28.

Lydia

Lydia wakes in the night to the sound of voices and experiences a familiar sensation: loneliness within a crowd. That’s sometimes how it is with the Plants, especially on holiday. They don’t even mean to leave her out, but they do.

Joe’s side of the bed is empty. She checks the clock: 1.32 a.m. She listens intently. She can hear all three of them, talking animatedly.

Moonlight shifts outside, illuminating the bed with two moving squares of bright white.

She gets up, puts on a dressing gown and ventures out of the bedroom. Where is he? It’s late even for him. He did the same thing last night too. And yesterday when he was in the bathroom, clearly with his sisters, discussing something, and he dismissed her like she was an annoying child. She asked him four times what had been going on, and received all sorts of nonsense in response. A work crisis, which he wouldn’t elaborate on, then something to do with his mother …

Lydia had to learn, throughout her twenties, how to stand up for herself. No one else is going to, she realized very slowly, as she – with the help of the therapist – phased out problematic and toxic friends who would say things like, ‘Does it bother you that you’ve gained weight?’ Lydia hadn’t known any better when she made them.

And so Lydia decides, as she rearranges her hair on top of her head, that she needs to draw a line here, now, tonight. She’s on this holiday too. She deserves to be treated as such.

She hears voices as she moves along the corridor. It’s stone, cold underfoot, like a crypt. She can feel its imperfections on her bare feet, some parts rough, some parts undulating and uneven. It smells like an old church, this villa. Lydia always forgets until their holiday rolls around again. Even when they’ve just cleaned it, it still has that kick. Wood, old tombs, ancient incense.

Cathy is speaking, Lydia thinks, her low, calm register combining with Joe’s raised one in Frannie’s room. She stops, feet getting colder the longer she stays still. She knows she shouldn’t eavesdrop, but the opportunity has presented itself, and Lydia has been fascinated by the Plants since she was fourteen. Even though she is now a Plant herself, her curiosity has hardly waned. Their glossy, dark hair, their athletic limbs, their closeness.

Maria and Owen – their parents – served full English breakfasts on weekdays before school with sunshine-bright orange juice in actual jugs. Their pink landing carpet was always hoovered in perfectly even stripes. Lydia used to think back to her own home, mouldy windowframes and unpredictable atmospheres, and wince. And now here they are, that perfect family, uninhibited, unaware they’re being overheard. Lydia feels suddenly strange, like a voyeur or a creep.

‘Yes, they can,’ she hears Joe say in Frannie’s room. The orange-juice jugs disappear in Lydia’s mind like popped balloons. This family, she has learnt over the last few years, is not perfect. Frannie is of the opinion Cathy and Joe are unhappily ambitious. Joe and Frannie think Cathy is emotionally stunted. Cathy and Frannie think Joe’s temper is too quick and too hard. They form tessellating circles, interacting in different ways, confusing ways to Lydia, who once thought love was black and white.