Kate held the card in both her hands, ready to tear it in two and consign Matt back to where he belonged, in history. She hesitated.
No matter what Matt had said or done back in 1997, that morning he had been pleasant enough. He had seemed delighted to see her, like any old friend should be. He didn’t seem to be remembering the anguished ending of their relationship when he bounded up to her. His presence at the hospital had been a very welcome distraction while her mother was in the operating theatre. He had asked her to let him know how the operation went. Surely common courtesy required she at least send a text.
Kate typed a brief message with her thumb. Mum’s op went fine, she wrote. Take care.
Kate went to bed at eleven o’clock. When she woke briefly at three in the morning, she heard her father pacing around again. He couldn’t sleep without her mother beside him. Kate wondered if she would ever feel like that about Ian. Would she be holding his hand at the very last moment of her life? Would she pace the floor if she didn’t know when he was coming home? It was hard to imagine, if he was really going to choose West Ham over giving her moral support that weekend. She checked her phone to see if Ian had sent her a goodnight text message since she’d been asleep. Ordinarily, he would. There was nothing, but there was a text from Matt.
It was SO good to see you today, he wrote. You looked every bit as beautiful as I remembered. It’s as if the years since we last saw each other fell away. Please call. It would be great to catch up properly if you can.
Next morning, John knocked on Kate’s bedroom door at six thirty. He came bearing a cup of tea.
‘Dad, it’s half six.’
‘I’d like to get in to see your mum as soon as possible,’ he explained.
Kate dragged herself to the bathroom. Far from her usual habit if woken too early, she found herself putting on make-up. She told herself that it was nothing to do with Matt, of course. It would simply be unfair to the world to force her bare face upon it at such an early hour. She always looked like death warmed up before nine. Still, knowing that Matt might be watching, she was definitely a little more self-conscious than she had been the previous day when she and her father crossed the car park.
Elaine was sitting up in bed when they arrived. Her breakfast was half finished. She said she was feeling good, if a little sore.
‘I’m glad that damn thing is out of me at last,’ she said. ‘It’s only going to get easier from now on.’
‘You’ll be wanting to get back to London,’ said John to Kate. ‘I can look after myself. Your sister will bring Lily round to keep me company at the weekend.’
‘No,’ Kate insisted. ‘I want to stay with you until Mum is back home.’
John protested, but she could tell that he was glad she’d made that decision.
Leaving her parents alone while she went to fetch coffees, Kate used the opportunity to call Ian to tell him her plans.
‘You could still come down on Sunday,’ she said. ‘Just for the day.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to be in the way. Oh, have we got any more toilet rolls?’
‘I believe you can get such exotic things in Waitrose,’ Kate replied.
Well, if Ian really wasn’t going to come down to keep her company, then Kate decided she would have to make her own amusement. She could go for that drink with Matt for a start.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Diana had got over the shock of discovering that the royal couple’s official engagement pictures were very different from the poses she had persuaded Ben to lampoon. There was nothing that could be done about it. Pete, the photographer, said that he was absolutely chock-a-block with assignments every weekend between now and the wedding. Ben said that he could not take another weekday off without risking his job, and since Diana was going to give up her job . . . She had to give up her job. There was so much to think about. Planning a wedding really was incredibly stressful.
While Ben was out at work, Diana vented her frustrations on online bridal forums. She was signed up to eleven different forums, using the name ‘theother-princess’ for each. However, she spent most of her time on Nuptialsnet.com, a forum based in the United States. Diana liked the forum’s format. It was ever so easy to set up a profile complete with a ‘wedding countdown’, which ticked off the days until the big day. Diana chose a picture of two unicorns with their horns entwined for her avatar photo. Unicorns held special significance for Diana. The very oldest item in her secret wedding folder was a drawing she had done at the age of six. In it, two unicorns (or, more specifically, two pink rectangles with spindly legs and horns) pulled a coach that would have made Cinderella’s fairy godmother proud. Now, almost twenty-four years later, that picture had talismanic properties for Diana. She carefully unfolded it to remind herself of her childhood fantasy whenever she was stressed.
But what Diana liked best about Nuptialsnet was not the countdown calendars or the unicorns; she liked the feeling that American brides took the whole business of getting married more seriously than their English counterparts. Thus they were far more sympathetic towards Diana’s wedding-planning woes.
Top of Diana’s current woes was the fact that Ben seemed uninterested in the minutiae of the wedding-planning.
‘Last night,’ Diana wrote on the forum, ‘I asked him to look at three website links to wedding-cake companies and to give me his honest opinion. He was on the Internet for the best part of two hours, but when he came to bed, he told me that he’d “forgotten” to look at the three websites I specifically asked for his opinion on. What can I do to focus his attention on our important day?’
The solutions came flooding in. Had Diana con-sidered offering to get a wedding cake made in the colours of his favourite football team? Not bloody likely. Southampton FC and Princess Diana roses were far from a perfect match. Had she thought about getting samples from each of the cake-makers, then blindfolding her BFH (beloved future husband) and feeding him the samples in bed? ‘No way,’ Diana typed back. She never ate in bed. What a disgusting thought. No wonder that particular Nuptialsnet bride was still trying to lose a stone with less than three weeks to go.
‘I would suggest withholding sex,’ came the third answer. ‘Once a man has easy access to sex, you can bet that he will give up trying in just about every area of life. That includes your wedding-planning. Sex is the reason why so many non-Christian marriages fail. If you have sex before marriage, you are setting yourself up for disaster, but you can go some way to setting things right if you abstain from sex starting right now until your honeymoon. Think of it as renewing your virginity. What man doesn’t want to marry a virgin? And in the meantime, your BFH will take much more interest in wedding cake, believe me.’
Hmm, thought Diana. Now perhaps this was something she could work with. Renewing her virginity. It sounded quite romantic. And if it had the side effect of piquing Ben’s interest in planning, then so much the better. Diana was going to save herself for the big day. She’d tell Ben that evening. Meanwhile, Diana would offer some of her own wisdom to the other brides on the board.
Under the heading ‘Very confused’, a young woman lamented that despite having become engaged to her boyfriend of two years, she was having feelings for someone at work, who was also in a relationship. So far she hadn’t acted on her feelings, but should she break off her engagement and tell her colleague how she felt?
Diana responded, ‘You are a slut and a bitch. You should break off your engagement anyway, because no man deserves to be with a slag like you. Then you should leave your colleague the hell alone. He belongs to another woman. I hope one day that someone steals a man off you, you thoughtless, selfish cow.’
Diana then advised a girl whose maid of honour had just announced that she couldn’t take a whole week off work for the hen party to dump her friend.
‘Cut her out of your life. Who needs a bitch like that for their bestie? If she can’t see how important this is to you, then screw her. She’s probably jealous
or a lesbian.’
Diana pressed ‘post’. Job done. She loved the sense of community she got from Nuptialsnet.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Out of his white coat, Matt looked a little more like the man Kate remembered. Off-duty, he still favoured the way of dressing he’d had all through university: a nicely ironed shirt, a pair of chinos. He hardly ever wore jeans, even as a student. He’d looked a little old-fashioned back then. Now, however, the look suited him perfectly. That evening, he was wearing a pink shirt. Pink had always been a good colour for his lightly tanned skin and thick hair. Though his hair was a lot less thick now and he didn’t look as though he’d been out in the sun for a while. As Kate walked towards him through the pub he had chosen, she wondered if he really did think she looked as good as ever. Time had taken such a toll on Matt it didn’t seem possible that she had escaped its worst ravages.
‘I’m really glad you could make it,’ he said. ‘I got you your usual. A pint of Stella?’
Kate shook her head at the pint at her place on the table.
‘Ugh. Actually, I prefer to drink wine these days,’ she said.
‘Of course.’ Matt jumped to his feet. ‘I’ll have it. I thought getting you a pint would be a bit of a laugh, that’s all – remind you of all those nights in the union bar.’
‘Some things are best forgotten,’ said Kate.
Matt went back to the bar and returned with a glass of chilled pinot grigio. It was somewhat inappropriate for the freezing weather outside, but Kate accepted it gratefully nonetheless. It was as good as you could expect a pub wine to be: so sour that it made her mouth pucker.
‘I so need this drink,’ she said, glad that she had decided on a taxi rather than driving herself. Seeing Matt again like this, away from the hospital, was like seeing him for the first time. Kate was surprised at how nervous she felt. Was this evening going to be excruciating?
‘Tough day?’ Matt asked.
‘Tough week. I can’t believe how much Mum’s cancer has taken out of us.’
‘Ah, yes. Tell me all about it.’
It wasn’t much of an ice-breaker, but it was helpful to be able to talk to Matt about her mother’s condition. While Elaine’s consultant had been friendly enough, he had very little time built into his schedule for the pastoral care of his patients. Mindful of that, John and Kate dared not ask the questions they hoped to ask and had thus come away with a bunch of half-heard and less than half-understood information. Though it was not his area of specialisation, Matt was able to cut through a lot of the jargon the oncologist had used.
‘Is that really all it meant? I feel so stupid,’ said Kate as the mysteries unravelled.
‘Don’t,’ said Matt. ‘It’s easy to forget when you’re dashing from one patient to the next that they don’t understand all the bloody acronyms. It sounds to me as though the operation went exactly as it was supposed to. Trust me, if it hadn’t, you would know about it. One thing the NHS is good at is responding to a real emergency. Thank God.’
‘Thanks, Matt. I feel like an idiot having to ask you all these questions. It’s been a difficult time. I’ve felt so stressed out worrying about Mum and Dad. Especially Dad. I don’t know how he’d cope if he lost her. More to the point, I don’t know how my sister and I could cope with him. I hope you don’t think I’m being overly dramatic. I know that there are people in far worse shape than Mum in that hospital.’
‘But they’re not your mum,’ said Matt. ‘You don’t have to care as much about them as you do about Elaine. You’re not being dramatic at all. You’re being every bit as concerned as a daughter should be.’
‘Really? Only, when this all started, I felt as though I was interfering when I wanted to ask questions. The registrar told me I shouldn’t believe everything I read on the Internet. That made me feel like a real fool.’
Matt snorted his amusement. ‘You know how arrogant doctors can be,’ he said.
‘Ugh. Well, this is all very gloomy,’ said Kate. ‘Shall we move on?’ She raised her glass. ‘Happy Christmas.’
‘Happy Christmas,’ said Matt.
‘Are you doing anything nice for Christmas this year?’
‘I thought we were moving off gloomy subjects. Don’t ask about Christmas, for God’s sake.’
They talked a bit about Matt’s life in Southampton. Matt explained that he would be spending his Christmas alone. He’d have spent the day working if he could. His soon-to-be ex-wife was taking their children skiing with her new man. It was to be the first time he had not been with his children on Christmas Day.
‘The worst of it is, I don’t think they care half as much as I do. Not now Richard is taking them to Verbier.’
‘And he’s a dentist?’
‘Yes. I should have guessed when my beloved wife came home with a mouthful of veneers.’
‘You must be gutted.’
‘I was. I thought Rosie was the love of my life. When I married her, I was convinced that I would never look at another woman. I certainly didn’t think she would ever look at another man. Marriage is hard bloody work. I can understand why you haven’t bothered until now. What’s he like, anyway, your fiancé?’
‘Oh, you know.’
‘I don’t know. Is he good enough for you?’ Matt frowned like a concerned father.
‘He’s great. He’s an accountant, but he’s not boring.’
Matt laughed. ‘So he’s nice and steady. That’s good. How did you meet him?’
‘In a bar,’ Kate lied about it for the first time.
‘Good old Katie,’ said Matt. ‘Keeping the British brewing industry going.’
‘I really don’t drink as much as I used to,’ Kate reminded him.
‘I believe you, though I’m sad you won’t end the evening by dancing on the table. But tell me about your man. What’s he passionate about? Apart from you, of course.’
‘West Ham,’ Kate deadpanned.
‘Can you believe my eight-year-old son supports Chelsea?’ Matt rolled his eyes. Matt was a die-hard Celtic fan.
‘It’s only a game,’ said Kate.
‘Never say that . . . Tell me more about your man. What else do you like about him?’ asked Matt. ‘What do you guys do together at the weekends?’
‘Why all the forensics? Tell me about you and Rosie. After all, she pinched my boyfriend.’
Matt shook his head. ‘You don’t want to hear that.’
Kate smiled to let him know that he really could tell her. Thirteen years earlier, she had wanted to know because she wanted to work out whether she had any chance of stealing Matt back. Now she was just curious. It no longer made any difference to her, did it? She was getting married.
‘What can I say? I felt like I didn’t have a choice. Rosie walked into my life and everything seemed to fall into place around her. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be with you any more; it’s just that the pull of attraction from Rosie was so strong that I decided it must be because she was the One. My destiny.’
‘I didn’t think you were superstitious.’
‘I’m not, but you know what it’s like when you meet someone and in the first second they smile at you, you feel like you’ve come home. You feel like you’ve known them your whole life and everything feels right. You must have had that with Ian.’
Kate was distracted by a group of teenagers who had just tumbled through the door of the pub. They must have been celebrating the end of the school term. They were drunk and arguing about who was sober enough to convince the barman to serve them. Their high-pitched disagreement made it all but obvious that they were underage.
‘Do you know what I mean?’ Matt asked her again. ‘About just knowing? I bet Ian felt exactly that when he asked you to marry him. I bet meeting you made everything suddenly make sense.’
Kate came back to the conversation. ‘What? Well, I suppose so. He’s not the kind for big, sweeping statements like that.’
‘I didn’t think I wanted to get married unt
il I met Rosie. With her I had no problem committing to anything. I couldn’t wait for the rest of my life to begin. It happens when it happens. You can’t fake it.’
‘I’d nearly given up waiting.’
‘I really don’t know how you got away with staying single for so long.’
‘I think I do,’ said Kate, remembering all the guys who had followed Matt through her heart. The one-night stands. The weirdoes. The ever-noncommittal Dan. Since meeting Ian, it had crossed Kate’s mind that perhaps she had subconsciously chosen men who wouldn’t commit to her because she didn’t want to commit to anyone either. ‘Perhaps I just wasn’t ready,’ she concluded.
‘And now you are,’ said Matt.
‘I hope so.’
Matt clinked his glass against hers.
‘So here we are again. You know it’s been twenty years since we first met.’
‘It can’t be.’
‘It is. September 1990. Freshers’ Week. You had that terrible accent.’
‘Hang on . . .’ Kate protested.
‘You did. You sounded like a farmer. You soon got rid of that burr.’
‘If only you’d got rid of those mustard-coloured jeans you used to wear as quickly.’
‘I’ve still got them. I’m saving them for Tom.’
‘They must be able to walk on their own by now.’
‘They’ll come back into fashion. Like that jumper you’re wearing. Didn’t you have something exactly like that at Cambridge?’
‘This is the Cambridge jumper,’ Kate admitted. ‘Mum and Dad had it at their house. It was the only thing I could find to put on. I hadn’t expected it to be so cold down here.’
‘When are you going back to London?’ Matt asked.
‘I’m not sure. Maybe tomorrow if I think that Mum and Dad will be able to get by without me. You know, it’s really shaken me, this whole thing. It’s like I didn’t believe my parents were mortal until now. And this is just the first hint of the frailty to come. It’s bloody frightening.’
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