It’s pitch-black outside now. The smoke from the fire fills the room, so that everyone looks different, hazy around the edges. Not quite themselves.
We’re on to the next course, some fiddly dark chocolate tart. I try to cut into it and it goes shooting off my plate, crumbs of pastry exploding everywhere.
‘Need someone to cut your food for you, big boy?’ Duncan jeers, from the far end of the table. I hear the other blokes laugh. It’s like nothing has changed. I ignore them.
Hannah turns to me. ‘So, Johnno,’ she says, ‘do you live in London too?’ I like Hannah, I’ve decided. She seems kind. And I like her Northern accent and the studs in the top of her ear which make her look like a party girl, even though she’s apparently a mum of two. I bet she can be pretty wild when she wants to be.
‘Christ no,’ I tell her. ‘I hate the city. Give me the countryside any day.
I need space to roam free.’
‘Are you pretty outdoorsy yourself?’ Hannah asks.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I guess you could say that. I used to work at an adventure centre in the Lake District. Teaching climbing, bushcraft, all that.’
‘Oh wow. I suppose that makes sense, because it was you who organised the stag, right?’ She smiles at me. I wonder how much she knows about it.
‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘I did.’
‘Charlie hasn’t said much about any of it. But I heard there was going to be some kayaking and climbing and stuff.’
Ah, so he didn’t tell her anything about what went down. I’m not surprised. I probably wouldn’t if I were him, come to think of it. The less said about all of that the better. Let’s hope he’s decided to let bygones be bygones on that front. Poor bloke. It wasn’t my idea, all of that.
‘Well, yeah,’ I continue. ‘I’ve always been into that sort of thing.’ ‘Yes,’ Femi interjects. ‘It was Johnno who worked out how to scale
the wall to get up on top of the sports hall. And you climbed that massive tree outside the dining hall, didn’t you?’
‘Oh God,’ Will says to Hannah. ‘Don’t get this lot started on our school days. You’ll never hear the end of it.’
Hannah smiles at me. ‘It sounds like you could have your own TV series, Johnno.’
‘Well,’ I say. ‘Funny you should say that, but I did actually do a try- out for the show.’
‘You did?’ Hannah asks. ‘For Survive the Night?’
‘Yeah.’ Ah, Christ. Why did I say anything? Stupid Johnno, always shooting my mouth off. Jesus, it’s humiliating. ‘Yeah, well, they did a screen test, with the two of us, and—’
‘And Johnno decided he wasn’t up for any of that crap, didn’t you?’ Will says. It’s good of him to try to save my blushes. But there’s no point in lying now, I might as well say it. ‘He’s being a good mate,’ I say. ‘Truth is I was shit at it. They basically told me I didn’t work on screen. Not like our boy here—’ I lean over and muss up Will’s hair, and he ducks away, laughing. ‘I mean, he’s right. It wasn’t for me anyway.
Couldn’t stand any of that make-up they slap on you, the clothes they make you wear. Not that that’s any shade on what you do, mate.’
‘No offence taken,’ Will says, putting up his hands. He’s a natural on screen. He has this ability to be whoever people want him to be. When he’s on the programme I notice he drops his ‘h’s’, sounds a bit more like ‘one of the people’. But when he’s with posh, public school-educated blokes, blokes who came from the better versions of the sort of school we both went to, he’s one of them – 100 per cent.
‘Anyway,’ I say to Hannah. ‘It makes sense. Who’d ever want this ugly mug on TV, eh?’ I pull a face. I see Jules glance away from me as though I’ve just exposed myself. Stuck-up cow.
‘So where did the idea for the show come from, Will?’ Hannah asks. I appreciate that she’s trying to move the conversation on, spare me any more humiliation.
‘Yeah,’ Femi says. ‘You know, I was wondering about that. Was it Survival?’
‘Survival?’ Hannah turns to him.
‘This game we used to play at school,’ Femi explains.
Duncan’s wife Georgina chips in: ‘Oh God. Duncan’s told me stories about it. Really awful stuff. He told me about boys being taken out of
their beds at night, left in the middle of nowhere—’
‘Yeah, that’s what happened,’ Femi says. ‘They’d kidnap a younger boy from his bed and take him as far as they could away from the school, deep into the grounds.’
‘And we’re talking big grounds,’ Angus says. ‘And the middle of nowhere. Pitch-black. No light from anything.’
‘It sounds barbaric,’ Hannah says, her eyes wide.
‘It was a big tradition,’ Duncan says. ‘They’d been doing it for hundreds of years, since the start of the school.’
‘Will never had to do it, did you, mate?’ Femi turns to him. Will holds up his hands. ‘No one ever came and got me.’
‘Yeah,’ Angus says, ‘because they were all shit-scared of your dad.’ ‘The chap would have a blindfold on at the start,’ Angus says, turning
to Hannah, ‘so he didn’t know where he was. Sometimes he’d even be tied to a tree, or a fence and had to get free. I remember when I did mine
—’
‘You pissed yourself,’ Duncan finishes. ‘No I didn’t,’ Angus replies.
‘Yeah you did,’ Duncan says. ‘Don’t think we’ve forgotten that.
Pisspants.’
Angus takes a gulp of wine. ‘Fine, well, loads of people did. It was fucking terrifying.’
I remember my Survival. Even though you knew it would happen at some point, nothing prepared you for when they actually came to get you.
‘The craziest thing is,’ Georgina says, ‘Duncan doesn’t seem to think it was a bad thing. She turns to him. ‘Do you, darling?’
‘It was the making of me,’ Duncan says.
I look over at Duncan who’s sitting there with his hands in his pockets and his chest thrown out, like he’s king of all he surveys, like he owns this place. And I wonder what it made him into, exactly.
I wonder what it made me into.
‘I suppose it was harmless,’ Georgina says, ‘it’s not like anyone died, is it?’ She gives a little laugh.
I remember waking up, hearing the whispers in the dark all around me. Hold his legs … you go for the head. Then how they laughed as they held me down and tied the blindfold round my eyes. Then voices. Whoops and cheers, maybe – but with the blindfold over my ears too they sounded like animals: howls and screeches. Out into the night air, freezing on my bare feet. Rattling fast over the uneven ground – a
wheelbarrow I guess it was – for so long I thought we must have left the school grounds. Then they left me, in the woods. All alone. Nothing but the beat of my heart and the secret noises of the woods. Getting the blindfold off and finding it just as dark, no moon to see by. Tree branches scratching at my cheeks, trees so close it felt like there was no way between them, like they were pressing in on me. So cold, a metallic taste like blood at the back of my throat. Crackle of twigs beneath my bare feet. Walking for miles, in circles probably. The whole night, through the woods, until the dawn came.
When I got back to the school building, I felt like I’d been reborn. Fuck the teachers who told me I’d never amount to much. Like they’d ever survived a night like that. I felt like I was invincible. Like I could do anything.
‘Johnno,’ Will says, ‘I was saying I reckon it’s time to get your whisky out. Give it a sample.’ He jumps up from the table, and goes and gets one of the bottles.
‘Oh,’ Hannah says, ‘can I look?’ She takes it from Will. ‘This is such a cool design, Johnno. Did you work with someone on it?’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I’ve got a mate in London who’s a graphic designer.
He’s done a good job, hasn’t he?’
‘He really has,’ she says, nodding, tracing the type with her finger. ‘That’s what I do,’ she says. ‘I’m an illustrator, by trade. But it feels like a million years ago now. I’m on permanent maternity leave.’
‘Can I have a look?’ Charlie says. He takes it from her and reads the label, frowning. ‘You must have had to partner with a distillery? Because it says here it’s been aged twelve years.’
‘Yeah,’ I say, feeling like I’m being interviewed, or doing a test. Like he’s trying to catch me out. Maybe it’s the whole schoolteacher thing. ‘I did.’
‘Well,’ says Will, opening the bottle with a flourish. ‘The acid test!’ He calls into the kitchen, ‘Aoife … Freddy. Could we have some glasses for whisky please?’
Aoife carries some in on a tray.
‘Get one for yourself too,’ Will says, like he’s lord of the manor, ‘and for Freddy. We’ll all try it!’ Then, as Aoife tries to shake her head: ‘I insist!’
Freddy shuffles in to stand next to his wife. He keeps his eyes down and fiddles with the cord of his apron as they both stand there awkwardly. Fucking weirdo, Duncan mouths at the rest of us. It’s probably a good thing the bloke’s looking at the floor.
I check Aoife out. She’s not as old as I thought at first: maybe only forty or so. She just dresses older. She’s good-looking, too – in a refined kind of way. I wonder what she’s doing with such a wet blanket of a husband.
Will pours out the rest of the whisky. Jules asks for a couple of drops: ‘I’ve never been much of a whisky drinker, I’m afraid.’ She takes a sip and I see her wince, before she has time to cover it by putting her hand over her mouth. But the hand only draws attention to it. Which maybe, come to think of it, she meant it to do. It’s pretty clear she’s not my biggest fan.
‘It’s good, mate,’ Duncan says. ‘It kind of reminds me of a Laphroaig, you know?’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I guess so.’ Trust Duncan to know his whiskies.
Aoife and Freddy down theirs as quickly as possible and hightail it back to the kitchen. I get that. My mum used to work at the local country club – the sort of place Angus and Duncan’s parents probably had memberships to. She said the golfers sometimes tried to buy her a drink, thinking they were being so generous, but it only made her feel awkward.
‘I think it’s dead tasty,’ Hannah says. ‘I’m surprised. I have to tell you, Johnno, I’m not normally a whisky fan.’ She takes another sip.
‘Well,’ Jules says. ‘Our guests are very lucky.’ She smiles at me. But you know that thing they say about someone’s eyes not smiling? Hers aren’t.
I grin at them all. But I’m feeling a bit out of sorts. I think it’s all that talk about Survival. Hard to remind myself that to them – to pretty much all the other ex-Trevellyan boys – it’s all just a game.
I glance over at Will, who has his hand resting on the back of Jules’s head, grinning at everyone around him. He looks like a man who has everything—and maybe he does. I can’t help but wonder: does all this talk about the old days not affect him even a little?
I need to shake off this strange mood. I reach for the whisky bottle in the center of the table. “I think it’s time for a drinking game,” I announce.
“Ah—” Jules starts to protest, but her voice is drowned out by the cheers from the guys.
“Definitely!” Angus shouts. “Irish snap?”
“Yeah,” Femi chimes in. “Just like at school! Remember those shots of Listerine? Because we figured out it was fifty percent proof?”
“And that vodka you smuggled in, Duncan!” Angus adds.
“Right,” I say, jumping up. “I’ll grab a deck.” I feel a wave of relief at having something to focus on.
I head to the kitchen and find Aoife with her back to me, poring over a clipboard. I clear my throat, and she jumps slightly.
“Aoife, love,” I say, “do you have a deck of cards?”
“Yes,” she replies, stepping away as if wary of me. “I think there’s one in the drawing room.” Her accent is lovely—there’s something about how she says “tink” instead of “think” that makes me smile.
Her husband is in there too, busy with the oven.
“Are you prepping for tomorrow?” I ask him while I wait for Aoife. He mumbles something without looking at me. Thankfully, Aoife returns a minute later with the cards.
Back at the table, I deal out the deck.
“I’m off to get my beauty sleep,” Jules’s mum says. “I’ve never been one for the hard stuff.” I catch Jules rolling her eyes at that. Jules’s dad and her hot French step-mum make their excuses too.
“Nor me,” Hannah adds, glancing at Charlie. “It’s been a long day, hasn’t it, love?”
“I don’t know—” Charlie says uncertainly.
“Come on, Charlie boy!” I call to him. “It’ll be fun! Live a little!” He doesn’t seem convinced.
Things got a little wild on the stag do. Poor Charlie, he didn’t go to a school like ours, so he wasn’t really ready for it. He just seemed so… like a Geography teacher. That night, he felt like he slipped into a dark place, and anyone would have. He barely spoke to any of us for the rest of the weekend.
Being back with this group, I guess, brings that out in us.
Most of them went to Trevellyan’s, and we’re all tied together by that experience. Not in the same way Will and I are bonded—that’s something special between just the two of us. But we share the rituals and the male bonding.
When we gather, there’s this pack mentality.
We tend to get carried away.
