She carries on walking. She goes to Tallulah’s friend Chloe’s house, just outside the village, the last in a row of small flat-fronted cottages with doors opening directly on the main road. Chloe says no, she hasn’t spoken to Tallulah in ages. But she also says something interesting. When Kim mentions that Tallulah had last been seen at the house of Scarlett Jacques in Upley Fold, Chloe’s eyes narrow and she says, ‘Weird.’
Kim says, ‘Why?’
Chloe shrugs. ‘There’s just something off about Scarlett and that lot. Something, I dunno, dark, and there was this night, last year, the college Christmas party, when I was sitting with Lula, and Scarlett sort of took her away, kind of rude, and I can’t really explain it, but it was like Lula already knew her? Even though she didn’t? And they were dancing for a while and then they went outside for like about ten minutes and Lula was all on edge when she came back in. Couldn’t really work out what it was about. I mean, as far as I was aware Scarlett and that lot are just this uber-clique, never speak to anyone, yet she spoke toLula. It was weird. Anyway, Lula and me didn’t really talk again after that.’
Kim grimaces. ‘After the Christmas party?’
‘Yeah. I mean, we say hi if we see each other, but we don’t hang out.’
‘But what about in February? When you were … going through the thing you were going through?’
Chloe gives her a blank look.
‘You were feeling really low and Tallulah came and spent the night with you?’
‘Are you sure you mean me?’
‘Yes, back in February, Tallulah told me you were really low and she needed to spend the night with you in case you did anything stupid.’
Chloe shakes her head. ‘God, no. No, that definitely never happened. I did not feel low and she did not stay the night. I promise you, Lula and I have barely said a word to each other this year. We’ve barely seen each other. It sounds like she might have been lying to you, to be honest.’
16
September 2018
The grounds at Maypole House fill slowly but surely during the weekend before term begins. The empty buildings come alive with the movement of people, the sounds of voices and music, of doors opening and shutting, ringtones and car engines, laughter and shouting.
Sophie feels strange, less like she’s in the middle of nowhere, as she’d feared, and more like she’s actually in the middle of everything. From the garden outside the kitchen she can sit and watch the students leave their rooms and head into the main building for breakfast. Some of them take morning jogs around the grounds. She starts to recognise certain faces, certain groups of friends, and she can tell even from a distance who is new to thecollege and who is a returner by the confidence with which they traverse the school grounds.
On the Sunday night before term officially starts, there is what is called the Registration Day Dinner. Registration Day is the busiest day in the run-up to the new term, when the majority of students arrive from home to board and sign up for their classes. In reality, most of this is done online before the students ever set foot on campus, but it’s an old tradition and it’s a good way for students to set eyes on their classmates before they hit the classroom. And then there is the dinner which, according to Shaun, is what it is really all about.
In days gone by, it was a sit-down affair, but since the new accommodation block was built ten years earlier, doubling the size of the student population, the dinner has morphed into a party with a buffet and a DJ.
Sophie, for some reason, wants to look stunning for the party. Not just nice, but knock-out, drop-dead amazing so that the students will all talk about her behind her back – so they’ll say, ‘Wow, Mr Gray’s girlfriend is really pretty, isn’t she?’ She wants, for some reason, to win the approval of some of the handsome-looking boys she’s seen jogging around campus. Not the young ones, obviously, but the nineteen-year-olds, the nearly-men with their summer tans and their thick hair and their swaggers.
She pulls on a black satin camisole top with lace trim and a lace-panelled back. She teams it with fitted black trousers and high heeled black sandals and she fixes her hair into a side ponytail that sits on her shoulder. She blobs her face with things that promise toilluminateand toshimmer.
Shaun does a double take as she walks into the hallway. He says, ‘God, wow, Soph, you look lovely.’ And she can tell he means it.
The noise from the main hall is deafening. It has a barrelled, wood-lined ceiling and windows set up so high they only let in light, no view. But there are three pairs of huge double doors open on to the lawn where there is a marquee, and tables and chairs laid out in the early-evening sun. She and Shaun wander across the lawn together, her arm linked through his, throwing smiles at people and stopping to say hello. They find an empty table and Shaun leaves Sophie to go and get them drinks. Her gaze travels across the scene as she waits for him to return, to the clusters of lovely young things curled around each other in little pockets, impenetrable, slightly terrifying, the power and yet the patheticness of them, the know-all- and know-nothing-ness. It’s not just their youth that glitters, she ponders as she watches them, it’s their backgrounds, their innate privilege, the suggestion in the way they touch their hair, the way they hold their drinks, the way they scroll so nonchalantly through their phones. They come from places that aren’t like the places most people come from and they have the high-gloss veneer of money that shines through the scruffiest of exteriors.
Sophie comes from terraced houses and cars that drive till they die and state schools and weekly Tesco shops and biscuits off plates at her grandma’s flat every Saturday. She hadn’t missed out on anything: there was always food and holidays abroad and shopping trips to Oxford Street and takeaways on Friday nights; there was always enough of everything. Her life was perfect. But it was matte, not gloss.
She thinks about Dark Place, about the Jacques family, about the swimming pool that must once have sparkled icy blue in the summer sun, the art that must once have sat on the Perspex plinths, the music that must once have tumbled out of double doors and across the manicured lawns, the especial laughter of people with numerous cars and horses and chalets in the Alps. Their daughter, Scarlett, had once been a student here, according to Kerryanne Mulligan.
Shaun reappears with two glasses of wine and takes his seat next to Sophie. ‘Sorry I took so long,’ he says. ‘Got waylaid.’
‘Let’s drink these,’ she says, ‘and then we can mingle.’
‘Urgh, God, do we have to?’ he says, dropping his forehead against her bare shoulder.
She ruffles the back of his neck and laughs. ‘I kind of think we do have to, yes. You’re basically the king. You have to get out there.’
‘I know.’ He lifts his head and puts a hand on her knee. ‘I know.’
They drink their wine and within a minute or two are joined at their table by a couple called Fleur and Robin who are the geography teacher and the photography teacher respectively and who live in a cottage just outside the village and have a Border terrier called Oscar and a rabbit called Bafta and are both very talkative indeed. Halfway through this conversation they are joined by a middle-aged man called Troy, who has a magnificent beard. He is the philosophy and theology teacher and he lives on campus and has a lot of recommendations for local delicatessens, wine shops and butchers. Someone whisks Shaun away and for a while it is Sophie and Troy, and that is fine. Troy is very easy to talk to, andthen they are joined by someone with a French accent and someone with a Spanish accent and soon her table is overrun with people whose names she barely has time to catch, let alone their jobs or roles at the school. Then she notices a younger man, standing at the periphery of the group that has gathered around her table: he’s holding a beer in one hand; his other hand is in the pocket of a pair of navy chino shorts. His brown hair is short and wavy; he’s wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to just above his elbows and white trainers, without socks. He has a nice physique. He looks a bit like a film star, one of the ones called Chris, Sophie can never remember which is which.
He’s talking to an older woman; Sophie can tell he doesn’t know her all that well, that he’s making an effort to be charming and polite. She sees him turn very vaguely in her direction, as though he can feel her eyes upon him, and she looks away. The next time she glances over she sees that the older woman has turned to talk to someone else and left him adrift. He lifts his beer bottle to his lips and takes a thoughtful slug. He sees her looking at him and smiles. ‘You must be Mr Gray’s partner,’ he says, approaching her.