June 23, 1995
9:30 p.m.
“JULIAN IS AN ARSE,” SOOZ SAID. “A WORLD-CLASS, UNMITIGATED arse.”
Sooz Rillingon took full advantage of her spot in the front seat of the Volvo. She stretched out her six-foot-tall frame, allowing the world at large to behold her abs, which were neatly exposed by a sports bra she pretended was a shirt. There wasn’t much of an audience at present, aside from maybe a few sparrows or wood pigeons in the trees along the road, but if they were interested in human abs, they were in for a treat.
They had gotten a late start from Cambridge, but English summer days stretch on for miles. There was still plenty of golden light spilling down on the country lane in Gloucester even at this late hour. The sky was clear now, but there was a vertical line of gunmetal clouds in the distance. It would rain soon.
This was England. There was always rain in the future.
“A Titanic arse,” Sooz continued, “that sinks all who ride it.”
The remarks were directed at Rosie Mortimer, who was paying no attention. She was looking through the open window of the car, reaching out her fingers to gently brush the hedgerows. Her blond pigtails flapped in the breeze, slapping her face. She didn’t seem to notice or care. Rosie was not the quiet type, so this distracted silence of hers threw off the usual chemistry.
“We know,” Yash said. Yash Varma was about as tall as Sooz, but also had unfailing good manners and had ceded the front seat to her. “Why were you with him for the better part of two years if he’s such an arse, Sooz?”
“Because he also has a world-class arse.”
From the driver’s seat, Sebastian Holt-Carey nodded at this.
“Undeniably true on all counts,” he said. “Our Julian is in all ways arse.”
Sebastian checked the rearview mirror to make sure he hadn’t lost the beat-up Volkswagen Golf that was following them. It had vanished from view for a moment, but soon reappeared. There were five people in this car, the Volvo, and another four in the Golf, weaving their way through the hedgerows. Nine in total. Not just any nine. The Nine. Greater than the sum of their parts. Sebastian, Theodora, Yash, Peter, Sooz, Angela, Julian, Rosie, and Noel.
They require introduction. They were:
Sebastian Holt-Carey: future sixth Viscount Holt-Carey. The lord of the manor. Quick-witted and bighearted, with a taste for glam and goth and boys who liked glam and goth. He slid through Cambridge on a trail of red wine, charm, and a title. Squeaked by with a third in chemistry, and missed out on last place in the exams, which bothered him. You’d think he
was passed out or not paying attention, and then he’d bring the house down with a single comment. Tremendously good at playing intense people and improving scenes. Never at a loss for words.
Rosie Mortimer: A pocket-sized Irish student, barely five feet tall, but with the voice and personality of someone five times that size, and a laugh that made the walls shake. An unstoppable force. A bit dramatic, perhaps, but that’s what’s called for in a drama group. Always willing to take things to the maximum level. Once threw a mug of tea at a policeman.
Sooz Rillington: Big doe-like eyes, legs for miles, and the confidence of ten mediocre men. A brilliant mind for Shakespeare and masterful impressionist. The one who would take off all her clothes on the slightest provocation and run down the road, laughing. Go on. Give her a reason.
Noel Butler: Tall and thin—all angles and nerves and cigarette smoke. He favored vintage 70s clothes—not fancy ones, but proper charity shop ones. Big glasses. Wide-collared shirts. Wide-gauge corduroy jackets. The best straight man a comedy group could have.
Peter Elmore: The natural athlete who had no interest in rowing or chasing a ball. Lanky, with reddish-blond hair that was always an inch longer than he wanted it and heavy-lidded eyes. Technically he was a student of modern political theory; in reality he was a walking database of jokes and gags and the history of comedy. Perhaps the most determined of the group to break into the business. Most likely to burn down the kitchen trying to make toast.
Yash Varma: The other comedy nerd. Obsessed since childhood with all things funny. Sat in front of the TV, transcribing shows by hand to study the patterns and learn how to write. The only person in the group who could possibly take on Peter in terms of comedy knowledge, which was why the two had decided to merge their brains and form a writing pair. The most romantic of the group, with an easily broken heart.
Julian Reynolds: The beautiful one with the soulful eyes and the long lashes. The trouble. Tourists asked him to stand with them in pictures, for no reason aside from the fact that he was a Cambridge student or English or simply there. Irritatingly gifted as a performer. The full package—could act, could sing, could play the guitar. The one who never raised his voice, ever. He never had to—everyone leaned forward to hear what he had to say. His little town up north couldn’t contain him. Most of the Nine would grudgingly admit he was often the only reason people came to their shows.
Angela Gill: The history student from Leeds. The quiet one, until she wasn’t. Cried with homesickness for the first three nights at Cambridge until she met Sooz at a mixer. She wrote her sketches alone, often with a gin and tonic in a mug on her desk and a cigarette dangling from her lips. Detail oriented, conscientious, and the only one who ever used the washing machine properly.
Theodora Bailey: Without question, the academic of the group. A medical student from Notting Hill in London. The one who planned on using her degree. The one who fixed you up after a long night. The director. The one who figured it all out. As a Black woman at Cambridge, the one who had to deal with the looks, the muttered remarks, and the remarks said right to her face about the color of her skin. Usually locked hip to hip with Sebastian.
The Nine. Going off on a final adventure in two cars down a country road late on a June night.
“The trouble with Julian . . . ,” Sooz went on.
“Oh God.” Yash put his hands over his face. “Enough. We’ve talked about Julian nonstop for three years. Let’s call a moratorium this week, all right?”
“How do we not talk about him when he’s right there?”
“He’s not here now, in this car.”
“I just want Rosie to know she did the right thing. You know that, don’t you, Rose? I did the same myself when he did it to me. He’s a cheat. He’s rotten. One of us should have killed him a long time ago.”
Rosie maintained her distracted silence, her brow furrowed in thought.
“We’re close, aren’t we?” Theo said. Theo was the fifth passenger in the car, squeezed between Yash and Rosie. In the middle of everything, as usual. This attempt to redirect the conversation fooled no one, but it had an effect.
“About ten minutes away, darlings,” Sebastian replied.
Sooz accepted that the topic had been adjourned and reached into a bag of cheese and onion crisps. She found that there was nothing but crumbs left and crushed the empty bag into the pocket of her tracksuit bottoms. Or someone’s tracksuit bottoms. Possibly Peter’s, as they were long, and Peter was both tall and one of the few people in the house with any sportswear. In their house at Cambridge, the laundry would get mixed together, and clothes slowly became communal property. If you didn’t take your shirt off the drying rack fast enough, it would be claimed by someone else.
“Here,” Sooz said, reaching into her purse and producing five large black sleeves of photographs. “Forgot to show you these. Pictures from the last two weeks. I picked them up yesterday.”
She passed the photos to the passengers in the back seat.
“Are you still getting free developing from that guy at Boots?” Theo asked.
“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” Sebastian said.
Sooz playfully swatted him, almost causing him to drive the car into a hedge.
“I can’t help it if he likes me. And it saved me almost twenty quid.”
The photos roused Rosie from her reverie. She reached for one of the packs. For a few minutes, conversation ceased as the passengers in the back looked at the photos, Sebastian steered the massive Volvo through the twisting lanes, and Sooz fiddled with the radio. There was music, there was sunset birdsong,
there were probably more crisps somewhere in the car, and all was right in the world. Sebastian turned through an opening in the hedgerow that was barely wide enough to accommodate the car, then made his way down a pitted dirt path through the trees. They had reached a tall iron gate, the only break in an ivy-covered brick wall.
“Who’s going to get out and open it?” Sebastian said.
“I’ll do it,” Yash said, popping open his door.
“The code is 19387. Pull the right gate toward you a bit. It sticks. Hold it for the others. It closes quickly.”
Yash did so, holding the gate so both the Volvo and the Golf could pass. They proceeded onward, down a peaceful drive arched by trees that created a lush hall of greenery, with slender beams of late-day sun poking through. This was England at its finest—the Hundred Acre Wood, the magical forest, the green and pleasant land of yore.
“Have to go slow,” Sebastian said. “Chester is hard of hearing. It would be a bad start to the week if I ran over our beloved gardener while he was standing on the drive.”
“Might make a good sketch,” Yash said. “You run over the gardener but then still keep trying to have a weekend party like nothing happened.”
“That’s not a good sketch,” Theo said.
Yash considered for a moment.
“No,” he said. “It’s not. Well, maybe with some polish on the idea. Remind me to mention it to Peter. We still have one sketch to write for Edinburgh . . .”
“You are not working this week,” Sooz said.
“We have to,” Yash replied. “At least a little. This is the Fringe Festival we’re writing for, Sooz, not the usual knobheads at the pub. Peter thinks that—”
“I don’t care what Peter thinks. No. Working. This. Week. Sebastian, do something.”
“If you think I can stop Peter and Yash on their quest for comedy glory,” Sebastian said to her, “you have more faith in me than I deserve.”
“Theo?”
“I am but one woman,” Theo replied. “I cannot perform miracles.”
They made the final turn of the drive, breaking out of the woods. Suddenly they were surrounded by walls of hydrangeas in hypnotic shades of electric blue and violet. Around them there were pergolas and paths wound with wisteria, and rosebushes with peach-colored blooms that stood on point. The air was full of the smell of lilacs that trapped the raindrops and released their perfume into the air.
Merryweather was before them. A sprawling creation of sand-colored stone, flat-fronted and hip-roofed, with a columned portico. Ivy and flowering vines crept up the house, an organic coat to soften the solidness of the building. A stone terrace wrapped around the house, lined with urns and statuary. A glass orangery jutted from the far side of the building, filled with potted trees. Out the front, a long apron of green rolled down to an ornamental pond with a folly. The rest of the
grounds were quilted in a pattern of walled brick gardens and paths.
“It’s always absurd to me that this is your house,” Sooz said.
“Well, I’m an absurd person,” Sebastian replied. “Half of it is falling down anyway. We use the lesser staff to hold up the roof.”
The journey ended on the gravel drive, next to a garage on the side of the house. Rosie bolted from the car, walking off a few paces. Sooz and Sebastian got out to stretch and have a cigarette, while Theo and Yash set about unpacking the car.
“Rosie’s having a hard time of it,” Sebastian said quietly.
“Yes,” Sooz said, accepting a cigarette that was offered. “Also, did you see the way Yash elbowed Peter out of the way to ride with us?”
“Hard to miss. Do you think this will be the week one of them finally makes a move? It’s now or never. Maybe we need to take action. Lock them in the attic together.”
“I like that,” Sooz said, watching as Yash almost fell over himself trying to lift the heaviest of the bags, even though Theo was more than capable. “Too bad you don’t have a dungeon.”
“The dungeon is for my private use, darling. But perhaps I could make an exception for a good cause.”
“If Yash was busy shagging, he couldn’t be working.”
“Don’t bet on that,” Sebastian said. “Anyway, Peter would carry on. You know our ambitious boy can’t be stopped. He’d sit by the bedroom door with a notebook and write down any awkward sexual remarks Yash made.”
“Oh God. That could actually happen. They would turn it into a sketch.”
“Are you two planning on helping at any point?” Yash called out as he pulled Sooz’s suitcase from the car.
“No,” Sooz and Sebastian said in unison.
“Just checking,” Yash said, nodding.
The Golf pootled up and parked. Four more people extracted themselves from it, far more crushed and rumpled than the passengers of the commodious Volvo. Peter, who had been riding in the passenger seat with a map in case the group got lost, popped out, beating a happy rhythm on the roof of the car. Noel, the driver, unfolded himself from the driver’s seat. He placed another in an endless series of cigarettes between his lips, lit it, and stretched his arms above his head.
“Bloody hell,” he said. He didn’t elaborate. The remark might have been about the drive, the mansion and grounds spread out around them, or life in general.
Angela and Julian had to be released from the back seat, where they had been packed in with suitcases and assorted bags. Angela crawled out from the space, clinging to her bag, her clothes sweaty and wrinkled. Julian emerged from the other side, looking just as warm and sweat-glazed, but he wore sweat well and the warmth only loosed his gait. Nature had gifted him pool-water blue eyes, a tiny gap between his two front teeth that rendered every smile a heartwarming aw-shucks
vibe, and an overall symmetry in every feature that resonated deeply and pleasingly with all who looked upon him. No amount of time crushed into the back of a Volkswagen under a pile of luggage diminished his appearance.
“We made good time,” Julian said. “It didn’t take that long.”
Angela, who had dropped down onto the gravel of the drive and was flapping her shirt to air out her chest, groaned in reply.
“Picture!” Sooz said. “Picture, now! We’ll do it here.”
There were several protests from the group, but Sooz waved them away.
“I want pictures of this whole week. Every moment. This is our arrival picture. Come on. Everyone over here.”
She motioned for her friends to come over to join her at the edge of the gravel drive, by a nondescript outbuilding.
“In front of the woodshed?” Sebastian asked. “Very scenic.”
“I can put the camera on the car if we do it here. Quick, before we lose all the light!”
While the others got into position, Sooz set the camera on the roof of the car and hit the timer button. She ran to get into frame. Once the photo was taken, they lugged their bags through the gate into the kitchen garden, down the outside passage that was built so that the servants could lug wood and coal and supplies without disturbing the tranquility of the back garden. Great estates are like Disney World—designed to look effortless, with the labor going on behind a bit of decoration. When they reached the back door, Sebastian unlocked it, admitting them to a capacious mudroom filled with wellies and rain slickers.
“Rooms, then game!” Sebastian shouted.
Yash dropped his bags first and took off running. The race for rooms was on. Angela, Peter, Julian, Sooz, and Theo ripped through the kitchen and the maze of small back rooms. Some took the back stairs, while others headed for the main hall. From there, they scrambled up the grand staircase, ignoring the looks from the Holt-Careys of the past, who stared at them from paintings on the wall. Merryweather had sixteen bedrooms—but some had four-posters, and others their own bathrooms. They were all good in their own way, but everything was a game and a competition, so they slid down the hallways, slipping on the highly polished wood, pressing each other good-naturedly out of the way to claim rooms they might not even have wanted.
Sebastian did not run; it was his house, and his room was fixed. After setting down his things in the mudroom and stretching for a moment, he went to the kitchen, removed the bottle of champagne that was always chilling in the refrigerator, and popped it open. He poured the contents into a pint glass and gazed out the window over the sink. This one had a view into the kitchen garden, which was lush with shaggy clusters of mint, blue-flowering borage, and strawberry plants, heavy with bright red fruit. There was something else in the garden, along with the bountiful plants and the cold frames.
Over by the wall, Rosie and Noel were conferring. They had not yet come inside, and were pressed close together, tall Noel leaning down to bend his ear to Rosie’s lips. He was leaning low enough that he kept having to slide his massive glasses back up on his nose. Whatever they were talking about, it was intensely private, and Rosie occasionally turned to look up at the windows above.
This was an interesting development, Sebastian thought. Something to be watched.
Upstairs, Sebastian heard something large fall over. There was no cacophony of falling objects, so not a cabinet. A side table, then, possibly the little mahogany one with the marble inlay. It was sturdy. It would survive.
Besides, he thought, sipping his pint of champagne contently, things were bound to be broken this weekend. There was no getting around it.
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