. He already looked a tiny bit smitten, poor guy. ‘Have a nice day, Filip.’
He gave a gentlemanly bow and left her. He would still be there the day it ended with Markus too. And hopefully without that wedding ring he had tried to conceal. Helene gestured to the waiter. He stood beside the table with his head bowed and a guilty smile.
‘You tricked me. Who really sent the drink over?’
‘Sorry, fru Røed. I thought it was a joke being played on you by someone you knew.’ He pointed to an empty table by the wall a little behind her. ‘He just left. I served him two martinis, but then he waved me over and asked me to give one to you and pointed out who I was to say it came from. The good-looking gentlemen at the bar, that is. I hope I didn’t go too far?’