Heather refused to acknowledge Masha at all, right up until when the ambulance arrived and took Masha to the local hospital. ‘Thank you for visiting! Please remember to rate your stay with us on TripAdvisor!’ she cried out merrily, as the two blue-uniformed paramedics led her away.
More local police officers turned up, and then, once Gus and his friends discovered the large quantities of illegal drugs on the premises, a second group arrived, and these ones had harder eyes and shinier shoes, and they weren’t quite as interested in the extraneous details as Gus was.
Yao was taken away in a police car to make a statement.
Before he left, he turned to them all and said simply, ‘I’m very sorry.’
He looked sad and defeated and ashamed, like a teenage boy who has had a party get out of control while his parents are away.
Ben’s Lamborghini was found in the car park of the regional airport two hours’ drive away. It was supposedly not damaged, although Ben would see about that. Delilah had not yet been located.
There was a lot of tedious paperwork. Everyone had to give long separate statements to the police about the events that had transpired over the last week.
It was hard sometimes to give a logical account of what happened. Frances could sense their scepticism.
‘So you thought you were locked up?’
‘We were locked up.’
‘But then you just opened the door and left?’
‘Well, you see, we’d stopped trying the handle,’ said Frances. ‘I think that was the point Masha was trying to make: that sometimes the answer is right there in front of you.’
‘I see,’ said the police officer. You could tell from his face that he didn’t see at all and that he sure as hell wouldn’t have got himself locked in that room. ‘And you thought there was a fire.’
‘There was smoke,’ said Frances, her mouth full of mango, the golden flesh as fresh and sweet as a summer morning. ‘And the sounds of a fire.’
‘Which in reality was a YouTube clip of a house burning down played over an intercom,’ said the cop without inflection.
‘It was very convincing,’ said Frances unconvincingly.
‘I’m sure it was,’ said the cop. You could see it was taking all his willpower not to roll his eyes. ‘You have . . .’ He pointed at her face.
Frances wiped her sticky chin. ‘Thanks. Don’t you just love summer fruit?’
‘Not really a fan.’
‘Not a fan of fruit?’
Lars, the only member of the group with any legal expertise, tried to ensure everyone stayed on message.
‘We were tricked. We had no idea there were drugs on the premises,’ he said loud enough for everyone to hear as he was led off for his interview. ‘We were not told what those smoothies contained.’
‘I had no idea there were drugs on the premises,’ said Frances again. ‘I was tricked. I was not told what those smoothies contained.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ said the policeman. He gave up trying and rolled his eyes. ‘None of you did.’ He closed his notebook. ‘I’ll let you get back to your mango.’
One of the local cops recognised Tony and drove back home to get a Carlton shirt for him to sign, and got quite teary about it.
Finally, as the long day began to draw to a close, and the drugs were removed as evidence, they were all told that they were free to leave, as long as they made themselves available for any future questioning.
‘We’re free to leave, but are we free to stay?’ Frances asked Gus, the last police officer there. It was too late in the day to drive six hours back home.
Gus said he didn’t see why not, as it was no longer an active crime scene. No-one had died and the drugs were gone and they were technically still paying guests. He seemed to be working through the legalities in his mind, reassuring himself of his decision. Jan gave everyone a ten-minute mini massage to release tension. She said they might want to get themselves checked out at the local hospital but no-one felt inclined to do so, especially as that was where Masha had been taken. Tony said his shoulder was perfectly fine.
‘Is this what you meant when you said don’t do anything you’re not comfortable with?’ Frances asked Jan when it was her turn for a massage.
Poor Jan was horrified. ‘I meant don’t do burpees or jumping lunges!’ she said, as her practised fingers performed their magic on Frances’s shoulders. ‘Burpees are terrible for anyone with back issues and you’ve got to have really stable knees before you do a jumping lunge.’ She shook her head. ‘If I’d suspected anything like this I would have informed the police immediately.’ She looked adoringly at Gus. ‘I would have informed Gus.’
‘Does he whistle?’ asked Frances, following her gaze.
Apparently he didn’t whistle or whittle, but was still just about perfect.
Once Gus and Jan had left, the nine of them went into the kitchen to prepare something for their dinner. They were euphoric with freedom as they flung open cupboards, and there was a moment of awed silence as they all stood in front of the massive stainless steel refrigerator and saw the abundance of food it contained: steak, chicken, fish, vegetables, eggs.
‘Today is my twenty-first birthday,’ announced Zoe.
They all turned to look at her.
‘It’s also Zach’s birthday.’ She took a deep shaky breath. ‘It’s our birthday today.’
Her parents moved to stand on either side of her.
‘I think we might need a little glass of wine with our dinner,’ said Frances.
‘We need music,’ said Ben.
‘We need a cake,’ said Carmel. She rolled up her sleeves. ‘I’m a master baker of birthday cakes.’
‘I can make pizza,’ said Tony. ‘If there’s flour, I can make pizza dough.’
‘Can you?’ said Frances.
‘I can,’ he said, and he smiled.
Zoe retrieved the bottle of wine she’d smuggled in from her bedroom, and Frances searched the house until she found a goldmine of presumably uncollected contraband brought in by previous guests, including six bottles of wine, some of which looked quite good, in a small room behind the reception desk. Ben found their mobile phones, and they reconnected with the world, and discovered not all that much had happened in the last week: a sporting scandal that only Tony and Napoleon found scandalous, the break-up of a Kardashian marriage that only Jessica and Zoe found relevant, and a natural disaster where the only fatalities involved those who flagrantly ignored warnings, so, you know. Ben used his phone to play music and took on the responsibility of DJ, accepting requests across generations and genres.
Everyone got drunk on wine and food. Jessica grilled perfect medium-rare steaks. Tony twirled pizza dough. Frances acted as sous chef to whoever needed her. Carmel made an incredible cake and became flushed and beautiful at all the praise that was heaped upon her. A surprising number of people danced and a surprising number of people cried.
Lars could not dance. At all. It was delightful to watch.
‘Are you doing it on purpose?’ asked Frances.
‘Why do people always ask that?’ said Lars.
Tony could dance. Very well. He told them that back in the day he and some other players had done ballet classes as part of their training. ‘Helped build up my hamstrings,’ he explained as Frances and Carmel clutched each other and giggled helplessly at the thought of Tony in a tutu. He responded by executing a perfect pirouette.
Frances had never been in a relationship with a man who could pirouette or make pizza dough. That was just something interesting to note and not a reason to let Tony kiss her. She knew he wanted to kiss her. The feeling of being at a party with a man who wanted to kiss her, but had not yet done so, was exactly as good as the first time she experienced it, at the age of fifteen, at Natalie’s sixteenth birthday party. It heightened everything. Just like a hallucinogenic drug.
They toasted Zoe and Zach.
‘I didn’t want twins,’ said Heather, holding up her glass of red wine. ‘When the doctor told me it was twins, I’m not going to lie, I said a four-letter word.’
‘Well, that’s a great start, Mum,’ said Zoe.