The Bridal Party, page 14
And in the centre of the table lay the body from the cart.
They still couldn’t see anything else; it was just the shape of a body with a cloth over it. But its stillness was uncanny; whatever was underneath seemed completely lifeless.
‘What is that?’ demanded Gaia.
No one answered, but no one dared go forward and sit at their place; not with that there.
‘What’s a murder mystery without a dead body?’ said Paul.
‘I’m not sitting down,’ said Elena.
‘Tamsyn couldn’t have carried a body by herself. It’s either an actor, or a mannequin or something,’ Afreya reassured her.
Paul strode forward and grabbed Afreya by the forearm, making her jump. ‘I asked you, Doctor, to stay in character,’ he said. ‘She’ – he pointed at Tamsyn – ‘is the Bard. Refer to her as such.’
Tamsyn placed a hand on Paul’s, pleading with her eyes until he relented and let Afreya go. Then she turned to the rest of them and took a few deep breaths, as if to gather her strength.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, knights and ladies,’ she began. ‘This is the setting for our festivities, for our celebration of the Wild Hunt. I am the Bard; I will be telling your story throughout the evening, as we ponder which of us is murderous and which of us is innocent. Take a seat at our table, and be content, for the night is long and there is much merriment to be had.’
Everyone stared at her. Where was this coming from? Was this a monologue that she had memorised, or was she coming up with it on the spot?
Clarisse and Tamsyn’s eyes met, something communicated between them. Then Clarisse stepped forward to sit at the table. Everyone else glanced at each other, wondering whether to follow suit. Nada realised that she was digging her nails into her palms, and a nervous sweat was making her feel clammy. This was all so surreal, so utterly bizarre and perverse. There was no right or wrong way to behave, as the world made no more sense.
Elena was the next to move. She went to her end of the table and sat down, and then, out of nowhere, she began to laugh.
The sound startled the others at first. Nada’s heart leapt. What was going on? Had Elena gone mad?
But then it became clear: the Frenchwoman’s uncontrolled, helpless laughter was her nervousness spilling over. Her cheeks grew wet with tears as she shook, and her cries almost immediately became soundless, her throat raw. Soon the laughter was indistinguishable from sobbing, and she placed her head on her arms.
Afreya stepped forward next, putting a hand on Elena’s shoulder as she moved round the table.
There was nothing else to do but follow their lead. Nada and Gaia exchanged a look, and took their seats. Lying before them was the body, unmoving. Nada wanted to reach forward and touch it, to see whether it was real, but she stayed her hand.
Only Paul remained standing; he moved to the end of the table, axe in hand, looming over the proceedings.
‘Welcome to the feast, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Tamsyn. ‘You must fill your goblets with our finest wine; you are here to escape the world of mundanity and commerce and immerse yourself in legend and myth.’
At every place was a glass. Tamsyn got up and poured from a wine from a jug into each one. Then she sat, and held up her own glass in a toast.
‘To the Goddess: to the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone. May the souls of the guiltless find mirth and merriment; may the souls of the wicked find their punishment.’
With a look around the table, she motioned for everyone to lift their glasses. Then she drank from hers, and everyone did the same apart from Gaia.
For a moment, Nada wondered whether she would have drunk the wine if not for the fact that Tamsyn had done it first. The idea of poison had flitted into her consciousness; the circumstances had made her paranoid, refusing to trust in anything or anyone.
‘And now the story will begin,’ said Tamsyn. ‘We are here for the Hunt, are we not? For debauchery and fun, far from the prying eyes of our wives and mothers back on the mainland. Soon, brothers, we will be chasing the Wicked through the woods and the darkness. But first we must determine who the Wicked are; who has the pin on their back, marking them as sinners and wrongdoers.’
Nada glanced around the table. Who was going to be the Wicked, then? Were they all going to unearth their pasts, their mistakes and their regrets? Was it going to be her, for the things she had done wrong, for the part she’d played in ending Clarisse’s happiness with Noah?
She remembered what Tamsyn had said.
They know everything.
‘In order to determine who is Wicked and who is not,’ continued Tamsyn, ‘we must tell a story, between us, here tonight.’
She got up and started circling around them, speaking without hesitation or reluctance. Nada could still see her fear, her anxiety, but most of all there was a hopelessness. There was nothing she could do but push forward, say the words and hope for the best. Like Paul, there was a kind of disconnect, a trance she’d submitted herself to in order to get through the proceedings.
‘The story begins thus,’ she said. ‘Long ago, years ago, there was a man, a traveller. He walked the earth, imparting his wisdom for coin. He was happy.
‘But one day, he entered a fiefdom ruled by a noblewoman with a heart of steel. In the castle he met a woman, and fell in love. He forgot about his life, and his travels. All he wanted was her. He gave her poems and flowers, he courted her with everything he had. But they could not be together; the world forbade it, for she was a pious nun, a woman sworn to embrace only the love of God. Still he persisted, until gradually, the Nun’s heart began to melt, and they fell in love. They met in secret, they met in the shadows.
‘But rumours ran around the fiefdom. The Noblewoman heard whispers. A nun in her service in love with a traveller, a troubadour? This was not permitted. This was not right.
‘The friends of the Noblewoman whispered, conspired. They hated the Traveller for his trespasses, for his disregard of their rules and etiquette. They wondered how to intervene, how to stop the Nun from going down a path from which there was no return.’
At these words, a panic started to rise in Nada. This story, she thought. Could it mean what I think it means?
‘The Noblewoman’s closest circle met: a jester, a peasant and a doctor. They decided to journey to the country; to ride out and take the Nun with them. She’d be distracted, they thought. She would forget the Traveller, and on her return would see the error of her union with him.’
Nada dug her nails into the sides of her chair, willing Tamsyn to stop.
‘And so they went,’ said Tamsyn, continuing to circle the table, ‘bringing the Nun with them. The Traveller was confused: where was his beloved? He had not been told of her departure, and no one had news of when she would return. He cried and cried, feeling rejected, cut away from his love.’
Please, no, Nada thought. The longer Tamsyn went on, the more obvious it became. She felt an impulse to run, to scream, to do anything but stay in that chair.
‘And so the Traveller decided to get on his horse and ride out to wherever his lover was, so he could see her again and persuade her of his devotion and sincerity. He rode throughout the night, and he rode throughout the day, only stopping to quench his thirst with sweet meads.’
Nada looked at the others: everyone seemed enraptured, following Tamsyn’s tale with a kind of horror. No one moved.
‘He rode and rode until he came, late one evening, on a night of festivities at an inn. The Noblewoman was there. The Jester was there. The Peasant was there. The Doctor was there. The only person who was not there was the Nun. He went to them and pleaded, begging them to tell him where she was, where he might find his love.’
Tamsyn stopped, as if she needed to ready herself for the next part. Finally she cleared her throat and said, ‘The next day, the Traveller was found dead in a ditch. Upon seeing his body, the Nun was beset by grief. She cradled the corpse, her habit red with the blood of the man she had loved, and wept. Some say that she is still weeping to this day. Some say that every night she prays to her God and demands that justice be done, that the guilty be punished. The body of the Traveller is here before us now.’
She was standing at the head of the table now, with Paul behind her.
‘So tonight, the wicked and the innocent shall be determined; the guilty and the guiltless. Which one of us was responsible for the lifeless body before us? Who needs to be punished for what they did?’
Nada’s vision swam, dizziness pinning her to her seat.
It was over now. Everything made sense; everything fitted. The costumes, the tales of the Wild Hunt, the luggage. The whole evening had been constructed as a reckoning; a way for them all to acknowledge their darkest secret, their buried shame.
It was a way to make them confess to the attempted murder of Noah Eversdon.
Before
‘Cheers!’
They all clink their glasses together, and watch as the last colours of the sunset are swallowed up into the horizon. They are in the Lake District; finally, after much organising and rearranging, Tamsyn has brought them out of London for a weekend camping trip.
They are now in a pub garden overlooking the hills, a short walk away from a clearing where they’ve set up their tents for the night. Everyone is enjoying their drinks, the view, the clean air. They agree that they should do this more often; they talk about how nice is to be away from the city, and Tamsyn nods enthusiastically before listing other places in the countryside where they could go next.
Nada is a little cold, despite her warm jumper and thick scarf, but she is content. She giggles as Afreya entertains them all, chatting about some of the strange men she’s met through a dating app. Her stories are colourful, hilarious; almost certainly full of untruths and exaggerations, but no one minds.
The only person who seems a bit quiet is Clarisse. She is distracted, glancing around at the other tables a lot, making odd movements with her mouth like she is biting her cheek.
Once the laughter dies down after Afreya’s last story, Nada decides to ask her.
‘You okay, hun?’ she says.
Clarisse is snapped out of her thoughts. ‘Oh, yes … I’m fine, thanks.’
‘Well something’s up,’ says Elena bluntly.
Clarisse sips from her beer and looks out at the hills. They stretch into the dusk; the tips are blushed red with sunset, the rest dipped in shadow. Twilight will be upon them soon.
‘I can’t stop thinking about bloody Noah,’ she says.
The other girls exchange knowing looks. They’ve all begun to talk about how much they dislike him, how he seems to be stifling Clarisse. Gaia is the most obvious; she rolls her eyes at the mention of his name, but fortunately Clarisse, staring out into the hills, does not see it.
‘We had the worst argument yet, just before we left,’ says Clarisse. ‘And we haven’t called or texted each other all day. It’s unlike us.’
‘Well, what was the argument about?’ asks Afreya.
Nada stays quiet; she always does when the conversation turns to Noah; she is afraid that she will reveal herself in the smallest of ways – even by the way she says his name. As everyone is used to her being silent, she can avoid talking about him with ease.
‘It was about this weekend,’ sighs Clarisse. ‘He seemed to think I wasn’t going.’
‘Why? It’s been planned for months!’ exclaims Tamsyn.
‘I know, I know. It was a miscommunication, I suppose. The thing is, he doesn’t understand why work takes up all of my time. He thinks that running the English department is just like any other job. I’d promised to free up some weekends so we could do something together, and I guess he thought that meant I wasn’t coming today.’
‘Sounds to me less like miscommunication and more like him being unreasonable,’ offers Gaia.
There is a murmur of agreement.
‘Well, to be fair to him …’ Clarisse hesitates. ‘I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t say.’ It is expertly timed; everyone urges her to go ahead, to divulge her secret, and she drinks in the attention. ‘I didn’t think I’d be telling you guys like this, but anyway, here goes: he thought we were going to spend this weekend together …’ she pauses for dramatic effect, ‘to celebrate our engagement.’
There is a cheer, and toasts, and more drinks. Clarisse basks in everyone’s good wishes, and for a moment is back to being her usual cheery self.
She recounts how she finally came to agree to his proposal, and Nada’s mind wanders. She is unsure as to how she is supposed to feel; there is emptiness inside her where there should be emotion. She has slept with Noah; that much is true. But it was only once, to satisfy her curiosity, that afternoon after meeting in the park. And her curiosity was more than satisfied. At the time, she found the experience exhilarating. In the past, her partners had reacted to a nervousness on her part, making the whole thing timid and hesitant. Noah was the opposite, and in his fervour she found herself losing her inhibitions, giving into his feverish drive.
Not that she didn’t regret it the minute it was over. She and Noah have not spoken since. That was months ago now. Nada thought at the time that sleeping with him would be a dramatic event, something that would change her life. As it was, life continued; Clarisse did not suspect a thing, and it was like it had never happened.
It is not that Nada does not feel guilty; whenever the thought of Noah comes into her mind, or whenever Clarisse talks to her about him, she feels like the world should turn on her and pummel her into the ground. Her betrayal of Clarisse is something she will never get used to. But there is no sense that she has in some way affected their relationship; Noah and Clarisse seem to continue on as they always did, with their usual bickering passion intact. Nada is sure that he has had other women apart from her, and somehow that makes her feel less responsible; he and Clarisse are as dysfunctional as they have always been, and her afternoon with him has had no effect at all.
Since that day, she has been waiting for them to break up, for Clarisse to realise what kind of a man he is. She has never considered the fact that Clarisse might actually agree to be his wife. She purses her lips. A flash of anger, unreasonable and petty, flares up inside her. Why hasn’t Clarisse realised what he’s like? Why would she say yes to such a man? Sure, Nada slept with him, but that was different. To commit to his controlling and devious ways for a whole lifetime is inconceivable.
And then comes another thought, from the other side of her brain: she only knows that he is a bad person because she agreed to be bad with him. It is unreasonable to enjoy all the undeserved support and attention that Clarisse gives her, and resent the way it is then given to others.
Nada gazes out at the hills, and considers it all. It still doesn’t seem real, that afternoon she spent with Noah. She remembers it like she remembers scenes from a film, or passages from a book; like she is recalling a story about someone else. It has helped that she hasn’t seen him since that day: she’s made a point of avoiding him, of heading home whenever he threatens to turn up to social events. It makes everything from that day seem like a dream, a momentary blip in her otherwise mundane and repetitive reality.
She is distracted by a conversation to her side. Gaia and Elena are having a hushed discussion under their breath, trying to go unnoticed by the others.
‘No, I’m not getting you another drink, Elena. You still owe me from that night in Camden months ago!’
‘Listen, I’ll pay you back, I just didn’t bring enough cash with me …’
‘You never bring enough with you. I’m drawing the line; you’ve had plenty already.’
No one else hears: they are drawn into Clarisse’s detailed explanation of her wedding plans, and when she is thinking of setting the date. Elena and Gaia are listening now: Elena is sulking, her lips pursed in frustration.
A few minutes pass; the conversation goes this way and that, mainly centred on weddings and how much fun Clarisse’s will be.
Clarisse stretches her arms and yawns.
‘I might head back to the tents, you guys,’ she says.
Everyone protests; it is still early.
‘I know, I know,’ she says. ‘But I want to just go and give him a call. Patch things up, you know.’
‘It’s getting dark, though,’ Tamsyn points out. ‘Are you sure you want to walk back by yourself?’
Nada stiffens. She has already stopped drinking, and she tends to be the one who leaves the earliest. Everyone is expecting her to volunteer to walk back with Clarisse. But she can’t bear the idea of having to talk about Noah and their wedding. She stays silent as the others look at her.
‘I’ll walk back with you, Clarisse,’ says Elena eventually. There is a tinge of bitterness in her voice as she directs her next words to Gaia. ‘I’m not going to have another drink anyway.’
Clarisse smiles. ‘Great,’ she says. They both stand up, and the others get up too and hug her, congratulating her once again on her engagement.
Once they have left, the remaining girls turn to each other.
‘I’m happy for her,’ declares Afreya.
‘Yeah, me too,’ agrees Gaia. She acts like she is going to say something else, but doesn’t.
‘Do I sense a “but” there, Gaia?’ asks Afreya.
‘Yeah,’ interrupts Tamsyn. ‘And that “but” is Noah. I’m not sure, girls. He’s going to have to shape up if he’s going to be a good husband.’
Their conversation devolves into complaining about Noah; it is a conversation they have had a thousand times, with the same thoughts, the same stories. Nada tunes out, and watches the darkness thicken around them, the sunlight draining away from the valley.
‘What do you reckon, Nada?’ Gaia’s voice filters through; many minutes have passed.
‘Sorry,’ says Nada, shaken out of her reverie. ‘I was just looking at the view.’
‘Do you think I’m too harsh on him?’
‘No, no …’ She waves the subject away, trying to avoid saying anything more.
