Nine Perfect Strangers (23 page)

If Frances didn't know better she would have thought
he
was drunk. Had he got stuck into Zoe's smuggled wine? Was he having a nervous breakdown? Or was this just a natural response to the breaking of the silence?

Zoe looked at her father, her forehead creased like that of an elderly woman, and Frances tried to imagine the missing boy who should have been sitting next to her.
Oh, Zoe,
thought Frances. She had thought it might have been suicide when Zoe didn't say how he died. Her friend Lily, who used to write beautiful historical romances, had lost her husband ten years ago and all she had told people was that “Neil died unexpectedly” and everyone understood what that meant. Lily hadn't written since.

“Who else would like—”

But Napoleon interrupted Masha. “Got it!” he cried. “I know who you are!” he said to Tony. “It's been driving me mad. Heather, darling, do you see who it is?” Napoleon turned to his wife.

Heather looked up from the empty smoothie glass she'd been studying. “No.”

“I know who he is,” said Lars proudly. “I worked it out on the very first day.”

Frances looked at Tony, who was looking awkwardly down at his glass with an expression of discomfort, but not confusion, as if he knew what they were all talking about. Who
was
he? A
famous
serial killer?

“Heather!” cried Napoleon. “You know him! I promise you know him!”

“From … school? Work?” Heather shook her head. “I don't …”

“I'll give you a clue.” Napoleon chanted,
“We are the Navy Blues!”

Heather studied Tony. Her face cleared. “Smiley Hogburn!”

Napoleon pointed at Heather as if she'd correctly guessed his charade. “Exactly! It's Smiley Hogburn!” Then he seemed to doubt himself. “Aren't you?”

Tony looked strained. “Years ago I was,” he said. “Thirty kilos ago.”

“But Smiley Hogburn played for Carlton,” said Jessica. “
I'm
a Carlton supporter! Aren't you, like, a total legend?” She said it like there must have been a mix-up.

“It was probably before you were born,” said Tony.

“Carlton is a
football
team, right?” whispered Frances to Ben. She was very ignorant of anything to do with sports; a friend once told her it was like she'd lived her whole life in a bunker.

“Yep,” said Ben. “Aussie Rules.”

“That's the jumping one?”

Ben chortled. “They do jump, yeah.”

Smiley Hogburn,
thought Frances. There
was
something blurrily familiar about that name. She felt her perception of Tony shift. He was a man who used to be someone, like Frances used to be someone. They had that in common. Although Frances's career was slowly fading away, whereas presumably Tony's had ended officially, probably with an injury of some sort—all that jumping!—and he was no longer leaping about the football field.

“I knew you were Smiley Hogburn!” said Lars again. He seemed to be looking for some sort of recognition that he wasn't getting. “I'm not normally good with faces but I worked out who you were straightaway.”

“Did you have to finish up playing because of a sporting injury?” asked Frances. She felt that was quite a knowledgeable, empathetic question to ask a sportsperson. It was probably something to do with
ligaments
.

Tony looked mildly amused. “I had multiple injuries.”

“Oh,” said Frances. “I'm sorry to hear that.”

“Two knee reconstructions, hip replacement …” Tony seemed to be doing a sad assessment of his body. He sighed. “Chronic ankle issues.”

“Were you called Smiley Hogburn because you
did
smile a lot, or because you
didn't
?” asked Zoe.

“Because I did smile a lot,” said Tony unsmilingly. “I was kind of a simple guy back then. Happy-go-lucky.”

“
Were
you?” said Frances, unable to hide her surprise.

“I was,” said Tony. He smiled at her. He seemed to find her funny.

“Weren't you the one with the smiley-face tattoos on your butt?” said Lars.

“I've seen them!” cried Frances before she could help herself.

“Have you now?” said Lars suggestively.

“
Frances
,” said Tony, and he put a finger to his lips as if they had something to hide. Wait! Was he flirting with her?

“Oh no, not in
that
way,” said Frances. She looked nervously at Masha. “I saw them accidentally.”

“My brother used to have your poster in his bedroom!” It was Delilah, breaking ranks and speaking like a human being. “The one where you're jumping six feet in the air and the other player is pulling down your shorts and you can see your tattoos! Hilarious!”

“Fancy that. We have a famous athlete in our midst.” There was an edge to Masha's voice. Maybe she wanted to be the only athlete in their midst.

“Former athlete,” Tony corrected her. “It was a long time ago.”

“So … who haven't we heard from yet?” said Masha, clearly keen to change the subject.

“Post-sport depression,” said Napoleon. “Is that what you've got? I've read about it. It affects a lot of elite sportspeople. You've got to focus on
your mental health, Tony … Smiley … Tony—I hope you don't mind if I call you Smiley—you really do, because depression is an
insidious
—”

“Who's next?” interrupted Masha.

“I'll go next,” said Zoe. “I'm Zoe.”

She seemed to gather her thoughts. Or was she nervous?
Oh, sweetheart.

“As Dad already said, we decided to come to Tranquillum House because we can't stand to be at home in January, because that's where my brother hanged himself.”

Masha made a strange startled sound and pressed her hand to her mouth. It was the first time Frances had observed Masha show any sign of weakness. Even when she spoke about her father, whom she clearly grieved, she'd still been controlled.

Frances watched Masha swallow convulsively for a few seconds, as if she were choking, but then she regained her composure and carried on listening to Zoe, although her eyes looked a little watery, as if she really had just choked on something.

Zoe looked at the ceiling. The circle of people seemed to tilt toward her with the weight of their useless sympathy.

“Oh wait, Dad probably didn't say that Zach hanged himself, but if you were wondering, like, what was his
method of choice
, that was it! It's popular.”

She smiled and rocked in tiny circles. The silver studs along her ears gleamed.

“One of his friends said that was so ‘brave' of Zach—to choose that way to kill himself. Instead of pills. Like, he'd been bungee jumping. God!” She blew out a puff of air and her hair lifted from her forehead.

“
Anyway
, once we became, like, total experts on suicide, we stopped telling people how he did it. Because of suicide contagion. Suicide is really contagious. My parents were terrified I'd catch it too. Like chicken pox. Ha ha. I never caught it though.”

“Zoe?” said Napoleon. “Darling, maybe that's enough.”

“We weren't close,” said Zoe to the group. She looked at her hands
and said it again. “Like, sometimes people think because we were twins we were really close, but we went to different schools. We had different interests. Different
values
.”

“Zoe,” said her mother. “Maybe now is not the—”

“He got up really early that morning.” Zoe ignored her mother. She fiddled with one of the many earrings in her earlobe. Her empty smoothie glass lay on its side against her thigh. “He hardly ever got up early. He took out the recycling bin, because it was his turn, and then he went back upstairs and killed himself.” She sighed, as if she were bored. “We took it in turns to take out the bins. I don't know if he was making some kind of point by doing that. It really pissed me off. Like, thanks so much for that, Zach, good on you, that makes up for you killing yourself.”

“Zoe?” said Heather sharply.

Zoe turned in her mother's direction, but very slowly, as if she had a stiff back. “What?”

Heather took the smoothie glass and placed it upright on the floor, out of the way. She leaned toward her daughter and brushed a lock of hair out of Zoe's eyes.

“Something is not quite …” Heather's gaze traveled around the circle of people. “Not quite right.”

She turned to Masha. She said, “Have you been medicating us?”

30

 

Masha

Focus. Only. On your breathing. Focus. Only. On your breathing.

Masha was fine, perfectly fine, she was under control. For a moment there, when Zoe said what she said, Masha had very nearly lost her focus completely; time slipped. But now she was back, her breathing steady, she was in control.

This information about the brother should have come out in her one-on-one counseling sessions with the Marconi family. They had all freely said they were here for the anniversary of his death, but none had mentioned he took his own life. Masha should have seen through their evasive behavior. It was not like her to miss this. She was extremely perceptive. They had deliberately misled her and as a result she had been unprepared. She had felt
blindsided
.

And now this question from Heather: “Have you been medicating us?”

Before Heather spoke, Masha had been observing the group, watching their mannerisms become freer, their pupils dilate and tongues
loosen. They were clearly losing their inhibitions, speaking fluidly, with refreshing honesty. Some, like Napoleon, fidgeted, whereas others, like Frances, were very still. Some were flushed, others pale.

Right now, Heather was both: pasty white with hectic spots of color on her cheeks.

“Have you?” she demanded. “Have you been medicating us?”

“In a manner of speaking,” said Masha calmly.

Heather's question was not ideal and not anticipated, although perhaps it should have been, because Heather was a midwife, the only one of the guests, as far as Masha knew, with any medical expertise. But Masha would handle this.

“What do you mean, ‘in a manner of speaking'?”

Masha did not like Heather's tone. Snappy. Disrespectful.

“Well,
medicating
implies …” Masha searched for the right words. “A dulling of the senses. What we're doing here is
heightening
the senses.”

“You need to tell us exactly what you've been giving us! Right now!” Heather moved up onto her knees, as if she were ready to leap to her feet. Masha was reminded of a ferocious little dog. One she'd quite like to kick.

“Hang on, what's going on here?” said Napoleon to Heather.

Masha flashed a look at Yao and Delilah:
Be ready if needed
. They gave her barely perceptible nods, both gripping the discreet medical pouches they had clipped around their waists.

This was not how it was supposed to go.

31

 

Lars

In his long history of health resorts Lars had experienced some bizarre and unusual practices, but this was a first. It was ironic because one of the side benefits of coming here was to cut
down
on his recreational drug use.

“It's called micro-dosing and it's perfectly safe,” said their esteemed leader, who, as always, sat cross-legged and straight-backed, her incredible long white legs so entwined that sometimes Lars got distracted trying to work out where each leg started and ended.

“There are multiple benefits: higher levels of creativity, increased focus, heightened spiritual awareness, improved relationships—I could go on and on. Basically, you function just a little better than a normal person. The doses are about a tenth of a normal dose of LSD.”

“Wait … what?” asked Frances. She laughed uncertainly, as if she'd heard a joke she didn't quite get. Lars liked her already. “Sorry. You're not saying that
we've
been taking
LSD
?”

Lars saw most of his fellow guests were staring at Masha with dull
incomprehension. This was surely too conservative a crowd to cope with a revelation about drugs, even taking into account the popularity of cocaine in the suburbs. Lars himself dabbled with coke, Ecstasy, and pot, but never LSD.

“As I said, it's called micro-dosing,” said Masha.

“It's called spiking our smoothies with a hallucinogenic drug,” snapped Heather.

Heather.
Before today, Lars would never have picked Heather as her name. It was far too soft a name for this skinny, tanned woman with quadriceps that looked like machine parts and a permanent pained squint as if she were peering straight into the sun. Every time Lars had looked at her during the silence, he'd imagined pressing his thumbs to the point between her eyebrows and saying, “Chill.” Now he felt bad about feeling aggravated, because she'd lost her son. The woman was allowed to frown.

“It's called outrageous,” continued Heather. She wasn't squinting now. Her eyes were ablaze with fury.

“I don't quite understand,” said her adorably addled husband, a long celery stick of a man, so dorky he was cool. His name was
Napoleon
, which just added to his marvelousness.

Lars didn't think he was high. He'd been feeling great, but he generally did feel good on any sort of cleanse. Perhaps the doses were too small to affect him, or he'd built up a tolerance. He surreptitiously ran a finger around the edge of his smoothie glass and licked it. He thought about how, on the first day, he'd drunk his smoothie and said to Delilah, “This is so good. What's
in
this stuff?” and Delilah had said, “We'll give you the recipes when you leave.” Lars had been imagining the recipes would specify the number of teaspoons of chia, not how many milligrams of LSD.

“But … but … we're here to detoxify!” said Frances to Masha. “You're saying we've cut out caffeine and replaced it with
acid
?”

Tony, aka Smiley Hogburn, said, “I can't believe you confiscated my beer and now you've given me drugs. I've never taken drugs!”

“You don't think alcohol is a drug?” said Masha. “LSD has been ranked one-tenth as harmful as alcohol! What do you think of that?”

“I guess LSD has no calories,” said Carmel. It was easy to remember her name because Lars had a friend called Carmel who was also boringly convinced she was fat. Carmel's glasses sat crookedly on her face but she didn't seem aware of it. She had been mooning about for the last five days with that recently-kicked-in-the-face look Lars knew so well from his clients. The one that ignited a deep burn of rage in his belly; the rage that had fueled his entire career. He'd put a million bucks on her husband having left her for a trophy wife.

“Does LSD also speed up the metabolism?” Carmel asked hopefully. “I really feel like my metabolism might be speeding up. I've never had drugs either, but I'm completely fine with this. I have total respect for you and your methods, Masha.”

Getting thin won't help you feel better, honey. Take the fuckwit to the cleaners.
Lars would talk to her later. See who represented her.

“I can't believe you've been giving my underage daughter LSD,” said Heather.

“I'm not underage, Mum,” said Zoe. “I'm feeling pretty good right now; better than I've felt in a while. They're only micro-doses. It's all good.”

“It's not all good!” her mother sighed. “For Christ's sake.”

Napoleon spoke earnestly. “Masha, listen, I had a terrible experience with drugs when I was a teenager. It was a ‘bad trip,' as they say. One of the worst experiences of my life and I always told my kids that's when I swore off drugs forever. So I appreciate what you're saying, but I'm not taking anything.”

“My God, Napoleon, you've already
taken
it!” said Heather through gritted teeth. “Are you not listening?”

“This is bullshit,” said the lottery-winner kid. What was his name again? A good wholesome straight-boy name. What was it? The kid trembled with so much suppressed rage it looked like he was having a seizure and he spoke through clenched teeth. “
I did not choose this
.”

His young wife spoke up. “Ben is, like, full-on antidrugs.”

Ben
, thought Lars. That was it. Ben, and his cosmetically enhanced wife was …
Jessica.
Ben and Jessica. No chance those two had a pre-nup, and now there was significant money at stake if the marriage fell apart. They'd be the type to lose it all to their lawyers.

“He doesn't even like taking aspirin,” said Jessica. “His sister is an addict. A proper addict. This is not good.” She put her hand on her husband's shoulder. “I don't see how this is going to help our marriage. I'm not feeling very happy about this either. Not happy at all.”

Her poor little Barbie-doll face did look very unhappy. Lars felt something unfurl in his chest: a deep rich welling of sympathy for poor Jessica. Poor, poor little plastic Jessica. Confused little rich girl. All that money and no idea how to spend it, except on cosmetic procedures that were doing her no favors.

“I understand your fear,” said Masha. “You've been brainwashed because of the misinformation spread by governments.”

“I have not been
brainwashed
,” said Ben. “I have
seen
it for myself.”

“Yes, but those are street drugs, Ben,” said Masha. “The problem with street drugs is you can't control the content or dosage.”

“I cannot believe this.” Ben got to his feet.

“LSD has actually been used very successfully to treat drug addiction,” said Masha. “Your sister could benefit from it. In the right setting.”

Ben smacked his hands to his face. “Unbelievable.”

Masha said, “Do you know, there was a great man. His name was
Steve Jobs
.”

Lars, who had been expecting her to say the Dalai Lama, snickered.

“I always admired him greatly,” said Masha.

“Not sure why you took all our iPhones away then,” muttered Tony.

“Do you know what Steve Jobs said? He said that taking LSD was one of the most important, profound experiences of his life.”

“Oh well then,” said Lars, greatly amused. “If Steve Jobs said we should all take LSD, then we really should!”

Masha shook her head sadly at them, as if they were misguided but lovable children. “The side effects of psychedelic drugs are
minimal
. Respected researchers at Ivy League universities are doing clinical trials as we speak! The results have been excellent! Micro-dosing has allowed you to focus on your meditation and yoga practices over the last week, as well as alleviating the withdrawal symptoms you would otherwise have suffered by cutting out far more dangerous substances, like alcohol and sugar.”

“Yes, but, Masha…,” said Heather. She sounded calmer than before. She splayed her fingers on both hands as if she were waiting for a fresh manicure to dry. “The effects I'm feeling right now, the effects I suspect we are now all beginning to feel, that has to be more than just a micro-dose.”

Masha smiled at Heather, as if she couldn't be happier with her. “Oh, Heather,” she said. “You are a smart lady.”

“That last smoothie was different,” said Heather. “Wasn't it?”

“You are right, Heather,” said Masha. “I was about to explain this but you keep racing me to the punch!” She corrected the phrase almost instantly. “
Beating
me to the punch!” Her strong white teeth gleamed in the candlelight. It was hard to tell if it was a smile or a grimace.

“What's happening now is the next step in a rigorously planned and executed new protocol.” She looked around the room, giving everyone tiny nods, as if dispensing affirmative answers to their unspoken questions.
Yes, yes, yes
, she seemed to be saying. “You are about to embark on a
truly
transformative experience. We've never done this before at Tranquillum House and we're all so excited about it. You are the first nine guests to have this extraordinary opportunity.”

A glorious sense of well-being spread like honey throughout Lars's body.

“For most of you, your last smoothie contained both a dosage of LSD and a liquid form of psilocybin, a naturally occurring substance found in certain mushrooms.”

“
Magic mushrooms
,” said Tony with disgust.

“Oh my goodness,” said Frances. “It's like I'm back doing my arts degree again.”

Lars was so happy he'd chosen Tranquillum House for this cleanse. What a truly wonderful place. How innovative and cutting-edge.

“But that's what caused my bad experience,” said Napoleon. “My bad trip. It was a magic mushroom.”

“We won't let that happen, Napoleon,” said Masha. “We are trained medical professionals and we're here to help and guide you. The drugs you have taken have been tested to ensure they are in their purest form.”

Lovely, top-quality, pure drugs,
thought Lars dreamily.

“It's called guided psychedelic therapy,” said Masha. “As your ego dissolves you will access a higher level of consciousness. A curtain will be drawn back and you will see the world in a way you've never seen it before.”

Lars had a friend who had traveled for days in the Amazon to take part in an ayahuasca ceremony, where he'd vomited repeatedly and been eaten alive by bugs in his search for enlightenment. This was delightfully civilized in comparison. Five-star enlightenment!

“What a load of bullshit,” said Tony.

“But I lost my mind,” said Napoleon. “I honestly lost my mind, and I did not like losing my mind.”

“That's because you weren't in a safe, secure environment. The experts call it ‘set and setting,'” said Masha. “For a positive experience you need the right mind-set and a controlled environment like we've created here today.” She gestured about the room. “Yao, Delilah, and I are here to guide you and keep you safe.”

“You know you're going to get sued for this,” said Heather serenely.

Masha smiled at her tenderly. “In a moment, I'm going to ask you to move to one of the stretchers, where you may lie down and enjoy what I can assure you will be a truly transcendent experience.”

“And what if we don't want this experience?” said Tony.

“I think we're all strapped into the spaceship now.” Lars nudged
Tony's big beefy shoulder with his own. “All you can do is sit back and enjoy the ride. I find your smile very charming, by the way.”

“Oh, so do I!” said Frances. “I love his smile! It's like his whole head kind of crumples up like a … like a … crumpled tissue.”

“Jesus,” said Tony.

“You yourself are very handsome,” said Frances to Lars. “Devastatingly handsome, in fact.”

Lars always felt fondly toward people who were unequivocal in their acknowledgment of his looks.

“That's kind of you,” he said modestly. “I can't take credit for it. I come from a long line of devastatingly handsome men.”

“I feel like giving us drugs without our permission must be against the law,” said Jessica.

Of course it's against the law, you twit
, thought Lars.

“Please don't call me a twit,” said Jessica.

Lars's blood ran cold. She could read his mind and she was extraordinarily wealthy. She now had the capacity to take over the world for her own nefarious purposes.

“We're here for couples counseling,” said Jessica to Masha. “We paid for couples counseling. This is all just pointless for us.”

“This will have a profound impact on your marriage,” said Masha. “You and Ben won't be separated on your journey. You will sit together and experience this as a couple.” Masha indicated one of the clusters of cushions in the corner. “Your smoothies contained a different formula from everyone else's. We studied the research carefully and we found that MDMA was the best—”

“Ecstasy,” snapped Heather. “She means Ecstasy. She's given you a
party drug
. Unbelievable. Kids die every year after taking Ecstasy tablets, but don't let that bother you.”

“You're being kind of a downer about all this, Mum,” said Zoe.

“Let's go,” said Ben to Jessica. He held out his hand to his wife and looked at Masha. “We're leaving.”

“Just … hold on.” Jessica didn't take his hand.

“Again, when used in a controlled environment, MDMA is per
fectly safe. It has been trialed for prescription psychotherapy with great success to treat PTSD, social anxiety, and for couples therapy!” said Masha. “There has never been a single death or even a single adverse reaction to a clinically administered dose of MDMA.”