Page 33 of The Perfect Guests
“It’s fine,” she says. “It’s just—I suppose I might know a bit more how you feel. Than other people do, I mean. Luckier people.” She’s thinking of the long-haired girlfriend in the orange crop top.
He nods slowly. “We don’t actually know what’s wrong with my mum. The doctors can’t work it out... She’s a medical mystery.” He tries to smile. “But they’re trying different treatments. And, you know, we’re lucky in other ways. Mustn’t take stuff like this for granted.” He gestures at the tangled weeds behind them. “When you think of what other people go through—did you know the poor family who lived at Raven Hall before? They had a daughter about your age—”
“No,” she says abruptly. “I never knew them.”
They sit in silence for a minute, watching a swallowtail butterfly explore a patch of thistles.
“Well...” The student crumples his treacle tart paper into a ball and drops it into his rucksack. “You’re right. We should talk about happier things, before I have to get back. Did you meet up with your friend the other day?”
She stares at him, trying to get past the phrase“before I have to get back.”Has he grown bored with her already? Is he missing his girlfriend? And what friend does he mean? Oh, of course—the young doctor.
“No, I didn’t bother seeing him, in the end,” she says. She drains her tea and hands the cup back to him. “I need to get going myself, actually.”
They don’t speak as they gather their belongings together and brush crumbs from their clothes, but once they’re ready to go their separate ways, the man stretches out his hand.
“I’m Markus, by the way,” he says. “It was nice talking to you, and—thanks, you know, for understanding about my mum.”
She nods. “I’m...” But the tip of her tongue hesitates on the roof of her mouth as his earlier words rattle through her head:“the poor family who lived at Raven Hall before.”She lifts her chin. “Lara,” she says. “I’m Lara. I’ll look out for you again next weekend.”
Beth
Summer/Autumn 1989
My thoughts were haunted by that oily gleam in Nina’s hot-chocolate mug.
For days, I tried to find an innocent explanation. I scoured the pantry for vitamins or medicines that might account for it, with no success. When the others were occupied elsewhere in the house, I experimented furtively with marshmallows and other sweet ingredients, attempting to dissolve them in boiling water, then letting them cool. But I failed to re-create the strange-looking shiny layer.
I kept replaying the night before Nina’s grandfather’s first visit: Markus popping his head into the tree house and saying,“Come on, sleepyheads... Mum’s making you hot chocolate indoors to warm you up...”
Twice, Nina had fallen ill just before her grandfather’s visits, and each time she’d drunk hot chocolate in the hours beforehand. Hot chocolate that, on the second occasion, looked to have hadsomething unusual added to it. Hot chocolate that, on the first occasion at least, Leonora had made for her.
But why on earth would Leonora want to poison her own daughter?
***
I withdrew into myself, telling Jonas I needed space and telling Nina I needed to concentrate on my schoolwork. I sat in my bedroom for hours, flicking through prospectuses for higher education courses that provided accommodation, wondering whether I should apply for one the following year to give me an escape route from Raven Hall. When I wasn’t worrying about poison, I was brooding on my lost family, wondering what my brother, Ricky, would be doing now if he were still alive. I longed to ask my parents for advice. I resented not having Ricky here as a role model.
Meanwhile, Nina bounced back to full health, and the rest of my life rumbled along in its normal routine; as the weeks passed, my anxiety about the possibility of poison eased, and my melancholy mood gradually lifted. I stayed alert for any recurrence of illness in Nina, or any sign of odd behavior in Leonora, but nothing happened to raise my suspicions. Eventually, I decided I might have been mistaken. Perhaps I hadn’t seen anything strange in the mug after all.
By the time Nina’s birthday came around in June, I’d made a conscious decision to put the whole strange episode out of my mind. If anything, the memory of my initial reaction to it made me feel guilty—how could I have leaped to such a dreadful conclusion about Leonora, when she was never anything but kind to both me and Nina? As if to reinforce my guilt, Leonora and Markus took us to a West End show for Nina’s birthday and showered both of us with all manner of treats and gifts. Life seemed good again. The long summer holiday was fast approaching. And I felt secure enoughin my position at Raven Hall to switch my focus back to trying to see more of Jonas.
But it was as difficult as ever to meet up with Jonas alone during the holidays. Nina and I ate breakfast together, chose our daily activities together—we did almost everything together. Finally, at the dinner table one evening, Leonora reminded Nina she had an optician’s appointment the following day—miles away, over near Cambridge—and I sensed an opportunity. When I trudged down to the dining room for breakfast the following morning, I complained of a thumping headache.
“I think I might have to go back to bed,” I said. I kept my eyes narrowed, as if the bright sunlight streaming through the window were hurting them. “If that’s all right with you? You don’t need me to go with you today, do you?”
Leonora frowned and came over to feel my forehead. “Have you been drinking enough water? Do you want some paracetamol?”
I told her I’d already taken some, and I plodded back upstairs with a guilty conscience. My head was fine; I’d taken nothing. I cracked open my bedroom window and got back into bed, waiting to hear them leave.
As soon as Leonora’s car had disappeared down the driveway, I ran downstairs and phoned Jonas at the B and B. Then I strolled out to the kitchen garden and picked a bowlful of luscious strawberries; I ate them out in the front, sitting on the stone steps in the sunshine and reveling in having the whole house to myself while I waited for Jonas to arrive.
“Let’s get away from this place,” Jonas said before he’d even kissed me.
I pulled a face. “I don’t know. I’m supposed to be ill. I don’t want them to come back and find me gone...”
“You can say you went for a walk to clear your head, can’t you?” He hooked his fingers into mine and drew me closer, his smile widening. “Come on, grab your bike, and let’s go into the village. I can introduce you to my mates, or we can go back to mine...”
“No.” Reluctantly, I pulled my hands from his. “I can’t. I’m not allowed...”
