Page 21 of Broken Country

It already has.

Before

Tessa Wolfe is astonishing to look at close-up. Her hair and eyes are dark, like Gabriel’s, but her features are finer: a delicate nose, a mouth that might be thin but is painted defiant scarlet, a slender neck glistening with a band of diamonds that are almost certainly the real thing. I’ve never been up close to beauty like this or, for that matter, such extravagant jewelry, and it is all I can do not to stare.

She is also, according to Gabriel, well on her way to being drunk.

“Just agree with her on everything and you’ll be fine,” he told me when I arrived for a dinner I have been dreading since it was first suggested.

“I’ve been dying to meet you,” Tessa says, gesturing to the chair next to hers. “And Gabe has selfishly kept you to himself all summer long.”

“Very wise, if you ask me,” Edward Wolfe says, winking as he shakes my hand. He is instantly likable, and I wish I were sitting beside him rather than next to Tessa on the other side of the table.

I have never seen such an ornately laid table, with its terrifying number of glasses, knives, and forks. It feels excessive for a dinner for four people and when the food is brought in by a girl from the village, there are things I have never even heard of before. Smoked salmon and beef Wellington, which turns out to be a whole fillet of beef cooked in pastry and served almost raw in its middle. Rationing only stopped last year and, aside from the introduction of sugar and a little more meat, at home our diet has scarcely changed.

The serving girl, Sarah, is a couple of years older than me; we both went to Hemston primary school. When she waits for me to help myself to a slice of beef, I feel like a fraud.

“Hi, Sarah,” I say, softly. “How are you?”

But she simply nods an acknowledgment and looks away.

“I hear you’re applying to Oxford,” Edward says. “Good for you. Which college?”

“St Anne’s, to read English.”

“Oh, one of thenewcolleges,” Tessa says.

“Actually St Anne’s has a wonderful reputation,” Edward says. “Of course, in my day, there were no women at Oxford at all. I’m really quite envious of Gabriel.”

“The other girls will probably have been to boarding school,” Tessa continues. “I hope you won’t feel left out?”

“For goodness’ sake, Mother, don’t be such a snob,” Gabriel says, and I see the vivid color in his cheeks.

“Oh, I’m an incorrigible snob, according to my son.”

Tessa says it with pride. And I catch something that explains her to me, better than Gabriel has ever been able to. I don’t think she’s from this world originally, much as she pretends otherwise. One she almost walked out on but didn’t, that’s why it matters to her. It’s a consolation prize, and she guards it closely.

I was expecting this evening to be tough, but I imagined Gabriel would be on hand to rescue me. Instead, he strikes up a long conversation with his father, leaving me to fend off Tessa’s intrusive questions by myself. I sense Tessa Wolfe circling, hungry for something, but I cannot tell what.

“Your parents both work, isn’t that right? I expect your mother feels she rather missed out on your childhoods?”

“Not really. They teach, so we’ve always had the school holidays together.”

“Where do you like to holiday as a family?”

It feels like some kind of test, this, and I don’t have the right answer for it. She is looking for me to say the south of France or wherever it is the fashionable people go. We spend our summers at home and my parents fill them with day trips to the coast, visits to museums, twice-weekly trips to the library, where we take out our full quota of books. On rainy days we light a fire in the sitting room and all four of us read and, when I think of it now, I can feel the quiet contentment of those days.

Tessa doesn’t seem to notice my silence. She refills her glass and fires off another question. “Tell me about you and Gabe. Do you love him very much? No need to answer that, it’s all there in your eyes. And he’s terribly fond of you, I do know that.”

In a low, confiding voice she says Gabriel is the kind of boy who makes friends easily. “Trouble is, he can spread himself a bit thin sometimes. Once he’s at Oxford I imagine he’ll be very taken up with his social life.”

“I’ll be very taken up myself, studying for A levels.”

Tessa leans closer so our faces are only inches apart, I can smell her intensely floral perfume and the wine on her breath.

She lowers her voice until it’s just above a whisper. “I think what I’m trying to say—I hope it’s helpful—is that Gabriel tends to put himself first. It’s why he makes such a success of things—he’s very blinkered on what he wants. And then, quite suddenly, he can move on to the next thing. I’ve seen it happen with friends of his. Probably my fault for making him the center of my universe. I treated him like he was God’s gift when he was a little boy. I still do.”

I console myself with the things Gabriel has told me about his mother. That she’s a mean drunk, that she obsesses over his life because she doesn’t like her own.

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