Page 10 of You Lied First
‘R ight, straight home for a siesta?’ Guy says, rubbing his hands together as they leave the restaurant, but Margot’s not ready to go back to the villa.
‘The fish market – remember?’ she says. ‘I’d like to pick up some fish. Maybe for dinner.’
‘I can’t even think about food,’ Sara says.
‘Well, at some point tonight I expect people will start to be hungry and I imagine no one will want to go out for a nice dinner now,’ Margot says without managing to hide the edge of disappointment in her voice. ‘So …’
She starts walking towards the building that houses the indoor fish, fruit and vegetable market.
She honestly doesn’t care if the others come inside with her or not; she needs a bit of time to herself after the circus that was lunch – Oh, you must try it.
I’ve never had lamb like it . This is one of the things she’s looked forward to doing in Oman.
She used to come here once a week to buy fish; she knew some of the sellers by name and they’d send her pictures of the morning’s catch if they got anything special.
To this day, she salivates when she thinks about the fish; literally from sea to plate in hours.
If everyone else is too full to eat tonight, she’ll slap it in a pan and enjoy it on her own.
Margot glances back towards the door – no one is following her into the market.
She can see them standing around outside in the sunshine.
Celine is vaping and they’re all laughing at something Guy’s said.
As usual. If only they knew what he was really like.
But, after all these years, Margot is used to the huge disparity between the face Guy presents to the world and the face he shows to her. Jekyll and Hyde.
Inside, the familiar briny smell of fish envelops her and she’s hit by the blissfully cool air.
Margot takes her time browsing the vast steel sinks, taking in the huge variety of seafood on offer.
She can identify Japanese threadfin bream with its pinky colour, mackerel, sardines, squid, kingfish and the local brown-spotted hammour, but some she has to ask about.
In the end, she decides to plan as if the others will want to eat, and chooses a crowd-pleaser for dinner – sheri.
Guy will no doubt insist on throwing it on the barbecue, and she’ll serve it with a salad. Tesco pasta sauce be damned.
She’s getting the fish wrapped and bagged when Sara comes up to her.
‘It’s amazing in here,’ Sara says. ‘So many fish.’
Margot gives her a tight smile. ‘Well, it is a fish market.’ She could say that the best time to be there is early morning when the fishermen unload their catches; that what she sees here is a fraction of what would have been on offer earlier in the day – but Margot is a woman of few words.
‘Do you know what they all are?’ Sara asks and Margot shakes her head.
‘Not all. But enough.’
‘What did you buy?’ Sara asks.
‘Sheri,’ says Margot, not expecting Sara to have heard of it.
‘Ah. Okay. So, umm, the kids are itching to get back. They’re talking about going to the beach. It’s a beautiful afternoon.’
Margot knows she can be stubborn at times, and this is one of those moments.
‘Well, I just need to pick up some fruit and veg,’ she says. Sara and Margot both look towards a different section of the market. Pyramids and piles of vibrant produce stretch as far as they can see.
‘Okay,’ says Sara, looking doubtful. ‘Do you need a hand?’
‘No, thanks. I’m good.’
‘If you’re sure. Well, I’ll see you back outside.’
Browsing the fruit and veg is like therapy for Margot.
She wanders through the main aisle of the market, feeling the satisfying weight of a melon and assessing the firmness of a banana.
Next she potters over to the chilled section and picks out a variety of salad leaves, a couple of bunches of fresh spinach, Omani mushrooms, big juicy tomatoes and a box of dates, and she starts to get a grip on her feelings.
It’s not the others’ fault she feels this way, she tells herself.
And she can see that Sara is trying – she’s really trying to connect with her.
But Margot’s problem is that, over the course of her marriage, she’s become a loner.
Before Guy, she used to be gregarious, daring, adventurous and always into something or other – but her world has shrunk and sharing her emotions and making friendships no longer come easily to her.
In her more reflective moments, she understands that her problems likely stem from the fact she plays her cards too close to her chest and people simply don’t know what she’s thinking or feeling, and then she’s left feeling lonely because she has no friends.
And, God knows, she could do with a friend right now.
Margot sighs. Everything always leads back to bloody Guy.
Margot had never planned to marry, never dreamed about the dress or the bridesmaids or Prince Charming, but then Guy Forrest had happened.
Like a cyclone making landfall, he’d torn into her life, blasting her off her feet, and now here she is all these years later, suddenly wondering: how did I get here?
What happened to me ? Where did I go? And whispering to herself: how can I get out ?
She shakes her head as she realises her thoughts are rambling.
The others will be feeling the heat outside by now.
She’ll try to make an effort with Sara. The last thing she needs is her becoming best friends with Celine bloody Cremorne, and it looks like it’s going that way already.
She gathers her bags and heads back to the door. Time to go home.