The Guest List

by Lucy Foley

  I think about how he grabbed my arm just now, by the cliff. I think of what might have happened if Jules hadn’t come along. If she had seen, everything would be different. But she didn’t and I’ve missed my moment. No one would believe me, if I told them now. Or they’d blame me. I can’t do it. I’m not brave enough for that.

  But I could do something.

  And then the lights go out.

  JULES

  The Bride

  The cake wasn’t enough. It felt petty, pathetic. He has let me down, irrevocably. Like every other bloody person in my family. I overrode all of my carefully constructed security measures for him. I made myself vulnerable to him.

  The thought of him smiling at me as we cut down, our hands joined on the cake. His hands that have been all over my own sister’s body, that have – God, it’s all too disgusting to contemplate. Did he think about her, when we slept together? Did he think I was too stupid to ever guess? He must have done, I suppose. And he was right. That’s one more small part of what makes it so insulting.

  Well. He has underestimated me.

  The rage is growing inside me, overtaking the shock and grief. I can feel it blossoming up behind my ribs. It’s almost a relief, how it obliterates every other feeling in its path.

  And then the lights go out.

  JOHNNO

  The Best Man

  I’m outside in the darkness. It’s blowing a bloody gale out here. It feels like things keep appearing out of the night. I put up my hands to fight them off. Most of all I’m seeing that face again, the same one I saw last night in my room. The big glasses, that look he wore in the dorm that last time, a few hours before we took him. The boy we killed. We both killed him. But only one of our lives has been destroyed by it.

  I’m feeling pretty out of it. Pete Ramsay was passing stuff out like after-dinner mints – the effects are finally taking hold of me.

  Will, that fucker. Going into the marquee like nothing had happened, like none of it had touched him: big fat grin on his face. I should have finished him off in that cave, I think, while I still had the chance.

  I’m trying to get back to the marquee. I can see the light of it, but it’s like it keeps appearing in different places … nearer then further away. I can hear the noise of it, the canvas in the wind, the music—

  And then the lights go out.

  AOIFE

  The Wedding Planner

  The lights go out. The guests shriek.

  ‘Don’t worry, everyone,’ I shout. ‘It’s the generator, failing again, because of the wind. The lights should come on again in a few minutes, if you all stay here.’

  WILL

  The Groom

  I’m washing the cake off my face in the bathroom at the Folly. Getting here was no picnic, even having the lights of the building to follow, because the wind kept trying to blow me off course. But perhaps it’s good to have some space, to clear my thoughts. Jesus, there’s icing in my hair, even up my nose. Jules really went for it. It was humiliating. I looked up afterward and saw my father, watching me. Same expression he’s always worn – like when the first team was announced for the big match and I wasn’t on it. Or when I didn’t get into Oxbridge, or when I got those GCSE results and they were a whisker too perfect. More like a sort of grim satisfaction, like he’d been proven right about me all along. I have never once seen him look proud of me. That in spite of the fact that I’ve only ever tried to better myself, to achieve, as he always told me to. In spite of everything I have achieved.

  Jules’s expression when she picked up that slice of cake. Fuck. Has she worked something out? But what? Perhaps she was still just annoyed about the ushers carrying me off like that: the interruption to our evening. I’m sure it was that and nothing more. Or, if needs be, I’m sure I can convince her otherwise.

  It wasn’t meant to be like this. It all suddenly feels so fragile. Like the whole thing could come crashing down at any moment. I need to go back there and get a handle on everything. But what to sort out first?

  I look up, catch sight of my reflection in the mirror. Thank God for this face. It doesn’t show one bit of any of it, the stress of the last couple of hours. It’s my passport. It earns me trust, love. And this is why I know I’ll always win, in the end, over a bloke like Johnno. I wipe one last tiny crumb from the corner of my mouth, smooth my hair. I smile.

  And then the lights go out.

  NOW

  The wedding night

  They crouch over the body. Femi – a surgeon in ordinary life, which feels very far away right now – bends down over the prone form, puts his face close to the mouth and listens for any sounds of breathing. It’s futile, really. Even if it were possible to hear anything over the sound of the wind, it is quite clear from the open, cloudy eyes, the gaping mouth, the dark stain of crimson at the chest, that he is very dead.

  They are all so focused on the motionless form in front of them that none of them have noticed that they are not alone, none of them glimpsing the figure that has remained shrouded in darkness on the edge of their circle. Now he steps into the light of their torches, looming out of the blackness like some terrible, ancient figure – Old Testament, the personification of vengeance. They don’t even recognise him at first. The first thing they see is all the blood.

  He appears to have bathed in it. It covers his shirt front: the garment now more crimson than white. His hands are steeped to the wrists in it. There is blood up his neck, blood crusted along his jaw, as though he has been drinking it.

  They stare at him in silent horror.

  He is sobbing quietly. He raises his hands towards them and now they catch the glint of metal. So the second thing they see is the knife. If they had time to think about it they might recognise it, the blade. It’s a long, elegant blade with a mother-of-pearl handle, most recently seen slicing through a wedding cake.

  Femi is the first to find his voice. ‘Johnno,’ he says, very slowly and carefully. ‘Johnno – it’s all over, mate. Put the knife down.’

  Earlier

  WILL

  The Groom

  Fuck. Another power cut. I fumble in my top pocket for my phone, flick on the torch as I step out into the night. It’s really blowing a gale out here. I have to put my head down and lean into it to make any headway. Christ, I hate it when my hair gets messed up by the wind. Not the sort of thing I’d ever admit out loud – it wouldn’t be very on brand for Survive the Night.

  When I look up to check the direction I am walking in, I realise that there’s someone coming towards me, visible only by the light of their torch. I must be lit up to them while they remain invisible to me.

  ‘Who’s there?’ I ask. And then, finally, I can make the shape of them out.

  Make her out.

  ‘Oh,’ I say, in some relief. ‘It’s you.’

  ‘Hello, Will,’ Aoife says. ‘Got all that cake off?’

  ‘Yes, just about. What’s going on?’

  ‘Another power cut,’ she says. ‘Sorry about this. It’s this weather. The forecast didn’t say it would be nearly as bad as this. Our generator can’t keep up with it. It should really have kicked in by now … I was going to see what had happened. Actually – you wouldn’t be able to help me, would you?’

  I’d really rather not. I need to get back, there are things to sort out – a wife to placate, a bridesmaid and a best man to … deal with. But I suppose I can’t do any of those things in the dark. So I might as well be of help. ‘Of course,’ I say gallantly. ‘As I said this morning, I’m only too eager to be of assistance.’

  ‘Thank you. That’s very kind. It’s a wee way over here.’ She leads me off the path, round towards the back of the Folly. We’re sheltered from the wind here. And then – odd – she turns to face me, even though we haven’t reached anything that looks like a generator. She’s shining the light in my eyes. I put up a hand. ‘That’s a bit bright,’ I say. I laugh. ‘It feels like I’m at an interrogation.’

  ‘Oh,’
she says. ‘Does it?’

  But she doesn’t lower the torch.

  ‘Please,’ I say, getting annoyed now but trying to remain civil. ‘Aoife – the light is in my eyes. I can’t see anything, you know.’

  ‘We don’t have very much time,’ she says. ‘So this will have to be quick.’

  ‘What?’ For a very strange moment I feel as though I am being propositioned. She is certainly attractive. I noticed that this morning, in the marquee. All the more so for trying to cover it up – I’ve always liked that, as I’ve said, that unawareness in a woman, that insecurity. What she’s doing with a fat fuck of a husband like Freddy is anyone’s guess. Even so, my hands are rather full right now.

  ‘I suppose I just wanted to tell you something,’ she says. ‘Perhaps I should have told you when you mentioned it this morning. I didn’t think it would be prudent, then. The seaweed in the bed last night. That was me.’

  ‘The seaweed?’ I stare into the light, trying to work out what on earth she’s talking about. ‘No, no,’ I say. ‘It must have been one of the ushers, because that was—’

  ‘What you used to do at Trevellyan’s – to the younger boys, Yes. I know. I know all about Trevellyan’s. Quite a bit more than I would like to, really.’

  ‘About … but I don’t understand—’ My heart is beginning to beat a little faster in my chest, though I’m not quite sure why.

  I looked for you for so long online,’ she says. ‘But William Slater – it’s a pretty common name. And then Survive the Night came out. And there you were. Freddy recognised you instantly. And you hadn’t even changed the format, had you? We’ve watched every episode.’

  ‘What—?’

  ‘So. It’s why I tried so very hard to get you here,’ she says. ‘Why I offered that ridiculous discount to be featured in your wife’s magazine. I would have expected her to question it a little more than she did. But I suppose that’s why she’s so well suited to you. Entitled enough to believe that the world simply owes her something. She must have realised that there would be no way we could make a profit from it. But I am getting something out of it, so it happens.’

  ‘And what’s that?’ I am beginning to back away from her. This is suddenly feeling a little fishy. But my right foot lands upon a piece of ground that gives way beneath it. It begins to sink. We’re right on the edge of the bog. It’s almost like she’s planned it that way.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you,’ she says. ‘That’s all. And I couldn’t think of a better way to do it.’

  ‘What – than like this, in the middle of a gale, in the pitch-black?’

  ‘Actually I think it’s the perfect way to do it. Do you remember a little boy called Darcey, Will? At Trevellyan’s?’

  ‘Darcey?’ The light in my face is so bright I can’t fucking thing straight. ‘No,’ I say. ‘I can’t say I do. Darcey. Is that even a boy’s name?’

  ‘Surname Malone? I believe you used surnames only there.’

  Actually, come to think of it, it does ring a bell. But it can’t be. Surely not—

  ‘But of course you’ll remember him as Loner,’ she says. ‘Malone … Loner. That was the name you called him by, wasn’t it? I still have all the letters from him, you see. I have them here with me on this island. I looked at them only this morning. He wrote to me about you, you know. You and Jonathan Briggs. His “friends”. I knew something wasn’t right about the friendship – and I didn’t do anything. That is my cross to bear.

  ‘His grave’s right here. Where we were all happiest. There’s nothing in it, of course. My parents didn’t have anything to put in there, but you’ll know why.’

  ‘I – I don’t understand.’

  And then I remember a photo, of a teenage girl on a white sand beach. The one Johnno and I used to tease him about. The hot sister. But it can’t be—

  ‘I don’t have time to explain everything,’ she says. ‘I wish I did. I wish we had time to talk. All I wanted was to talk, really, to find out why you did what you did. That’s why I was so keen for you to come here, to hold your wedding on the island. There were so many things I wanted to ask you. Was he frightened, at the end? Did you try to save him? Freddy says when you came into the dorm you seemed excited, the two of you. Like it was all some big lark.’

  ‘Freddy?’

  ‘Yes, Freddy. Or, as I think you used to call him: Fatfuck. He was the only boy awake in the dorm that night. He thought you might be coming for him, to take him for his Survival. So he hid, and pretended to be asleep, and didn’t say a word when you carried off Darcey. He’s never forgiven himself. I’ve tried to explain to him that he carries no guilt for it. It was the two of you who took him. But you most of all. At least your friend Johnno feels sorry for what he’s done.’

  ‘Aoife,’ I say, careful as I can, ‘I don’t understand. I don’t know … what are you talking about?’

  ‘Only – maybe I don’t need to ask all those questions now. I know the answer. When I came to find you earlier, in the cave, I got all my answers then. Of course, now I have other questions. Why you did it, for example. Stolen exam papers? Does that really seem like enough of a motive to take a boy’s life? Just because you’d been found out?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Aoife, but I really must be getting back to the marquee now.’

  ‘No,’ she says.

  I laugh. ‘What do you mean, no?’ I use my most winning voice. ‘Look. You don’t have any proof of what you’re saying. Because there isn’t any. I’m terribly sorry for your loss. I don’t know what you’re thinking about doing. But whatever it is it wouldn’t do any good. It would be simply your word against mine. I think we know who would be believed. According to all records it was just a tragic accident.’

  ‘I thought you’d say that,’ she says. ‘I know you won’t admit it. I know that you don’t regret it. I overheard you in the cave, after all. You took everything from me that night. My mother as good as died that night too. We lost my father to a heart attack a few years later, certainly due to the stress of his grief.’

  I’m not afraid of her, I remind myself. She has no hold over me. I have slightly bigger fish to fry here, things with real consequences. She’s just a bitter, confused woman—

  And then I catch a glimpse of something. A gleam of metal, that is. In her other hand, the one not holding the torch.

  Now

  JOHNNO

  The Best Man

  I couldn’t save him.

  I shouldn’t have pulled the knife out, I know that now. It would only have increased the bleeding, probably.

  I wanted to make them understand, when they found me out in the dark. Femi, Angus, Duncan. But they wouldn’t listen. They had these burning torches that they held out like weapons, like I was a wild animal. They were shouting at me, screaming at me, to drop the knife, to just PUT IT DOWN and there was so much noise in my head. I couldn’t get the words out. So I couldn’t make them see that it wasn’t me. I couldn’t explain.

  How I’d been coming down off whatever Pete Ramsay had given me, out there in the storm.

  How the lights went out.

  How I found Will, out there in the dark. How I bent over him and saw the knife, sticking from his chest like something growing out of him, buried so deep you couldn’t see any of the blade. How I realised, then, that in spite of all of it, I still loved him. How I hugged him to me and cried.

  They surrounded me, the other ushers. They held me like an animal until the Gardaí arrived on their boat. I could see it in their eyes, how they feared me. How they knew I had never really been one of them.

  The Gardaí are here now. They’ve put me in cuffs. They’ve arrested me. They’ll take me back to the mainland. I’ll be tried back home, for the murder of my best friend.

  Yeah, I did think about it, in the cave. Killing Will, I mean. Picking up a rock close to hand. And there was definitely a moment when I really thought about it. When it felt like it would have been the easiest thing. The best thing.


  But I didn’t kill him. I know that – even though things did go a bit hazy after I’d had that pill from Pete Ramsay, a couple of slightly blank spots. I mean, I wasn’t even in the tent. How could I have grabbed the knife? But the police don’t seem to think that’s a problem.

  I don’t think of myself as a killer, anyway.

  Except I am, aren’t I? That kid, all those years ago. I was the one who tied him up, in the end. Will made sure of that, but I still did it. And it’s not really an excuse that will stand up to anything, is it, saying that you were too thick to properly think out the consequences?

  Sometimes I think of what I saw the night before the wedding. That thing, that figure, crouched in my room. Obviously there’s no point in telling anyone about that. Imagine it: ‘Oh, it wasn’t me, I think Will might actually have been stabbed with a great fucking cake knife by the ghost of a boy we killed – yeah, I think I saw him in my bedroom the night before the wedding.’ Doesn’t sound all that convincing, does it? Anyway, it’s more than likely that it came from inside my head, what I saw. That would make a kind of sense, because in a way the boy’s been living there for years.

  I consider that jail cell waiting for me. But when I think about it, I’ve been in a prison since that morning when the tide came in. And maybe it’s like justice catching up with me, for that terrible thing we did. But I didn’t kill my best friend. Which means someone else did.

  AOIFE

  The Wedding Planner

  I lift up the knife. I told Freddy I only wanted to get Will here to speak to him. Which was true, at least in the beginning. Perhaps it was what I overheard in the cave that changed my mind: the lack of remorse.