Page 6 of Between Us

As they hit a loop in the winding path among the trees that offered a clear view of Benbarrow Hall, Roisin actually gasped.

She’d been readying herself for grandeur yet still felt like a Jane Austen heroine, intimidated by the estate of her suitor. It seemed as if the approach should be soundtracked by the clip-clop of hooves and not the complaining rumble of the VW van’s engine and Paul Simon’sGraceland.

Benbarrow Hall sat on a hill, a storybook mansion made of slate-grey Gothic turrets and sand-coloured stone. The late afternoon summer light made its giant arched windows glisten cinematically.

‘Fuck my boots!’ Meredith said reverently. ‘It’sa monster.’

‘It’s like a murder mystery place,’ Gina said, easing off theaccelerator and letting Ethel slide to a near halt so they could admire it fully. ‘Like you’d find Colonel Mustard in the study, with the lead piping.’

A contemplative moment passed.

‘Makes you think,’ Meredith said.

‘Makes me think it’d be worth the risk,’ Gina said. ‘Imagine the size of the en-suites.’ She rattled the gear stick. ‘Come on, be reasonable, Ethel. Relationships are give and take.’

They lurched back into motion.

‘I feel properly dirty for letting Dev spend this much,’ Roisin said. ‘Are we OK to only contribute a groceries delivery? Is this immoral?’

‘Oh, Dev is as Dev does. And Dev does a lot,’ Meredith said, turning back to the road. ‘Seriously though. You know that you no more deter Dev from a tremendous plan than you bring a 747 out of the sky by shaking your fist at it.’

This was true. They surveyed rolling green slopes down to the lake, the surroundings reflected in the still mirror of the water, and collectively continued sighing.

The van grumbled to a stop in a space next to Dev’s shiny blue 4x4. After he won seventy thousand pounds fromFlatmates, he set up a media consultancy and now employed twenty people.

The women in the group still earned entirely normal salaries: Meredith worked for HMRC; Gina did external comms for Manchester University. (They’d bought together in Urmston, a plan by Meredith to get them both on the property ladder early.) Whereas Dev and Joe were now loaded, and Matt, well, he was in sales for a wine merchant, so who knew. But goodliving was like breathing to Matt, as he was from a fearsomely well-off family. Roisin hoped this increasing disparity in wealth wasn’t what would end up dividing them all.

Going on one obscenely spendy trip, based on three special occasions, was one thing. It couldn’t set a precedent.

‘Which door do you choose?!’ Meredith said, as they dragged their luggage towards the building. ‘I’d not want to be a Parcelforce driver looking for their safe space, would you?’

Roisin turned her face into the warm breeze and breathed in more countryside than she usually experienced. She left it to Joe to have artistic flights of fancy, yet she sensed being on the verge ofevents. Her gut told her things were about to happen. Perhaps that was the magic of any holiday; it lifted you out of the familiar and gave you a brief aerial view of your life in progress. It made you confront your world’s smallness in a vastness of opportunity.

They opted to fumble their way in the back of Benbarrow Hall through a group of outhouses, scented with that unmistakeable farmyard honk, and the intriguing rustling noises of non-human life. The wheels of their cases on rough ground sounded like an angle grinder.

They tried the wrought-iron curly handle on a door that led in to a cavernous, brick-shelved pantry and then through to a stunning kitchen. It was a mix of vast brushed-steel modern appliances, Art Deco pendant lights, cream Aga range and old flagstone floor.

Roisin was a bit nauseous at how much she loved it. Her kitchenwasgreat, and now her kitchen was shite.

‘Hello!’ Meredith called. ‘The strippers are here!’

Joe appeared in a doorway, holding a bottle of Camden Hells lager.

‘Oh, bloody hell, there’s been a mix up! I asked forstacked slags, notknackered hags!’

Gina hooted in delight. Meredith barked, ‘Bad twat!’ and Roisin said, ‘Pffffft.’ He threw his arms around all of them in turn, Roisin last.

Joe looked good, Roisin thought, as she watched him squash his face, eyes squeezed closed in affection, into Gina’s slender shoulder.

He’d acquired that subtle yet undeniable burnish of a high-flyer. His writer’s pallor had been contoured by Californian sunshine and he was sharper-jawed and leaner-bodied due to sessions at Waterside Leisure Club with an unfeasibly handsome Ghanaian personal trainer called Eric. He needed to please Handsome Eric as desperately as if Handsome Eric was an emotionally inconsistent father.

And the man who once wore the same Pixies t-shirt for days at a time was now clad in understated, well-tailored navy and grey things in soft, thin fabrics, which arrived in matte boxes with logos.

Joe slung an arm around Roisin and absently kissed her on the head, without making eye contact or focusing on her in any way. Gina and Meredith got blasts of warmth; Roisin was furniture.

She asked herself, once again, if the last six months was a rocky patch or a terminal decline. Six months? Eight months. Alright, being honest – a year.

‘Fair warning, Dev is at level seven or eight already, outof a possible ten,’ Joe said. ‘It’s increasingly hard to tell if what we call his “bubbly moods” are in fact some sort of manic upswing. Thank God he’s off the booze and chisel.’

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