Люси Фоли - The Guest List

When I got back to the school building, I felt like I’d been reborn. Fuck the teachers who told me I’d never amount to much. Like they’d ever survived a night like that. I felt like I was invincible. Like I could do anything.

‘Johnno,’ Will says, ‘I was saying I reckon it’s time to get your whisky out. Give it a sample.’ He jumps up from the table, and goes and gets one of the bottles.

‘Oh,’ Hannah says, ‘can I look?’ She takes it from Will. ‘This is such a cool design, Johnno. Did you work with someone on it?’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I’ve got a mate in London who’s a graphic designer. He’s done a good job, hasn’t he?’

‘He really has,’ she says, nodding, tracing the type with her finger. ‘That’s what I do,’ she says. ‘I’m an illustrator, by trade. But it feels like a million years ago now. I’m on permanent maternity leave.’

‘Can I have a look?’ Charlie says. He takes it from her and reads the label, frowning. ‘You must have had to partner with a distillery? Because it says here it’s been aged twelve years.’

‘Yeah,’ I say, feeling like I’m being interviewed, or doing a test. Like he’s trying to catch me out. Maybe it’s the whole schoolteacher thing. ‘I did.’

‘Well,’ says Will, opening the bottle with a flourish. ‘The acid test!’ He calls into the kitchen, ‘Aoife … Freddy. Could we have some glasses for whisky please?’

Aoife carries some in on a tray.

‘Get one for yourself too,’ Will says, like he’s lord of the manor, ‘and for Freddy. We’ll all try it!’ Then, as Aoife tries to shake her head: ‘I insist!’

Freddy shuffles in to stand next to his wife. He keeps his eyes down and fiddles with the cord of his apron as they both stand there awkwardly. Fucking weirdo , Duncan mouths at the rest of us. It’s probably a good thing the bloke’s looking at the floor.

I check Aoife out. She’s not as old as I thought at first: maybe only forty or so. She just dresses older. She’s good-looking, too – in a refined kind of way. I wonder what she’s doing with such a wet blanket of a husband.

Will pours out the rest of the whisky. Jules asks for a couple of drops: ‘I’ve never been much of a whisky drinker, I’m afraid.’ She takes a sip and I see her wince, before she has time to cover it by putting her hand over her mouth. But the hand only draws attention to it. Which maybe, come to think of it, she meant it to do. It’s pretty clear she’s not my biggest fan.

‘It’s good, mate,’ Duncan says. ‘It kind of reminds me of a Laphroaig, you know?’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I guess so.’ Trust Duncan to know his whiskies.

Aoife and Freddy down theirs as quickly as possible and hightail it back to the kitchen. I get that. My mum used to work at the local country club – the sort of place Angus and Duncan’s parents probably had memberships to. She said the golfers sometimes tried to buy her a drink, thinking they were being so generous, but it only made her feel awkward.

‘I think it’s dead tasty,’ Hannah says. ‘I’m surprised. I have to tell you, Johnno, I’m not normally a whisky fan.’ She takes another sip.

‘Well,’ Jules says. ‘Our guests are very lucky.’ She smiles at me. But you know that thing they say about someone’s eyes not smiling? Hers aren’t.

I grin at them all. But I’m feeling a bit out of sorts. I think it’s all that talk about Survival. Hard to remind myself that to them – to pretty much all the other ex-Trevellyan boys – it’s all just a game.

I look over at Will. He’s got his hand on the back of Jules’s head and he’s grinning round at everyone. He looks like a man who has everything in life. Which, I suppose, he does. And I think: does it not affect him too, all the talk about the old days? Not even the tiniest bit?

I’ve got to shake off this weird mood. I lunge towards the middle of the table and pick up the bottle of whisky. ‘I think it’s time for a drinking game,’ I say.

‘Ah—’ says Jules, probably about to call it off, but she’s drowned out by the howls of approval from the blokes.

‘Yes!’ Angus shouts. ‘Irish snap?’

‘Yeah,’ Femi says. ‘Like we played at school! Remember doing shots of Listerine mouthwash? Cause we worked out it was fifty per cent proof?’

‘Or that vodka you smuggled in, Dunc,’ Angus says.

‘Right,’ I say, jumping up from the table. ‘I’ll go get us a deck.’ I’m already feeling better now I’ve got a purpose to distract myself with.

I go to the kitchen and find Aoife standing with her back to me, going through some sort of list on a clipboard. When I cough she gives a little jump.

‘Aoife, love,’ I say, ‘you got a deck of cards?’

‘Yes,’ she says, taking a step away from me, like she’s scared of me. ‘Of course. I think there’s one in the drawing room.’ She’s got a nice accent. I’ve always liked an Irish girl. ‘’Tink’ rather than ‘think’ – that makes me smile.

Her husband’s in there too, busying himself with the oven.

‘You making stuff for tomorrow?’ I ask him, while I wait for Aiofe.

‘Mmhm,’ he says, without making eye contact. I’m glad when Aoife returns after a minute or so with the cards.

Back at the table I deal the deck out to the others.

‘I’m off to get my beauty sleep,’ Jules’s mum says. ‘I’ve never been one for the hard stuff.’ Not true , I see Jules mouth. Jules’s dad and the hot French step-mum excuse themselves too.

‘Nor me,’ Hannah says. She looks over at Charlie. ‘We’ve had a long day, haven’t we, love?’

‘I don’t know—’ Charlie says.

‘Come on, Charlie boy,’ I call to Charlie. ‘It’ll be fun! Live a little!’

He doesn’t look convinced.

Things got a bit loose on the stag. Charlie, poor bloke, didn’t go to a school like ours, so he wasn’t really prepared for it. He’s just such a … Geography teacher. I felt like he went to a dark place that night. Anyone would have, I guess. He barely talked to any of us for the rest of the weekend.

It was being back together with that group of blokes again, I suppose. Most of them went to Trevellyan’s. We were all bonded by that place. Not in the same way that Will and I are bonded – that’s only the two of us. But we are tied by the other stuff. The rituals, the male bonding. When we get together there’s this kind of pack mentality.

We get carried away.

HANNAH

The Plus-One

Since the pennying incident I’ve become very wary of the ushers. The more they drink the more it emerges: something dark and cruel hiding behind the public schoolboy manners. And I hate that right now my husband’s behaving like a teenager who wants to be accepted into their gang.

‘Right,’ Johnno says. ‘Everyone ready?’ He looks around the table. I’ve worked out what’s weird about his eyes. They’re so dark you can’t tell where the irises end and the pupils begin. It gives him a strange, blank look, so that even while he’s laughing, it’s like his eyes aren’t quite playing along. And the rest of his face is a bit too expressive by comparison, changing every couple of seconds, his mouth very large and mobile. There’s this kind of manic energy about him. I hope it’s harmless. Like a dog that jumps up at you, big and scary, but all it really wants is to be thrown a ball – not to maul your face.

‘Charlie,’ Johnno says. ‘You are joining us?’

‘Charlie,’ I whisper, trying to catch my husband’s eye. He’s barely looked my way all evening, too wrapped up in Jules or trying to be one of the lads. But I want to get through to him.

Charlie’s such a mild man: hardly ever raises his voice, hardly ever gets cross with the kids. If they get a telling off, it’s normally from me. So it isn’t like he becomes a more intense version of himself when he drinks, or that alcohol amplifies his bad qualities. In ordinary life he doesn’t really have many bad qualities. Yeah, maybe all that anger is there, hidden, somewhere beneath the surface. But I could swear, on the couple of times I have seen him drunk, that it is like my husband has been taken over by someone else. That’s what makes it all the more frightening. Over the years I’ve learned to spot the smallest signs. The slight slackening of his mouth, the drooping of his eyelids. I’ve had to learn because I know that the next stage isn’t pretty. It’s like a small firework has suddenly detonated in his brain.