Alice copies and pastes the most interesting of the links and emails them to herself. Then, almost out of habit, she has another wander before leaving the room. She goes to George’s desk and tries the drawers. They are locked, as always. The feeling she has as she tries them is always the same: a sort of shame. It’s a similar feeling she gets when she goes to an acquaintance’s Facebook page and their privacy settings mean she can’t see what they’ve been up to. It’s not something you could ever talk about – only a snooper knows when they’ve been locked out. She never used to think of herself as a snooper, but she’s got worse over the years. And it’s become easier, too, with social media to find people, to peek at the way their lives are now. It’s this period in particular, the university years, she can’t leave alone. She scratches away at it like a scab.
Alice perches on the desk. There’s a framed collage of photos on it, which Christie and Teddy had put together for George’s thirtieth with Alice’s help. There’s a photograph of his parents at Ascot, standing to attention for the camera, with his father ruddy-cheeked, his mother in a monstrous hat. Another of George and her with Christie and Teddy on holiday in Greece, all looking a bit sunburned and worse for wear. There’s a photo of Alice on their wedding day. She remembers it being taken, one of the last in a long, long session of photographs, and how, by that stage, her head was beginning to ache with the strain of the tight hairdo, the hairspray, the clips, the constant smiling.
There’s another of George and Dan in black tie at the memorial ball. They look so young – like children. It doesn’t fit with her memory of George and his gang as impossibly sophisticated and cool.
The brrr of the landline makes her jump. It’s an old-fashioned, heavy thing on George’s desk. Alice looks at it guiltily for a second before picking it up.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, darling, it’s me.’
‘Hello you.’ Alice stands up as if caught out.
‘What are you up to?’
‘Oh, you know, pottering.’ She glances down at the photo in her hand.
He pauses. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, of course. Just enjoying my Saturday. How was the interview?’
‘Not bad. Are you OK? You seemed a bit strange last night.’
‘Well, I’d had a strange day. That’s all.’
Alice’s attention returns to the photograph. She picks it up to examine it more closely. George, rosy-cheeked from drinking, is clutching a bottle of champagne in his right hand with his left thrown around Dan’s shoulder. A little out of focus, there’s a cluster of people in the background.
‘Yes, I know,’ George says, more sympathetic than he might usually be.
‘Well …’
Alice wants to wind things up, to be left to her snooping alone. She’s never paid much attention to it before but there’s someone standing next to George, just out of the photo. There’s a sliver of a white shoulder, the strap of a dress and a thin slice of long hair.
Where had Alice been by this stage of the night? She must have been in bed; she’d still been recovering from glandular fever in her first year. She certainly hadn’t made the survivors’ photo. They had never bought one of their own but she’d seen them in the staircases or loos of other people’s houses when they’d all initially made the exodus to London. You didn’t see so many of them now – tasteful black-and-white photos of weddings and children had replaced student snaps.
‘I sometimes think we’re all stuck,’ George says quietly at the other end of the phone.
Alice sits down; this is unusually reflective for George. ‘What do you mean?’ she asks.
‘That what happened to Dan stopped us in our tracks somehow. That we’re all still there – stuck at that time at the end of uni.’ He laughs suddenly. ‘Or maybe I’m just talking bollocks. It’s probably the hangover.’
‘No,’ says Alice. ‘I feel the same.’
She wants him to say more, for this version of her husband to stay on the phone, but then he’s making his excuses, signing off, leaving her with the dialling tone ringing in her ears, the framed photograph still in her hand.
The thing is, she thinks, looking down at the photo, the thing she’d been thinking during the call, the thought she couldn’t fight, is that the hair in the photograph is red, bright red. Maybe she is stuck, but maybe it’s to do with this feeling – which she had even back then but was too ashamed to admit – of being left out; of knowing there was something she wasn’t being told.
Kat
The next time Kat sees Ruth, she is wearing the same ridiculous Pre-Raphaelite dress again, though – Kat can’t help noticing – it is wringing wet. Ruth’s hair is wet too, plastered to her shoulders. She is not wearing a coat, so she might as well be standing in her underwear for all Kat can see, which is black under her white dress. She is standing outside the porters’ lodge looking at Kat as if waiting for her.
‘Haven’t got my fucking keys, have I?’ she says.
Her voice is soft. There is a Welsh lilt to it. She speaks as if she and Kat already know each other, as if they are in the middle of a conversation. You could see why boys might find it seductive.
‘George suggested we go swimming,’ the girl continues, though Kat hadn’t asked. ‘I think he meant skinny-dipping – thought he might see me with my kit off, but I went in fully dressed.’ She barks a short laugh. ‘And when I came out he’d disappeared.’
‘Right.’ Kat raises an eyebrow but says, in a voice that sounds like her mother’s, ‘That’s actually quite dangerous.’
‘It’s OK.’ The girl smiles quickly. ‘I’m a strong swimmer. I love being in the water – it always clears my head.’
‘Still …’ Kat lets the word hang.
‘Haven’t I seen you before?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Kat. ‘Are you a fresher?’
‘Yeah, Spanish. You?’
‘English.’ Buzzing the front door open and stepping in first, Kat holds its weight for the other girl. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Ruth.’ The girl steps after her. ‘Yours?’
‘Kat,’ says Kat. ‘How are you finding it all?’
‘It’s OK.’ Ruth pauses. ‘A bit disappointing.’
‘I know what you mean.’ Kat smiles. ‘No one ever says that, do they?’
Ruth glances at the college clock tower. ‘Do you fancy a drink? I’ve got some Tia Maria.’ She starts to head towards a staircase in the far corner of the quad without waiting for a reply.
Kat finds herself following. ‘I thought first years didn’t get rooms in front quad?’
‘Wait till you see it. It’s tiny.’
Ruth hitches up her dress and starts to climb, her DMs clopping against the wooden stairs, a dripping train in her wake. They climb one flight then another. Kat starts to sweat.
‘Nearly there,’ Ruth gasps as they climb the fifth flight. ‘I start to feel the cigarettes right about now.’
They reach a cramped landing, which can barely fit both of them on it at the same time. The door to the room is small, too. Kat feels like Alice in Wonderland as she stoops. The room is, indeed, tiny with the bed high above on a raised platform, with a wooden ladder cut into it. Ruth has hung red drapes on all the walls and lit the room with fairy lights so that it feels like an enchanted cavern. There are piles of books in every corner and ashtrays balancing on the piles.
‘Come into my lair,’ grins Ruth. ‘Now, I’ve got Tia Maria or … no, actually, just Tia Maria. Will that do?’ She starts sloshing the dark liquid into mugs before Kat has a chance to reply, then flops on a beanbag on the floor, gesturing opposite her for Kat. ‘So,’ she says. ‘Who do you fancy?’
‘Just come out and ask,’ laughs Kat. ‘Don’t hold back.’ But she likes Ruth’s frankness. She takes a sip of Tia Maria and feels the heat of it spread across her chest.
‘I fancy George,’ declares Ruth.
Kat nods, lights a cigarette. ‘He’s got quite the reputation.’<
br />
‘Doesn’t he just!’ says Ruth gleefully. ‘How about you?’
Kat thinks of Richard, she thinks of the way he looked at Ruth, and she finds she doesn’t want to draw Ruth’s attention to him.
‘I’m not sure yet.’ She flicks the ash off the end of her cigarette. ‘I got burned by a guy on my gap year,’ she says instead. She glances down at her chipped nail polish. ‘There was this married man. He shagged me, of course, but he wouldn’t leave his wife.’ She laughs. ‘I’m told they never do.’
She’s found that anecdote usually shuts up other freshers. It’s a sort of test. But Ruth looks captivated.
‘Have you slept with many people?’
‘A few.’ Kat takes another sip of Tia Maria. ‘How about you?’
Ruth takes a deep breath. ‘Not one.’ She leans forwards. ‘Do you think it matters? Do you think they mind?’
Kat picks at a bit of grime on her mug. Ruth doesn’t seem to have any sort of filter. ‘God, no,’ she smiles, though in truth the confession was not quite what she was expecting from someone so theatrical. ‘They love it. Being able to show off.’
Ruth adds: ‘I was waiting …’
‘You’re Christian?’ Kat gives her a withering look and then tries to hide it.
‘No, oh God, no.’ Ruth hesitates. ‘I was waiting for my Big Love.’
‘Oh,’ says Kat. It’s not what she was expecting. ‘Your Big Love?’ she repeats. ‘I like that. Me too – I mean, it’s too late to save myself, but I’m waiting for a Big Love, too.’ Maybe she’s found that in Richard. She smiles. ‘You look like Ophelia.’
‘I’m not as mad,’ Ruth grins. ‘Not yet. But if I stay in this bloody freezing dress for much longer, I will be.’
She gets to her feet and starts to pull the dress over her head. Kat, who grew up as an only child in a non-naked house, isn’t used to this sort of stripping. In front of guys, sure, but not like this: staggering around the room with your DMs on. She gets up to help.
‘Are you stuck?’
The dress is made of heavy cheesecloth and it takes an effort to get it off. When it finally gives, Ruth pops out from it like a cork. She flings the offending item down on the floor. Without the armour of clothes, she looks thin and very pale in her black bra and pants.
‘Sorry about that.’ She starts to hunt for her dressing gown, which she finds in a crumpled heap in the corner by her sink. ‘Where are you from?’
‘London,’ says Kat. ‘How about you?’
‘Haverfordwest.’ Ruth’s mouth shapes itself around the consonants.
‘I know that place.’
Ruth laughs. ‘Everyone says that.’
‘I went there when I was eight and it rained.’
‘Yes,’ says Ruth, lighting a cigarette. ‘Everyone says that, too.’
‘What were you like as a kid?’ asks Kat. ‘I bet you looked like Anne of Green Gables.’
‘Ha! I did,’ says Ruth. ‘With the same temper.’
‘I don’t believe that,’ says Kat politely.
‘I guess you haven’t known me very long,’ says Ruth, trying to blow smoke rings. ‘I broke my sister’s arm once when we were little.’
‘What for?’
‘I thought she was cheating. At Grandmother’s Footsteps.’
‘Well, it sounds as though she deserved it,’ Kat laughs.
‘No,’ says Ruth, suddenly serious. She grinds her cigarette out, gets up to deal with her dress in the sink. ‘It was the most terrible thing I’ve done. She screamed and screamed. It was awful; I couldn’t make her stop. My mother said: “What have you done to your sister?” She shook me so hard, and all the time Naomi’s face was scrunched up and muddy from where I’d pushed her over. And I was still angry with her for screaming so loud. For bringing my mum over. I didn’t know whether to comfort her or push her over again.’ She pauses to hang the dress up on a coat hanger. ‘So I ran away and hid for hours in our treehouse.’
‘Ah.’ Kat isn’t sure how to respond to this story. ‘You were just a little girl.’
‘Sure,’ says Ruth dismissively. ‘But, you know, the worst thing is: I actually meant to hurt her. And then it was so dreadful when I did.’ She sighs. ‘She was such a good little girl, as if she felt she had to make up for all my naughtiness.’ She is quiet for a moment. ‘I don’t feel about anyone in the universe like I do my sister. Have you got siblings?’
‘No.’ Kat thinks of her mum’s quiet flat with just the cats for company. ‘But I have a couple of younger cousins.’
‘So you know what it’s like then?’ says Ruth, not unkindly.
Kat nods, but she isn’t sure that she does. Not really. ‘Why did you choose St Anthony’s?’ she asks.
‘I like places on the edge of the world,’ says Ruth, gesturing theatrically. ‘All the universities I applied to – St Andrews, Edinburgh, Exeter – were near the sea. I grew up on the coast. Being by water always makes things better.’ She takes a breath. ‘How about you?’
Kat takes a gulp of Tia Maria. ‘Mainly to get away from my mother.’
Ruth looks at her for a moment and then roars with laughter, leaning over to clink her mug to Kat’s. ‘Amen to that. I mean, I love my mum, but …’
‘I know,’ says Kat darkly.
‘My mum gets sad,’ says Ruth, getting up to put on some music. ‘We grew up in a hotel and there were days when she wouldn’t want to serve the customers. Not that I blame her for that. Or days when she wouldn’t leave her bedroom, where she would sit at the window for hours and look at the sea.’
‘Yes, my mum’s depressive too,’ says Kat. She hates thinking about her mother, especially these days: the way the antidepressants had bloated her, taken off her edges.
‘My mum’s father – my grandfather – walked into the sea one day and never came back,’ Ruth says matter-of-factly as Kate Bush begins to sing. ‘My sister and I nearly got lost at sea once, too,’ she adds, swaying slowly to the music. ‘But that was just an accident. A riptide pulled us out. It was really frightening: one minute we were standing to our waists in water. Then it was to our shoulders,’ she gestures, making a performance of it. ‘And then the sand seemed to slip away completely. Waves kept coming so hard that we could barely catch our breath between them.’
Kat frowns. ‘It sounds pretty hairy.’
‘I thought, “This is it,”’ says Ruth. ‘That we were going to die together like in Mill on the Floss.’ She leaves a dramatic pause. ‘But thanks to a couple of dog walkers, we didn’t, in the end,’ she concludes cheerfully. ‘After that, our father made sure we had swimming lessons. Really good ones, with one of the lifeboat guys who …’ She is interrupted by a dull gonglike clang of metal hitting metal outside.
‘What the hell was that?’ Kat asks.
‘Someone out in Cathedral Square,’ says Ruth, gesturing with her cigarette towards a tiny window above her bed. ‘Some people find it hilarious to fuck about with the anchor out there.’ She climbs up on her bed and looks out of the window. ‘Hey, Kat, look at this.’
Kat climbs up the ladder and sits next to Ruth with her nose pressed up against the cold glass. ‘What is it?’
‘Down there.’ Ruth taps her finger against the pane, and Kat sees George and Dan lumbering back to college, each with an arm slung around a girl.
‘Hmm,’ Kat says and pulls away from the window. She sits cross-legged on the bed. ‘Maybe not your Big Love …’
‘No,’ Ruth smiles but her voice sounds flat. ‘Maybe not him.’ She glances to where her dress is dripping by the sink.
‘I can’t believe you went swimming in October,’ says Kat sternly. ‘It’s actually really dangerous.’ Everyone knew how the town had almost been wiped out by the sea in the great storm of eighteen-something. ‘It’s actually called St Anthony’s because of all the fishermen who were lost here,’ she adds.
‘I know that,’ says Ruth chirpily. ‘There’s a rhyme: St Anthony, St Anthony, bring what I’ve lost back to
me.’
‘I’m just saying,’ says Kat. ‘Be careful. It’s dangerous.’
‘Don’t worry,’ grins Ruth. ‘It won’t happen again.’
Naomi
Where we were from, people disappeared into the water from time to time. Once it was someone we knew – a man who used to drink at the hotel bar. I was around thirteen, Ruth fifteen. The wind was particularly wild that afternoon, filling our raincoats and puffing them up like balloons. As we headed back home along the clifftops, the hum of the search helicopter began to follow us and eventually we caught sight of it, hovering like a fly, skating the gorse bushes as it moved. When it passed we could see the face of a man squatting by the open door.
‘Maybe they’ve come for us,’ one of us joked weakly. But we both knew that the world felt slightly different from how it had that morning.
Later, men in fluorescent jackets appeared at the hotel with their walkie-talkies crackling. Our mother was asked to interrupt service to find out if anyone had seen anything. She had taken off her apron and washed her hands to make the announcement.
Speaking carefully, slowly, she said: ‘A man has gone missing. He left home this morning with his wife’s dogs: two collies. He told his wife that he’d be gone for an hour. The three of them haven’t been seen since.’
‘The dogs wouldn’t have left him, if he’d fallen.’ That was the general conclusion. He might have left his wife, but the dogs wouldn’t have left him. People knew about such things where we grew up.
‘It’s the first thing all the diners said,’ Ruth told me later, back in the kitchen. ‘And, you know, they wouldn’t.’ She started picking the dough out of a bread roll, but lost enthusiasm for it and put it back in the basket. ‘A man on his own – I mean, he’s not exactly a target.’
‘What do you mean: a target?’ I asked, but Ruth ignored my question.
‘Maybe he had an argument with his missus,’ Damien, the chef, shouted from behind the hotplate. ‘Or maybe he was still pissed from the night before …’
The Girl Before You Page 4