The Wild Girls Read online

  Part of her is tempted to go to Zebra Lodge, sickness or no sickness, and ask Felicity straight. Perhaps there is a completely reasonable explanation – perhaps she’s referring to something else, to a joke, a board game Alice once lost or something. She racks her brains, trying to think of what else it could mean, but every time, her thoughts come back to settle on the same conclusion. In her mind’s eye, she sees the flash of a camera, the cold thud in her stomach when she realised what had happened, that somebody had seen.

  If she is right, Alice doesn’t want anybody else to know. Some secrets are supposed to stay hidden, and just because they’re all here, back together again, doesn’t mean that that has to change. If Felicity wants to expose her, now is not the time.

  She’ll make sure of it.

  Chapter Eight

  Hannah

  Grace insists on Hannah walking with her to her lodge – she says she feels uneasy being so close to the river.

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything to be afraid of,’ Hannah tells her, but she looks worried, and eventually Hannah links Grace’s arm into hers and escorts her down the right walkway, trying to avert her eyes from the water below them as actually, she’s a bit frightened of seeing pairs of eyes in there too. Don’t they have crocodiles in Southern Africa? Hannah can’t help but feel that it’s a bit selfish of Felicity not to even come out to greet them, no matter how sick she is tonight. They’ve basically been left to fend for themselves, with zero information about what to watch out for. Though it being Felicity, I don’t know why I’m still surprised, she thinks, then immediately chastises herself. They’re here as friends, after all. There’s no point in Hannah hanging on to grudges from the past.

  ‘Thanks, Hannah,’ Grace says when they get to her door, and she looks at her so gratefully that Hannah feels bad.

  ‘It’s no problem,’ she says. ‘I’ll see you in forty-five minutes or so. OK? And look, I’m going to be just over there.’ She points to Gazelle Lodge, smiles at Grace reassuringly like she would to Max.

  ‘OK.’

  She nods, and Hannah turns to leave her. When she swivels back, Grace looks so small and alone, framed in the doorway, her silhouette cut out against the lights of her room. In the darkness, Hannah hears a high, haunting sound – the far-off call of an animal, it must be. It’s distant, but there, and she sees Grace’s figure jerk slightly in fear. Poor Grace. Always so frightened of the world.

  Perhaps out here, she has reason to be.

  Finding a bar of signal, Hannah tries FaceTiming Chris from her bedroom in Gazelle Lodge, but he doesn’t pick up. Disappointed, she sighs and lies back on the bed – which, it has to be said, is pretty amazing and a damn sight better than the one she and Chris share at home. They’ve had the same bed since they first got together, and it’s safe to say the mattress is past its peak. Not that she spends much time in their bed these days; most of the time she is sitting up in baby Max’s room, trying to stay awake and praying he does the opposite.

  It’s so warm outside but the air in here is cooler, and everything feels so crisp and new. Hannah pushes her body back into the bed and revels in the fact that she’s got it to herself and that there isn’t a screaming child waiting for her on the other side of the wall. Instead, there are her three oldest friends.

  She turns her head and hears something rustle on the pillow. Sitting up, she finds a handwritten note, written on a piece of card, a bit like the card the invitations came on. God, it feels a million years ago, sitting in Maxy’s room with the mail, but in reality it’s only a few weeks. There are dark red petals surrounding it, that she must have missed when she flopped down onto the mattress.

  Dear Hannah, welcome to Gazelle Lodge. I put you here because you’ve always been good at running from things. We all know how fast you can be. Flick. X

  Hannah blinks. Re-reads it, twice more. You’ve always been good at running from things. A coldness settles in her stomach, heavy as a stone. What does she mean?

  You know what she means, the little voice in her head says, and not wanting to listen to it, she quickly gets up and heads for the bathroom. Standing under the shower, she forces herself not to panic, to focus on the actions of lathering up, watching the dirt of the day drain down the plughole. Planes always make her feel horrible, and her skin feels grimy to the touch. Hannah squeezes out some sort of scented soap and rubs it all over herself, trying to wash away the anxiety that is threatening to crawl all over her, but she’s interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing, the chirping sound filling the lodge. Hoping it’s Chris, she switches off the shower and steps out, grabs one of the big white towels from the rack and wraps it around her then skids into the bedroom, trying not to slip in her haste. She catches sight of her unpainted toenails as she does so – she should have done them, she bets the others have done theirs. That sort of thing tends to fall by the wayside when you’re a full-time mum.

  ‘Hello?’ Hannah is slightly out of breath, and her hand is wet around the phone. Water droplets drip from her body down onto the wooden floor, and she quickly steps onto the leopard-skin rug so that at least she doesn’t make a puddle on the floor.

  ‘Darling?’

  ‘Chris,’ she says, and suddenly, despite all the new-found freedom she’s been enjoying, she feels a pang of homesickness for them both – the smell of Maxy’s hair, the heavy warm weight of Chris’s body next to her. The comforting normality of their little home, lumpy mattress and all.

  ‘Are you all right? Sorry I missed your call. Long day this end,’ her husband says. ‘How’s Botswana? How was the flight? How are the girls?’

  ‘It’s amazing.’

  She turns the FaceTime onto video mode and shows him the incredible room; he whistles in all the right places and Hannah can see the envy on his face. He wasn’t sure about her coming, especially not with the girls, but she’d told him how much she desperately needed a break, how much good she thought it’d do her, and eventually he relented. She ignores his question about the flight, thinking guiltily of Adam, and tells him instead how hot it is here, how beautiful the lodges are.

  ‘I miss you both, though,’ Hannah says quickly. ‘How is he, how’s Max?’

  ‘We’re all OK, we’re good,’ Chris says, sounding a tiny bit distracted, and he walks her into the baby’s room, shows Hannah her son lying peacefully in his cot. She tenses up, worried the light of the phone will wake him but he doesn’t seem to stir. He never looks so peaceful when he’s around her, she thinks sourly but doesn’t say. She stares at his little form, the tiny limbs, the way his small fists clench above his head, his arms splayed out on the pillow as though he’s celebrating.

  ‘He went down all right?’ She realises she is hushing her voice, worried the sound of it will rouse their son.

  ‘He was fine,’ Chris says. He’s moved back into the kitchen and Hannah can see a few pots and pans out on the work surfaces behind him, an empty wine glass stood next to the fridge, a spill of red pasta sauce near the sink.

  ‘Mucky pup,’ she says, nodding at the mess, and he glances around, then turns back to face her. Something odd flickers across his expression, and he quickly crosses the open-plan room so that he’s sitting on the sofa, and she can no longer see the kitchen behind him.

  ‘Yeah, well, it all falls apart without you, Han.’ He smiles, reaching up his free hand to loosen his tie then running it through his hair. His wedding ring glints in the lights, and automatically Hannah reaches for her own, fiddles with it, spins it round and around her finger. ‘Listen, Han, there’s actually something I wanted to tell you. It’s nothing to worry about, but when you get back—’

  But as he’s speaking, the signal begins to cut out; his voice crackles and blurs and Hannah can no longer make out what he is saying.

  ‘Chris?’ she says. ‘Chris!’ There is a series of beeps and the screen goes black, the words trying to reconnect… flashing up over and over. It’s no use – he’s gone.

  Sorry, internet issue
s. What were you going to tell me? she messages him, but the message doesn’t go through. It seems the signal problem is on her end, not his. Oh well; she supposes they are in a remote area, after all. Hannah wonders what he was going to say. ‘Nothing to worry about.’ Is Maxy OK? she messages again, and the three little dots come up to show that her husband is typing but no response comes through. She tells herself not to be silly, that if there was something wrong with their son he would have told her; he wouldn’t have told her not to worry if there was anything serious to say. Hannah knows all this, deep down, but it doesn’t stop the butterflies starting to swirl in her stomach.

  She is still damp from her abruptly finished shower, but it’s almost time to reconvene with the others and so she quickly towels herself off and decides to let her hair dry on its own – God knows it’s hot enough outside. Pulling open her suitcase, she tries to decide what to put on – she knows it’s only Alice and Grace but she’s so desperate for them to see her as she wants to be, not as a humdrum mother who spends most of her life with sick on her blouse. In the very early days, Hannah always washed it off or got changed, not wanting Chris to see her like that, but after a while she stopped bothering. She couldn’t really see the point. The earrings she bought Felicity are tucked into a side pocket of her case – little emerald drops that make Hannah feel guilty every time she looks at them. In her heart, she knows they are a peace offering; a birthday gift disguised as a plea.

  In the end, she goes for a long maxi-dress with the back cut out, printed with red-and-white flowers. The outfit feels loud, larger than life; she is faking confidence. It feels like something Alice might wear; even Felicity, perhaps. Slipping her feet into heeled wedges, Hannah opens the door of the lodge and steps out onto the wooden decking. Her personal plunge pool glistens in front of her, endlessly inviting, the water clean and fresh in comparison to the muddy river below them. The whole place really is utterly gorgeous.

  Looking out to the west, Hannah stares into the darkness, listening to the lapping of the water, gazing into the wide plains of Southern Africa. She can’t believe she’s really here. As she breathes in the night air, something keeps nagging at her, tugging on the corners of her consciousness, but she can’t quite put her finger on what it is. Something about the phone call. Hannah thinks of Chris saying he has something to tell her, of him loosening his tie, running a hand through his short, dark hair, the edges of it speckled with grey. The mess on the counter-top; the spilled tomato sauce. His ring winking at her through the screen.

  And then it hits her, and she sees it clearly. On the counter behind him, along with the pots and pans, there were two used wine glasses by the fridge, not one. The more Hannah pictures it, the more sure she feels, and she thinks about the expression on his face as he looked behind him and realised what she could see. The way he crossed the room so quickly. Two glasses, not one. Remnants of red wine in the bottom of them both – and yet he never mentioned having anybody round.

  Suddenly the night air seems claustrophobic, the darkness threatening rather than beautiful. Something stirs in Hannah’s stomach, a spool of unease. Who has been round to her house with her husband and her baby, whilst she is thousands of miles away in the wilderness?

  Grace

  There are definitely crocodiles in Botswana; I read about it on my phone while we were in the car on the way here. I hadn’t realised the whole place was going to be on the water. Even if it is just man-made streams for aesthetics, they still must connect to the river. I’ve never liked water, not really. I didn’t learn to swim until I was seventeen – people thought I was a bit of a freak but whenever Mum tried to make me as a child I just screamed my head off and I think eventually she decided it simply wasn’t worth the hassle. Someone once asked me if I had traumatic memories of water – I remember the phrase because I thought it was over-dramatic. No, I’d said, not at all. But later that week I’d asked my mother over the phone, wondering if something had happened when I was little, too far back for me to remember. There was a brief silence before she spoke.

  No, Grace, she said, you’re letting your imagination run away with you. Nothing happened to you. You’re lucky.

  That was back when I trusted my mother to be on my side. I don’t anymore.

  All the same, I’ve never been able to shake the unease I feel around water, the immovable feeling that it could consume me, reach liquid fingers out and wrap them around my throat.

  Still, I try to reason with myself as I get ready for dinner, surely Felicity wouldn’t have booked somewhere that was actually dangerous. This place is probably always ready for tourists; there must be all sorts of health and safety regulations. It’s just a shame Felicity isn’t up to talk us through it all, put our minds at ease.

  I dress in a silky top and wide, billowing trousers, hoping they will keep me nice and cool, stop me from sweating as much as I did earlier. For some reason I feel a keen need to impress them both, so I stick big hoop earrings through my ears and paint on some bright red lipstick, trying to conjure up a vitality that I don’t quite feel. Although I wanted to see Felicity, and feel bad for her being cooped up on her own, a huge part of me is glad that Nathaniel is nowhere to be found, and that our suspicions about their break-up are confirmed.

  I take a photo of the room, planning on sending it to Rosie (admittedly only to make her jealous in the hope she’ll show awful Ben) but the signal has completely gone from my iPhone so I can’t send it through. Annoying – but there must be WiFi in the main lodge, and hopefully it stretches all the way out here if I can log on later.

  I unpack my belongings, hanging up my dresses in the gorgeous wooden wardrobe. The handles are shaped like lion heads and I wrap my hands around the wood, feeling how soft and smooth it is under my palms, more like silk than wood. This is beyond doubt the nicest place I’ve ever stayed: the lap of luxury. I feel somehow that I do not deserve it.

  I tuck my pyjamas underneath my pillow, a habit I’ve had since childhood, and as I do so I see the note.

  Welcome to Lion Lodge, Grace! I gave you this room because you’ve always been the bravest of us all. I’m so glad you could come. Flick. X

  I smile, at first, because she obviously means it nicely, doesn’t she, but actually, it’s a bit of a weird thing to say. The bravest of them all? Am I? I guess it’s a compliment, though. And I do like this room – I wonder if the others are as nice.

  But something in my mind can’t settle, and I find myself re-reading the note again. The bravest of us all. Suddenly, my own words come back to me from that night: I’m trying to be brave here, Felicity! – and my stomach gives a sickening lurch. Does she remember that? Is she trying to taunt me somehow? I remember with horrible clarity exactly what she said back: There’s nothing brave about telling lies, Grace. I felt as though she’d slapped me, her words leaving a sharp print on me like the back of a hand. In fact, I’d rather she had hit me; the damage wouldn’t have been anywhere near as bad.

  Carefully, I fold the note in half and slip it into my suitcase; out of sight, out of mind. Perhaps I’m reading far too much into it, and I’m not going to let my paranoia get the better of me. This holiday is about me being strong. I know what the other girls think of me – they think I’m scaredy-cat Grace, timid Grace who never leaves Peckham and wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Well, perhaps they don’t know me as well as they think they do.

  Perhaps they don’t know what I’m capable of.

  I walk back along the walkway, trying to push the note from my mind. I zipped up my suitcase, smoothed down the pillow so that it all looked good as new. I’ve come this far, haven’t I? I’ve come on an adventure, broken out of my rut, and I’m not letting one tiny thing ruin this for me.

  ‘Grace?’ The sound makes me jump but it’s just Alice, hurrying towards me down the wooden walkway. Her face is shining – she must have just showered.

  ‘God,’ she says, ‘how amazing are the rooms? Mine is gorgeous – is yours?’

  �
�Yes,’ I say, ‘it’s beautiful. I’ve never been anywhere like it.’

  ‘Me neither,’ she admits. ‘I feel like we’ve really lucked out here. Although I’m not sure what we’re going to do for food – I’ve texted Felicity to ask if there’s anything in the house, but she hasn’t replied and I don’t want to ring in case she’s asleep. I don’t know if they have Deliveroo out here, what do you think?’

  She laughs – a loud cackle that takes me back to nights out in London, her with a wine glass in her hand, throwing her head back and laughing at something one of us said. She always had a wicked laugh, did Alice. It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask her about the note, whether she had one too, but something stops me. Being honest has never got me anywhere in the past; perhaps on this trip I should learn to keep things to myself.

  ‘Let’s go investigate,’ I say brightly. ‘Felicity must have left us something – she’s probably already ordered in all the food for the party, so I’m sure we won’t starve.’

  ‘Have you seen Hannah yet?’ she says, following me towards the house, and I shake my head, glance in the direction of Gazelle Lodge.

  ‘Not yet. She might already be inside.’

  ‘Hey,’ Alice says, ‘have you got a key for your lodge? I couldn’t find one, and it was open when we arrived.’

  ‘No, actually,’ I say, ‘that’s a good point. I guess it’s only us here tonight, but when everyone arrives tomorrow I would prefer to lock it. Not that I’ve got anything particularly valuable.’ I give a little laugh. ‘But still, you know. I don’t want some drunkard rooting through my things. Or an animal getting in!’

  ‘God, d’you remember when Felicity’s old flatmate went mental at us for sleeping in her bed that time?’ Alice says, chuckling at the memory. ‘She was so unreasonable, though.’