The Guest List

by Lucy Foley

But it’s all about the moment, a wedding. All about the day. It’s not really about the marriage at all, in spite of what everyone says.

See, mine is a profession in which you orchestrate happiness. It is why I became a wedding planner. Life is messy. We all know this. Terrible things happen, I learned that while I was still a child. But no matter what happens, life is only a series of days. You can’t control more than a single day. But you can control one of them. Twenty-four hours can be curated. A wedding day is a neat little parcel of time in which I can create something whole and perfect to be cherished for a lifetime, a pearl from a broken necklace.

I can’t seem to enter a room without making a mess and since we’ve had the kids our house is a permanent dump. When we—rarely—have people round I end up throwing stuff in cupboards and cramming them closed, so that it feels like the whole place is holding its breath, trying not to explode.

“I read a good bit in that article,” Charlie says, “about the island. Apparently it’s got white sand beaches, which are famous in this part of Ireland. And the color of the sand means the water in the coves turns a beautiful turquoise color.”

voice: “‘The cormorant is a bird much maligned in local folklore.’ Oh, dear. ‘Historically, the bird has been represented as a symbol of greed, bad luck and evil.’”

engaged only a few months into knowing someone … or married only a few months after that. But I would argue that it isn’t rash, or impulsive, as I think some suspect.

I’m aware of a feeling of wanting to possess him. Of each sexual act being an attempt at a possession that is never quite achieved, some essential part of him always evading my reach, slipping beneath the surface.

So this is what worries me. Why would Will keep a friend like Johnno around simply because of a shared past? Unless that past has some sort of hold over him.

Femi’s a surgeon, Angus works for his dad’s development firm, Duncan’s a venture capitalist—whatever that means—and Pete’s in advertising, which probably doesn’t help his coke habit.

Growing up with Jules sometimes felt like having a second mother, or one who was like other mums—bossy, strict, all that stuff. Mum was never really like that, but Jules was.

But it’s possible to hate your body when you’re thin, too. To feel like it’s kept secrets from you. To feel like it’s let you down.

“And besides,” she says, “Olivia’s like me in that—an empath. We can’t simply … smother our feelings and put a brave face on it like some people can.”

Even though I wouldn’t change any of it, I’ve wondered whether we missed out on a couple more years of carefree fun. There’s another self that I sometimes feel I lost along the way. The girl who always stayed for one more drink, who loved a dance. I miss her, sometimes.

the cave, which is marked on a map of the island in the Folly. The Whispering Cave, it’s called. It’s like a long wound in the ground—open at both ends. You could fall into it without realizing it was there because the opening is hidden by all this long grass.

“He must have been a real shit,” Hannah says, “if you left uni because of him.” When I think about everything that happened in the last year my mind goes hot, and blank, and I can’t think about it properly or sort it all out in my head. None of it makes sense, especially now, trying to piece it all together. I can’t explain it, I think, without telling her everything. So I shrug and say, “Well, I guess he was my first proper boyfriend.”

Nowhere on earth could possibly live up to those halcyon days. But that’s nostalgia for you, the tyranny of those memories of childhood that feel so golden, so perfect.

performing the caoineadh, their keening for the dead.

The names, the ones that remain visible, are common to Connemara: Joyce, Foley, Kelly, Conneely.

It’s a strange thing when you consider that the dead on this island far outnumber the living, even now that some of the guests have arrived. Tomorrow will redress the balance.

I’m not worried about it being haunted. I have my own ghosts. I carry them with me wherever I go.

A cormorant on a steeple: that’s an ill omen. The devil’s bird, they call it in these parts. The cailleach dhubh, the black hag, the bringer of death.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Botox in real life. “Were you on the hen do?” she asks. “I can’t remember.” “I had to give it a miss,” I say. “The kids …” Partly true. But there’s also the fact that it was at a yoga retreat in Ibiza and I could never in a million years have afforded it.

I won’t be made to do it— “Down it …” “Down it!” God, they’ve started to chant. “Save the Queen!” “She’s drowning!” “Down it down it down it.”

Séverine, Dad’s latest wife—French, not far off my age, one part décolletage and three parts liquid eyeliner—slinks in behind him, tossing her long mane of red hair.

There’s nothing less sexy than a lack of ambition, is there?

“And she has such style, my daughter. We all know that about her, don’t we? Her magazine, her beautiful house in Islington, and now this stunning man here.” She puts a red-nailed hand on Will’s shoulder. “You’ve always had a good eye, Jules.” Like I picked him out to go with a pair of shoes.

I’ve worked out what’s weird about his eyes. They’re so dark you can’t tell where the irises end and the pupils begin.

There’s this kind of manic energy about him. I hope it’s harmless. Like a dog that jumps up at you, big and scary, but all it really wants is to be thrown a ball—not to maul your face.

wonder why on earth these men, who have apparently done so well for themselves since, are still obsessing about their school days. I can’t imagine banging on about crappy old Dunraven High.

Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo. Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo! I watch the men, how

Fac fortia et patere! Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo!

“The first part,” Angus says, “is: ‘Do brave deeds and endure,’ which was the school motto. The second part was added in by us boys: ‘If I can’t move heaven, then I shall raise hell.’ It used to get chanted before rugby matches.”

And there’s also the fact that Olivia reminds me of someone. But I can’t think who. It bothers me, like when you’re trying to think of a word and you know it’s there on the tip of your tongue, just out of reach.

Now I understand why it’s called the Whispering Cave. The high water has changed the acoustics in here so that this time everything we say is whispered back to us, as though someone’s standing there in the shadows, repeating every word. It’s hard to believe there isn’t. I find myself turning to check, every so often, to make certain we’re alone.

“I get that. When you’ve got your heart set on someone Brad Pitt could walk in and he wouldn’t be enough—” “Brad Pitt is really fucking old,” I say. “Um—Harry Styles?” That almost makes me smile. “Yeah. Maybe. Or Timothée Chalamet.”

And there is a pack feeling about them, like dogs that might behave well on their own but, once all together, don’t have their own minds. I’ll have to keep my eye on them tomorrow, make sure they don’t get carried away.

In my experience those who have the greatest respect for the rules also take the most enjoyment in breaking them.

He’s passionate about food, is my husband.

? Grammar

Hares are shape-shifters in Gaelic folklore; sometimes when I see them here I think of all of Inis an Amplóra’s departed souls, materializing once more to run amidst the heather.

something exciting is going on, on Inis an Amplóra—the island they all speak about as the dead place, the haunted isle, as though it only exists as history.

I do my job right, this wedding will make sure they’ll be talking about it in the present again.

I’m what you might call a loner anyways. In the winter it just feels like survival, to be honest. The summers are what we stay for.”

Felt

Like that girl he slept with from the local high school, passing those topless Polaroids of her all around our year. After that, he was untouchable.

But it’s dredged it all up, being with the boys again. It’s like none of it affected him, none of it held him back. Whereas I’ve always felt, I don’t know, like I don’t deserve to be happy.

Evidently he hasn’t spotted my own family’s little patch yet and I am glad of that. I don’t want them milling about among the stones, spilling their drinks and treading upon the hallowed ground in their spike heels and shiny brogues, reading the inscriptions aloud. My own tragedy written there for them all to pore over.

My beautiful, brainy sister, trying to rationalize away her feelings … classic Alice.

And do you know why I was stoned?” “Why?” he asks, wary. “Because I have to smoke it, to get by. Because it’s the only thing that helps me forget. See, it feels like my whole life stopped at that point, all those years ago.

Oh, no, it hasn’t affected you in any way, has it? You’ve just gone on, like you always have. No consequences. Well you know what? I think it’s about time that there are some. It’d be a relief, as far as I’m concerned. I’d only be doing what we should have done years ago.” There’s

And he gives me a smile, the same smile I haven’t been able to resist since I saw it that night at the V&A museum. And yet it doesn’t have the same effect it normally does. If anything, it makes me feel more uneasy, because of the speed of the change. It’s as though he’s pulled on a mask.

The V&A museum, that was it. I remember her telling me last night about how she brought Steven there, to a party, held by Jules. And everything goes still as it occurs to me— But that’s completely crazy. It can’t be. It wouldn’t make any sense. It must be a weird coincidence.