Nine Perfect Strangers

‘I’ve read about lottery winners who go on crazy spending sprees and their relationships end and they lose the lot and end up on the dole,’ said Zoe.

‘I know!’ said Jessica. ‘When we won, I did a lot of research about lottery winners. So I, like, knew the pitfalls.’

‘I reckon you’ve done a good job of it,’ said Zoe.

‘Thank you,’ said Jessica gratefully, because sometimes she had longed for someone to give her a good mark for how well she’d handled the prize money.

She’d tried so hard to be a well-behaved lottery winner. To invest properly, to share appropriately, to get tax advice, to go to posh fundraiser balls where terrifyingly elegant people sipped French champagne while they bid obscene amounts of money on obscure items at charity auctions: ‘All for a good cause, ladies and gentlemen!’ She thought of Ben tugging at his bow tie, muttering, ‘Who the fuck are these people?’

Should she have spent more at those charity balls? Less? Not gone at all? Sent a cheque? What would have made her a better person, more deserving of life right now?

If this had happened before the win, what would Zoe have said? Jessica deserves to live because she works really hard at her boring-as-batshit job and she’s never even flown business class in her life, let alone first class, so what sort of life is that?

The money defined her now. She didn’t even know who she was before the money.

‘Ben didn’t want to make any decisions except for which car to buy,’ she told Jessica. ‘He didn’t want anything to change . . . and that’s just not possible.’

She touched her lips and looked down at her boobs, which were objectively awesome.

Would her defence case be better if she didn’t look like this? If she hadn’t spent so much money on her body?

‘Why would you want to look like one of those dreadful Kardashians?’ her mother had once asked her.

Because Jessica thought those dreadful Kardashians were stunning. It was her prerogative to think so. Before the money Ben had drooled over images of luxury cars and Jessica had drooled over pictures of models and reality stars that were maybe photoshopped, but she didn’t care. He got his car, she got her body. Why was her new body more superficial than his new car?

‘Sorry.’ She looked back up at Zoe, and remembered that this girl’s brother had committed suicide. Zoe had probably never met anyone as superficial as Jessica in her life. ‘None of that helps you build my case, does it? Why should this girl live? Oh, because she tried really hard when she won the lottery.’

Zoe didn’t smile but gave Jessica a very serious, focused look. ‘Don’t worry, I can put a good spin on this.’

She looked up at the television screen where Masha’s face had loomed. ‘What do you think will happen next? After we’ve played her stupid game?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Jessica honestly. ‘It feels like anything could happen.’

chapter sixty-five

Masha

Masha collected a cushion from the Lavender Room. Yao made no sound as she lifted his head from her desk and slid the cushion beneath his cheek. His fluttering eyelids were not fully closed, revealing the shimmery slivers of his eyes.

She remembered adjusting a blanket around a small sleeping form. It felt like a memory that belonged to someone else, although she knew it was hers. The memory had no texture to it, no smell or colour; it was like the scenes from the security cameras around the building.

That was not correct. She could give the memory colour and texture if she so chose.

The blanket was yellow. The smell was No More Tears baby shampoo. The sound was the tinkling tune of the Brahms lullaby as a mobile with dangling toys turned in slow circles. The touch was of soft warm skin beneath her fingertips.

But she did not choose to remember that right at this moment.

She switched off the monitor so she could no longer see or hear her guests. She needed a break from them. The pitch of their voices was like fingernails on a blackboard.

The sedative she’d given Yao was one they’d prepared in case a guest had a bad reaction to yesterday’s smoothies and became so violent or agitated as to be a danger to themselves or others. Masha understood that Yao would sleep for a few restful hours and then he’d be fine. It was Yao himself who had taught both Masha and Delilah how to administer the injection in the event of an emergency.

This had not been planned, but it had become clear to her that Yao’s loss of confidence in the protocol was a serious liability. He needed to be temporarily removed from the strategic decision-making process. She’d needed to act fast and she had, in the same way that she had once culled non-performing staff or even entire divisions. Her ability to make swift decisions and execute those decisions in the face of change had been one of her strengths throughout her working life. Agility. That’s what it was. She was both metaphorically and literally agile.

But once Yao slept, she felt oddly alone. She missed him. She missed Delilah too. Without Yao or Delilah here there was no-one to mentor, no-one observing her actions, no-one to whom she needed to explain herself. It was strange. She had lived alone for large chunks of her life. When she was renovating Tranquillum House and creating and refining the personal development plan that resulted in her incredible physical and spiritual transformation, she had spent months at a time without seeing a soul, and she had not felt the loss of company at all. But her life was different now. She was rarely alone. There were always people in the house: her staff, her guests. This reliance on people was a weakness. She needed to work on that. She was a work in progress.

Nothing stays the same.

It was a hypothetical exercise she had set for the guests, but their fear needed to be real. She had not seen enough fear. She had seen cynicism and doubt. These people were disrespectful. Ungrateful. Quite unintelligent, to be frank.