Page 20 of Between Us

Gina flicked the Vs at Meredith.

‘… Other visitors report hearing footsteps on the staircases and seeing a young woman in a wet nightgown crossing the gardens at night. She is known in folk legend, due to her sodden hair and distressed appearance, as “The Crying Lady” …’ Joe said.

‘BINGO,’ Roisin said. ‘A Sad Lady. Told you.’

Joe carried on phone tapping. ‘There’s a blog here by a local historian, titled “The Curse of Benbarrow Hall” …’

‘Nooooo, what’s the curse?!’ Gina said, pulling the satin ribbons from the pussy bow at her neck up to cover her eyes, like bandages.

‘It relates specifically to courting couples,’ Joe read. ‘Every love match made under its roof will end in tragedy. The servant girl’s mother put a curse on the house. I bet the wedding venue organisers lobbied hard to keep that out of the official Wikipedia.’ He looked up, grinning.

‘Ugh, no,’ Anita said.

‘Wait. What was that?’ Joe said, slyly knocking a candle-less candlestick softly onto the rug with his elbow, pretending to startle. Everyone caught their breath, cackled, then heckled.

‘Fuck, what if Dev and I are cursed?!’ Anita said.

‘You’re betrothed, not courting. You’ll be fine. No courting. Whatever that is. Didn’t a frog do it?’ Roisin said, mock sternly to each of them.

‘You said bring it on!’ Joe said to Anita.

‘Anita’s very bad at predicting how she’ll feel a few minutes into the future,’ Dev said. ‘When we went to California I said, “Do you want to go on a hike through a canyon?” She said, “Yeah, sure,” and five minutes into it she says she hates walking, and heat, and heights, and CANYONS. She’s intears. Like, what part were you expecting to enjoy?!’

‘I had a great denim playsuit for it. That’s where my mind goes. What will I wear?’ Anita said.

‘Can I borrow the denim romper to meet J.J.?’ Joe said.

‘Yes, sure. I will Febreze the gusset,’ Anita said, winking a flicky liquid-eyelinered eye, set in a sweep of copper dust. Her face looked like it was sculpted from precious metals, Roisin thought.

Dev roared. Anita sparkled. They were a good combination. Roisin realised she missed being a good combination.

‘Think any of it’s true?’ Meredith said, taking her seat again, also glancing at the deep shadows in the unoccupied end of the drawing room. ‘The servant girl killing herself part, not the ghost resurrection. Though also the ghost resurrection, if you want to make the case.’

‘No,’ Roisin said. ‘On the basis, as said, it sounds like all ghost stories ever.’

‘If we are due a haunting, you’re absolutely the one who’ll get it now,’ Matt said. ‘The vocal cynic always gets it. You’ve marked yourself, Rosh.’

‘This is true. I’ll take my chances,’ Roisin said. ‘Not least because I know the facetious pretty boy gets it straight after me. You’re no way alive at the end. You foolishly have a furtive assignation out by the chicken shed. Then …’ Roisin made a body thrusting and then a neck slashing gesture.

‘Who isalive at the end?!’ Gina squeaked, as if this was a real prospect she should plan for.

‘Resourceful, “main character energy” Meredith, brandishing a tiki torch, in her glitter Birkenstocks,’ Roisin said. ‘She possibly saves you and Dev, according to the worthy of rescue archetypes. Joe read the ghost story; I derided the ghost story; Matt’s, as stated, Matt; and Anita said she was frightened, so she’s a goner. We’re obvious fodder for the narrative arc.’

There was a pause.

‘Do you know, I think I’d have preferred charades,’ Matt said.

12

‘Why do rich kids always lie about being rich? Is it in the handbook? Do they all get slipped a copy of the rules of having money? Like the way cabbies do The Knowledge?’ Joe said, toothbrush hanging from side of mouth, in his Paul Smith ironic striped grandad pyjamas. He was speaking in an exaggerated hush, being quieter than he needed to, no doubt to coax Roisin to join him in the bitching. ‘I was waiting for, “we weren’t well off, my parents scraped enough to send us private.” Every time.’

‘Matt?’ Roisin was in bed, hair twisted up in a bundle against the pillow, face pale and shiny with moisturiser.

It was incredible they’d been so restrained with the alcohol tonight; perhaps it was the combined whammy of a full day’s work (in her case, anyway), heat, travel, curry and being given the willies by ghost stories. One way or another, their plane had taxied on the runway and not taken off. Roisin was glad it left her able to enjoy the thought of tomorrow’s walk round the grounds. She’d had visions of sly pukes in wooded copses.

‘Yeah. “My parents are wealthy, not me.” Oh, please. Whatportion of some vast estate in Knutsford is coming Matt’s way, along with the private annual income he’ll be on?’

‘I’ve never really thought about Matt’s financing,’ Roisin said.

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