The Bridal Party, page 8
The lights from the house cast shards of gold across the lawn as the two of them crossed it, then the darkness began to swallow up their surroundings. As they approached the trees, the trunks towered above them, blanketing the starlight.
Gaia stopped for a moment, peering, trying to find the shadow. Nada caught up with her in a state of breathlessness, her heart slamming against her chest.
‘Can you see anything?’ she panted.
‘There!’ whispered Gaia, and surged ahead once more. Within a few strides, she was gone, submerged in the gloom of the woods.
Nada forced herself to move on, to push herself into another sprint, but it was a few moments before she too entered the boundaries of the woods and found herself plunged into almost total darkness.
Faced with a blackness so complete, she stopped, catching her breath. There were sounds – running footsteps, the snapping of twigs, the crunching of leaves underfoot – but she could barely make out where they were coming from. She put out a hand to swipe away some branches, but it was tentative, slow. She still couldn’t see a thing.
Gradually, the darkness took shape. Nada made out forms: trees, hills, all different shades of grey and black, shadow upon shadow. She took one hesitant step forward, and then another, and the last glimmers of Herodias House receded and she was swallowed up into the wood.
Branches twisted and curled about her as she struck forward. Now that her breaths had slowed, what was most remarkable was how loud every step was; each sound her feet made as they sank into the dead leaves was like a bone snapping. The trees climbed into the air about her like the limbs of giants, thick and silhouetted.
‘Stop! Come back here!’ shouted Gaia, somewhere ahead in the obscurity. Then, as soon as her words faded, there came a sound of shock, half-gasp, half-shriek.
‘Gaia?’ called Nada, increasing her pace. Her friend’s words had seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, and Nada’s sense of direction in the darkness was vague at best, but she forged ahead, panic coursing through her veins, one arm across her face to protect her from the clawing branches.
It was tough going. Beneath the leaves, the ground was uneven, and the woods sloped downwards, throwing Nada off balance.
What if I get lost? she thought, absurdly. What will people think when they find me – if they find me – a jester, stumbling in from another age?
Making her way down the incline in her curled shoes, Nada caught her foot in a tree root, and all of a sudden the darkness was spinning, the shadows swirling. She dropped to the forest floor, cushioned by leaves, and half slid, half tumbled, making a little noise, a pathetic-sounding whimper, as she was carried down the slope and dumped unceremoniously at its foot.
She waited for a moment, letting the shadows still themselves, letting the wash of black solidify. Things were darker than ever; she could just about make out the shape of the trees against the starlit sky above her, but the rest of it was just blackness, like she’d been dunked into a bucket of midnight.
And, scrambling to her feet, she realised that she was less sure than ever about where she was. She had rolled and tossed this way and that during her fall, and was now so disoriented that she had no idea what direction she’d been heading in.
Where do I go? Should I even be doing this by myself, or should I go back and get the others?
She cursed herself. Why couldn’t she be brave, like Gaia, who hadn’t given a moment’s thought before heading into the woods, and who, judging by the sounds, had caught up with the stranger.
A surge of resentment and suspicion passed through her. Why had Gaia rushed off like that in the first place? Why couldn’t she have waited for the others? The person they had seen outside the window might not be dangerous, but running in the woods in the dark like this was. The proof was in Nada’s bruised, aching forearm, and the scratches stinging her legs.
Struck by indecision, she hesitated.
Then she heard a rustle of leaves. The crackling of footsteps.
Coming towards her.
She gasped, paralysed. She peered into the gloom, but could make out nothing but shadows, an abstract painting of the colours of night. But the sounds were getting louder and louder, closer and closer.
Feebly she put up a hand, but it was not defensive; rather exploratory, like a blind woman feeling for what was in front of her.
A hand seized her wrist; Nada jumped.
‘Nada?’
It was Gaia. Thank God.
‘Gaia!’ she exclaimed. ‘What happened?’
‘I think I caught sight of him, but he rushed off. I couldn’t make him out very well, but …’
Nada grimaced. Enough with the vagueness, the hesitation. Enough with the sentences that don’t finish. ‘But?’
‘Nada …’ Gaia’s voice was wavering, uncertain. Afraid, even. ‘I think it was Noah.’
Before
They have been at the Bull & Frog for a while. They arrived before the crowds, the way they are only able to do on Friday nights, but now the place is starting to fill.
The evening started off promisingly enough. A few drabs from the English and maths departments, sitting around the table with casual drinks. It is the kind of socialising that Nada prefers over the thrum of busy bars and clubs, or the late nights in the pub where suddenly it is painfully obvious that everyone apart from her is drunk. Here, with a relaxed drink or two, she felt just like everyone else. They chatted about work, about what they planned to do with their weekend; conversations where she could contribute. Her insights into students’ behaviour were valued, and when she spoke, everyone listened. Her mother was waiting for her to return home, but she was able to put it out of her mind.
Now, however, the night is winding down. Nearly everyone has left; only Gaia, Nada, Clarisse and Noah are still here.
Noah has become a constant presence in their lives. Any time they stray out of the school grounds to do something vaguely social, he seems to pop up. Cherished at first, his presence has become merely tolerated, his ubiquity a test of their established dynamic.
Their pub talk about the school and the difficulty of exams used to be important; a mark of solidarity. That was what Nada enjoyed the most: the sense that the troubles she had at work were shared by others. So much of school teaching is lonely: hoping not to get caught, hoping that no one else will discover the mistakes you’ve made in the classroom, and the suspicion that all the other teachers manage better than you do. Outings to the pub on a Friday afternoon used to serve as a welcome reminder that, faced with a class of students, everyone feels as much of an imposter as you.
This has changed somewhat with Noah. He teaches English as a foreign language to adults, having done a TEFL course in Thailand, and thinks that what he does is somehow equivalent to their work. The ease with which he manages his job makes him dismissive of their struggles. It stunts the conversations, and whenever he is there, they tend to speak of something else, which generally leads Nada to fall quiet, retreating from the more unfamiliar topics of conversation.
She has not made up her mind, quite, about Noah. He has spent a lot of time in South East Asia, and keeps on talking about it. He still has the air of someone who has stumbled into every situation he finds himself in, like he is still backpacking through life. He even looks like he’s on holiday: he wears beads around his neck, shown off by open-necked shirts, and seems perpetually sun-kissed, even now, in the last stretch of winter. While everyone from Clarisse’s childhood was from a wealthy background, privilege seems to ooze from him, all the more sickening because of his obliviousness to it.
Nada can admit that there is an attractiveness about him. Even though he speaks slowly, there is a pull to everything he says, and life seems to flow easily around him. Even though the only school teaching he has ever done was in Bangkok, where his job sounded wildly different to the pressures of what Nada goes through every day, she often finds herself rapt when listening to his experiences.
There is also his looks, which, despite her best efforts, she finds almost magnetic. Whenever he is with the group, he is the only man in a circle of women. But he does not act like just a boyfriend; he does not direct his conversations through Clarisse, or even sit next to her at their table. He looks intently at every one of them as they speak, straight into their eyes, with an intensity that somehow seems of another world. Every time he does it to Nada, she feels on edge, somehow. He is too attractive to be looking at her; it doesn’t correspond to the way she thinks good-looking people behave. He seems to be giving her his full attention, figuring her out.
It gives her the sense that he does not just want to involve himself in every part of Clarisse’s life … but to control it too.
What everyone agrees is annoying, however, is the way in which, after a few drinks, he tends to go out for a cigarette and Clarisse goes out to join him. This invariably seems to end in some sort of argument, and Clarisse is never in a fit state to enjoy the rest of the night afterwards. Nada presumes their heated discussions revolve around the fact that he has had enough and wants them to leave.
They are having one of those discussions now; though they can’t hear them, Gaia and Nada can peer through the window and see them gesturing energetically to each other, every hand wave intermingling with strands of cigarette smoke.
‘At it again, then,’ says Gaia. She tends to be among the last ones there; she always has another group of friends to meet up with afterwards, and needs to kill time. She is the consummate Londoner in Nada’s eyes; forever flitting and racing to see as many people as possible, with friends all across the city.
Nada nods. ‘I’m supposed to take the tube home with her,’ she says, gesturing towards Clarisse. ‘But maybe she’ll end up going home with Noah.’
Clarisse is shaking her head at something Noah has said. It is like watching a silent film: the actors are overly animated, and the dialogue is felt rather than understood.
‘Doesn’t look like she’s in any mood to go home with him,’ comments Gaia. She contours the rim of her empty glass with a finger, probably itching to go too but reluctant to leave Nada alone with the couple. It’s unmistakable Gaia behaviour; only her physical tic gives away a reluctance to stick to her strict moral code.
‘That’s what we thought last time,’ Nada reminds her. ‘Go on, go. I’ll wait a little longer, and if they’re still fighting in ten minutes, I’ll leave them to it.’
‘No – I’ll keep you company,’ says Gaia.
‘Go, honestly: you’re late to your thing, and I’m not going to stick around for long.’
Gaia makes a face, and then relents. ‘Fine. But you have to text me and let me know how the drama ends. You know I don’t like the idea of putting you in an awkward situation.’
Nada smiles. ‘If the situation gets awkward, it’ll be because of them, not me. If anyone is embarrassed, it should be them, right?’
Gaia beams, impressed. ‘Attagirl! There’s hope for you yet, Nada!’ The two of them have an ongoing agreement that Gaia will help Nada stand up for herself, while Nada will help Gaia to keep her mouth shut when she needs to. It’s an in-joke that Nada feels is somewhat belittling, but she’ll bear it for the sake of friendship, for the sake of having an in-joke at all.
Gaia leaves, leaving Nada to sit by herself. The pub is starting to get busy. The teachers and casual drinkers have all gone, leaving the bar to be filled with suits and the kind of laughter that accompanies the self-satisfied and the rich. Nada takes out her phone and checks whether her mum has texted her. She hasn’t, and she wonders why; normally she has at least two messages demanding to know when she’ll be home. She hesitates, wondering whether to call, but is put off by the rowdy noises starting to fill the air. She scrolls through her social media without taking any of it in, and gnaws at the corner of her thumb. She thinks about standing and letting others take the big table where she is sitting, and then glances at the pile of jackets and bags beside her and decides against it.
She waits for a while longer, spiralling the ice at the bottom of her empty glass with her straw. After a while, she takes out her phone again, clicking on the camera icon to check how her hair looks.
It is then that Noah reappears, looming above her, giving Nada a little startle.
‘Clari’s gone to the toilet,’ he informs her as he sits down. ‘Then we’ll probably shoot off.’
‘Sure,’ says Nada. ‘I was thinking of heading off myself.’ She glances over at the toilets at the end of the bar: she went a little while ago, before the pub started to fill, and there was already a queue. She is going to have to keep Noah company for a while, she realises, and she sighs inwardly.
Isn’t it strange, she thinks, that she feels like this about him? He is not unpleasant; indeed, he takes more of an interest in her and her life than many others who have sat at their table tonight. So why the unease? Why the hope that his intense look will fall on anything other than her?
‘So, Nada,’ he says, rubbing his chin. There it is: those piercing green eyes, spearing into her. ‘I’ve always been meaning to ask you something.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘The way Clarisse talks about you. What is that about?’
Nada shifts in her seat. This sounds as if it is going to be personal; surely they don’t know each other well enough for that? Surely, at this stage of their relationship, they should be keeping to conversations about the safe and the mundane. Or is this yet another social norm that Noah chooses to disregard?
She can’t tell whether it is honesty or arrogance that makes him talk like this; whether to find it refreshing or threatening.
‘What do you mean – how does she talk about me?’
‘Like you’re a mouse. Like you need defending, protecting.’
He grins, as if this is funny. But the fact of the matter is that Nada cherishes Clarisse’s protection, especially within the hierarchy of the school. Senior leadership are not too impressed with her yet, and she needs Clarisse to fight her corner. She realises that it must make things uncomfortable for Clarisse, who hired her as an NQT against the school’s wishes, and tells herself every morning to feel grateful for the support she gets.
‘Maybe I do need it,’ she shrugs. She tries to sound casual. ‘Maybe I’m the kind of person who relies on others to get by.’
‘I don’t believe that for a second. Everyone else might, but I don’t.’ He is grinning still, his eyes boring into her like she is some intriguing artefact.
You don’t know me, Nada wants to say. There is a silence between them for a moment.
He leans in, and suddenly they are close.
‘Clarisse has told me about you, you know. About your dad, and how you grew up.’
This startles Nada. These days she barely tells a soul about that sort of thing. She can understand that Clarisse shares everything with her boyfriend, but surely it is up to him to pretend otherwise?
‘Has she?’ she stalls.
‘She has.’
‘And?’
‘Well, I can’t help but wonder. Why you and the rest of the world are convinced that a life like that has made you weak, when it has actually made you something else.’
Nada’s eyes flit away from him; to the bar, to the boisterous laughter of the table next to theirs. What to say? How to tell him to stay away from conversations she is not ready to have with him? He seems determined to spell out her life for her – and she is powerless to stop him. There is a kind of masculine power here; it is in the way he believes his thoughts to be so important and unique that they must be voiced no matter the consequences.
‘What else could it have made me?’ Nada stutters. She is playing into his hands, she realises. Giving him the opportunity to monologue at her.
She looks back at him. He is close, still; she can smell him, a pleasant musk she has never encountered before. His eyes are still on her, their greenness, their complexity.
‘It has made you fascinating,’ he replies.
His smile shifts, morphing into something else.
Something Nada can’t quite read.
Now
Fourteen
‘What are you talking about?’ whispered Nada. ‘Noah can’t be here …’
‘I don’t know, Nada. It looked like him. A lot.’
‘How could you tell, in this light?’
Gaia paused, then spoke carefully, with weight. Normally she tended to rattle through her words, but here there was a calculation behind every syllable. ‘I caught him up at the bottom of the slope. There’s a light there, from the road.’
‘How close were you?’ Nada demanded.
Gaia didn’t answer, and for a moment, in the darkness, it was like no one was there.
‘How close?’ Nada insisted.
‘I was a way off,’ Gaia admitted.
‘So you can’t know for sure that it was him.’
‘Well, no, I can’t know for sure …’
‘Then why are you trying to upset me?’ Nada hissed. A part of her knew she was being unfair, lashing out. But the thought of Noah always came accompanied by panic; it rose out of nowhere, flooding her thoughts and making her shiver. It flared up inside her now, as potent as it had ever been. The years she’d spent trying to come to terms with what had happened with him disintegrating in a matter of heartbeats.
‘I’m just telling you what I saw, Nada. I’m scared too, you know.’ Gaia sighed. ‘But I guess I could have kept it to myself, unless I was sure.’ Her hand found its way to Nada’s shoulder. ‘Let’s head back and find the others, okay?’
With Gaia’s hand upon her, Nada unstiffened a little. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just the thought of him, you know?’
Gaia made a sound to show that she understood. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It probably wasn’t him. I was just a little freaked by everything that’s happened.’
Nada nodded. Gaia probably couldn’t see her do it, but it didn’t matter. It was for herself as much as anything else.
