by Rebecca Reid
‘What’s going on?’ asked Brett, behind her on the stairs. She turned. He really was perfect. Sort of famous-person-perfect, his hair all tousled and his skin all glowy.
‘Are you scared you’ll get into trouble?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he replied as Lila trotted up the stairs and swung into one of the bedrooms. ‘But you can see why Nancy might be pissed about this—’
‘She’s not the jealous type,’ said Lila. ‘She doesn’t like that sort of thing.’
‘What are we doing?’ asked Brett, standing in the doorway, looking scared to come in. Lila pulled the tiny plastic bag out of her pocket and held it out. ‘I thought you might want a line.’
Brett grinned. ‘You’re bad.’
Lila shook her head like a little girl. ‘Not bad. Naughty. You want some?’
He nodded. ‘You’re a bad influence.’
Lila took the mirror down off the wall and sat cross-legged on the bed. ‘You do it,’ she said. She could feel herself doing the baby voice again, the one that Nancy hated so much. She watched Brett’s long fingers as he tipped the powder out and pulled a card from his wallet. ‘Only the one, yeah?’ he said.
‘Sure,’ Lila agreed. She didn’t want him to think that she did this a lot. Because she didn’t. Not a lot a lot. Well. Not any more. Not since Roo had started being so tight about money.
‘Have you got a note?’ she asked.
Brett shook his head. ‘Don’t you?’
She dug in her jeans pockets but nothing. Looking up, she caught sight of the bookshelf in the corner. Georgia had arranged the books by the colour of their spines which kind of said everything about her. Lila pulled a book off the shelf at random and ripped a sheet from the middle. She heard Brett laugh a surprised kind of laugh. ‘Hey! I’m a writer. That’s sacrilege.’
‘These aren’t for reading.’
‘They’re books.’
‘In this house, they’re decorations.’ Brett made a wrinkled face and Lila felt triumphant. He liked her better than Georgia now. She rolled the page between her fingers.
‘What is it?’
Lila looked at the top of the page where the title was written. ‘Lord of the Flies.’
‘Have you read it?’ Brett asked, pushing the white powder around on the mirror.
Lila shook her head and offered him the rolled-up page. His fingers brushed hers as he took it. She could smell him. He smelt clean. So incredibly clean. How could he smell like that when he’d been smoking all night?
Lila didn’t usually think about smells much, not like other people did. Other people always went on about how powerful they were and how they took them right back to their childhood. One of the other mummies at her Bump and Baby class had cried because she missed the smell of her newborn baby so much as he had grown up. Lila didn’t care how Inigo used to smell. Like baby powder and washing powder, as far as she could remember. And more lately, like shit. She’d nodded along when all the other mums joined in, saying that when they caught a whiff of someone else’s baby their ovaries twitched and they begged their husbands for another one.
Lila watched the muscles in Brett’s back as he leaned over, bending his head to the mirror and taking one long, clean gasp. He tipped his head back and pinched his nose. ‘I haven’t done this for a long time. I feel like a kid again.’
‘You are a kid. Don’t you find it boring, hanging out with us?’
‘You’re not much older than me.’
‘Six years. That’s a lot, it’s a whole life stage. You should be having fun with your own friends, people who are your age.’
‘I’ve always liked the company of older people.’
Lila giggled. ‘I’m telling Nancy that you called her “older”.’
Brett’s face clouded. ‘Don’t.’
‘Of course not,’ Lila replied, feeling guilty. ‘I was joking. I wouldn’t do that.’
They had a secret now.
The idea that she might make Brett sad, that he might feel anything that wasn’t nice, frightened her. She wanted him to like her. If she was honest, if she let the feeling fizzing between her legs have a voice, she would say that she wanted more than that from him. But she would have to settle. She had a picture in her head of Nancy and Brett getting into bed that night, when the party was finished, and whispering even though Charlie and Georgia were a floor above. Brett would say something nice about Lila, and Nancy would pretend that she didn’t care but she’d be jealous.
‘Lila?’ Brett’s voice jolted her. He was holding out the roll of paper. She looked at the end, the end which had been put to his nose. It should be disgusting to her. It wasn’t.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked. ‘Are you sure you should have any more?’
How long had it been since someone had asked if she was OK? Roo had stopped asking months ago. He knew the answer, she supposed. Georgia didn’t ask either. Nancy skirted around it. She wondered what would happen if she answered the question honestly, if she told him that she wasn’t OK and that all she wanted in the world was someone to hold her very, very tight while she sobbed. Would he wrap her up in his arms and let her soak his navy-blue T-shirt with her tears?
Probably not.
He’d go and get Roo. He’d think that Roo would care, that he would be kind. She yanked the corners of her mouth into a smile. ‘I’m fine.’ She twisted her hair up into a knot, keeping it out of the way, and bent her head, watching her face reflected in the mirror, pinching one nostril shut and waiting for the lovely bitter rush.
‘What are you doing?’
Lila dropped the piece of paper and jerked her head up, her chest contracting. For one terrible moment she thought that it was going to be Roo standing in the doorway. But it wasn’t. It was Georgia. Thank fuck, it was Georgia.
Brett looked worried. ‘Hey – sorry, we’re so rude. We’ll be down in a moment.’
‘It’s fine,’ Lila said. ‘Gee, I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I asked Brett if he wanted a line,’ she said guiltily. ‘Please don’t tell Roo.’
Georgia was hard to understand sometimes. Lila stared at her, all lit from behind. Was she angry?
‘Only if you don’t tell Charlie,’ Georgia said. Her voice was funny. Flat. Lila watched with surprise as she crossed the room, twisted her hair out of the way, rerolled the piece of paper and deftly snorted.
‘Gee!’ Lila exclaimed. Brett looked shocked.
‘I’m not that boring,’ said Georgia. Lila could tell that she felt quite cool, that she was glad she had surprised them. ‘I used to be fun.’
‘You’re still fun,’ lied Lila. ‘The funnest.’ She leaned over the mirror and finished the line.
Brett was looking properly uncomfortable. Georgia must have noticed too because as she was running her finger over the surface of the mirror and swiping it over her gums, she paused, telling Brett, ‘Don’t worry – Nance is in a row with Roo and Charlie about the welfare state. The three of us could have an orgy up here and they wouldn’t notice.’
Lila laughed.
The others looked at her.
‘What?’ she asked. ‘That was funny!’
Georgia hung the mirror back on the wall, gave it a final wipe and rearranged her hair. ‘Seriously though, don’t tell Charlie,’ she said to them both.
‘Or Roo,’ Lila added.
‘Or Nancy,’ smiled Brett.
THEN
Georgia
The concert hall was a huge stone building in the middle of the school, used for special assemblies, school plays and prize days. Underneath it, like an artery, ran a tunnel which opened out into a dressing room. Tradition stated that on the first night of their first year at Fairbridge Hall, each new girl had to walk from one end of the tunnel to the other, in complete darkness, while the older girls waited in the dressing room. It would have happened a few weeks ago, when term had started. A load of terrified tweens in brand new pyjamas shivering and terrified. Even the teachers turned a blind eye to it, it had been going on
so long. Once you managed it – the seemingly endless walk through the suffocating darkness – you officially belonged to the school.
Georgia had noticed Nancy immediately. She had refused to look at all scared, clearly attempting to deny the older girls the satisfaction of it. Georgia had whimpered and legged it down the entire corridor, arriving at the end flustered and frightened, begging to be let out. But Nancy had been different, even then. ‘This is much less dangerous than walking home on your own from the night bus,’ she’d declared, prompting the other girls to ask whether she had really been taking the night bus on her own at thirteen years old. By the end of the night, they had all been in awe of her.
The older girls hadn’t liked her. They had said she was ‘up herself’ and when she made it from one end of the tunnel to the other and tried to open the door out into the dressing rooms, they had held it shut. It had only been a few minutes but Georgia had listened to them laughing and felt a wretched sympathy for the girl behind it. Eventually the girls opened the door and there, with a cheerful expression, was Nancy. Georgia would never forget how she’d given an affected yawn and strode out into the light saying, ‘I think your door’s a bit sticky.’
They were older now than those girls had been then, much older, which seemed strange. They still seemed so grown-up in her memory.
The tunnel no longer held any fear for them. The lights were on, the doors unlocked and they finally had their phones back, to act as torches if necessary. It was weird, Georgia thought, how all those years ago this had seemed the most frightening place in the world but now it felt like a shelter. It was one of the few private places in the school and their only opportunity to exchange secrets – whenever Miss Brandon, who managed to be everywhere, saw them huddled together, she tried to break up their private conversation or, even worse, join in.
They sat, their backs against the stone walls, legs splayed out. Georgia was conscious of the scuffs on the toes of her ballet pumps. Now that her feet had stopped growing her mum didn’t think she needed new school shoes every year.
‘It’s fine. Look, we’ll come up with something, and we’ll sort it out. It’s one weekend. It’s hardly the worst thing that’s ever happened to anyone,’ Georgia said.
She could hear her dad’s voice coming out of her mouth. Why did she always have to be the sensible one? It wasn’t fair. And it wasn’t like anyone was going to listen to her.
‘It’s not just about the weekend though, is it?’ said Lila. Nancy nodded.
‘She barred us, remember? She made you miss seeing your brother for the last time this year. She’s deliberately trying to change things, because she doesn’t like us.’
‘So what do we do?’ asked Lila, as if they were in a film and formulating a plan would somehow help.
‘Let’s just suck it up, do this stupid weekend trip, make her think we’ve learned whatever lesson she’s trying to teach us and wait for her to back off. She’s not going to be like this forever,’ Georgia reasoned. ‘She’s only doing that teacher thing that they all do where she tries to come over all strict and stuff at the beginning so we’ll think she’s tough. I guarantee you, by the end of this term she’ll have chilled out.’ As she spoke, Georgia watched both of their faces fall.
‘What?’ she asked. ‘What’s wrong with that idea? The fact that it’s not going to give you two the chance to go up against her? That’s exactly what got us into this situation. Anyone remember that?’
It was as if Nancy hadn’t heard a single word Georgia had said. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ she announced, getting to her feet. There was no way that this idea would be better than keeping their heads down and letting this whole thing blow over. But it was, inevitably, what they would end up doing. Georgia leaned back against the wall as Lila sat forward, eager to hear a new approach.
‘We play nice on the way there. Act like we’re having a good time, then, once she’s gone, we get lost.’
‘Lost?’ asked Lila.
‘Not like, trying to work out who to eat first lost, just a bit lost. Overnight or something. Enough that they’ll have to call someone out to look for us. She’ll look totally incompetent,’ Nancy’s eyes lit up. ‘Endangering our lives … She’ll get the sack. It’s perfect.’
Georgia opened her mouth to tell Nancy that this was really not a great idea, but before she had found the words, Lila spoke up. ‘Genius,’ she breathed. ‘There’s no way Brandon can punish us for getting lost. Everyone will think it’s her fault.’
There was no point in fighting it. It wasn’t a terrible plan, at least not as Nancy’s plans went. Lila looked delighted by the prospect. Georgia considered telling Nancy that it was a bad idea, that actually Brandon might punish them for getting lost because she might see straight through them. She might never believe that it had been an accident. But there was no point. Lila and Nancy didn’t understand, or rather they chose to ignore the fact, that it was different for her. It must be nice for them, knowing that however much trouble they got into there was always a net underneath them. A new sports wing for their parents to donate to, to keep the peace. Even if they completely fucked up, girls like Nancy and Lila didn’t get expelled, they got ‘asked to leave’ – and then they started at another even more expensive school.
Georgia had been given detention once, in her third year, after the three of them had been caught out of bounds in the local village. Her father had taken her for a walk the following weekend and explained how she couldn’t get detention. The girls who were paying to attend Fairbridge Hall could get away with that, but she was different. Georgia was there on someone else’s goodwill, and if she gave them cause to think she wasn’t grateful, they might take it away. There was no way that her parents would be able to afford the fees to keep her there. If she lost the scholarship, it would all be over. ‘If you lose your scholarship, you’ll have to come home, and you’ll have to go to Barnards,’ her father had warned her.
There was nothing wrong with Barnards. Her brothers had gone there. Her parents had gone there. But people from Barnards didn’t go to Oxford.
‘Can you imagine how popular you’d be there now?’ her father had asked her, as they’d rounded a corner for home. ‘With that accent?’
‘So we’re agreed?’ said Nancy. It sounded like a question, but it wasn’t. Georgia nodded. Somewhere in the distance, a bell rang. All three of them jumped to their feet, well trained after so many years of having their every move commanded by a bell.
‘It’s going to work,’ said Nancy, as they walked through the tunnel, back up to the twisted steps and emerged into the daylight. ‘I know it is.’
No it won’t, thought Georgia, saying nothing. She had an undeniable, uneasy feeling that something about this plan was going to go spectacularly wrong.
NOW
Georgia
‘What’s going on with you?’ asked Charlie, giving Georgia a sideways look.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I’m just happy. That does happen sometimes, you know.’ She shouldn’t have sat next to Charlie, but the others had reached the kitchen before her and it was the only chair left. He was staring at her. It was irritating. Was it so unusual that she had fun? That she wasn’t in a miserable slump of a mood? Maybe it was, but then she’d been pumped full of hormones and headaches and false hope for the last six months. Surely he’d understood why she had been unhappy? Lila was chatting away, a hundred words a minute. Roo was looking at his phone, while Nancy quoted statistics about the pay gap at him. Condensation had settled on the windows and the music was low and gentle in the background.
Charlie reached out and caught her chin between his fingers. To anyone else it might have looked like a loving gesture, but she knew what he was doing. She knew what was coming.
‘Your nose is running.’
‘No, it’s not,’ she replied, putting her index finger to her nostril. Lila was still rambling, talking about a shoot she’d done years ago where the model had been on her period and leaked on all
the borrowed clothes. Brett seemed to find the story hilarious, and his laughter spurred Lila on. She was too loud and exaggerating like mad. But at least it was a distraction.
‘Did you do coke?’ His voice was rich with horror. Hypocritical horror.
Georgia picked up a bottle of wine. ‘I’m going to top everyone up.’
He caught her arm and yanked on it. ‘Come back.’
‘Drop it, Charlie,’ she ground out, her neck tight and her gaze fixed. ‘This is not a conversation I’m going to have with you right now.’
‘I want to talk about this. Let’s go.’
‘Go where?’
‘The drawing room. The hall. Our bedroom. I don’t care.’
She looked across to the table. Roo and Nancy were still going at it. Georgia caught the words ‘scroungers’ from Roo and realized that, yet again, they were arguing about benefits. Roo’s favourite topic. Lila was listening to Brett now, her eyes half closed, a smile on her face, dipping her fingers in the candles.
‘Can you ask Lila to stop playing with the wax? It’ll go all over the table. Last time it took me a day to get it off. She might listen to you.’
‘I am only going to ask you to come next door with me once more and then I’m going to have this conversation in front of your friends.’
Georgia tipped wine into her glass. He knew he had her over a barrel. She followed him into the corridor, feeling like a child who was about to be told off.
The light in the hall was much brighter, it made her eyes hurt. She switched on the soft yellow lamp, turning the overhead light off. That was better.
‘What do you think you’re playing at?’ Charlie asked.
Georgia leaned against the wall, feeling the coolness of it on her back. ‘It was one line, Charlie.’
‘So you admit it?’
‘Yes, I admit it,’ she said. ‘Who are you – the police? My fucking parents? Get over it.’
