‘Not exactly.’
There is a pause.
‘Terrible business,’ the driver says, as the gates open and the taxi bumps along the gravel driveway.
‘Yes.’
‘Tragedy. Her dying like that.’
‘Yes,’ I reply again, refusing to let on that I don’t actually know what happened.
The house announces itself with customary fanfare: Jacobean loggias on either side of the front door modelled on the continental fashion favoured by Inigo Jones. Redbrick and resplendent, like a maiden aunt who has found her style and stuck to it for decades. Young men in high-vis jackets are directing the cars into a field that has been roped off for parking. One of them motions for the taxi to stop. The driver winds down his window.
‘Just dropping off, mate.’
The young man squints into the car.
‘Do you have your invitation, sir?’
I show it to him.
‘Blimey,’ the driver says. ‘It’s like the fucking Oscars.’
I can see his point. It’s a much grander affair than I’d anticipated. I remembered the Denby Hall chapel from my youth and it was a small, elegant building that could probably only seat a few dozen. But as I get out of the taxi, I see several people in dark suits and black dresses slamming car doors and walking precariously across the lawn divots in high heels. I recognise a daytime TV presenter and a Michelin-starred chef. There is the disgraced Tory MP who recently lost his cabinet position for watching porn in his office. I keep my head down and avoid their gazes as I walk towards the chapel. Another high-vis teenager directs me around the front of the house.
‘I know where I’m going,’ I say.
I trace the outline of the house, turning left into the rose garden which flows into a small square lined with carefully cut topiary. Through an archway is another exquisite garden, dotted with more flowers, some notable outbuildings that were once purloined by French soldiers for reasons I don’t recall, and then, rising starkly out of the ground, the chapel. Except I can’t make out the oaken door because a marquee has been erected in front of it with two giant TV screens at the front, and I realise, to my horror, that they have made Fliss’s funeral into a social gathering. The theme is commiseration rather thancelebration, but the guest list is the same. Typical of Ben and Serena to maximise every single opportunity to network – even death.
My back breaks out in a sweat. I feel all the long-buried sensations excavate themselves from their shallow graves. There’s the shame. Ah yes, and how kind of humiliation to join. Did you bring outsidership? And is that my old chum imposter syndrome standing beside you? Wonderful! Oh, but here’s the one we’ve all been waiting for. I wasn’t sure if he’d show up, but of course he never misses a chance to muscle in. It’s anger! Hello, anger. Good of you to be here.
I’m about to turn and make my exit – I swear to you, I am on the verge of leaving and getting the hell out of this sunken place – when I hear my name.
‘Martin?’
And there, walking out of the marquee, is Ben.
My nemesis.
Whom I loved.
Whom I loathe.
Whom I can’t stop thinking about.
I try to look at him, but I can’t quite manage it. My head is too heavy. The light is too bright. I catch a glimpse of his square jaw, a curl of his hair.
Can he hear the darts being thrown in my chest?
‘Ben,’ I croak.
I take my sunglasses from my jacket pocket, relieved I thought to bring them. I feel safer with my eyes shaded and am able, finally, to look at him. His eyes – flecked hazel, perpetually on the brink of amusement – are the same ones that greeted me that first term at school. Time folds in on itself. There I am again, in a dormitory, two boys jeering at the teddy bear my hateful mother packed; Ben at the doorway telling them to stop. Ben passing me the vodka bottle in his room. Ben dancing with a girl at the school disco, my jealousy rising. In the park, sharing a joint, my mouth grazing his for just a single second. The desperation I felt that I did not belong to him. Theseverance that came – gradually at first, so subtle I couldn’t sense it. And then, the guillotine blade he brought down on our past.
It all comes back, a rush of it.
‘I didn’t expect to see you!’ Ben says. He seems confused. A darkness passes over his face and then I know: Ben didn’t invite me.
In which case, who did?
