The Guest List(37)

Afterwards Will goes for a shower. He takes impeccable care of himself – his routine even makes my own look rather slapdash. I remember being a little surprised when I realised his permanently brown face wasn’t actually due to the constant exposure to the elements but to Sisley’s self-tan, the same one I use.

It’s only now, sitting in the armchair in my robe, that I become aware of a strange odour, more powerful than the evanescently marine scent of sex. It is stronger, undeniably the smell of the sea: a briny, fishy, ammoniac tang at the back of the throat. And as I sit here it seems to gather itself from the shadowy corners of the room, gaining texture and depth.

I go to the window and open it. The air outside is pretty icy, now that it’s dark. I can hear the slam of the waves against the rocks down below. Further out the water is silver in the light of the moon, like molten metal, so bright that I can hardly look at it. You can see the swell in it even from here, great muscular movements beneath the surface, full of intent. I can hear a cackling above me, up on the roof, perhaps. It sounds like a gleeful mocking.

Surely, I think, the smell of the sea should be stronger outside than in? Yet the breeze that wafts in is fresh and odourless by comparison. I can’t make sense of it. I reach over to the dressing table and light my scented candle. Then I sit in the chair and try for calm. But I can practically hear the beat of my own heart. Too fast, a flutter in my chest. Is it just the aftermath of our exertions? Or something more than that?

I should talk to Will about the note. Now is the moment, if I’m ever going to do it. But I’ve already had one confrontation this evening – with Charlie – and I can’t quite bring myself to face the thing head-on, to plough ahead and raise it. And it’s probably nothing. I’m 99 per cent sure, anyway. Maybe 98.

The door to the bathroom opens. Will steps into the room, towel knotted around his waist. Even though I have just had him I’m momentarily distracted by the sight of his body: the planes and ridges of it, the muscles corded in stomach, arms and legs.

‘What are you doing still up?’ he asks. ‘We should get some rest. Big day tomorrow.’

I turn my back to him and drop my robe to the floor, sure I can feel his eyes on me. Enjoying the power of it. Then I lift the cover and slip into the bed and as I do my bare legs make contact with something. Solid and cold, the consistency of dead flesh. It seems to yield as I push my feet unwittingly into it and yet at the same time to wrap itself around my legs.

‘Jesus Christ! Jesus Fucking Christ!’

I leap from the bed, trip, half sprawl on the floor.

Will stares at me. ‘Jules? What is it?’

I can hardly answer him at first, too scared and repulsed by what I just felt. The panic has risen into my throat in a choke. The shock reverberates through me, deep and visceral and animal. It was the stuff of a nightmare – the sort of thing you dream about finding in your bed, only to wake in a chill sweat and realise it was all in your imagination. But this was real. I can still feel the cold imprint of it against my legs.

‘Will,’ I say, finally finding my voice. ‘There’s something – in the bed. Under the covers.’

He strides over in two great bounds, takes the duvet in both hands and rips it away. I can’t help screaming. There, in the middle of the mattress, sprawls the huge black body of some marine creature, tentacles stretching in all directions.

Will leaps back. ‘What the fuck?’ He sounds more angry than frightened. He says it again, as though the thing on the bed might somehow answer for itself: ‘What the fuck …?’

The smell of the sea, of briny, rotting things, is overpowering now, emanating from that black mass on the bed.

And then quickly, recovering much more rapidly than I do, Will moves closer to it again. As he puts out a hand I shout, ‘Don’t touch it!’ But he has already grasped the tentacles, given them a yank. They come free, the thing seems to break apart – horribly, sickeningly. It was there while we fucked, waiting for us beneath the covers …

Will gives a short, hard laugh, entirely without humour. ‘Look – it’s only seaweed. It’s bloody seaweed!’

He holds it aloft. I lean closer. He’s right. It’s the stuff I’ve seen strewn along the beaches here, great thick, dark ropes of it washed up by the waves. Will tosses it on to the floor.

Gradually, the whole spectacle loses its macabre, monstrous aspect and is reduced to a horrible mess. I become aware of the indignity of my position, sprawled as I am, naked, upon the floor. I feel my heartbeat slow. I breathe more easily.

Except … how did it come to be here in the first place? Why is it here?

Someone has done this to us. Someone has brought this in, hidden it beneath the duvet, knowing that we would only find it once we got into bed.

I turn to Will. ‘Who could have done this?’

He shrugs. ‘Well, I have my suspicions.’

‘What? About who?’

‘It was a prank we used to play on the younger boys at school. We’d go down via the cliff path and collect seaweed on the beaches – as much as we could carry. Then we’d hide it in their beds. So my guess is Johnno or Duncan – possibly all of the guys. They probably thought it was funny.’

‘You’d call this a prank? We’re not at school, Will, it’s the night before our wedding! What the fuck?’ In a way, my anger is a relief.