Nine Perfect Strangers

  She said, ‘Would anyone like a green tea?’

  ‘Thank you, Delilah, that’s very thoughtful,’ said Masha gratefully, and she touched Delilah on the arm and smiled that soul-warming smile.

  Even before, when Masha didn’t look anything like a goddess, when she was just a frumpy high-level executive who was really good at her job, she had charisma. You wanted to please her. Delilah had worked harder for Masha than she’d ever worked for anyone, but now it was time to close this chapter in her life.

  Clearly the police were going to be involved. Delilah had been the one to access the drugs on the dark web, a process she had enjoyed and a new skill to add to her CV along with PowerPoint. She thought her actions probably wouldn’t be enough for her to go to jail, but they might be, and she felt like she wouldn’t enjoy jail.

  Part of her had known all along it was going to come to this. There was a kind of inevitability to it, from the moment Masha had first handed her the book about psychedelic therapy and said, ‘This is going to revolutionise the way we do business.’ Delilah remembered thinking, This won’t end well. But she’d been feeling bored for a while. Experimenting with drugs was interesting and she’d kind of wanted to see the train wreck.

  They micro-dosed guests’ smoothies for over a year without ill-effects. People had no idea. They believed it was the organic food and meditation that caused them to feel so great. They rebooked because they wanted to feel that great again.

  Then Masha decided she wanted to do more than micro-dosing. She wanted to do something ‘revolutionary’. She wanted to ‘push the envelope’. She said they would be changing the course of history. Yao had argued. He didn’t want to change the course of history. He just wanted to ‘help people’. Masha said this would be helping people in a way that would truly change their lives forever.

  The clincher had been when he’d tried the psychedelic therapy himself with Masha as his guide. Delilah hadn’t been there – it was her weekend off – but when she saw Yao next he had an even crazier, more obsessive blaze in his eyes than before, and he was quoting from the research as if it was the research that had changed his mind, when it was just the power of hallucinogenic drugs and the power of Masha.

  Obviously Delilah tried the psychedelic therapy too. Her experience had been awesome, but she wasn’t stupid enough to think any of those feelings or so-called ‘revelations’ were real. They were just drugs. She’d done magic mushrooms before. It was like mistaking lust for love, or thinking that the sentimental feelings you got when you heard a certain song were genuine. Get real. Those feelings were manufactured.

  When Yao had gone on and on about what he’d supposedly learned from his psychedelic therapy she kind of wanted to slap him. It was just another example of how that sweet, stupid boy was addicted to Masha. He was a lost cause. Nothing was ever going to change there.

  Delilah didn’t go to the kitchen to make green tea. She went straight to her room and collected her ID. Everything else about this particular life – the white uniforms, the sandalwood scent, her yoga mat – she left behind.

  Ever since she’d joined the workforce, she’d known this about herself: she was, at heart, a PA. The smoother of the way. Like a butler or a lady-in-waiting. Someone seen and not heard. She wasn’t the captain of this ship and she sure as hell wasn’t going down with it.

  Within five minutes she was behind the wheel of Ben’s Lamborghini, driving towards the nearby regional airport, where she would take the next available flight, wherever it was going.

  The car drove like a dream.

  chapter fifty-two

  Jessica

  ‘How far along are you?’ asked Heather from her position in the corner of the room. She sat up and rubbed her knuckles so hard into the sockets of her eyes that Jessica winced. You needed to be careful with the delicate skin around your eyes.

  ‘Um, let’s see. Two days,’ answered Jessica. She put a hand to her stomach.

  ‘Two days?’ said Carmel. ‘Do you mean your period is two days late?’

  ‘No, I’m not late yet,’ said Jessica.

  ‘So you haven’t done a test?’

  ‘No,’ said Jessica. Jeez. What was with the Spanish Inquisition? ‘How could I?’

  This was so weird, all of them standing around in this small room like they were at an office party, but they were talking about her periods.

  ‘So you might not be pregnant?’ asked Ben. Jessica couldn’t tell if his shoulders dropped with relief or disappointment.

  ‘I am,’ said Jessica.

  ‘What makes you think so?’ asked Carmel.

  ‘I just know,’ said Jessica. ‘I could tell. As soon as it happened.’

  ‘You mean you knew at the moment of conception?’ said Carmel. Jessica saw her exchange a look with Heather, as if to say: Can you believe this shit? Older women could be so condescending.

  ‘Well, you know, some mothers do say they could tell they were pregnant at the moment of conception,’ said Heather kindly. ‘Maybe she is.’

  ‘I bet a lot of women think they “know” and then it turns out they’re wrong,’ said Carmel.

  ‘What’s the big deal?’ said Jessica. Why did this strange fuzzy-haired woman sound so angry with her? ‘I mean, I know, we weren’t meant to be touching during the silence.’ She glanced up at the silent dark eye of the camera watching them. ‘We weren’t meant to be taking drugs either.’

  The sex had happened in the dark on their second night at the retreat. Not a word spoken. It was all blind, silent touch, and it had been raw and real, and afterwards she lay awake and felt a wave of peace wash over her, because if their marriage was over, so be it, but now there was going to be a baby, and even if they didn’t love each other anymore, the baby was created from a moment of love.

  ‘But wait, she’s on the pill,’ said Ben to Heather and Carmel, as if Jessica weren’t even there. ‘Can that happen?’

  ‘Only abstinence is one hundred per cent effective, but if she’s . . .’ Heather looked at Jessica. ‘If you’ve been taking the pill every day, at the same time, it’s probably unlikely that you’re pregnant.’

  Jessica sighed. ‘I went off the pill two months ago.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Heather.

  ‘Without telling me,’ said Ben. ‘You went off the pill without telling me.’

  ‘Uh-oh,’ said Lars quietly.

  ‘You didn’t mention this last night,’ said Ben. ‘When we were “speaking from our hearts”.’

  He sarcastically quoted Masha, his face stone-hard, and Jessica thought about last night, and how their words had flowed like water. But she hadn’t told him last night about going off the pill. She’d still kept secrets even when she was high. Because she’d known it was a betrayal.

  She should have said it last night, when his face was all soft and she felt like they were two halves of one person. She’d felt like that was a beautiful truth the drugs had helped her discover, but it had been a beautiful lie.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jessica. She lifted her chin and remembered the kissing and how, as they’d kissed, a single thought had blinked on and off like a neon sign in her head: We’re okay. We’re okay. We’re okay.

  But they weren’t okay. Nothing she’d thought last night had been real. It was all just drugs. Drugs lied. Drugs fucked you up. She and Ben knew that better than anyone. Sometimes Ben’s mother sat and cried over the pictures of Lucy before she fell for the lies of drugs. Now that was a ‘transformation’.

  ‘Don’t waste your money on this stupid retreat,’ Jessica’s own mother had said before they came here. ‘Give all that money to charity and go back to work. Then your marriage will be just fine. You’ll have something to talk about at the end of the day.’

  Her mother seriously thought Jessica could go back and work in that shitkicker job when she now earned more in bank interest in just on
e month than she used to earn in a whole year. Jessica couldn’t make her mother understand that once you had that much money you were changed forever. You were worth more. You were better than that. You couldn’t go back, because you could never see yourself that way again. Rationally, she knew it was just dumb luck that had got her rich, but deep, deep down an insistent voice in her head told her: I deserve this, I was meant for this, I AM this person, I was always this person.

  ‘Oh dear. Take it from someone who knows: getting pregnant is not the best way to try to save a marriage,’ said Carmel.

  ‘Well, thanks, but I wasn’t trying to save my marriage,’ said Jessica.

  ‘What were you trying to do, Jess?’ asked Ben quietly, and for a moment it was like last night, just the two of them together in their little boat floating down a river of ecstasy.

  ‘I wanted a baby,’ said Jessica.

  She was going to document her journey on Instagram. Sideways shots of her ‘baby bump’. A stylish gender reveal party. Blue or pink balloons would fly out of a box. Hopefully pink. People would put heart emojis in the comments.

  ‘I was scared you’d say no,’ she told Ben. ‘I thought if we were going to break up I’d better hurry up and get pregnant.’

  ‘Why would I say no? We always said we’d have children,’ said Ben.

  ‘Yes, I know, but that was before we started to have . . . issues,’ said Jessica. She couldn’t have borne to hear him say, ‘Are you kidding? Us?’

  ‘So this baby isn’t anything to do with me,’ said Ben. ‘You assumed we were breaking up and wanted to have a baby on your own?’

  ‘Of course it’s to do with you,’ said Jessica. ‘I only wanted your baby.’

  She could see him soften, but then, idiotically, without thinking, she said, ‘You’re the father. You can see it whenever you want.’

  ‘I can see it whenever I want!’ exploded Ben. You would think she’d said the worst thing in the world. ‘Gee. Thanks.’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean – I just meant, God.’

  Their words no longer flowed like water. Now their conversations stopped and started in hard little jabs.

  ‘It’s probably premature to be sorting out access visits,’ said Lars.

  ‘I doubt she’s even pregnant,’ said Carmel.

  ‘I am pregnant,’ insisted Jessica. ‘I just hope these drugs haven’t hurt the baby.’

  ‘You won’t be the first or the last to have got drunk or high in the very early days of pregnancy,’ said Heather. ‘I’m a midwife, and the things some mothers have admitted to me, especially when the partners have left the room! If you are pregnant, there’s a good chance your baby will be fine.’

  ‘So much for being the anti-drug crusader, Mum,’ said Zoe.

  ‘Well, there’s nothing to be done now,’ said Heather under her breath, although Jessica could hear her perfectly well.

  ‘I’ve been taking folate tablets,’ Jessica told her.

  ‘That’s great,’ said Heather.

  ‘Yep, so great: folate, a little LSD and some ecstasy,’ said Ben bitterly. ‘The perfect start to life.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, she’s probably not even pregnant,’ said Carmel in a low voice.

  ‘What is your fucking problem?’ Jessica’s voice rose to an embarrassingly high pitch. She knew she shouldn’t be swearing and showing her emotions like this, but she felt suddenly very upset.

  ‘Hey now,’ said Napoleon soothingly.

  Frances, the romance author, plonked herself down and went bright red in the face, as if she’d never heard the f-word in her life.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Carmel. She lowered her head. ‘It’s probably just envy.’

  ‘Envy? You’re, like, jealous of me?’ said Jessica. Wasn’t this woman too old to feel jealous? ‘Why?’

  ‘Well . . .’ Carmel laughed a little.

  The money, thought Jessica. She’s jealous of the money. It had taken her a while to realise that people of any age, people she considered grown-ups, of her parents’ generation, who you would think wouldn’t care that much about money because their lives were virtually done, could still be jealous and weird about it.

  ‘Well, you’re thin and beautiful,’ said Carmel. ‘I know it’s embarrassing to admit this at my age – I’ve got four beautiful daughters, I should be way beyond this – but my husband left me for a . . .’

  ‘Bimbo?’ suggested Lars.

  ‘Sadly not. She’s got a PhD,’ said Carmel.

  ‘Oh, honey, you can still be a bimbo with a PhD,’ said Lars. ‘Who represented you? I assume you’re still in the family home?’

  ‘It’s fine. Thank you. I’m not complaining about the settlement.’ She stopped and looked at Jessica. ‘You know what? I’m probably jealous of you being pregnant.’

  ‘Haven’t you got four children?’ said Lars. ‘That seems like more than enough.’

  ‘I don’t want any more children,’ said Carmel. ‘I just want to go back in time to when everything was beginning. Pregnancies are the ultimate beginnings.’ She put a hand to her stomach. ‘I always felt beautiful when I was pregnant, although I must admit my hair looked preposterous. I’ve got all this thick black Romanian hair, so when I was pregnant, it went wild.’

  ‘Wait, why did it go wild?’ asked Jessica. She was not prepared for her hair to go wild, thank you very much. Surely there was a shampoo and conditioner to fix that.

  ‘Your hair stops falling out when you’re pregnant,’ said Heather. ‘So it gets thicker.’ She touched her own hair. ‘I loved my hair when I was pregnant.’

  ‘I’m sure you are pregnant, Jessica,’ said Carmel. ‘And I’m sorry.’ She paused. ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jessica. Maybe she wasn’t pregnant. Maybe she’d just made a fool of herself in front of these people. She looked at Ben. He was studying his bare feet as if they had the answer. He had huge feet. Would their baby have huge feet too? Could they really be parents together? They weren’t too young. They could afford a baby. They could afford a dozen babies. Why did it seem unimaginable?

  Tony had gone to the bathroom and come back with a damp towel that he wordlessly handed to Frances. She pressed it to her forehead. She was sweating.

  ‘Are you not well, Frances?’ asked Carmel.

  Everyone looked at Frances.

  ‘No,’ said Frances. She waved a languid hand in front of her face. ‘Just . . . you know how you talked about how much you liked beginnings? I’ve got my own personal ending going on here.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Heather, as if that made perfect sense to her. ‘Don’t think of it as an ending. Think of it as a beginning.’

  Carmel said, ‘When I was a teenager, my mother used to wear this badge that said, “They’re not hot flushes, they’re power surges.” I was absolutely mortified by it.’

  The three of them laughed that self-satisfied, middle-aged-woman laugh that made you want to stay young forever.

  chapter fifty-three

  Frances

  ‘You alright?’

  Tony sat on the floor next to Frances, in that uncomfortable way men sat on the ground at picnics, as if they were looking for somewhere to stow their legs.

  ‘I’m okay,’ said Frances. She pressed the damp towel to her forehead as the wave of heat continued to engulf her. She felt strangely sanguine, even though she was locked in a room with strangers and having a hot flush. ‘Thanks for the towel.’

  She studied him. His face was pale and there were beads of sweat across his forehead too. ‘Are you okay?’

  He patted his forehead. ‘Just a bit claustrophobic.’

  ‘You mean like properly claustrophobic? Not just I really want to get out of here claustrophobic?’ Frances let the towel drop to her lap.

  Tony tried to bend his knees up towards his chest, gave up, and stre
tched them out again. ‘I’m mildly claustrophobic. It’s not that big a deal. I didn’t like being down here even before we were locked in.’

  ‘Right then, I need to distract you,’ said Frances. ‘Take your mind off it.’

  ‘Go right ahead,’ said Tony. He smiled a half-version of his full-on smile.

  ‘So . . .’ said Frances. She thought about what Napoleon had said yesterday before their smoothies had their full effect. ‘Did you suffer from that “post-sports depression” when you gave up football?’

  ‘That’s a really sparkling topic of conversation to hit off with,’ said Tony.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Frances. ‘I’m not at my best. Also, I’m interested. My career might be kind of ending right now.’

  Tony grimaced. ‘Well. They say that a sports star dies twice. The first time is when they retire.’

  ‘And was it like a death?’ asked Frances. It would feel like a death if she had to stop writing.

  ‘Well, yeah, kind of.’ He picked up a half-melted candle and pulled off a chunk of wax. ‘Not to be dramatic about it, but the game was all I knew for all those years, it’s who I was. I was a kid straight out of school when I started playing professionally. My ex-wife would say I was still a kid when I finished. She used to say it stunted me. She had this phrase she’d picked up somewhere: professional sportsperson, amateur human being.’ He put the candle back on the floor and flicked away the piece of wax with his fingertips. ‘She used to repeat it every time I . . . demonstrated my amateur approach to life.’

  There was a hurt look in his eyes that belied his light humorous tone. Frances decided his ex-wife was a witch.

  ‘Also, I wasn’t ready to finish up. I thought I had one season left in me, but my right knee thought otherwise.’ He pulled up one leg and pointed at the offending knee.

  ‘Stupid right knee,’ said Frances.

  ‘Yeah, I was pissed off with it.’ Tony massaged his knee. ‘A sports doctor friend told me that retiring is like coming off cocaine; your body is used to all those feel-good chemicals: serotonin, dopamine, and – bam – suddenly they’re gone and your body has to readjust.’