Samantha drew her legs up off the floor and crossed them underneath herself. Recently, they had started to cramp during the day. ‘That’s not what I mean,’ she said as she rubbed her thigh. ‘I’m not saying I know better than you and you’re some sort of idiot for not getting out. I’m saying the opposite — if I can do this, I need you. Together — that’s the only way we stand a chance.’

  The other woman sighed. ‘Samantha,’ she said, ‘look at me. Look at us. How?’

  More and more pregnant with each passing day, hormonal and fatigued, they were hardly the ideal candidates to enact a great escape. Between them, they didn’t even possess a pair of shoes.

  ‘But if we don’t go,’ Samantha hissed, ‘then what?’ Her blue eyes were wide and Evelyn could see the fear that she carried — locked away and half-starved of oxygen — in her heart. ‘You said so yourself, one day we might be able to do it.’

  ‘But not like this. One day, when the circumstance is right.’

  Samantha shook her head. ‘It’ll never be right. We have to make it right.’ Holding her abdomen, she shuffled closer to Evelyn. ‘I know — I know you’re scared.’ The other woman fidgeted away from her. ‘Listen, Evelyn, listen—’ Samantha laced her fingers through her friend’s and tried to appear strong, but the fear was still visible in her eyes. ‘I almost got out. I was that close. I swear I felt the handle move. If I could have just—’

  ‘That’s what they want you to think,’ the other woman interrupted, her voice strained and feverish. ‘It’s perverse, what they do, the games that they play. They think they’re better than us—’

  Samantha squeezed her hand. ‘They’re just people, Evelyn. You told me that.’ She was cooler now, her eyes calmer. ‘I can’t have a baby here,’ she whispered. ‘I just can’t.’

  Evelyn nodded. ‘I know. I’m not asking you to. I don’t want you to. But what choice do you — do we — have?’

  ‘If we think, really think about it, maybe we can think of a way. Outsmart them—’ Evelyn went to interrupt but Samantha spoke over her. ‘They can’t have thought of everything,’ she said, and then again, this time slowly, pronouncing each word apart from the next, ‘They are just people.’

  Evelyn looked at her, mouse-eyed and scared, before sighing. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘We’ll think about it. But, we’re not doing anything unless we have a proper plan.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to,’ Samantha said, her voice darkening as she remembered how it had felt to have been dragged down the corridor by Mary. ‘I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of catching me again.’

  Find a hole. Make it bigger. Find a hole. Slip right out through it.

  ‘Well, let’s think about it then,’ Evelyn continued. ‘We know they watch us,’ she moved her head to one side, tilting it in the direction of the camera that perched high in the corner of the room.

  ‘Jade broke one before,’ Samantha said, recalling the day she and Evelyn had found out they were pregnant and that Jade, to her displeasure, wasn’t.

  Evelyn shook her head. ‘Something like that would get their attention. Whatever we do needs to be out of sight. They can’t suspect us. And, that makes me think,’ she drew her head closer to her companion, ‘the others can’t know.’

  Samantha looked about the room. Jade had found a new source of entertainment and was kneeling in front of the television, feeding a disc into the DVD player. Beth and Ladybird were sitting together on a bed, one playing with the other’s hair as they spoke and laughed about stupid things. Nathalie was elsewhere, presumably in the bathroom, and Mother, the green-eyed fruitcake, was cross-legged on the floor by the window, eyes wide open, lips moving fast and silent, meditating or conversing with the angels or whatever it was that she did.

  ‘Agreed,’ Samantha said, turning back to her friend. ‘Just us.’

  ‘We’ll help them if we can,’ Evelyn said, ‘but they can’t be involved.’

  Samantha nodded.

  ‘It might take time to think of how to do it,’ Evelyn continued, ‘so we have to be patient.’ She gripped Samantha’s hand and, with a passion that Samantha hadn’t before seen her demonstrate, said, ‘We have to be watchful. We have to be there when they make a mistake. We have to be ready for an opening.’

  ‘They’re only people,’ Samantha whispered.

  On the floor by the window, Mother started to sing.

  Thirty

  The first guests started to arrive just before six p.m. Luxury vehicles crunching over the gravel, clean shaven men in black bow ties and ladies dripping in diamonds. For those in the know, the Wheatleighs’ New Year’s party was the social event of the year.

  At the back of the house, an infrequently used room had been opened up, its wooden shutters taken down from the windows, its curtains freshly laundered and its large open fireplace lit. Candles adorned the walls and about the room tables draped in red cloth over-spilled with silver trays of sparkling wine and delightful canapés; finger sized slices of bread topped with fresh cheese and cranberries and quails eggs and chive and fragrant mint and cucumber and thinly sliced slithers of cured meat. In the corner, a string quartet played, two violinists, a viola player, and a cellist dressed in black, and the warmth of the fire and the music drew the visitors to the house into exuberant and exciting conversation. The cellist drew their bow over the strings of their instrument and a well-groomed man straightened his bow tie, laughing. At his side, his female companion twinkled as she regaled an equally lavish couple with stories she had waited all year to share.

  The sound of laughter and classical music drifted up the stairs of the house. The landing was dimly lit, just a red-shaded lamp on a dark oak console table, so as not to entice guests away from the ground floor. Bare-footed, a pair of heeled shoes in hand, Mary slipped across the carpet and into a bedroom on the right side of the house. Inside, leaning against a chest of drawers, was Alexander. He was wearing a white shirt, a black satin bow tie at his throat and gold cufflinks at his wrists. In his hands was his grandfather’s pipe, the bowl stuffed with cannabis. His fingers shook as he tried to light a match.

  ‘For goodness sake, Alex.’ Mary closed the door behind her and crossed the room.

  She took the matches from him and struck one. The pipe hooked over his lip, he watched as she lit the cannabis for him. When it started to smoulder, she blew out the flame.

  ‘I thought we’d agreed about this,’ she said, her eyes searching his. Alexander drew on the pipe to keep it lit. ‘No matter,’ she continued. ‘I’d rather you do it than have to argue about it now.’ She wrung her hands together and breathed, her posture straightening as she did. ‘Your mother asked me to ask you if you’re coming down. Guests are arriving. She wants you to greet them.’

  At the mention of guests, Alexander closed his eyes and drew heavily. Smoke seeped out through his nostrils.

  Mary sighed and smoothed the front of her dress, a simple, yet elegant, black silk satin evening gown. ‘You know that I don’t enjoy this any more than you do,’ she said, the back of her throat dry and constricted. ‘Parading ourselves in front of all those people as if we have something to prove to them.’

  Alexander took the pipe from his mouth and inclined it in her direction. She looked from him to the cannabis and he nudged it towards her again. Meekly, she placed her lips on the mouthpiece and closed her eyes.

  ‘It helps,’ he said, holding the pipe for her as she inhaled. She released it and coughed. ‘Better?’ he asked.

  She coughed again and pulled a face. ‘No,’ she said, trying to be serious, but smiling as he started to laugh. Eyes soft, he took the pipe back for himself. One last draw and he was finished.

  ‘Can’t be too stone-faced,’ he said, leaving the warm pipe in the sink of his bathroom. Walking back to the chest of drawers, he offered a hand to Mary. ‘To the circus?’

  She smiled and took his hand. ‘To the circus.’

  Robert was at the front door, a single red rose tucked into the buttonhole of his jacket, smiling as he welcomed a man with thin grey hair into the house. Beside him, his arm wrapped around her waist, was Sophie, her hair gathered into a small bun at the nape of her neck and held in place by two dazzling hair clips. She beamed, falling closer against her husband as the man with the grey hair said something that made them all laugh. Robert turned when he heard movement on the stairs. His smile widened and he extended his arm, shepherding Alexander and Mary over to them.

  ‘My son, Alexander,’ Robert smiled at the man with the grey hair, ‘and Ernest’s daughter, Mary.’

  The older man smiled and introduced himself. ‘Gerald Foye,’ he said, reaching to shake Alexander’s hand. ‘I’m sure we’ve met before. Unfortunately, I’m not always able to attend your mother’s excellent parties.’ The man, Gerald, smiled at Sophie, after which he turned to Mary and took her hand. ‘Very beautiful,’ he said, raising her fingers to his lips. She smiled and thanked him, before pulling her fingers back to her side.

  ‘Gerald does a lot of work overseas,’ Robert explained. ‘He’s quite a pioneer.’

  The other man laughed. ‘Aren’t we all, Robert!’ Both Robert and Sophie shared in his laughter.

  ‘What sort of work do you do, Mr. Foye?’ Alexander asked. ‘Research or application?’

  ‘Both,’ the grey haired man replied. ‘I’m a bit of a dabbler, I’m afraid — and, please, call me Gerald.’ His body language was open and charming and invited easy conversation. ‘I may be wearing a suit this evening, but such formalities really aren’t to my liking. I’m much more of a cotton slacks, sandals and socks sort of man!’

  More laughter and Robert suggested that Gerald might like to join the other guests at the back of the house. ‘We have wine and plenty to keep your hunger tantalised until dinner is served,’ he said, smiling and holding his arm out for the older man to follow. As he and Sophie went to accompany their guest, Robert looked over his shoulder and said, ‘Alex, stay here — welcome the next guests.’ He gestured with his hand, wafting it to encourage his son to move closer to the door and take his place at the front of the house. Alexander feigned a smile, creasing his eyes and holding his father’s gaze until he was sufficiently far enough down the hallway.

  He turned around and moved to stand next to the front door. Mary touched his arm and, looking at him, said, ‘It’s alright. I’m here.’

  A small nod and Alexander smiled at her. Even so, he couldn’t help but groan. Let this be over. He thought of how many old men’s handshakes he would have to endure, and how many younger men — eagle-eyed and ambitious — he would have to play politics with that evening.

  The next to arrive were a middle-aged man and his wife. He was serious and squeezed the bones of Alexander’s hand when he shook it. She was effervescent and laughed too loud each time Alexander said something that was barely humorous. And I thought I was high, he said as he laughed with her, his eyes tearing at the corners as the laughter kept coming.

  Another man, less serious than the other but with all the charisma of a wart, was persistent in showing Alexander his shoes. ‘I made them myself,’ he boasted, encouraging the younger man to touch the leather. Alexander ran a finger over the supple skin. ‘Very nice,’ he lied, smiling, before inviting the man to come inside.

  A young man and his sister, who had recently inherited a sizable operation just outside of the capital, regarded Alexander with suspicion as they passed through the front door. They didn’t stop to talk, and neither did the old woman who came next, although Alexander suspected her behaviour was more a symptom of her dottiness — the old woman having stopped to converse with a vase of flowers on a sideboard after hobbling past him and Mary — rather than be an indication of conceited rivalry, as it was with the younger guests.

  In the back room, the quartet was playing an uptempo piece. The sound of strings swirled down the hallway and around the house.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Alexander whispered to Mary as they watched yet another guest arrive.

  Lifting herself out of the driver’s seat of a black sports car, the woman was impossibly tall and wore a red silk jumpsuit. It was pleated at the waist and had a low neckline, so much so that it grazed the edges of her breasts, tempting any onlookers to look harder, daring them to try to catch a peek of something they had no right to see. Her hair was stylish, cropped short, leaving her neck exposed, the deep umber brown tone of her skin rich and sensational as she started to climb the steps up to the front door.

  ‘Her name is Zéphyrine,’ Mary replied, speaking straight into his ear. ‘She has a homestead somewhere in the south of the country.’

  The red silk woman arrived at the door. She stepped inside the house and Alexander and Mary greeted her. ‘Good evening,’ the woman replied. Her voice was sultry and low. She held out her hand for Alexander to take and, sensing her meaning, he took it, raised it to his lips and kissed it.

  ‘Your father has made you a guard dog, I see,’ the woman named Zéphyrine said. She was taller than Alexander and looked down at him as she spoke. He didn’t know how to respond other than to laugh. At his side, Mary smiled at the woman and complimented her on her choice of outfit.

  ‘It is striking, isn’t it?’ Zéphyrine ran the collar — if such a loose piece of fabric could be called such — between her fingers. ‘It certainly keeps their attention. Which,’ she paused and leant closer to Mary, as if she were about to share a secret with her, ‘is precisely what you want when you play this game, Miss. Stansfield.’ She pulled back and smiled at Alexander. ‘Your father is in the back, I assume?’ Before he had a chance to reply, she was walking away from them. They each stepped to one side of the hallway to give her space, Zéphyrine having parted them without word, her aura stronger than spoken language.

  More guests arrived. In the end, it was Ern who saved them, materialising from the back of the house and beckoning for them to follow him.

  ‘Your cousins are here, Alex,’ he said, a blue and yellow paisley pocket square tucked into his jacket. ‘They came around the back. Your mother’s with them now.’

  Standing close to the fire, a man with tousled blonde hair held Sophie’s hand as they laughed together, an expression of honest exultation on each of their faces. Alexander approached with Mary and the man turned when he saw them.

  ‘Alexander!’ He dropped Sophie’s hand and immediately moved to embrace the younger man. Holding him close, Alexander shared in his delight as the man chuckled and slapped him on the back.

  ‘You shall squeeze him to death, Luc,’ Sophie teased, her hand reaching to touch Alexander’s chin as it rested on the other man’s shoulder. Alexander smiled at his mother and the man, Luc, released him, only after he had held him out in front of him, a hand on either shoulder, as if admiring him.

  ‘It’s been too long, nephew,’ Luc beamed at Alexander, ‘You have grown too fast! And too handsome!’ He laughed, then turned on his heel and called out across the room. ‘Sabine, Jack — come and greet Alexander!’ A teenage boy, with the same blonde hair as Sophie and Luc, and a young woman, dark-haired and a similar age to Alexander, were over by a window in playful conversation with Guinevere and Aurélie, who were dressed in matching white gowns and silver shoes. They heard their father and, smiling, walked across the room, Alexander’s little sisters close behind.

  The boy had the same buoyancy as his father and held his cousin with equal warmth. Alexander ruffled Jack’s hair as they parted and then gestured to his face. ‘You shave now, cousin,’ he said, smiling.

  Jack laughed and touched his cheeks, as if self-conscious, and then, a sparkle in his eyes, nodded back at Alexander and said, ‘And I see you don’t!’

  Alexander laughed before turning to greet his other cousin. For one reason or another, it had been three years since they had last seen each other and she had hardly changed at all.

  ‘Sabine,’ he said, moving to kiss her cheek. She took his hands in hers with a fondness that could only have been familiarity. As children, they had often played together, Sophie’s family having visited on a regular basis, until circumstance, as with all good things, had interrupted life and caused them to drift apart.

  ‘You look well, Alex,’ she said, their faces close. ‘Happy.’ She smiled and held his gaze. Around them, Luc was once more talking with Sophie, animated and loud, and Jack had started a conversation with Mary, who now held a giggling Aurélie in her arms, having picked the girl up to stop her, wild and carefree as she was, from running about the room and into guests. Sabine squeezed her cousin’s hands. ‘Happier than I remember seeing you before,’ she said.

  Alexander thanked her. ‘You look well, also,’ he said.

  She smiled and her hair, which was arranged in an elaborate coil, shuffled as she shook her head. ‘I mean it. You seem different, somehow.’ She smiled at him curiously and then laughed. Leaning closer still, she whispered, ‘If I had to guess, I would say it probably has something to do with the company you seem to be keeping.’ Sabine tilted her head and looked at Mary, who was starting to struggle to keep Aurélie, wriggling and writhing and blowing raspberries, from wreaking havoc. The young girl was messing with Mary’s hair, unfastening a clip that had, until that point, kept her curls neatly drawn around the back of her head and down over one shoulder. Mary laughed at her and pretended to bite her nose.

  Alexander grinned as he watched, the drugs still busy in his brain. ‘Yeah,’ he said to his cousin, running his hand through his hair as he turned back to her, ‘I suppose you could say it’s something like that.’

  He would have liked to have spoken more, to have asked Sabine about his aunt, her mother, and their grandfather, whose decline in health, both physical and mental, in the years after Sophie’s mother’s death was the reason why their visits had become so few and far between, but before he had a chance, the chinking of glass washed over the room, and with it a quiet, as everyone turned their heads towards the sound’s origin.