The Guest List

by Lucy Foley

  She waits, as I untie Will and help him up, watching over us like a schoolteacher. Then we follow her out of the cave. I can’t help wondering if she heard or saw anything. Or what I would have done if she hadn’t interrupted us.

  AOIFE

  The Wedding Planner

  In the marquee the celebrations have moved into another gear. The guests have drunk the champagne dry. Now they are moving on to the stronger stuff: cocktails and shots at the temporary bar. They are high on the freedom of the night.

  In the toilets in the Folly, refreshing the hand towels, I find tell-tale spills of fine white powder on the floor, scattered across the slate sink surround. I’m not surprised, I’ve seen guests wiping their noses furtively as they return to the marquee. They have behaved themselves for the rest of the day, this lot. They have travelled long distances to be here. They have come bearing gifts. They have dressed themselves appropriately and sat through a ceremony and listened to the speeches and worn the proper expressions and said the right things. But they’re adults who have briefly left their responsibilities behind; they’re like children without their parents present. Now this part of the day is theirs for the taking. Even as the bride and groom wait to begin their first dance they press forward, ready to make the dance floor their own.

  An hour or so earlier, on a trip back to the Folly, I heard a strange noise, upstairs. The rest of the building was barricaded off, of course, but there are only so many measures you can take to stop drunk people going where they want. I went up to inspect, pushed open the door of the bride and groom’s bedroom and found, not the happily married couple, but another man and woman, bent low over the bed. At my intrusion they scrambled to cover themselves, she yanking down her skirts red-faced, he covering his bobbing erection with his own top hat. Only a little while later, I saw them both returning innocently to different corners of the marquee. What particularly interested me about this was that they both appeared to be wearing wedding bands. And yet – and I’ve probably memorised the table plan as well as Julia herself now – I happen to know that all husbands and wives are seated opposite each other.

  They weren’t worried about me, though: not really. Their initial panic at my entrance gave way to a kind of giggly relief. They know I won’t expose their secret. Besides, I wasn’t particularly surprised. I’ve seen much of the same before. This extremity of behaviour is very much par for the course. There are always secrets around the fringes of a wedding. I hear the things said in confidence, the bitchy remarks, the gossip. I heard some of the best man’s words in the cave.

  This is the thing about organising a wedding. I can put together a perfect day, as long as the guests play along, remember to stay within certain bounds. But if they don’t, the repercussions can last far longer than twenty-four hours. No one is capable of controlling that sort of fallout.

  JULES

  The Bride

  The band have begun to play. Will – who returned to the marquee looking slightly unkempt – takes my hand as we step on to the laminate floor. I realise I’m holding his hand hard enough to hurt, probably – and I tell myself to loosen my grip. But I’m incensed by the interruption to the evening caused by the ushers and their stupid prank. The guests surround us, whooping, hollering. Their faces are flushed and sweaty, their teeth bared, their eyes wide. They’re drunk – and more. They press forward, leaning in, and the space suddenly feels too small. They’re so close that I can smell them: perfume and cologne, the sour, yeasty smell of Guinness and champagne, body odour, booze-soured breath. I smile at them all because that is what I am meant to do. I smile so much that there is a dull ache somewhere beneath my ears and my whole jaw feels like an overstretched piece of elastic.

  I hope I’m giving an impression of having a good time. I’ve drunk a lot, but it hasn’t had any discernible effect other than making me more wary, more jittery. Since that speech I’ve been feeling a mounting unease. I look around me. Everyone else is having a great time: their inhibitions truly thrown off now. To them the train wreck of a speech is probably a mere footnote to the day – an amusing anecdote.

  Will and I turn one way, then the other. He spins me away from him and back again. The guests shout their appreciation of these modest moves. We didn’t go to dance lessons, because that would be unspeakably naff, but Will is a naturally good dancer. Except that a couple of times he treads on the train of my dress; I have to yank it away from under his feet before I trip. It’s unlike him, to be so graceless. He seems distracted.

  ‘What on earth was all of that?’ I ask, when I’m drawn to his chest. I whisper it as though I am whispering a sweet nothing into his ear.

  ‘Oh, it was stupid,’ Will says. ‘Boys being boys. Messing around, you know. A little leftover from the stag, maybe.’ He smiles, but he doesn’t look quite himself. He downed two large glasses of wine when he returned to the marquee: one after the other. He shrugs. ‘Johnno’s idea of a joke.’

  ‘The seaweed was supposedly a little joke last night,’ I say. ‘And that wasn’t very bloody funny. And now this? And that speech – what did he mean by all of that? What was all that about the past? About keeping secrets from each other … what secrets did he mean?’

  ‘Oh,’ Will says, ‘I don’t know, Jules. It’s only Johnno messing around. It’s nothing.’

  We turn a slow circle about the floor. I have an impression of beaming faces, hands clapping.

  ‘But it didn’t sound like nothing,’ I say. ‘It sounded very much like something. Will, what sort of hold does he have over you?’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, Jules,’ he says sharply. ‘I said: it’s nothing. Drop it. Please.’

  I stare at him. It’s not the words themselves so much as the way he said them – that and the way he has tightened his hold on my arm. It feels like as strong a corroboration as one could ask for that whatever it is it’s very much not nothing.

  ‘You’re hurting me,’ I say, pulling my arm out of his grip.

  He is immediately contrite. ‘Jules – look, I’m sorry.’ His voice is totally different now – any hint of hostility immediately gone. ‘I didn’t mean to snap at you. Look, it’s been a long day. A wonderful day, of course, but a long one. Forgive me?’ And he gives me a smile, the same smile I haven’t been able to resist since I saw it that night at the V&A museum. And yet it doesn’t have the same effect it normally does. If anything, it makes me feel more uneasy, because of the speed of the change. It’s as though he’s pulled on a mask.

  ‘We’re a married couple, now,’ I say. ‘We are meant to be able to share things with one another. To confide in each other.’

  Will spins me away under his arm, and towards him again. The crowd cheer this flourish.

  Then, when we’re facing one another once more, he takes a deep breath. ‘Look,’ he says. ‘Johnno has got this bee in his bonnet about this thing that he says happened in the past, when we were young. He’s obsessed by it. But he’s a fantasist. I’ve felt sorry for him, all these years. That’s where I went wrong. Feeling I should pander to him, because my life has worked out, and his hasn’t. Now he’s envious: of everything I have, we have. He thinks that I owe him.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ I say. ‘What could you possibly owe him? He’s the one that’s clearly been hanging on your coattails for too long.’

  He doesn’t answer this. Instead he pulls me close, as the song comes to its crescendo. A cheer goes up from the crowd. But they sound suddenly far away. ‘After tonight, that’s it,’ Will says firmly, into my hair. ‘I’ll cut him from my life – our life. I promise. I’m done with him. Trust me. I’ll sort it out.’

  HANNAH

  The Plus-One

  I’ve wandered into the dance tent. The first dance is over, thank God, and all the guests who were watching have swarmed in to fill the space. I’m not sure what I want to find in here, exactly. Some distraction, I suppose, from the churn of thoughts in my head. Charlie and Jules. It’s too painful to think about.


  It feels as though every single guest is crammed in here, a hot press of bodies. The band’s vocalist takes to the mic: ‘Are you ready to dance, girls and boys?’

  They begin to play a frenzied rhythm – four fiddles, a wild, foot-tapping tune. Bodies are crashing around as everyone attempts, unsuccessfully, drunkenly, to do his or her version of an Irish jig. I see Will grab Olivia out of the crowd: ‘Time for the groom to claim his dance with the bridesmaid!’ But they seem oddly out of step as they careen on to the dance floor, as though one of them is resisting the other. Olivia’s expression gives me pause. She looks trapped. There was this bit in the speech. I thought that before. What was it? It had struck me as oddly familiar. I grope about in my memory for it, trying to focus.

  The V&A museum, that was it. I remember her telling me last night about how she brought Steven there, to a party, held by Jules. And everything goes still as it occurs to me—

  But that’s completely crazy. It can’t be. It wouldn’t make any sense. It must be a weird coincidence.

  ‘Hey,’ a guy says, as I push past him. ‘What’s the hurry?’

  ‘Oh,’ I say, glancing vaguely in his direction. ‘Sorry. I was … a bit distracted.’

  ‘Well, maybe a dance will help with that.’ He grins. I look at him more closely. He’s pretty attractive – tall, black-haired, a dimple forming in one cheek when he smiles. And before I can say anything he takes hold of my hand and gives me a gentle tug towards him, on to the laminate of the dance floor. I don’t resist.

  ‘I saw you earlier,’ he shouts, over the music. ‘In the church, sitting on your own. And I thought: She looks worth getting to know.’ That grin again. Oh. He thinks I’m single, here by myself. He can’t have caught that scene with Charlie in the bar.

  ‘Luis,’ he shouts now, pointing to his chest.

  ‘Hannah.’

  Maybe I should explain that I’m here with my husband. But I don’t want to think about Charlie right now. And holding this flattering new image of myself through his eyes – not the badly dressed imposter I thought I was, but someone attractive, mysterious – I decide not to say anything. I allow myself to begin to move in time with him, to the music. I allow him to move a little nearer, his eyes on mine. Perhaps I move closer, too. Close enough that I can smell his sweat – but clean sweat, a good smell. There’s a stirring in the pit of my stomach. A little sting of want.

  NOW

  The wedding night

  Someone else out there. The thought has them spooking at shadows, cringing away from shapes in the blackness, which seem to loom up at them and then reveal themselves to be nothing more than tricks of the eye. They move in a tight, close pack, afraid of losing another of their number. Pete is still missing.

  They seem to feel the prickle of unknown eyes upon them. They feel clumsier now, more exposed. They trip and stumble over the uneven ground, over hidden tussocks of heather. They try not to think about Pete. They can’t afford to: they have to look out for themselves. Every so often they shout to one another for reassurance more than anything else, their voices like another light held against the night, uncharacteristically caring: ‘All right there, Angus?’ ‘Yeah – you OK, Femi?’ It helps them to keep going. It helps them forget about their mounting fear.

  ‘Jesus – what’s that?’ Femi sweeps his torch in a wide arc. It illuminates an upright form, rising palely out of the shadows, nearly as tall as a man. And then several similar shapes, some smaller, too.

  ‘It’s the graveyard,’ Angus calls, softly. They gaze at the Celtic crosses, the crumbling stone forms: an eerie, silent army.

  ‘Christ,’ Duncan shouts. ‘I thought it was a person.’ For a moment they all thought it: the round shape and thin upright base conspired briefly to seem human. Even now, as they retreat somewhat gingerly, it is hard to shake the feeling of being watched, reproachfully, by the many sentinel forms.

  They continue for a time in a new direction.

  ‘Do you hear that?’ Angus shouts. ‘I think we’ve got too close to the sea now.’

  They stop. Somewhere near at hand they are vaguely aware of the crash of water against rock. They can feel the ground shuddering beneath their feet at the impact of it.

  ‘OK. Right.’ Femi thinks. ‘The graveyard’s behind us, the sea’s here. So I think we need to go – that way.’

  They begin to creep away from the sound of the crashing surf.

  ‘Hey – there’s something there—’

  Instantly, they all stop where they are.

  ‘What did you say, Angus?’

  ‘I said there’s something there. Look.’

  They hold out their torches. The beams they cast tremble on the ground. They are bracing themselves to find a grisly sight. They are surprised, and rather relieved, when the torchlight reflects brightly off the hard gleam of metal.

  ‘It’s a— what is it?’

  Femi, bravest among them, steps forward and picks it up. Turning to them, shielding his eyes from the glare, he lifts it so they can all see. They recognise the object immediately; although it is mangled out of shape, the metal twisted and broken. It is a gold crown.

  Earlier that day

  OLIVIA

  The Bridesmaid

  I wander round the corners of the marquee. I move between the tables. I pick up half-full glasses, the remains of people’s drinks, and down them. I want to get as drunk as possible.

  I pulled away from Will as quickly as I could, after he grabbed me for that dance. It made me feel sick, being so close to him, feeling his body pressed up against me, thinking of the things I’ve done with him … the things he got me to do … the horrible secret between us. It was like he was getting off on it. Right at the end he whispered in my ear: ‘That crazy stunt you pulled earlier … that’s the end of it, OK? No more. Do you hear me? No more.’

  No one seems to notice me as I go about minesweeping their discarded drinks. They’re all pretty wasted by now and, besides, they’ve abandoned the tables for the dance floor. It’s absolutely crammed in there. There are all these thirty-somethings slut-dropping and grinding on each other as though they’re in some shit noughties club dancing to 50 Cent, not a marquee on a deserted island with some guys playing fiddles.

  The old me might have found it funny. I could imagine texting my mates, giving them a live running commentary on the absolute cringe-fest going on in front of me.

  A few of the waiters are watching everyone from the corners of the marquee, sort of hovering on the edges of things. Some of them are about my age, younger. They all hate us, it’s so obvious. And I’m not surprised. I feel like I hate them too. Especially the men. I’ve been touched on the shoulder, on the hip and on the bum tonight by some of the blokes here, Will and Jules’s so-called friends. Hands grabbing, stroking, squeezing, cupping – out of sight of wives and girlfriends, as though I’m a piece of meat. I’m sick of it.

  The last time it happened, I turned around and gave the guy such a poisonous stare that he actually backed away from me, making a stupid wide-eyed face and holding his hands up in the air – all mock-innocent. If it happens again I feel like I might really lose it.

  I drink some more. The taste in my mouth is foul: sour and stale. I need to drink until I don’t care about that sort of thing. Until I can’t taste or feel any more.

  And then I’m seized by my cousin Beth and dragged towards the dance tent. Other than earlier, outside the church, I haven’t seen Beth since last year at my aunt’s birthday. She’s wearing a ton of make-up but underneath you can see she’s still a child, her face round and soft, her eyes wide. I want to tell her to wipe off the lipstick and eyeliner, to stay in that safe childhood space for a while longer.

  On the dance floor, surrounded by all these bodies, moving and shoving, the room begins to spin. It’s like all the stuff I’ve drunk has caught up with me in one big rush. And then I trip – maybe over someone’s foot or maybe it’s my own stupid, too-high shoes. I go down, hard, with a crack that I hea
r a long time before I feel it. I think I’ve hit my head.

  Through the fug, I hear Beth speaking to someone nearby. ‘She’s really drunk, I think. Oh my God.’

  ‘Get Jules,’ someone says. ‘Or her mum.’

  ‘Can’t see Jules anywhere.’

  ‘Oh, look, here’s Will.’

  ‘Will, she’s pretty drunk. Can you help? I don’t know what to do—’

  He comes towards me, smiling. ‘Oh Olivia. What happened?’ He reaches out a hand to me. ‘Come on, let’s get you up.’

  ‘No,’ I say. I bat his hand away. ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘Come on,’ Will says, his voice so kind, so gentle. I feel him lifting me up, and it doesn’t seem like there’s much point in struggling. ‘Let’s get you some air.’ He puts his hands on my shoulders.

  ‘Get your hands off me!’ I try to fight my way out of his grip.

  I hear a murmur from the people watching us. I’m the difficult one, I bet that’s what they’re saying to each other. I’m the crazy one. An embarrassment.

  Outside the marquee, the wind hits us full-force, so hard it nearly knocks me over. ‘This way,’ Will says. ‘It’s more sheltered round here.’ I feel too tired and drunk to resist, all of a sudden. I let him march me round the other side of the marquee, towards where the land gives way to the sea. I can see the lights of the mainland in the distance like a trail of spilled glitter in the blackness. They go in and out of focus: pin-sharp, then fuzzy, like I’m seeing them through water.