‘Want a hand?’ Sam had asked.
‘No, thanks,’ she’d said without even looking up.
‘I’m not a fan of house parties either,’ he said, leaning easily against the kitchen side.
When she’d glanced up, he whispered, ‘No one does the washing up if they’re having a good time.’ He smiled.
She smiled, too.
She took him in properly then, the way his stubble thinned at the centre of his chin, leaving a smooth patch of pink skin, and the badly fitting jeans. He told her he worked in digital advertising but was still mourning the best job of his life: till boy at Blockbusters. He often said the wrong thing, told a lame joke, or didn’t get the context of what the crowd was saying. But when he got it wrong, he laughed. That’s what happened – he laughed at himself, like he found it genuinely funny. When she got something wrong, she felt shame, humiliation. Her cheeks burned and her gaze lowered.
‘How do you do that?’ she’d asked him one night when they got home from dinner with her brother and some of his friends.
‘Do what?’
‘Not care what people think.’
‘Why would I? You can’t please everyone. I reckon you should only try and please one person.’
She felt like she should know the answer. In fact, she did know the answer. ‘Yourself.’
The Wisdom Gun. That’s what he fired. Little bullets of truth that seemed so simple when he said them but so hard to find when the volume in her head got too loud. She discovered that most wisdom is hard won. In his teens, Sam had been a carer for his mother, who’d had Parkinson’s. He’d talked about how hard it was – but that there was also beauty and darkness and humour and light and love and fear and hope, all of it, because that is life. He’d learned these things from his mother, watching how she lived in those last years, and Eleanor, well she never got to meet her mother-in-law, and that felt like a terrible shame, because she wanted to take her hands, thank her for bringing up a man as wonderful as Sam.
Ten months they’d had together, when they were supposed to have a lifetime.
What the fuck, life? Seriously. What. The. Fuck.
She touched the two wedding bands she wore on a chain around her neck. His and hers. She remembered collecting them from the jewellers, Sam only dead a fortnight, and her standing at the counter, hot-eyed with emotion as she’d studied the inscription he’d secretly arranged. Always with you.
There was a loud bark of laughter from the terrace.
Eleanor’s head snapped up. She knew which woman the sound had erupted from. She watched the way she laughed with her head tipped back, drink in hand, like the world was there for the taking.
She felt the slow uncoiling of the snake in her gut. Poisonous and deadly.
We were all ready for a holiday.
We wanted to surrender our bodies to the hot kiss of the sun. We wanted to idle away evenings in Greek tavernas, mopping up olive oil and oregano with hunks of bread. We wanted to drink cold beers and sip the icy sweetness of Fanta Limon from glass bottles. We wanted the sea, blue and shimmering, with a pebble-white carpet. We wanted to surround ourselves with other women and talk about food and travel and sex – instead of work and children and ageing parents. We wanted to rediscover those parts of ourselves that were freer, sexier, and more fun. We wanted our friends to be our mirrors – to reflect our best, brightest selves.
We wanted it all.
And we deserved it. That’s what we told ourselves: We deserve this.
Except one of us was thinking something different. Something darker.
SHE deserves this.
10
Bella
Without spilling a drop of Prosecco, Bella managed to adjust her dress one-handed. It was a strapless canary-yellow number that cinched in her waist and emphasised her bust. She felt sexy in it – and also a little sweaty. Still, give it a few more drinks, and she’d probably strip naked and dive in the pool.
She turned on the spot, taking in the terrace, which was washed rose-gold by the setting sun. Candlelight danced in wide glass lanterns and fairy lights twinkled between the thick tumbling vines woven through the pergola. The hens chatted together, Lexi standing at their centre looking relaxed and at ease.
Bella lifted her shoulders towards her ears, feeling a rush of pleasure and pride. She’d done this! They were in Greece on Lexi’s hen do – and she, Bella Rossi, had made it happen. She lifted her glass. ‘To you, Lexi,’ she called across the group. ‘Happy hen party!’
The others raised their glasses. ‘Happy hen party!’