Spotlight: The Pretenders by Agatha Zaza

Secrets. Lies. Consequences.

Three couples. Two exes. One day of reckoning.

Jasper’s brother Edmund has never been exciting, but he is reliable and always there for his little brother, no matter what. It’s only natural that the day after their engagement, Jasper and bride-to-be Holly decide to surprise Edmund with a celebratory visit.

John, Jasper’s fun loving and devoted best friend, comes along. Of course he wouldn’t think of missing such an occasion. Anne joins them, because she’s John’s wife and Jasper is a huge part of her life.

Edmund and Ovidia aren’t expecting visitors, but they can’t exactly say no when Jasper and the others walk into their London mansion one Saturday morning in spring.

Ovidia is not supposed to be there.

Perhaps Edmund is not as reliable as Jasper believed.

Maybe John doesn’t know everything about his best friend.

Today they will all have to face the consequences of the lies they’ve told themselves.

Excerpt

Holly, Anne, and John followed Jasper through the doors and out of the kitchen. Jasper caught Holly furtively looking back and side to side, most likely, Jasper guessed, like he was, repressing questions that were begging for answers. The distance to the seating in the extension couldn’t have taken a third of a minute to cover, but that twenty seconds had seemed interminable. Though he marched quickly and determinedly towards where his brother was meant to be, Jasper felt time and distance slow and lengthen, and his stomach began to churn painfully.

Upon seeing Edmund in the glass extension, Jasper was relieved to finally confirm he was at the right house. So relieved, that he briefly ignored the incongruity of his surroundings with what he knew of brother’s life. But this disbelief returned and was intensified when he looked down and fully took in his older brother. 

What Jasper saw was a man who hadn’t moved since he’d first sat down two hours earlier. His newspaper was still turned to the undone crossword, his pen still beside it. The glass still held the alcohol he had yet to drink. He was immobile in pyjamas and a dressing gown that appeared smudged with dirt, and his guests’ arrival seemed to have had had no effect on him despite the clattering of Anne’s and Holly’s heels.

This picture of a man staring into space, unmoving, was how Jasper introduced Holly to her future brother-in-law. He could see her confusion: she pinched the fabric of her culottes and twisted it, like a little girl brought in front of the class. Jasper had promised her a man of almost regal demeanour, with poise and finesse. Their mother constantly lauded the quality of his clothes and the wonders of his posture and personal hygiene.

Yet, today, Jasper’s brother was slumped in his seat. Though his pyjamas and slippers were, as with most of his clothes, new and high-end, Edmund himself looked worn down, older than his forty-seven years, his skin pale and the lines around his eyes deeper than they’d ever appeared before. He and Jasper shared their father’s nose and a long-dead grandfather’s lean silhouette that today looked gangly. Even Edmund’s hair lay limp and unkempt, and his fingernails were dirty.

‘A bit early for whiskey?’ Jasper pretended it was a lighthearted greeting, but he knew something was wrong. He knew that his brother did not sit outdoors in his pyjamas with a glass of whiskey and an undone crossword on a Saturday morning. Jasper tried to fit Ovidia into this scenario but couldn’t. Everything was wrong.

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About the Author

Agatha Zaza is a Zambian-born writer based in Helsinki, Finland. She works in international development communications, specialising in institutional giving and human rights, and has lived in countries including New Zealand and the former Soviet Union. She earned a Master’s in Equality Studies at University College Dublin and completed her debut novel, The Pretenders, in Singapore. Her writing appears in the Johannesburg Review of Books, as well as magazines and websites focused on development cooperation and human rights.