by Karen Swan
Archie suddenly realized the inappropriateness of what he was doing and straightened up. ‘You’d better do it,’ he said, holding out the towel.
She laughed and took over the job; Archie wouldn’t make a move on her if his life depended upon it.
‘Suzy’s setting up the monitor,’ Luke offered, watching the skit with reserved cool.
‘Oh right. What’s the film? Did we decide?’ She directed the question to her chest, keeping her eyes well away from his. The moment in the sea earlier – fleeting though it was – had been like a scald and she knew she had to keep her distance now. They couldn’t be friends. It was a lie, a charade. She had been so naive to suppose it could ever have been different between them. Something – a spark, an ember – was still alight between them and they couldn’t give it oxygen.
‘Well, we had to decide without you, given that you were in the bath for two hours – using up all the hot water,’ Archie admonished.
‘You said not to hurry, that dinner was going to be late tonight!’ she protested. ‘If it’s not dark till ten, there’s no point in me hanging around and getting in the way from eight o’clock, is there?’
‘Yeah, but leaving it to ten to ten?’ Archie raised his eyebrows and she knew he knew perfectly well that she was avoiding Suzy. ‘Anyway, we’re watching It’s a Wonderful Life.’
‘Oh, what?’ Cassie’s shoulders sagged. ‘Arch, you’ve made me watch that film every year for, like, fifteen years! I know it backwards.’
‘Well, we may end up watching it backwards if Suzy can’t remember which way to put on the reels,’ Archie guffawed.
‘I’ve never seen the film, actually,’ Luke said, swigging from his beer. ‘It’s one of those classics I’ve never got round to watching.’
‘Oh, you’ll never forget this experience, let me tell you,’ Archie said proudly. ‘Our garden film nights really are something else.’
‘I’ll bet.’
Cassie, feeling a tap on her elbow, turned.
‘Hi.’ Gem was standing behind her, an apologetic smile on her face.
‘Hi.’ Cassie’s eyes flitted over to Amber, who was on one of the sunloungers and studying the most recent issue of Brides magazine by firelight with a studious fervour better suited to The Odyssey.
A pause.
‘So, I just wanted to clear the air about yesterday,’ Gem started. ‘I was being overprotective; you were hung-over . . .’
Cassie frowned. If this was supposed to be passing for an apology . . .
Gem gave her a sudden dazzling smile, arms outstretched. ‘Friends again? Henry would hate it if he knew his two favourite girls were fighting, and I don’t want anything to blot my happiness right now. It’s just three days till the wedding and it means so much to me to have you at the very centre of it.’
Cassie didn’t think providing the food really counted as being at the centre of it, but there was no time to debate the issue – Gem had already thrown her arms around her, pinning Cassie’s arms to her sides so that her right arm was bent at an awkward angle as she tried to keep her hot dog away from Gem’s pretty grey cotton jumpsuit. Gem pulled away again as Cassie straightened up with a tight smile. The word ‘sorry’ hadn’t actually made an entrance, but that was being picky, right? The girl was getting married in three days. She was allowed to be unreasonable, unlikeable. Hysterical, even.
She realized Gem was holding something out to her. ‘What’s that?’
‘The menus for Saturday. They’re just ideas, you know. Obviously you know best, so if something doesn’t work or . . . I don’t know, isn’t in season . . .’
Cassie felt a nibble of panic in her stomach. She had assumed (and rather hoped) that their falling-out yesterday had meant she was ‘off the job’, particularly when that argument had been almost immediately superseded by her and Suzy’s more serious fight, and she hadn’t given Gem – or her food – any more thought.
She supposed it wasn’t like they were talking big numbers, just the seven of them here, plus Hats and her plus-one (which Gem had taken as a sign that she was ‘coming round’ to the idea), and potentially Laird’s brother and his wife, who were, according to Archie earlier, going to try for a standby flight from Melbourne.
‘Anyway, have a look through and give me your thoughts. We don’t want anything fancy. You know what we’re about – the day is just a modest celebration of our love, shared with the people we love most.’ She squeezed Cassie’s arm for a moment, holding her gaze with a disingenuous smile, before turning and walking back to Amber, who immediately muttered something under her breath that Cassie couldn’t hear.
Cassie – holding the entire hot dog in her mouth for a moment as she freed up a hand to unfurl the sheet of paper – looked down: bitter melon; barberries, wakame, kohlrabi . . . Cassie’s jaw dropped open. Modest? It made Yotam Ottolenghi look like a fussy eater. Half this stuff was so rare she’d only be able to source it in London, and the other half was either out of season or so time-intensive she’d need a team of chefs to have started prepping for her three days ago. She glanced at Gem, wondering whether this was, in fact, a form of revenge. At best, she had to be joking.
Archie’s name was barked from a short distance away and he stepped back, peering over to the far side of the house. Cassie noticed for the first time that the three saggy sitting-room sofas had been carried out onto the lawn and arranged in a vague U-shape facing the large gable end.
‘I think we’re probably good to go,’ Archie said, pleased. ‘Come on, chaps, grab a pew.’
Gem and Amber jumped up from the sunloungers, bridal magazines scattered on the ground around them and an empty bottle of prosecco lying on its side, as they raced each other to ‘bags’ the best seats.
‘Don’t you want to put a cardy on, Amber?’ Archie called with a worried tone as she ran past in a slip of lilac silk. ‘You’ll catch your death in that skimpy top . . . dress thingy.’
‘It’s a kaftan, Arch,’ Amber purred, stopping dead in her tracks as she got to Luke and threading her arm round his hips, deciding Gem could win. ‘And anyway, it’s all sorted. Plus, I’ve got my man to keep me warm.’
Cassie kept her eyes dead ahead, still eating her hot dog, as they all walked over to the sofas. Gem had already bagged the large, central four-seater sofa for her and Laird (nabbing the best view, no doubt), Amber took the three-person one on the far side for her and Luke, leaving the nearest one for Cassie, Suzy and Arch, the biggest-bottomed bunch of the group.
Archie stared down at the two-seater dubiously.
‘Here, Cass, you sit beside Su—’
‘No, I’ll grab a blanket and sit on the ground. You shouldn’t be on the damp grass, Arch.’
‘No.’
‘Uh-uh! I mean it,’ she said firmly as he automatically protested. ‘You two are really noisy snoggers anyway. I wouldn’t hear a thing sitting beside you both.’
Laird and Archie laughed loudly and Cassie grabbed one of the itchy tartan blankets that hung across the back of the sofas, wrapping it loosely round her shoulders so that its length fell to just below her hips. Suzy, who had been in the house, came back with a faded beanbag from the playroom that was leaking tiny Styrofoam balls all over the grass.
‘I got thi— Oh.’ She stopped short as she saw Cassie sitting cross-legged on the blanket. ‘I was going to sit there. I’ve got to work the reel anyway.’
‘I told Cass I’d sit there,’ Archie said, ‘but she was having none of it. She thinks the damp grass will try to kill me.’ He considered for a moment. ‘God, it would be embarrassing, though, if it did.’
‘Well, if you want this . . .’ Suzy muttered, dropping the beanbag beside her on the rug, without making eye contact once again.
‘Thanks,’ Cassie mumbled back, shifting herself onto the beanbag. The grass was already dewy, and the film was long.
‘Yes, but now I can’t see,’ Archie complained. ‘Your head is blocking my view.’
‘Urgh! The
screen is a thirty-foot-wall Arch!’ Cassie grumbled, getting up and dragging the beanbag over to the far side of the sofa. ‘There.’
‘Thanks,’ he winked, as Suzy draped a blanket over his lap. ‘Tch, I’m not eighty,’ he protested to her under his breath.
‘Shut up,’ Suzy hissed back, draping one over his shoulders too, before bending down to a piece of 1930s equipment by her feet. ‘Everybody ready? All got a drink and been to the loo?’
‘Would you listen to yourself?’ Archie asked her, as Gem giggled, looking like a loved-up teenager, her legs on Laird’s lap, one of the tatty blankets draped over the two of them too.
‘God, I’m f-freezing,’ Gem said, inching closer to Laird.
‘Why didn’t you come and stand by the fire pit, you daft girl? You’d have been warm as—’ He stopped. ‘Oh.’ Tenderly, he kissed the top of her bumpily cornrowed head.
Cassie wondered what he’d meant but was distracted by the sight – and sound – of Amber ceremonially tucking a voluminous orange blanket with giant ‘H’ motifs around them both. Not for her an itchy wool car rug, and she made a point of purring as she snuggled down into what was no doubt an acre of cashmere.
Suzy sighed and pressed down on one of the push buttons that was more like a piano key. Instantly, a whirring sound started up, a dazzling bright light igniting on the large expanse of wall and then, suddenly, shapes formed as the opening credits came up.
Gem aaahed happily, dropping her head on the cushions. She looked almost harmless, Cassie thought, watching her from her position on the outer flanks as she blankly chewed on the sausage that was so chargrilled it was like eating coal. Did she have any idea of the chaos that trailed in her wake? Did she know the stress she was causing everyone around her?
She tried to get comfortable in the saggy beanbag, finding the best position was to sit upright, her elbows perched on her bent knees as she watched Jimmy Stewart bowling through town, a charmed fellow who made friends at every turn.
Behind them all, the cows mooed intermittently, disturbed no doubt by the unusual sounds and light glare refracting off the building. It was a dark night – which helped – great banks of cumuli towering into stacks in the sky and bringing the threat of winds and rain tomorrow.
She was dreading it already. Gem wanted them all to go back to Paula’s to get Amber’s bridesmaid dress sorted, and Cassie was going to have to draw up a new, truly more modest menu and shopping list. They were in Wadebridge, not Westbourne Grove. Cobnuts didn’t come as standard here.
She sighed, giving up on the carbonized hot dog, forcing her gaze back to the film showing on the side of the house. It was one of her favourite scenes – the one where Donna Reed jumped into the flower bushes – but her concentration kept wavering.
He was looking over at her again; she just knew it. The weight of his stare was a physical thing upon her, pressing down on her chest so that her breath felt shallow, her head light. She turned her face further away so that she was almost in profile to him, her right hand cupping her right cheek and trying to block his view. But he was sitting across the lawn in darkness, just watching and waiting, she knew, for her to acknowledge the moment that had passed between them in the surf.
Five minutes passed.
Ten.
Twenty.
Her eyes slid over – bitter and resentful that he was doing this to her, refusing to let it drop. What did he think was going to happen? What did he want? Their gazes joined like magnetic fields, instantly locking on to one another in the flickering darkness, and she widened her eyes angrily in a silent ‘What?’ expression.
His response was an impassive stare that she recognized only too well from those nights in New York when they’d stayed out late with his friends and all he really wanted to do was get her back to the apartment . . . She looked away again, agitated and restless.
A sudden small shriek from Amber made everyone turn, and Cassie looked over just in time to see her tuck her legs up onto the sofa, her eyes trained on something small but advancing at speed towards her. ‘What is that?’ she cried.
Cassie turned a full 180 degrees back again, just as Rollo launched himself into the air and grabbed the last remaining piece of her hot dog from her hand. ‘Oh my God!’ she shrieked in turn, falling backwards into the beanbag.
Gem immediately jumped up from the sofa, Suzy too, but the dark little dog was too fast for them to catch and didn’t seem particularly taken with his given name, as he didn’t respond to it being called at all.
‘Oh my God! Suzy! How the hell did he get out?’ Gem wailed, reaching for and missing the puppy as he ran laps round her.
‘How should I know?’ Suzy demanded, joining in the chase. Everyone was on their feet now – everyone except Archie who, having tried to get up, had been shot down by his wife with a stern look and a single pointed finger instructing him to stay where he was.
‘Well, you were the one looking after him!’ Gem said accusingly.
Suzy whirled round to face her. ‘I never signed up to that! He’s your puppy! You just left him here without so much as a “please” or “than—”’
‘Stop it! Stop . . .’ Gem pleaded, keeping her back to Laird and trying to stop Suzy from incriminating her further.
‘I take it you’re going to replace my new French Soles, which he’s completely destroyed?’ Suzy demanded, immediately exploiting the situation.
‘Of course,’ Gem agreed hastily.
‘Hang on a minute,’ Laird said as the two women resumed lunging and swiping for the puppy. ‘Since when did you get a puppy?’
Gem deflated; the secret was out anyway. Of course it was. ‘It was my wedding present to you,’ she said plaintively, her mouth pushing into a small pout. ‘I know how much you love dogs and I just fell in love with him. I wanted it to be a surprise.’
‘Well, it’s certainly that!’ Laird laughed, getting up and clasping her head in his hands. ‘And you got Suzy to babysit it?’
‘It was more than just babysit!’ Suzy huffed crossly, her fingers only just brushing the feathers of the dog’s tail. ‘He’s got such bad separation anxiety I ended up sleeping in the bloody kitchen with him the past two nights.’
Rollo jumped onto the empty sofa, where Gem and Laird weren’t sitting.
Gem went limp in Laird’s arms as she stared into his eyes. ‘I thought it would be the start of our family unit, you know?’ she said in a little-girl voice as Laird kissed her and Suzy made an impressive lunge across the sofa behind them – still missing the dog. Rollo jumped back onto the grass and then disappeared into the shadows. ‘And it would have been such a perfect surprise if Suzy hadn’t ballsed it up.’
‘Me?’ Suzy exploded, gathering herself from the cushions with a pop that would have made Laird proud and straightening up to her full impressive height. ‘You’re lucky I even tried to help! You’re lucky I went along with this charade for as long as I did, especially as you know and I know that you’ve got no right even owning a dog.’
‘What?’ Gem’s voice was a croak.
‘How dare you pretend that you care about any living creature after what you did?’ Suzy’s eyes blazed as she locked Gem in her sights.
‘No.’ Gem shook her head. ‘Please, Suzy. Don’t.’
‘Oh no. I bet you don’t want Laird hearing about that.’
Everything went still.
‘Baby, what’s she talking about?’ Laird asked, looking down at Gem with an apprehensive expression.
‘Nothing. It’s really nothing. She’s lying.’
Laird looked over at Suzy, who was physically shaking, her eyes bulging with long-suppressed rage. ‘Suzy? What’s going on?’
Arch stood up, looking concerned at his wife’s fury. She wasn’t just on the edge; she’d gone over the other side, pushed too far. ‘Darling—’
‘She killed my dog. Your precious fiancée, who would like you to believe that she couldn’t pull the petals off a daisy, killed my dog,’ Suzy cried, rea
l tears sliding down her cheeks.
‘No,’ Laird revoked, looking back at Gem in shock.
‘It was an accident!’ Gem pleaded. ‘I didn’t see—’
‘He was standing right in the middle of the drive. You couldn’t miss him. I saw the whole thing happen from my window.’ Suzy’s voice cracked at the memory and Cassie wanted to run over and throw her arms around her. But she couldn’t, because in Suzy’s eyes, she was the enemy too, now.
‘But I . . . I wasn’t thinking straight. I wasn’t looking. I had dropped my phone.’
‘Was that the same phone Mum had just tried to confiscate from you because you’d been caught sneaking out at night again?’ Suzy asked sarcastically. ‘The one you ran out of the house with, and that’s why you were speeding down the drive?’
‘I’m sorry!’ Gem quavered. ‘You know I am! I came straight back into the house to ring the vet.’
‘How very good of you,’ Suzy said with withering scorn.
Gem stared back at her bigger – in every sense – cousin, their dark history glistening between them in the shadowy garden. When she finally spoke, her voice was hollow, as though its substance had been thinned out. ‘It was an accident.’
‘Brought about entirely by your temper,’ Suzy countered, merciless now.
‘I haven’t driven a car since. I can’t—’ She squeezed her eyes shut, her body braced as though for the impact again. ‘Aunt Hats and Henry forgave me.’ She looked back at Suzy, desperation in her eyes. ‘Why can’t you?’
‘Because you act as though you’ve got the copyright on grief. You behaved as badly as you wanted, but that was OK because you were an orphan. But we’d lost Dad barely a year before the fire.’ Suzy’s voice was thick and unfamiliar to Cassie’s ear, as the sarcasm she used as armour finally gave way to a hurt and grief that had been put on hold for too long. ‘Do you remember that, or is it only your grief that counts? Our family was already in pieces before yours was, but we had to put all that to one side to deal with you. Mum was a box-fresh widow when she lost her brother too, but you never gave her a moment to grieve. No sooner had she got the news about the fire than her every thought was about what was best for you. And in return, you behaved like a little bitch. “Oh, you killed the dog? Never mind.” If the fire had been Mum’s fault, you couldn’t have been more cruel. No one else’s pain mattered. No one else mattered.’