by Beth O'Leary
I’ve never seen Marcus so broken. He went wild. Endless parties, orgies, ten-thousand-pound trips to ski resorts and run-ins with the police. The night I found him alone on the college chapel roof with a bottle of absinthe was the tipping point: Joel told Marcus he’d send him to rehab if he didn’t clean up. I remember the phone call, how Marcus’s eyes flicked to mine and widened for a moment, and I thought, At last, something’s got to him. I should have thought of rehab myself: Marcus hates nothing more than the feeling of being abandoned somewhere, alone.
He never cleaned up, exactly, but he managed to rein himself in a little after that. Or rather, he’s still managing.
To my surprise, India didn’t check out when she left Joel. She still visits Joel’s house to see Marcus; she still rings him and messages him. She’s still his stepmum, she says, but he’s never really seen her that way again, and now the screaming matches just end with Marcus slamming out of the house and calling me.
It’s no wonder, really, that he was so keen to keep travelling. And when I couldn’t muster the energy to get out of bed, Marcus understood – he never said it, but I knew the dread had come for him before too.
‘What was it you wanted to show me?’ I ask Marcus as he joins me downstairs. His shoes are muddy; they leave a trail on the floor, cartoonish, pale brown footprints on the pristine marble.
Marcus jerks his head for me to follow him and heads for the garden. ‘You’ll love it.’ He grins at me over his shoulder. ‘Come on.’
I smile back despite myself. Marcus’s good moods come and go like rain showers, but when you catch one, it’s a joy.
We step out into the grey evening light. The back porch – about the size of a squash court – is lit by soft pink lights embedded between the flagstones; they give Marcus a faintly ghoulish air, as if he’s a character in a horror film, uplit in pale red. Beyond, the lawns stretch down to the man-made lake in which Marcus celebrated his twenty-first birthday. Everyone had protested when he insisted on bikinis and swim shorts – it was a lake in Britain, for God’s sake – until the first brave person dive-bombed in and discovered that the lake was fully heated.
We traipse all the way down the lawn. Marcus jumps between the stepping stones India had laid when he was a child. As the pinkish light from the porch recedes, he flips on the torch on his phone, sending its beam scattering this way and that as he leaps from flagstone to flagstone.
There’s a small jetty on the lake – this is where India and Joel got married. I must have been about eight. Joel and my mother met at a gala in London; our families have been friends ever since. I’d stood beside Marcus during the ceremony; he was dressed in a pale blue suit and waistcoat, and there was a wreath of flowers in his curls, skewed, looping over one ear. He cried when they said I do, just tears down his cheeks, no shoulders shaking, no gulps for air. Until then, I’d known that Marcus was sad to have lost his mother, but I’d never felt it before. I’d held his hand tight; across from me, down the aisle, my brother had reached to hold his other.
‘Where are you taking me?’ I call.
Marcus is getting ahead of me now, almost at the jetty. His torchlight catches the surface of the water and sends reflections shuddering; I catch sight of a boat bobbing uneasily on the lake.
Marcus stands aside, lighting the boat so I can get in first. It’s a small wooden thing with two paddles and planks to sit on. I eye it with suspicion.
‘Get in, wet-arse,’ Marcus says, giving me an affectionate shove. ‘As if you didn’t spend half your childhood fishing.’
‘On a bank,’ I point out. ‘Fishing on a bank.’
Marcus gives me another shove, enough to make me think he’ll help me into the boat if I don’t get on with it. I leap in, landing unsteadily, grabbing at a plank to keep myself from falling completely. Marcus laughs behind me, and the beam of his phone torch skitters around us, lighting the distant trees, the dark lake, the jetty, as he jumps in beside me. It’s cold enough to see my breath when the torch beam swings my way.
‘Where are we going?’ I ask.
‘All in good time, my friend! Grab an oar, would you?’
We row erratically across the water. For all his dabbling in every sport imaginable at university – and with a sportsman’s genes – you’d think Marcus would be good at this sort of thing, but he’s useless. For a while we go around in circles, splashing each other, swearing, laughing, until we get the hang of it.
I’m warming up now, and with the warmth comes a fizz of excitement at being out adventuring. It’s often like this with Marcus – he brings out the bravery in me. With Marcus by my side, I’m somebody, the sort of man who throws caution to the wind, who defies his father, who chooses poetry when he ought to know better.
There’s no jetty at the other end of the lake, just a bank to scrabble up – we’re both soaked through by the time we make it to dry land, and as Marcus ties the boat messily to a wooden pole near the water, I come to the conclusion that his dad must have turned off the lake-heating over the winter. The water is eating its way through my jeans, gnawing cold at my fingers.
‘This way,’ is all Marcus says as he leads me towards the trees. I fumble for my own phone, checking it’s still dry, and hit the icon to turn my torch on – Marcus’s light isn’t enough any more. The trees close around us, their roots snagging under my feet. There’s a path here – it looks like a vehicle came this way, leaving two thick ditches, holding the dregs of the day’s rainwater like old tea. My shoes are wrecked. I’m in trainers – I should be wearing wellies. You never know what you’ll need when Marcus summons you of an evening.
Just as I open my mouth to ask him – again – where he’s taking me, the trees open out, and Marcus’s phone lights up a building.
It’s a cabin. The whole thing seems to be built of wood, though it’s hard to see in the bland yellow light of our phones. There’s a porch, raised above the muddy forest floor, and the front is mostly glass – there are windows right up to the pointed tip of its roof. Marcus steps forward to press something, and suddenly the edges of the roof, the porch railings and the door are lit up in small, twinkling fairy lights.
‘This is . . . Has this always been here?’ I ask, moving forward, flashing my torch up at the beautiful wooden beams above the porch.
‘Nope. Dad’s been working on it this last year. Come on – wait ’til you see inside.’
He races up the steps, and I follow him in, tugging my soaked, filthy trainers off at the door. It’s deliciously warm inside. The walls are wooden and the floor is carpeted in thick, shaggy rugs. It’s deceptively big – there’s room in the living area for two sofas, and I can see a kitchen, and a toilet tucked away under the staircase.
‘This is incredible,’ I say, poking my head up the stairs. There’s another bathroom and two bedrooms up there, wood lined, with plush grey carpet and double beds.
‘It’s ours,’ Marcus says. ‘Mine and yours.’
I pause on my way back down the stairs. He looks up at me, waiting at the bottom, grinning.
‘What?’
‘Dad had it made for us. It’s like a . . . granny annexe, but for grads. A graddy annexe.’
He’s off, heading for the kitchen, pulling us each a cold beer from the fridge. I follow him slowly, feeling the soft rugs beneath my socked feet, and try to process.
Mine and yours.
‘Your dad built us a house?’
‘Why not?’ Marcus says, shrugging and passing me a beer. ‘We’ve got this land.’
‘I didn’t even know you owned this bit past the lake,’ I say, circling, looking at the pictures on the walls.
Marcus laughs. ‘Of course we do. We own right up to the road. Dad’s had a tarmac track put in between here and there, so we can drive straight in – parking’s out the back. I just took you the scenic way across the lake for maximum impact,’ he says with a
wink. ‘Girls will love it.’
‘I can’t . . . live here,’ I manage. ‘If that’s actually what you mean?’
Marcus swigs his beer, throwing himself back on the sofa. ‘You absolutely can live here. Look.’ He wipes his mouth. ‘We both know London and your dad’s company isn’t the right move for you, and fuck knows you don’t want to go live at home in Wiltshire. Where else are you going to write your life’s opus?’
‘I’m moving to Chichester,’ I say. ‘I told you. I’m going to get a job there. Live with Addie’s parents until I find a place I like.’
Marcus snorts. ‘Shut up, you pillock,’ he says. ‘You’re not actually doing that. You can’t move in with the parents of some girl you screwed this summer. In Chichester.’
I recoil. The cold beer sweats in my palm.
‘She’s not just some girl. It’s Addie.’
Marcus turns his face away for a moment. He’s almost finished his beer already; he bounces up, heading to the fridge for the next one.
‘How long have you known Addie?’
‘You know how long.’
‘Just answer me.’
‘I met her in early July.’
‘And?’
‘It’s January. So I’ve known her . . . six months.’
‘And how many days have you spent with Addie?’ Marcus’s bottle of beer hisses as he flicks its lid off.
‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘Except it does, clearly. Otherwise we’d still be marrying girls we met one time at a country dance like people did in the olden days. We’ve evolved past that, Dylan. Nowadays we date. We shop around. If we really like someone, we spend more time with them, then we move in with them a few years down the line. Then . . . maybe, if we’ve lost the will to live or whatever it is that compels people to settle down, we marry them. We don’t rearrange our lives because of a good shag.’
I put my beer down, then pick it up again and reach for a coaster. My heart is thudding against my ribs.
‘She’s not just a good shag. I love her.’ My voice sounds strangled. I push my hair out of my eyes; it sticks damply to my forehead.
Marcus growls under his breath and throws his hands in the air, then sucks at his beer as it begins to froth over.
‘Dyl, I get it. She’s gorgeous, she’s smart, she doesn’t take shit from you. I get it, believe me. But Addie . . . she’s not right for you.’ He runs a hand through his hair. His movements are even more frantic and erratic than usual; I wonder if he’s taken something. ‘She’s not right.’
I gulp down three cold mouthfuls of beer. My head is spinning. ‘She is,’ I say. ‘She’s perfect.’
‘Stop that,’ Marcus shouts, and I jump, beer running down the back of my hand. ‘Don’t you see what you’re doing? You’re turning her into something she’s not. You don’t understand her. She’s not your beautiful muse, Dylan, she’s messy and dark and raw. She’s a disaster waiting to happen. She’s got power and she doesn’t even know it yet, you know? She’s like . . . she’s untapped.’
I stare at him. He’s pacing now, tugging at his curls.
‘She’s not right for you,’ he says. ‘OK?’
‘Well, I think she is,’ I say, a little helpless. He’s definitely high – I don’t know how I didn’t clock it earlier. He hasn’t even seen Addie since France, and we hardly even talk about her – I can’t fathom when he could have got around to deciding she’s so catastrophic for me.
I watch him try to gather himself, pausing mid step and pivoting on his toes to look at me.
‘Role reversal,’ he says. ‘What if it was me doing this? With her? What would you say if I was changing my whole life and being a different person and idolising this girl? You and India would be teaming up for a full-scale intervention and you know it.’
I pause. That’s actually true, to be quite honest. But I’m not Marcus. He falls in and out of love with women the way he falls in and out of love with everything: rapidly, thoughtlessly, with flair. Whereas I . . . I’ve never felt this way before.
‘I know this maybe looks – fast – or a bit spontaneous, but I might as well be in Chichester as anywhere while I figure out what I want to do, and . . .’
Marcus stretches his arms out. ‘Fine. You can do the whole buying-a-flat-in-Chichester thing if you must. But crash here while you’re looking. Don’t tell me squeezing into Addie’s parents’ house is better than this.’
For a split second I imagine myself here, wandering down to the lake on a morning with my notebook tucked into my coat pocket and a pen behind my ear, giving myself the space and permission I need to write. But no. I want to squeeze into Addie’s parents’ house. I want to stand with her in the kitchen as they clatter around her making jokes about cats and semi-skimmed milk; I want to know how her bun slips sideways in the night, how her voice is low and throaty when she wakes, how she blinks and squirms when I open her bedroom curtains.
‘I can’t just live at the end of your dad’s garden. That’s – it’s so good of him to have said I can join you here, but . . .’
‘Dad built it for the two of us,’ Marcus says abruptly. ‘There was no “joining me here” about it. This is ours. A monument to friendship.’ He raises his beer to me, but his eyes are stony.
‘That’s amazing. It’s amazing,’ I say, floundering. ‘I just need a minute to think about all this. It’s quite a change of plan.’
I look around. There’s an enormous TV, flat screen, fixed to the wall above a wood-burning stove. The cushions on the sofa are pristine white fur.
‘All right. Let’s just get drunk and enjoy it,’ Marcus says, downing the rest of his beer, shoulders suddenly relaxing; you can see his mood shift. ‘And I’ll give you another talking-to in the morning, by which time you will hopefully have seen sense.’ He grins, up off the sofa again, heading to the fridge. ‘Come on, Dylan, my man – I’m in the mood for mischief. Let’s see if we can revive the Dylan who completed every Jameson Society assignment in record time in first year.’
Marcus slams a bottle of tequila down on the table, making me jump again.
‘Alexa?’ he yells. ‘Play Zara Larsson, “Lush Life”.’
I jump again as speakers blare. Marcus is already up, already dancing. He’s the sort of man who can dance alone and not look like a tit, a quality I’ve always coveted.
‘They’ll be here soon,’ he says, glancing up at the clock hanging above the doorway. He dances his way to the wine rack set beneath one of the kitchen cabinets. ‘Let’s get some wine chilling, now, shall we?’
‘Who’s coming?’ I down the rest of my beer; I’m suddenly desperate to get drunk.
Marcus shrugs. ‘A few people from uni, a few from around here . . . Everyone you’d want at a housewarming.’
‘Let me invite Cherry and Addie and Deb,’ I say, reaching for my phone.
Marcus snatches it out of my hand. One moment he’s stacking wine bottles in the fridge, the next he’s dancing away with my iPhone in the air.
‘Hey!’
‘One night without the ball and chain,’ Marcus calls over his shoulder, disappearing out the kitchen door into the woods outside.
‘Hey, wait,’ I call, following.
The door kicks back in my face. I push it open again, and the cold hits me like an upended bucket of water. My breath clouds. The fairy lights twinkle, turning Marcus gold as he runs into the trees.
‘Oi! Give me my phone back!’
‘Tomorrow morning,’ Marcus yells, laughing. ‘For tonight, you’re solo Dylan, not Addie-plus-Dylan, all right? You’ll thank me, I promise! You’re so whipped these days.’ This is said to my face – he’s back, without my phone, bounding up the steps and smiling at me like we’re both in on the joke.
‘Have you just left it in the woods? What if it rains? And my phone gets wet?’
&nbs
p; Marcus rolls his eyes as he pushes the kitchen door open again. ‘Then you’ll buy another one,’ he says. ‘Come on. I want my Dylan back.’
‘I’ve not changed,’ I say, frustrated. ‘I’ve not gone anywhere.’
Marcus claps a hand on my shoulder. Back in the warm of the cabin, my hands begin to thaw again. I can feel the slight buzz of that beer already.
‘The fact that you’re even saying that tells me you need help,’ he says. ‘And I consider it my sacred duty to save my best friend. All right? Now have another drink, and have a smoke, and try to remember how to have fun.’
The night passes in flashes. The weed is stronger than anything I’ve ever smoked before. My heart races; I’m quite sure that I’m just about to die. It gives everything an awful immediacy: this is my last dance, my last drink, the last person I’ll ever speak to.
The women arrive in packs, shedding their fur coats on the backs of sofas and strewing them across beds. The cabin is a mass of bare shoulders and legs and the perfume is stifling in the heat. I spend at least half an hour trying to work out how to turn the heating down, buffeting my way through the crowds to squint at dials on walls and boxes in cupboards, but to no avail. My shirt sticks to my back. Every breath seems to come too short, and the only thing that helps is dancing. When I’m moving it’s like I can outrun the fear, as if I’m spinning out of its grasp, and if I ever stand still Marcus is there with another drink, a pill, a woman with skeletal cheekbones and plump, hungry lips. So it feels best to keep moving.
I forget myself for a while, and it’s bliss. The next thing I know I’m sitting on a bed with two women – one very tall, one very short. The tall woman has her hand on my knee; her face looms in my vision, black-rimmed eyes, eyelashes impossibly long.