Page 13 of Between Us

What’s the test for that?

8

Roisin descended the broad staircase carefully, placing her gold T-bar heels with purpose. Telling kids off for running and tripping in corridors brought with it responsibility. No way was she returning for the last week before the summer holiday in an authority-diminishing orthopaedic fracture boot.

She caught the distant voice of Taylor Swift singing ‘Champagne Problems’.It was so apposite; briefly alone and lonely in her evening finery, it was momentarily as if she was starring in a Baz Luhrmann film.

Roisin hesitated on the bottom step, trying to press record on her memories, to take in the otherworldly atmosphere of blank-eyed statues, dusty floors and soaring high space, the chalky sweet smell of the lilies.

It had become a cliché to say your friends were your adopted family, where you felt real belonging – it was no less true for Roisin for being hackneyed. She’d never met people who had stuck to her like this, who made her part of a gang.

The fact that they might not choose each other now – it was hard to see how they’d even encounter each other to do the choosing – made it more special, and vital. They couldn’trecapture the clean slates of being in their early twenties. But they could keep hold of each other.

Joe put lower value on it, she supposed, because he could. He had lovely, happily married, supportive parents who middle-class garden-pottered, visited National Trust properties and called him as the credits rolled on every episode ofSEEN. He still had a circle of school friends back in York, including hisride or diebest mate, Dom.

The Brian Club was merely a nice-to-have for him; for Roisin, they were everything. They were the point.

She followed the music to the grand sitting room, where Meredith and Gina were both giggling conspiratorially by the fireplace, surrounded by an improbable number of flickering candles.

The music was coming from a lozenge-shaped bluetooth speaker that had been somewhat disrespectfully balanced on the brim of a fireplace statue’s hat, as if it was an outsized feather in its band.

If there were curses and ghosts associated with Benbarrow Hall, they were surely going to get them up the wazoo.

Meredith was in a parrot-orange silk top and cerulean blue trousers, while Gina was clad in a sinuous cream dress that clung to her out-in-out mini Marilyn Monroe figure, with a large bow tied at her narrow neck, hair pinned up.

‘Oh my God. You both look extraordinary.I look like someone’s prom date in 1996.’

Tonight, Roisin had hauled out an old ‘posh event’ failsafe, which was flattering and easy to wear, if unexciting. It had a full skirt which ended mid-calf, the sort you got on a child’sdolly. It had seemed cute in her twenties, but she feared it was a bit gauche in her thirties. When she’d fretted she had nothing to wear for this trip, Joe had encouraged her to go wild with his credit card. Generous, but it was stillhiscredit card and she didn’t like how that felt.

‘You look like the girleveryonewanted to take to prom,’ said Gina, with her usual sweet sincerity and mild awe. Gina always treated Roisin as if she knew a secret passcode in life that Gina didn’t, as if she’d jail broken its phone. Roisin didn’t understand why: as far as she could see, she’d never done anything to merit it.

‘Notice in the whole time we’ve known each other, we’ve never needed to check if we’ll be wearing the same thing,’ Meredith said, sloshing fizz from an ice bucket into a third glass. ‘Don’t worry’ – she read Roisin’s concerned look – ‘this is from the supermarket delivery we ordered.’

‘And these are pre-canapes – Matt says he adlibbed in case we were hungry,’ Gina said, with the customary note of adoration in her voice. ‘It’s cubes of brie on sour cream Pringles. Slag’s canapés.’ Gina gestured at a plate balanced on a velvet pouffe.

‘Student hors d’oeuvres,’ Meredith said.

‘Whore-derves!’ Gina said, and they high-fived.

‘I’m sorry if you thought I wouldn’t, but I in fact will,’ Roisin said, bending down and carefully conveying one into her mouth between finger and thumb.

‘Oh, we’ve had about ten between us,’ Meredith said.

‘Here you are, and some actual canapes,’ Matt said, entering the room carrying a tray on the flat of his palm, like a waiter.

He was in a white shirt and stupid-handsome, dark brown hair and gilded skin. Like the playboy son of an American tobacco magnate.

It always looked like a lot of fun to have his face. Roisin had never considered that about conspicuous beauty before, that people might want to hang around it simply to see where it led.

But he was without moustache …?

‘You had second thoughts?’ Roisin said, pointing to her top lip.

‘Yeah. If even its fans thought it conveyed a look of irresponsible inseminator …’

‘It might give too much away?’ Roisin finished for him, grinning.

Matt smiled back, a tight smile. ‘I’ll put these on this side table,’ Matt said, crossing the room. ‘Mini onion bhajis with a mint and coriander chutney. Surprisingly, caused less angst than the butter chicken.’

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