by Rebecca Reid
NOW
Georgia
‘Nance,’ Georgia whispered as Nancy’s long dark figure, like a shadow, slipped out of the bedroom and on to the landing.
Nancy paused between the door and the stairs. ‘What are you doing? Why aren’t you downstairs?’
‘I was waiting for you.’
‘That wasn’t what I told you to do.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she dropped the heavy weight of her head into her palms, looking at the carpet through the gaps in her fingers.
Nancy shook her head. ‘It’s fine. Let’s go.’
Georgia hesitated on the step. ‘Are you sure?’ she said.
Nancy leaned against the banister. Georgia focused her eyes on Nancy’s face, refusing to allow herself to look at where she was standing, how close the heels of her shoes were to the edge of the landing, almost between the spindles of the stairs.
It was amazing how much Nancy’s face could change. Sometimes, when she was trying to seem sweet, she was pretty. Beautiful even. But tonight her features were angry in the half-light. The perfection of her face was in the angles, angles which were harsh now.
‘Am I sure about what?’
‘Leaving her.’
‘She’s fine,’ said Nancy. ‘Come on.’
The banister was almost perfectly aligned with Nancy’s hips. Had she always been this tall? She’d always been above average height, and people didn’t grow in their twenties, she knew that, but only half of her body was below the banister. That couldn’t be right, surely? The whole of her torso, her head, they backed on to nothingness, just open space. Even the wall behind her was stark because Georgia hadn’t been able to find anyone who would put a ladder on those stairs to hang a picture.
Words bubbled inside Georgia’s throat, forcing their way out into the air. ‘Lila didn’t push her.’
‘What?’
‘Lila. You heard her. She said she didn’t push Brandon.’
Nancy paused at the top of the stairs. Her chest was blotchy. She looked down and, as if realizing where Georgia was looking, wrenched up her top. ‘We should go down.’
But Georgia didn’t seem to be able to make her legs move. ‘Don’t you care?’ she whispered. ‘Not at all?’
Protecting Lila had been the glue that had held them together for the last sixteen years. The silent, unspoken knowledge that their eyes had been on each other when that scream came. The scream that would rip through Georgia’s mind at three o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon when she was shopping or in the middle of a friend’s baby’s christening.
‘Of course I care,’ Nancy snapped. Georgia pulled backwards, surprised at the venom.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Georgia. ‘If it wasn’t her …’ Georgia took a long breath. ‘Was it you?’
She stared into Nancy’s face, watching it for a reaction. It flushed with genuine shock. ‘No,’ she said, after a moment. ‘I was looking at you. When it happened. I didn’t see …’
Georgia nodded, her head heavy. She had been looking at Nancy. She could still see her white face and her black hair, stark against the grey sky. ‘But if it wasn’t Lila …’ she went on.
‘Then we must have been right all along. It must have been Heidi.’
Georgia barked a sort of half-laugh, outraged at Nancy’s desperate clutching at straws. ‘You know it wasn’t Heidi.’
‘There were only four of us up there. Who else could have done it?’
‘What if it wasn’t any of us?’ Georgia replied.
Nancy looked confused. She shifted her weight from one leg to the other, her gaze over Georgia’s shoulder aimed at the stairs. ‘What?’
‘What if no one pushed her? What if she fell?’
What if, she thought, unable to turn the words in her head into speech, what if none of this ever needed to have happened? What if they had simply called an ambulance and Heidi hadn’t taken the blame and we’d all just been able to get on with our lives and only seen each other once a year because we weren’t so cripplingly afraid that someone would say something and bring down everything we’ve spent our entire lives trying to build?
‘We need to go downstairs,’ said Nancy. ‘Come on.’
‘But …’ Georgia trailed off. There was no end for that sentence.
‘But nothing,’ said Nancy. ‘I’m fixing it. That’s what you wanted, right? That’s why you made me come here? Now all I need from you is to put on a smile, go downstairs, sit at that table and keep everyone’s glasses full. Got it?’
Georgia nodded. She took one last look at the white door to the bedroom, framed by yellow light, and then she gathered her thoughts and twisted them up into a tight ball, shoving them to the back of her head. There was nothing more to say. She couldn’t lose everything over one obscene mistake from the past. They both knew now. It had all been a mistake. They had dedicated their lives to guarding a vault which, in the end, turned out to be empty.
A breath.
A glance in the mirror hung above the stairs.
A smile.
It was too late now.
There was nothing she could do.
THEN
Nancy
‘In my many, many years at Fairbridge Hall, I have never had cause to hold such an assembly. It is with a heavy heart that I stand before you girls today.
‘You will all know by now that a member of staff, a member of our community, tragically lost her life earlier this month, during a house expedition. You will also know that a pupil at this school has confessed to being responsible for Miss Brandon’s death.’
Mrs Easton looked down at her note cards, swallowing. Nancy hadn’t ever seen her struggle like this. She never used notes usually. But then, this one was a first.
‘It is impossible to say what led to the choices made by Heidi Bart. We will never fully understand how such an act of violence could have taken place. What we do know is that it is time for us, as a community, to try and heal. Many of you loved Miss Brandon. She was a brave, talented and intelligent woman. She was a housemistress to some of you, and English teacher to others. While she was only with us for a short time, she made an enormous impact on the school and those of you who were lucky enough to encounter her will, I am sure, remember her for the rest of your lives. A memorial for Miss Brandon will be held in the chapel later this week, and a book of condolences will be made available in your boarding houses. Any memories that you would like to share there will be given to her parents. We hope that this will provide them with some comfort at what is no doubt an extremely difficult time.’
Nancy glanced at her watch. Two hours. The car would be arriving in two hours. She could practically feel the sun on her skin and taste the cocktails already. The flight was nine hours. She counted in her head, two until they left, an hour to the airport, hardly any messing around once they were there because they were going first class … sixteen hours. In sixteen hours, they’d be lying on sun loungers in their bikinis with no parents, no work and no one to tell them what to do.
‘While this is an extraordinarily tragic situation,’ Mrs Easton went on, ‘I would ask that you do not give in to the temptation to gossip. If you wish to discuss Miss Brandon, or any of the circumstances surrounding her death, your form tutors are always available to you, as are our team of counsellors. The way in which we will rebuild from this tragedy is to move forward. With every sports match you play, every test you revise for, every choir you sing in, you will make Miss Brandon prouder. We do not allow grief to defeat us, instead we use the inspiration of the person we have lost to power us forward.’
Mrs Easton looked earnestly around the room. Someone coughed into the silence.
‘Please stand, and turn to page three hundred and forty-two in your hymn books.’
‘I win,’ Nancy breathed under the noise of four hundred girls getting to their feet. ‘I said she’d only say tragic twice.’
Georgia rolled her eyes. ‘I was sure it would be more.’
The grand pia
no on the stage of the concert hall droned out the school hymn and the room was filled with music. They were so nearly free.
It was only going to be a short break to help them recover, what with everything they had been through – the police, the questioning, all the eyes on them. The press coverage. The holiday mustn’t look like a reward, that was what their parents had said. It had been the school who had suggested a little time off to clear their heads and reflect. Nancy was quite sure that Mrs Easton hadn’t meant for them to go to Jamaica for three weeks, but Lila’s father had offered the house, Nancy’s parents had said they would cover Georgia’s flight, and it seemed sensible. Her parents didn’t have time to be running around after her, and, as they had told her on the phone, she and Lila and Georgia were so close. They needed to be together. Even the missed lessons didn’t matter. Their exam boards had been entirely convinced by their extenuating circumstances. They’d all have extra time and if the stress became too much they would simply be awarded their perfect predicted grades.
All in all, thought Nancy, as she got to her feet to watch Mrs Easton exit assembly, things seemed to have worked out rather well.
NOW
Georgia
‘Did you put my troublesome wife to bed?’ roared Roo as Nancy and Georgia walked back into the kitchen. Georgia’s fingers felt slippy. Where was her glass? She took a slow breath. It would be here somewhere. She mustn’t look flustered. Everything was going to be fine. Absolutely fine.
Nancy was laughing, ‘We did. Not for the first time. You’re useless, Roo, sitting down here pulverizing your liver and letting us do the hard work.’
Roo wrapped his arm around Nancy, squeezing her into him. She was too tall. She didn’t fit under his shoulder. Nevertheless, they both seemed to have committed to the act.
‘Come and sit down, Nonce,’ he laughed, using the nickname he’d tried to give Nancy years ago, which had never caught on. ‘We need to plan your wedding to young Brett.’
Roo swept Nancy back to the table and sloshed wine into her glass. Georgia began to collect dirty glasses. How had the six of them managed to get through so many? She placed them in the left side of the huge porcelain sink, taking the detachable tap off its stand and sluicing them. As she did so, she felt arms wrap around her waist. Charlie. The warmth of his torso was reassuring.
‘You did an amazing job this evening,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘But I wish they’d all fuck off so that we could have the place to ourselves.’
Georgia dropped the tap and turned to face her husband. ‘Me too,’ she whispered. ‘We never did christen the kitchen.’
Charlie looked as if every single one of his Christmases had come at once. She laughed, and resolved to say things like that more often. She reached up and kissed him, hard and deep. Perhaps it was silly. It was certainly out of the ordinary. But she was drunk and everyone else was drunk. And she wanted to feel close to him in that moment. From the kitchen table, Roo and Brett cheered. Charlie stuck his middle finger up, laughing. Pleased that they all thought he and Georgia were so blissfully happy.
‘Come and sit down, you soppy sod,’ shouted Roo. ‘Bring the port over, too. And not the cheap stuff – I’ll know if you’re trying to fob me off.’
Charlie laughed and rolled his eyes at Georgia.
‘I’ll go down to the cellar,’ she said indulgently. ‘You go and sit down. I have a feeling this might be a late one.’
NOW
Georgia
Georgia’s stomach ached from pretending to laugh. Roo had told a long, self-indulgent story about paying a secretary in his office – who everyone hated – to photocopy her tits, and how she had subsequently been fired. Leaning forward to refill her wine glass she felt a squeezing soreness. No, she realized. It wasn’t from the fake laughing. It was the bruises. With a feeling like falling forward she realized that she hadn’t had her injection that evening.
Charlie had probably had too much to drink to inject her. Would waiting until the next morning throw the whole process off? Probably. The idea of the eggs she had worked so hard and suffered so much to produce just floating into her stupid body and being washed away in another crimson tide of disappointment was too much to bear. Not to mention the money. What if missing the jab ruined everything and Charlie wouldn’t pay for another cycle? He’d been difficult last time, making worrying noises about waiting and saving up, like he thought this was all one big indulgent extravagance. She would have to do it. It would be a matter of minutes. Georgia looked around the table, planning to tell Nancy where she was going, to ask her to keep Roo and Brett distracted. But Nancy wasn’t there.
Never mind. Everyone was drunk. Roo wouldn’t remember the next morning, and anyway the chances were Lila would spill the IVF beans next time she got pissed anyway. Georgia wasn’t sure why the idea of Roo knowing was so repulsive to her, but it was. He’d probably make jokes about rotten eggs or Charlie standing too close to a microwave as a child.
Under the table she reached for Charlie’s hand. ‘Injection,’ she mouthed.
He looked away. She squeezed again. ‘Injection,’ she whispered this time. ‘Wait a minute,’ he replied.
Georgia slipped to the fridge, took the vial from inside the sealed box, behind the orange juice that she used as a decoy, and pressed it into her palm. The boys were listening to Brett, rapt by his storytelling.
‘Please?’ she simpered into Charlie’s ear, standing behind his chair and using the sweet voice he loved. He rolled his eyes, but got up.
‘Excuse us for a moment,’ he slurred. ‘Brett, I want to hear the end of this story when we get back.’
Roo started making a barking noise, banging the table with his hand. ‘Taking your wife UPSTAIRS,’ he yelled.
Georgia painted a smile on her face, determined that after tonight she would never have to play nicely with Roo again. ‘We’re getting some more wine from downstairs,’ she said. ‘We’re not teenagers any more, we can wait until we go to bed these days.’
She paused outside the kitchen door, her eyes adjusting to the brighter light. ‘Let’s go in the bathroom. Quick.’
‘Do you really need me for this?’ he asked sulkily. He hated needles and he hated injecting her, but it needed to be now and last time she’d tried to do it herself she had sat on the bed for an hour trying to force herself to shove the needle in.
‘Yes, I do. Come on.’ She yanked at his arm, pulling him towards the downstairs loo underneath the stairs. A flicker in the corner of her eye distracted her. She looked up. Standing perfectly still on the stairs, back against the wall, was Nancy. Georgia opened her mouth to ask her what she was doing. Before she could speak Nancy pressed her index finger to her lips. Georgia shut her mouth.
‘Are we doing this or not?’ asked Charlie, who was facing in the other direction.
‘Yes,’ she replied firmly. ‘We’re doing this.’
In the yellow warmth of the loo, Georgia bent over, putting her hands on the wooden lid of the loo seat. She trained her eyes on the spines of the books in the bookcase. Silly books lived in here, the kind of books that people who didn’t know what to buy them – people like Charlie’s siblings – had given them for Christmas. Charlie had wedged last weekend’s Sunday Telegraph into one of the shelves. How had she missed that when she cleaned up earlier?
Dipping her head to remove the offending object from her eyeline, she felt the blood and booze rushing between her ears and willed Charlie to get on with it. He always took so bloody long, doing it fastidiously, as if it was more likely to work properly if it took half an hour.
‘Come on, darling,’ she said, trying to keep her voice light but already acutely aware of how long they had been missing from the gathering. ‘We’re missing the party.’
‘One second,’ he said, ‘just let me—’
A noise, unlike anything Georgia had ever heard, came crashing through his sentence. A huge, blunt slam followed by echoing silence, and the tinkle of glass hitting stone as Char
lie dropped the vial of hormones.
‘What the fuck was that?’ asked Georgia. But she knew. If she was honest with herself, she knew.
She knew as she watched Charlie’s terrified face, as she saw him fumble with the gold doorknob, as she followed his hulking body into the hall and heard his horrified gasp for oxygen.
The kitchen door was flung open and the others charged out to meet them. Georgia heard their footsteps stop abruptly. She saw Brett throw his hands up around his head and drop to his knees.
Her body was bent like a swastika. Georgia felt awful for thinking it, but that was what it looked like. Legs at angles that legs shouldn’t be. Arms splayed out either side of her body. She was so beautiful. So white and broken and beautiful. Charlie threw his arms around Georgia’s shoulders and pulled her to his chest as they stood, silently watching the slow red puddle that seeped from behind her head, ringing it like a halo in a medieval painting.
‘Lila,’ whispered Roo after what could have been a minute, or could have been an hour. ‘Lila.’
NOW
It was a good picture. Lila would have liked it. It had been taken on their honeymoon. She was squinting at the camera, a smattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose. Her pointed chin was cradled in one palm, and her wedding and engagement rings glinted in between all the other rings she liked to adorn her fingers with. She looked happy. Peaceful. As if life had given her everything she had ever wanted. Georgia supposed she owed her a pretty final portrait, if nothing else.
The type font was elegant, too. Camilla Brear (née Knight).
Georgia and Nancy had chosen it. Actually, they had chosen almost everything. Roo was in no fit state to help. Georgia couldn’t have predicted how he would go to pieces. All those rows, the way Lila spoke about him. It had seemed like they hated each other. But as he sat in their living room, ignoring the toddler when he cried, and patchy grey stubble puncturing his face, she wondered if perhaps he genuinely had loved Lila.
