I hold the power, Ben. I could ruin everything for you.
‘Nice sunglasses,’ she says pointedly, and by the blush that creeps up his throat she can tell he understands exactly what she’s implying. He’s always been the clever one, after all. When she offers her arm this time he doesn’t brush her away but takes it and they slowly make their way down the hill towards home, in silence.
The country is in the grip of a heatwave, the likes of which we haven’t seen for seven years apparently, and our days are spent languishing under the trees in Beatrice’s garden, playing tennis or sunbathing in Alexandra Park with the city of Bath spread out like a model village beneath us. We pack picnics, consisting mostly of cigarettes and wine, and sit for hours, chatting until the sun turns into a burnt-orange ball and goes down over the city. Sometimes, usually when Beatrice is working on her jewellery, Ben and I manage to steal off by ourselves to the botanical gardens, where we kiss, hidden by huge flowering shrubs with exotic names. Occasionally we talk about Lucy and I find myself opening up about her, my guilt, and he assures me, as his sister has before him, that it was an accident. When I tell him I can never forgive myself, he stares at me with a faraway look in his eye, as if he’s not seeing me at all but is trapped in a memory of his own. ‘I know how you feel,’ he says eventually, as if snapping out of a trance. He tells me a bit about growing up in Scotland, but when I begin asking him questions about his mum and dad and his grandparents, automatically reverting to journalist mode, he clams up and changes the subject, and I sense that, even after all these years, it’s still painful for him. Will there ever be a time when I will be able to talk about Lucy without that familiar pressure in my chest as if I’m being sat on by a sumo wrestler, without having to fight back tears?
Ben has turned down two contract offers in the past few weeks. ‘I’m not going to work in this heat,’ he says, and it’s as though I’m a student again with no job to go to and no responsibilities, although I know it can’t go on. I’ve eaten into the last of my savings and I can’t keep living off of Beatrice’s generosity.
One morning I find Niall asleep on one of the sofas, his mouth open and snoring gently, his guitar carefully propped up at his feet, surrounded by wine bottles and ashtrays filled with cigarette butts, but most surprisingly of all, I find Beatrice wrapped around him, her long tanned legs intertwined with his, her head on his chest. They are both fully dressed.
A fortnight after I move in, I’m in the kitchen emptying the washing machine of the few clothes that I possess, plus the dresses that Beatrice let me borrow, into a plastic laundry basket. It took me weeks to identify the Parma violet scent that I detected on Beatrice and in this house when I first visited. I eventually tracked it down to their detergent. I bury my face in my wet clothes, inhaling the wonderful smell that I love so much; it’s the scent of this house, the scent of them. I fold the clothes up and make myself a coffee using the posh coffee machine, thinking how at home I am, when Ben clatters down the stairs, a concerned frown on his face.
‘Has Bea gone out?’ he asks, as I spoon frothy milk into my cup. For some reason the shortening of her name sends a spark of irritation through me.
‘She said she was going for a walk, to clear her head.’
‘When was this?’ He stands over me, silently demanding a quick answer.
I shrug. ‘I don’t know, about ten minutes ago. Do you want to—?’
Before I can finish my sentence he turns and runs back up the stairs, two at a time. I follow him, mug in hand, and catch him as he rushes out of the ornate front door, bumping into Cass on her way in. He mumbles an apology but continues down the garden path without a backward glance.
‘What’s the hurry?’ she says, a bemused look on her face, her bleach-blonde crop dishevelled. Standing there in the doorway, wearing a striped Breton T-shirt and black shorts, she reminds me of an actress from a 1960s French New Wave film and, with a twinge of envy, I think how beautiful and young she is. She can’t be older than about twenty-two. She’s holding a can of something chemical in one hand and a wedge of glossy A4 sheets in the other and, as she walks further into the hallway, she kicks the door closed behind her. I stand staring at her mutely. Out of everyone I’ve met through Beatrice, Cass makes me feel the most uncomfortable and I can’t put my finger on why this is. Perhaps because she’s so quiet, only ever having in-depth conversations with Beatrice, following her around like a dainty poodle. Maybe because she’s self-assured in a way I never was when I was her age. But she’s a complete enigma to me. I don’t think the two of us have had a proper conversation in the short time I’ve known her.
‘I’ve just made a coffee, if you want one,’ I say, lifting up my mug in an effort to break the uncomfortable silence. It’s the one Beatrice normally drinks from. White bone china with a black line drawing of a bird with its wings spread.
She glances at the cup, brow furrowed, and then at me. ‘No thanks,’ she says coolly. ‘I’ve got to develop some photographs.’
‘You have your own darkroom?’ I’m impressed. I don’t know much about photography but did dabble with it as part of my media studies A-level.
‘Beatrice had one installed for me in what was once the en suite. It’s tiny, but it serves its purpose.’ She blushes as if she’s said too much, and, clutching the paper to her chest, hurries up the winding staircase, leaving me standing in the hallway alone wondering what sort of photographs she takes and whether she’s at college or university.
I follow her up the stairs, and as she continues up to her attic room, I head into the drawing room to sit on the terrace that overlooks the long and neatly manicured garden. If I look up I can see a terrace above me, but smaller, more of a Juliet balcony, which I know to be Ben’s room. It’s another hot, airless day and I’m grateful that Beatrice let me borrow so many of her lovely clothes, although Ben keeps on at me to buy some of my own.
I’m reclining on one of the wooden sun-loungers when my mobile phone buzzes in the pocket of my skirt. Nia’s name flashes up on the screen and I contemplate not answering it. How am I going to explain to her all that’s happened in the last few weeks without causing her to worry? But if I don’t speak to her, she will assume the worst. After everything I put her through that day, over a year ago, when she found me semi-conscious in the bath with blood oozing out of my freshly slit wrists, I know I owe it to her to be honest.
‘Nia, hi,’ I say brightly. My jovial voice sounds fake even to my own ears and perspiration prickles my armpits, only partly caused by the heat. I rest my coffee cup on the arm of the recliner.
‘What’s going on, Abs?’ I can hear the hum of cars in the background, the beep of a horn, the faint indecipherable chatter of voices, the clinking of a spoon against china. I imagine her sitting outside a café somewhere in Muswell Hill, a part of London I’m not familiar with, which is probably her reason for choosing to move there. I imagine her toying with her coffee, skimming the froth off her cappuccino with a spoon and licking it in the way she always does, her dark hair falling around her pale face, her brown eyes serious. ‘You haven’t spoken to me for weeks, I only get the odd text telling me you’re okay. And are you? Are you okay?’
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