Page 12 of High Season
Josie had shrugged. It was the summer her dad left, and she had been quieter than usual. Spending more time at the dive shop, or down on the beach.
“So?” she had said. “That doesn’t make them better than us.”
And Hannah hadn’t answered, because Josie was younger, and she hadn’t lived here as long, and she didn’t understand yet. She didn’t know what it meant, to be the Draytons. What it meant to be talked about, recognized. To know that you could enter a room and people would jump to make sure you were comfortable. To not have to worry about what next year would bring, or the year after that. The certainty of being part of a world where the rules were made to benefit you, where the parties were never-ending. Where the schools you would attend, the jobs you would hold, and the people you would be friends with were all decided before you could even walk.
To Hannah, it sounded like perfection.
There was always a cocktail party the first night the Draytons arrived in the South of France. To Hannah, it signaled the start of high season. As darkness fell, the pink house would glow against the hillside, tiki lamps on the terrace, the glimmer of fairy lights. Everyroom lit up after a winter of darkness. A clear announcement that the Draytons were back in town.
Hannah had promised to arrive early this year. There was a virus going around, and some of the local girls who had been hired to help were sick. Patricia needed an extra pair of hands, and Josie would be tied up with her usual job of looking after Nina, keeping her out of the way of the adults. But there had been a problem at the dive shop, a missing cash box, and by the time Hannah turned up, guests were already scattered throughout the hall, hired waitstaff offering up trays of cocktails. Their eyes glazed over Hannah as she weaved through to the kitchen, sweat-damp from jogging to the pink house in an attempt to make up time. It was a lifelong discipline, the art of spotting money a mile off. The ease that it carried. The confidence that Hannah lacked. To Evelyn Drayton’s guests, Hannah was almost invisible.
At the kitchen island, Patricia was lining up canapés on a ceramic platter, morsels of goat cheese smeared on top of figs and neat, square croustades, each crowned with a delicate fold of salmon.
“I’m so sorry, Pat—” Hannah started.
“Josie’s outside,” Patricia said, not looking up from her work, her hands moving rapidly. “By the pool. Here, you can take these out.”
She wiped her hands on a tea towel before opening the fridge, pulling out a plate of sandwiches.
“Nina won’t eat anything except cheese sandwiches at the minute,” she said, an exhaustion in her voice. “I’ve tried to put some cucumbers in so she’s getting at least a bit of something green. Josie might be able to persuade her. Nina listens to her, though god knows why.”
Hannah took the plate without saying a word.
Josie was not by the pool, where Hannah had expected her to be.
Hannah circled the terrace twice, weaving through clusters of women in long dresses and men in open-necked shirts, a waiter cleaning up a smashed martini glass. She traced the familiar route through the inside of the house, across the broad entrance hall, the living room with views over the sea, the library that Evelyn’s latesthusband, Harrison, had insisted they convert into an office, even though he had no discernible job. She paused at the foot of the stairs, knowing that she wasn’t supposed to go up. When the Draytons were back, the house that Josie and Hannah roamed through all the rest of the year became off-limits. But then, Hannah had been told to take sandwiches for Nina.
She walked up the stairs quickly, two at a time, afraid she might be caught and questioned. She paused at the top, listening for the sound of a child playing, the high-pitched murmur of Nina’s voice. She could only hear the hum of music from the ground floor, the clinking of glasses, the buzz of conversation. And then, a sound from the end of the corridor. She quickened her pace, expecting to recognize Nina and Josie’s distinctive chatter. Her footsteps slowed. The voices were unmistakably adult. Urgent. She drew closer. The open door of Evelyn’s bedroom.
“I saw it. Isawyou looking at her.”
“Bullshit.”
“I saw it, Harrison. Do you think I’m blind?”
A short, sharp laugh.
“I think that you’re crazy, Evelyn. That’s what I think. I think that you make shit up when you want attention.”
“Howdareyou? How dare you call me crazy?”
“Don’t fucking touch me.”
“I hate you. I hate you.”
“I said don’tfucking—”
There was a hard, quick sound, the brute noise of skin on skin. Hannah instinctively took a step back, as if she herself had been hit. Back into the doorway of the closest room, out of sight. There was a silence. It was worse than the sound of them fighting. It was terrible and vast. It felt like it would last forever.
“Evelyn.”
Harrison’s voice was weak this time. Appalled.
“No.”
“I didn’t—”
“Getawayfrom me.”
