The Guest List

by Lucy Foley

  ‘Eight hundred quid for a suit,’ Johnno says. ‘Eight hundred. Because it’s got some random bloke’s name stitched inside the jacket? I’d have had to sell a fucking kidney. I’d have had to sell this shit,’ he runs his hands down his body, lasciviously, to a few half-hearted catcalls, ‘on the street. And you know there’s only limited interest in fat hairy slobs in their mid-thirties.’ He gives a big, wild roar of a laugh.

  Following suit – like they’ve been given their cue – some of the audience laugh with him. They’re laughs of relief, like the laughs of people who have been holding their breath.

  ‘I mean,’ Johnno says, not done. ‘He could have bought me the suit, couldn’t he? It’s not like he’s not loaded, is it? Mainly thanks to you, Jules love. But he’s a stingy bastard. I say that, of course, with all my love.’ He pretends to flutter his eyelashes at Will in a weird, camp parody.

  Will’s not smiling any more. I can’t even bring myself to look at Jules’s expression. I feel like I shouldn’t watch; this is not all that different to that horrible, dark compulsion you have to look at the scene of a car crash.

  ‘Anyway,’ Johnno says. ‘Whatever. He lent me his spare, no questions asked. That’s stand-up bloke behaviour, isn’t it? Though I have to warn you, mate’ – he stretches, and the jacket strains against the button holding it closed – ‘it may never be the same again.’ He turns to face all of us again. ‘But that’s the thing about a best mate, isn’t it? They’ve always got your back. He might be a tightwad. But I know he’s always been there for me.’

  He puts a big hand on Will’s shoulder. Will looks as though he’s slightly buckling under the weight, as though Johnno might be putting some downward pressure on it. ‘And I know, I truly know, that he would never screw me over.’ He turns to Will, dips in close, as though he’s searching Will’s face. ‘Would you, mate?’

  Will puts up a hand and wipes his face where it seems Johnno’s saliva has landed.

  There’s a pause – an awkward, lengthening pause, during which it becomes clear that Johnno’s actually waiting for an answer. Finally, Will says: ‘No. I wouldn’t. Of course I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Well that’s good,’ Johnno says. ‘That’s great! Because ha ha … the things we’ve been through together. The things I know about you, man. It wouldn’t be wise, would it? All that history we share together? You remember it, don’t you? All those years ago.’

  He turns back to Will again. Will’s face has gone white.

  ‘What the fuck,’ someone on the table whispers, ‘is Johnno going on about? Is he on something?’

  ‘I know,’ I hear, in reply. ‘This is mental.’

  ‘And you know what?’ Johnno says. ‘I had a little chat with the ushers, earlier. We thought it might be nice to bring a bit of tradition to proceedings. For old times’ sake.’ He gestures to the room. ‘Chaps?’

  As if on cue the ushers rise. They all move to surround Will, where he’s sitting.

  Will shrugs, good-humouredly: ‘What can you do?’ Everyone laughs. But I see that Will’s not smiling.

  ‘Seems only fair,’ Johnno says. ‘Tradition, and all that. Come on, mate, it’ll be fun!’

  And between them they grab hold of Will. They’re all laughing and cheering – if they weren’t it would appear a whole lot more sinister. Johnno has taken his tie off and he wraps it around Will’s eyes, tying it, like a blindfold. Then they hoist him up on their shoulders and march off with him. Out of the marquee, into the growing darkness.

  JOHNNO

  The Best Man

  We drop Will on the floor of the Whispering Cave. I guess he won’t be delighted about his precious suit touching the wet sand or the fact that the smell in here hits you like a punch in the face: rotting seaweed and sulphur. It’s starting to get darker and you have to squint a bit to see properly. The sea’s rougher than it was earlier, too: you can hear it crashing against the rocks on either side. The whole way here, as we carried him, Will was laughing and joking with us. ‘You boys better not be taking me anywhere messy. If I get anything on this suit Jules will kill me—’ and ‘Can’t I bribe any of you with an extra crate of Bolly to take me back?’

  The guys are all laughing. For them, this is all great fun, a bit of a blast from the past. They’ve been sitting in the marquee for a couple of hours getting drunker and more restless, especially those like Peter Ramsay who have powdered their noses. Before I did my speech I too had a bump in the toilets, with some of the blokes, which was maybe a bad idea. It’s only made me more jittery. It’s also made everything weirdly clear.

  The others are all just excited to be outside. It’s a bit like the stag. All the boys together, like it was back in the day. The wind, blowing a gale now, makes it all the more dramatic. We had to bend our heads low against it. It made carrying Will all that much harder.

  It’s a good spot, here, the Whispering Cave. Pretty out of the way. You can imagine, if there had been a cave like this at Trevellyan’s, it would have been used in Survival.

  Will is lying on the shingle: not too close to the water. Don’t know what the tides are like around here. We’ve bound his wrists and ankles with our ties, as per old school tradition.

  ‘All right, boys,’ I say. ‘Let’s leave him here for a bit. See if he can make his own way back.’

  ‘We’re not going to actually leave him there, are we?’ Duncan whispers to me, as we climb out of the cave. ‘Until he works out how to untie himself?’

  ‘Nah,’ I tell him. ‘Well, if he hasn’t returned in half an hour we’ll come get him.’

  ‘You better!’ Will calls. He’s still acting like this is all a big joke. ‘I’ve got a wedding to get to!’

  I head towards the marquee with the rest of the ushers. ‘Know what,’ I say, as we pass the Folly. ‘I’m gonna peel off here. Gotta take a leak.’

  I watch them all return to the marquee, laughing and jostling each other. I wish I could be like one of them. I wish for me it was only harmless school memories, a bit of fun. That it could still be a game.

  When they’re all out of sight, I turn around and start walking back to the cave.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Will calls, as I approach him. His words echo in the space, so it sounds as though there are five of him saying it.

  ‘It’s me,’ I say. ‘Mate.’

  ‘Johnno?’ Will hisses. He’s managed to sit up, is leaning against the cave wall. Now the boys have gone he’s dropped the act. Even with his eyes covered I can see he’s fairly pissed off, his jaw tight. ‘Untie me, get this blindfold off! I should be at the wedding – Jules will be livid. You’ve had your joke now. But this isn’t funny.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘No, I know it’s not. See, I’m not laughing either. It’s not that much fun when you’re on the other end of it, is it? But you wouldn’t know, not up until now. You never did a Survival, did you, at Trevs? Somehow got out of that one too.’

  I see him frown behind the blindfold. ‘You know, Johnno,’ he says, his tone light, friendly. ‘That speech … and now this – I think you might have had a bit too much of the good stuff. Seriously, mate—’

  ‘I’m not your mate,’ I say. ‘I think you might be able to guess why.’

  I played drunker than I am, during the speech. I’m not actually all that drunk. Plus the coke has sharpened me. My mind feels very clear now, like someone’s turned on a big bright spotlight in my brain. Lots of stuff is suddenly lit up, making sense.

  This is the last time anyone plays me for the fool.

  ‘Up until about two this afternoon I was your mate,’ I tell him. ‘But not now, not any longer.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Will asks. He’s starting to sound a bit unsure of himself. Yeah, I think. You’re right to be scared.

  I could see him looking at me the whole way through that speech, wondering what the fuck I was doing. Wondering what I was going to say next, tell all his guests about him. I hope he was shitting himself. I wish I’d gone the whole h
og in my speech, told them everything. But I chickened out. Like I chickened out all those years ago – when I should have gone to the teachers, too, backed up whichever kid it was that sneaked on us. Told them exactly what we had done. They wouldn’t have been able to ignore two of us, would they?

  But I couldn’t do it then, and I couldn’t do it in the speech. Because I’m a fucking coward.

  This is the next best thing.

  ‘I had an interesting chat with Piers earlier,’ I say. ‘Very educational.’

  I see Will swallow. ‘Look,’ he says, carefully, his tone very reasonable, man to man. It only makes me more angry. ‘I don’t know what Piers said to you, but—’

  ‘You fucked me over,’ I say. ‘Piers didn’t actually need to say all that much. I worked it out for myself. Yeah, me. Stupid Johnno, must try harder. You couldn’t have me there, could you? Too much of a liability. Reminding you of what you once were. What you did.’

  Will grimaces. ‘Johnno, mate, I—’

  ‘You and me,’ I say. ‘See, it was meant to be you and me, sticking up for each other, always. Us against the world, that’s what you said. Especially after what we’d done, what we knew about each other. I had your back, you had mine. That’s how I thought it was.’

  ‘It is, Johnno. You’re my best man—’

  ‘Can I tell you something?’ I say. ‘The whole whisky business?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Will says quickly, eagerly. ‘Hellraiser!’ He’s remembered it this time. ‘See, there you go! You’re doing so well for yourself. No need for all this bitterness—’

  ‘Nah.’ I cut him off again. ‘See, it doesn’t exist.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Those bottles you’ve given us …’

  ‘Are fakes.’ I shrug, even though he can’t see me. ‘It’s some single malt from the supermarket, decanted into plain bottles. Got my mate Alan to make up labels for me.’

  ‘Johnno, what—’

  ‘I mean, I did actually think I could do it at the beginning. That’s what makes it so tragic. It’s why I got Alan to mock the design up at first, to see how it might look. But do you know how hard it is to launch a whisky brand these days? Unless you’re David Beckham. Or you have rich parents to bankroll you, or connections with important people? I have none of that. I never did. All the other boys at Trevs knew it. I know some of them called me a pikey behind my back. But what we had, I thought that was solid.’

  Will’s shifting on the ground, trying to sit up. I’m not going to help him. ‘Johnno, mate, Jesus—’

  ‘Yeah, oh, and I didn’t leave the wilderness retreat to set up the whisky brand. How pathetic is this? Wait for it … I got fired for being stoned on the job. Like a teenager. This fat bloke on a team-bonding course – I let him go down too fast on the abseil and he broke an ankle. And do you know why I was stoned?’

  ‘Why?’ he asks, wary.

  ‘Because I have to smoke it, to get by. Because it’s the only thing that helps me forget. See, it feels like my whole life stopped at that point, all those years ago. It’s like – it’s like … nothing good has happened since. The one good thing that’s happened to me in the years after Trevs was that shot at the TV show – and you took it away from me.’ I pause, take a deep breath, prepare to say what I’ve finally come to realise, after nearly twenty years. ‘But it’s not like that for you, is it? It’s like the past doesn’t affect you. It didn’t matter to you at all. You carry on taking what you need. And you always get away with it.’

  HANNAH

  The Plus-One

  The four ushers explode back into the marquee. Peter Ramsay does a knee-slide across the laminate, nearly crashing into the table bearing the magnificent wedding cake. I see Duncan leap on to Angus’s back, his arm making a tight headlock around his neck so his face begins to turn purple. Angus staggers, half laughing, half gasping for breath. Then Femi jumps on top of both of them and they collapse in a tangled heap of limbs. They’re pumped up, excited by their stunt I suppose, carrying Will out of the marquee like that.

  ‘To the bar, boys!’ Duncan roars, leaping to his feet. ‘Time to raise hell!’

  The rest of the guests follow them, taking this as their cue, laughing and chattering. I stay sitting in my seat. Most seem thrilled, titillated, by the speech and the spectacle that came after it. But I can’t say I feel the same – though Will was smiling there was a disturbing undertone about it all: the blindfold, tying his hands and feet like that. I look across to the top table and see that it is almost completely deserted apart from Jules, who is sitting very still, apparently lost in thought.

  Suddenly there’s a commotion from the bar tent. Raised voices.

  ‘Whoa – steady on!’

  ‘What the fuck is your problem, mate?’

  ‘Jesus, calm down—’

  And then, unmistakably, my husband’s voice. Oh God. I get to my feet and hurry towards the bar. There’s a press of people, all avidly watching, like children in a playground. I shove my way through to the front as quickly as I can.

  Charlie is crouched on the floor. Then I realise that his fist is raised and he’s half-straddling another man: Duncan.

  ‘Say that again,’ Charlie says.

  For a moment I can only stare at him: my husband – Geography teacher, father of two, usually such a mild man. I haven’t seen this side of him for a very long time. Then I realise I have to act. ‘Charlie!’ I say, rushing forward. He turns and for a moment he just blinks at me, like he hardly recognises me. He’s flushed, trembling with adrenaline. I can smell the booze on his breath. ‘Charlie – what the hell are you doing?’

  He seems to come to his senses a little at this. And, thank God, he gets up without too much fuss. Duncan straightens his shirt, muttering under his breath. As Charlie follows me, the crowd parting to let us pass, I can feel all the guests watching silently. Now that my immediate horror has receded I simply feel mortified.

  ‘What on earth was that?’ I ask him as we return to the main tent, sit down at the nearest table. ‘Charlie – what’s got into you?’

  ‘I had enough,’ he says. There’s definitely a slur to his speech and I can see how much he’s drunk by the bitter set of his mouth. ‘He was mouthing off about the stag, and I’ve had enough.’

  ‘Charlie,’ I say. ‘What happened on the stag?’

  He gives a long groan, covers his face with his hands.

  ‘Tell me,’ I say. ‘How bad can it be? Really?’

  Charlie’s shoulders slump. He seems resigned to telling me, suddenly. He takes a deep breath. There’s a long pause.And then, at last, he begins to talk.

  ‘We got a ferry to this place a couple of hours’ ride from Stockholm, made a camp there on an island in the archipelago. It was very … you know, boy’s own, putting up tents, lighting a fire. Someone had bought some steaks and we cooked them over the embers. I didn’t know any of the blokes other than Will, but they seemed all right, I suppose.’

  Suddenly it’s all tumbling out of him, the booze he’s drunk loosening his tongue. They’d all been to Trevellyan’s together, he tells me, so there was a lot of boring reminiscing about that; Charlie just sat there and smiled and tried to look interested. He didn’t want to drink much, obviously, and they mocked him about that. Then one of them – Pete, Charlie thinks – produced some mushrooms.

  ‘You ate mushrooms, Charlie? Magic mushrooms?’ I nearly laugh. This doesn’t sound at all like my sensible, safety-conscious husband. I’m the one who’s up for trying stuff out, who dipped her foot into it a couple of times in my teenage years on the Manchester club scene.

  Charlie screws up his face. ‘Yeah, well, we were all doing it. When you’re in a group of blokes like that … you don’t say no, do you? And I didn’t go to their posh school, so I was already the odd one out.’

  But you’re thirty-four, I want to say to him. What would you say to Ben, if his friends were telling him to do something he didn’t want to? Then I think of last night, as I downed
that drink while they all chanted at me. Even though I didn’t want to, knew I didn’t actually have to. ‘So. You took magic mushrooms?’ This is my husband, Deputy Head, who has a strict zero-tolerance policy of drugs at his school. ‘Oh my God,’ I say, and I do laugh now – I can’t help it. ‘Imagine what the PTA would say about that!’

  Next, Charlie tells me, they all got into the canoes and went to another island. They were jumping in the water, naked. They dared Charlie to swim out to a third tiny island – there were lots of dares like that – and then when he got back, they’d all gone. They had left him there, without his canoe.

  ‘I had no clothes. It might have been spring, but it’s the fucking Arctic Circle, Han. It’s freezing at night. I was there for hours before they finally came for me. I was coming down from the mushrooms. I was so cold. I thought I was going to get hypothermia … I thought I was going to die. And when they found me I was—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was crying. I was lying on the ground, sobbing like a child.’

  He looks mortified enough to cry now and my heart goes out to him. I want to give him a hug, like I would Ben – but I’m not sure how it would go down. I know men do stupid stuff on stags, but this sounds targeted, like they were singling Charlie out. That’s not right, is it?

  ‘That’s – horrible,’ I say. ‘That’s like bullying, Charlie. I mean, it is bullying.’

  Charlie has a fixed, faraway expression. I can’t read it. The arrogance of having always assumed I know my husband inside out. We’ve been together for years. But it has taken less than twenty-four hours in this strange place to show that assumption up for the illusion it is. I’ve felt it ever since we made that crossing over here. Charlie has seemed increasingly like a stranger to me. The stag do is one more confirmation of this: the discovery of a horrific experience that he has kept from me, that I now suspect might have changed him in some complex, invisible way. The truth is, I don’t think Charlie is quite himself at the moment: or not the self I know. This place has done something to him – to us.