by Ruth Ware
I think of Luc, and his anger in the shop, the veiled threats, and I feel a sudden clenching fury – I cannot bear for them to be hurt. Any of them.
‘Ready?’ Kate says with a smile, but before I can nod, there is a cough in the corner, and I turn to see Liz, the girl from the village who has come to take care of Freya, standing by the dresser.
She is horrifyingly young – that was the first thing I thought when she arrived, knocking on the door with a tentative rap. She said on the phone she was sixteen but I don’t know if I believe it now I’ve seen her – and she has pale brown hair and a broad, blank face that is hard to read, but looks anxious.
Thea looks at her phone. ‘We need to go.’
‘Wait,’ I say, and I begin again the speech that I’ve run through twice already – the cup of expressed milk in the fridge, the comforter she doesn’t like but I keep hoping she’ll take to, where the nappies are, what to do if she won’t settle.
‘You’ve got my number,’ I say for maybe the twentieth time, as Fatima shifts from one foot to the other and Thea sighs. ‘Right?’
‘Right here.’ Liz pats the pad on the dresser, next to the pile of tenners that is her fee for the night.
‘And the milk in the fridge – I don’t know if she’ll take it – she’s not very used to sippy cups – but it’s worth a try if she wakes up.’
‘Don’t worry, Miss.’ Her small eyes are a guileless blue. ‘My ma always says there’s no one to beat me with my little brother. I look after him all the time.’
This doesn’t really reassure me, but I nod.
‘Come on, Isa,’ Thea says impatiently. She is standing at the door, her hand on the latch. ‘We’ve really got to get going.’
‘OK.’ I feel the wrongness of what I’m doing twist at my gut as I walk towards the door, but what choice do I have? The distance between me and Freya stretches, like a cord around my throat tightening as I pull away. ‘I’m going to try to duck out early, but call me, OK?’ I say to Liz, and she nods, and I’m peeling myself away from her, from Freya, every step making a hollow place inside my chest.
And then I’m across the rickety wooden bridge, feeling the evening sunlight on my back, and the emptiness lifts a little.
‘So I guess I’m driving …?’ Fatima says, getting out her keys.
Kate looks at her watch.
‘I don’t know. It’s ten miles round by the road and we’re very likely to hit a tractor at this time. They’re all working late on the fields in this weather, and there’s only one route they can take. If we get stuck behind one we could be there for ages.’
‘So, what?’ Fatima looks almost comically horrified. ‘Are you saying we should walk?’
‘It’d probably be quicker. It’s only a couple of miles if we cut across the marsh.’
‘But I’m wearing evening shoes!’
‘So change into your Birkenstocks.’ Kate nods at Fatima’s shoes, left neatly outside the door. ‘But it’ll be easy walking. It’s dry in this weather.’
‘Come on,’ Thea says, surprising me. ‘It’ll be like old times. And anyway, you know what parking will be like at the school. We’ll get boxed in, and you won’t be able to get the car out until all the other rows have left.’
It’s that suggestion that swings it. I can see in Fatima’s eyes that she is as reluctant as the rest of us to be stuck at school, unable to get away. She rolls her eyes, but kicks off her shoes and pushes her feet into her Birkenstocks. I switch my heels for the sandals I wore to walk to the village, wincing slightly as they rub the same sore places from the long walk. Kate is already wearing low, sensible flats, and so is Thea – she doesn’t need the extra height.
I give one last look at the window where Freya is sleeping, feeling the painful tug. And then I turn my face towards the track, south, towards the coast, and I take a deep breath.
Then we set off.
It is like old times, that’s what I think as we walk down the same track we always used to take back to Salten House. It is a pure, beautiful evening, the sky streaked with pink clouds reflecting the setting sun, the sandy track giving back the day’s warmth to our feet.
But we are only halfway along the shore path when Kate stops abruptly and says, ‘Let’s cut through here.’
For a minute I can’t even see where she means – and then I see it – a gap in the tangled, thorny hedge, a broken-down stile just visible among the nettles and brambles.
‘What?’ Thea gives a short laugh. ‘You joking?’
‘I –’ Kate’s face is uncomfortable. ‘I just thought … it’ll be quicker.’
‘No it won’t.’ Fatima’s face, behind her outsize black shades, is puzzled. ‘You know it won’t – it’s a less direct route, and anyway, there’s no way I can get through there, it’ll rip my outfit to shreds. What’s wrong with the stile further down? The one we always used to take back to school?’
Kate takes a deep breath and for a minute I think she’s going to persist, but then she turns and stalks off ahead of us up the path.
‘Fine.’ It’s muttered under her breath, so low that I’m not sure if I heard.
‘That was weird,’ I whisper to Fatima, who nods.
‘I know. What’s going on? But I wasn’t being unreasonable, was I? I mean –’ She gestures to the flowing, fragile silk, the easily caught jewels. ‘Seriously, right? There’s no way I could have got through those thorn bushes.’
‘Of course not,’ I say as we increase our pace to catch up with Kate’s retreating back. ‘I don’t know what she was thinking.’
But I do know. As soon as we get to the place where we always used to turn, I know instantly, and I can’t believe I had forgotten. And I understand, too, why Kate took Thea north up the Reach for their walk this afternoon, instead of south towards the sea.
For where our route turns right, over a stile onto the marsh, the shore path carries on towards the sea, and in the distance, almost hidden in the lee of a sand dune, I can see a white shape, and the blue-and-white flutter of police tape.
It is a tent. The sort used to shelter a site where forensic samples are being taken.
My heart sinks, a sickness fluttering in my stomach. How could we have been so crass?
Thea and Fatima realise it too, at the same instant. I can see by the way their faces change, and we exchange a single, stricken look behind Kate’s back as she walks ahead of us to the stile, her face averted from the stark beauty of the shore, and the sparkling sea stretching far out, as far as the eye can see, and in the midst of it all, that unassuming little tent that has changed everything.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, as Kate swings her leg over the fence, the rose-patterned silk fluttering in the wind. ‘Kate, we didn’t think –’
‘It’s fine,’ she says again, but her voice is stiff and hard, and it is not fine. How could we have forgotten? It’s not like we didn’t know. It’s why we’re here, after all.
‘Kate …’ Fatima says pleadingly, but Kate is over the stile, and striding onwards, her face turned away from us so we cannot see her expression, and we can only look at each other, wretched, guilty, and then hurry to catch up.
‘Kate, I’m sorry,’ I say again, catching at her arm, but she pulls out of my grip.
‘Forget about it,’ she says, and it’s a punch in the gut, an accusation I can’t refute. Because I already did.
‘Stop,’ Thea says, and there’s a note of command in her voice, a sound that I haven’t heard for years. She used to use it so easily, that whip-crack tone that more or less compelled you to listen, even if you didn’t obey. Stop. Drink this. Give me that. Come here.
Somewhere along the line she stopped – stopped ordering others around, became frightened of her own authority. But it’s back, just for a flicker, and Kate turns, halting on the short, sheep-cropped turf with a look of resignation in her eyes.
‘What?’
‘Kate, look …’ The note is gone now, Thea’s voice is concili-atory, uncer
tain, reflecting all our feelings as we stand around, unsure what to say, unsure how to make the unbearable OK when we know we can’t. ‘Kate, we didn’t –’
‘We’re sorry,’ Fatima says. ‘We really are, we should have realised. But don’t be like this – we’re here for you, you know that, right?’
‘And I should be more grateful?’ Kate’s face twists, and she tries to smile. ‘I know, I –’
But Fatima interrupts.
‘No. That’s not what I’m saying – for fuck’s sake, Kate, when did gratitude ever come between any of us?’ She spits out the word like a swear word. ‘Gratitude? Don’t insult me. We’re beyond that, aren’t we? We certainly used to be. All I meant was, you think you’re alone, you think you’re the only one who cares, you’re not. And you should take this – all of us –’ she waves a hand round at our little group, our long black shadows streaming across the marsh in the evening sun – ‘as proof of that. We love you, Kate. Look at us – Isa trekking down with her baby, Thea throwing in work at a moment’s notice, me dropping Ali, Nadia, Sam, all of them, for you. That’s how much you mean to me, to us. That’s how much we will never let you down. Do you understand?’
Kate shuts her eyes, and for a minute I think she may be about to cry, or rail at us, but she doesn’t, she reaches out, blind, for our hands, and pulls us towards her, her strong, paint-covered fingers hard against my wrist, as if we’re keeping her afloat.
‘You –’ she says, and her voice cracks, and then our arms are around each other, all four of us, huddled together like four trees twisted in the coast winds into a single living thing, arms tangled, foreheads pressed, warmth against warmth, and I can feel them, the others, their pasts so woven with mine that there’s no way to separate us, any of us.
‘I love you,’ Kate croaks, and I am saying it back, or I think I am, the chorus of choked voices must include mine, but I can’t tell, I can’t tell where I end and the others begin.
‘We go in together,’ Fatima says firmly. ‘Understand? They broke us once, but they won’t do it again.’
Kate nods, and straightens, wiping her eyes beneath the mascara.
‘Right.’
‘So, we’re agreed? United front?’
‘United front,’ Thea says, a little grimly, and I nod.
‘United we stand,’ I say, and then I wish I hadn’t, because the unspoken final half of the saying hangs in the air, like a silent echo.
DO YOU REMEMBER …
That’s the refrain running through our conversation as we trudge the last mile of the walk across the marshes.
Do you remember the time Thea got caught with vodka in her sports bottle at the away hockey match with Roedean?
Do you remember when Fatima told Miss Rourke that fukkit was Urdu for pen?
Do you remember when we broke out to go night swimming, and Kate got caught in the rip tide and nearly drowned?
Do you remember – do you remember – do you remember …
I thought I remembered everything, but now, as the memories sweep over me like floodwater, I realise that I didn’t, not fully. Not like this – not so vividly that I can smell the seawater, see again Kate’s shaking limbs, white in the moonlight, as we staggered up the beach with her. I remembered, but I didn’t remember the detail, the colours, the feel of the playing-field grass beneath my feet and the sea wind against my face.
But it’s as we cross the last field and climb the last fence that Salten House comes into view and it really hits home. We are back. We are really and truly back. The realisation is unsettling, and I feel my stomach tighten as the others fall silent, knowing that they must be remembering as I am, some of the other memories, the ones we have tried to forget. I remember Mark Wren’s face when a group of fifth years met him on the coast road one day, the tide of red climbing up the back of his neck as the sniggers and whispers started, the way he hung his head and shot a look at Thea that was pure misery. I remember the look of alarm on a first year’s face as she turned away from Fatima and me in the corridor, and I realised that she must have heard rumours about us – about our sharp tongues, and capacity for deceit. And I remember the expression on Miss Weatherby’s face that final day …
I am suddenly glad that Salten House has changed, far more than Salten itself which gives the air of being set in stone and salt. Unlike the Tide Mill which has only grown more battered with the years, there is a perceptible air of smartness to the place now, which is absent from my memories. Whatever impression it tried to give, Salten House was never a top-tier school in my day. It was, as Kate had said, a ‘last-chance saloon’ in many ways – the kind of place that would have space for a pupil enrolled in a hurry due to trouble at home, and would not ask questions about a girl kicked out of three other schools in a row. I remember noticing, when I arrived that first day so long ago, that the paintwork was peeling and salt-stained, the lawns were yellowing after a hot summer. There were weeds growing up through the gravel of the drive, and in among the Bentleys and Daimlers, many parents drove Fiats and Citroëns and battered Volvos.
Now, though, there is an air of … money. There’s no other way of putting it.
The silhouette of the tall building casting its long shadows across the croquet lawns and tennis pitches is the same, but the stark, cheap white paint has been changed to a deep expensive cream, subtly softening the edges, an effect enhanced by the flowers that have been placed in window boxes, and the creepers that have been planted at the corners of the building and are beginning to twine across the facade.
The lawns are lusher and greener, and as we make our way across them there is an almost inaudible ‘click’ and small spigots rise from the grass and begin spraying a fine mist of water, a luxury unimaginable when we were there. Outbuildings and covered walkways have sprung up, so that girls no longer need to scurry from lesson to lesson in the driving rain. And as we pass the all-weather tennis courts, I see they have been updated from their unforgiving knee-skinning tarmac to a kind of rubbery green sponge.
What hasn’t changed are the four towers still standing sentinel, one at each corner of the main block, the black skein of the fire escapes still twining up them like post-industrial ivy.
I wonder if the tower windows still open wide enough to admit a slim fifteen-year-old, and whether the girls break out now like they did then … Somehow I doubt it.
It is half-term of course, and the place is strangely silent … or almost silent. As we walk across the playing fields, cars sweep up the drive, and I hear faint voices coming from the front of the building.
For a minute my ears prick, and I think parents! with much the same sense of danger as a rabbit might think hawks! But then I realise – these aren’t parents, they’re girls. Old girls. Us.
Only not us. Because, somehow, it was always us and them. That’s the trouble with having a ‘click’ as Mary Wren might call it. When you define yourself by walls, who’s in, who’s out. The people on the other side of the wall become not just them, but them. The outsiders. The opposition. The enemy.
It’s something that I didn’t understand, in those early days at Salten House. I was so grateful to have found friends, so happy to have found my own niche, that I didn’t understand that every time I sided with Kate and Thea and Fatima, I was siding against the others. And that soon they might side against me.
A wall, after all, isn’t just about keeping others out. It can also be for trapping people inside.
‘Oh. My. God.’ The voice floats across the evening air, and we turn, sharply, all four of us as one, towards the sound.
A woman is approaching us, her heels crunching and teetering on the gravel.
‘Thea? Thea West? And – oh my God, you must be Isa Wilde, is that right?’
For a minute I go blank, and can’t place her name, and then it comes to me. Jess Hamilton. Captain of Hockey in the fifth form, and widely tipped for head girl in the sixth. Did she make it? I wonder. But before I can open my mouth to say hello, she�
�s barrelling on.
‘Fatima! I nearly didn’t recognise you with that scarf! And Kate, too! I can’t believe you’re here!’
‘Well …’ Thea raises an eyebrow and waves a hand slightly deprecatingly around the group. ‘Believe it now. Is it that unlikely that we made it this far in life? I know I had a live fast, die young poster on the wall of the dorm, but you weren’t supposed to take it literally.’
‘No!’ Jess gives a shrill laugh, and shoves Thea’s shoulder playfully. ‘You know it’s not that. It’s just …’ She falters for a second, and we all know what she’s really thinking, but she recovers and continues, ‘It’s just that, well, that you’ve never shown up to any of these things, any of you, even Kate, and she only lives five minutes down the road. We’d quite given up hope!’
‘How nice to know we’ve been missed,’ Thea says, with a little twisted smile. There is a moment’s awkward silence, and then Kate begins to walk.
‘So, gosh,’ Jess says, falling into step with us as we make our way round the corner to the main entrance. ‘What are you all up to? Kate, I know, of course. No surprise that she’s become an artist. What about you, Isa, let me guess – something to do with education?’
‘Nope,’ I say, forcing a smile. ‘Civil Service, actually. Unless you count trying to give ministers a crash course in law. How about you?’
‘Oh, I’m very lucky. Alex – that’s my husband – did awfully well out of the dot.com boom, he got in and out just at the right time. So we’re full-time parents to Alexa and Joe.’
Thea’s eyebrows nearly disappear into her fringe.
‘Do you have kids?’ Jess asks, and I nearly don’t reply, before I realise her question is directed at me, and I nod hastily.
‘Oh, yes. One little girl – Freya. She’s nearly six months.’
‘Home with the nanny?’
‘Nope.’ I manage another smile. ‘We don’t have a nanny in fact. She’s at Kate’s, with a babysitter.’
‘And how about you, Fatima?’ Jess continues. ‘I must say, I didn’t know you’d become …’ she nods at the scarf, ‘you know. A Muslim.’ She sort of mouths the last word, like someone not wanting to articulate something slightly taboo.