“How can you two still not be ready?” Charlie’s howl from the bottom of the stairs is as loud as if he was standing in front of my wardrobe.
“Because we know you hate waiting?” I shout back. Mira laughs, sticking one more grip into her hair to hold it in place, piled up on top of her head. Downstairs, Charlie swears, but Felix laughs too.
“Anyone would think you didn’t have a party to get to! The pair of you, downstairs in two minutes – or you’re walking across the deer park.”
“What do you think?” Mira puts one hand on her hip and pats her hair. The green dress and her red lipstick look amazing. And so glamorous that they’re completely out of place in my cramped little bedroom.
“You look like…I don’t know. A film star or something.”
“Good. Film star will do.” She flashes me a grin and grabs the tiny red clutch bag she brought with her. When I asked where she’d got it, she looked embarrassed – and said she’d made it.
“You made it?”
“Does it look so bad?”
“No! It looks brilliant. You should make some more and sell them. People would totally buy them.”
She picked at the seam along the top, but I think I was only telling her what she already knew. Just like I know that, actually, what she needs is to leave here. However much I might hate her going, fashion is where she’s meant to be.
Mira rests her free hand on the doorknob. “Okay. Are we good?”
“Yes. I think so.” I don’t only mean that we’re ready to go downstairs. The mirror on the inside of my wardrobe door is a lot smaller than the one in the shop changing room, but the Flora there looks the same as she did earlier. The dress still fits like it was made for me, like it’s been waiting all this time. Like this Flora has been waiting all this time.
And the dress even goes with the one pair of heels I already own.
“See? Like it was meant to be. Like I said,” Mira says approvingly over my shoulder.
Charlie and Felix are downstairs, Felix twirling the key of the Land Rover around his finger and Charlie staring at his watch and grumbling. My brother looks surprisingly neat in his suit, and even Felix (less neat, but still smarter than usual in a grey waistcoat, his tattoos of leaves and twisting vines clearly on show below rolled-up shirtsleeves) could pass for someone who belongs around actual people and not trees. As we come down the stairs, Felix nudges Charlie and whispers something in his ear, and Charlie beams.
“About time,” he mutters, shaking his sleeve back down over his watch. “Better get going.” But the inside of his words and the outside don’t match. “I like your dress,” he says as he holds the front door open, watching Felix help Mira into the back of the Land Rover. Her shoe slips as she climbs in and she laughs, with Felix pretending to shove her in – and it really hits me how much I’ll miss her.
“Thank you.”
The inside of my words don’t match the outside either. On the outside, I’m saying thank you for the compliment, because that’s what we’re meant to do. On the inside, though, there’s so much I need to thank him for – and I don’t think I can ever say it all out loud.
Felix gives me a wink as he helps me clamber into the back of the Land Rover – which just for once, doesn’t even smell like a farm.
As we cross the deer park, Hopwood appears in flashes through the trees, the windows glowing and strings of lights criss-crossing the lawns and terraces. It looks like something out of a fairy tale, and the closer we get, the more magical it becomes. Flaming torches are fixed into metal posts along the hedges and on top of the tower in the middle of the maze. As we pull into the staff car park, tiny white lights glitter in the topiary shapes and around the stone urns in the flower borders.
“Look at this place!” Mira breathes, craning her neck to be able to see it all at once. “I never thought it could look this way!”
I didn’t either, not really. We’ve had all kinds of parties here before – weddings or birthdays or…things people have parties for – but the Hopwood has never looked this beautiful for any of them. It feels as if it’s under an enchantment.
Inside, the wooden staircase we spend so long every day cleaning is completely lost underneath the ivy and white roses wound all around the banisters and the lanterns perched at the side of each step. Giant vases of white roses and green eucalyptus branches intertwined with tiny glittering lights have appeared on every available flat surface. Through the open doors, the main lawn has sprouted an avenue of silver birches, their delicate branches also draped with little white bulbs lighting the way to a huge marquee in the middle of the grass, overlooking the lake and the maze. Lanterns line every path, flames dancing in their glass cages and casting flickering shadows on the gravel as people wander up and down with glasses in their hands. Barney moves from group to group, shaking hands and making small talk. A flash near the reception desk means the photographer is already at work, and all through the crowd I can see people I recognize – other members of staff, all looking a tiny bit awkward out of uniform. We’re not used to being the guests.
But no matter where I look, no matter how many knots of guests I pass, I can’t find him.
Hal’s not here.
The lobby is crowded and loud. People laughing, the clatter of glasses on trays, the piano in the bar, music from the marquee outside drifting in on the warm night air…
So loud.
And Hal’s not here.
He should be here – he said he’d be here. He asked me to be here.
I don’t know what’s pounding harder – my heart or my head, which suddenly feels like it might split open. The world has taken on strange outlines, as though everyone is lit from behind. I edge my way through the crowded space and lean on the end of the banister, trying to control my breathing. Where did Mira go? She was right here, and then…
“Flora.”
Only one person says my name like that.
The noisy room is suddenly silent and the air feels like water, heavy and slow – I have to push against it to turn around and it takes an eternity.
And there he is, two steps from the bottom of the staircase.
“Hal.”
His hair is swept back from his face and he’s wearing a white shirt and dark blue suit. And when he smiles at me, the room glows brighter than ever. How can he be so much himself? How can he always be the same person, the whole of himself? What does that feel like, and how can someone who finds that so easy ever understand someone like me? But then in the attic, when he spoke to Barney and was somebody so different, that wasn’t a Hal I recognized. That wasn’t the Hal who kissed me on the bridge or on my doorstep. It wasn’t the Hal who laughed when we sat on the roof of his car. How can he carry this other self inside, and never be bothered by it? How can Mira come to work day after day after day and never mention that what she really wants, where she really belongs, is somewhere and something else – something she’s working towards in secret, even though it’s hard and she’s tired? How can Charlie think all the things I overheard him saying to Felix and never let me see how much he worries?
Suddenly the world shifts and mirrors itself and knits back together – and there I am, left standing in the middle of the echoes of what I thought I knew.