Broken Country (Reese’s Book Club)

16. Before

Before

Tessa Wolfe is astonishing to look at close-up. Her hair and eyes are dark, like Gabriel’s, but her features are finer: a delicate nose, a mouth that might be thin but is painted defiant scarlet, a slender neck glistening with a band of diamonds that are almost certainly the real thing. I’ve never been up close to beauty like this or, for that matter, such extravagant jewelry, and it is all I can do not to stare.

She is also, according to Gabriel, well on her way to being drunk.

“Just agree with her on everything and you’ll be fine,” he told me when I arrived for a dinner I have been dreading since it was first suggested.

“I’ve been dying to meet you,” Tessa says, gesturing to the chair next to hers. “And Gabe has selfishly kept you to himself all summer long.”

“Very wise, if you ask me,” Edward Wolfe says, winking as he shakes my hand. He is instantly likable, and I wish I were sitting beside him rather than next to Tessa on the other side of the table.

I have never seen such an ornately laid table, with its terrifying number of glasses, knives, and forks. It feels excessive for a dinner for four people and when the food is brought in by a girl from the village, there are things I have never even heard of before. Smoked salmon and beef Wellington, which turns out to be a whole fillet of beef cooked in pastry and served almost raw in its middle. Rationing only stopped last year and, aside from the introduction of sugar and a little more meat, at home our diet has scarcely changed.

The serving girl, Sarah, is a couple of years older than me; we both went to Hemston primary school. When she waits for me to help myself to a slice of beef, I feel like a fraud.

“Hi, Sarah,” I say, softly. “How are you?”

But she simply nods an acknowledgment and looks away.

“I hear you’re applying to Oxford,” Edward says. “Good for you. Which college?”

“St Anne’s, to read English.”

“Oh, one of the new colleges,” Tessa says.

“Actually St Anne’s has a wonderful reputation,” Edward says. “Of course, in my day, there were no women at Oxford at all. I’m really quite envious of Gabriel.”

“The other girls will probably have been to boarding school,” Tessa continues. “I hope you won’t feel left out?”

“For goodness’ sake, Mother, don’t be such a snob,” Gabriel says, and I see the vivid color in his cheeks.

“Oh, I’m an incorrigible snob, according to my son.”

Tessa says it with pride. And I catch something that explains her to me, better than Gabriel has ever been able to. I don’t think she’s from this world originally, much as she pretends otherwise. One she almost walked out on but didn’t, that’s why it matters to her. It’s a consolation prize, and she guards it closely.

I was expecting this evening to be tough, but I imagined Gabriel would be on hand to rescue me. Instead, he strikes up a long conversation with his father, leaving me to fend off Tessa’s intrusive questions by myself. I sense Tessa Wolfe circling, hungry for something, but I cannot tell what.

“Your parents both work, isn’t that right? I expect your mother feels she rather missed out on your childhoods?”

“Not really. They teach, so we’ve always had the school holidays together.”

“Where do you like to holiday as a family?”

It feels like some kind of test, this, and I don’t have the right answer for it. She is looking for me to say the south of France or wherever it is the fashionable people go. We spend our summers at home and my parents fill them with day trips to the coast, visits to museums, twice-weekly trips to the library, where we take out our full quota of books. On rainy days we light a fire in the sitting room and all four of us read and, when I think of it now, I can feel the quiet contentment of those days.

Tessa doesn’t seem to notice my silence. She refills her glass and fires off another question. “Tell me about you and Gabe. Do you love him very much? No need to answer that, it’s all there in your eyes. And he’s terribly fond of you, I do know that.”

In a low, confiding voice she says Gabriel is the kind of boy who makes friends easily. “Trouble is, he can spread himself a bit thin sometimes. Once he’s at Oxford I imagine he’ll be very taken up with his social life.”

“I’ll be very taken up myself, studying for A levels.”

Tessa leans closer so our faces are only inches apart, I can smell her intensely floral perfume and the wine on her breath.

She lowers her voice until it’s just above a whisper. “I think what I’m trying to say—I hope it’s helpful—is that Gabriel tends to put himself first. It’s why he makes such a success of things—he’s very blinkered on what he wants. And then, quite suddenly, he can move on to the next thing. I’ve seen it happen with friends of his. Probably my fault for making him the center of my universe. I treated him like he was God’s gift when he was a little boy. I still do.”

I console myself with the things Gabriel has told me about his mother. That she’s a mean drunk, that she obsesses over his life because she doesn’t like her own.

I see also Tessa doesn’t really know Gabriel, not the way I do. She doesn’t know, for example, about his desire to write, the fear he will never be good enough, of being railroaded into something he would hate, like banking or law, the professions his mother has in mind for him. Tessa has no idea Gabriel doesn’t want to inherit Meadowlands, that the pressure of being an only child depresses him and he dreads being left with the responsibility of looking after his mother when his father dies.

“All right if we head off to the lake now?” Gabriel asks, breaking off his conversation, not a moment too soon.

“Of course,” Edward says, half rising in his chair. “Wonderful to meet you at last, Beth.”

“Let me help wash up first,” I say, thinking of Sarah in the kitchen, guilty and embarrassed I’ve been eating the extravagant food while she’s been waiting on me. I stand and begin to pile the plates, one on top of the other, knives and forks moved to one side, but Tessa reaches out to still my hand.

“We don’t stack here, we leave that to the school dinner ladies.”

I leave the room, with my eyes smarting, clutching a single plate between my hands. Perhaps Gabriel didn’t hear, perhaps he finds it easier to allow his mother’s put-downs to drift over his head. In my chest, anger is rising.

In the far corner of the kitchen, Sarah is standing in front of the butler’s sink, a pile of plates beside her. She doesn’t turn as I come in.

I hesitate, wondering if I’ll make things worse by going over to talk to her, but before I can decide Tessa comes in.

“You can leave the washing-up, thank you, Beth. Our girl is perfectly capable, there’s really no need.” She lowers her voice to just above a whisper. “Before you go, a quick word, if I may. You are being sensible and using precautions, aren’t you?”

I stare back at her, too horrified to speak. There’s no way Sarah could hear across the other side of the room, but even so, I feel mortified.

“No need to look like that, I’m quite unshockable. And most grateful to you for keeping Gabe occupied all summer. He can get terribly bored at home. I do hope you haven’t compromised yourself?”

I’m saved answering by Gabriel, who arrives in the kitchen and wishes his mother good night.

Outside a fine rain is falling and the sky has turned electric blue, with ribbons of light at its edges. One time, by the lake, we were caught in a rainstorm. We kissed until our clothes were soaked through and then we tore them off and danced and whirled and bathed ourselves in the rain like weather gods. It is the freest I have ever felt.

“You’re very quiet. Was it awful?” Gabriel says, reaching for my hand.

For a moment I don’t trust myself to speak. There are so many emotions swirling in the pit of my stomach, it’s hard to know what I’m feeling. Angry, humiliated, insecure. Wretched, ashamed. I don’t regret a moment of the time I’ve spent with Gabriel or the things we have done, but his mother was clever in the way she managed to plant a seed of doubt in my head. What if she’s right? What if Tessa does know her son far better than I do?

“Your mother made me feel so cheap, like some tart you’d picked up for the summer.” The words burst out of me like poison. “Foolish for considering Oxford. Arrogant for thinking you and I could be anything more than a convenient fling.” There’s a weight of pressure in my chest, tears I need to shed in the privacy of my own bedroom. I feel sudden, aching loneliness. I don’t belong in this place with these people. “And you abandoned me.”

Gabriel’s face is incredulous, then he seems amused. “It was only dinner. Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

There’s no way to control the rage as it spills out of me. “You don’t understand. And why would you? Look at you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He sounds hurt, but it’s not enough to stop the outpouring of thoughts I have hidden from everyone, especially myself. “Everything is given to you on a plate, with a silver bloody spoon attached! No one tells you you’re not good enough. Not rich enough. Not posh enough. You get welcomed with open arms wherever you go. You can do whatever you want. Sleep with whoever you want. And get applauded for it. You will never be made to feel small or unworthy, never have to endure the sneering I had from your mother this evening.”

“Can I say something?” Gabriel asks.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and I burst into tears.

He puts his arms around me, presses my face to his chest. He smells of laundry powder and soap and the aftershave he always wears. “You’re right,” he says, pulling back a little so he can look into my face.

His eyes are shining too brightly; I see he is close to tears himself.

“The truth is, I’m scared of her sometimes. She can be so cruel when she wants to be. But I should have protected you. Forgive me?”

We kiss, his mouth warm on mine, his hands cupping the back of my skull as he holds me to him. This is us , I think. Not the people we were inside the house, but the boy and girl who have spent a whole summer together, pledging their love beneath a hundred starry nights.