Lynsey flashes me a look. If they find out she’s got no knickers on the whole story will fall apart again. ‘I just want to go home,’ she says.
‘Me too,’ says the man, flicking the rest of his cigar into the verge and getting back into the car.
‘I’ll chum you as far as your gate,’ says Jennifer. ‘I’ve had enough swimming.’
And they leave. The woman gets back in the passenger side and we stand at the edge of the lane to let them drive off, watching until the red rear lights disappear around a bend taking the sickly glow with them.
As soon as we’re back in the dark, Jennifer kneels down. She puts her hands on either side of Lynsey’s face. ‘Are you feeling bad?’ she says. Lynsey nods, dragging the girl’s hands.
‘I want you to do something for me,’ Jennifer says. Lynsey waits, watching. ‘I want you to take the horrible, sore, sad, nasty feeling inside – can you feel it?’ Another nod. ‘And I want you to turn it into a little black stone. As small as you can get it. Is it heavy?’ Lynsey gives a small nod, one up and one back down. ‘Where is it?’
‘Tummy,’ Lynsey says. She’s beginning to sound like a toddler, her voice uncertain and piping.
‘I want you to cough it up,’ the girl says. ‘Cough it up into your hands.’
Lynsey nods. Then she takes a deep breath and makes a sharp hacking sound. She’s got her two hands cupped in front of her.
‘There,’ says Jennifer. ‘Doesn’t your tummy feel better now? And doesn’t that feel heavy in your hands?’
Lynsey looks down and says nothing.
‘You can get rid of it, you know. You can give it to someone else to hold instead of you. And it’ll never come back. Wouldn’t that be nice?’
Lynsey stretches out her cupped hands towards the girl, who rears back. ‘No, sweetheart,’ she says. ‘Not me. Give it to your sister. Your sister loves you and she’ll be there in case you ever have to cough up any more. She’ll hold it for you, won’t you, Carmen?’
Lynsey turns and gazes up at me, holding out her hands.
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘I’ll carry it home for you and then we’ll decide what to do with it after that.’
‘But she said you’d keep it,’ Lynsey says.
‘Of course she’ll keep it. If that’s what you want.’ The girl’s voice is wheedling. ‘She loves you. She’ll do this for you. Won’t you, Carmen?’
I reach out a hand and watch Lynsey carefully slide the invisible stone into it as if she’s separating an egg. And I can’t deny it: my hand drops an inch or two and I flex the muscles in my arm to hold it steady. I mime putting it in my jeans pocket.
‘Don’t do that,’ Lynsey says. ‘What if Mum finds it when she’s doing the washing?’
‘I’ll take it out before I put them in the wash.’
‘But where will—’
‘If you hide it somewhere it might find its way back to poor little Lynsey,’ Jennifer says. ‘You need to hold it inside yourself, really. For your sister.’
I tell myself it’s a load of crap anyway and it doesn’t matter so long as it helps her. Then I throw it up into the air, duck my head and catch it like a seal in the wild-water show, swallowing it whole and cold and feeling it hit the pit of my stomach and die there.
Chapter 13
‘We’re one down for dinner, then,’ said Buck. ‘All the more for the rest of us.’
‘I’ll go after him,’ Jennifer said. She fished her keys out of her pocket and strode out of the front door. We heard her slamming into her car and taking off down the drive in a spray of gravel.
We’d come to be standing in a ring, all of us with our chests heaving. Rosalie had her hands over her mouth and her eyes were still wide with shock. Paul and Ramsay looked more alike than ever. Buck had taken it in his stride. Peach, half drunk already, was buffered against most of it. But Kim was gulping and had tears running down through her heavy eye make-up. Still, it was her that laughed first.
‘We’ve been played,’ she said. Ramsay turned a curious look on her. But Rosalie clapped her hands and laughed too.
‘How, in particular?’ said Buck. ‘I mean, I’m prepared to believe it, but how?’
‘Jelly’s not going after Sasha,’ said Rosalie. ‘Why would she? She’s just scarpered again without admitting it.’
‘I don’t blame her,’ said Kim. ‘That poor rabbit.’
‘Do you want my phone?’ I said. ‘Are you serious about reporting it?’
‘I want my phone,’ Ramsay said. ‘This black-out is beginning to get to me.’
‘About that,’ I said. I felt sweat on my palms at the thought. But I couldn’t hide it any more. ‘I need to talk to you all. Cards on the table. Can we hold dinner a bit?’
I turned towards the drawing room but Kim put a hand on my arm. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘Not with that thing lying there. Even inside a cushion cover.’
‘I’ll take it outside,’ said Paul, and pushed ahead of us. We all waited, even the other two men, for the sound of the French window opening, but what we heard was the rustle and thump of him rummaging among the parcels and wrapping paper, cursing. I knew what he was going to say before he said it.
‘It’s gone!’
‘What?’ Buck was first in but we all crowded in right after him. The bare cushion pad was back on the couch, the box in its burst-open wrapping was still on the table, but the rabbit in its zipped shroud was nowhere.
‘He’s really messing with us,’ Rosalie said. ‘He must have doubled back and nabbed it.’
‘Sorry, Kim,’ said Ramsay. ‘I know he’s your husband and, Rosalie, I know he’s your brother, but he is a total dick, isn’t he? How can he still think these games are worth playing?’
‘Look,’ Peach said, going to the window and looking out. ‘Footprints to the beach gate. He’s going to go and fling it in the tide, then try to tell us it never happened.’
‘Good luck telling seven of us it never happened,’ Kim said. ‘That only works one at a time. As I know.’
‘I bet it was Donna talking about fingerprints that’s made him rush to get rid of the evidence,’ said Ramsay. He was almost laughing, then caught my eye as the same thought struck both of us at once. I raced across the hall and into the billiards room.
‘Too late,’ I said. The garden door was open and the party hat was gone. ‘If that was one of my knives I’m adding it to your bill. I love that knife.’
‘Oh, God,’ Ramsay said. ‘Let’s all have a drink, shall we?’ He put a hand in the small of my back and steered me out of the room again. ‘You too, Donna. Sit down and have a glass of champers. Let’s all drink to Sasha breaking his neck on the cliff path.’
‘Or falling on the knife,’ Peach said.
‘Or,’ said Kim, ‘having all his orifices stitched shut by the angry ghost of that poor bunny.’ Rosalie raised her eyebrows but Kim was adamant. ‘I don’t care. I’ve fucking had it. I’ve been flogging this dead horse of a marriage for a good two years. This weekend was my last ditch.’
‘What are you drinking to, Donna?’ said Buck.
‘Forgiveness?’ I said. ‘I haven’t got your devices.’
They looked blank again. It had to be Sasha, I decided, unless one of them had a poker face that could break the bank at Monte Carlo.
‘I didn’t pick them up from outside your rooms last night,’ I said. ‘But someone did. And I’ve got no idea where they are. I searched the house while you were all out today – that’s when I found the nightie and the party hat – and they’ve vanished.’
‘Fucking Sasha!’ Ramsay said. ‘If he’s tipped my iPad into the sea I’ll sue the arse off him.’
‘Don’t be a chump,’ said Rosalie. ‘He’s probably locked them all in his car.’
I let my breath go. Of course! It was such an obvious solution I was ashamed not to have seen it.
‘Kimmie,’ Rosalie went on, standing. ‘Have you got a key? I’ll go out and check while Sasha’s off playing silly bug
gers.’
‘I have got a key,’ Kim said. ‘But it’s gone. The bastard’s taken it out of my bag. House key too.’
‘He took your keys?’ That was Ramsay.
‘Takes my keys,’ Kim said. ‘If he thinks I might bolt.’
‘That’s not legal,’ Ramsay said. ‘That’s … What is that, Rosalie?’
‘Unlawful detention,’ she said. ‘With intent.’
‘It’s not even the worst thing he does on any given day,’ said Kim, and I thought of the way she had been standing, then suddenly had been on the ground. Her quick recovery and the way she hopped into the moving car. Practised, now I thought about it properly.
‘Fucking hell,’ said Buck. ‘Why on earth do you sta—’
‘Do not finish that sentence,’ said Peach. ‘Or so help me…’
‘Okay, well, maybe I can finish this one, then,’ said Buck. ‘Have you got my keys, Peach?’
‘Have I got your car keys? No. Why?’
‘Funny you should say that,’ said Paul. ‘Rosie, I was going to ask why you’d snaffled mine. I wanted to get my penknife out of the glove box and I couldn’t lay my hands on them.’
‘So,’ said Rosalie. ‘We think Sasha has purloined all of our car keys, do we? Ramsay, can you check yours?’
He nodded and left the room.
‘But it’s not as if we’re on some island only joined to the coast by a tidal causeway, is it?’ said Rosalie, while we waited. ‘Donna’s got a car and a phone, haven’t you?’ I nodded. ‘And it’s only a few miles to the nearest neighbour.’
‘It’s kind of pathetic, actually,’ Kim said. ‘It’s needling for needling’s sake.’
‘And, really, sweeping off isn’t much of a wind-up if the people you leave behind are all sick of you,’ said Paul. ‘Sorry, Kim. Sorry, Ro.’
Ramsay was back. ‘Car keys gone,’ he said. ‘No sign of the white nightie either.’
‘It’s all pretty well choreographed, isn’t it?’ said Rosalie. ‘Pretending to slam out, then creeping back.’
‘Well, fuck him sideways,’ said Buck. ‘Donna, it’s time to party. We’re ready for our dinner. If Sasha comes back he can have bread and cheese in his room.’
‘And really, Donna, do join us,’ Kim said. ‘We’re kind of past the formalities, wouldn’t you say?’
I resisted and resisted, but there were six of them and they were determined. So, after I dished up – shoot me – I sat down and troughed into the smoked salmon, wafer thin and sweet.
Peach groaned. ‘God almighty, this is the best thing I’ve ever had in my mouth.’
Buck snorted and Rosalie threw a piece of bread at him. I knew they’d come to food fights in the end. Their sort always do.
Mad as it sounds now after what had just happened, and considering what was coming next, for a few hours there we had a magical evening. I felt like I’d known them all my life, except that I didn’t know any of their stories. And so they got to tell me, showing their best sides.
I heard about Buck’s children and how his eldest was nearly born in a taxi on the M8 and the driver fainted when his wife’s waters broke. So Buck had to drive the taxi to the hospital with both of them laid out in the back of the cab.
I heard about how Paul always pretended to be divorced at work because no one trusts a happily married divorce lawyer and how Rosalie kept pictures of Peach’s children on her desk because no one trusts a childless family-law specialist.
‘I’m tempted to flick some cream of mushroom on my suit jacket some days,’ she said. ‘Pretend it’s baby sick. Really get them on my side.’
‘Didn’t you ever want them for real?’ said Kim.
‘I’ll tell you after another bottle of wine,’ said Rosalie. ‘Each.’
I heard about how Ramsay pretended to be gay at work – in the online marketing department for a magazine group – to stop women asking him out.
‘It just makes them more determined. Can’t really complain. We pump out a hundred and eighty pages a time across seven different titles, telling them they’re beautiful and powerful and the sky’s the limit. No wonder they’ve got delusions.’
I heard about how Peach gave a talk about being a casualty doctor to Ramsay’s magazines’ executives’ away-day, and there were more complaints than the time the Christmas night out ended up in a lap-dancing club.
‘So I asked Buck to come and do the talk the next time,’ Ramsay said.
‘Why? What do you do for a living?’ I asked.
‘I’m a nurse!’ Buck said. ‘We see it all before it’s cleaned up and the doctors get there. I made someone cry. Remember, Ramsbum? I made that one cry telling her about the women who fed her—’
‘No!’ A chorus of voices shut him down.
Kim wiped her eyes with her napkin. ‘Oh, God, I haven’t laughed so much for years.’
‘Now you,’ said Ramsay. ‘Tell us your proudest moment.’
Kim shook her head and waved them off. ‘I’ve got nothing to top that. I’m in retail. Can I ask you all a question, though?’ She went on without waiting, ‘Did you come here this weekend to watch a car crash?’
‘No!’ said Peach.
‘Partly.’ That was Ramsay.
‘Fifty‒fifty,’ said Rosalie.
‘Sixty‒forty,’ said Paul.
‘Buck?’ Kim said.
‘Absolutely not,’ Buck said. ‘I came to watch a train wreck and I’m not disappointed.’
‘Fucking hell,’ Kim said, when she had stopped laughing. ‘What a mess. Lucky I know a good divorce lawyer.’
Paul gave one last chuckle, then cleared his throat. ‘I don’t know, Kim. He’s my brother-in-law after all. But I can promise you I won’t take him on as a client. How about it?’
‘Bullshit,’ said Rosalie. ‘Kim, of course he’ll do your divorce. Sasha deserves it. Bringing us all back here and freaking us all out.’
‘He didn’t know,’ Kim said. ‘Honestly. He had no idea until we got here.’
‘Of course he knew,’ said Paul. ‘I bet Ramsay’ll be able to check your email account – if the stupid bastard ever gives us our stuff back. I bet he’s been stalking you online as long as you’ve been married. Sasha always did like to be the boss. Hey, Buck, remember…’
And they were off again.
Eventually, when we were finished with the venison and even Buck had stopped pouring gravy onto his plate and wiping it up with bread, when we were full and getting drunk, when we were beginning to laugh a bit less and talk a bit more, I spoke up.
‘Can I ask something?’ They were owlish with booze but in the candlelight they still looked pretty glamorous. It wouldn’t be till they were looking at themselves in their bathroom mirrors that the full effects of the night would show. I had chosen the lights in the bathrooms; I should know.
‘A swat?’ Peach said. ‘Ass. Ka-watt? Aw, shit, I’m pissed.’
‘Hard to argue,’ said Rosalie. ‘Are you going to be okay?’
‘My spozzer’s going to kill me. Kill me dead.’
‘Your what?’ said Kim. ‘Jesus, Peach, don’t tell me you’ve got one of those implants that gives you alkie poisoning if you—’
‘Sponsor, I think she meant,’ said Buck. ‘Right, Peachy-pie? Your AA sponsor?’
‘Thalassa,’ said Peach. She made an effort, but only managed ‘Sposser,’ then giggled and leaned against Buck.
‘The last one?’ said Rosalie. ‘Peach, are you on some kind of final warning?’
‘Her name is…’ said Peach, articulating carefully ‘… Thalassa.’
Rosalie laughed quietly, shaking her head, and Buck stroked his sister’s hair back. ‘She’s probably called Theresa,’ he said. ‘Or Alicia. Oh, God, Peach.’
‘What did you want to ask, Donna?’ Ramsay said, leaning across the table and upending an almost finished bottle of wine into my glass. ‘Go for it.’
I flicked my eyes to the mantelpiece. ‘It’s about the picture.’
‘The
picture!’ said Buck. ‘The one tease that is mysteriously still there. It hasn’t vanished like everything else.’
‘I really do think that was Jennifer,’ said Paul. ‘I think she was trying to be nice. That’s why it’s still there. It wasn’t part of Sasha’s big head game.’
‘You’re not going to ask why I was wearing that hideous frock, are you?’ Rosalie said. ‘That was my bloody mother overcompensating as usual. I wanted a pair of jeans and a Breton T-shirt, like Peach had.’
‘Borrow ’em,’ murmured Peach.
‘Overcompensating for what?’ I said.
‘You’re all the woman I’ll ever want,’ said Paul, dropping a kiss on her shoulder. ‘And don’t ask for an explanation of my hairstyle either. First proper puking hangover I ever had – God, I can still smell the hair gel as I hung over the bog!’
‘Lovely,’ said Rosalie. ‘How drunk are you, exactly?’ She pushed Paul off her and stared at him. ‘Jesus, your eyes are like pinpricks. Donna, did you give us your secret peyote sauce?’
‘I’m not drunk,’ said Paul. ‘How very dare you?’ But he put his head down on the table as he spoke, starting off another round of jeering.
‘What did you want to ask?’ Rosalie said.
‘The kids who’ve been Photoshopped out,’ I began. ‘I don’t get that. Why would Jennifer – why would anyone – do that?’
Paul sat up again and let his head drop back, watching me from under his lashes.
‘I agree,’ said Kim. ‘I could see the point if it was Sasha rubbed out. That would be genuinely creepy. But random locals? Who were they anyway?’
‘They were siblings,’ Rosalie said.
‘Sssh,’ said Paul. His voice was so slack I thought at first he was just breathing noisily. ‘Locked in a box, Rosalie.’
‘Sissers,’ said Peach.
‘Stitched lips,’ said Buck.
‘They were invited to … Well, to…’ said Ramsay. ‘At least, one of them was.’
‘Stop,’ said Paul. ‘We were supposed to go to our—’
‘They were here to round out the numbers,’ Ramsay said. ‘There were four of us boys, you see. Sasha, Paul, Buck and me. And the three girls. Jennifer, Peach and Rosalie. So we invited another girl. To play all those excruciating party games that need an even match. Do they still play those games at parties?’
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