Ooh. Typical. I watch as she slides Magnus’s linen jacket from his shoulders. Isn’t she doing that a bit slowly and lingeringly? Why does he need to take his jacket off, anyway? We’re about to go.
“We’re nearly finished.” I glance at Ruby. “Aren’t we?”
“No hurry,” says Magnus. “Plenty of time.” He looks around the reception and breathes in, as though appreciating some beautiful vista. “Mmmm. I remember coming here the first time as though it were yesterday. You remember, Pops? God, that was amazing, wasn’t it?” He meets my eye with a suggestive glint and I hastily telegraph back, Shut up, you idiot. He is going to get me in so much trouble.
“How’s your wrist, Magnus?” Annalise is approaching him with a cup of tea from the machine. “Did Poppy ever give you a three-month follow-up appointment?”
“No.” He looks taken aback. “Should she have done?”
“Your wrist’s fine,” I say firmly.
“Shall I take a look?” Annalise is ignoring me completely. “Poppy shouldn’t be giving you therapy now, you know. Conflict of interest.” She takes his wrist. “Where was the pain exactly? Here?” She unbuttons his cuff, moving up his arm. “Here?” Her voice deepens slightly and she bats her eyelashes at him. “What about … here?”
OK. This is the limit.
“Thanks, Annalise!” I beam brightly at her. “But we’d better be going to the church. For the meeting about our wedding,” I add pointedly.
“About that.” Magnus frowns briefly. “Poppy, can we have a quick chat? Maybe go into your room a moment?”
“Oh.” I feel a flicker of foreboding. “OK.”
Even Annalise looks taken aback, and Ruby raises her eyebrows.
“Cuppa, Annalise?” she says. “We’ll just be out here. No rush.”
As I usher Magnus in, my mind is skittering in panic. He knows about the ring. The Scrabble. Everything. He’s having cold feet. He wants a wife he can talk to about Proust.
“Can you lock the door?” He fiddles with the catch and after a moment has secured it. “There. Excellent!” As he turns, there’s an unmistakable light in his eyes. “God, Poppy, you look hot.”
It takes about five seconds for the penny to drop.
“What? No. Magnus, you have to be joking.”
He’s heading toward me with an intent, familiar expression. No way. I mean, no way.
“Stop!” I bat him away as he reaches for the top button of my uniform. “I’m at work!”
“I know.” He closes his eyes briefly as though in some paroxysm of bliss. “I don’t know what it is about this place. Your uniform, maybe. All that white.”
“Well, too bad.”
“You know you want to.” He nibbles one of my earlobes. “Come on …”
Damn him for knowing about my earlobes. For a moment—only a moment—I slightly lose my focus. But then, as he makes another salvo on my uniform buttons, I snap back into reality. Ruby and Annalise are three feet away on the other side of the door.61 This cannot happen.
“No! Magnus, I thought you wanted to talk about something serious! The wedding or something!”
“Why would I want to do that?” He’s pressing the button which reclines the couch all the way down. “Mmm. I remember this bed.”
“It’s not a bed, it’s a professional couch!”
“Is that massage oil?” He’s reached for a nearby bottle.
“Shhh!” I hiss. “Ruby’s right outside! I’ve already had one disciplinary hearing—”
“What’s this thing? Ultrasound?” He’s grabbed the ultrasound wand. “I bet we could have some fun with this. Does it heat up?” His eyes suddenly glint. “Does it vibrate?”
This is like having a toddler to control.
“We can’t! I’m sorry.” I step away, putting the couch between him and me. “We can’t. We just can’t.” I smooth down my uniform.
For a moment Magnus looks so sulky I think he might shout at me.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “But it’s like asking you to have sex with a student. You’d get fired. Your career would be over!”
Magnus seems about to contradict me—then thinks better of whatever he was about to say.
“Well, great.” He gives a grumpy shrug. “Really great. What are we supposed to do instead?”
“We could do loads of things!” I say brightly. “Have a chat? Go through wedding stuff? Only eight more days to go!”
Magnus doesn’t reply. He doesn’t need to. His lack of enthusiasm is emanating from him like some kind of psychic force.
“Or have a drink?” I suggest at last. “We’ve got time to go to the pub before the meeting.”
“All right,” he says heavily at last. “Let’s go to the pub.”
“We’ll come back here,” I say coaxingly. “Another day. Maybe at a weekend.”
What the hell am I promising? Oh God. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
As we head out of the room, Ruby and Annalise look up artificially from magazines they obviously haven’t been reading.
“Everything OK?” says Ruby.
“Yes, great!” I smooth my skirt. “Just … wedding chitchat. Veils, almonds, that kind of thing … Anyway, we’d better be off.”
I’ve glimpsed my reflection in the mirror. My cheeks are bright scarlet and I’m talking nonsense. Total giveaway.
“Hope it goes well.” Ruby glances meaningfully at the ring, then at me.
“Thanks.”
“Text us!” chips in Annalise. “Whatever happens. We’ll be dying to know!”
The thing to remember is, the ring fooled Magnus. And if it fooled him, surely it’ll fool his parents? As we arrive at St. Edmund’s Parish Church, I feel more optimistic than I have for ages. St. Edmund’s is a big, grand church in Marylebone. In fact, we chose it because it’s so beautiful. As we head inside, someone’s practicing a flashy piece on the organ. There are pink and white flowers for another wedding decorating all the pews, and a general air of expectancy.
I suddenly feel a tingle of excitement. In eight days, that’ll be us! A week from tomorrow, the place will be festooned with white silk and posies. All my friends and family will be waiting excitedly. The trumpeter will be in the organ loft and I’ll be in my dress and Magnus will be standing at the altar in his designer waistcoat.62 It’s really, really happening!
I can already see Wanda inside the church, peering at some old statue. As she turns, I force myself to wave confidently, as though everything’s great and we’re the best of friends and they don’t intimidate me at all.
Magnus is right, I tell myself. I’ve been overreacting. I’ve let them get to me. They probably can’t wait to welcome me into the family.
After all, I beat them all at Scrabble, didn’t I?
“Just think.” I clutch Magnus’s arm. “Not long now!”
“Hello?” Magnus answers his phone, which must be on vibrate. “Oh, hi, Neil.”
Great. Neil is Magnus’s keenest undergraduate and is writing a thesis on symbols in the work of Coldplay.63 They’ll be on the phone for hours. Mouthing apologetically, he disappears out of the church.
You’d think he could have turned his phone off. I’ve turned mine off.
Anyway, never mind.
“Hello!” I exclaim as Wanda comes down the aisle. “Good to see you! Isn’t this exciting?”
I’m not exactly proffering my ring hand. But neither am I hiding it. It’s neutral. It’s the Switzerland of hands.
“Poppy.” Wanda does a dramatic swoop toward my cheek. “Dear girl. Now, let me introduce Paul. Where’s he got to? How is your burn, by the way?”
For a moment I can’t move.
Paul. The dermatologist. Shit. I forgot about the dermatologist. How could I forget about the dermatologist? How could I be so stupid? I was so relieved to get a ring substitute, I forgot I was supposed to be mortally injured.
“You’ve taken your bandage off,” observes Wanda.
“Oh.�
� I swallow. “Yes. I did. Because … my hand’s much better, actually. Much better.”
“Can’t be too careful, though, even with these small injuries.” Wanda is ushering me down the aisle, and there’s nothing I can do except walk obediently. “Colleague of ours in Chicago stubbed his toe and just soldiered on; next thing we know, he’s in hospital with gangrene! I said to Antony—” Wanda interrupts herself. “Here she is. The fiancee. The betrothed. The patient.”
Antony and an elderly man in a purple V-neck both turn from peering at a painting hanging on a stone pillar and peer at me instead.
“Poppy,” says Antony. “Let me introduce our neighbor, Paul McAndrew, one of the most eminent professors of dermatology in the country. Specialist in burns; isn’t that fortunate?”
“Great!” My voice is a nervous squeak and my hands have crept behind my back. “Like I say, it’s a lot better—”
“Let’s take a look,” says Paul, in a pleasant, matter-of-fact way.
There’s no way out. Mortified, I slowly extend my left hand. Everybody looks at my smooth, unblemished skin in silence.
“Where was the burn, exactly?” asks Paul at last.
“Um … here.” I gesture vaguely at my thumb.
“Was it a scald? A cigarette burn?” He’s taken hold of my hand and is feeling it with an expert touch.
“No. It was … um … on a radiator.” I swallow. “It was really sore.”
“Her whole hand was bandaged.” Wanda sounds bemused. “She looked like a war victim! That was only yesterday!”
“I see.” The doctor relinquishes my hand. “Well, it seems OK now, doesn’t it?” he says to me. “Any pain? Any tenderness?”
I shake my head mutely.
“I’ll prescribe some aqueous cream,” he says kindly. “In case the symptoms return. How about that?”
I can see Wanda and Antony exchanging looks. Great. They obviously think I’m a total hypochondriac.
OK. Fine. I’ll go with that. I’ll be the family hypochondriac. It can be one of my little quirks. Could be worse. At least they haven’t exclaimed, “What the hell have you done with our priceless ring and what’s that piece of junk you’re wearing?”
As though reading my mind, Wanda glances again at my hand.
“My mother’s emerald ring, do you see, Antony?” She points at my hand. “Magnus gave it to Poppy when he proposed.”
OK. I’m definitely not making this up: There’s a pointed edge to her voice. And now she’s shooting Antony a significant look. What’s going on? Did she want the ring herself? Was Magnus not supposed to give it away? I feel like I’ve blundered into some tricksy family situation which is invisible to me but they’re all too polite to mention it and I’m never going to know what anybody really thinks.
But then, if it’s so special, how come she hasn’t noticed it’s a fake? Perversely, I feel a teeny bit disappointed in the Tavishes for not realizing. They think they’re so clever—and then they can’t even spot a false emerald.
“Super engagement ring,” says Paul politely. “That’s a real one-off, I can tell.”
“Absolutely!” I nod. “It’s vintage. Totally unique.”
“Ah, Poppy!” chimes in Antony, who has been examining a nearby statue. “Now, that reminds me. There’s something I was going to ask you.”
Me?
“Oh, right,” I say in surprise.
“I would ask Magnus, but I gather it’s more your area than his.”
“Fire away.” I smile up at him politely, expecting some weddingy question along the lines of “How many bridesmaids will there be?” or “What flowers are you having?” or even, “Were you surprised when Magnus proposed?”
“What do you think of McDowell’s new book on the Stoics?” His eyes are fixed beadily on mine. “How does it compare to Whittaker?”
For a moment I’m too poleaxed to react. What? What do I think of what?
“Ah yes!” Wanda is nodding vigorously. “Poppy is somewhat of an expert on Greek philosophy, Paul. She foxed us all at Scrabble with the word aporia, didn’t you?”
Somehow I manage to keep smiling.
Aporia.
That was one of the words Sam texted me. I’d had a few glasses of wine and was feeling pretty confident by then. I have a hazy memory of myself laying down the tiles and saying that Greek philosophy was one of my great interests.
Why? Why, why, why? If I could go back in time, that’s the moment I’d go up to myself and say, “Poppy! Enough!”
“That’s right!” I attempt an easy smile. “Aporia! Anyway, I wonder where the vicar is—”
“We were reading the TLS this morning”—Antony ignores my attempt to divert the conversation—”and there was a review of this new McDowell book and we thought, now, Poppy will know about this subject.” He looks expectantly at me. “Is McDowell correct about fourth-century virtues?”
I give an internal whimper. Why the hell did I pretend I knew about Greek philosophy? What was I thinking?
“I haven’t quite got to the McDowell book yet.” I clear my throat. “Although obviously it’s on my reading list.”
“I believe Stoicism has often been misunderstood as a philosophy, isn’t that right, Poppy?”
“Absolutely.” I nod, trying to look as knowledgeable as possible. “It’s completely misunderstood. Very much so.”
“The Stoics weren’t emotionless, as I understand it.” He gestures with his hands as though lecturing to three hundred people. “They simply valued the virtue of fortitude. Apparently they displayed such impassiveness to hostility that their aggressors wondered if they were made of stone.”
“Extraordinary!” says Paul with a laugh.
“That’s correct, isn’t it, Poppy?” Antony turns to me. “When the Gauls attacked Rome, the old senators sat in the forum, calmly waiting. The attackers were so taken aback by their dispassionate attitude, they thought they must be statues. One Gaul even tugged the beard of a senator, to check.”
“Quite right.” I nod confidently. “That’s exactly it.”
As long as Antony just keeps talking and I keep nodding, then I’ll be OK.
“Fascinating! And what happened next?” Paul turns expectantly to me.
I glance at Antony for the answer—but he’s waiting for me too. And so is Wanda.
Three eminent professors. All waiting for me to tell them about Greek philosophy.
“Well!” I pause thoughtfully, as though wondering where to begin. “Well, now. It was … interesting. In many, many ways. For philosophy. And for Greece. And for history. And humanity. One could, in fact, say that this was the most significant moment in Greek … ness.” I come to a finish, hoping no one will realize I haven’t actually answered the question.
There’s a puzzled pause.
“But what happened?” says Wanda, a little impatiently.
“Oh, the senators were massacred, of course,” says Antony with a shrug. “But what I wanted to ask you, Poppy, was—”
“That’s a lovely painting!” I cry desperately, pointing to a picture hanging on a pillar. “Look over there!”
“Ah, now, that is an interesting piece.” He wanders over to have a look.
The great thing about Antony is, he’s so curious about everything, he’s quite easily distracted.
“I need to check something on my calendar,” I say hastily. “I’ll just …”
My legs are shaking slightly as I escape to a nearby pew. This is a disaster. Now I’ll have to pretend to be a Greek philosophy expert for the rest of my life. Every Christmas and family gathering, I’ll have to have a view on Greek philosophy. Not to mention be able to recite Robert Burns’s poetry.
I should never, ever have cheated. This is karma. This is my punishment.
Anyway, too late. I did.
I’m going to have to start taking notes. I take out my phone, open a new email, and start typing notes to myself.
THINGS TO DO BEFORE WEDDING
1. Become expert on Greek philosophy.
2. Memorize Robert Burns poems.
3. Learn long Scrabble words.
4. Remember: am HYPOCHONDRIAC.
5. Beef stroganoff. Get to like. (Hypnosis?)64
I look at the list for a few moments. It’s fine. I can be that person. It’s not that different from me.
“Well, of course you know my views on art in churches.” Antony’s voice is ringing out. “Absolutely scandalous …”
I shrink down out of view, before anyone can drag me into the conversation. Everyone knows Antony’s views on art in churches, mostly because he’s the founder of a national campaign to turn churches into art galleries and get rid of all the vicars. A few years ago he was on TV and said, “Treasures such as these should not be left in the hands of Philistines.” It got repeated everywhere, and there was a big fuss and headlines like PROFESSOR DUBS CLERICS PHILISTINES65 and PROF DISSES REVS (that one was in The Sun).
I wish he’d keep his voice down. What if the vicar hears him? It’s not exactly tactful.
Now I can hear him laying into the order of service.
“Dearly beloved.” He gives that sarcastic little laugh. “Beloved by whom? Beloved by the stars and the cosmos? Does anyone expect us to believe that some beneficent being is up there, loving us? In the sight of God. I ask you, Wanda! Absolute weak-minded nonsense.”
I suddenly see the vicar of the church walking up the aisle toward us. He’s obviously heard Antony, from his glowering expression. Yikes.
“Good evening, Poppy.”
I hastily leap up from my pew. “Good evening, Reverend Fox! How are you? We were just saying … how lovely the church looks.” I smile lamely.
“Indeed,” he says frostily.
“Have you …” I swallow. “Have you met my future father-in-law? Professor Antony Tavish.”
Thankfully, Antony shakes hands quite pleasantly with Reverend Fox, but there’s still a prickly atmosphere.
“So, you’re doing a reading, Professor Tavish,” says Reverend Fox after he’s checked a few other details. “From the Bible?”
“Hardly.” Antony’s eyes glitter at the vicar.
“I thought not.” The Reverend Fox smiles back aggressively. “Not really your ‘bag,’ shall we say.”
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