Page 135 of High Season
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FIFTY-TWO
2025
TWENTY-ONE YEARS AFTER THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
Twenty-one years after her sister died, Nina opens up the newspaper to see her own face smiling back at her.
The article is a double-page spread. NEW DOCUMENTARY EXPLORES A DECADES-OLD TRUE CRIME CASE THAT HAS KEPT PEOPLE GRIPPED FOR TWENTY-ONE YEARS.A picture of Nina, her face split in two by the page crease so that it looks slightly contorted.
Nina folds the paper without reading it. She doesn’t need to. She already knows what it will say. She knows that it will tell the story of her sister’s death—only now, the story of Tamara Drayton will be threaded through with another story, one of twenty years of deceit. A story of how Blake and Evelyn lied to everyone, including Nina, about how Tamara died, and why.
Nina has spent the best part of this year coming to terms with the fact that her mother and brother kept her quiet and sedated for the years after Tamara’s death, making her believe that there was something not quite right with her. Now she understands that her childhood tendency toward anxiety and worry was something deeper and darker—a reliance on pills that would excuse any inconsistencies in her story, and repress any compulsion that Nina might have to question their version of the truth.
The article will of course mention the reopened investigation, fueled by Hannah Bailey’s testimony against Blake and Evelyn, and the overturning of Josie’s conviction. A new trial presenting evidence that’s now twenty years old, and an expert who, after all this time, ruled Nina’s story to be unreliable.
The cracks that this sent through Nina’s life splintered all the things that had once held her life together. Ryan had balked at Nina’s new position in the spotlight, said that it wasn’t good for him and his business to be associated with her, a conversation that had ended their relationship with stunning swiftness and simplicity. Gone was the beautiful, modern apartment where she had imagined their life unfolding; gone, too, was the pretense of perfection, a need for Nina to be someone that she was not. Last to fall: the pink house, which had sold to developers a few months back. Nina heard they were planning to tear the whole thing down, replace it with a sleek, white hotel with three pools. This, she couldn’t help but feel, was probably a good thing.
Because the thing was: each splinter, each crack that ran through the center of her life, had opened up space for something new. Nina had been surprised by the kindness that she had been shown. The brilliant light that broke through the darkest days. The job that had been patient with Nina and given her a later start date told her that she should take as much time as she needed. Claire, who had offered a place to stay as soon as she answered the phone to a sobbing Nina on the day that Ryan broke up with her. The dozens of people who messaged her, wrote letters, commented on her newly public social media profile.
You’ve been so brave.
I can’t believe what you’ve been through.
Your sister would have been so proud of you.
Most of all, it opened up space for Nina to understand herself—or at least, the version of herself she used to be. The person that she had spent a lifetime trying to escape through pills, and exercise, and rituals that she couldn’t explain or justify. The person who had spent years buried in study, trying to understand what had happened to her, whenall along the truth had been there. Not within essays, and theories, but in the stories of the people who Nina had never thought to ask.
So, instead of reading the story, Nina gets dressed and leaves her flat. It is a beautiful summer’s day, the kind where the light is egg-yolk yellow and hopeful, even first thing in the morning. She goes to the small florist a couple of streets away from her and buys an armful of tulips, flowers that she now knows were her sister’s favorites. Another part of the last year, for her, has been discovering these small things about her sister, snippets gathered from the people who knew and loved her. Learning about Tamara—the real Tamara. A person whose life was, for so long, overshadowed by the story of her death.
Nina is determined to change that. From now on, she wants to make today, the anniversary of her sister’s death, about her life.
There is just one thing she has to do first.
Josie takes a taxi to Nina’s flat, threading through the streets of South London. She leans her head against the car window and closes her eyes.
She almost said no when Nina had invited her over. She has been in London for four weeks, and the city is beginning to wear against her, the excitement fading, exhaustion seeping through to her bones.
I wanted to mark the day somehow, Nina had written in a text.Please say yes x
Twenty-one years since Tamara’s death, and one year since Josie’s life changed all over again. One year since they were all able to move on at last.
“Do you mind?” she had asked Nic, showing him the text message from Nina.
“Of course not,” he said. “It feels right, in a way. Marking the anniversary. Why not do it with Nina?”
Josie replied:Just tell us where and when. We’ll be there x
Now, Josie walks the two flights of steps up to Nina’s attic flat. As it always does, the impossibility of the situation strikes her: she and Nina Drayton, friends.
“You made it!”
Claire opens the door to Nina’s flat, beaming.
“Calvin and Gabby are on their way,” Josie says. “Their flight was late landing.”
“No problem at all.” Nina is a few feet behind Claire brandishing a serving spoon, pink with the heat from the kitchen. “Help yourself to drinks. Whatever you like. I’ll be with you in just a minute.”
