📖[PDF] The Bridal Party von J G Murray | Perlego (2024)

Now

Five

‘They’re here!’ said Clarisse, pattering away from the kitchen to the front door, her shoes clacking on the parquet.

‘She’s put on heels already?’ whispered Gaia.

‘She wants it all to begin, I guess.’

‘I blame you for this, you know. First drink of the weekend?’

‘I didn’t know about the bag drama, did I?’

Gaia ran her hands through her thick curly hair. It was midnight black, the most apparent sign of her Greek heritage. ‘What a time for you to come out of your drinking shell. Listen, I’ll get the celebrations started with Clarisse down here while the others unpack. You find out who the thief is.’

Nada grimaced. She didn’t like the idea of going around accusing them by herself. ‘I could have the drink instead, if you want.’

Gaia shook her head. ‘Babe, if you start drinking now, you’ll be out by four.’

Nada nodded. It was true: she was a self-confessed lightweight.

‘Let me know who’s responsible as soon as you can, though, because they deserve a slap,’ Gaia said, her eyes simmering with anger.

A shriek of excitement came from outside. Nada and Gaia walked to the front door and were met with a wall of sound.

‘You guys – this is amazing!’

This was Afreya, the natural leader of the group. She tended to talk in exclamations, the kind of person who couldn’t help but be loud: just her laugh was enough to send a whole train carriage tutting. Her gregariousness had a tendency to put Nada on edge – especially if they were in a public place – but there was also something admirable about her display of confidence, how she dared everyone she met to accept her as she was.

‘Pat on the back for Tamsyn!’ she said now, gazing at the view from the gravel courtyard with her hands on her hips.

Afreya’s entrance was enough to liven up the atmosphere immediately. Even her clothing – a dress patterned with her usual mix of bright block colours – seemed to encourage celebration. Her arms tended to be spread out, often curled around someone’s shoulders; one of many ways in which she effortlessly seemed to bring people together. But the reference to Tamsyn was a mistake: it caused a moment of sadness to flit across Clarisse’s face. Afreya didn’t notice, too busy spinning around and taking in her surroundings.

It was funny; Nada would never stop puzzling at the way in which Clarisse could be steely and strong in some situations, and so vulnerable in others. At work, she never baulked at confrontation and was never afraid to be disliked; but the slightest wobble in her relationships with friends or her fiancé could bring her out in tears. The mention of her absent maid of honour tightened her lips into a pale line.

Afreya came forward and wrapped her arms around Clarisse, and before Nada knew it, she too was whisked into some strange three-way embrace. ‘Guys, this is going to be fun,’ roared Afreya, and the closeness of her voice made it all the louder, making Nada wince. Despite herself, Clarisse was giggling again; the situation was saved.

‘What took you so long?’ asked Gaia, her eyebrow arched in suspicion. Gaia and Afreya tended to get on like a house on fire: when Gaia was in the right mood, she could match Afreya’s gregariousness easily. The question seemed blunt; aggressive, even. Perhaps it was because Nada was aware of how angry her friend was, but it seemed to cut across the air of excitement like a knife.

Getting Gaia to keep a lid on her feelings was going to be even harder than Nada had thought.

‘We got lost, didn’t we? I swear there are only about five roads on this whole island, but we still managed it!’ said Afreya with a cackle, oblivious to Gaia’s accusing tone.

‘Plus Afreya wouldn’t leave until we’d bought the whole shop.’ Elena, the last member of the group, was standing a way off, still hanging back by the car.

The two new members of the bridal party could not have made more contrasting entrances. While Afreya had galloped towards them and embraced everyone, Elena had kept her distance in order to fire up a cigarette. She looked at them all, and at the house, with a cool, detached curiosity, a curl of smoke trailing from her fingers, her features masked by unnecessary sunglasses.

‘She got a little carried away,’ she added.

‘Too right I did!’ exclaimed Afreya. She rushed back across the gravel and opened the boot: inside were an impossibly large number of shopping bags, filled with bottles of spirits, boxes of wine, and frozen pizzas. ‘Don’t know about you guys, but I plan on eating and drinking my ass through the weekend.’

Elena and Afreya were both friends from Clarisse’s childhood: they’d all been to an international school in Luxembourg, and still had that strange, floating accent. Afreya’s voice in particular seemed to transform depending on who she was speaking to. It was perfectly British when she spoke to Nada, and yet it seemed to morph into something else whenever she was with Clarisse, Tamsyn or Elena. Born in Ghana, she’d grown up moving from country to country every few years, uprooted whenever her father’s work demanded it. Nada had often wondered about the fact that both she and Afreya had had lonely childhoods without an established group of friends. Yet while for Nada it had resulted in distance and nervousness, for Afreya it had seemed to have the opposite effect: she cherished and embraced those around her, inviting close friendships with most people she met.

‘Don’t forget what’s planned for tonight, though,’ Elena interjected, leaning against the car and taking a long drag from her cigarette. Elena lived in London like the rest of them, but her Frenchness could be identified by her adherence to a few key stereotypes: skinniness, chain-smoking, and her impeccably stylish uniform of black clothes.

‘Why – what is planned for tonight?’ asked Clarisse. She was smiling, enjoying the secrecy. It seemed to make the whole thing feel like a proper hen do.

Gaia and Nada glanced at each other, then studied the others to see their reaction. They were all very close, the international school crew; could they have gone through the bags together? Somehow it seemed a strangely tribal thing to do, drawing a line in the sand between childhood friends and colleagues when they’d all known each other for years.

‘You haven’t told her yet?’ asked Elena, eyeing Gaia and Nada with a raised eyebrow, her features framed with wisps of smoke

‘We wanted to wait until you guys got here and unpacked,’ answered Gaia a little flatly. ‘That way we could surprise her together.’ She was being much too obvious for Nada’s liking, returning Elena’s gaze with barely disguised suspicion.

This was getting awkward.

‘Well, get yourselves settled then, so we can make a start!’ exclaimed Clarisse. She motioned towards her dress and heels. ‘I’m ready; just waiting for you!’

They all began to unpack the food and supplies, apart from Elena, who said that she needed to finish her cigarette. They lined up bottles of red wine on the kitchen counter and loaded up the shelves of the fridge with mixers and a few beers and ciders. Then they stood around the kitchen table for a while, chatting about how great the accommodation was, and asking each other whether anyone had heard from Tamsyn.

Clarisse seemed to be in a much better mood than before. Conversations about how much fun they were going to have and jokes about how much they were going to drink seemed to be safe territory, and she was acting like everything was exactly how she’d hoped.

It’s easier when there are more of us, Nada thought. Easier to make everything feel like a party when they were surrounded by booze and people. Before, Tamsyn’s absence had seemed like a void. Now there was enough laughter and commotion to fill it up, especially with Afreya’s barking laughter in the mix.

She soon grew impatient, however. She wanted the whole ordeal of the bags to be done with, resolved. She waited for the others to go upstairs so she could talk to them, tapping the kitchen counter with her fingers.

Luckily, Gaia was there to speed things up. Once there was a lull in the conversation, she said: ‘All right, girls, why don’t you go and settle in. I’ll make sure there are co*cktails ready for when you get back down!’

There was a chorus of agreement, and they went to collect their bags.

‘Before we go – is there Wi-Fi here?’ asked Elena.

It was no surprise that she was the one to ask first. While she was perpetually grumbling and complaining about her life and career, her social media feeds were constantly updated with photos of perfection and sunny smiles. As a struggling actress, she claimed that a social media presence was necessary to boost her profile, but Nada knew that there was more to it. Out of all of them, Elena depended on the likes and comments to buoy her up, to paper over her disappointments. She never posted about having to work as a waitress, or failing auditions; looking at her feed, one would think that her life consisted of glamorous restaurants, co*cktails and holidays. Nada knew that a house like this was perfect Instagram fodder for her, another brick in a facade of wealth and success

‘We can’t log on to it – maybe you guys can try?’ she suggested.

Everyone pulled their phones out, and the conversation went quiet for a moment, but it was no use. Something was clearly wrong with the internet.

‘There’s a number to call in the folder,’ suggested Gaia. ‘I can’t get any reception, but I’m guessing it’s okay to use the landline. Maybe we could give the owners a ring later, ask them how to reboot it?’

They agreed, and the newly arrived pair filed up the stairs, leaving Gaia, Nada and Clarisse in the kitchen.

‘Right – music!’ Gaia said, clapping her hands together. ‘Let’s get in the mood while we rustle up these drinks.’

Clarisse whooped.

Gaia threw Nada a look. ‘Nada, I brought some little speakers – could you go and get them, please?’

‘Got it,’ said Nada, and reluctantly left the kitchen, her footsteps slow with dread at the idea of confronting Elena and Afreya.

When she reached the landing, she paused. Before her was a stretch of doors and rooms, the various compartments of the house filled with people, with anxieties and secrets. The place was fuller now, but it still somehow swallowed up human presence. They were enveloped by its thick walls, its long, stretching corridors.

It occurred to her that she was leaving Clarisse and Gaia to pretend to each other that everything was fine, like they weren’t both worried about something. How many others here were pretending that everything was okay, when inside they knew something was wrong?

Six

Nada headed towards the sound of the two girls. They were in Gaia’s twin bedroom, still deciding who was going to going to sleep there and who was going to take the smaller room.

Stepping towards the door, Nada could feel her breathing quickening.

She hated confrontation. She always had. In her lessons, students often lashed out, said things that were designed to be hurtful, and she’d never got used to it. No matter how she rationalised it – the students were young, had issues, it was nothing personal – their words still hurt. She sometimes lay awake at night dissecting her lessons, analysing what had gone wrong, and wondering whether other teachers did the same.

Much as she hated it, though, these international school friends had to be told that a boundary had been crossed. That whatever they were...