Nine Perfect Strangers

by Liane Moriarty

  She said tiredly, ‘Don’t be stupid. We did not.’

  He turned to look at her, and his eyes were red and watery and fearful. He said, ‘We have.’

  If only they’d known in advance: you’re going to win the lottery tomorrow. Then they might have acted like proper lottery winners. But it took a long while for it to feel like a fact. Jessica checked and double-checked the numbers on the internet. She called the lottery office back herself to confirm.

  It became more real with each phone call they made to their family and friends, and then they finally started doing the screaming and jumping and crying and laughing expected of lottery winners and invited everyone over to celebrate with the most expensive champagne they could find in the bottle shop.

  They toasted those pathetic thieves, because if it wasn’t for the robbery they would never have won the lottery!

  Ben’s mother couldn’t get over it. ‘It would never even have crossed my mind to buy you a lottery ticket before! That’s the first lottery ticket I’ve ever bought in my life! I had to ask the lady at the newsagent how it worked!’ She seemed to want to make sure that no-one forgot that she had bought the ticket. She didn’t want a share in the prize (although obviously they ended up giving her money), she just wanted everyone to know of her crucial role in this glorious event.

  It was like a better version of their wedding day. Jessica felt special. The centre of attention. She smiled so much her cheeks ached. The money made her instantly more intelligent and beautiful and stylish. People treated her differently because she was different. When she looked at her own face in the bathroom mirror that night, she could already see it: she glowed with money. Instant wealth was like the best facial ever.

  But even on that first night, even while Ben and his brothers argued drunkenly over which luxury cars to buy, Jessica could sense Ben’s fear growing.

  ‘Make sure it doesn’t change us,’ he slurred, just before they fell asleep that night, and Jessica thought, What are you talking about? It’s already changed us!

  Then there was Jessica’s mother, who acted as if the win were a catastrophe.

  ‘You have to be so careful, Jessica,’ she said. ‘This kind of money can send people off the rails.’

  It was true that there had been some unexpected difficulties with this new life. Some tricky situations they were still trying to unravel. Friendships they’d lost. One family estrangement. Two family estrangements. No. Three.

  Ben’s cousin, who thought they should have paid off his mortgage. They gave him a car. Jessica thought that was generous! Ben liked his cousin, but he barely saw him before the win. In the end, they did pay off his mortgage, but ‘the damage had been done’. For God’s sake.

  Jessica’s younger sister. They gave her a million dollars but she kept asking for more, more, more. Ben said, ‘Just give it to her,’ and they did, but then one day Jessica went out to lunch with her and didn’t offer to pay the bill, and now they weren’t talking. Jessica’s heart clenched as she thought about it. She always paid the bill. Always. It was the one time she didn’t and, supposedly, that was unforgivable.

  Ben’s stepdad, because Ben’s stepdad was a financial planner and he’d assumed that he’d manage all their finances now that they had finances – but Ben thought his stepdad was an idiot and didn’t want him near their money, so that was awkward. Ben could have kept his opinions about his stepdad a secret forever if it wasn’t for winning the lottery.

  And of course, Ben’s sister. How could they give her money? How could they not give her money? Ben and his mother had agonised over what to do. They tried to do it all the right way, the careful way. They set up a trust fund. They never gave her cash, but cash was all she wanted. When they bought her a car she sold it within two weeks. She sold anything they bought her. She screamed ugly words at poor Ben: You rich prick with your fancy car, you won’t even help out your own family. They spent thousands and thousands on expensive rehab programs that Ben’s mother had once dreamed about, assuming those exclusive programs would be the answer, if only they had the money. But once they had the money they found out that those weren’t the answer. It just went on and on. Ben kept thinking there had to be a solution. Jessica knew there was no solution. Lucy didn’t want help.

  And it wasn’t just their family who thought Ben and Jessica should give them money. Every day they were contacted by long-lost relatives and friends, and friends of friends, asking for ‘loans’ or a ‘helping hand’ or wanting Ben and Jessica to support their favourite charity, their local school, their kids’ soccer club. Family members they hadn’t seen in years got in touch. Family members they didn’t know existed got in touch. The requests often had a passive-aggressive edge: ‘Ten thousand dollars is probably small change to you but it would mean a huge amount to us.’

  ‘Just give it to them.’ That was Ben’s constant refrain, but sometimes it got Jessica’s back up. The nerve of these people.

  It was bewildering to Jessica that she and Ben fought more about money now that they had an abundance of it. It was impossible to even imagine they’d once felt so upset about the arrival of unexpected bills.

  Becoming instantly wealthy was like starting a really stressful, glamorous job for which they had no qualifications or experience, but still, it was a pretty great job. It was hardly something to complain about. There was no need to ruin it, as Ben seemed intent on doing.

  She sometimes wondered if Ben regretted winning the money. He told her once that he missed working. ‘Start your own business then,’ she’d said. They could do anything! But he said he couldn’t compete with Pete, his old boss. He was like his sister; he didn’t want a solution to his problems.

  He said that he didn’t like their ‘snooty new neighbours’ and Jessica pointed out that they didn’t even know them and offered to invite some of them over for drinks, but Ben looked horrified at the idea. It wasn’t like they’d really known their neighbours back at the old flat. Everyone had worked full-time and kept to themselves.

  He enjoyed the luxury holidays they took, but even the travel didn’t truly make him happy. Jessica remembered a night watching the sun set in Santorini. It was incredible, gorgeous, and she’d just bought a stunning bracelet for herself, and she’d looked across at Ben, who was deep in what seemed like profound thought, and she said, ‘What are you thinking about?’

  ‘Lucy,’ he answered. ‘I remember she used to talk about travelling to the Greek islands.’

  It made her want to scream and scream because they could afford to send Lucy to Santorini and put her up at a great hotel, but that wasn’t possible because Lucy preferred to stick needles in her arms. So fine, let her ruin her own life, but why did she have to ruin their lives as well?

  The car was the one thing about the lottery win that made him happy. He didn’t really care about any of the other things – not the beautiful house in the best part of Toorak, the concert tickets, the designer labels, the travel. Only the car. His dream car. God, how she hated that car.

  Jessica realised with a start that people were standing, straightening their unflattering gowns, suppressing yawns.

  She got to her feet and looked at the starry sky one last time, but there were no answers up there.

  chapter seventeen

  Frances

  It was only eight in the morning and Frances was hiking.

  It was going to be another hot summer’s day, but the temperature at this hour was perfect, the air silky soft on her skin. There was no sound apart from the occasional sweet piercing call of a bellbird and the cracks and rustles of sticks and rocks beneath her feet on the rocky trail.

  She felt like she’d been up for hours, which in fact she had been.

  Today, her first full day at Tranquillum House, had begun before dawn (before dawn!) with a firm knock at her bedroom door.

  Frances had stumbled out of bed and opened t
he door to find the corridor empty and a silver tray on the floor, with her morning smoothie and a sealed envelope containing her ‘personalised daily schedule’.

  She had got back into bed to drink the smoothie with a pillow propped up behind her back while she read her schedule with equal parts pleasure and horror:

  DAILY SCHEDULE FOR FRANCES WELTY

  Dawn: Tai chi class in the rose garden.

  7 am: Breakfast in the dining room. (Please remember to continue to observe the silence.)

  8 am: Walking meditation. Meet at the bottom of Tranquillity Hill. (This will be a slow, silent, mindful hike giving you plenty of time to stop and contemplate the magnificent views. Enjoy!)

  10 am: One-on-one exercise class. Meet Delilah at the gym.

  11 am: Remedial massage with Jan in the spa.

  12 noon: Lunch in the dining room.

  1 pm: Guided sitting meditation in the yoga and meditation studio.

  2–4 pm: FREE TIME.

  5 pm: Yoga class in the yoga and meditation studio.

  6 pm: Dinner in the dining room.

  7–9 pm: FREE TIME.

  9 pm: LIGHTS OUT.

  Lights out! Was that a suggestion or an order? Frances hadn’t been to bed at 9 pm since she was a child.

  But then again, maybe she’d be ready for bed by then.

  She’d yawned her way through the tai chi class in the rose garden with Yao, silently eaten her first breakfast in the dining room (very good, poached eggs and steamed spinach, although it felt kind of pointless without the essential accompaniment of sourdough toast and a cappuccino) and now here she was with the other guests participating in the ‘walking meditation’, which was basically a slow uphill hike on a bushland track a short distance away from the house.

  The two wellness consultants, Yao and Delilah, were with them. Delilah led the group at the front and Yao was at the back. The pace, set by Delilah, was extremely slow, almost agonisingly slow, even for Frances, and if she found it difficult to walk this slowly, she suspected the Marconis – ‘exercise fanatics’, according to Zoe – were just about losing their minds.

  Frances was in the middle of the group, behind Zoe, whose glossy ponytail swung as she walked behind her dad. The serial killer was directly behind Frances, which was not the ideal position for a serial killer, but at least he’d be obliged to kill her in mindful slow motion, so she’d have plenty of time to escape.

  At random intervals the group came to a stop, and they then had to stand and gaze silently at some fixed point on the horizon for what felt like an extraordinary length of time.

  Frances was all for a leisurely hike with lots of rests to enjoy the view, but at this rate they would never get to the top.

  Slowly, slowly, slowly, they filed up the hiking trail and slowly, slowly, slowly, Frances felt her mind and body adjust to the pace.

  Slow was certainly . . . slow . . . but also it was quite . . . lovely.

  She considered the pace of her life. The world had begun to move faster and faster over the last decade. People spoke faster, drove faster, walked faster. Everyone was in a rush. Everyone was busy. Everyone demanded their gratification instantly. She’d even begun to notice it in the editing of her books. Pace! Jo had begun to snap in her editorial comments, where once she would have written: Nice!

  It seemed to Frances that readers once had more patience, they were content for the story to take its time, for an occasional chapter to meander pleasurably through a beautiful landscape without anything much happening, except perhaps the exchange of some meaningful eye contact.

  The path steepened, but they were walking so slowly that Frances’s breathing stayed steady. The trail curved and slivers of views appeared like gifts between the trees. They were getting quite high up now.

  Of course, Jo’s editing had probably taken on that frenetic tone in response to Frances’s declining sales. No doubt Jo could see the writing on the wall and that accounted for her increasingly feverish pleas: Add some intrigue to this chapter. Maybe a red herring to throw the reader off the scent?

  Frances had ignored the comments and let her career peacefully pass away, like an old lady in her sleep. She was an idiot. A deluded fool.

  She walked faster. The thought came to her that she might be walking a little too quickly at the exact moment her nose slammed straight into Zoe’s shoulder blades.

  Zoe had stopped dead. Frances heard her gasp.

  Heather had somehow veered off the trail and onto a large rock that overhung the steep side of the hill. The ground fell away directly in front of her. Another step and she would have gone over.

  Napoleon had his wife’s arm in a fierce grip. Frances couldn’t tell if his face was white with anger or fear as his hand closed around her thin upper arm and he hauled her back onto the hiking trail.

  Heather didn’t thank her husband or smile at him or even meet his eyes. She extricated herself from Napoleon’s grasp with an irritated shrug of her shoulder and walked ahead, tugging the sleeve of her threadbare t-shirt straight. Napoleon looked back at Zoe and his chest rose and fell in tandem with his daughter’s audibly ragged breathing.

  After a moment both father and daughter lowered their heads and continued their slow hike up the trail, as if what Frances had just witnessed had been of no consequence at all.

  chapter eighteen

  Tony

  Tony Hogburn had just returned to his room after yet another hellish experience of a ‘guided sitting meditation’. How much more meditation could a man do?

  ‘Breathe in like you’re breathing through a straw.’ Jesus wept, what a load of absolute horseshit.

  He was humiliated to realise that his legs ached from the excruciatingly slow walking meditation they’d done this morning. Once upon a time he could have run that trail, no problem at all, as a warm-up, and now his legs felt like jelly after walking it at the pace of a hundred-year-old.

  He sat on the balcony outside his room and yearned for an ice-cold beer and the feel of an old collie’s silky, hard head under his hand. It should have been a mild desire for a beer and a sad ache for a beloved pet, but it felt like a raging thirst in the desert and the deepest of heartaches.

  He went to stand up for the two-hundredth time to get relief for this pain from the fridge before remembering for the two-hundredth time that there was no relief to be found. No refrigerator. No pantry. No TV to turn on for a distracting documentary. No internet to surf mindlessly. No dog he could summon with a whistle, just to hear the obedient patter of paws.

  Banjo made it to fourteen years old. Good innings for a collie. Tony should have been ready for it, but it seemed he wasn’t. In the first week, great gusts of grief hit him whenever he put his key in the lock of his front door. A grief hard enough to buckle his knees. Contemptible. A grown man brought to his knees by a dog.

  He’d lost dogs before. Three dogs over the course of his life. It was part of being a dog owner. He didn’t get why he was taking Banjo’s death so hard. It was six months now, for Christ’s sake. Was it possible that he grieved the loss of this damned dog more than any human he’d lost in his lifetime?

  Yes, it was possible.

  He remembered when the kids were little and the Jack Russell they gave their youngest, Mimi, for her eighth birthday escaped from the backyard and got hit by a car. Mimi had been devastated, crying on Tony’s shoulder at the ‘funeral’. Tony had cried too, feeling horrible guilt for missing that hole in the fence and sadness for that poor little dumb dog.

  His daughter had been such a sweet little thing back then with her soft, round cheeks and pigtails, so easy to love.

  Now Mimi was a twenty-six-year-old dental hygienist and she looked just like her mother: skinny, with a pin-like head and a rapid way of talking and walking that exhausted Tony. She was hygienic and busy, Mimi, and maybe not so easy to love, although he d
id love her. He’d die for his daughter. But sometimes he wouldn’t pick up the phone for her. Being a dental hygienist meant that Mimi was used to delivering monologues without fear of interruption. She was closer to her mother than to him. All three kids were. He hadn’t been around enough in their childhood. Next thing they were grown-ups and he sometimes got the feeling that they were doing ‘Dad duty’ when they called or turned up for a visit. Once, Mimi left a sweet, cooing message on his phone for his birthday, and then right at the end of the message he heard her say in an entirely different tone of voice to someone else, ‘Right, that’s done, let’s go!’ as she hung up.

  His sons didn’t remember his birthday – not that he expected them to remember it; he barely remembered it himself, and he only remembered theirs because Mimi texted him a reminder on the morning of her brothers’ birthdays. James lived in Sydney, dating a different girl every month, and his oldest, Will, had married a Dutch girl and moved to Holland. Tony’s three granddaughters, whom he only saw in real life every couple of years and Skyped at Christmas, had Dutch accents. They felt entirely unrelated to him. His ex-wife saw them all the time, travelled over there twice a year and stayed for two, three weeks. His oldest granddaughter excelled at ‘Irish dancing’. (Why were they doing Irish dancing in Holland? Why were they doing Irish dancing at all? No-one else seemed to find this strange. According to his ex-wife, children were doing Irish dancing all around the world. It was good for their ‘aerobic fitness’ and coordination or something. Tony had seen footage on her phone. His granddaughter wore a wig and danced like she had a giant ruler gaffer-taped to her back.)

  Tony never expected being a grandfather to be like this: funny-accented little girls talking to him on a screen about things he didn’t understand. When he’d thought about being a grandfather, he’d imagined a small sticky trusting hand in his, a slow dawdling walk to the corner shop to buy ice-creams. That never happened, and the corner store wasn’t even there anymore, so what the hell was wrong with him?