Chapter 19
The library is cosy, with a fire roaring in the grate.
The walls are lined with books and the room is scattered with comfortable, tweed armchairs, low tables and reading lamps.
The light in the room is smoky and golden, and I’m comfortable in this chair, with a glass of wine in one hand and a book on my lap.
It’s a first edition Jane Austen, and must be worth thousands; yet Becca chucked it at me like it was an airport thriller plucked off the shelves of WH Smith. ‘Wasn’t this your favourite novel?’ she said, off-hand.
It still is. The old ones are the best. I’d choose classics over a modern novel any day. I stroke the cover reverently, remembering when I chose it for our book-club-of-two. Gen was sceptical – she approached with dubiety any book older than she was.
But the story spoke to her soul, as I knew it would – she was a sucker for romance. We bonded best over books. I think those are the moments in our friendship when we were at our closest: understanding each other better somehow through the texts we shared.
Jameson is alternating between studying a gorgeous old map of Tarnmore above the fireplace and reading a weighty tome of local history.
He’s drinking a bottle of beer brewed on the estate – which Becca plans to sell in the shop/deli once it opens.
It’s just the two of us in here, but the connecting door to the games room is open and voices drift through.
I can hear the click of balls on baize and Becca and Leo in the middle of a loud argument about the best places to eat in London.
I’ve only been to London once on a school trip and I think we ate in McDonalds. Kimmy chimes in with Becca’s and Leo’s conversation from time to time but also wafts between the rooms, pausing in the doorway to the library to study Jameson and me curiously, like she’s checking up on us.
Jameson looks up, catches my eye, smiles that secretive smile again – the one that looks like he’s trying not to but just can’t help himself.
My heart lifts.
Alex bounces into the room. He has, as Becca predicted, sorted out his hair.
It flops in waves across his forehead again.
He’s looking more cheerful, but there’s still a restlessness about him.
His cheeks are flushed and I wonder if he had a drink while he was up in his room. Drinking alone seems like a red flag.
‘Eilish!’ Alex sweeps out his arms. ‘My hero!’
His exuberance seems to confirm my suspicions.
I laugh awkwardly and Jameson lobs a cushion at Alex’s head. ‘Idiot.’ I can tell from Jameson’s expression as he assesses Alex that he’s reached the same conclusion as me. He frowns, lowers his voice. ‘Did you take something?’
‘What? No.’ Alex’s denial is not even a little bit convincing. He leans against the door jamb. ‘I’m high on life, mate. Especially after my near-death experience.’ He grins, showing all his teeth. ‘Look at you two. Cosy.’
Ignoring Alex’s theatrics, I return to the book on my lap.
I can quote whole passages and once did so for Gen’s amusement while she lay on my bed, giggling.
Rereading the opening line I am reminded of that day, and so many others.
The times we top-and-tailed on one of our narrow beds, our matching books open before us.
I think about Looking for Alaska, still unread, upstairs on my bedside table. Perhaps I should read the thing and get it over with.
Read it for her.
Maybe I’ll do that tonight. Curl up in that big, luxurious bed with a bellyful of Champagne, and snow falling outside my window while I read.
‘Fancy a walk?’ Alex says, and I assume he’s talking to Jameson, but when I peer at him over the pages of my book, his gaze is trained on me.
‘What? Um, no. I’m reading …’
‘We could see the long gallery and look at the paintings.’
I frown. The long gallery is a vast hallway hung with stern-faced portraits going back hundreds of years.
It probably used to be where the nobles took gentle indoor exercise, perambulating up and down, and gossiping.
Old portraits are not my thing – or Alex’s.
Besides, it was on Becca’s tour earlier, and we already listened to her blabbing on and on about her ancestors and their tenuous links to royalty.
‘I’m good here,’ I say, trying to work out what’s going on with him; why is he trying to get me alone?
Alex studies me thoughtfully, like he’s trying to figure how to go about changing my mind. ‘I bet you are,’ he murmurs softly.
He’s one to talk, but of course I don’t say anything. His secret assignation with Becca is safe with me.
I won’t give him airtime if he wants to speculate about Gen’s death again.
I’ve had enough of that, and I don’t want to go over the same old ground.
Toasting, celebrating, memorialising – all fine; but endlessly picking over the details, injecting dire twists and turns into her story for entertainment’s sake … ?
No.
Besides, there are only so many times we can talk about that night before I will be forced to reveal that I don’t remember.
Alex already knows that. And now so does Jameson.
But I don’t want the others to know. It feels like I’m on the back foot – like they all share a secret that I’m not part of.
‘A game of cards, then.’ There’s a zeal about Alex that makes me nervous – he’s crackling like a live wire now. His mood plucks at a string of anxiety within me. Jameson is perusing the map above the mantle again and hasn’t noticed the strange energy shifting between me and Alex.
‘Alex!’ Becca yells from the other room. ‘Get your arse in here. You’ve got a game and your dignity to lose.’
When Alex doesn’t budge, she comes in to fetch him, her curtain of chocolate hair swinging. She plants her hands on her hips. ‘You’d better not think you’re wearing that to dinner.’ She gestures at his zip-up track top. ‘It’s black tie, Alexander. Black tie.’
Becca cocks a hip provocatively, but Alex is still looking at me.
She pouts, not used to sharing the attention. ‘Alex …’
He shifts his focus to her. ‘Here’s the deal. If I beat you at pool, I get to wear what I want.’
She considers, then extends a hand. ‘Deal. If I win you have to wear my dad’s vintage tux.’ They shake on it and she heads back into the games room, dragging Alex by the sleeve.
Alex flashes me a grin as he’s dragged away, holds up two pairs of crossed fingers. ‘Wish me luck.’
Jameson swigs from his beer bottle and calls after him. ‘I wish you luck tying that bow tie, mate.’
*
The library has a meditative effect – the turning pages, the spice of the wine on my tongue, Jameson’s quiet company.
It all goes some way towards ironing out the creases of the day, easing my mind.
The muffled revelry from next door is a background blur as we sit there, happy in our thoughts and pursuits, occasionally exchanging heated glances that melt me, stirring up thoughts like a shower of sparks from the embers of the fire in the grate.
Maybe tonight we will take the next step.
I could get on board with that – bringing Jameson back to my room and swapping reading for a real-life adventure.
Too soon, the clock chimes and my hour is up. ‘Dinner’s at eight,’ I say regretfully. ‘I have to start getting ready.’
Jameson looks up from his book. ‘It’s only seven, how can anyone spend an hour getting ready?’
‘I know, but Becca wants us to go all out, and I don’t think she’s going to let me get away without some sort of makeover.’ I suppress a shudder – I’m not escaping with my mascara and lip balm speciality tonight.
Our hostess bounds into the room, clapping her hands. ‘Time’s up, my little bookworms.’
Jameson drains his beer. ‘Were you definitely not joking about the black tie thing, Bex …?’
Alex trails Becca into the room, looking gloomy. ‘She wasn’t joking, and I lost spectacularly, in case you’re wondering.’
Becca pats him affectionately on the cheek. ‘They weren’t wondering – it was inevitable. I’ll lay the tux out on your bed.’
I return Austen to her shelf and close over the glass doors protectively. ‘I’m not sure my outfit is suitable, Becca—’
‘I’m quite sure it isn’t,’ Becca says, not unkindly. ‘Which is why I’ve taken the liberty of choosing you a gown from my collection.’
I don’t know if I’m pleased or insulted.
What I’m not is surprised. Becca wants every detail of tonight to be perfect, it’s important to her.
I run an appraising glance over Becca’s body, trying to work out if her dress will fit me.
She’s more voluptuous than me, particularly in the chest, and I have a horror of looking scrawny.
‘It’ll be perfect for you,’ Becca says, catching my wandering eye.
‘Never fitted me properly. Petrol blue, a train to die for.’
A train?
I cast a helpless look at Jameson, but he only shrugs and smirks. I wonder what he’s planning to wear – an image of him in a kilt comes to mind, swinging me about with abandon in an Orcadian Strip the Willow beneath sweaty Hogmanay lights and leftover mistletoe.
‘Once you’re dressed,’ Becca tells me, ‘I’ll do your hair and make-up.’
It’s no surprise, but I groan inwardly. Kimmy comes into the library and Becca reaches for my hand, grabs Kimmy with the other and propels us out of the room. ‘Come on, bitches, time to get glam.’
On the way up the stairs, still holding on to me, Becca leans to whisper in my ear, ‘I’m not having her outshine you tonight.
’ Kimmy is already several steps ahead of us, having slipped Becca’s grip.
‘I bet you don’t dress up often enough.’ Becca tugs the claw-clip out of my hair and lets it tumble around my collar bones.
‘You’re beautiful, Eilish. Always the prettiest of us. ’
That’s not right. I’m not beautiful. Even back then, I was never sexy like Becca with her cupid-bow lips and tumbling hair, or elegant like Kimmy, or ethereal like Genevieve. Beside them I always felt insipid, short, ordinary.
Cute, perhaps, but that was as far as it went. And cute doesn’t last once you’re out of your teens.
‘He can’t take his eyes off you,’ Becca whispers. She breaks into a canter on the stairs, excitement spilling out like we’re teenagers again, full of gossip and mischief. Her current of enthusiasm catches hold of me, and I hurry after her.
‘What …?’ I say. ‘Who?’
‘Like you have to ask.’ We reach my bedroom.
Kimmy has already disappeared into her own room to get in the shower.
Becca leans against the wall outside my door and mock-swoons, fanning herself.
‘The gorgeous Jameson, of course. Who else? Now, I’m going to make you look completely stunning and then we’re going to have the most memorable fucking night of our lives. That’s a promise.’