It Ends At Midnight, page 24
‘You’re not going to go, though?’ I say. ‘You’ll stay?’
He looks over at Tess and Marcus, one eyebrow raised as if to ask if it’s OK, and Tess rushes to reassure him. My paranoia subsides even further.
We go upstairs to the drawing room, where the chairs have been cleared to the sides of the room. It’s not a big crowd dancing, perhaps only ten people, but they’re totally into it, pogoing away to Nirvana like we never left university. We don’t get many chances these days.
I dump my bag and glass down at the side and barge into the middle of the floor, Gareth in tow, and we get down and dirty to it, thrusting away to Prince and Madonna, any dignity ground to dust beneath my heels. I’ve forgotten nothing, all the strains, the stresses, the way that anyone who knows me even vaguely has avoided me all night, the fact that I’m on bail for something as sordid as groping a fifteen-year-old, sending naked photographs to a teenage boy, but I’m dancing like it’s the end of the world. Technotronic starts to ‘Pump Up The Jam’ and I am there for it, hips swaying, arms extended above my head.
The people around me are drifting away. They’re talking about going out into the street to watch the fireworks, join in the Hogmanay celebrations. I’m ignoring it though, giving it large on the dance floor, not caring if Gareth and I are the only ones left.
Gareth pulls away suddenly. I catch hold of him.
‘Don’t go!’ I say.
‘I heard the doorbell. I need to get that.’
‘I didn’t hear anything.’
He looks at me, smiling. ‘You’re pissed off your head,’ he says. ‘I’ll be back.’
I keep dancing, but I’m off beat now, my movements heavier, less fluid. I look down at the purple dress and see it’s torn on the bodice, near the shoulder strap. The top of my bra is showing. I pull at the material to hide my underwear, but it tears worse.
I can’t do it any more. It’s suddenly too much, the way I’ve been treated all night by Tess and Marcus’s guests, their expressions full of scorn as they look me up and down like some piece of shit they’ve found on their shoe. I stop for breath, ready to go and find another drink, when Gareth appears again. His face is sombre.
‘It’s Linda,’ he says. ‘She’s arrived. I showed her upstairs so that you can speak uninterrupted – go and join her.’
I look at him, frozen to the spot. I don’t want to move. I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to have to tell her anything, let alone what really happened that night. I don’t want to have anything to do with it.
‘Come on,’ he says. ‘They’ll be waiting.’
‘They?’
‘She and Tess. I told Tess she’d arrived – she’s gone up already.’
This galvanises me. I don’t want to see Linda, but I don’t want Tess to spend any more time than necessary speaking to her on her own. God knows what Tess’ll have said about me by now. I find a glass and a half-full bottle of wine and pour myself a slug to strengthen my nerves, knocking it back in one go.
‘Right,’ I say. ‘Let’s go.’
He shakes his head. ‘I think you and Tess should deal with this. The woman seemed pretty upset. I think if she has to deal with anyone other than the two of you, she might lose the plot.’
Upset. She’s not the only one. Doesn’t look like I can get out of it any more, though. I put the glass down, raise my chin.
‘OK,’ I say. ‘I’m ready.’
‘They’ll be upstairs,’ he says. He reaches out and puts his hand on my shoulder. The weight is comforting. All I want to do is sink my head into his shoulder, shut the world out with his warmth until it’s all gone away. Not an option, though.
Bracing myself, I leave the drawing room, pausing on the landing at the bottom of the stairs. Despite all the wine I’ve drunk, the champagne too, I feel completely sober now, my vision razor sharp. For the first time I can see the chips on the paintwork, the nicks on the wooden banister. I thought the house was flawless before. I turn over my shoulder to see Gareth smiling at me from just inside the drawing room. Again, details jump out, the yellowness of his teeth, the way his canine teeth are pointed like fangs. Like Tess before, his smile ceases to be a smile and starts to be a grimace, a threat.
I turn away, put one foot on the stairs. Time to cross the Rubicon. Though the acoustics can’t rationally be behaving this way, it’s as if the music fades to nothing the higher I get, the only sound I hear in my ears the thumping of the blood round my head, the build of pressure behind my eyes. My breaths are fast, shallow, a pain jagging through the left-hand side of my chest.
The top of the stairs now. My heart’s racing like I’ve just scaled Everest. The door to my bedroom is to my left and it calls to me. I could go in there, barricade the door with the big mahogany dresser, curl up in a ball under my duvet until it all stopped. I know I can’t, though. I look along to my left, trying to work out where they might be.
A door at the other end of the corridor is open. I walk along, my steps quiet, hoping I might catch Tess and Linda talking, get some sense of which direction Tess is taking it. I’m not kidding myself any more – the sudden sobriety has also rammed home the message that Tess is going to do all she can to pin the blame for everything that happened on me. The thought’s weighing heavy across my shoulders. Are you just going to let her? a small voice sneers in my head, and it gives me the kick I need to walk the final steps along the landing and open the door.
To my surprise, it isn’t another bedroom, but rather a small storage room, with shelves built in all the way round. In the middle of the floor, facing the door, is a wooden stepladder leading up to an open trap door in the ceiling. I’m hesitant, mindful of my long dress, high heels, but then I see Tess’s shoes kicked off to one side, round the back of the ladder, and it decides me. I remove my own shoes and pull my dress up above my knees before putting my hands to the ladder and taking the first step up.
I can’t imagine why they’ve decided to hold the showdown in the loft, but to be fair, it’s the place where privacy is most guaranteed. Maybe there’ll be a decent view of the fireworks, too. The triviality of that thought almost makes me laugh. The only fireworks that we’ll be noticing will be the ones exploding between us. I can quite see Tess lobbing in a hand grenade or two to get herself off the hook. I bet she wishes she’d never started all this . . .
One step up, two, and I’m slowing down. I don’t want to face it, this final confrontation. The flash of courage I’d felt has deserted me, the wood cold under my hands, the steps creaking. Stairs to a scaffold, the long drop before me, a sense of doom so strong upon me again that it’s all I can do to keep standing, let alone climbing. There’s nothing left of me now but fear, a small, crumpled ball in the face of a storm.
Deep breath. Another. I brace myself and continue to climb. I’m up the ladder now, and I pull myself into the loft space, the sloping ceiling low above my head. I’m not tall, but I need to stoop a little. Again, there’s no one here, only an open hatch at the point where the ceiling comes down almost to meet the floor. I walk over to it, still hesitant, before sticking my head out and looking around. It leads out onto the lowest point of the valley between the two pitched roofs to the front and back of the house.
Gingerly, I pull myself through, standing on the slates, the cold striking against the thin tights I’m wearing. I’m not bothered by the cold, though, fuelled by booze and adrenaline. I look around me, searching for any sign of Tess or Linda. I’d laugh at the absurdity of the situation if I weren’t so scared at my core.
There’s a screech straight above my head, and I jump, nearly losing my footing on the slate. I look up and see it’s a rocket, a huge purple flower cascading its petals out over me. I smile, despite myself, the sky so clear beyond it, even stars are visible. I haven’t seen stars in London for years.
‘Sylvie,’ a voice calls out, disturbing my reverie, and I look over to see Tess silhouetted against the sky, up on the peak of the roof to the front of the house. I raise my hand and clamber up to where she’s crouching. It’s a good thing the roof’s a double one, I think. This could be risky if there were a straight drop down.
I’m surprised to see her on her own, though I don’t say anything until I’ve reached the top, sitting down next to her, my hands holding firmly onto the leads on the roof at the top. Instead of greeting her, I look at the view. It’s breath-taking, Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Crags laid out in front of me. I look over to my left, and I can just make out the castle. The firework display will be spectacular from here.
‘Sylvie,’ Tess says again, ‘where’s Linda? I thought she’d be coming up with you.’
‘Not with me, no,’ I say. ‘I thought she was up here already.’
‘I haven’t seen her. I found the hatch open. That’s why I came out.’
‘Me too.’
We hold each other’s gaze in the dark. I can’t see what expression she’s wearing, but she sounds calm.
‘Did Gareth tell you she was here?’ I say.
‘She messaged me. Told me to come up. She thought it would be good to watch the fireworks while we’re up here.’
There’s a thump behind me and I jump again, nearly losing my balance. I grip hold of the roof tight with my hands. I’m overreacting to everything now. It must be my nerves. They’re already stretched almost as far as I can bear.
There’s another thump. It’s definitely the sound of someone coming.
‘This must be her,’ Tess says, and I nod, forgetting that she’s unlikely to be able to see me. Another noise, someone crawling through the hatch, and I rotate as I sit, moving round a hundred and eighty degrees so that I’m facing down in the valley of the roofs.
There is a figure appearing at the bottom, leaning back over the hatch, doing something. I take a sharp intake of breath.
37
‘Where are you?’ Gareth calls up.
As soon as I hear his voice, I calm down. My fear’s irrational. This is going to be unpleasant. It’s not going to be dangerous, though. I’ll get through it, especially if Gareth is here to support me.
‘Where are you both?’ Gareth says again, this time with more urgency in his voice, and he starts to make his way up to the top of the roof.
‘I thought you were Linda,’ Tess says, and I add my voice in agreement. ‘Do you know where she is?’
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Gareth says, and there’s a note there I haven’t heard before. He starts to move faster, looming over us when he reaches the top. ‘You still think she’s coming?’
‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about,’ Tess says. ‘What’s it to you?’
‘She’s not here,’ he says. ‘Just me. And you two.’
‘Gareth,’ I start. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Exposing you for the liars you are,’ he says. He gets closer to Tess, who backs further down towards me. I’m crouching, confused by the anger I’m witnessing.
‘What are you talking about, Gareth?’
He starts to laugh, though it’s not funny, nothing is funny, the sound more threat than merriment. ‘Oh, I know everything,’ he says. ‘Everything. She told me the lot.’
‘Who? Sylvie?’ Tess says.
‘No,’ he says. They’re practically nose to nose now, balancing on the narrow roof pitch.
‘Who then? Linda?’ Tess says, the malice gone, replaced with disbelief. Also, a slight note of fear, lurking deep beneath.
‘Yes, Linda,’ he says, and everything stops around me, another fearful moment of clarity.
‘How do you know Linda?’ Tess says. I clutch even more tightly at the roof. I want the answer, too, though I’m scared that if I speak all that will come out is an incoherent wail. I bite my lip, hard.
‘My sister,’ he says. ‘She’s my sister.’
My head’s spinning. Sister. Sister. Why the fuck hasn’t he told me? The air in front of me shimmers, a break in time. But then a memory stirs in me. Smith. Quarry.
‘You don’t have the same name,’ I say, my tongue thick in my mouth.
He laughs. My nerves prickle. ‘You remember her name well enough now,’ he says. ‘Though you forgot for all those years. It’s our mum’s maiden name – I changed it when she died, so I’d be ready when I found you. But I should have known I didn’t need to bother disguising myself. You’re so fucking self-obsessed.’
‘Disguising yourself?’
‘I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time, Sylvie. I made a promise when she was dying that I’d find you both, make you accountable for what you’d done to her.’
‘It wasn’t all on us, though,’ I say. ‘She was just unlucky. Maybe she was telling the truth that Stewart assaulted her, that she was acting in self-defence. But I didn’t see! Not enough to be sure. None of us did. It wasn’t my fault.’ I’m trying to be controlled but it’s not working. I’m talking too fast, my words tumbling over each other. Panic’s searing through me. This is the man I’ve shared a bed with so often over the last few months. How could I not have known?
‘That’s not true,’ Tess says. ‘We did see it happen. We did see Stewart assault Linda. She was acting in self-defence.’
Silence between us. Fireworks banging in the distance but my heart’s pounding louder, a thumping in my ears.
‘Do you know what you’re saying, Tess? Because if you tell him this, you’re going to have to tell him why Stewart thought it was all right to try it on with Linda. What we’ve covered up for all these years.’
Tess carries on as if I haven’t spoken. ‘You told me it was all my fault,’ she says. ‘That’s why I went along with it. I had so many blanks about the evening, you could have made me believe practically anything had happened. But I don’t think it’s true any more.’
‘You’re lying,’ I say. ‘You’re trying to get out of this. Now I understand what this has all been about. You want me to take the blame for what happened so you have a clear conscience, polish up the halo on your martyrdom.’
‘Sylvie, that’s not what this is about at all,’ Tess says. ‘You need to face up to what you did. It’s the one thing I can do before I die.’
Darkness is taking hold of me, a rage building up inside me so great that I don’t give a shit any more. I’m out of fucks to give. Careless now of my precarious position on the roof, I pound my way up to where she’s standing and shout in her face. ‘Are you dying, Tess? Are you really fucking dying? I don’t believe you!’
A massive bang to my left, a burst like gunshot to my right. The tension running between Tess and me, Gareth, it’s stronger than any explosion.
‘I might be,’ Tess says. ‘And this ends now.’
Gareth interrupts. ‘Linda told me everything,’ he says. ‘Both of you lied. Both of you stood there and watched Stewart molest her. She couldn’t work out for ages why you protected him in this way, why you said that it had been an unprovoked attack. Then she put two and two together. She told me you were up for it. That’s what he said to her. He screamed it in her ear as he groped her.’ He looks from me to Tess and back again before he continues, his voice relentless.
‘One of you told Stewart that Linda fancied him, knowing it was a lie. He was guilty of assaulting her, but one of you was just as guilty for telling him to do it. Obviously you couldn’t admit what you’d done. But that changes now. That’s what I want to find out. I want to know who.’
An explosion, the golden stars lighting up Tess’s face. She’s staring at me, her face frozen in an expression of horror.
‘It was Tess. It wasn’t me,’ I say, desperation building. ‘I didn’t say that to Stewart. I didn’t tell him to get off with Linda. I didn’t see him doing anything to her. I told you. She hit him out of nowhere.’
‘You told me I said it,’ Tess says. ‘You told me you remembered me saying it. For years I thought it must be true.’
‘Are you saying it wasn’t you?’ Gareth says, turning his head towards her. Tess ignores him, keeps talking at me.
‘I’m not sure I ever believed you,’ she says. ‘But I went along with you. You were the one with the brilliant future. I didn’t want you to be ruined before you began, having to admit you’d encouraged someone to carry out a sexual assault. But I know the truth now.’ Her voice is implacable, not loud, but clear as the toll of a bell.
‘You’ve got to believe me,’ I say, pleading now with Gareth. ‘Linda will tell you. I was always friendly to her. I’d never have set her up. Tess was always the manipulative one. That’s why she’s trying to ruin my life.’
He’s silhouetted against the sky, his head shaking as he looks from one to the other of us.
‘Linda can’t tell me anything more now,’ he says. ‘She’s dead. She died from cancer nearly ten years ago.’
Tess’s face is pale, her eyes black sockets in the darkness.
‘Who have I been talking to, then?’ I say.
Another massive bang, another purple chrysanthemum lighting up the sky, golden showers all around it. Gareth might be speaking but I can’t hear him. I don’t need to hear him. I know what he’s going to say. It’s clear, now. From the moment that he spotted my name badge at the conference in Edinburgh all those months ago. It’s a set-up.
‘Who the fuck do you think you’ve been speaking to, Sylvie?’ Gareth says, spitting the words out with force.
‘You bastard,’ I say, another kick to my guts.
Tess laughs, a sharp, angry bark. Gareth turns on her. She takes a step backwards, another. She’s getting near to the edge and I know I should call out, tell her to be careful, but I’m frozen to the spot, images of the last months speeding through my brain as I piece it all together.
Tess is clearly piecing things together too. She starts shouting again.
‘It’s your fault, Sylvie. If you hadn’t told Stewart to try it on with Linda in the first place, none of it might have happened.’
I push myself up to my feet, shock outweighing my fear of falling. ‘That’s bullshit, Tess, and you know it. I never told him to do that. It was you.’
