Page 62 of Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests
Vivienne nods at her dinner and makes a halfhearted attempt to finish it off. Tristan suddenly has no appetite for his pizza and downs the rest of his beer in three big gulps. They both know he’s lying. After Ellie had left the pub, Tristan waited for fifteenminutes—to be sure she was gone—and then made his own way home. He’d been stupid to contact her; he sees that now. What had he been thinking? That she’d confess she’d never loved her husband and offer to leave her son and move into Tristan’s studio flat with him? He’d had his chance and he’d blown it all those years ago.
Today, on his way to meet Vivienne and Mary, all he saw were couples. London was crawling with them: an elderly pair strolling slowly along the pavement hand in hand as annoyed pedestrians frowningly overtook them; two teenagers enjoying a passionate embrace outside Boots, their matching Dr. Marten boots pushed together, hands disappearing under their leather jackets; tired-looking parents each clutching a bawling toddler, both wearing the samewhy did we bother?expression. All different stages of life, but all with something in common: They all had someone else to share it with, the reckless passion of youth, the exhaustion of parenting young children, the aches and pains of old age. Tristan would probably never know that feeling.
“I’m so full. Shall we get going?” Vivienne asks now, tapping the small bulge at her middle. Stepping back outside, Tristan is surprised by how light it is. Looking up, he sees why—the moon is full and proud. He’s always preferred the moon to the sun; it was often his only companion during his early-morning meanderings. Right now, it gives him strength.
“How about a walk?” Tristan suggests. He sees her hesitate, has noticed how tired she gets lately after walking only short distances, how she sometimes grimaces and clutches her hip, but she nods anyway. Tristan steers them down the steps by Waterloo Bridge,onto the pavement along the embankment.
“I know it’s not pretty, but Hungerford Bridge is my favorite bridge in London,” Vivienne says as they look across the inky water of the Thames at the white pylons, like the masts of a row of ships. “Do you know it first opened in 1845?”
“Albert Bridge is the best bridge in London,” Tristan murmurs, keeping his eyes locked on the river. “No contest.”
“I think that’s the first time we’ve disagreed about something,” she says, weaving her hand into the crook of his elbow, something she had started to do when they walked together. Sometimes Tristan finds it comforting, bringing to mind a long-ago time when ladies were “escorted,” gentlemen instinctively walking on the road-side of the pavement so that their female companions weren’t splashed by the carts and horses. But this time, as Vivienne’s fingers curl around Tristan’s arm, he has to marshal all his concentration, hold his whole upper body tense, to stop himself from knocking her hand away. It feels like a lead weight, dragging him down. Every one of her fingers seems to be digging into his skin like talons.
“Sorry, I’ve got pins and needles,” he mumbles, his arm shooting up as he clenches and unclenches his fist. Blissfully unaware, Vivienne drops her hand back down to her side.
They stay silent as they make their way along the river. The uncanny light gives the impression of daytime, but it’s deadly quiet and their footsteps echo as they walk, Vivienne’s kitten-heeledclip clopalongside Tristan’s squeaky trainers. A brightly lit boat chugs by; happy voices float toward them, and a man waves from the deck, one hand high in the air, the otherclutching a bottle of beer. The wordsnot waving but drowningpop into Tristan’s head. It was a poem he studied at school, hadn’t thought about it for years. Vivienne gives a small wave back, but Tristan looks down at his trainers. He got them after Vivienne’s endless digs about his ancient Converse high-tops. They looked so smart in the shop but now they seem ridiculous, luminous in the moonlit night, far too flashy for a forty-year-old computer programmer.
“Last night, Cat and I had another search for my envelope,” Vivienne prattles. “She’s cleared her room out now, so we thought we’d stand a chance of finding it, but no luck. I think I just need to accept I’ll never know my number.”
Vivienne’s lost envelope is something she has spoken about often over the last three years. Tristan sees through her light tone; she has a deep, urgent need to know what the little black envelope holds. Vivienne is looking at him, and he realizes she’s expecting a reply.
“Perhaps it’s better you don’t know,” he murmurs, the phrase so familiar to him, it spills from his mouth without thought, giving an oddly robotic tone.
“You’re right. I suppose everyone has a number—they just don’t know it. But it would be nice to be able to plan, what with Cat having a baby and then getting married next year…” Vivienne’s words peter out and she shakes her head. She’s not listening to Tristan, lost in her own worries.
“Just make your plans, Vivienne.”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t go on like this. I know your number isforty-five, which is so young—”
“Really, it isn’t,” he snaps, then forces his voice to soften. “Well, it doesn’t feel like it to me.”
“Listen, Tristan, I’ve done my best to investigate these numbers. I’ve pointed the finger at Janet, Melvin, and even myself. And still I’ve got no idea who’s behind this. I’m starting to think the best we can do is to take the numbers as a warning. If we carry on in the same way, then they might come true. If we change, then perhaps the numbers can change too,” she says.
“Vivienne, there’s just no—”
“After Gordon’s lecture, I told Melvin that his sin was sloth and tried to warn him,” she says. “He laughed it off, but look what happened.”
“I can just imagine it,” Tristan says, shaking his head.
“We still don’t know what my number is, but I believe I’m less…envious these days, and maybe that’s why I’m still here,” Vivienne babbles on. “I know it sounds far-fetched, but if I’m right, and the numbers are a warning, then perhaps you have time to change yours. I don’t see you as angry, but perhaps it refers to your inner anger, how critical you are of yourself.”
“It doesn’t make any sense. What about Stella? She died two weeks after the party. She had no time to change.”
“No, that’s true,” she says quietly, shrugging her shoulders in defeat.
Another silence settles between them.
“I remember when I turned forty, I cried myself to sleep, feeling that I’d missed my chance for marriage and kids. But now Isee that forty is young. There’s still time for you to meet someone, have children—”
“Who would wantme?Never mind another five years of this living hell, I’m ready now.”
With that, he dashes away from Vivienne, his new trainers bouncing him up the steps of the bridge. At the top, his muscles start to ache with the effort, and he slows to a fast walk. He keeps going until he is approximately halfway across the bridge. Taking a deep breath, he lifts one leg over the railing, pausing as a gust of wind takes him by surprise, making him wobble. He steadies himself, then swings his second leg over and perches on the edge of the railing. When he looks down, the dark water seems suddenly smooth and inviting, like a soft silk duvet. He closes his eyes, and the image of the water is replaced with a busy pavement in Canary Wharf. He thinks of Matthew and feels his nerve waver.
“Tristan!” Vivienne is standing right next to him, breathless from the effort of running.
“Please leave me alone,” he sighs, leaning his body slowly forward so that his arms are stretched out, his eyes fixed on the water below.
“I won’t,” she says, her shoulder almost touching his, albeit from opposite sides of the railing. She seems oddly calm, just looking down at the water as Tristan is doing.
