One of the Girls by Lucy Clarke
WEDNESDAY
Later, we would all remember the hen weekend for one reason: because of what happened on the night of the beach fire. Before that, there were good moments – even beautiful ones – like sharing dishes of tzatziki and glistening olives beneath the Greek sun, or laughing till our knees gave way about something that would never be funny if repeated, or dancing barefoot on the lip of the shore.
We mustn’t forget those moments.
If we’d been more astute, if we’d listened more closely, if we’d not turned away from her – from ourselves – we could have stopped it. That’s what makes this so much worse. We could have changed it.
Now it’s too late. It’s over. We can never unsee the trail of her red wrap as it fluttered in the morning breeze, caught in the zip of a body bag.
1
Lexi
Lexi unwound the taxi window. The warm wind was infused with pine and the arid scents of sun-baked earth. Tiers of whitewashed houses clustered close to the rising blue dome of a church.
The sky, Lexi thought. My God, how wide and cloudless could a sky be? It felt like a magician’s trick, swapping the rain-slicked pavements of London for the shimmering heat of Greece. She couldn’t quite believe that she was here.
‘We’re on a hen weekend,’ Bella was telling the taxi driver, oversized sunglasses pulled down, lipstick freshly reapplied. ‘Lexi’s the bride,’ she said, swivelling around in the passenger seat to point.
‘Congratulations,’ the driver said, warm, dark eyes flicking to hers in the rear-view mirror.
‘Thank you,’ Lexi smiled. The bride. She was the bride. She shook her head lightly, still a little stunned.
‘I’m her maid of honour,’ Bella announced proudly. ‘You know: the best friend. The important one who organises the hen weekend?’
‘Self-appointed,’ Lexi added. ‘I wasn’t going to have a maid of honour.’
‘Which I ignored since you weren’t even going to have a hen weekend.’
‘True.’ Hen parties made Lexi think of twenty-something-year-olds dancing in cheap veils, shots slurped through phallic straws, blistered heels, and too-short skirts. In fact, had Lexi been twenty, she would have loved a hen party. She would have tossed back the tequila, danced on the podium in a wisp of a dress, and when her feet blistered, she would’ve kicked off her stilettos and danced barefoot. But she was thirty-one now – and done with waking in the morning with that queasy sense of regret and shame that had nothing to do with a hangover. She was finally – much to everyone’s surprise, including her own – getting married to a man she loved.
I love you.
She’d actually said those words, aloud. Meant them. It happened over breakfast, the two of them sitting at his kitchen counter with sleep-ruffled hair, him laughing about his failed attempt at cooking lasagne the evening before. She’d begun saying the meal wasn’t a total disaster – the wine was nice! – and then she’d added, I love you. Just like that. Three brand-new words. Settling between their pot of coffee and the stack of sourdough toast.
He had looked at her. Ed Tollock. Thirty-five. Thick, dark hair threaded with early silver. A low, deep voice. What was it about him? His calm confidence? The way he’d look at her for a long, intense moment, then shake his head, grin, as if he couldn’t believe his luck?
He’d moved aside their mugs, reached for her hands. His fingers were tanned, with fine golden hairs on the backs of them, and he’d said, ‘I love you, too. And one day, very soon, I’m going to ask you to marry me.’ He’d smiled at her, so easily, so openly, that Lexi didn’t snatch her hands away, grab her coat, and run. She’d met his gaze and said, ‘Is that right?’
Three weeks later there was a ring box. No extravagant candlelit dinner nor down-on-one knee ceremony. Just a simple walk along the banks of the Thames, hands held as they watched the white wake from a shelduck taking flight. His question, then her answer: Yes.
She glanced at her engagement ring now, the emerald-cut diamond glittering wildly. She was intent on keeping the wedding small: a gathering of family and friends taking over an old mill licensed for ceremonies. Simple, intimate. She didn’t want the big dress, the hairstylist, the photographer. She just wanted him.
‘I hear you: low-key,’ Bella had said when Lexi explained her wedding plans. ‘But don’t think for one minute that exempts you from a hen party. You are getting married once, which means we are going on a hen weekend, and that, Lexi Jane Lowe, is that.’
So here they were, the tiny Greek island of Aegos. They’d left behind the tourist hustle and a strip of noisy bars as they drove west from the airport. Now the road had emptied and narrowed, carrying them over a scrub-lined hillside where the music came from the tinkling of goat bells and a donkey braying in the lengthening shade of an olive tree.
She’d told Bella that she wanted to spend the weekend lazing in the sun, reading, swimming, and eating. Bella had nodded earnestly for about two seconds, before the corners of her lips curled upwards and she wiggled her eyebrows, meaning she had other plans entirely.
Bella was saying something to the driver now, gesturing expansively while he quaked with laughter. Lexi smiled. God, she loved this woman. Bella was her yes person. The one who you could call day or night and pitch any outlandish idea, and Bella’s voice would sparkle as she’d say, Yes!