The feedback obviously satisfied Sasha, and I was booked for three more London events. They were cash in hand, which was a relief, and usually over within two hours – the youth of London don’t large it up much, preferring to get home and apply a sheet mask while watching the latest Netflix drop.
A month later, I got a text from Sasha telling me that she had three events lined up in Ibiza that I could work. She enclosed the dates, and one of them landed on the last night of the wellness retreat. There was no further information, but I felt pretty confident that there wouldn’t be two parties happening on the same night both covered by Bespoke Bangers. I replied immediately, confirming my availability, and booked flights and accommodation for my Ibiza stay that night. I wasn’t going to veer too far from the original germ of an idea. Bryony liked her booze, and a party as hedonistic as the MM one would likely get messy fairly quickly. Nothing like a three-day juice fast to get you drunk after one cocktail. A few drops of peach purée in a glass and she’d be done on the dancefloor within minutes. A bunch of health obsessives surrounding her and yet I’d bet my life on none of them having any proper medical training to help her. I had six weeks to wait.
Except I didn’t in the end. Because Bryony died later that very night.
*
I didn’t even know about it until the next evening. For all we’re bombarded with news all day long, it’s remarkably easy to opt out of it all if you do something as basic as to forget to charge your phone. I was out of the office that Wednesday, on a training day designed to ‘empower women in business’。 It was mandatory, which suggested that it was more to do with ameliorating the recent sexual harassment allegations against a team leader than it was about promoting women in the business. After eight hours spent in workshops where fourteen of us sat around in a circle and role-played challenging office scenarios with each other, I ducked out of the coffee and cake option at the end and speedwalked for the Tube. My phone was dead, so I spent the journey watching a young couple having a fight about whether their success in keeping a houseplant alive meant that they were ready to get a dog yet. She rolled her eyes a lot, he looked away even more. I worried for this imaginary dog. I even felt a pang for the houseplant.
As I exited the Tube station, I grabbed an Evening Standard and rolled it up, stashing it in my bag. Twenty minutes later I was home, and I set about unpacking the food I’d grabbed from the local health food store and turning on the heating. It was only then that I took the paper and sat down at my kitchen table. The main story was something typically dull about a council house shortage which I skimmed over because everyone knows the Standard only lead with that stuff so that the rest of the paper can be filled with coverage of a new ten-quid ice cream shop in Kensington or a puff piece on a fitness class where you use gold weights. To the side was a small photo of a girl, a selfie taken from an angle, 75 per cent mouth. The familiar whoosh of adrenaline began snaking through my veins. Adrenaline punches your energy levels up to 100 while also freezing time. Everything slows down, becomes woolly, reactions get blunted. I knew instinctively who I was looking at, but the fog which had enveloped my brain prevented me from fully registering what was happening for a split second. ‘Heiress dead at 27.’ I opened the paper, and there, on page three, was another photo of her, this time much younger, standing between her parents at an event.
Bryony.
The details were scant. She’d been found unconscious in her bedroom at 7.30 p.m., by a member of staff （read, maid）。 Paramedics were called, but she was pronounced dead at the scene. The article mentioned the tragic death of her mother just months before, intimating that suicide must be a possibility. I knew that was nonsense. Bryony wouldn’t have killed herself in a fug of grief. She didn’t dive down to those emotional levels, everything was boredom, mockery or desire for her. Base level stuff. The family spokesman had pleaded for privacy at this difficult time, and apart from the basic stuff about Simon and her gilded life, no more information was given.
I spent a frenzied hour checking Instagram, news sites and gossip blogs. Her last post was at 4 p.m., a photo of her on a rug looking at a sausage dog （hopefully this one was just on loan #WHEREISFENDI） which sat beside her. The caption read ‘when bae wants love’。 So no helpful pointers for the press which would help them with their tragic rich girl narrative. Elsewhere, a few Instagram friends professed their shock with prayer hand emojis and crying faces. RIP was floated around a lot, an expression I’ve always hated. Rest in peace. No matter how lively or funny or desperate to live you were. Just rest now. A generic, pointless comment. But there were no new details, nothing to grasp at. Where was Simon? Was he at home when it happened or was he out with some new fling, dining at a private members’ bar, making a business deal? How did he find out – did the maid call him or did the police? Was he alone now, without his wife, without his daughter – his only recognised child, his parents gone? His brother dead. Did he have an inkling of what was happening yet? How could he. He’d managed away my existence just as he’d managed every other troublesome detail in his privileged life.