The Other Side of the Door, Nicci French [new reading .TXT] 📗

saw a face I thought I recognized and then realized it belonged to Hayden’s quarrelsome friend Nat; he was clearly very drunk and walked with a shuffling, crablike gait through the gradually emptying room. Then I saw Amos and Sonia come in from the garden and I raised a hand to catch their attention. Sonia looked up and grimaced. I beckoned to her but she hesitated, then shook her head, taking Amos’s hand and leading him towards the front door. I could guess what she was feeling. In a way it was fun to meet people who knew friends of mine but it felt claustrophobic as well. Lucky Liza, I suddenly thought, travelling far away where she knew nobody. Except that, with my luck, if I climbed Everest I’d probably find a previous girlfriend of Hayden’s at the top.

There was another reason to avoid us. I could see from the way Amos was holding himself that he was really quite drunk. I remembered all the stages of Amos’s drunkenness: he would be argumentative, just a ratchet or two up from his usual confrontational self; then he would be emotional and confessional, and maybe he would tell Sonia they should get married and have children, lots of children with her hair and his eyes; then depressed; then asleep in his clothes.

Miriam now had her head on Hayden’s lap and his hand was resting on her hair, as if she was a small child. Her eyes were closed. He smiled at me and shrugged helplessly, mouthing a word I couldn’t make out. I didn’t smile back and gradually his smile faded and we stared at each other. Beside me, Neal gave a quiet snore; I felt his head settle on my shoulder. I went on sitting on the stairs with Hayden, sleeping people all around us, and waited.

After

At twenty past seven on Monday morning, a phone call woke me. It was Danielle. She sounded breathless, as if she’d just come in from a run. It must have been obvious she had woken me. ‘If it’s about the band,’ I said, ‘you don’t need to worry. It’s in hand.’

‘Well, it is about the band, in a way.’

‘You don’t want us to play after all? That would be fine.’ More than fine, wonderful.

‘No no no. I’m longing for you to play. Especially now.’ She sounded excited. ‘Though you might not want to.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Hayden Booth,’ she said. ‘He was playing with you, wasn’t he?’

‘Oh, you heard? Don’t worry. We’ll be fine without him.’

‘That’s a bit hard-hearted, Bonnie.’

I sat up in bed and shifted the receiver to the other ear.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Haven’t you heard?’

I heard my voice asking, ‘Heard what?’ I heard Danielle telling me that a man’s body, found in Langley reservoir last night, had been identified as that of Hayden Booth. She’d heard it on the radio just a few minutes ago.

What would someone say if they knew nothing?

‘Oh. God.’

‘Isn’t it awful?’

‘Awful. Yes. It is. Awful. God.’ I was thinking: Ring Sonia. What about Neal—did Joakim know yet? Guy? Or Sally. Did poor Sally know?

‘I know. I mean, I’d never actually met him, but it’s so shocking. Wasn’t he one of your best players?’

‘He was in a different league.’

‘So will you still be able . . . you know?’

‘I’ll let you know. But we’ll be fine.’

‘It’s only a matter of days away.’

‘We’ll be there,’ I said, raising my voice a little.

‘I’m just the messenger, Bonnie.’

Before

He lay in the water on his back with his arms spread out. My day out, my little snippet of a summer holiday. His body moved lazily as small waves rolled under him, gathering to breakers as they reached the shore. I swam towards him. His eyes were shut against the sun but he reached out an arm and pulled me towards him so that we both went under, gasping. I felt his limbs tangling with mine, put out my hands and touched his long wet hair, his cool neck, came up to see his laughing face—a laughing face that turned grave as he pulled me against him and we were hugging, holding each other and trying to tread water, and there was salt stinging our skin and the chilly slap of waves against our flesh and light bouncing off the sea in dazzling arrows. Lips against my shoulder, my eyelids, my mouth, sinking and then rising again and finally making it to shore, where there was no one to be seen or to see, and we lay on the gritty sand, seagulls shrieking and the shush of the waves, fragments of shells digging into us. Then we ran into the water again and washed each other down. He dried me with his shirt and rubbed the sand from between my toes.

Afterwards, Hayden insisted on buying a dozen oysters from the shack along the coast. We sat outside at a scrubbed wooden table and squeezed lemon juice onto the quivering slimes. He ate eleven and I ate one. They were too alive, too slimy, too salty for my taste.

Hayden seemed happy that day, sweet and sunny. I guess he was on holiday too.

After

I tried to ring Sonia but it was hopeless. I could imagine that everybody was ringing everybody else in that gleeful excitement people feel when something really terrible happens—that great pleasure in life: being the bearer of bad news. Have you heard? Have you heard? I texted her: Ring me. I switched on my answering-machine and sat numbly listening as message after message was left. Twice, it was Joakim, in the first sounding dazed and in the second shouting with grief. Then I heard the beep, a hesitation, and Sonia’s voice. I ran forward and snatched up the phone.

‘Sonia, it’s me, I’m here.’

‘I got your text.’

‘Yes? Well?’

‘I’ve heard.’

I’d known that I needed to talk to her but I hadn’t really thought about what I had to say.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘This wasn’t part of the plan.’ There was silence on the line. ‘Are