Nine Perfect Strangers

‘Were you called Smiley Hogburn because you did smile a lot, or because you didn’t?’ asked Zoe.

‘Because I did smile a lot,’ said Tony, unsmilingly. ‘I was kind of a simple guy back then. Happy-go-lucky.’

‘Were you?’ said Frances, unable to hide her surprise.

‘I was,’ said Tony. He smiled at her. He seemed to find her funny.

‘Weren’t you the one with the smiley face tattoos on your butt?’ said Lars.

‘I’ve seen them!’ cried Frances before she could help herself.

‘Have you now?’ said Lars suggestively.

‘Frances,’ said Tony, and he put a finger to his lips as if they had something to hide. Wait! Was he flirting with her?

‘Oh no, not in that way,’ said Frances. She looked nervously at Masha. ‘I saw them accidentally.’

‘My brother used to have your poster in his bedroom!’ It was Delilah, breaking ranks and speaking like a human being. ‘The one where you’re jumping six feet in the air and the other player is pulling down your shorts and you can see your tattoos! Hilarious!’

‘Fancy that. We have a famous athlete in our midst.’ There was an edge to Masha’s voice. Maybe she wanted to be the only athlete in their midst.

‘Former athlete,’ Tony corrected her. ‘It was a long time ago.’

‘So . . . who haven’t we heard from yet?’ said Masha, clearly keen to change the subject.

‘Post-sport depression,’ said Napoleon. ‘Is that what you’ve got? I’ve read about it. It affects a lot of elite sportspeople. You’ve got to focus on your mental health, Tony . . . Smiley . . . Tony – I hope you don’t mind if I call you Smiley – you really do, because depression is an insidious –’

‘Who’s next?’ interrupted Masha.

‘I’ll go next,’ said Zoe. ‘I’m Zoe.’

She seemed to gather her thoughts. Or was she nervous? Oh, sweetheart.

‘As Dad already said, we decided to come to Tranquillum House because we can’t stand to be at home in January, because that’s where my brother hung himself.’

Masha made a strange startled sound and pressed her hand to her mouth. It was the first time Frances had observed Masha show any sign of weakness. Even when she spoke about her father, for whom she clearly grieved, she’d still been controlled.

Frances watched Masha swallow convulsively for a few seconds, as if she were choking, but then she regained her composure and carried on listening to Zoe, although her eyes looked a little watery, as if she really had just choked on something.

Zoe looked at the ceiling. The circle of people seemed to tilt towards her with the weight of their useless sympathy.

‘Oh wait, Dad probably didn’t say that Zach hung himself, but if you were wondering, like, what was his method of choice, that was it! It’s popular.’

She smiled and rocked in tiny circles. The silver studs along her ears gleamed.

‘One of his friends said that was so “brave” of Zach – to choose that way to kill himself. Instead of pills. Like he’d been bungee jumping. God!’ She blew out a puff of air and her hair lifted from her forehead.

‘Anyway, once we became, like, total experts on suicide, we stopped telling people how he did it. Because of suicide contagion. Suicide is really contagious. My parents were terrified I’d catch it too. Like chicken pox. Ha ha. I never caught it though.’

‘Zoe?’ said Napoleon. ‘Darling, maybe that’s enough.’

‘We weren’t close,’ said Zoe to the group. She looked at her hands and said it again. ‘Like, sometimes people think because we were twins we were really close, but we went to different schools. We had different interests. Different values.’

‘Zoe,’ said her mother. ‘Maybe now is not the –’

‘He got up really early that morning.’ Zoe ignored her mother. She fiddled with one of the many earrings in her earlobe. Her empty smoothie glass lay on its side against her thigh. ‘He hardly ever got up early. He took out the recycling bin, because it was his turn, and then he went back upstairs and killed himself.’ She sighed, as if she were bored. ‘We took it in turns to take out the bins. I don’t know if he was making some kind of point by doing that. It really pissed me off. Like, thanks so much for that, Zach, good on you, that makes up for you killing yourself.’

‘Zoe?’ said Heather sharply.