by Beth O'Leary
‘Dad’s furious about this, you know,’ Luke says.
‘So that’s some consolation,’ I say, and his grin matches mine.
‘And you.’ I turn on Grace. ‘Where have you been?’
She throws her head back to laugh. Her hair is dyed blue, and she’s dressed like she’s stepped right out of the 1960s: psychedelically patterned dress, white sandals that tie up the leg, and one of those headbands that instantly makes you look slightly stoned. It’s a testament to how beautiful she is that she does not look utterly ridiculous. Instead, as always, she’s iconic; Grace has this air of drama to her, all long languid limbs and glamour, like a starlet on the brink of her big break.
‘Ah, sweet Dylan,’ she says, offering a hand to help me out of the human pile-up beneath which I am currently attempting to handle this hangover. ‘Marc told me you got bored of chasing me.’ She flashes me a wicked smile. ‘I simply had to see this other woman for myself.’
‘Here she is!’ Cherry shouts from the doorway.
They all turn at once to look at Addie. She’s wearing a cropped sports top and shorts, ready for the hike Cherry has promised; her dark hair is pulled back, showing off the delicate curves of her cheekbones, and beside Cherry she looks tinier than ever. I watch her shrink under the force of the combined attention of Luke, Javier, Marcus, Grace, Connie and Marta.
Grace moves first. She reaches out and takes both of Addie’s hands, spreading their arms wide, holding Addie back so she can look at her properly.
‘Grace,’ she says. ‘Enchantée. I can see precisely why you’ve got my boys all a-flutter – you’re absolutely fascinating; I can tell just by looking at you. Would you mind ever so if I wrote you down?’
I close my eyes for a moment.
‘Pardon?’ Addie says in a small voice.
‘Oh, I’m writing a book,’ Grace says expansively. ‘It’s all about this time in our lives, when we’re just swirling through life, finding ourselves, getting lost, getting high . . . It’s terribly pretentious, as all coming-of-age stories are, really, but I can’t seem to help myself.’ She throws her head back for another long, leisurely laugh. ‘That ought to be the title: I Can’t Seem to Help Myself, by Grace Percy.’
‘Grace,’ Marcus says, and he hooks a finger through the belt loop on her dress and tugs her back towards the rest of us. ‘You’re terrifying her.’
‘Oh, am I?’ she says earnestly to Addie. ‘I’m sorry. I just can’t ever be bothered with small talk – we’re clearly going to be friends, I thought we might as well launch in. Did I terrify you? Do tell me, Connie says I need to be told or I’ll never improve, don’t you, Connie, darling?’
Addie pulls herself up, half laughing – it’s hard not to laugh when Grace is in full flow. ‘You didn’t terrify me at all,’ she says. ‘It’s lovely to meet you. All of you.’
‘Dylan?’
It’s Uncle Terry. He marches into the room in his swim shorts, hairy belly overhanging the elasticated waist, then comes to a sudden stop. He looks at everyone in turn, finally settling his gaze on me.
‘Dylan, my boy,’ he says, ‘are you aware that you have a rather large penis drawn on your forehead?’
Addie
OK. OK. I’ve got this.
I’m shaking a little. I’m sure Marcus clocks it as I help Marta pour out the first round of the champagne one of them turned up here with.
Meeting Dylan’s brother, his brother’s partner, Dylan’s housemates, and Grace, all at once? It’s a lot.
I’ve texted Deb asking her to come back. I need back-up. Thank God Cherry is here, at least. She shoots me a reassuring smile across the kitchen and I feel a little better.
‘Here, let me help you take those outside,’ says Luke.
You have to look hard to see the resemblance between Dylan and his brother. Luke is bulkier and looks like the sort of guy who’d play rugby and call it ‘ruggers’. But when he smiles his face changes completely. He falls into step beside me as we each take two glasses through to the lunch table set up on the terrace. I thought I’d have to go to the Intermarché again to stock up, but it turns out Grace went on her way here. The table’s now laden with cheeses and olives and fresh bread.
Grace isn’t at all what I expected. She seems very genuine to me, which is kind of surprising in a woman who dyes her hair blue and says enchantée without irony. She’s currently sunning by the pool and looking totally gorgeous beside the pasty form of Uncle Terry. I should feel threatened, probably, but Grace just . . . hasn’t really let me.
‘You doing OK?’ Luke says, looking at me sideways.
‘Yes! Yeah,’ I say, swallowing. ‘Just . . .’
‘It’s a lot,’ he says. ‘This is classic Marcus. Of course he didn’t bother warning you and Dyl that he’d invited us all.’ He rolls his eyes affectionately as we set the glasses down. ‘He’s acting out – he’s probably pissed Dylan’s preoccupied with someone other than him, for once. I’ve never seen Dylan look at any woman the way he looks at you. I think you’re going to be really good for him, you know. He needs someone to ground him. Like I ground Javier.’
I smile at his expression when he mentions his boyfriend. ‘Javier seems great,’ I say, straightening the knives and forks. Habit, I guess. It’s a bit weird being here as Dylan’s . . . whatever-I-am, as well as the villa’s caretaker.
‘He is. I want that for Dyl. And for Marcus,’ he adds. ‘Of course.’
‘Dylan said you and him were friends with Marcus when you were kids?’
‘Mm. We sort of adopted Marcus, really. Or he adopted us, maybe. Never been big on functional families, this group,’ he says, indicating the collection of beautiful people sprawled around Terry, by the pool, ‘and me, Dyl and Marcus are no different. You make your own family, don’t you?’
I think of my family. My dad, solid and reliable. My mum, always quietly one step ahead. Deb, whose last text to me read You need me, I’m there.
‘Stop hogging the new girl, Luke!’ Marcus calls across the terrace at us. ‘Addie, come on, I want to show you something.’
I hesitate for a moment. Marcus is stood on the steps down to the courtyard. His hair is pulled back in a ponytail now, and with the drawn-on eyepatch and goatee he should look ridiculous, but it’s actually all quite . . . I don’t know, villainous.
‘He’s not all bad, you know,’ Luke says beside me. ‘There’s a good guy in there somewhere. He’s just got a bit lost.’
I make a dubious face. Luke laughs.
‘Though by all means, tell him no. He doesn’t hear it very often. Might be good for him.’
After another moment’s pause, I roll my eyes slightly. ‘Oh, go on, I’ll humour him.’
I leave Luke at the table and head over towards Marcus. He trots off before I’ve caught him up, leading me down the lawn to the scrubby area near the villa’s boundary. He stops so suddenly I nearly pile into him, and have to put a hand on his shoulder to steady myself.
‘Shh,’ he says, beckoning me to stand next to him. ‘Look.’
I follow his gaze down to the shaded grass. It takes a moment for me to see what he sees: a snake. I breathe in sharply as I meet its slitted gaze. I’ve not seen a single snake all summer, but this one’s enormous. Coiled, all muscle. Its scales are almost-black and pale yellow.
I crouch down. I don’t know why; it just feels like the right thing to do. Marcus kneels beside me, and for a while we just stay like that. Watching it watch us.
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Pure power,’ Marcus says.
‘Is it poisonous? Or venomous, or whatever?’ I ask in a whisper.
‘No idea.’
That should probably scare me, but it doesn’t. The snake isn’t moving, just waiting.
‘He loves you, you know,’ Marcus says.
For a weird second I thin
k he means the snake.
‘Dylan’s easily hurt,’ Marcus goes on. His voice is level. ‘By the people he loves.’
‘I’m not going to hurt him,’ I say.
‘Course you are,’ Marcus says, tone still light, eyes still on the snake. ‘You’re too complicated for someone like Dylan. Far too interesting.’ He turns his head to look at me then. ‘This summer’s when you wake up, isn’t it, and you’re only just getting started. You’re just beginning to play around, and he’s nearly ready to give up and settle down and say, This is who I am, I’m done.’
There’s something indecent about his gaze. It feels hot. I keep my eyes on the snake, but I know my cheeks are starting to blush pink. I should have stayed up with Luke on the terrace. Nice Luke, who said I’d be good for Dylan.
‘I’m not playing around,’ I say. ‘I don’t know where you got that idea from.’
His gaze burns. ‘Maybe you should be.’
This conversation feels like it’s sliding away from me.
‘You act like you know me. You don’t know anything about me.’ I try to keep my voice as steady as his.
‘I told you, I’m an excellent judge of character. I like the look of the dark, messy parts of you, the fun parts. But Dylan wants a good girl.’
I frown, heart thudding. That’s so inappropriate. I don’t want to be here. As I move to stand, the snake recoils and slithers away from us.
‘I’m not Grace,’ I say shortly, brushing down my knees. ‘You don’t get a part of me just because I’m Dylan’s.’
He stands and I almost step back when I see his expression. His eyes are dark and angry. It’s disorientating how quickly he’s changed, or maybe he looked like that before, but I couldn’t hear it in his voice.
‘Well, you might be all Dylan’s,’ he says as I turn to walk away from him. ‘But he’s not all yours.’
Dylan
Getting this lot off on a hike is akin to herding cats, but if I let them all lounge around the pool as they’re requesting then I will have an under-exercised and petulant Cherry to deal with, which on balance will likely be worse.
Marcus is in a foul mood, which isn’t helping matters, and Addie is . . . I don’t know quite where Addie is. Never with me, that’s where. At least Marcus has lost interest in her now, predictably – no woman has ever retained his genuine attention for more than a day or two, and it seems the danger time has passed, thank God.
‘Come on, Dyl!’ Cherry wheedles, bouncing on the spot. ‘You said wait until it cools down, and it’s cooler now, so can we just go?’
‘Marta! Connie!’ I yell. ‘Trainers on!’
‘All right, Dad,’ says Marta, pouting; Connie laughs as I scowl at the pair of them.
‘Where’s Addie?’ I ask. ‘Marcus, are you wearing those shoes?’
‘Evidently,’ Marcus says, shoving past me on his way to the kitchen.
‘Grace, are you ready?’
‘Not at all,’ she says, lying back on a sun lounger.
‘Could you try?’ I snap.
Grace’s charm is a lot less charming now that I’m not interested in sleeping with her, I must say. She lowers her sunglasses and gives me a look that says she knows precisely what I’m thinking. I redden; she smiles slowly.
‘Isn’t it a good thing that I’m not the sensitive type?’ she says. ‘I’ll be ready before Marta and you know it, darling. Go take your frustration out elsewhere, please, you’re in my light – or better yet, go and find the beautiful woman we’ve all rudely ripped from your arms. That’s really what’s got you so grumpy, isn’t it? That we’ve ruined your romantic tryst by arriving en masse, as if we’re all in a terribly comical scene from The Marriage of Figaro?’
Damn Grace – I always forget how perceptive she is behind the glamour and indolence and allusions. She gives me another beautiful smile and pushes her sunglasses up her nose again as I stomp off the terrace and down the steps to the courtyard.
There’s a new car parked rather haphazardly behind Grace’s rental car; I step a little further, and there’s Addie, in the shade of a plane tree, speaking to a woman who I immediately realise must be Deb. She has black, wavy hair and light brown skin, and she’s standing on the edges of her feet, tipping them in and out as she talks, her T-shirt sliding off her shoulder. There’s an air of careless confidence to her even from here, as if she is in possession of the genuine no-fucks-given attitude the rest of us are feigning when we pose for Instagram.
I catch sight of Addie’s expression as I approach them and pause, watching, because oh, this is my Addie. Wide, open smile, no tension, easy laughter. That glint of sharp humour in her eyes, like she’s poised to surprise us all.
‘The one with the bald patch?’ Deb’s saying. She’s peering towards the terrace; I’m hidden here, I realise, behind the bulk of Grace’s car.
‘What? No, you mongoose, that’s his uncle, Terry,’ Addie says, laughing.
‘Oh, yeah, the one with the ponytail and the eyepatch?’
‘No,’ Addie says, more sharply this time. ‘That’s Marcus. Dylan’s mate.’
I step forward; staying here any longer feels like lurking. Addie’s face lights up when she sees me and something explosive happens in my chest, a chain reaction, a Catherine wheel sent spinning.
‘Here’s Dylan,’ she says, coming towards me. ‘Dyl, meet my sister.’
Deb turns and looks me up and down so openly I almost laugh. She looks nothing like Addie, but there’s an Addie-ness to her all the same – the way she tilts her head, the sharp narrowing of her eyes as she takes me in.
‘Interesting,’ she says eventually. ‘You went for the one with the cock on his face?’
NOW
Addie
It is so hot and everyone in this car is so annoying.
I’m driving, with Dylan beside me. We’re somewhere outside Stoke-on-Trent. That’s about two hundred miles south of where we should be right now.
‘Is there anything to eat?’ Marcus asks. ‘I’m hungry again.’
I don’t need to check my mirror to know that Rodney has just offered him a flapjack.
‘Not that,’ Marcus says. ‘There’s only so much glorified porridge one man can take. No offence, Rodney.’ He twists to look in the boot.
‘For God’s sake,’ Deb says. ‘Would you boys please watch your extremities? Addie, I need to break soon to pump again.’
‘That boob contraption you were using when we broke down? You have to do it again? Why?’ Marcus asks. I glance at him in the mirror. He’s managed to get some Fruit Pastilles from the back of the car and is staring at Deb’s chest while he tries to open the sweets with absolutely no elbow room.
‘I lactate,’ Deb says, deadpan.
‘Next services in twenty-one miles,’ I say, nodding to the sign on the roadside. ‘That OK, Deb?’
‘It would have been if someone hadn’t poked me in the nipple.’
‘Did I?’ Marcus says. ‘What a waste, I didn’t even notice.’
‘I can probably pump in the car,’ Deb says. ‘Rodney, can you reach that bag?’
There is a short spell of what looks like Twister in the back of the car. Rodney eventually produces the bag with Deb’s breast pump in it. Deb fiddles around with her top. Rodney contorts himself so that he is facing the other way, closing his eyes and covering his face with his hands. I stifle a grin. Meanwhile Marcus opens the Fruit Pastilles and scatters them absolutely everywhere. One hits me in the ear.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ he says. ‘Pass that red one over there, would you, Rodders? I’ve never been with a woman who’s breastfeeding. What happens when you have sex, Deb?’
‘Marcus!’ Dylan snaps.
‘No? I can’t ask that? Christ! Being well behaved is exhausting.’
I hear the whir of the battery-powered breast pump starting up. It sou
nds a bit like there’s a washing machine in the back of the car.
‘All right. Five questions for Dylan,’ Marcus says after a while.
He sounds more subdued now. Hmm. Worrying. At least when he’s pissing around he’s not up to anything evil.
‘I’ll start,’ Marcus says. ‘Why haven’t you tried to get your poems published yet?’
I dial down the volume on the music and glance at Dylan. I want to hear the answer to this one.
‘I don’t think they’re ready,’ Dylan says eventually.
Interesting. It’s the only answer I’d accept, and one he never gave when we were together. It was always, Oh, they’re just drivel, or, Nobody wants to read that.
‘Well, all right,’ Marcus says. He shifts in his seat. ‘When will they be ready?’
‘Is that another question from my five?’
‘Yes, it’s another question,’ Marcus says testily.
‘They’ll be ready when . . . I . . . I don’t know. When I can read them without wincing.’
I frown. ‘What if they’re meant to make you wince?’
‘Hey?’
‘I don’t know a lot about this stuff – you know I don’t – but your best poems were always the ones you let me read last.’
Quiet descends again. The music’s a whisper now, and I can feel sweat trickling down the inside of my upper arms.
‘You never told me that,’ Dylan says.
‘Didn’t I?’
‘No. I could never tell when you liked a poem.’
This genuinely surprises me. ‘I always liked them.’
‘Next question,’ says Marcus. ‘Why did you suggest we drive to the wedding together?’
I look at Dylan and catch his reaction. He’s startled.
‘I guess I thought – we were ready for that,’ he says.
‘Why? You cut me out for almost a year, and then, what, I did something good? What was it? I’m jumping through hoops in the dark, here, Dyl.’