‘Hi, babe!’
‘Hey, Lizzie.’
‘You excited?’
‘Very.’ Rose smiled so hard it hurt her cheeks.
They pulled into a field where four other cars were parked. A bright-red Mini (Pippa’s), a bright-blue Toyota (Grace’s), a white Mercedes (Pippa’s mum, Nikki) and a black Tesla (Jessie’s) that looked so obnoxious in a countryside field Rose found herself imagining how it might feel to smash the windows with a baseball bat.
‘Guess we know where the party is,’ said Lizzie, gesturing towards a pair of giant penis-shaped balloons that had been tied around the gate into the property.
Rose let out a feeble laugh.
‘Lighten up, Petal,’ said Fran, smirking because she knew how much Rose hated that nickname. It was what the older girls called her when she’d arrived in Year 7. She’d walked past them in the hallway in her first week when one of them asked her what her name was. When she replied ‘Rose’ they all burst out laughing. ‘Adorable,’ someone said. ‘We’ll call you Petal.’ Somehow, Fran and co got wind of this and so, for much of Rose’s teenage life, she was known as ‘Petal’.
The women gathered up their items from the car, with Rose taking a very heavy Ikea bag containing what felt like three large Smirnoff bottles given to her by Fran.
They walked down a pebble-covered path before the house came into view. It was unlike anything Rose had ever seen before. With turrets coming out of the top, brickwork that looked like it was from the seventeenth century, and an actual moat circling it, this was a home from a fairy tale.
‘Holy shit,’ she muttered.
‘Have you not been to Pippa’s country house before?’ asked Lizzie, so shocked it was like she’d just asked if Rose didn’t have a second foot.
‘No,’ she replied. Pippa always used to invite a select group of people down to the house at weekends. They’d dress up and post pictures on Facebook, which Rose would trawl through every Monday morning, seething in envy. Pippa’s mother used to be a model in her early twenties and then devoted herself to her children – five of them to be precise. Despite Ver de Veux & Partners being well known, there had always been a rumour at school that Pippa’s father was secretly part of the Mafia. But they always said that about wildly wealthy people. There had to be a darkness attached to them. Mostly because there almost always was, Mafia or not.
As they neared what might just have been the most absurd hen do venue in the history of all hen dos, Rose was suddenly struck by the fact they had each paid £250 to attend a party inside a manor owned by a billionaire. What exactly all this money was going towards was unclear to anyone except the bridesmaids. Though, as they walked over a curved wooden bridge, Rose noticed that small penis-shaped lanterns had been neatly placed on either side, running all the way up a pebbled path to the front door. Maybe penis-shaped lanterns came at a high premium.
All of them were startled by the voice of Jessie suddenly bellowing from inside.
‘Quick! You’re already late. Come in! Come on!’
Rose’s headache was getting worse. She had asked Lizzie for some ibuprofen in the car and she had said no, explaining she had only packed two tablets for herself for tomorrow morning. There was no point asking Fran.
As the three women went inside, the status of the home they had entered came into full view. In front of them was a staircase that must have been at least two metres wide; it snaked off into two separate staircases on either side. Penis-shaped cushions had been carefully positioned on the staircase, each of them with Pippa’s fiancé’s face printed on them. Rose pictured them ending up in landfill, or in a dusty cupboard that would be forgotten about until one curious guest decided to open it, prompting an avalanche of penis-shaped soft furnishing to tumble down.
To the right of the staircase was a giant placard with photographs of each of the hens’ faces stuck together to indicate their room allocations. Rose breathed a sigh of relief when she saw she was sharing with Lizzie and not with Fran or Jessie, or any of Pippa’s university friends she didn’t know.
They had used a photograph of Rose taken from the leavers’ party in the sixth form. God, she looked terrible, she thought, staring back at her teenage, fake-tanned face. Her collarbones were jutting out, arms slim and frail, hanging by her side in a bright-blue dress from Mango that was too big for her, even though it was a size six.
None of them ate much back then, particularly not in the run-up to the leavers’ party. Rose never considered herself as someone with an eating disorder. Even when she did try to stick her fingers down her throat, she told herself it was because everyone else did it and she wanted to fit in. Not because she actually wanted to throw up. It never worked, anyway. Rose would just end up gagging and spitting balls of saliva into the toilet bowl.
Seeing the photos, though, was confronting. All of them looked so unwell. Fran, in particular, was so gaunt it looked like she hadn’t eaten in weeks. Her cheeks were completely hollow, her body totally outsized by her lollipop head.
‘Right, no time to drop your bags, I’m afraid,’ said Jessie, hurrying them into the kitchen, where Nikki was tending to a cocktail jug filled with pink, sparkly liquid, swirling it around with a giant penis-shaped straw.
‘Hi, girls!’ she said waving. Nikki was wearing just a slim white vest top and tight jeans with ‘TEAM BRIDE’ written on the back in fuchsia lettering. Without a single wrinkle on her face, she could have easily passed for twenty-eight.
Everyone said their hellos before they were quickly ushered by Jessie into a bathroom (there were nine in the whole house) to get changed into their allocated ‘drunk Pippa’ outfit.
The bathroom Rose was chivvied into was covered in damask wallpaper. There was a landscape painting in a gold frame positioned above a standing bathtub. The scene was a cliffside beach, violent waves rolling onto the shore, where a man tended to a small boat by some rocks. Oils. Nineteenth century. She looked closer, sure it couldn’t be real. It was signed M. Smith, which, if Rose was right, meant it was by Mortimer Smith and would be worth at least £20,000. And yet, this was surely just one artwork of many, in one bathroom of many.
The bathtub was one that Rose had only ever seen pictured in Hives & Dives. Freestanding, brass, with little gold feet on each of the four corners. It was a bath you could sink into, utterly and completely, stewing in scalding hot temperatures as every part of your skin absorbed the heat. Rose debated how much trouble she’d be in with Jessie for locking the door and getting into the bath, staying there for the duration of the weekend. Then she wondered if anyone would actually notice.
Once she had changed, Rose stared at herself in the mirror. There were dark, swollen bags forming under her eyes and she could swear that was a wrinkle near her nose. She applied all the make-up she had brought at once, even the gold eyeshadow.
Just before leaving the bathroom, she decided to check her phone one last time before turning it off.
There was a notification from Instagram: Milo had replied.
I’m great, thanks. You doing anything fun this weekend?
It was as if the message had been sent by someone else. Zero acknowledgement of that night in the hotel suite.
It made no sense. Neither did the fact that she replied immediately. Just at a hen do. Really busy. Have a good weekend, she typed, pressing ‘Send’ before turning her phone off, stuffing it in her bag and heading back to the kitchen. Her heart felt like it was beating outside of her body.
Walking along the vast corridor, Rose could hear the gaggle of women in the kitchen and the eighties synth sounds of Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’. She paused and took a deep breath. God, she wished Luce was here.
‘There you are!’ shouted Jessie, who was standing in a line with the eight other hens. ‘Go on the end here, Rose,’ she said, handing her a mask with Pippa’s face on it. ‘Put that on. Now!’
Rose silently acquiesced as someone turned the music up.
She only knew Jessie, Fran, Lizzie and Grace. The others – Emma, Tessa, Ruby and Nina – were Pippa’s friends from Liverpool.
‘Okay, ladies!’ Jessie started clapping her hands over her head, her manic eyes trying to catch everyone else’s. ‘Pip is just around the corner. I want you all to start singing along. And put your masks on!’
‘Shall we dance, too?’ asked Ruby, in a tone that sounded completely earnest.
‘Yes! Dance!’ Jessie replied, mask now on, stepping from side to side in a pair of penis-shaped sunglasses that she kept pushing back up her nose. ‘Like this please! Left, right. Left right.’
