But anyway, the point is that on a day like today, anyone would be putting two and two together and getting five. Nevertheless, as soon as I reasonably can, I slip off to the toilet, the pressure of Georgie’s eyes lying heavily on my back; I’m sure she’s clocked that something is up, though she’s been acting somewhat oddly herself. If I can just get into my email folders; surely I have a record of the account numbers there. If I can just see them in black and white, prove to myself that there’s not a match . . . But no, an email search on my mobile finds emails from the bank, no account numbers on them. I’m pretty sure I can remember the password to log on online, but the ordinarily impressive Wi-Fi doesn’t appear to be working; I sit on the loo seat cover and watch the spinning circle of doom on my phone, debating whether to turn on data roaming and risk the wrath of Rob with an egregious phone bill (what on earth would I tell him?), and then I realize I don’t even have any signal at present. I stare and stare at the spinning circle until the fear that someone will come looking for me forces me out of the cubicle. Then I wash my hands, watching myself in the mirror, bathed in the oddly sickly light of the bathroom—not enough to allow touching up of any makeup and yet too much for mood lighting—as if watching a stranger: someone who looks like me, almost, but the finer details are wrong; they don’t quite knit together.
They can’t be. I’ve misremembered. And anyway, literally nobody would remember account numbers for accounts they barely touch.
And then: I would. It’s what I’m good at. I’m good with numbers. The stranger in the mirror straightens abruptly and turns away.
Back at the table, Adam has shifted to sit next to Georgie, filling my spot. Their heads are together, and even though one is blond and one dark, there’s something remarkably similar in their lean, sparse bone structure, in the tilt of their necks. They look up to see me at exactly the same time, reflected lamplight gleaming in their liquid eyes, as if they are two heads of the same beast. Suddenly I think again of that shadow racing under me in the ocean.
“Sorry, Bron, I didn’t mean to usurp you,” Adam is saying, but I’m too unsettled to do more than flap a vague hand as I circle the table to slide back into the seat he’s now vacating.
“You can’t usurp Bron,” Georgie says, smiling as she puts an arm round my shoulders, squeezing me against her briefly, and this at least penetrates. I laugh, but not for the reasons she thinks: of course I can be usurped. Of course that’s what Adam wants to do; it’s completely normal. Boyfriends, who later become husbands, who, later still, spawn one’s children—they all usurp friends; that’s just how it works. How can Georgie be so clueless?
Because it wasn’t like that for Lissa and Georgie. Nobody could replace what they were to each other. Even I didn’t understand it.
I look around the table. Steve has joined us; as there’s hardly anyone else in the restaurant, it would have been odd for him to remain at a table alone. His earlier unease has vanished, and he looks relaxed and expansive, a beer in one hand as he regales the group with a story from his previous life, something about trying to teach surfing to an oligarch’s daughter who refused to paddle a single stroke. Jem has probably heard it before, but he laughs in the right places regardless, though he’s looking a little ragged at the edges; he’s a tall, broad man who can hold his drink, but nonetheless, it’s starting to catch up with him.
“Is everything okay, honey?” asks Georgie, in a low murmur beneath the table conversation.
“Fine,” I say brightly. “Why?”
“You just seem a little distracted today. Even before that thing in the water.”
“Oh.” Of course she would notice. “I’m just . . . I’m just finding it a bit difficult. Being here, all of us, but no Lissa.”
Georgie is nodding, but before she can say anything, the waiter appears between us. “Wine, ma’am?” he asks, proffering a bottle. I shake my head quickly. I’m still feeling too fragile after my lunchtime efforts to contemplate anything other than water. Georgie and Adam allow the waiter to pour them a glass, but neither actually moves to taste it. Jem, on the other hand, is half a glass down before the waiter has got around the whole table.
“Is the Wi-Fi working on your phone?” I ask Georgie, before she can return to her line of questioning.
“What? Oh.” She scrabbles in her bag and fishes out her mobile, frowning. “No, doesn’t look like it. Actually, I don’t have any reception at all.” She cocks her head, looking up at me again. “Why, did you need something?”
“Oh, it’s nothing, really. I just wanted to check on something for Kitty’s school.”
They can’t be. It makes no sense. I’ve misremembered.
She looks at me for a moment, and I think she’s almost about to say something, but the food arrives just then. I eat what is put in front of me mechanically, resisting the urge to check my phone yet again for Wi-Fi connection. Steve moves on to another story, which pulls Georgie’s attention away from me. I hope he has a lot of them, enough to let me sit here and laugh when everyone else does and pretend to be absolutely fine. I’m not practiced at it, that type of pretense; the subterfuge nearly killed me when I was with Graeme. Well, not with Graeme. Whatever it was we were doing, we weren’t exactly together, except in those certain moments when we were very much exactly that . . . Like in the utility room at the old house, where he first kissed me, with all our friends outside in the garden for Kitty’s first birthday party. He and Lissa had had another blazing row; he was decompressing from it by downloading to me whilst I hunted in the freezer for the ice cream. And then he kissed me: not like Rob kisses, as if nothing more than a brief overture to be efficiently dispensed with before the main event, but as if trying to quench an endless thirst. Like the Elbow song: Kiss me like the final meal. Kiss me like we die tonight. That was a moment when we were together, Graeme and me.
God, what’s wrong with me? I can’t be thinking about Graeme. I haven’t thought about him in years. Perhaps it’s Steve’s fault, with all those questions on the boat—
“Wow, you were hungry,” says Adam. I glance at my plate and realize I’ve plowed through everything, though I couldn’t say what I’ve just eaten, whereas Adam looks like he’s barely taken two bites. His brow knits together in concern. “Is everything okay? You seem a little—”
“I’m fine,” I interrupt brightly. Too brightly, I realize. “Except—well, it’s been quite the day. All that excitement in the water.” I shudder a little, not entirely forced, and he makes a sympathetic noise. “Is Jem doing anything about it?”
“He reported it to the relevant government body, but they’re not going to advise that people stay out of the water given what we saw was so inconclusive. I think Steve said they’re going to double up on lifeguards in Horseshoe Bay for the time being. And nobody is supposed to swim at Kanu Cove anyway.” I shudder again. “Are you cold? Did you get too much sun?”
“I think maybe I did,” I say ruefully, pulling a wrap around my shoulders, which do in fact feel a little like fiery sandpaper.
He nods seriously. “You’re smart to stick to the water, then.” I glance at his own ruby-red filled glass, and then at Georgie’s. Both still look untouched. It suddenly occurs to me that I’ve barely seen Georgie take a sip of alcohol since she got here, a far cry from the Georgie of old; I remember, at university, Duncan once complaining that she was never sober after 9 p.m. I glance at her inadvertently. Surely she can’t be pregnant? But no, she’s stick thin—her stomach could have been used as an abdominal muscle anatomy lesson in her bikini today—and I have to believe she would tell me something like that. Surely she would tell me.
“We were at this very table that night,” Adam says suddenly. “Do you remember?” I nod. I know which night he means: the night that Lissa drowned. “Swap Steve for Cristina and Georgie for Lissa and we’re all in exactly the same seats, actually.”
He’s hooked George’s at
tention with this; her head swings round from Steve’s latest anecdote. “How did Lissa seem that night?”
“A bit tense, maybe,” Adam offers. “She and Jem had been fighting.”
“She told you that?” I ask, surprised.
“Yes—no, wait. I think Cristina told me that.”
“Cristina again,” murmurs Georgie. There’s a scrape of chair legs on the floor, and we all look up to see Jem pulling himself to his feet. “Bathroom,” he says laconically, then turns in that direction, bumping the table so forcefully that a bottle teeters then tips over, red wine blossoming from it across the white tablecloth. I leap to my feet and grab a napkin to dab at the mess while Jem leaves without a backward glance. I’m not even sure he’s aware he knocked the bottle.
“Leave it,” says Duncan. “They’ll sort it.” And it’s true: two staff members are fussing at me with various hand signals to leave it be.
“Habit,” I say, with an attempt at a smile as I relinquish the red-soaked, sodden napkin. “That’s what mothers do; they clean up the mess.” I glance at Jem, weaving ever so slightly as he threads his way through the tables. “It’s not great for guests to see him drunk.”
Duncan looks across at my words. “S’okay.” Duncan has had more than a few himself by now. “Look at the place.” I glance around again. He’s right: there’s only one other occupied table.
“What were they fighting about?” Georgie asks, as if there’s been no interruption. Duncan looks nonplussed. “We’re talking about that final night; Cristina said they were fighting.”
“Oh.” Duncan pauses, remembering. Steve is listening, too, now. “I don’t actually know.”
“The business, maybe?” presses Georgie. “Everything was going okay, right? Financially?”
“Absolutely. It was all looking good before—” Duncan waves a wrist in circles as if the motion might conjure him the right words. “Well, before.”
“She was definitely jumpy that night,” contributes Adam. There’s a small frown on his face as he tries to remember. “And kind of down; she kept saying that she wished you had made it out.” He glances at Georgie’s face, then hurries on. “I actually wondered if she had taken—” Now it’s Steve that he shoots a look at as he stops himself abruptly.
But Georgie has no such qualms. “Drugs? Can you even get them out here?”
“For sure,” Steve pipes up, nodding grimly. “You get the wealthiest sections of society coming through this part of the world on their holidays. You better believe there’s a thriving market in supplying them. That’s despite the fact that the drug laws are properly harsh here; even possession for personal use can lead to the death penalty.” He frowns. “I never heard any rumors about Lissa using anything, though.” He looks round the group. “Did she . . . ah . . . Was that her thing?”
After a beat of silence, Georgie says, “Not especially,” in a casual tone, and Steve nods as if understanding, but how could he, really, when Georgie has told him nothing at all? Suddenly Steve’s face changes, and I realize that Jem is almost back to the table. “Boss,” he says easily. “Thank God you’re back. I’ve long since used up all my decent chat. Now I’m just boring these good people; we need your famous raconteur skills.”
“Ah, but these good people all have stories of their own, don’t you?” Jem settles himself back in his chair. “Just this morning Georgie was telling me quite a tale.” I suddenly realize Jem’s eyes are fixed on Georgie’s.
“C’mon, share,” says Duncan, apparently oblivious to the tension.
“I don’t think now is the time and place for that one,” Georgie says with too-careful disinterest.
“What? But we’re all friends here.” Jem throws an arm wide to indicate the table, making me anxious for all the wineglasses near him. Stupid, stupid man. A cornered Georgie is a lioness. Utterly dangerous and genetically incapable of backing down.
“Are we?” muses Georgie, toying with her untouched wineglass for an uncomfortably long moment. Then she fixes Jem with a look that could skewer fish even as she says sweetly, “Then perhaps, as the famous raconteur, you’d like to tell it?”
Jem holds her gaze for a beat or two, then leans back in his chair and throws his napkin on his plate. “I’m done,” he says with absolutely no finesse. “I’m going to the bar.”
“What on earth was that about?” I ask, watching as Steve follows Jem to the bar.
“Nothing,” Georgie says quickly.
“Wait, is this the Loretta Bobbitt story?” says Duncan, understanding dawning on his face. “He was spouting off about that earlier—”
“Later, Dunc,” Georgie says, her words so heavily loaded with meaning that it’s a miracle that he misses it, but he does.
“What?” I ask, but Duncan is talking over me: “Why on earth would you tell him something like that?” he asks Georgie.
“He asked.”
“What?” I ask again; finally Duncan looks at me and says, “Jem is spouting off about some Loretta—”
“Lorena,” breaks in Georgie.
“—whatever, Lorena Bobbitt story that Georgie told him about Lissa.”
Adam is frowning. “Wait, Lorena Bobbitt: wasn’t that the woman who—”
“Cut off her husband’s dick,” says Duncan. “Yes.”
“I don’t understand. Lissa never . . .” I catch sight of Georgie’s face and stop talking.
“It’s okay, she didn’t,” Georgie says quickly to me.
Duncan snorts. “Not for want of trying, the way Jem told it.”
Georgie rounds on him. “And was Jem actually there?”
“And you were?” I ask, completely baffled by now. She nods slowly. “Whose dick?”
“Your ex. Scott. Before he was ex.” She delivers it in one clean punch. I open my mouth. Then close it again.
Adam looks even more confused than I. “So Lissa tried to cut off Bron’s boyfriend’s dick?”
“Not exactly. She threatened to. She held a knife to it.” Adam’s eyes widen, and he visibly swallows. “With a certain amount of force.” Now Duncan shudders slightly.
“But . . . why?” I ask helplessly.
Georgie looks at me, and I can see from her direct gaze that I’m not going to like what she’s about to say. But Georgie is a pull-the-Band-Aid-off-in-one-go kind of girl. “Because he was trying to cheat on you.”
“Cheat on me.” I’m finally putting it together. “With Lissa.” She nods, sharp and fast. Scott Mayhew. He was even more of a creep than I’d imagined him to be, for disappearing without a trace. Except that now I understand why he disappeared without a trace. All those years ago, I was furious at him for entirely the wrong reason.
“How were you there anyway?” Duncan asks her. “Was it a threesome thing?”
“No!” Georgie half laughs, then sobers again, shrugging. “I just walked in on it. On them. Just as she grabbed the knife.”
Dunc shudders again. “Even for Lissa, that’s completely over the top,” he says.
“Really? Tell me, Dunc, what is the proportionate response to infidelity?” Georgie asks with faux sweetness.
“Oh, come on—” Dunc starts.
“A slap in the face? Or is that just for kissing? What about a blow job, is that two slaps?”
“You’re being ridic—”
“Is it more or less if the girl that you try it on with is your girlfriend’s best friend?”
“Come off it.” Duncan’s finger is pointing at Georgie, across the table, to the middle of her chest. He’s a big guy, and he’s using that to intimidate, consciously or unconsciously. It’s like a red rag to a bull with Georgie; she seems to swell toward that very finger.
“And what if she’s actually high at the time? How does that change the scale?”
“This isn’t a women’s lib, Me Too thing; women cheat, too,
you know—”
“Not as many as men,” she shoots back.
“People make mistakes.” He’s almost yelling. “They shouldn’t lose a body part over them—”
“Jesus Christ, you two; behave,” orders Adam sharply. Duncan pulls back abruptly, lounging back in his chair, though the tension still visible in him is entirely at odds with his deliberately casual position. Georgie picks up her glass of water and takes a sip, holding the glass with both hands and sitting up tall and prim, with both elbows on the table and color still high in her cheeks. Nobody speaks. Duncan picks up an unused knife and swings it lazily, holding one end between thumb and forefinger, before he seems to recognize what it is and drops it abruptly. “You’re right, Adam,” he says, after a beat or two. He looks across at Georgie and offers a half smile. “Drink at the bar?”
She smiles back—not her usual smile, but it is at least a smile. “Come on then.”
Adam and I watch as they leave the table, Duncan slinging an arm round Georgie to pull her against him. After a moment Adam eyes my face. “Well. That was intense,” he offers.
“Yes.”
“Are you okay?”
I shrug. “It was a long time ago.”
“Even so, that sort of thing can still sting.”
He doesn’t miss much, Adam. He and Georgie are well suited in that regard. “It’s okay.” I shrug. “Scott was a shit even before I knew he was a cheating shit.”
He laughs, and it totally changes his face. If he laughed more, I might feel more at ease with him; or if I could just read what he was thinking. Maybe it’s an ex-military thing: he always seems to be assessing. Constantly preparing to maneuver.
How to Kill Your Best Friend Page 10