Page 66 of Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests
“Really? I saw him a few months ago. We had a quick catch-up in the pub, but then I never heard from him again…” She looks down at her hands, chipped purple nail varnish on her fingernails. Her curls are streaked with gray. She’s attempted to hide the dark circles under her eyes with makeup, but there is no disguising her sorrow.
“Sit with me?” Vivienne asks.
Ellie nods, still hugging her coat tightly, looking down at the table but not at her wine, past it. Her grief is huge and suffocating, as if she’s walked into the pub with a hippo by her side.
“I wish I’d been kinder to him when we met up. I feel like I didn’t ask enough questions, just spent the whole time jabbering about my children and my job…”
“I’m sure Tristan wouldn’t have seen it that way,” Vivienne says, remembering his defeated manner as he relayed his meeting with Ellie.
Ellie shakes her curls and lets out a long breath. Glancing back up at the picture again, she allows herself a smile, flashing a wide gap between her front teeth (“From kissing too many boys,” Vivienne’s mother used to say).
“That was taken on holiday in Crete,” says Ellie, tilting her head toward the picture. “I’d asked a waiter to take our photo, and Tristan was convinced he had the hots for me…”
“Sounds like Tristan.” Vivienne mirrors her smile.
“He treated me like a princess. Showered me with gifts and attention. We had so much in common, loved the same books, the same music…”
Vivienne nods and smiles. It feels wonderful to be talking about her friend with someone who loved him too.
“It always seemed like he knew what I was going to say before I said it. I’ve never found that since. I mean, my husband looks after us, don’t get me wrong, but it was different with Tristan.”
“Yes, I know just what you mean,” Vivienne says.
“Do you know what happened the night he died?” Ellie asks in a low voice, and Vivienne realizes that Susan probably hasn’t broadcast the details of Tristan’s death.
“We were walking along Hungerford Bridge, and he had one of his panic attacks, ended up falling in,” Vivienne says. “It was an accident.”
“Panic attacks?” says Ellie. “I didn’t know he had those. When we were together, he never seemed anxious. There were other things, but not that.”
“What do you mean?” Vivienne asks.
“He could be…angry sometimes. He hid it well most of the time, but occasionally it burst out of him, like on the day we split up,” she says.
“What did he do?” Vivienne asks, and then, seeing the sorrowful expression on Ellie’s face, wonders if she really wants to know.
“He… Well, he destroyed something very precious to me,” Ellie says haltingly. “We’d been on holiday in a desperate attempt to salvage our relationship, but it was obvious it was over. Afterward,he became really controlling, not wanting me to go out without him, insisting we do everything together. So I told him it was over and started packing my things. He was furious and ripped up a book that my mother gave me when I was little,Charlotte’s Web. It was falling apart anyway, but he knew what it meant to me.”
Vivienne looks at her in open amazement. Tristan, who had always talked passionately about the novels he loved, destroying a treasured book like that.
“I think he must have changed after you broke up. That doesn’t sound like the Tristan I knew at all,” Vivienne says, but she can’t help picturing that black-and-white image from the dinner party, the two dogs fighting, portraying wrath.
“That’s good to hear.” Ellie nods, wiping a tear away from her eye. “Actually, I once suggested he should get checked out for a personality disorder, but he point-blank refused.”
“Oh?” Vivienne murmurs. “He never told me that.”
“I should go and speak to his parents,” Ellie says, standing up and smiling stiffly at Vivienne.
“Ellie,” Vivienne asks, a thought suddenly coming to her. “Did Tristan wear contact lenses when you were together?”
“No, he had perfect vision.” She shrugs and gives a small wave goodbye.
As Ellie shuffles away, Vivienne gets the distinct impression that Ellie deliberately cut their conversation short, perhaps feeling that she’d said too much to a stranger. Looking around the pub, Vivienne is surprised to see that the place is now half-full of mourners. Susan and Jim are standing at the bar, noddinggravely at Billy. Vivienne watches Ellie take small steps toward them. As soon as Susan sees Ellie, Vivienne notices her purple eyes narrow. Poor Ellie is greeted with a brief “thank you for coming” before the couple quickly turn away. Vivienne watches Ellie wrap her coat tightly around herself once more and walk out of the pub.
“Thought you might be ready for another,” Billy says, suddenly in front of her. He adeptly swaps her empty glass for a second large whiskey and dashes back to the bar.
Vivienne doesn’t remember finishing that first glass.
“Do you mind if we sit here?” She looks up to see the three young men from the church.Younghas a whole new meaning to her these days, she realizes. The three are balding and gray haired, and yet, to Vivienne, they’re barely adults.
