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  I felt slightly dazed by this level of oversharing, completely at a loss as to how to respond. If that had been me (which was unlikely, since my parents were always commenting on how pricey tickets to the local am-dram performances were), I think I’d probably have been too shocked and embarrassed to ever tell anyone. But Ally said it so coolly, in her no-nonsense, matter-of-fact way. I was quietly in awe of her.

  ‘James would probably fuck you, you know. If I asked him to. Do you want me to mention it?’

  I gasped. ‘What?’

  Ally laughed again, and this time I felt a prickle of annoyance. Was she playing with me? Trying to make me feel uncomfortable?

  ‘Oh, come on, Holly. You’ve got to lose the big V at some point. It might as well be to a man you clearly have the major hots for. So many girls fancy James. Many would kill – literally kill – for the chance. I swear some have got close to murder in the past. He’s left a trail of broken hearts in his wake. And broken hearts can be a dangerous thing. I’m sure you’ve read enough tragic love stories to know that.’

  I was feeling very awkward now. ‘I think … I think I should go back to my room now.’ I made no immediate move to go, but Ally looked alarmed.

  ‘Oh goodness, I’ve upset you.’

  ‘You haven’t. I’m just not used to talking about this stuff.’

  Ally surveyed me, as if thinking deeply about something. ‘Yes, I can see that.’

  We sat in silence for a few seconds, her looking at me while twisting one of her locks of blonde hair around an index finger.

  ‘Bedtime,’ I said, and gave Ally a smile in case she thought I was offended. ‘I know it’s early but …’

  ‘It’s time.’ She nodded, returned the smile, and sat up on her bed. She gave me a hug at the door. There was something strange about the hug that I couldn’t quite work out. A mixture of comfort and acceptance. I felt I had passed a test in some way. Proved I was interesting enough to warrant her attention, perhaps? Or maybe the opposite. That I was innocuous and plain and wouldn’t change their equilibrium too much, so hey, they might as well have this boring poor girl as a friend. Or maybe I was just overthinking it. I said goodnight to Ally and went next door to my room.

  Chapter 7

  Julianne

  Knightsbridge, 2019

  Dinner isn’t going well. If I were being honest with myself, I would admit I’d made a pasta bake partly to piss my mother off a little, as I knew she’d regard it as unsophisticated. But as I carved a chunk of the slightly overcooked congealed mass out of the bowl and a flap of solid cheese flopped onto her plate, I wished I’d gone with oysters.

  ‘My, you’ve certainly been busy,’ Diane says, moving a few tough bits of pasta to the side with her fork. ‘Every room looks as festive as could be. Must have taken you a lot of time and energy.’

  ‘A bit,’ I say, then turn round as I hear a noise behind me.

  ‘Ah, it’s my favourite grandson.’ She stands up to embrace Stephen as he walks into the room.

  ‘We started because we didn’t know if you were coming,’ James says in a voice that makes it clear he doesn’t approve.

  ‘I explained you were busy finishing up some work,’ I cut in quickly.

  ‘I’m sorry, yes, French coursework.’

  ‘They work you too hard,’ Mom says, pinching Stephen’s cheek. ‘Both the teachers and your parents.’ As she sits back down and Stephen goes to take the chair next to his father, a ripple of sadness runs through me. She never thought I was being worked too hard when I was up until one in the morning writing essay after essay, doing more than all my friends, desperately trying to get into one of the world’s most prestigious universities in a country I didn’t know. She didn’t tell me to have a break or suggest I should take Christmas off. No matter what I did, it was never enough. If I so much as watched a single episode of a soap opera or read a magazine, I was made to feel like I was shirking. Little comments would be made at the dinner table, suggesting television ‘was all I cared about these days’ or that she should donate some of my schoolbooks to Goodwill ‘because I hardly ever opened them any more’. I’d sit there with the tears close behind my eyes, trying to ignore her. Some things never change.

  ‘Stephen needs to work hard,’ James says. ‘He’s aiming for the best. Of course, if he’d gone to Eton like we originally planned, things might be more certain.’

  When I married him, I’d been quietly confident we wouldn’t turn into one of those couples who make digs at each other across the dinner table – bring up old disagreements to wound the other. My parents did that throughout my childhood. And now, here’s James, making a little jibe about my problem with Eton. It’s deliberate. And it hurts.

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t agree more,’ Diane says. ‘There’s a reason it’s world-famous. But it’s amazing what he’s done to pull himself above the rest at that new-fangled place he’s at.’

  I almost choke on my food. ‘Westminster is older than Eton, Mom. As if that matters. Especially to you.’

  She looks affronted. ‘Of course my grandson’s education matters to me. And I did think the decision was made a little rashly. After all, James does know about these things.’

  ‘Well, it was all years ago now,’ James says. ‘And nobody doubts Westminster is a great school.’ He gives me one of his warm smiles, probably worried he’s upset me. I automatically send one back his way without thinking. Usually he’s pretty good at presenting a united front when my mother’s here. I just wish he was doing better today.

  ‘You do realise you’re all talking about me like I’m not here.’ Stephen’s looking sullenly into his food.

  James lets out a laugh. ‘I’m sorry, you’re right. You must excuse us. It must be tiresome to have your old folks wittering on about you.’

  ‘Less of the old!’ I say, trying to sound more cheerful than I feel. James gives me a chuckle in response but Stephen and his grandmother remain stonily silent. I even see Diane raise one of her perfectly plucked eyebrows a little, as if to say, Well, you’re not exactly young. She then turns to talk to Stephen and asks, ‘What are you planning to do with your Christmas holiday?’

  He looks disconcerted by the question, as if it’s a trap he might fall into. Taking a fleeting look at his father, he proceeds to give a mumbled list of his homework assignments, social arrangements with his school friends, and how he plans to stay at his boyfriend’s house in the gap between Boxing Day and New Year.

  ‘How is William?’ James asks. ‘We haven’t seen him for weeks. Busy revising, is he? He’s determined to get into Oxford, Diane. Such a hard worker.’

  ‘Just like Stephen is,’ I say, coming to his defence before his father’s digs become too blatant.

  ‘Well, I imagine Stephen’s a dead cert for Oxford, too. First my daughter, then my grandson, both off to the best university in the world. I’m so proud just at the thought of it.’

  That niggle in my head is back again. The sense of resentment that only now, decades later, can my mother suggest she is ‘proud’ I got in to Oxford. On the day I found out I’d won a place, she’d acted like it was merely another big task she could tick off her to-do list. Daughter into Oxford: check.

  ‘I think,’ I say, choosing my words carefully, ‘that Stephen is keen to go to the college that suits his skills the best and offers the course he most likes. He won’t be going anywhere just because Will is.’

  My mother looks so horrified it’s almost comical. ‘Julianne, are you telling me you’re actively trying to dissuade the boy from attending the greatest—’

  ‘Oh, spare me the greatest university in the world talk, Mom. There are plenty of other great universities.’

  I can see James moving food around his plate with sharp stabs of his fork. I’ve pissed him off now.

  Stephen looks around at us. ‘You’re all doing it again. I’m still here you know.’

  Nobody laughs this time. My mom is looking around her as if trying to suss out where in th
e argument she could fit in. ‘I’m sensing some tension,’ she says eventually.

  ‘How observant of you,’ I reply, not looking at her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Diane,’ James says. ‘We can’t be much fun tonight. Julianne is clearly stressed with Christmas and everything …’

  ‘Am I?’ I say, looking at him. ‘You’ve decided that, have you?’

  ‘… and Stephen,’ he says, ignoring me. ‘I think he must be getting worried about his mountains of coursework.’

  Stephen shakes his head. ‘I’m not that worried.’

  ‘Then why, may I ask, have you been sitting at this table like a grumpy teenager all evening?’

  James is doing his strict-parent voice now. I’ve never understood why Stephen takes it so seriously and rarely answers back when his father gets angry. To me, it sounds like someone in a play, just pretending, speaking the lines they think they should say without being totally sure how they should be saying them. He’s never been the loud, forthright one – that’s partly the reason I fell for him, back when I was just nineteen. He was more the quiet, brooding type, exerting a quiet confidence rather than a forceful one. The more show-offy bursts of emotion he’d left to his friends, Ally and Ernest.

  Stephen doesn’t immediately respond to his father, but carries on staring at his food. I’m growing steadily more worried about him. While I’m desperate to talk to James about what I’ve just seen on his computer, I would very much prefer Stephen not to be present and, if possible, minimise his part in the whole thing. The thought of my mother being within hearing distance is mortifying.

  ‘I’ve … I’ve just got a lot to think about,’ Stephen says, and then carries on eating his food.

  Silence resumes for the rest of the meal.

  After dinner, my mother is keen to gravitate towards the lounge pretty quickly, and it becomes clear, as she locates the Christmas bumper issue of the Radio Times, that there’s a showing of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel she’s keen to see. She often stays to watch something with us on TV after dinner, but it’s rarely longer than an hour and a full-length feature film is certainly not the norm. ‘It’s rather long,’ I say, looking at the listing in the magazine, noticing that, with commercials, it will run for two and a half hours.

  ‘Oh, it’s a glorious film,’ James says, settling down in his usual spot on the one-seater. Back when we first bought the house, he and I used to snuggle together on the sofa, sometimes with toddler Stephen between us. As the years had gone by, however, it’d become just Stephen and I sitting together at each end of the long sofa, and James on his own at the other side of the room. Thinking about it now, I wonder when that happened. When did he first make the move to sit alone? I can’t place the moment in my head. The change just seems to have slipped into my life without my noticing it.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to see it for ages, ever since Susana at the swimming club told me how much she and her husband love it. It’s become one of their favourites, apparently. I was worried I was going to miss it when you invited me round to dinner; then I thought it might be nice for us to watch it together.’

  A flash of panic courses through me. I’m not sure I have the energy to watch something right now. I need to clear my head. Get things sorted. Talk to my husband. As I turn towards the television screen, my mind flicks back once again to that clinically cold list of details about those young women, their haunting faces, their lack of family or friends or proper employment. I know people live like that. I know not everyone is as lucky as I am. But who would want to collect all that information and pool it into one horrible document?

  ‘You don’t mind, do you, Julianne? I’d hate to miss it.’

  My mother’s voice snaps me back to the present. She’s brandishing the TV remote at me. I’m tempted to remind her of the state-of-the-art Sky Q facilities she has at home and how, if she was so desperate to see this particular film, she could have easily recorded it. Instead, I resign myself to another few hours of her company and try to get myself in the frame of mind to watch Judi Dench and Bill Nighy smile and joke their way across India, knowing it’s the last thing I want to do.

  Chapter 8

  Holly

  Oxford, 1990

  My dad once told me that friends come and go and you never really know which ones mean the most until they abandon you. Strong words for a father to tell his seven-year-old child, but that was my father for you: inappropriate and unaware. My mother overheard him and came to tell me that Daddy had actually had a bit of a mix-up and forgotten to mention that most people grow up to have a great group of friends they can have a fun time with. Dad stood back as Mum set about correcting his statement, looking slightly puzzled. When my mum walked back into the kitchen – we had been standing in the corridor, me swinging precariously from one of the lower banisters – he had sighed deeply and then just said, ‘Maybe I was wrong. I’m sure you’ll work all this out for yourself, little Holly.’

  Although I probably wouldn’t say this conversation caused me to be a loner throughout the rest of my childhood and most of my teenage years, it was probably a contributing factor. I always found I could never quite trust someone enough, whether it was Stephanie and George in art class, who liked to chat endlessly about popstars and trashy movies, or Greg, the first boy I thought that, in another world, I could have dated. None of them managed to install a framework of trust within me. There was no pattern of reliability; not because they continually let me down – more because I never gave them much of a chance not to.

  When Ally suggested she thought I should spend more time with her, Ernest, James and Peter, I saw this as proof my mother had been right, but also, at the same time, a challenge to the gods of fate to see if my father would be right as well. I did test them privately on this, when I used the communal telephone in the hallway. Mum got one version of the story: I had met a lovely group of people, very posh but not bad posh, and I was having a good time discussing my interests with them, most of which they shared, and we had nice outings and food together (‘The Wimpy! I know, so strange, but really fun’) and I thought there might be something of a romance blossoming between one of the boys, James, and me. That last bit was pure exaggeration. My feelings for James had grown more intense by the day, to the point where I had started to pull out a couple of strands of my hair to take away my nerves each time I went somewhere I knew he would be. Not enough for there to be bald spots on my head. Just one or two. I found it helped. But I didn’t tell Mum that part.

  Dad, on the other hand, received a different version of Holly’s Time at Oxford University. He was told that I’d sort of befriended a group of posh people I didn’t think he would like. I didn’t like them much either, but I was focusing mostly on my studies and they were good for me to sound ideas off. No, I wouldn’t be bringing any of them home over the Christmas holidays, he didn’t have to worry about that. Boyfriend? No, there wasn’t anything much like that on the horizon. Maybe a boy I liked, but it wasn’t anything worth mentioning.

  Some people might have found the way I approached occasional phone calls home to my parents odd, but it worked for me. Each conversation was crafted so it lasted long enough to make the call worth the money but not so long as to bore any of the parties involved. The details that would most impress Mum were emphasised and the parts that would least appeal to Dad were played down or excised completely. All in all, I did a pretty good job of giving each of them what they wanted.

  So when I found myself going on my third outing as part of ‘The Ally Club’, as I continued to call it in my head, I found I was judging conversations and how people reacted to me through the dual perspective of my parents. Or, rather, through my own filtering mechanism, deciding how I would relay the event to each of them if I were to call them when I returned home (which I wouldn’t be doing, since I had phoned them only four days previously).

  We were going to Blackwells, in Broad Street. I knew it was a famous bookshop – I had been there with my parents when w
e’d looked round the university and read the little plaque on the wall saying it had been opened in 1879 – but I still nodded and seemed interested when Ernest told me this. He was frequently doing this; treating me as if I needed the world explaining to me (and not even just the posh aspects of the world; sometimes things as mundane, though curiously unmanly, as how best to get stains off clothes). I usually just smiled and nodded and said the right things. I’d always been good at doing that. And that’s why I quite enjoyed occasionally doing the complete opposite and challenging what people said. A lot of pleasure could be derived from being the mouse that roared.

  Ally and I had arranged to get a milkshake from a small café before meeting the boys at the bookshop. The purpose of the visit was to stock up on reading material for the Christmas holidays. Over their school breaks, Ernest and James had always held a competition: which of the two could read the most pieces of literature. They had devised a points-based scoring system, too. Five points per book under six hundred pages. Ten points per book over six hundred. Two points would be deducted if the book had been written after the turn of the century, with the exception of those that had won either the Booker or the Pulitzer, or were by authors who had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Five points would also be deducted from the total amount if the participant failed to include a ‘reasonable spread’ of genres, periods of writing and nationalities. Ally gave me a thorough explanation of all this on our way to buy the milkshakes and while we drank them. ‘Apparently the teachers at Eton egged them on, rather. Kept recommending books they should add to their lists. They like competition, Etonians. They’d turn everything into a game if they could. God, they even turn masturbating into a competitive sport.’