The Guest List

by Lucy Foley

  ‘I didn’t believe this day would ever come,’ I say, remembering myself. ‘I’ve been so busy with The Download over the last few years that I thought I’d never have the time to meet someone.’

  ‘Don’t forget,’ Will calls. ‘I had to work pretty hard to persuade you to go on a date.’

  He’s right. It seemed somehow too good to be true. He told me later that he’d recently got out of something toxic, that he wasn’t looking for anything either. But we really hit it off at that party.

  ‘I’m so glad you did.’ I smile down at him. It still feels like a kind of miracle, how quickly and easily it all happened. ‘If I believed in it,’ I say, ‘I might think we were brought together by Fate.’

  Will beams back at me. Our gazes lock, it’s like there’s no one else here. And then out of nowhere I think of that bloody note. And I feel the smile waver slightly on my lips.

  JOHNNO

  The Best Man

  It’s pitch-black outside now. The smoke from the fire fills the room, so that everyone looks different, hazy around the edges. Not quite themselves.

  We’re on to the next course, some fiddly dark chocolate tart. I try to cut into it and it goes shooting off my plate, crumbs of pastry exploding everywhere.

  ‘Need someone to cut your food for you, big boy?’ Duncan jeers, from the far end of the table. I hear the other blokes laugh. It’s like nothing has changed. I ignore them.

  Hannah turns to me. ‘So, Johnno,’ she says, ‘do you live in London too?’ I like Hannah, I’ve decided. She seems kind. And I like her Northern accent and the studs in the top of her ear which make her look like a party girl, even though she’s apparently a mum of two. I bet she can be pretty wild when she wants to be.

  ‘Christ no,’ I tell her. ‘I hate the city. Give me the countryside any day. I need space to roam free.’

  ‘Are you pretty outdoorsy yourself?’ Hannah asks.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I guess you could say that. I used to work at an adventure centre in the Lake District. Teaching climbing, bushcraft, all that.’

  ‘Oh wow. I suppose that makes sense, because it was you who organised the stag, right?’ She smiles at me. I wonder how much she knows about it.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘I did.’

  ‘Charlie hasn’t said much about any of it. But I heard there was going to be some kayaking and climbing and stuff.’

  Ah, so he didn’t tell her anything about what went down. I’m not surprised. I probably wouldn’t if I were him, come to think of it. The less said about all of that the better. Let’s hope he’s decided to let bygones be bygones on that front. Poor bloke. It wasn’t my idea, all of that.

  ‘Well, yeah,’ I continue. ‘I’ve always been into that sort of thing.’

  ‘Yes,’ Femi interjects. ‘It was Johnno who worked out how to scale the wall to get up on top of the sports hall. And you climbed that massive tree outside the dining hall, didn’t you?’

  ‘Oh God,’ Will says to Hannah. ‘Don’t get this lot started on our school days. You’ll never hear the end of it.’

  Hannah smiles at me. ‘It sounds like you could have your own TV series, Johnno.’

  ‘Well,’ I say. ‘Funny you should say that, but I did actually do a try-out for the show.’

  ‘You did?’ Hannah asks. ‘For Survive the Night?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Ah, Christ. Why did I say anything? Stupid Johnno, always shooting my mouth off. Jesus, it’s humiliating. ‘Yeah, well, they did a screen test, with the two of us, and—’

  ‘And Johnno decided he wasn’t up for any of that crap, didn’t you?’ Will says. It’s good of him to try to save my blushes. But there’s no point in lying now, I might as well say it. ‘He’s being a good mate,’ I say. ‘Truth is I was shit at it. They basically told me I didn’t work on screen. Not like our boy here—’ I lean over and muss up Will’s hair, and he ducks away, laughing. ‘I mean, he’s right. It wasn’t for me anyway. Couldn’t stand any of that make-up they slap on you, the clothes they make you wear. Not that that’s any shade on what you do, mate.’

  ‘No offence taken,’ Will says, putting up his hands. He’s a natural on screen. He has this ability to be whoever people want him to be. When he’s on the programme I notice he drops his ‘h’s’, sounds a bit more like ‘one of the people’. But when he’s with posh, public school-educated blokes, blokes who came from the better versions of the sort of school we both went to, he’s one of them – 100 per cent.

  ‘Anyway,’ I say to Hannah. ‘It makes sense. Who’d ever want this ugly mug on TV, eh?’ I pull a face. I see Jules glance away from me as though I’ve just exposed myself. Stuck-up cow.

  ‘So where did the idea for the show come from, Will?’ Hannah asks. I appreciate that she’s trying to move the conversation on, spare me any more humiliation.

  ‘Yeah,’ Femi says. ‘You know, I was wondering about that. Was it Survival?’

  ‘Survival?’ Hannah turns to him.

  ‘This game we used to play at school,’ Femi explains.

  Duncan’s wife Georgina chips in: ‘Oh God. Duncan’s told me stories about it. Really awful stuff. He told me about boys being taken out of their beds at night, left in the middle of nowhere—’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what happened,’ Femi says. ‘They’d kidnap a younger boy from his bed and take him as far as they could away from the school, deep into the grounds.’

  ‘And we’re talking big grounds,’ Angus says. ‘And the middle of nowhere. Pitch-black. No light from anything.’

  ‘It sounds barbaric,’ Hannah says, her eyes wide.

  ‘It was a big tradition,’ Duncan says. ‘They’d been doing it for hundreds of years, since the start of the school.’

  ‘Will never had to do it, did you, mate?’ Femi turns to him.

  Will holds up his hands. ‘No one ever came and got me.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Angus says, ‘because they were all shit-scared of your dad.’

  ‘The chap would have a blindfold on at the start,’ Angus says, turning to Hannah, ‘so he didn’t know where he was. Sometimes he’d even be tied to a tree, or a fence and had to get free. I remember when I did mine—’

  ‘You pissed yourself,’ Duncan finishes.

  ‘No I didn’t,’ Angus replies.

  ‘Yeah you did,’ Duncan says. ‘Don’t think we’ve forgotten that. Pisspants.’

  Angus takes a gulp of wine. ‘Fine, well, loads of people did. It was fucking terrifying.’

  I remember my Survival. Even though you knew it would happen at some point, nothing prepared you for when they actually came to get you.

  ‘The craziest thing is,’ Georgina says, ‘Duncan doesn’t seem to think it was a bad thing. She turns to him. ‘Do you, darling?’

  ‘It was the making of me,’ Duncan says.

  I look over at Duncan who’s sitting there with his hands in his pockets and his chest thrown out, like he’s king of all he surveys, like he owns this place. And I wonder what it made him into, exactly.

  I wonder what it made me into.

  ‘I suppose it was harmless,’ Georgina says, ‘it’s not like anyone died, is it?’ She gives a little laugh.

  I remember waking up, hearing the whispers in the dark all around me. Hold his legs … you go for the head. Then how they laughed as they held me down and tied the blindfold round my eyes. Then voices. Whoops and cheers, maybe – but with the blindfold over my ears too they sounded like animals: howls and screeches. Out into the night air, freezing on my bare feet. Rattling fast over the uneven ground – a wheelbarrow I guess it was – for so long I thought we must have left the school grounds. Then they left me, in the woods. All alone. Nothing but the beat of my heart and the secret noises of the woods. Getting the blindfold off and finding it just as dark, no moon to see by. Tree branches scratching at my cheeks, trees so close it felt like there was no way between them, like they were pressing in on me. So cold, a metallic taste like blood at the back of my throat. Crackle of twigs beneath
my bare feet. Walking for miles, in circles probably. The whole night, through the woods, until the dawn came.

  When I got back to the school building, I felt like I’d been reborn. Fuck the teachers who told me I’d never amount to much. Like they’d ever survived a night like that. I felt like I was invincible. Like I could do anything.

  ‘Johnno,’ Will says, ‘I was saying I reckon it’s time to get your whisky out. Give it a sample.’ He jumps up from the table, and goes and gets one of the bottles.

  ‘Oh,’ Hannah says, ‘can I look?’ She takes it from Will. ‘This is such a cool design, Johnno. Did you work with someone on it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I’ve got a mate in London who’s a graphic designer. He’s done a good job, hasn’t he?’

  ‘He really has,’ she says, nodding, tracing the type with her finger. ‘That’s what I do,’ she says. ‘I’m an illustrator, by trade. But it feels like a million years ago now. I’m on permanent maternity leave.’

  ‘Can I have a look?’ Charlie says. He takes it from her and reads the label, frowning. ‘You must have had to partner with a distillery? Because it says here it’s been aged twelve years.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, feeling like I’m being interviewed, or doing a test. Like he’s trying to catch me out. Maybe it’s the whole schoolteacher thing. ‘I did.’

  ‘Well,’ says Will, opening the bottle with a flourish. ‘The acid test!’ He calls into the kitchen, ‘Aoife … Freddy. Could we have some glasses for whisky please?’

  Aoife carries some in on a tray.

  ‘Get one for yourself too,’ Will says, like he’s lord of the manor, ‘and for Freddy. We’ll all try it!’ Then, as Aoife tries to shake her head: ‘I insist!’

  Freddy shuffles in to stand next to his wife. He keeps his eyes down and fiddles with the cord of his apron as they both stand there awkwardly. Fucking weirdo, Duncan mouths at the rest of us. It’s probably a good thing the bloke’s looking at the floor.

  I check Aoife out. She’s not as old as I thought at first: maybe only forty or so. She just dresses older. She’s good-looking, too – in a refined kind of way. I wonder what she’s doing with such a wet blanket of a husband.

  Will pours out the rest of the whisky. Jules asks for a couple of drops: ‘I’ve never been much of a whisky drinker, I’m afraid.’ She takes a sip and I see her wince, before she has time to cover it by putting her hand over her mouth. But the hand only draws attention to it. Which maybe, come to think of it, she meant it to do. It’s pretty clear she’s not my biggest fan.

  ‘It’s good, mate,’ Duncan says. ‘It kind of reminds me of a Laphroaig, you know?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I guess so.’ Trust Duncan to know his whiskies.

  Aoife and Freddy down theirs as quickly as possible and hightail it back to the kitchen. I get that. My mum used to work at the local country club – the sort of place Angus and Duncan’s parents probably had memberships to. She said the golfers sometimes tried to buy her a drink, thinking they were being so generous, but it only made her feel awkward.

  ‘I think it’s dead tasty,’ Hannah says. ‘I’m surprised. I have to tell you, Johnno, I’m not normally a whisky fan.’ She takes another sip.

  ‘Well,’ Jules says. ‘Our guests are very lucky.’ She smiles at me. But you know that thing they say about someone’s eyes not smiling? Hers aren’t.

  I grin at them all. But I’m feeling a bit out of sorts. I think it’s all that talk about Survival. Hard to remind myself that to them – to pretty much all the other ex-Trevellyan boys – it’s all just a game.

  I look over at Will. He’s got his hand on the back of Jules’s head and he’s grinning round at everyone. He looks like a man who has everything in life. Which, I suppose, he does. And I think: does it not affect him too, all the talk about the old days? Not even the tiniest bit?

  I’ve got to shake off this weird mood. I lunge towards the middle of the table and pick up the bottle of whisky. ‘I think it’s time for a drinking game,’ I say.

  ‘Ah—’ says Jules, probably about to call it off, but she’s drowned out by the howls of approval from the blokes.

  ‘Yes!’ Angus shouts. ‘Irish snap?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Femi says. ‘Like we played at school! Remember doing shots of Listerine mouthwash? Cause we worked out it was fifty per cent proof?’

  ‘Or that vodka you smuggled in, Dunc,’ Angus says.

  ‘Right,’ I say, jumping up from the table. ‘I’ll go get us a deck.’ I’m already feeling better now I’ve got a purpose to distract myself with.

  I go to the kitchen and find Aoife standing with her back to me, going through some sort of list on a clipboard. When I cough she gives a little jump.

  ‘Aoife, love,’ I say, ‘you got a deck of cards?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, taking a step away from me, like she’s scared of me. ‘Of course. I think there’s one in the drawing room.’ She’s got a nice accent. I’ve always liked an Irish girl. ‘’Tink’ rather than ‘think’ – that makes me smile.

  Her husband’s in there too, busying himself with the oven.

  ‘You making stuff for tomorrow?’ I ask him, while I wait for Aiofe.

  ‘Mmhm,’ he says, without making eye contact. I’m glad when Aoife returns after a minute or so with the cards.

  Back at the table I deal the deck out to the others.

  ‘I’m off to get my beauty sleep,’ Jules’s mum says. ‘I’ve never been one for the hard stuff.’ Not true, I see Jules mouth. Jules’s dad and the hot French step-mum excuse themselves too.

  ‘Nor me,’ Hannah says. She looks over at Charlie. ‘We’ve had a long day, haven’t we, love?’

  ‘I don’t know—’ Charlie says.

  ‘Come on, Charlie boy,’ I call to Charlie. ‘It’ll be fun! Live a little!’

  He doesn’t look convinced.

  Things got a bit loose on the stag. Charlie, poor bloke, didn’t go to a school like ours, so he wasn’t really prepared for it. He’s just such a … Geography teacher. I felt like he went to a dark place that night. Anyone would have, I guess. He barely talked to any of us for the rest of the weekend.

  It was being back together with that group of blokes again, I suppose. Most of them went to Trevellyan’s. We were all bonded by that place. Not in the same way that Will and I are bonded – that’s only the two of us. But we are tied by the other stuff. The rituals, the male bonding. When we get together there’s this kind of pack mentality.

  We get carried away.

  HANNAH

  The Plus-One

  Since the pennying incident I’ve become very wary of the ushers. The more they drink the more it emerges: something dark and cruel hiding behind the public schoolboy manners. And I hate that right now my husband’s behaving like a teenager who wants to be accepted into their gang.

  ‘Right,’ Johnno says. ‘Everyone ready?’ He looks around the table. I’ve worked out what’s weird about his eyes. They’re so dark you can’t tell where the irises end and the pupils begin. It gives him a strange, blank look, so that even while he’s laughing, it’s like his eyes aren’t quite playing along. And the rest of his face is a bit too expressive by comparison, changing every couple of seconds, his mouth very large and mobile. There’s this kind of manic energy about him. I hope it’s harmless. Like a dog that jumps up at you, big and scary, but all it really wants is to be thrown a ball – not to maul your face.

  ‘Charlie,’ Johnno says. ‘You are joining us?’

  ‘Charlie,’ I whisper, trying to catch my husband’s eye. He’s barely looked my way all evening, too wrapped up in Jules or trying to be one of the lads. But I want to get through to him.

  Charlie’s such a mild man: hardly ever raises his voice, hardly ever gets cross with the kids. If they get a telling off, it’s normally from me. So it isn’t like he becomes a more intense version of himself when he drinks, or that alcohol amplifies his bad qualities. In ordinary life he doesn’t really have many bad qua
lities. Yeah, maybe all that anger is there, hidden, somewhere beneath the surface. But I could swear, on the couple of times I have seen him drunk, that it is like my husband has been taken over by someone else. That’s what makes it all the more frightening. Over the years I’ve learned to spot the smallest signs. The slight slackening of his mouth, the drooping of his eyelids. I’ve had to learn because I know that the next stage isn’t pretty. It’s like a small firework has suddenly detonated in his brain.

  Finally Charlie glances in my direction. I shake my head, slowly, deliberately, so he can make no mistake of my meaning. Don’t do it.

  ‘What’s the fuck’s going on here?’ Duncan crows. Oh God, he’s caught me doing it. He swivels to Charlie. ‘She keep you on a leash, Charlie boy?’

  Charlie’s ears have gone bright red. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Obviously not. Yeah, fine. I’m in.’

  Shit. I’m torn between wanting to stay so I can try to stop him doing anything stupid and thinking I should leave him to it and let him take himself out, no matter the consequences. Especially after all that unsubtle flirting with Jules.

  ‘I’m going to deal,’ Johnno says.

  ‘Wait,’ Duncan says, getting to his feet, clapping his hands. ‘We should do the school motto first.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Femi agrees, joining him. Angus stands too. ‘Come on, Will, Johnno. Old times’ sake and all that.’

  Johnno and Will rise.

  I look at them – all, except Johnno, so elegantly dressed in their white shirts and dark trousers, expensive watches at their wrists. I wonder why on earth these men, who have apparently done so well for themselves since, are still obsessing about their school days. I can’t imagine banging on about crappy old Dunraven High. I never had any resentment towards it but it’s also not somewhere I think about all that much. Like everyone else, I left in a scribbled-on leaver’s shirt and never really looked back. No leaving school at 3.30 p.m. and heading home to watch Hollyoaks for these guys – they must have spent a chunk of their childhoods locked in that place.