by Lucy Dawson
‘I am required, however, to ask that if any person knows of any lawful impediment to this marriage they should declare it now.’
Here we go… My muscles lock and I focus hard on a spot on the wall above the registrar’s head. Technically I suppose it’s not a legal impediment, but I still feel my lawyer fiancé is going to have a problem with the photographs of my having sex with someone else. I start to sway slightly.
Someone coughs suddenly and there is a ripple of good-natured laughter as I visibly jump. Marc turns around and gives the perpetrator a mock, fierce glare. My nails are digging so hard into the fleshy part of my hand it starts to throb, but then he turns back, the registrar smiles easily at us and smoothly moves on.
The shock makes me catch my breath.
‘The purpose of marriage is that you love, care for and support each other through both the joys and sorrows of life.’ My dress feels incredibly tight, suddenly several sizes too small. I physically can’t exhale. Why has no one said anything yet? ‘Today you will exchange vows that will unite you as man and wife, and it is my duty to remind you of the solemn and binding character of these vows that you are about to make. I am now going to ask you each in turn to declare that you know of no legal reason why you may not be joined in marriage. Marc, please repeat after me: “I do solemnly declare…”’ She busily addresses him, and then the next minute, I too am saying aloud, stunned, that there is no legal reason why we can’t marry.
‘And so I ask you both: Marc – do you take Sophie to be your lawful wedded wife, to be loving, faithful and loyal to her for the rest of your life together?’
It’s going to happen now, surely?
‘I do,’ he says firmly, and turns to me to earnestly repeat the rest of his vows. ‘I call upon these persons here present to witness that I, Marc Turner, take you, Sophie Gardener, to be my lawful wedded wife, to love and to cherish, from this day forward.’ He smiles at me, then looks excitedly at Isabelle and Olivier and winks. He is a good dad. I turn to see them both smiling up at us – Isabelle looking so genuinely happy, my heart tightens painfully.
The registrar turns to me. ‘Sophie, do you take Marc to be your lawful wedded husband, to be loving, faithful and loyal to him for the rest of your life together?’
All I hear in response is my own stammering voice in the silence: ‘I do.’ No one shouts ‘Liar!’ It resounds only in my head. The room is pregnant with silent excitement.
‘Please repeat after me: “I call upon these persons here present…”’
What’s happening? Why is nobody speaking up? I don’t understand.
‘Sophie?’ says the registrar firmly. ‘Please repeat after me: “I call upon these persons here present to witness that I, Sophie Gardener—”’
‘Sorry,’ I say, dazed. ‘I call upon these persons here present to witness that I, Sophie Gardener… Take you, Marc Turner…’
I slowly repeat all of the vows, and nobody says a single word. We exchange rings, and the next thing I hear someone say is: ‘I now pronounce you husband and wife!’
There is a spontaneous cheer as Marc scoops me into his arms and kisses me. Issy and Olivier are giggling and pulling faces in embarrassed delight.
What the hell just happened?
We got married?
CHAPTER TWENTY
I look across at my sisters incredulously. Imogen is wiping away tears, and blowing kisses at Ed and Evie; Alice gives me a sad little smile and mouths, ‘Love you’. I swallow, in shock. Mum sits down heavily in her chair and fans herself lightly, in apparent relief.
‘Congratulations to you both,’ says the registrar, before raising her voice to address everyone else. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is the conclusion of the marriage ceremony. You may take some photographs now if you wish, but we would then ask you to be seated for the signing of the register.’
Out come the phones immediately, waving in the air as everyone cranes for a good shot. Lou has tears running down her face as she snaps away.
If the images were going to arrive, they would have done by now. Everyone would be staring right at them.
So they weren’t sent? Marc reaches for my hand and leads me over to a table. I sit down and a pen is pressed into my hands, the registrar pointing at where I am to sign. I automatically scribble Sophie Gardener before panicking suddenly that perhaps I was meant to sign it as Sophie Turner.
‘Is that right?’ I ask her.
She looks at it and nods. ‘Yes, you use your maiden name.’
I pass the pen to Marc and watch him sign it too. My husband.
Dad and Marc’s mother step forward as witnesses. I’ve only met his mother twice before. A tall, too-thin woman called Olivia, she is wearing a raw silk lilac shift dress and matching bolero encrusted with crystals around the stand-up collar, as if it’s been dipped in egg white and Demerara sugar. A vast amethyst twinkles on her finger as she signs carefully, before looking up at me stiffly. Her rather dated feathered fascinator is perched on the side of her ash-blonde hair like a dead owl chick caught in a bit of netting. I glance away quickly and stare down at the floor. I think I am going to be sick.
‘Sophie?’ says Marc immediately. ‘Are you OK? You’ve gone very pale.’
‘I don’t feel well.’
‘Shit. We shouldn’t have risked this.’ He pushes the chair back in alarm and hastens over to the registrar. I let my head hang as the events manager hurries over to join them.
We just got married?
I see them look at me in concern and nod. Marc quickly makes his way back to me as the registrar clears her throat pointedly, killing the excited chatter in the room.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, due to unforeseen circumstances, the bride and groom will now be leaving. They very much hope to return shortly to celebrate with you, but ask you in the meantime to stay and enjoy yourselves! I’ll hand you over to Amanda Knights, the events manager of Goldhurst Park, who will be acting as master of ceremonies, as it were, in their absence.’
She gestures to the organizer, who gives everyone a little wave, and does a curious little curtsey before saying loudly, ‘I’d like to invite you all to make your way out to the library immediately for a champagne reception!’
Everyone looks worried, rather than their confusion of earlier, but they all dutifully stand and begin to move slowly en masse to the doors behind them, one or two of them unable to stop themselves from giving me an anxious thumbs-up and a ‘You OK?’, to which I do my best to nod and smile reassuringly.
‘Oh, and everybody,’ continues the manager, ‘a lost mobile phone has been handed in at reception. If any of you has mislaid yours, do go to see the girls at the front desk.’
I stiffen instantly, just as Marc’s mother helpfully grabs him, wrapping him in her arms as she holds him with inappropriately tight fervour, her eyes closed, while Isabelle and Olivier look around them uncertainly at everyone leaving.
‘Alice,’ I call quickly, and she steps straight over to me. ‘I have to go to the loo. Tell Marc I’ll be right back. Stay with Papa, you two, OK?’ I look down at the children, and Isabelle nods.
‘Sophie?’ I hear Marc call worriedly, but I ignore him and hurry up the left-hand side of the room, placing hands on people’s backs and saying loudly, ‘Sorry, can I squeeze through?’ Of course they let me. It’s like the parting of the Red Sea.
‘Can I see the mobile that was handed in, please?’ I blurt to the girls at the front desk. ‘I think it’s mine.’ One of them reaches under the counter and brings out an iPhone – my phone, complete with the scratch down the front of the screen that happened the day I got it and dropped it in the car park at Waitrose. I inhale sharply. ‘Who found it?’ I reach out to take it. ‘I’d like to thank them.’
‘Um, I’m not sure, actually,’ says the younger of the two. ‘I know it was in the ladies loo, by the sinks, but that’s all.’
I switch it on and Evie pops up on the screen. As everything else loads up, I go straight to my sent me
ssages.
There are only two. The first was sent from my phone eighteen minutes ago, to my own number. It reads:
07679857154
Congratulations. We’re done.
I want to scream aloud. How can we be? What the hell was the point of sending the pictures to my parents, Lou and that horrible message to Issy, only to not send them to everyone else at the last moment? It makes no sense! I open the other message, sent at 1.47 a.m. last night.
It’s a picture of me, sleeping peacefully, taken from right alongside my bed.
‘Soph?’ Marc appears at my right shoulder, holding Olivier and Isabelle’s hands. I immediately hide my phone. ‘What are you doing? We need to go right now! Imogen is lending us the car, but I want to bring the kids this time, if that’s OK. They’re getting a bit freaked out.’
‘I’ve got a bag,’ I say blankly, ‘with some clothes I can change into. I think Lou checked it in for me—’
‘I’ll sort that out, Marc.’ My mother appears behind me. ‘You take the children and get the car. I’ll bring Sophie out to the front steps and then we’ll follow on separately behind you.’
‘Thanks, Maura.’ Marc dashes off gratefully.
As Mum retrieves my bag, the people closest to me offer me smiles of support, but evidently don’t know whether to congratulate me or wish me luck. The female partner at Marc’s firm is one of them, coughing awkwardly as she says, ‘Well, in case we don’t see you again later this evening, pass our best on to Marc. He’s so cool in a crisis – we’ll miss that! Do tell him to stay in touch, won’t you?’
Mum stares at her for a moment, my bag now in her hand, and says icily, ‘Come along, Sophie,’ before leading me firmly towards the main door. ‘Honestly. Some people have no social skills whatsoever. You’re doing very well, darling. That’s it, hold on to me.’
Gen’s car is already sitting outside. ‘You’re going to be absolutely fine, Mrs Turner,’ Mum continues as we walk down the steps. ‘It’ll be nothing to worry about, I promise! See you shortly, darling.’ She turns away quickly as I climb in, and hurries back to the hotel.
I place the large bag on my lap just as I did in Josh’s car an hour or two earlier and turn to Isabelle and Olivier, forcing a smile as we pull away sharply. ‘All right, you two? Got your seat belts on?’
‘Yes, Sophie,’ Isabelle says obediently before asking curiously, ‘You’re our stepmother now, aren’t you? So what do we call you?’
‘Just Sophie, like you usually do.’
Marc gives me a subtle thumbs-up.
‘Hmm,’ says Isabelle. ‘Helllooo,’ she mimics me. ‘I’m Sophie Gardener…’
‘Hush, Issy,’ says Marc quickly. ‘Soph’s got a bit of a headache.’
‘Sor-ry,’ she says slightly grumpily, and we lapse into silence for a minute.
‘What about when Mama marries Julien?’ persists Isabelle. ‘What do I call him?’
I look at Marc, surprised.
‘You’ll just call him Julien, like you do now,’ says Marc.
‘OK.’ Isabelle nods and, after a moment or two, she and Olivier begin to chatter to each other animatedly in French.
‘Is that imminent?’ I ask Marc quietly.
‘Apparently.’ He shrugs. ‘Claudine told me yesterday when I went to pick them up.’
‘Wow. Well, it’s a good thing, I guess, isn’t it? She’s finally moving on.’ And what she said about Marc not ‘letting’ her marry Julien was also clearly rubbish.
‘Papa,’ announces Isabelle suddenly, and says something in French, to which Marc answers in French, but then insists, ‘And now back to English, please, Issy.’
‘Urgh.’ She tuts in disgust and slumps back into her seat. ‘Why? I don’t like it.’
Something occurs to me suddenly. ‘Marc, can Issy read English?’
‘No,’ he says regretfully. ‘She would have been able to – I bought them both English reading books – but it wasn’t followed up, if you get my drift.’
Why would someone send that message to Issy in a language she couldn’t understand?
Wouldn’t Claudine have written it in French?
‘You know what?’ Marc reaches for my hand. ‘I don’t want to think or talk about that woman. This is our wedding day and, with a bit of luck, we might actually get to celebrate it later, once the scan is done.’
Unless the sender didn’t want Issy to be able to read it, and it was really intended for my benefit… My hand sits loosely in his.
‘Before I forget – that partner at your firm, she said to tell you to stay in touch and she’ll miss you being calm in a crisis. What did she mean?’
‘Oh, right.’ He looks rather nonplussed. ‘Yeah, she’s leaving. Going off to another company. Bit of a rubbish one, if truth be told. But, far more importantly, how are you feeling? All right?’
‘I feel… completely disorientated.’
He glances worriedly at me. ‘OK. Well, we’re nearly there. Not long now.’
Sophie – how naïve are you? I mean, really?
He’s a damaged man.
I wish I could stop hearing her voice in my head.
We get the formal report on my scan result at 10 p.m. I have concussion.
‘That’s it?’ Marc says. ‘There’s no fracture or anything like that? Thank God.’
‘We’ll keep her under observation for the rest of tonight anyway,’ says the earnest young male doctor alongside my bed. ‘Losing consciousness and vomiting are not common symptoms, so I think we ought to be certain of no further complications developing. But, all being well, you’ll be able to go home tomorrow.’ He beams at us, and looks a bit crestfallen when no one reacts positively.
‘Well, let’s face it, even if we left now, the reception is pretty much over,’ Marc says after a moment. ‘But what about the honeymoon? We have long-haul flights booked. Is that OK?’
‘You’d have to check with your insurance company,’ says the doctor. ‘I’d expect that if Sophie doesn’t experience any further problems in the next forty-eight hours, then it will be fine.’
‘We’re meant to be leaving tomorrow,’ Marc says bleakly.
‘Daddy, aren’t we going on holiday any more?’ Isabelle tugs at his sleeve.
‘Shhh!’ Marc says gently, then turns to me. ‘Dubai for a week with the kids, then a week in Barbados for us,’ he explains to me. ‘Surprise!’
‘Oh, Marc, I’m so sorry. We could just go anyway,’ I suggest. ‘I’m sure it will be OK.’
He looks appalled. ‘It might invalidate the whole policy. No.’ He exhales. ‘I’ll call them tomorrow and sort it. Forty-eight hours, you say?’
The doctor nods.
‘Fine. I’d better get these two back to the hotel now we know you’re going to be all right.’ He reaches out for Isabelle and Olivier. ‘It’s getting pretty late.’ He bends over and kisses me. ‘Happy wedding day. I love you.’
‘You too,’ I reply.
The children wave uncertainly and I try to sit up a bit to wave back as he ushers them from the room.
Finally I am left alone. Gasping, I collapse back onto my pillow. If I hadn’t just experienced it, I’m not sure I would have believed any of it had happened. I look down at the thin platinum band sitting on my finger.
But it did, and we are married.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘Can I have the first and second letters of your password, please?’
I shift position slightly on the hospital bed, trying not to pull the charger that Alice has just brought in for me out of my practically flat phone, while at the same time making sure the wire doesn’t get caught up in the detritus of my breakfast that has yet to be cleared away. ‘K and I.’
‘I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that doesn’t match with my records. Could you give me the third and sixth characters of your password?’
‘N and O.’
‘That doesn’t match either. I’m sorry.’
‘That’s definitely my password.�
�
‘Can I take your full address and postcode?’ the mobile phone employee says patiently.
I tell him, and then he asks for my date of birth. ‘Could you also tell me how you pay your bills?’
‘Monthly, by direct debit from my NatWest account,’ I answer.
‘And how much was your last bill?’
‘It’s always about £36. I’m on a payment plan.’
‘OK, Ms Gardener, I’m happy to pass you through security. How can I help?’
I take a deep breath. ‘Yesterday, someone pretending to be me reactivated my phone after I’d lost it and had it blacklisted, so I called and had it blocked again – and changed my password – only for them to call up and repeat the whole process. I’d like to know how this person kept being given access to my phone.’
‘The phone you’re calling from?’ he says, confused.
‘Yes, I’ve found it now,’ I explain.
‘Right,’ he says, clearly not understanding at all. ‘Let’s look back through the notes. Now, I can see a password change was requested at one twenty-seven yesterday.’
‘I know.’ I picture myself at the restaurant. ‘That was me.’
‘You then called back at one thirty-two and said you hadn’t requested that password change or the blacklist request.’
‘No, I didn’t! That was someone else.’
‘It says here “Customer received text alert to phone that password had been changed, which they hadn’t instigated.”’
‘You sent a text to the phone saying I’d changed the password?’ I say incredulously. ‘You alerted them to the fact I’d changed it? Why would you do that? I didn’t need to be told I’d changed it – I asked for the change! And how would I have got that text alert anyway, seeing as I’d lost the phone?’
‘It’s company policy to send a text alert when you have a password change, so if it’s not you who has requested it, you know that someone is trying to access your records… Although I can appreciate, in this case, it wasn’t relevant.’