The Bridal Party, page 6
Nada waits calmly. She does not mind being left to herself. There are little pockets of thought to delve into in her mind, all needing attention, waiting for moments such as this when she can dedicate time to them.
There’s a pocket marked Mother, and it is full of questions and worries. Is she all right? Does she need her? When was the last time she confused her with someone else?
And then there are also the many school-related pockets. One for each class, with the students who concern her the most, and the students she hopes will have done well in their Christmas tests.
And then there is the pocket marked Clarisse.
Nada is still getting used to Clarisse being her boss. Having her as both a line manager and a friend involves dizzying turns of mood and volte-face conversations. When faced with Professional Clarisse, Nada often has to steel herself for stern talk of targets and class progress, all accompanied by a furrowed, displeased look. But moments later, pens might be put down, signalling the end of a meeting, and then a different, friendly Clarisse will emerge. It is uncanny; the shift in the tone of her voice, the way she opens up: it is like an actor has walked off stage, discarding their role. Nada often feels as if she has had to develop two personas herself, just to keep up.
Recently, though, she has noticed that the friendly, approachable Clarisse, what she calls Good Clarisse, has become more present.
Nada remembers recently passing Clarisse’s classroom and being welcomed in. Good Clarisse was there, looking sheepish, like a child with a secret. She confided to Nada that her boyfriend, Noah, had been so generous and kind to her, and that the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to accept his outrageously premature proposal of marriage. But how could she accept, she asked, if she still had not introduced him to all her friends?
It was the kind of situation where Nada was not expected to answer; only to listen.
This Noah person certainly seems to make Clarisse happy, Nada thinks now, sipping her drink. There is a ripple of celebration across the bar: one of the best-loved Christmas songs has begun, and with it comes a burst of energy and enthusiasm. All around her people are placing their arms about each other’s shoulders and singing up to the ceiling.
Nada looks at Clarisse as she spreads her own arms theatrically, as if embracing the air. It is true: for months, there has been a flitting, happy nervousness about her that Nada has not seen before. Clarisse has frequently talked to her about Noah, and he has never come across particularly well in such conversations: Nada has conjured an image of him as needy, forceful, emotionally volatile. But even when Clarisse has mentioned how intense or overbearing he is, there is a gushing quality to her words, as if secretly delighted that she merits such exaggerated attention.
Ever since they met for coffee earlier this year, Clarisse has been talking of this mysterious partner and his marriage proposals. Since then, months have passed; long enough for Nada to get a job and change her life completely. Perhaps, she thinks, it’s time for Clarisse to properly consider what Noah is offering. To Nada, his repeated demand for her hand seems pressuring, off-putting, but Clarisse appears to delight in it, revelling in stories about how he takes her out to fancy restaurants and for weekend breaks and asks her again to marry him, only for her to put off the question for a while longer.
The idea of being proposed to by Noah seems to fill Clarisse with such excitement that the eventual wedding seems inevitable. But then, if she loves him so much, why hasn’t she gone ahead and said yes already?
Nada feels out of her depth with such things; her experience of relationships is sparse and disjointed in comparison. As fun as her past relationships were, they always lacked some sort of anchor; a connection deep enough to stop them drifting apart. Clarisse has also had difficult patches in that regard; she once drunkenly mumbled into Nada’s ear that the only reason she was now out of her frustrated single years was because she’d lost weight. But Nada didn’t quite believe it; she’d always felt that Clarisse had an air of desperation around men. Not just a desperation to be with someone; but rather a desperation for everything to be perfect once she’d committed to him. In this way, she and Noah seem to be a good match: it appears that he is just as desperate as her; that they are both in pursuit of the same impossible perfection.
Clarisse is dancing, but now glances at her phone and becomes distracted; her body shifts mechanically to the music while her mind is drawn to something on the screen. Within a moment, she leaves the tangle of limbs and plumps down beside Nada.
‘He wants to come and join us,’ she says breathily.
‘Who?’
‘Noah!’ Clarisse grins. ‘Do you think this is the right time? You know, for him to meet everyone?’
‘He knows most of your friends already, doesn’t he?’
Clarisse motions towards a kaleidoscope of dancing bodies, outlining the shape of Tamsyn, Elena and Afreya. ‘That lot used to know him, back in school. But that was a long time ago. He’s changed a good deal. I don’t know … We’re all having a good time, and we’re all a bit drunk. Would it be a bit weird if he popped up now?’
‘No, of course not,’ Nada lies. ‘It’ll be nice to finally meet him.’
‘Yeah …’ Clarisse trails off. ‘He’s been pushing to meet you all for a while, but I don’t know. I wanted to create the right circumstances.’
Nada points to their friends. Gaia is whirling about, her thick curly hair writhing in the gloom. Elena is singing with both hands in the air and her eyes closed. Afreya has her arms around both of them, bellowing the lyrics louder than anyone else in the bar.
‘Seems like pretty good circumstances to me,’ she smiles.
Clarisse’s eyes twinkle. That excitement again. That giddiness. ‘Yeah?’ she says, needling for one last affirmation.
Nada looks straight into her eyes across the table. ‘Yeah.’
Clarisse reaches over and gives Nada’s hand a squeeze, and then pulls on it, dragging her to the dance floor. It is useless to resist. Nada gets up, and they are plunged into the mass of bodies, curling and twisting with hands in the air like the branches of trees in a storm.
Nada finds herself in the midst of Clarisse’s friends, who smile and grin at her presence, and start dancing again with renewed vigour. She smiles, and sways along, trying to focus on the song rather than the smell of sweat circulating the dance floor.
Tamsyn leans forward and whispers in her ear, ‘What’s going on?’
Tamsyn has always been someone Nada cherishes in the group. She is one of those rare people, incapable of being disliked, taking an interest in everyone, always knowing exactly what to say. When they speak, Nada tends to forget that they aren’t childhood friends; Tamsyn is so generous-spirited that it invites intimacy. She is also, crucially, the only one who seems to know what to say when Nada mentions her slightly different upbringing. She seems to be able to embrace the world and invite all different types of people into her circle.
‘Noah’s coming to join us,’ Nada replies.
And then, for the first time, she sees it. Tamsyn’s smile dropping. A sign of unease, concern.
‘You okay with that?’ she asks.
‘Yeah, it’s fine,’ says Tamsyn, but for a brief moment, she forgets to sway with the music. As she stands there surrounded by silhouettes that convulse in circles around her, her blonde curls seem grey in the gloom; and for just the briefest of moments, a look of disgust, hatred even, flits across her features.
Then it is gone, and she is wearing her normal smile, and her body falls back into the rhythm of the music.
For the next few minutes, Nada sways and bounces her shoulders with the others, standing on the outer rim of their circle and letting Gaia and Afreya take centre stage. It gives her time to think, to create a new pocket of questions in her mind.
What did Noah do, all those years ago, to break Tamsyn’s smile?
Now
Eleven
They unravelled the parchments and spread them out on the table. The music had been switched off; although the sudden silence was jarring, no one minded. Everyone was suddenly focused, gathered around with frowns of concentration.
The papers looked old; they were the colour of tea stains, and had been written on with a fountain pen or perhaps even a quill. The letters had the incline and the uneven pen strokes of the kind Nada had seen in historical dramas.
For a long moment, no one spoke, as they took in what was in front of them. Nada was closest to a paper entitled The Wild Hunt, and she read it slowly, enunciating every word carefully in her mind to make sure she didn’t miss anything.
It is a tale as old as the mountains. It is a tale as old as the wind.
Such is the tale of the Wild Hunt.
Many a weary traveller has rested his feet in front of a fire, a mug of beer in his hand to quench his thirst, and been warned of the woods outside our doorsteps. Some wave away the stories with their hands; others lean in, thirsty for more.
If you are leaning in, if you are thirsty, then read on, traveller.
It is said that there are parts of the world where, if you were to walk alone on a moonlit night, among the shadows of the trees and on the carpets of the forests, you just might see a procession from another realm. People have borne witness to this across many countries, many seas. Those who know call it the Wild Hunt. Should you have the misfortune to witness it yourself, you would see a line of people and creatures who are not from our plane of existence roaming through the countryside. You would see their skins glower and glimmer.
They are the dead.
They walk about the woods, just beyond the borders of our villages and towns. Many foolhardy knights and giggling lovers have ventured there after dusk, and come rushing back to the light to tell tales of the hordes of dead spirits, carrying crossbows and swords, looking for prey.
The mystery is that no one can say what their prey is. What do the dead desire? you might ask.
But there is no answer, for nobody knows.
Many believe that the only thing Death wishes for is company. That the hunters are coming for your soul, so that you can join them; so that you too can march across the country, your skin grey and moon-coloured. That is why, when we tell tales of the Wild Hunt to our children, we tell them that the dead are looking for the wicked, the sinful, to claim as their own. We tell them that if they lead good Christian lives, they will not be hunted.
It is a good thing to tell a child – but no one knows whether it is true.
Here, on the islands, we have our own Wild Hunt. Herodias, the witch goddess, leads it. From a storm cloud of sea and rain, the dead emerge onto our coasts, with her at the front of the pack, wearing the heads of her former enemies dangling off her belt. She leads her dead witches through Jersey, and Guernsey too, looking for those wicked enough to join her.
You can see them if you walk the hills at night. A ghostly procession, worming its way through the darkness, carrying flaming torches, swords and bows.
Just hope, when you are on such a walk, that it is not making its way towards you.
Those reading the same parchment were all very close to each other, leaning over to study the words. It was almost like Nada could hear their thoughts.
And they were all thinking the same thing.
‘Fucking hell,’ Gaia whispered.
‘This is just too intense,’ Elena said.
Nada glanced over at Clarisse, wondering if she’d picked up on the negativity, but she was looking at a different page, and did not react.
‘Well, I’ve got to hand it to this murder mystery company,’ said Gaia. ‘They’ve certainly got me intrigued. Where did Tamsyn find these people?’
Afreya turned from the paper she’d been reading with Clarisse. ‘Why? What does yours say?’
Gaia picked up the parchment and passed it over. ‘Just read it – I can’t explain it.’ Afreya, in return, passed hers to Gaia, and the two groups settled down again to read the new scroll in front of them.
Welcome to Herodias House; a place of revelries, of blood and abandon.
The house was owned in the 1800s by Sir Frederick Lockday. Inspired by the tales of the Wild Hunt, he took it upon himself to create a Bacchanalian celebration for himself and his friends.
Every year, he would proclaim the date of the Week of Herodias. Amongst his circle in London, there would be a growing excitement at his announcement, a sense of the carnage to come. When the time arrived, he would gather them all together on a boat and set sail for Jersey.
Once they were on the island, the parties would begin.
The rules were simple. Everyone had to be dressed in medieval or fairy-tale garments; and all had to drink beyond what they thought was their capability.
Later, the Hunt would be announced. Lockday would have placed pins on unsuspecting guests throughout the night; at this point, these guests, called the Wicked, were to flee the house and run into the darkness of the woods. Everyone else was the Dead; their role was to hunt down the Wicked so that their souls could join the Hunt. At the end of the night, the most successful hunter would be deemed the Herodias of the season.
Lockday would herald the start of the Hunt with a great blast of a horn.
The tales tell that the woods became a different world; one of torchlit fumbling and shouting, of orgies of fairies and monks, of wine and blood dripping off the leaves.
To this day, Lockday’s parties are still shrouded in secrecy. When his companions sailed back to England, they were made to swear not to speak of the Hunt to anyone. Dotted around London, in circles of what was supposed to be polite society, members of the Hunt would silently nod to each other across a room, or raise glasses of wine with wry, knowing smiles, and no one else knew why. Perhaps they’d encountered each other there in the woods. Perhaps one had been the Wicked, and the other the Dead.
But bound by the promise they’d made to Lockday, they were never allowed to speak of it.
‘When it says orgies, does it mean actual means orgies?’ said Gaia.
No one answered.
‘Do you reckon it’s true?’ said Afreya. ‘About this house?’
‘No,’ said Nada, at the very same time that Elena said just the opposite. It struck Nada that she had not actually made her mind up as to what was true or not: her response had been a gut reaction, an instinct. She’d just wanted to reject it all, to banish such creepy thoughts from their weekend so they could return to the cosy weekend break she’d envisaged.
They stared at each other for a moment before Afreya puffed at Elena, ‘No, of course it isn’t true. This is all part of the game, the murder mystery. The setting for the mystery is going to be one of Lockday’s parties. This is just so we know the context.’
‘But this place is actually called Herodias House, isn’t it?’ said Elena.
A thought flashed through Nada’s mind. Why was Elena trying to get them to buy into this stuff? Why was she so invested all of a sudden? Could it be that Tamsyn had told her to do it? Could Elena’s nervousness and fear, throughout the whole afternoon and evening, be just part of an act to make sure they were all as unnerved as possible?
‘Doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not. It’s twisted, is what it is!’ exclaimed Gaia. ‘I mean, murder mysteries are normally set on cruise ships, or train carriages or something. This feels different, doesn’t it?’
Fear twisted Nada’s stomach. They’d all agreed to put on a brave face, to make the best of the situation for Clarisse’s sake. But Gaia hadn’t been there for that discussion, and now her frustration was bringing everyone down. Moments ago, Clarisse had been dancing, drinking; now there was silence, and a palpable tension between Afreya and Gaia, the two of them looking at each other with gazes of fire and defiance. It did not bode well for the rest of the evening.
Nada decided to interject.
‘I’m sure it’s going to be fun,’ she said. She meant it to sound loud, confident, but it came out as barely a squeak.
‘Thank you, Nada,’ said Clarisse pointedly, and everyone turned to her. She was standing tall now, at the end of the table. Commanding attention.
She looked towards Gaia. ‘I’m sure that if Tamsyn booked it, it’s because she knew it was going to be fun.’ She turned her attention on the others; even though drink blurred her speech a little and she was speaking louder than she normally would, she was still able to control the situation with precision and impact. It was what made her an excellent teacher – she could alter the energy in a room within seconds.
‘Now, I get this is all confusing,’ she said, with another glance at Gaia. ‘But this is my hen do. I’ve been looking forward to it for God knows how long. I don’t understand why there’s some negativity here, and I want to say that I don’t appreciate it.’
Her voice wavered a little, and then, out of nowhere, it cracked and her eyes started to brim with emotion. ‘I shouldn’t have to tell you guys this. I thought you would all be on board with what Tamsyn had planned. Not try and ruin it!’
‘No one is ruining anything,’ Nada offered. ‘We’re just a bit surprised, I think.’
‘That’s right,’ Afreya said, still glaring at Gaia. ‘Now, we’re all going to get into this and have fun, aren’t we?’
There was a general murmur of agreement. Even Gaia made some sort of noise of affirmation, even though Nada could see that she was still angry and frustrated.
‘Right. So …’ Afreya took up the rest of the parchments, and started distributing them.
On each one was a drawing of the character they were going to be playing that evening. Nada was handed a parchment with a drawing of a jester: it grinned at her like the joker from a pack of playing cards. It was dressed like the classic jester of Shakespearean comedies, with bells dangling off a hat, and it seemed to be doing some sort of jig, one foot in a curly shoe raised in the air.
