One of the Girls(20)

Yesterday, the school had rung to inform her that Luca and three friends had been caught smoking marijuana on school grounds and been suspended for ten days. The blood had drained from her head as she’d listened, standing outside a Greek supermarket, the phoneline crackling and distorting. ‘There must be some mistake,’ she’d said, but the words didn’t even ring true to her. She knew the boys he’d started hanging around with this past year. She’d tried to gently steer Luca away, but what say did she have? If she pushed in one direction, he’d pull in the other.

She’d called Luca immediately after. His voice was gruff, unapologetic. Angry. That’s what scared her: his anger. He’d always been such a gentle boy, sensitive and caring. He loved books, loved painting, loved spending his weekends at the Natural History Museum – and then, somewhere along the way, he’d grown up, grown apart, and she’d lost him. She wondered if she’d been working too hard, putting her concentration in the wrong place, missed the signs.

She asked Leonora not to tell their parents he’d been suspended: they’d only blame Ana. That boy needs a father, her mother was fond of clucking, eyes downcast, head shaking.

Her parents were immigrants from Uganda. When they’d arrived in Brixton in the eighties, they’d done everything they could to fit. They bought British clothes, cooked British food, adopted British accents. Ana and her sister were taught not to complain, not to challenge, not to be different.

So that’s what they did. Never complained, never kicked back. If they got knocked down, they simply got back up. But Ana wanted something different for Luca. She wanted him to make his presence known. To never apologise for who he was or the space he took up. She wanted him to have the same opportunities as everyone else. To fight for them.

Yet somehow, here he was, fifteen years old, angry, suspended from school, something simmering beneath his skin. She felt a lurch of homesickness – for Luca, for her sister, for her flat with the little kitchen window that faced the laundrette opposite, the smell of soap suds drifting in on a summer’s night.

I shouldn’t be here, she thought, the sea view mocking her with its sheer, clean beauty. She was on a hen weekend with a group of women she barely knew, spending money that would be better saved, while she’d left Luca to unravel. She was selfish, wanting too much.

She caught herself. No, that wasn’t her voice: it was her mother’s. The condemnation; the judgement disguised as self-sacrifice. Ana worked hard. She was scrupulous with saving. She was a good mother. She deserved a break, a holiday, something for herself.

She glanced over her shoulder towards the pristine villa.

But, she thought, wavering, not this holiday.

Not these women.

Her gaze travelled over the shutters that sealed off each of the darkened bedrooms, mapping where Lexi would be sleeping.

Somewhere deep in her gut, a voice was telling her: Go home. She should take a taxi to the airport. Return to London. Never see any of these women again. Leave Lexi be. The hen party could become a memory – a strange beat in time where she lost her way, if only for a moment.

As the shutters to Lexi’s room cracked open, light hitting Lexi’s slender forearm as she welcomed in the morning, Ana knew she couldn’t leave.





15

Fen

‘I’m going hiking,’ Fen whispered to Bella, who was sleeping with her arms thrown back, the smooth hollows of her underarms exposed.

There was something softer, vulnerable, about Bella when she slept, like a child who, no matter how obnoxiously they’d behaved throughout the day, was returned to innocence by sleep.

Yesterday’s argument still throbbed hotly, but Fen knew the hen weekend wasn’t the time to examine it. That would have to wait until they were home. ‘You’re welcome to come,’ she added.

Bella curled onto her side. ‘No sunlight till ten a.m.’

Fen grabbed her backpack and slipped from the bedroom, quietly relieved. Bella would only have complained about the heat, the weight of her pack, the length of the hike, and they’d have ended up returning early.

In the lounge, the shutters had been thrown wide, the scent of flowering jasmine breathing into the villa with the morning light. Beyond the pool, she could see Lexi on her yoga mat, walking out her heels in downward dog. Ana had her head in a book, a cafetière beside her on the low stone wall.

As she turned to cross the room, her gaze caught on the framed photo of herself that Bella had picked up yesterday. Her stomach lurched.

No way was she having that. She made herself pick up the picture and study her own image. She was only nineteen when it was taken, still so fresh and inexperienced. She wanted to warn that girl with the full, sunny smile, tell her: Be careful. You don’t know what’s coming.

She felt a tightness spreading across her ribs, a tremble in her fingertips. She gritted her teeth, fighting it down. She didn’t need to feel afraid. It was over. In the past. Done. She’d worked through it. She was stronger now.

Yet when she looked at herself, all she could hear was his words: You disgust me.

Without pausing to think, she was bending towards the cupboard, shoving the framed picture to the very back. She slammed it shut, then wiped her hands down the sides of her shorts. Fuck him.

She drew a breath.

‘Sure you don’t mind me tagging along?’