The Party

by Lisa Hall

  ‘Of course, you did. I’m just being friendly, Rachel, it’s hardly harassment.’ He raises one eyebrow, a smile playing about his thin lips as I scoot round to the other side of the car, hefting Thor on to the back seat and opening the driver’s door. I wrench the door open, letting it slam shut behind me with a metallic thud, fumbling to get the key into the ignition with shaking fingers. I just want to get away from him, even sharing the same air space as him makes me feel uncomfortable. I drop the key somewhere in the foot well and grope around in the dark for it, finally snaring it in my fingers, but before I can shove it into the ignition the overhead light goes on and the passenger door slams. Aaron’s aftershave fills my car, and I have to swallow to beat the nausea that washes over me.

  ‘Get out of my car,’ I say, trying to hide the tremor in my voice. I want to shrink back, press myself as hard against the driver’s door as I can to keep as much distance between us as possible, but then he’d know I am afraid of him, so I force myself to sit in the same position, one hand on the ignition, fingers curled under so he can’t see them shaking.

  ‘Rachel. I’m just trying to be friendly, I told you that. Don’t you think you’re overreacting?’ He puts his hand on mine and pulls it away from the ignition key. My mouth goes dry and I blink, scared to move. He rubs his thumb over the skin on my palm and I stop breathing, waiting to see what he does next. ‘I told you I never got over you, didn’t I?’ I nod, and he tightens his grip on my fingers.

  ‘There was nothing to get over, Aaron,’ I say, every muscle in my body tense, ready to yank my hand away and get out, get away, as soon as he loosens his grip even a fraction.

  ‘Maybe not for you, but there was for me.’ He drops the smile, before turning to face me, my hand still wrapped in his fist. ‘You forget, I know you, Rachel. I know everything there is to know about you.’

  ‘What do you mean? You don’t know me, Aaron. You’ve never known me.’ I shake my head, wishing that Thor was a little younger, a little braver. Brave enough at least to bark and growl and maybe frighten Aaron off. ‘I barely knew you then, and I barely know you now.’

  ‘I know, Rachel.’ He leans in close to me, and I can smell him, the aftershave, and something else, something more animal underneath. There is a tiny piece of something green stuck in his front tooth, and hysterical laughter threatens to bubble up, the way it always does when I’m trapped in a corner and don’t know how best to react. ‘I know about Ted.’

  The laughter immediately retreats and my blood freezes. A chill runs down my spine and I cough, trying to buy myself a few seconds before I have to respond.

  ‘What about Ted? There’s nothing to know,’ I manage to whisper, my head itching under my hat, and my scarf feeling as though it is strangling me. I’ve gone from freezing cold, to overheating in a matter of seconds. I need to get out of this car. Aaron adjusts his grip and I wince as he crushes my fingers. ‘You’re hurting me.’

  ‘I know all about you and good old Ted,’ he says in a hushed sing-song, ‘aren’t you a pair of love birds?’ I shake my head, and try to pull my hand free of his, but he just holds tighter, and I have to give up for fear he’ll break the tiny bones in my hand. ‘Yes, you are, Rach!’ He lets out a gurgle of laughter. ‘Don’t be shy about it – I saw you two at the pub, that day back in the summer. You might not have been obvious to other people but I knew, Rachel, I knew then that you and he were at it – or if you weren’t then, you soon would be. And then you just confirmed it for me, after you came to the house. I saw you both, in the bushes. I saw him kiss you. That wasn’t just a friendly peck, was it? Eh?’

  I don’t say anything. I keep my eyes down and hope that this is all he wanted – to scare me, and to let me know that he knows about Ted and me.

  ‘So, I have an idea,’ he says, in a conversational tone, ‘I’m happy to do you a favour, Rachel. I’m willing to keep this to myself. I won’t tell Gareth, OK?’

  ‘Thank you.’ Tears of relief spring to my eyes, and I give Aaron’s hand a tiny squeeze, in the hope that now he’ll let go.

  ‘If you sleep with me.’

  ‘What?’ I pull back in horror, thinking that surely, surely, I didn’t hear that right. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, I’ll keep it to myself about you and Ted, I won’t tell Gareth that you two are friendlier than he would like, if you sleep with me. I think that’s fair, don’t you?’ I can’t believe him. He is serious. I see the vet leaving his surgery, turning the corner into the car park and headed towards the only other vehicle here.

  ‘No. No way. Never.’ I let out a gasp of disbelief, ‘I can’t believe you think … I would actually do that.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’ He leans in close to hiss the words in my face, spittle landing on my cheek, the pungent smell of garlic on his breath, and I know then, I know that I didn’t mishear him the last time, he did say that.

  ‘No!’ I shout, and yank my hand out of his, banging it down hard on the car horn. ‘Get out! Get away from me!’ I fumble for the door handle, wrenching the door open, and the vet looks up from where he’s unlocking his car.

  ‘Are you OK? Mrs Walker – is that you?’ The vet has thrown his bag into the car and starts to walk towards me. Aaron gets out of the Mini, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender, an amiable grin on his face.

  ‘It’s OK, thanks. Lovers tiff. Women, eh?’ He winks at the vet, who takes one more look at me before nodding and turning back to his own vehicle, no doubt his mind already on getting home. I stand, car key in my fist, ready to jab if Aaron comes anywhere near me, but he stays where he is.

  ‘This isn’t over, Rachel.’ He gives me a wink this time, and turns and saunters away like nothing happened, leaving me wild eyed and panting, fear sending shots of adrenaline through my body, my hands and knees shaking. I get back in the car, lock all the doors, and sob.

  Gareth barely raises his eyes from the laptop when I walk in half an hour later, not until I ask him to pour me a whisky.

  ‘Tough day?’ He raises his eyebrows at me, as though it’s inconceivable that I, who no longer has to go into a proper office, who just gets to light candles and mix up oils for a job, should have anything other than the easiest of days.

  ‘A bit.’ I take the glass from him, and sip gratefully. The whisky burns on the way down, finally warming me up. ‘Gareth, are we OK?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ A sharp tone to his voice, his hand pauses as he lifts his own glass to his mouth and he frowns, managing to tear his eyes away from the screen for one moment.

  ‘Us. Do you think we’re good together?’

  ‘I don’t really think about it.’ Taking a sip of whisky, he goes back to the screen, shuffles some papers next to him. The words smart a little, and I blink, blaming the water that comes to my eyes on the burn of the whisky.

  ‘What I’m trying to say, Gareth, is are you happy?’ Am I risking everything for nothing? Should I just let Aaron tell you, and deal with the fall out, or do I try and salvage what we’ve got. I do love Gareth, I do. I want to be with him, not Ted. I need to end things with Ted before it all gets out of hand. I have to make sure Aaron doesn’t tell.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Rach.’ Gareth sighs and pushes his hand through his hair, leaving it standing up on top of his head in a little Mohican, before slapping his hands down on the desk. ‘I’m really fucking busy right now, trying to keep the business going so you can live the life you do. Do we really have to talk about this now? Is this really important?’ His phone beeps on the desk next to him, and he holds up a hand to silence me before I can speak. ‘I have to take this.’

  Knowing when I’ve been dismissed, I leave the office, closing the door quietly behind me and heading out in the freezing November air to the cabin at the bottom of the garden, to wait for my evening clients. The urge to call Ted, or to jump in the car and race over there, to feel his hands in my hair and him telling me it’s OK to talk about my day, is overwhelming. But I don�
��t. Instead, I light the aromatherapy candles and drain the whisky glass, making sure I am over the limit to drive, and text him. Tomorrow, I tell him, The Rising Sun Hotel at six o’clock. One more meeting. Then I’ll break it off.

  22

  JANUARY – NINETEEN DAYS AFTER THE PARTY

  Katie Fielding looks as though she’s only just woken up when I knock on her door at ten o’clock the next morning, and she still looks better than I do. Shaken up by the idea that someone (he) might have been in my house, in pain from the throbbing that shot through my ankle every time I turned over in bed, I didn’t manage more than a couple of hours sleep, until two o’clock in the morning when I finally caved in and swallowed two sleeping pills of Gareth’s, left over from a particularly harsh bout of insomnia. There is still no word from Gareth, despite the UK ringtone on his phone yesterday, and that was another thing that kept me tossing and turning through the night. If he’s back in the UK why isn’t he home yet? I tried his phone several times during the night, but it went to voicemail every time. Now, I feel groggy, my head muffled by cotton wool, and I almost wish I hadn’t taken them at all.

  ‘Rachel, what are you doing here?’ Katie’s eyebrows, perfectly plucked, knit together in a frown and she angles her body across the door frame, making it perfectly clear that I’m not exactly welcome.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ I say. Katie peers past me and I look over my shoulder, where behind me Jonno is leaving the house he shares with Melody across the street, unlocking his fancy Range Rover with a beep and a flash of headlights. ‘Do you mind if I come in for a moment?’

  ‘Um. OK. If it’s quick.’ Katie draws back and I step into the cool, white hallway. I’ve never been inside Katie’s house before, despite the fact that she and Brett have lived four doors down from us for five years. Brash and loud, and quite a bit younger than the rest of us who live in the tiny, exclusive close of The Vines, they’re not the kind of people that Gareth would encourage into our circle of friends. I did try, back when they first moved in, but Gareth vetoed me.

  ‘I don’t think so, Rachel,’ he had said, quite pompously, when I suggested inviting them for dinner not long after they moved in. ‘Not really our sort, are they? He’s a bit flash and she’s … well, she’s got a tattoo.’

  ‘So?’ I had laughed at the look on his face. ‘I’ve got a tattoo!’

  ‘It’s on the side of her head, Rachel. A tattoo, on the side of her head. She shaved half her hair off.’ He’d shaken his head as if unable to comprehend why anyone would do that, and that was it, his mind was made up and I wasn’t to go getting too friendly with them.

  Now, her hair has grown out and the tattoo is hidden by a swathe of honey-gold, which ripples over her shoulders. She wears a spotless white tracksuit, to match the pure white décor in the house, and gold flip-flops on her feet despite the cold temperatures outside. A tiny diamond stud glints on the side of her nose.

  ‘Not to be rude, Rachel, but why are you here?’

  ‘I wanted to ask you about the party, on New Year’s Eve. Can you chat for a minute? I won’t keep you long.’ I try and smile, but it’s a bit wobbly and won’t stay on my face.

  ‘I don’t really … it’s not …’ She swallows, and I feel my face crumple slightly. She’s not going to speak to me. She presses her lips together and waits a moment, as if internally arguing with herself.

  ‘OK. I heard that … well, I heard that things hadn’t been too great for you.’ Katie’s features soften, and that slight air of tension around her lessens.

  ‘Yeah. Pretty shit, if I’m honest. Things have been … difficult to say the least.’ I bite down on my lower lip, almost frightened to ask her now she’s agreed to talk to me. ‘There are a few gaps in my memory of that night.’ That’s probably the understatement of the year. ‘So, I wanted to ask you – not just you, I’ve asked Liz and Amy as well – but can you remember much about the party?’

  She looks at me, warily, and takes a couple of breaths in before she speaks.

  ‘Like what? I remember arriving, although I was a bit pissed before I got there. Brett and I were quite late, we’d been to that bar in town, you know the one that only opened recently? They had a big New Year’s Eve party, it was something like twenty quid to get in but you got a free cocktail so we went there first.’ She still has a slightly cagey air about her, as though there is something she isn’t telling me. I tread carefully, cautious about what I say to her next. I don’t want her to be cautious; I want her to talk without thinking, without censoring anything.

  ‘Sounds great. Maybe I should have gone there instead.’ I give a small laugh, but it has a ragged, grating edge to it. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean … I’m still finding things a bit hard, you know?’ Katie nods in understanding, and I press on. ‘So, the thing I wanted to ask really, was did you see anything? Do you remember seeing me? And was I with anyone? I’m just trying to narrow things down a little bit.’

  ‘You really don’t remember anything?’ Katie peers at me, curiously, as if by watching me intently she’ll actually see that I don’t remember. ‘Mel said you couldn’t remember the party, but I thought she was exaggerating.’

  ‘No, I really don’t remember much at all,’ I say. ‘A few things are coming back to me, but it’s all a bit of a mess, nothing seems to really make sense.’

  ‘Like what?’ Katie’s eyes darken with something like fear. ‘What do you remember? Do you remember seeing me?’

  ‘You? No. Not at all. I just remember little things – the thud of the music. The smell of someone’s cologne.’ The fabric of my underwear being wrenched down over my thighs. A hand clamped tight over my mouth, so tight I can barely breathe.

  ‘Oh.’ Katie lets out a breath, almost visibly relaxing. ‘Well, I remember seeing you in the kitchen. You were talking to Liz, I think. I don’t remember who else was there. Neil, maybe? I went out into the garden; you followed a few minutes later. Do you really not remember?’ She has that panicky air about her again, and I rest my hand on her arm to calm her.

  ‘I really don’t. Katie, what happened? Was there someone in the pool house?’ I try to keep my voice low and soothing, but part of me wants to shriek in her face, grab her and shake her and demand to know what she remembers.

  ‘The pool house?’ She looks confused. ‘No, that was all dark. I was in the garden, and you came out, looking for a light for your cigarette. That’s all. You didn’t seem drunk, not really. A bit merry, maybe.’ So, Katie must have seen me before Gareth and I argued, before Ted found me. ‘I was out there with … someone I shouldn’t have been. Brett was inside somewhere with Neil, talking business. You saw us, even though we were tucked away behind the rose bushes. Oh God, Rachel, please don’t tell anyone! Brett will kill me.’ Her big blue eyes fill with tears and she grips my hand in between her freezing cold palms. She is strong for someone so thin.

  ‘I can’t remember,’ I say blankly, trying to process what she’s telling me. I remember someone else saying those exact same words … with someone I shouldn’t have been. There is an almost audible click as everything falls into place. ‘Melody. It was you and Melody together in the garden, wasn’t it?’

  Katie nods and covers her face with her hands.

  ‘I need her, Rachel; she’s the only thing that keeps me sane. Please, you can’t tell anyone. This is why neither of us could come and see you, or speak to you; we just had to pretend that we didn’t remember seeing anything that night. We could hardly say we were together, not with Brett and Jonno there. And we didn’t see anything – we didn’t see anything happen to you, Rachel. The last we saw of you was in the garden. You were OK then – a little bit tipsy but definitely not drunk.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you remember what sort of time that was, do you?’ I ask, trying to piece together when they must have seen me. I have no recollection of it at all. Katie shakes her head, the back of her hand pressed to her nose as she sniffs.

  ‘No, I’m sorry. Like I said, I’d had
a few drinks before we even got there.’ She lets out a juddery breath. ‘You promise you won’t speak to Brett about this?’

  ‘I said I wouldn’t say anything.’ Irritated at her self-centered outlook, I pull a crumpled tissue out of my back pocket and hand it to her, so she can dry her eyes. Mascara runs in thick black streaks down her cheeks, and as she wipes it away a layer of foundation comes with it, leaving her face pale. ‘Did you see Aaron there? At the party? You know, the guy who works for Gareth?’

  ‘Him? No. He definitely wasn’t at the party. Not for the whole night, unless he came early and left early.’

  ‘How are you so sure?’

  Katie looks at me closely, her eyes fixed on mine.

  ‘Because he was at the bar, the one Brett and I started at. We saw him come in at about eight o’clock and he was still there when we left. Dancing with some blonde girl, he didn’t look like he was leaving any time soon. He definitely didn’t show his face at Liz’s party. Not that night.’

  Shocked, I make my way home in a bit of a daze. I was so sure that Aaron had something to do with all of this – even throwing his name out to Carrie as someone who might potentially want to hurt me. Although, after his behaviour in the run up to Christmas, who could blame me for thinking he might have had something to do with it? Now, I learn that he was messing with my head before, by not telling me outright that he wasn’t at the party – presumably just to prolong my agony at not knowing.

  I spend the afternoon slumped over the kitchen table, a glass of wine in one hand, my notes in the other. I don’t know what to think. There is a thick blue line scored through Jason’s name, and now a thick black line runs through Aaron’s. The only names remaining are Ted and Gareth. The thought of either of them doing this to me making me want to curl up into a ball and die.