“She’s sleeping with him, you know.”
“Mum!”
“That’s why she left poor Ethan. He came all the way up here to see her, and she dumped him anyway.”
I spin around so quickly I nearly gave myself whiplash. “That isnotwhat happened! Ethan cheated on me, not the other way around. How can you, of all people, give me grief? After Dad?”
A tear slides down Mum’s face as she takes another sip of her wine. She isn’t listening. She is never actually listening. “A week ago, everything was perfect. You and Ethan were settling down, moving in together. You had lovely Marnie, a stable job. You were calling me every day. You hadn’t had an episode in years.”
Joan and I both wince.
“I thought maybe I could stop worrying about you. And here you are, running away, giving up on your hopes, your dreams. Again!”
“It’s a relationship, Mum! Not my whole life!”
But Mum is determined to be inconsolable, tapping morosely at her dessert, as Joan and I devour ours, and the table gradually becomes louder as more bottles of wine appear and disappear. Before long, one of Henry’s friends – who are all from Eton, or work in finance, and have the booming, confident voices of straight men who have grown up in privilege – stands on a chair and begins declaiming poetry at Sophie, who has never looked more disgusted in her life.
A pang shoots through me. I should be at the other end of the table, whispering jokes in her ear. Making her laugh, and then go red with embarrassment that she has laughed, and then laugh again at the next one.
When the dessert is cleared, I excuse myself. From this point on, dinner will devolve, everyone throwing out their best Sophie and Henry stories, competing for the couple’s attention. Mum and Joan are locked in a conversation about their latest soap opera obsession. Sophie is determined not to look at me. I don’t really know any of her friends. In short, no one will miss me.
The garden leads straight into the kitchen, which is hot and steamy and exactly what you want a farmhouse kitchen to be: stone flagged, stone walled, an Aga taking up most of one end, and a massive breakfast bar in the middle that is currently covered with dirty plates and the remnants of dinner. I would offer to help, but there’s no one there, so I hurry through, fleeing to my room.
There’s no one in the corridor either, but when I reach the stairs to the next floor, I hear a whoop from further in, followed by a peal of laughter and the chatter of merry voices.
I pause on the first step.
“The fuck did you banana me! Oh, it is on little girl.”
“Ewan!”
“Sorry, Lila!”
“Catch me if you can!”
I creep over to the room that Ethan and I broke up in. Priya, Ewan, and Lila are snuggled together on one of the sofas. Ross is lounging on another chair, opposite a man I haven’t met, but who has the same dark hair and eyes as Ross and Angus, and who I assume must be their other brother, Mason. Mario Kart is playing on the TV.
“YES!” Ewan jumps up from the sofa, flinging his controller to the floor, before he collapses again with a wince. “Fuck. My ankle. Sorry, Lila. Fuck. Sorry, Priya.”
“Were we this stupid at that age?” Mason asks.
“Definitely.” Ross grabs the dropped controller. “Stupider, probably. Do you remember that Christmas we wanted to make a fire, so you emptied some of Da’s gun cartridges—”
“—and lit the powder? Aye. Took weeks for my eyebrows to grow back.” Mason sighs happily. “Point taken. Definitely stupider.”
They look at Ewan fondly, as though he’s a puppy they’ve adopted.
“Another game?” Ross asks hopefully. He catches sight of me hovering in the doorway and does a double take. “Oh, aye. You scrub up alright, don’t you? Want to come in?”
“If nobody minds.”
I’ve had a long day, and I’m tired, and after Ethan and Sophie and Mum, I can feel my anxiety pressing in.You’re a waste of space, it says.You ruin everything. Their lives would be better without you.
“Join the party! More’s the merrier,” Ross says amicably. “We’re hiding from the guests. You’re welcome to do the same.”
“Aren’t you needed out there?”
I take a step into the room, self-conscious in my long dress and heels. Ross and Mason are in suits, rumpled now from their sofa collapse, but the others are still in their hiking gear, muddy and worn from five days of walking. Compared to the Rowan they last saw, I feel like a different person.
