Chapter 12
The dining room boasts a long banquet table twinkling with candles that cast looming shadows on the stone walls.
The wine has been decanted, light dancing in its blood-red depths, and silver cutlery gleams beneath another extravagant chandelier.
The music Becca chooses swirls around us, with rich vocals and a haunting melody.
My gaze keeps colliding with Jameson’s and it’s like that first day at the swimming pool, coming up for air and finding him staring at me, pushing back our goggles to get a better look.
It was like everything else was background, and nothing mattered except what we saw in each other.
It was always that way with us, before we became an item, and after.
It still is.
Leo and Kimmy are sitting next to each and I’m pretty sure they’re holding hands under the table – I hope they’re not going to be too coupley.
Euan and Becca are side by side too, and Alex looks a little bit lost at the end of the table.
He’s put away two glasses of wine already, on top of the Champagne.
He seemed to have some issue with drinking alcohol the two times I’ve seen him, but obviously he has no such compunction now.
There’s a nerviness about him that was absent when he showed up at my flat.
He keeps looking at me, and his expression is dour, troubled.
I find his scrutiny a tad uncomfortable, so I concentrate on my plate, my glass of extremely good wine, and Jameson, sitting so close to me I could easily reach out and touch him.
I don’t, of course.
Everyone exclaims over the food, which looks delicious.
Euan is pleased as we heap praise on him, but he quickly grows embarrassed and urges us all to get stuck in.
I shake out my heavy linen napkin – rolled inside a silver napkin ring – and take another sip of wine.
The alcohol has certainly helped to settle me, and the mood is relaxed now, an easy, happy vibe as we eat and chat and drink.
‘We should raise a glass to Euan,’ Becca says, tilting her wineglass towards the centre of the vast table. ‘This is really good, babe. I can’t wait to see what you come up with for tomorrow’s dinner party if a casual supper tastes this good.’
We have to stretch to tap glasses across the vast table. Everyone is smiling, and I can feel the tide of joy catching at us now, sweeping us along. It’s going to be fun, being here with them all. Ten years suddenly doesn’t seem so long.
‘I hope you’ve all followed the dress code,’ Becca says, when we’ve settled back into our seats. Euan’s cheeks are pink from the attention.
Jameson and I look at each other reflexively and I grimace.
I’m thinking about the Yule Ball again. Leo looking like a young Bond in his tux, and the girls with their sweeping skirts.
My fairy-tale dress, Jameson’s kilt, and the romance of the skirl and drum beat of the ceilidh band.
‘We wouldn’t dare not, Becca,’ booms Leo, and I bite my lip. I don’t want to disappoint everyone.
All right … I don’t want to disappoint Jameson.
We settle into conversations that spread and spiral like ripples in a pond.
One minute we’re all talking together, the next everyone has broken off into smaller chats – Becca and Kimmy discussing beekeeping of all things (soon to be another of Becca’s countrified pet projects) and Leo floundering his way through sports talk with Alex and Euan – and then we’re back together again, just as the silence between me and Jameson is beginning to feel awkward, and I am starting to think I will have to insert myself into the football chatter since I’m at the wrong end of the table to join the debate about beehives.
‘Right!’ Becca says, pulling everyone’s attention back. ‘It’s about time we caught up and heard what everyone’s been doing all these years.’
My cheeks heat. I don’t really want to talk about myself. Leo looks nonplussed. ‘But we all know what we’ve been doing,’ he says. Becca gives him a meaningful look. ‘Oh, you mean for Eilish’s benefit.’
Becca smiles at me. ‘I wasn’t going to be so indelicate as to say so, but yes. Sorry, Eilish, but we’re likely to forget you really don’t know anything about our lives, so we should probably just give you a potted biography each and be done with it.’
This further confirmation that they have kept hold of the threads of friendship, while I cut myself loose, throws me off balance.
It’s time to address the elephant in the room. ‘Before you do, I guess I should explain why I left …’
I feel their collective gaze chafe against my skin.
‘You don’t have to explain anything, Eilish,’ Jameson says softly, and perhaps I imagine it but I swear I feel a whisper of his protectiveness wrap itself around me. My name on his lips sounds so good – sibilant, seductive.
Becca toys with the stem of her wineglass. ‘I mean, if it would make you feel better to get it off your chest—’
‘It’s certainly something we’ve wondered,’ adds Leo.
Alex is silent, watching me thoughtfully as he necks another glass of wine.
‘Eilish doesn’t owe us an explanation,’ Jameson says. ‘Gen’s death hit her hardest – we’ve all said so.’
I take a deep breath and align my cutlery on my plate – I’ve lost my appetite.
‘It did hit me hard, but … I shouldn’t have left without saying goodbye like I did.
We all went through a trauma that night, and I didn’t have any greater claim to it than anyone else.
’ I look at Leo. ‘Especially you, Leo. I know how you felt about her.’
Leo gives a half shrug and his glance flits towards Kimmy, sitting like a statue beside him. ‘I mean, yeah, it was a pretty awful night.’
‘I didn’t decide to leave, it wasn’t that simple.
I was … numb is the best way I can describe it.
I left without even realising what I was doing and it just got harder and harder to return the longer I stayed away, the longer I didn’t contact you.
I … I needed to forget, and I couldn’t be around people who would remind me every single day of what had happened, what I’d lost.’
I don’t think I’ve ever articulated this before, not out loud.
They’re all looking at me again. ‘It was unforgivable,’ I say.
‘But I guess I’m asking you to forgive me.
’ I spread my hands on the tablecloth and Jameson reaches across and covers my fingers with his own.
He gives a quick squeeze and then the pressure of his hand lifts.
I am bereft without it, breathless from the brief contact.
Alex nods slowly. ‘It took guts to say that, Eilish. I for one appreciate your apology. You were grieving and not quite in your right mind.’
I notice he doesn’t say he forgives me.
‘Everyone was grieving,’ Becca says, a hardness in her tone that irks me. Who is she to stake her claim on Gen’s death? She apparently didn’t even like her.
But I don’t say anything; I hate confrontation and I don’t want to get back into all that bullying nonsense again. I’m sure Becca must have been exaggerating it earlier; there’s no way Gen was an actual bully.
‘If there’s anything else you feel like you need to say, Eils, we’re listening.’ Alex’s eyes are boring into me now. I drop my gaze to the table.
‘No, that’s it. I’m sorry. I made things worse by running away, and I can see now that I’ve really missed out by staying away all this time.’
‘We’ve all missed out,’ Jameson says.
I’m not sure I could be any more attracted to him right now.
Alex reaches for the decanter and pours himself more wine without offering anyone else any.
Wine sloshes over the rim and Becca frowns at him – I guess she’s thinking about the stain on her parents’ tablecloth.
Jameson is frowning at him too, and Alex seems to be doing his best to avoid his eye.
‘That night was fucked up,’ he begins. He’s starting to slur his words.
My heart starts to beat faster.
Becca’s lie … the gaps in my memory that only Alex knows about. I feel like the conversation is taking a dangerous turn, but I can’t for the life of me work out why I should feel that way.
Like there’s something about that night they’re not telling me.
There’s something in Alex’s expression that I don’t like. He was never a particularly nice drunk.
‘Let’s not rehash all that,’ Becca says briskly. Kimmy looks disappointed, as if she’d been hoping for a scene to add a bit of drama. ‘Euan, do you want to go and put the coffee on? I think some of us could do with an espresso to take the edge off all this alcohol.’
Her demand is so peremptory that I half expect Euan to refuse, but after a beat he nods and gets up. ‘Sure. How many for coffee?’
‘Kimmy will give you a hand,’ Leo says, leaning back in his chair with a self-satisfied smirk. ‘Won’t you, sweetie?’
Kimmy glares at him, but she doesn’t argue either.
Suddenly it occurs to me that Becca and Leo want their partners out of the room so that it’s just us – the ones who were there on the beach that night.
The only ones who can understand the shock and pain of what we went through. Seeing her in the water like that … Feeling the dead weight of her, the chill of her skin, her limp limbs.
Watching her die.
When the door closes behind Kimmy, Becca leans across the table and spears Alex with a glare.
‘Right, that’s enough. We all know what went down that night and there’s no point bringing it all up now, especially in front of strangers.
We can’t change anything. I told you when you first suggested this reunion that I wouldn’t stand for it. Didn’t I?’
Alex shifts in his seat and scowls like a scolded schoolboy. ‘Yeah, but …’
‘No buts.’ Becca looks to Leo for back-up, and he nods.
‘She’s right, mate.’
Becca reaches out both hands, palm up – offering one to Leo and the other to Alex.
She nods to me and Jameson and suddenly he’s holding my hand and stretching out his other to Leo.
I feel Alex’s grip close around my left wrist and it feels constricting, but I don’t pull away.
When we’re connected around the table, she looks from one to the other, candlelight gleaming like gold ribbons in her dark eyes.
‘So, we’re all agreed then. We leave the past where it belongs? ’
The others all murmur assent and I find myself echoing them.
My heart is pounding now; I’m sure they must be able to hear it. I have no idea what she’s talking about, but I don’t want to let on that I don’t.
We all know what went down that night …
What the hell does that mean?
I can’t bring myself to look at Alex. He knows I don’t remember.