by Tess Little
My cigarette was finished—I had burned it up too quickly. I flicked the stub down the hill.
“Do you—do you see Lillie a lot?” I asked Sabine. “I mean, do you spend time together outside of work?”
“A couple of times, but not so much.” She shrugged and took a final sip of smoke. “I think her friends are younger, but I prefer calm. I know she sees Honey, though. When we were filming, he came to the studio with them. Lillie, Richard, Honey. A little three together. Little family.” She dropped her stub nonchalantly, then turned to look at me. “You don’t see her?”
“Not much since she moved,” I admitted, then cleared my throat. It hurt at the pit, where it met my heart. “We’ve never been best friends, not like some mothers and daughters. But whether we were arguing or not, at least we were always together. I’ve missed her since she left—neither of us is much of a talker on the phone.”
I folded my arms. Went on: “When I came to visit for Richard’s birthday, I thought it would be nice to spend time together. Of course, his death swallowed everything.”
Sabine did not reply.
“And she’s finding it very difficult,” I said. “We both are. Lillie’s getting closer to Honey. And she’s pushing me away.”
I caught my breath. The confessions had spilled from my mouth too fast. I barely knew this woman. And Kei had said so herself—the cops suspected Sabine of murder.
“I don’t think so,” Sabine said carefully. “I think Lillie is only sad and you are blaming yourself. But I know. I understand you.”
She scuffed her shoe on the concrete border, back and forth like a tap dancer.
“The police,” she continued, “they ask me: Are you guilty? And what can I say but yes? Yes, we are all guilty. Not one among us can say he is innocent.”
* * *
—
I spent the night in the guest bedroom. Lay on the bed in my vomit-stained dress, with the door locked, barely sleeping. A few times the handle rattled—drunkards looking for a bed, Richard wanting to talk, I wasn’t sure, I didn’t care. I lay there, frozen, unanswering. The music continued to thud; my head ached and churned. It took hours for my anger to ebb away. And when it did, a determination was left in its wake.
Dawn was breaking and I felt sober enough to leave. I snuck back into the bedroom to pack myself a suitcase.
Richard had not locked the door. He was lying on the bed, comatose.
It was musty—the AC was off, and the sun was heating the blinds—and there he was, lying comatose and stripped to his underwear. His belt was curled on the floor, buckle beneath his hand. There was a young man beside him. One of his user friends, facedown, white boxers. A thread of silver sparkling around the back of his neck. His arms were cocked at strange angles; the palm of one hand was up and open. But it was Richard who lay closest to me, to the door. His head was turned away. The hair on his calves was so familiar. And then his belt, inches below limp fingers.
I found the strength. I looked away.
Holding my breath, I dashed to the walk-in closet as quickly and quietly as I could. Rummaged through my shoeboxes to find the one containing my passport, the secret credit cards. After my last escape to New York, nearly ten years earlier, I knew I could not be too careful—I had opened new accounts, saved money, little by little. It would be enough to get us started. I stuffed everything into my gym bag, along with some clothes, leaving room for Lillie’s belongings. She would want her teddy and some books, and did I need to pack some schoolwork as well? My breath caught in my throat. I sat down for a second.
With every inhalation, exhalation, I gave myself a sentence:
You know what you saw.
He tried to lie to you.
A lie cannot overwrite the truth.
He broke his promise.
You are leaving for Lillie.
You know what you saw.
* * *
—
I found Lillie at the center of the atrium crowd, comforting a sobbing woman. Even across the room, her exhaustion was visible. Couldn’t these people leave her alone? She had been on her feet for hours, making small talk with strangers, directing the caterers and musicians; for weeks she had been organizing. It was too much responsibility for a young woman, an only child.
A hand touched my back. I suppressed a flinch.
“It’s lovely to see you,” said the man. “Although, I should say, terrible given the circumstances.”
“Hello,” I said, scanning his features—no recollection of a name, but the awkward stance and accent gave him away as a school friend.
“It’s David,” he said. “I’m sorry, you haven’t met me since the wedding, so I’m sure you’ve forgotten the face. It’s certainly changed over the years.”
“No, David, yes, I do remember, you went to school with Richard.” I could place him now. The hair had been a blaze of red at the wedding; with its graying, David was unrecognizable. “Tell me, what are you up to these days?”
“Journalist.” His shoulders hunched inward—an absurd attempt to shrink his lanky form. “Transport correspondent. Anyway, I just wanted to say, it’s lovely to see you. Your daughter gave a beautiful speech.”
“She did, didn’t she?”
Behind David, Charlie was approaching Lillie’s cluster. As he said his goodbyes, kissed her cheeks, there was no hesitation, no hint of uncertainty on her face. Each of the suspects must have spoken to Lillie that afternoon—anything less would have seemed suspicious.
“It’s remarkable, isn’t it,” David said, “how much you can learn about a loved one at events like these? I had no idea Richard played the cello.”
Lillie must have stifled her emotions, buried them below, to have faced the suspects like this. To smile, to thank them for coming, thank them for their sympathy, as she wondered: Was it you? Did you kill my father?
“Elspeth?” David was looking concerned. “Are you all right? You seem a little—”
“A long day,” I said quickly. “There’s a lot on my mind. What were we…? Yes, the cello, yes. So it wasn’t a childhood hobby?”
“Not one he ever displayed in school. Funny how you think you know someone.”
A waitress held out a tray of champagne glasses.
“No, thank you,” I said, then turned back. “If you went to school with Richard, you must know Tommo—what were they like back then? Tommo told me this absurd story about the two of them and the river—”
“The river?” David stared at me.
“Yes, when Richard pushed Tommo into the river? You must have heard that one. I’m sure you have hundreds of stories like that.”
David frowned. “Not really.”
“Well,” I said with a laugh, “perhaps it was a secret, along with the cello.”
I caught a few bars of “Silver Train” drifting over the chatter.
“No, I mean, something did happen at the river, but Richard didn’t push Tommo. Certainly not,” David said. “I was there, I watched—in fact, we all did.”
He paused for a moment and then found his starting place: “There used to be three of them, you know. In a little group. Richard, Tommo, and another scholarship boy—Freddie Staines. Richard took them both under his wing, protected them from the snobbery and bullying. But I never quite understood their friendship. They were always jibing one another, pulling pranks—usually Richard, pitting the other two against each other. Pouring water into one of their beds so the sleeper would think they’d wet themselves, running a toothbrush inside the toilet basin. Schoolboy stuff, but even back then I could see there was something nasty about it. Why would you treat your so-called friends like that?”
“I’ve never met this Freddie,” I said.
“Well,” said David, “you wouldn’t have done. Freddie died in our second year of school. Anaphylactic shock.”
For a moment I forgot my present concerns. “That’s terrible. I’m, I’m sorry to hear it.”
David hesitated, then went on. “Freddie was deathly allergic to strawberries,” he said. “Everyone knew it. The school knew too—Freddie was always missing out on pudding, and if there was ever any question about whether a dish contained strawberries, he’d double-check himself. Richard and Tommo, naturally, teased him about it. If there was gravy and mash: Does this contain strawberries, sir? And when strawberries were on the menu, they wouldn’t shut up about how delicious they were. Richard didn’t seem to believe Freddie was actually allergic. Go on, he’d say. Have a taste, you’ll love it.”
I could almost hear Richard’s voice in those words—always certain that he knew best.
“And then it happened,” David said. “On his birthday. The cooks made Freddie a cake, and after taking a bite, his tongue swelled up. He couldn’t breathe. Hives. The teachers tried to give him his EpiPen, or whatever it was, but they didn’t reach him in time. Neither did the ambulance. We all saw him faint. Turn blue. He died right before our eyes, on his fifteenth birthday.”
“How awful,” I said. “And in front of you all.”
“It was. It was horrific. Tragic. I still remember Freddie’s father coming into school to collect his belongings. The first time I saw a grown man cry…”
David seemed lost in the memory.
“Anyway,” he continued, “it caused a huge scandal. The cooks were fired. They claimed they hadn’t put strawberries in, or even near, the cake. We’d had jam at tea the day before, though, so the school chalked it up to accidental contamination. Massive lawsuit from the parents. But among us boys, there was this rumor that Richard and Tommo had, well, not deliberately poisoned Freddie but had maybe tried to test him. Maybe they’d saved a little jam from tea, maybe they’d added it to his cake. I remember one of the other boys whispering about it that night: Richard had been telling everyone he had a little surprise for Freddie’s birthday.
“I don’t know. It was just a rumor. But you can see how a mistake like that could easily happen. Foolish schoolboys. I don’t think we knew as much about allergies back then. And, well, yes, it was just a rumor, but everyone could see something strange was going on with Richard and Tommo. Maybe they were grieving, but after Freddie’s death something seemed off. They stopped speaking to each other, completely withdrew.
“A few weeks later, a fight broke out between them, as we were walking back from the playing fields, along the river. They were wrestling with each other, both so determined to gain the upper hand that they barely noticed when they rolled right in. But they didn’t stop fighting even in the water, each pushing the other’s head under the surface. Bloody dramatic stuff. All the boys were yelling, chanting, on the banks, and Richard and Tommo just wouldn’t stop. Every so often it looked like the current would sweep their bodies clean away.”
“My god, that’s barbaric.”
“It truly was. We thought they were going to kill each other, and they could have done—I saw the blood and bruises afterward. They only survived because a couple of teachers dived in and dragged them apart.
“We all suspected it might have something to do with Freddie’s death. I don’t know what the teachers thought—schoolboy scuffles, probably—but they had no tolerance for it. And both Tommo and Richard should have been suspended—I mean, anyone who saw that fight could tell both were at fault. But Tommo would have lost his scholarship, see. So Richard took the fall. He was sent home for the rest of the year, if I recall correctly. Two terms. We were all surprised he wasn’t expelled, but as an adult I can see that Richard wasn’t the kind of student you could expel. You know, all of the men in his family attended our school. His grandfather was chummy with the provost.”
“Why would Richard take all the blame if they both hated each other so much they almost drowned?”
“Quite,” said David. “My theory was that Richard took the fall so he had something to hold over Tommo. Because when Richard returned, the two were as thick as thieves. Ready to conquer the world.” David finished his glass and passed it to a waiter. “So Tommo told you Richard pushed him in?”
“Yes, he did, I…Perhaps I misunderstood.” I tried to laugh it off, but David’s eyebrows were knotted firm.
“Perhaps Tommo lied—those two were always trying to get one up on the other, even when they were best of pals.”
“It’s a wonder they kept friends like you,” I said.
What had Tommo told me? That the police had focused on their rivalry. Maybe they’d heard many stories like David’s.
“Quite frankly, yes, it is.” David was rolling up the program in his hands, twisting it one way then back the other. “They were terrible bullies, and after that whole episode, they turned their attention outward—onto the rest of us. I only really became friends with them when I had supervisions with Richard at Cambridge. I think they had learned by that point that schoolboy pranks don’t take you very far in the real world.”
“I can’t imagine Tommo hurting a fly. Richard, maybe—he had a terrible temper.”
I had never considered this before—that Richard’s friends hadn’t all been manipulated by him. That some of them might have given as good as they got.
“Look”—David glanced around him—“I don’t want to speak ill of Richard, not now, but those two made my childhood a living hell. They say boys will be boys, but our school—it was cutthroat sometimes. And I’ve forgiven them, I have, but it took a lot of work and it doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten….”
David cleared his throat and straightened his back.
“I’m sorry, this isn’t the time—I should never have…You—”
I held his hand. He clutched the program in the other.
“Please don’t apologize.” I squeezed his fingers.
He struggled to control his breathing.
“Thankfully we fostered a different kind of relationship”—David had composed himself—“and I can leave those things in the past. But it doesn’t surprise me to hear that Tommo’s lying about Richard now, twisting history when there’s no one else to defend the truth. Vivere est vincere, as they say.”
“Elsie,” a singsong voice called. “I told you I’d track you down again, hon.”
Judy was standing right behind me, unavoidable. I was about to ask her to wait for my conversation to end, but when I turned back to David, he was already pushing through the crowd, hurrying toward the door.
I resigned myself to my fate. Asked, with as much warmth as I could muster, “How are you, Judy?”
“Hon, I am not good.” She flapped her manicured hands with each syllable. “Everything with Jerry has been a nightmare. The police, you know. And the oncologist’s been so unhelpful lately, but he’s the best money can buy and god knows we paid for the best. So I’m dealing with that now and all these insurers. But it’s been a real eye-opener, you know, you get to find out who your real friends are—”
“Judy,” I interrupted, “I wanted to apologize for not getting in touch, about Jerry, his illness….”
Her lips tightened.
“And I was heartbroken when I found out, knowing what you’d been going through. I am sorry. I had no idea, not even on the night of Richard’s…party. I—”
“Well, of course you didn’t know, hon.” Her words snapped. “How would you? We haven’t heard a word from you in, what, a decade?”
I opened my mouth, but she leaped in again. “And that’s what happens when you cut your friends off. You’re not around when they go through something life-changing. Decade or so and you don’t say a thing to me or Jerry.” Her voice wobbled. “How can you end a friendship like that?”
“I was struggling, Judy. Everything was such a blur with the divorce, moving, and I—”
And Jerry and Judy had been Richar
d’s friends, not mine. I could never have confided in them. That conversation I’d overheard at Richard’s party—the things Jerry had said about Honey—had confirmed it.
“I know, hon, but you let your friends in on the problem, that’s what you do.” Her voice lost its spike, exasperated. “You don’t just leave everyone behind, trying to figure out what they did wrong.”
I could not believe she had truly mourned the loss of our friendship. What had it ever amounted to anyway? A friendship of circumstance: awkward wife-talk during our husbands’ lunchtime meetings. I didn’t feel guilty. And yet a splinter of shame pushed through. It was true: The Debrowskis were going through hell, and I had been none the wiser.
Some physical manifestation of this shame must have reached my face, because Judy decided to drop the matter.
“Look, things aren’t great with Jerry, and that’s just reality. It’s nonstop. It’s like half my time’s in the hospital, half my time at the police station, half my time at home, and now these lousy insurers…” She sighed. “But anyway, today’s about Rich; it’s not Jerry’s time yet. So, tell me, how are you doing?”
“I’m doing okay, thank you for—”
“Because you’re looking stunning, really. Is that a new shade of blond?” She fanned herself with the memorial program: a tasteful black booklet of photographs, the schedule of the afternoon. Richard’s filmography graced the back page. “Your coloring’s all different—it’s fresh and young and I love it. Stunning. And did a little birdie tell me somebody’s seeing one of the Schwarz brothers? Brava, hon, bra-va.”
I folded my arms. “Actually, Julian and I didn’t work out, so—”
“Oh, I am sorry. Last I heard, you were jetting all over the world together, but I guess that’s what happens when you don’t keep up with a friend’s life—it’s like, what’s Elsie doing these days? Who’s she seeing? I was chatting with Jerry earlier and I was trying to figure out the last time I saw you, and, you know, it’s been a while.”
