I saw a grin break out over Suzanne’s face as she looked back at us to screw up her nose playfully.
We paid our entry fee and headed in together, sticking close among the crowds of tourists. Rosie curved her arm companionably through mine. ‘Remember the first time we came here?’ she asked me as we headed down the first corridor, neither of us paying much attention to the displays. Suzanne was just ahead of us, the audio guide pressed to her ear.
‘Yes,’ I said. We’d been seven years old and under the supervision of Tarin who, at fifteen, had used the trip as a cover to meet her then-boyfriend, Jamie, who’d dumped her at the entrance. Tarin had spent the entire circuit of the Pavilion sobbing. It was one of my most vivid childhood memories. ‘Wow, that was nearly ten years ago.’
‘Shut up, don’t say that,’ Rosie shrieked, then laughed. ‘God, Tarin did used to get landed with us, didn’t she? I don’t think I’d want to look after a couple of seven-year-olds on my weekends.’
‘She loved us,’ I said, which was true. ‘I don’t think she minded really.’
‘I bet she – oof.’ Rosie had walked straight into Suzanne, who had stopped abruptly in the middle of the Banqueting Hall and was staring upward. ‘Suze!’
‘Is that a dragon?’ Suzanne asked, oblivious. She pointed up at the gigantic chandelier, which was hanging from the claws of – yes – a dragon. ‘This place is so weird.’ Her eyes were bright. ‘I love it.’
‘Wait till you see the music room,’ Rosie said, an affectionate grin on her face. ‘The wallpaper is ridiculous and there’s a massive organ. I think you’ll actually cry.’
I saw a familiar mischievous grin light up on Suzanne’s face and she opened her mouth to make what I was sure was going to be a terrible massive-organ joke, but before she could speak her expression dropped and her mouth snapped shut.
Rosie and I glanced up just in time to see a woman with a mane of thick, coppery curls see Suzanne and do a very obvious double take. For an odd moment I thought she was going to just turn and walk away, but then she caught sight of me and Rosie watching. She looked again at Suzanne, who let out an audible sigh and then smiled, but it was tight and fixed. ‘Hi.’
‘Hello, Suzanne,’ the woman said. She was friendly, her face open and kind. ‘Nice to see you.’
‘Yeah,’ Suzanne said, not looking like she thought it was at all nice. She turned to Rosie and me. ‘Um, this is Becca –’ she waved a reluctant hand at the woman – ‘and these are my friends Rosie and Caddy.’
‘Lovely to meet you both,’ Becca said, then added to Suzanne, ‘I’ll see you on Wednesday?’ She was still smiling, but there was something in her face I couldn’t read.
Suzanne nodded wordlessly, her expression tense. It was unsettling to see her red-faced and speechless, untethered from her usual poise. When Becca walked away I watched Suzanne’s shoulders loosen, her face relax. She let out a breath and then smiled at us. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘Who was she?’ Rosie asked.
‘A friend of Sarah’s,’ Suzanne replied vaguely. ‘Sometimes I babysit her kid.’
I frowned, the explanation jarring in my head like a Tetris block dropped too far to the left. Something about it didn’t fit quite right. I had opened my mouth to say something when I felt Suzanne’s fingers close tight around my wrist, just for a second. I closed my mouth.
‘Come on,’ Suzanne said, the familiar grin back on her face. ‘Weren’t you saying something about a music room?’
I didn’t quiz Suzanne about Becca for the rest of the day, restraining myself even when the distinctive copper curls appeared around a corner and Suzanne ducked behind me, out of view. I knew her well enough by then to know that pushing her for answers to anything was a useless exercise, likely only to bring out the stubborn, sullen side of her that she usually kept hidden. Not questioning her was the best way of getting her to talk.
Sure enough, I was woken just after 2 a.m by my phone buzzing on my bedside table. I opened my eyes, not moving for a second, just listening to the vibration. When it stopped, I threw on my joggers and a hoodie and climbed out of the window and over the garage roof, a manoeuvre I’d mastered after four tries. By this stage I could make it all the way out and down without making a sound.
Suzanne was waiting for me at the end of my driveway, slouched on the wall bordering my front garden. She was smoking, the cigarette already half burned down in her fidgety fingers. The smoking was just one thing that was different about Suzanne at night, a glimpse of the side of her I was only starting to get to know. At night she was quieter and more contained, the vulnerability she kept a careful lid on most of the time closer to the surface, peeking out.