‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Right. My mistake.’
‘I’ve been reading about Haverstock. About your latest project,’ Rachel is saying now, loudly. Lisa’s expression shifts almost imperceptibly, like an animal scenting danger. I can’t decide whether to cringe or stifle a laugh. No one else would dream of broaching the subject of Rory and Daniel’s latest project – not with the coverage it’s been getting lately.
‘Sounds like a lot of people are pretty unhappy about that estate being knocked down, doesn’t it?’ she blunders on.
‘Yes, well, housing in London is quite a complicated issue,’ Lisa breathes. Her tone is a warning, but not one that Rachel can hear.
‘Complicated? Hardly,’ she snorts. ‘Do you know how long the list is for a council house in Greenwich?’ She looks around. ‘Anyone know?’
Everyone else in the room has studiously turned away now. Even Charlie looks awkward. The atmosphere feels heavy, as if a storm is coming. I realise I’m holding my breath.
‘Eighteen thousand people,’ Rachel announces triumphantly. ‘And you’re knocking down a load of council houses for a few fancy apartments with a gym.’ She rolls her eyes, grinning, as if this is all hilariously funny, instead of hideously uncomfortable. ‘I bet most of it is foreigners, isn’t it? Buying from abroad? I bet half of them won’t even live there.’
Lisa’s expression hardens from lukewarm to glacial.
‘Lovely to meet you, Rachel,’ she says. ‘Excuse me.’
She turns to join another group who have gathered around the kitchen island. Charlie excuses himself too, says he is going for a smoke. Rachel’s eyes follow him out of the room.
The space around Helen, Rachel and me seems to be getting smaller, filling with noise and elbows. Arms reach into cupboards for spirits, extra glasses. There is a pop of more champagne corks. I glance again at the doors to the garden.
‘So, Helen,’ I say, ‘have you decided on whether to do the fireworks this year?’
A fireworks party at Helen’s house is an old tradition. When we were little, the Haverstocks used to have one every year, with the most amazing bonfire. When Helen and Daniel moved back into the house, she told everyone they were going to bring her parents’ tradition back. But then, with everything that’s happened over the past few years, I don’t think she’s felt up to it. I was hoping this year might be different.
‘Ooh, you didn’t tell me we were having a bonfire party, Helen,’ Rachel says abruptly, taking a fistful of nuts from a bowl. She fixes Helen with her gaze. ‘Sounds brilliant!’
Helen looks blankly at Rachel, as if she is speaking another language. Then she turns to me, gives me a hard stare.
‘We’re not having a bonfire party,’ she says. ‘I never said we were having the bonfire this year. Katie, what are you talking about?’ Her tone is unusually firm.
Before I can answer, there’s a huge crash. Everything happens at once. Rory has arrived, holding a bottle of champagne, but he seems to have slipped and dropped it somehow, and in the process, smashed a load of glasses that were set out on the side.
There are gasps, cries of ‘Careful, Serena!’ Serena is standing with her back to Rachel, her hands on her bump, a deep line etched across her brow, as if she is clamping her face shut. There are glinting shards of glass everywhere. Rory is staring at his hand. It is red with blood, coursing from his thumb to his elbow. Hands reach for napkins, kitchen roll, wet cloths. I crouch down to help. Serena and Rachel are urged to avoid the glass. Hands are held out as they are lifted over the jagged puddles of red.
36 WEEKS
SERENA
It is nearly ten. I have been up for hours, sitting on the veranda wrapped in my cashmere blanket, with my mint tea on the table. I hadn’t posted on Instagram for a while, and I wanted to get the light just right.
It is so gorgeous in the garden at this time of year. Shafts of pale sunlight illuminate a lawn dusted with yellow leaves. A wet mist blurring the edges of everything. The wall climbers behind our hammock have started flaming orange and red, a last hurrah before they are claimed by the cold of winter.
It was a day like this the first time I came to Greenwich, the day I first met Rory’s parents. The first time I really met Helen, and Daniel too, or at the least the first time I spoke to either of them properly.
Rory and I had been in bed in his college room all afternoon. Now he was at the window, blowing smoke out over the quad. From his window all you could see was a rippling mass of golden leaves from the sycamore tree outside. I was reading a battered book I’d picked up off his nightstand, the duvet pulled up over my bare breasts. All of a sudden, he had stubbed his cigarette out on the sill. Started getting dressed, fishing at the back of his wardrobe for a shirt.