Page 35 of Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests
“Are you feeling better today?” Cat asks when Charlie’s giggles die down long enough for them to have a conversation.
“Much, thank you,” Vivienne says with a brisk nod. “That’ll teach me not to have that extra glass of wine.”
As well as these pains in her back and hips, she’d also experienced another fugue state. On Saturday she met an old friend in the West End. They took in a show and went out for a glass of wine afterward. Vivienne hailed a taxi at around 11:30 p.m. Poor Cat had such a shock when she heard knocking on the front door just after 2:00 a.m. and found a confused Vivienne on the doorstep. She didn’t want to make a fuss and have to explain the fugue states, so she put it down to too much alcohol. But inwardly, this sudden resurgence of fugue states is a worry for her. Serendipity’s seems to have started it. Those numbers again. Like seven little time bombs preparing to blow seven different lives apart. Though Vivienne had been distracted by her new flatmates, that dinner party still nagged at her. Those two young lives cut short. Most nights she sat in bed, flicking through her notebook and her piles of printouts.Hadshe been right about Janet? If she had, then surely the deaths would stop now. At Matthew’s memorial, Melvin promised to look into her theory, but she hadn’t heard a thing from him. The Serendipityemail group had gone quiet too. So she sent him an email directly, asking if he’d found out anything, to which she had no response. She makes a mental note to chase him down again.
“How’s Tristan?” Cat inquires as she wipes Charlie’s green-stained chin.
“He’s doing better, I think,” says Vivienne, nodding. “The counselor seems to be helping, and he meets up with his university friends every week now.”
After Matthew’s memorial, Tristan retreated. He canceled their Sunday meeting and then tried to cancel a second one, but Vivienne was having none of it. She emailed him:
I’ve got an interview for an online editing role. I need your help!
Vivienne hated using exclamation marks almost as much as she hated begging to see someone, but she’d sensed this was an emergency. She recalled his haunted expression at the memorial. He wouldn’t say what had happened, but from where Vivienne was standing, it had looked like a full-blown panic attack. He hadn’t been friends with Matthew, yet his suicide seemed as though it had really affected Tristan. When he turned up at Café Bleu to meet her, he looked awful. He was hardly a vision of health at the best of times, but his skin had taken on a waxy tone, and there was a subtle unwashed odor emanating from him. Perhaps, she wondered, Tristan’s number had been haunting him, as hers had her.
“Right, so, when’s your interview?” he asked, sitting down at their usual table, squinting over at Vivienne, bringing to mind a vampire who’d been forced to step into the sunlight.
“There’s no interview,” Vivienne told him bluntly. “I needed to get you out. What’s going on? You can talk to me. Did you have a panic attack?”
Tristan let out a long, long sigh, his shoulders sagging and his head drooping toward the table, deflating like a bouncy castle after a raucous birthday party. When he looked up, his face was the color of wax and the scar on his cheek an angry red, like a poker burn. Then he talked. The words spilled from him, gushing across their little circular table and filling the floor of the stuffy café. He admitted that, yes, he’d suffered from panic attacks since he was at school. Terrifying, overwhelming moments of anxiety that his mother had dismissed as “Tristan’s funny little turns,” so he’d stopped telling her about them, but they’d increased in intensity and frequency as he got older. Two traumatic events he endured in the last year had escalated his anxiety: breaking up with his girlfriend Ellie last summer, closely followed by a horrendous attack by a gang on a night bus, leaving him badly injured and not helped by the police officer who’d witnessed it doing nothing to catch the thugs. The thought of Matthew standing on top of that building had set it off this time.
“Every time I have an attack, it makes me scared to even leave the house again. I’m sorry if I’ve let you down,” he said.
Vivienne was silent for a while, taking in his words, making her own calculations.
“You haven’t let me down at all. Listen, Tristan, you’re not alone,” she told him finally, taking one of his hands. “You need to let other people in, and they can help you.”
He nodded, and she put a plan in place. Tristan promised to keep up with their Sunday meetups no matter what. On Monday, he would go and see his doctor and tell her about the panic attacks, afterward ringing Vivienne to report back. The doctor suggested antianxiety medication, which Tristan refused, and a counselor, which he reluctantly agreed to. Over the last few months, Tristan opened up about his regrets over his relationship with Ellie, how he ignored messages from his old university mates, so Vivienne encouraged him to try to reconnect (as the young people say) with them, even invited Tristan over for rowdy dinners with Cat and Charlie. He still had his quiet moments, but on the whole, he seemed happier. Vivienne was tempted to discuss the numbers with him, but she kept quiet on that front, sensing it could spark another panic attack.
Despite everything he was going through, Tristan continued to help Vivienne with her blog, which became a surprising success and spawned a website. It was a mixture of her own ponderings, news stories that interested her, and real-life features about incredible women who happened to be over forty, as well as books and films that took Vivienne’s fancy. Her following soared, with regular emails from “women of a certain age” who felt they’d found an outlet that really spoke to them. To her surprise, Vivienne was even approached by advertisers and started bringing in some money. For the first time in years, she was infused with purpose, and her phone and inbox were constantly demanding her attention. Sheeven ordered fancy business cards to give out at networking events, proudly declaring her the founder of the website. Every Sunday, she thanks Tristan for what he brought her. She also makes sure to hug him goodbye, knowing that human contact is something he needs now more than ever.
***
Later, while Cat is putting Charlie to bed, Vivienne pours two glasses of wine—red for herself and rosé for Cat. She’s still recovering from her latest fugue experience and could do with an early night, but she senses Cat wants to talk about her new job.
“Join me?” she asks when she comes back down.
“Thank you, I will,” Cat says, taking the wine and perching on the edge of the sofa.
“So was she in a better mood today?” Vivienne asks, settling into the battered leather armchair opposite.
When Cat and Charlie had first moved in, Cat would put Charlie to bed and then scuttle away to hide in her loft room, terrified of invading Vivienne’s space. So lately, Vivienne has been encouraging her to chat. She’s found she wants to know more about Cat and hear about her new job at a magazine website, aimed at “the thinking thirtysomething child-free woman” (Vivienne couldn’t help an eye roll when she first heard that particular description). It turns out the editor is an old foe of Vivienne’s. Sally Jenson-Bell was lazy, arrogant, and prone to playing favorites. And let’s just say Cat isn’t one of the chosen ones.
“A bit,” Cat sighs, looking sorrowfully into her drink.
“Did I tell you about the time the publisher sent a crate of champagne to the office to congratulate the team on great sales figures?”
Cat shakes her head.
“Well, do you know what Sally did? She asked one of the writers to carry the box down to a taxi so she could take it all home for herself.”
Vivienne chooses not to tell Cat about the revenge she took out on Sally. It got a bit out of hand, and the memory fills her with shame.
Then the doorbell rings. Vivienne glances at her watch: It’s just after 9:00 p.m., late for anyone to call.
“I’ll just go and check on Charlie,” Cat says, scooping up a Spider-Man costume and a handful of LEGO bricks as she goes.
Vivienne opens the front door and is pleased to see Tristan standing there—until she notices the expression on his face.
