The Guest List(86)

Olivia will keep quiet, I think. I’ve known that since the beginning. Knew she wouldn’t feel anyone would believe her. She doubts herself too much. Except – and perhaps I’m simply being paranoid – it does feel like she’s changed since we’ve been here. Everything seems changed on this island. It’s as though the place is doing it, that we’ve been brought here for a reason. I know that’s ridiculous. It’s the fact of having so many people in one spot all at once: past and present. I’m usually so careful, but I admit I hadn’t thought it all through, how it might play out having them all here together. The consequences of it.

So. Olivia: I think I’m fine there. But I’ll have to do something about Johnno, soon as I get back to the marquee. I can’t have him running his mouth off to anyone and everyone. I underestimated him, perhaps. I thought it was safer to have him here than not, to keep him close. But Jules invited Piers without my knowing. Yes, actually, that’s where it all went wrong. If she hadn’t, Johnno would never have known about the TV thing and we could have carried on as normal. It would never have worked, him on the show, he must know that. He does, in fact: he put it so well himself. He’s an absolute liability. With his pot-smoking and his drinking and his long fucking memory. He’d have had some sort of freak-out in front of a journalist and it would all have come out. If he can see that – what a disaster he would have been – then I don’t really understand why is he so cut up about it. Anyway, he’s dangerous. What he knows, what he could tell. I’m fairly sure no one would believe him – some absurd story from twenty years ago. But I won’t run that risk. He’s dangerous in other ways too. I have no idea what he was about to do in the cave, because I had the blindfold on, but I’m bloody glad Aoife found us when she did, otherwise who knows what might have happened.

Well. This time, he’s not going to catch me unawares.





HANNAH


The Plus-One


I’m trying to look at it rationally, what I learned from Jethro and Luis. Is there the smallest chance it’s a coincidence? I am trying to listen to my sensible voice. Imagining what I would tell Charlie in a similar situation: You’re drunk. You’re not thinking coherently. Sleep on it, think again in the morning.

But really – even without having to reflect properly – I know. I can feel it. It fits, too neatly to be any coincidence.

The video of Alice was posted anonymously, of course. And we were too lost in grief at the time to think about seeking out her friends, who might have been able to help us find the culprit. But later, I vowed that if I ever had a chance to get my revenge on the man who ruined my sister’s life – who ended her life – I would make him suffer. Oh God … and to think I fancied him. I dreamt about him last night – the thought makes more bile rise into my mouth. It is yet another insult, that I fell for the same charm that destroyed Alice.

I think of Will at the rehearsal dinner. Did we meet at the engagement drinks? You seem familiar. I must have seen you in one of Jules’s photos. When he said he recognised me, he didn’t recognise me. He recognised Alice.

Beneath my calm exterior, as I step back into the marquee, is a rage so powerful it frightens me. The man responsible for my sister’s death has flourished, has carved a career out of false charm, out of essentially being good-looking and privileged. While Alice, a million times brighter and better than him – my clever, brilliant sister – never got her chance.

I’m surrounded by a sea of people. They’re drunk and stupid, bumbling about. I can’t see through them, past them. I push my way through, at times so forcefully that I hear little exclamations, sense heads turning to look at me.

The lights seem to be failing again. It must be the wind. As I walk through the crowd they flicker and go out, then come on again. Then out. Earlier, when it was twilight, you could still see pretty well. But now without the electric lights it’s nearly pitch-black. The little tea lights on the tables are no use. If anything it’s more confusing, being able to see vague shapes of people, shadows moving this way and that. People shriek and giggle, bump into me. I feel like I’m in a haunted house. I want to scream.

I clench and unclench my fists so hard I feel my nails puncture the flesh of my palms.

This is not me. This is a feeling like being possessed.

The lights come on. Everyone cheers.

Charlie’s voice, amplified by the mic, echoes from the corner of the room. ‘Everyone: it’s time to cut the cake.’ Over the guests crowding in front of me I stare at my husband, holding his microphone. I have never felt so far away from him.

There is the cake, white and glistening and perfect with its sugar flowers and leaves. Jules and Will stand, poised, next to it. And in fact, they look like the perfect figurines atop a wedding cake: him lean and fair in his elegant suit, her dark and hourglass-shaped in her white dress. I would never say I have hated anyone before. Not properly. Not even when I heard about Alice’s boyfriend, what he had done to her, because I didn’t have a real figure to focus it on. Oh, but I hate him, now. Standing there, grinning into the flashes of a hundred mobiles. I move closer.

The wedding party is clustered around them. The four ushers, grinning away, patting Will on the back … and I wonder: have any of them glimpsed his true nature? Do they not care? Then there’s Charlie, doing a pretty good impression – and I’m certain it’s just that – of looking sober and in control of his faculties. Nearby stand Jules’s parents and Will’s, smiling on proudly. Then Olivia, looking as miserable as she has all day.