by Pippa Wright
‘Prue,’ I say, as she fiddles with a strand of ivy that’s coming loose from her chignon. She looks up.
‘What?’
‘Prue, I really am sorry for everything. For interfering with Ben. He’s a good man. I know you’re both going to be very happy together.’
‘Of course we are,’ says Prue briskly, applying a final blast of hairspray to hold the ivy in place. ‘And let’s stop going on about that stupid foster husband business.’
She turns to face me, hands on her knees, and looks at me with infinite patience and, dare I say it, a little bit of pity.
‘Kate. You were mental, you weren’t thinking straight and you made a lot of bad decisions. I get that. Everyone gets it. So you’re forgiven. But if you ever, ever try to shove your nose into my business again, know that I will fucking kill you. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ I agree. It is her wedding day, after all.
Prue gets up and smooths the delicate lace down over her hips. ‘And you’re going to be happy too, Kate,’ she says, her expression softening. ‘I know you don’t think so right now, but you will. It’s a New Year, and a new start for all of us. You’ll see.’
In her white dress with her blonde hair, Prue appears like a storybook angel, come down from on high to offer me a blessing. I decide to believe her.
48
If you think this story is going to end with me hijacking my sister’s wedding to deliver a nicely summarizing speech about what I learned about my own marriage, you are very much mistaken. Firstly because I’ve always thought that seems massively inappropriate when it happens in Hollywood movies – someone else’s wedding is not about you, you crazy narcissist – and secondly because there is no way Prue would let me anywhere near the microphone at her nuptials. Dad’s pre-approved speech opened with a hint of resentment that you would only notice if you were a member of the family, but by the time he got to the end he was wiping tears from his eyes about his baby girl and so were the rest of us.
The hotel staff have excelled themselves under Prue’s watchful eye, and now that the meal is over, they are busy pushing back tables to create space for a dance floor. There is a small buffet set up for people who will be joining the evening party, and although it has been laid out for only a few minutes, Mrs Curtis is already stationed next to it, surreptitiously transferring pork pies into her handbag.
The DJ taps his microphone to tell us all that it will soon be time for the bride and groom’s first dance, and I pick up my handbag from underneath the top table, ready to get to the front of the crowd. I have done my sisterly duty in entertaining aged aunts, tolerating mildly racist jokes from uncles who should know better, and answering as blandly as possible all questions about my relationship status. Even better, I’ve done it all without getting mind-blowingly drunk, since there’s been so much to do that it’s been like a work event instead of a party.
When the music starts – ‘It Had to Be You’ – Prue and Ben take to the dance floor with Dad trailing them closely, his newly purchased video camera clutched in his hand. I wish Jay or Danny was here to see how seriously Dad frames every shot, going for avant-garde angles whenever possible. Mum appears next to me, nudging my elbow.
‘Francis Ford Coppola over there.’
‘Aw, he’s loving it,’ I say.
‘I’ll be lucky to get my hands on that camera once when we get to South America,’ says Mum.
I lean into her and she puts her arm around my waist. ‘I’m going to miss you,’ I say.
Mum kisses the top of my head as we watch my sister and her husband move around the dance floor, accompanied by the paparazzi flash of a hundred camera phones.
‘I’ll miss you too, love,’ she says. ‘But you’ll be back in London. Living your life. It’s not like you were going to stay here for ever.’
‘I know,’ I say. I try not to feel like a baby bird being pushed out of the nest before it’s quite ready.
Dad suddenly appears in front of us, pushing the camera in our faces, until Mum persuades him to put it away and dance with her instead. The floor fills with couples, including Mrs Curtis clutching tightly onto Ben’s terrified-looking best man.
No one notices me slip away.
I squeeze past the cluster of smokers gathered at the back of the hotel, making an excuse about having to sort out the fireworks. It almost makes me miss smoking, the way it gives you a bit of time out for yourself without anyone thinking you’re being weird or antisocial.
I’m heading for a bench out on the far lawn. In daylight it offers a sweeping view across Lyme Bay, but even on this starlit winter’s night it’s possible to make out the curl of the Cobb, its back hunched against the sea, as if it is protecting the town. The bench is hidden from the hotel behind the thick waxy leaves of a rhododendron bush, so I know I will be out of sight. I can take some time to be alone for a moment, away from the endless questions. What next, Kate? What are you going to do with the rest of your life? And, worse, the sympathetic looks from those who aren’t brave enough to ask.
I hear someone stumbling in the bushes behind me, and I stay very still. I expect it’s just a drunken wedding guest – no doubt some bloke who’s decided an alfresco pee is more manageable than negotiating the carpeted corridors of the hotel in search of the Gents. There’s a muffled exclamation as someone walks into a branch, then suddenly I am rocked forwards when a figure lurches out of the undergrowth, knocking into the bench.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ says Matt.
Matt?
I spin around on the bench in disbelief.
‘I mean, Kate, I’ve been looking for you,’ says Matt, pulling leaves out of his hair. ‘Oh shit, this is going all wrong already. Shall I just begin again?’
‘What . . . what are you doing here?’ I ask.
‘Your sister asked me,’ says Matt, straightening his suit jacket and coming to sit on the bench next to me. I stare at him as if he’s an alien who has just stepped out of a spaceship.
‘Prue?’
His mouth twists into an awkward smile. ‘Yes, Prue, unless you’ve got some other sister getting married this weekend?’
‘But she never said. I wasn’t expecting—’
Matt takes my cold hand in both of his. I feel like he is holding my heart right there, beating between his warm palms. As if he could cradle it or crush it, whichever he chooses.
‘Remind me again why you’re sitting outside on the coldest night of the year?’ he asks.
‘I just . . . I just wanted to be by myself for a little while,’ I say.
He raises an eyebrow and lifts a corner of his mouth. ‘Should I go then?’
‘No!’ I put my free hand on top of his. ‘Matt, don’t go. Please don’t go.’
‘Steady on,’ he says, laughing. ‘Do you think I’ve come all this way to be put off that easily?’
I shake my head, not sure if I trust myself to speak. It’s time to let Matt say his piece. I’ve said mine already, weeks ago.
Matt doesn’t speak either. He just looks at me, like he’s reading my face, as if he’s forgotten it and has to remind himself who I am all over again. He is half hidden in shadow, the moonlight catches just the side of his jaw, and the hair that flops over his forehead into his eyes. I have to stop myself from pushing it back like I used to.
‘So,’ he says. It is not exactly the declaration of love and devotion that I was hoping for, but it’s a start.
There is a nervous fluttering in my chest; I have to breathe through my nose because I’m afraid that otherwise I might start gasping embarrassingly, begging Matt to say what it is he has to say. He wouldn’t have come all this way to ask me for a divorce, would he? Not at my sister’s wedding.
‘Why . . . why did you come, Matt?’ I ask at last, unable to stop myself.
He drops his eyes down to the bench, where our hands are still joined.
‘I don’t even know, Kate,’ he says, forcing out an unconvincing laugh. He pulls his hands away from mine and run
s his fingers through his hair, pushing it off his face. ‘I wasn’t going to. I thought I didn’t want to see you again.’
I nod, my lips pressed tightly together.
Matt sighs heavily. ‘You always seemed to want something else – something different to what you have. You didn’t know how to be grateful for what we had. I felt like I just disappointed you all the time,’ he says. ‘As though what we had wasn’t enough for you.’
I start to say, no, you didn’t disappoint me, I disappointed myself, but he lifts his head and silences me with a look from under his dark brows.
‘I kept thinking about how angry you were with me all the time. About how I couldn’t make you happy. And, God, the truth is I’m not even sure if you can make you happy, Kate.’
I say nothing, it’s not my turn. And I don’t know how to answer.
Matt reaches for my hand again. ‘And then I thought, Why am I thinking about Kate all the time if it’s really finished?’
‘So you think—’ He puts a finger on my lips and holds it there. It feels strangely more intimate than if he’d kissed me.
‘I don’t know what I think. Seriously, I don’t. I just got in the car and drove down here, thinking of what I was going to say, and now I’m here I’m as clueless as when I started. I just wanted to see you. I miss your face.’
I feel my throat close up and my eyes burn.
‘I miss your face too,’ I whisper.
Matt moves along the bench. I can feel the warmth of his body next to me. He’s so close now that it would be strange to look at one another. Instead, we both look out towards the sea, as if we hope that someone is going to rise up out of the waves and tell us what we should do.
‘Have I fucked it up for ever?’ I say. My shoulders are tight and hunched up around my ears, ready to hear the wrong answer.
‘I don’t know,’ says Matt. He puts his arm around me, and I allow myself to lean against him. It’s the closest we have been for months. My eyelids sink shut as I let myself feel the luxury of having him here, even if it’s just for now.
Matt rests his cheek on the top of my head. I can feel his breath against my hair, or is it the wind?
‘Kate.’ He sighs. ‘I can put this all behind us, but can you?’
I think for a moment, my eyes drawn upwards beyond the Cobb.
‘No,’ I say truthfully. ‘No, I can’t.’
Matt pulls away from me, leaning backwards to look at me. His eyebrows are drawn close together and his eyes glitter darkly in the moonlight.
‘Then what the fuck have you been doing emailing me all the time? Begging me for another chance?’
He turns his head away and pulls his coat around him, wrapping his arms across his chest.
‘Matt,’ I plead, reaching for him. ‘No, you don’t understand. I mean, I do want to try again, but I can’t pretend all of this didn’t happen. Or, don’t you see? It will just happen again. Not . . . not Chris, but something . . . the distance. The not talking.’
He looks back at me over his shoulder, his expression forbidding. But he is listening.
‘I did a stupid, terrible thing,’ I continue, putting my hands in my pockets and hunching down into my coat. ‘And then I tried to run away from it. Matt, the worst of those things was the running away. I want to face up to what I did. We can’t go back to how we were before. We can only make it work by starting where we are. With all our mistakes.’
Matt turns to face me.
‘My mistakes,’ I say. Hot tears hover on my eyelashes.
He lets out a short, angry laugh. ‘You can’t take all the blame. I admit, I thought you should for a while. It made me feel better to think it was all your fault.’
‘It was my fault,’ I say.
‘It was,’ admits Matt. ‘But it was mine, too. I gave up on you. I couldn’t reach you and I just stopped trying.’
‘Matt,’ I say. ‘I slept with someone else. It was my fault.’
Matt shakes his head.
‘If you face your fuck-ups, I can face mine, too,’ he says. ‘I should have helped you, made you talk about things. Not said you were crazy for being upset about not getting pregnant. I dismissed it all and left you to deal with it on your own.’
I stare at him in surprise. I’d never thought there might be an apology from him. I thought what I’d done had somehow wiped out any mistakes he’d made – my own error big enough to negate any of his.
He takes my chin in his hand, turning my face towards him. The moment stretches out between us, the only sound the waves far below us on the shore.
‘Yeah,’ I say, trying out a smile. ‘Come to think of it, it probably was all your fault, Matt.’
‘I guess this is what they mean by for better or worse,’ he says, pinching my chin playfully. ‘I’m better and you’re the worst.’
‘Do you think you can stand to try it all over again?’ I ask. ‘Really?’
‘I reckon I’ll take my chances,’ he says. My eyes rake over his face, the laughter lines at the corners of his navy eyes, his dark hair black in the moonlight. ‘You may be the worst, Mrs Martell, but you’re the only wife I’ve got, and I’d like to keep it that way.’
He leans in towards me until our lips touch; his fingers are entwined in my hair, drawing me towards him. I don’t remember when I last kissed my husband like this. I don’t plan to forget again.
It already feels like I’ve come home.
PIPPA WRIGHT lives in London and works in book publishing. You can find her on twitter at www.twitter.com/troisverres
Also by Pippa Wright
Lizzy Harrison Loses Control
Unsuitable Men
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my Lyme Regis visitors: Jo Roberts-Miller for plot advice, and smoked anchovy sharing. Jo Paton Htay and Nic Boddington for old-lady seed-catalogue reading, a lot of red wine and a traditional Gilbert hangover to remind us of the bad old days.
Huge thanks to Lisa McCormack and Nikki Sopp whose work anecdotes I have shamelessly plagiarized throughout. And who gave me more excellent stories about Lagos than I knew what to do with. Sorry I had room for so few of them here.
Thanks to Nigel and Susie Cole in whose Lyme Regis studio I first had the idea for this book, and where much of it was written. And to the Town Mill Bakery and the much-missed Mill Tea and Dining Rooms for sustenance.
And finally, thanks, as ever, to all at Pan Macmillan and Aitken Alexander.
First published 2013 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2013 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
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www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-4472-1994-1
Copyright © Pippa Wright 2013
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