And Kirsty, for all her demands, was a good person. She deserved the handsome, charming Dan, whom she would mould into a loving husband and father. They would make a wonderful couple, and wonderful parents. This was a blip. A very badly timed blip, he had to admit, but he was confident he could talk Kirsty round, if only because he genuinely believed what he was about to say.
‘Kirsty,’ began Liam in a reassuring tone. ‘Dan adores you. If I thought he didn’t, I’d tell you right now, and save you the agony of finding out later. It’s up to you now, Kirst - but if you choose to walk away because of a stupid one-night stand, it’ll be a bloody tragedy. You guys were made for each other.’
He held her by the shoulders.
‘I know Jenna meant nothing to him. I did the same thing myself. I picked up a woman in the bar and slept with her. It was a crazy night. Champagne, tequila shots, sambuca - that’s no excuse, I know. But please - don’t ruin your life and Dan’s because of a moment’s madness.’ He gazed into her eyes and smiled imploringly. ‘He’s going to be a wonderful husband. He wants me to be godfather to your first kid. I’ve got it all lined up-a first-edition Harry Potter. I want to be there at the font in a year or so ...’
He trailed off. What the hell more could he say?
There was a single tear glittering like a diamond on Kirsty’s cheek. She lifted a finger and wiped it away, then looked at her watch.
‘I’d better go and find my parents,’ she said. ‘I was supposed to be meeting them ten minutes ago. They’ll be freaking out.’
‘So . . . what’s happening?’
‘I need to think, Liam. I need to weigh it all up.’
She slid off the wall and walked away. Liam watched her go, his heart pounding, the metallic taste of guilt in his mouth. Had he done all he could to rectify the situation? The situation he could have averted, let’s face it, if he hadn’t been so self-obsessed that night. If he hadn’t been caught up in the thrall of that woman, he would have had his wits about him and sent Jenna packing with a flea in her ear. But he had been entranced.
He didn’t like thinking back on his own behaviour even now. He’d found the woman attractive, very attractive. She was posh, pretty, obviously well off - and flirtatious. How could he resist? But she was also drunk and vulnerable. He should absolutely have known better. If he’d been a gentleman, he’d have walked her back to her beach hut and left her.
When he had got up to leave as dawn broke, she had opened her eyes. The stare she had given him was so blank, like a china doll gazing into the middle distance, glassy, sightless. He’d wanted to ask her name, but it seemed so crass. He was still drunk when he left her, but not so drunk his conscience didn’t needle him on the way back to the campsite. He’d crawled into the huge tent he was sharing with the other blokes, stuffed himself into his sleeping bag and slept till midday, when he was forced to get up and play a round of golf.
The memory of her had haunted him ever since. He hadn’t stopped wondering what had happened to her, what she had remembered when she had woken up, whether she regretted sleeping with him. There had been no way for him to contact her. They hadn’t exchanged numbers.
Then, when he and Dan had come down the day before for the wedding, he had seen her. It wasn’t so surprising - she had told him that she spent a lot of the summer in Everdene with her family. She was in the Spar shop, two small children with her, perfectly turned out, the little girl in a pink spotty sundress, the boy in surfing shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt. She had looked perfect too, the ultimate yummy mummy with her blond hair in a ponytail and her Calvin Klein sunglasses on her head.
He wanted to say something to her, wanted to make sure she was all right, but he didn’t dare. He didn’t want to break the bubble she was in, the three of them poring over the open freezer, each child allowed to choose an ice cream. She’d looked up and seen him standing at the end of the queue with his shopping basket, and she’d blinked slowly. She had given him a tiny, tentative smile, then looked away. He understood. She’d recognised him, but didn’t want anything to do with him. It made him feel grubby. And even more ashamed.
He should never have had sex with her. He should have talked to her, about whatever it was that was troubling her, because he could sense she was a woman in crisis. But some visceral urge had taken them both over. He reminded himself that she hadn’t protested at all. She had wound her arms around his neck and pushed herself against him willingly enough. There had been no mixed signals.
Yet he had come away knowing it was wrong. It still didn’t sit easily with him. He hadn’t really drunk much since, wary of what he might turn into-a chauvinistic player who treated women like objects. And he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind; it kept wandering to those china-doll eyes. What had made someone who seemed so perfect on the surface so unhappy?
It had been a crazy night. And not just for him. He dragged himself back to the problem in hand as he made his way to the hotel. Bloody Jenna. What was she thinking of? He was going to kill her. He was going to bloody kill her.
Dan wondered where the hell Liam had got to. They were supposed to be heading down to the ballroom any minute, where the civil ceremony was going to take place, to meet the registrar and make sure everything was in order. At this rate they were going to be late, and he didn’t want anything to go wrong. He wanted the day to be perfect. Not for himself - he wasn’t all that bothered, he’d have been happy with a few mates at the register office - but for Kirsty, who had been working hard for months to get everything just right. He knew how important every detail was to her, from the fresh pomegranate juice and prosecco down to the last white-chocolate profiterole. Dan was determined nothing was going to spoil it, and was irritated with Liam for disappearing at the eleventh hour. He wondered who it had been on the phone, and what had been so important? He felt a little bit of disquiet gnawing at him. It was nearly one o’clock. Liam should definitely have been back by now. What if . . . ?
Don’t be stupid, he told himself. Jenna wouldn’t say anything. But he could feel his palms sweat slightly, and a prickle of unease make its way down his spine and into the pit of his stomach. He hadn’t seen Jenna since the stag night. She hadn’t contacted him since, thank God. At first he had worried that she might go all Fatal Attraction on him, start bombarding him with even more texts and phone calls than usual, but she had fortunately been very discreet. He hadn’t heard a squeak.
Why the hell had he done it? If he thought about it too much, he made himself feel sick. Jenna had made it so easy. Nuzzling up to him, whispering in his ear, winding herself around him.
‘Just once,’ she told him. ‘Because you know you want to. And it’s much better to do it now than when you’re a married man. Get it out of your system.’
And in his drunken state, he had succumbed to her suggestion, because he and Jenna had always got on, and he couldn’t deny he found her attractive, even though she was so very different from Kirsty. Maybe that had been the attraction? A base curiosity, a last-minute need to check out what was on offer and make sure he’d made the right choice.
Not that he could remember much about it. He dimly recalled staggering out of the Ship with her, and staggering up the hill to the campsite. It was only when he woke the next day and found her next to him that he realised what he’d done. He’d got rid of her pretty sharpish, but her scent had clung to him for hours afterwards, even though he had scrubbed and scrubbed himself in the shower. Of course, he really only had himself to blame. Jenna might have laid a trap for him, but if he’d been any sort of a man he could have side-stepped it, instead of throwing himself straight in.
It was OK, he told himself. In just over an hour’s time, he would be a married man. Jenna would know better than to remind him of what they had done. She was Kirsty’s best friend, after all.
Although what kind of best friend slept with her friend’s fiancé?
Dan thought about ordering another cognac. He pulled out his phone and looked at
the time. Ten minutes to kick-off. Where the hell was Liam?
‘Just pack up your things and I’ll get you a taxi from reception.’ Liam was grabbing stuff from round the room and shoving it all back into Jenna’s open suitcase. Jenna was lying in the middle of the bed, staring up at the ceiling. ‘What the hell were you thinking of, Jenna?’
‘I love him,’ replied Jenna simply. ‘I didn’t realise till this morning, but I love him, Liam.’
Liam stopped in the middle of folding up Jenna’s bridesmaid’s dress.
‘So does Kirsty, I think you’ll find,’ he replied drily.
‘I loved him from the day I first met him. When we all came down here for the weekend - do you remember? Seven years ago.’
Liam didn’t. They’d been down here so many times, he couldn’t remember specific occasions. He and Dan were at the core of the gang, and it grew and shrank and grew again, reorganising itself into different ramifications - friends from uni, friends from work, friends from the gym, football, people they’d met on other holidays, friends of friends. He couldn’t remember how or why Jenna had been grafted on, but she’d been a stalwart. And then Dan had brought along Kirsty, who he’d met at a friend’s housewarming. She was the girl in the flat upstairs. And today, most of the people in the gang were here, arriving in the car park, dressed in the finery that was a far cry from their usual Everdene uniform of jeans and board shorts and halter-neck tops. Ready for the happy union of their founder member and his bride.
‘It’s not fair.’ Jenna didn’t think she could cry any more, but here they were - more tears, squeezing themselves out of her eyelids, which were now so puffy as to make her almost unrecognisable.
‘You know what? Life isn’t. But it doesn’t mean you can trample over people, just because things haven’t gone your way. What has Kirsty ever done to hurt you?’
‘Kirsty’s got everything.’ Jenna remained stubbornly unrepentant. ‘If she doesn’t marry Dan, they’ll be queuing round the block within nanoseconds. She’d be spoilt for choice.’
‘But Dan’s her choice.’
Jenna zipped up her case and stood up.
‘Do you think she’ll still marry him?’
Liam picked up her case. He was going to escort her out the back way, in the service lift and out by the laundry, so she wouldn’t bump into any guests.
‘I hope so,’ he answered.
Jenna’s lip trembled for a moment, but there were, at last, no more tears.
She pulled the CD out of her handbag.
‘You’ll have to sort the hut out for me. Put that on the CD player. And light the candles. And don’t forget the champagne . . .’
She gave a final little hiccup of grief. Liam relented for a moment, and wrapped his arms round her.
‘It’s OK, Jenna,’ he told her. ‘It’ll be OK.’
She gave him a weary smile.
‘Yeah. I’ll get over it. Good old Jenna. Always the bridesmaid . . .’
Kirsty was with her parents in a little private drawing room on the first floor of the hotel. She didn’t want any of the guests to see her as they arrived, so the receptionist had tucked them away in here, a room from another age, set aside for writing letters or curling up with a book. Kirsty smiled her thanks as the waiter put down a tray of coffee things on a table and looked at the two of them on the sofa opposite her, grateful for their presence, their solidity.
Thank goodness they’d got here without any mishap. Her father’s driving was increasingly perilous these days, and her mother was a dreadful map-reader. She’d thought about buying them a sat nav, but she knew it would stay in its box, something to be terrified of, not something to be embraced. They were in their early sixties - she’d been a late and only child - but they seemed so much older. Put her father next to Mick Jagger or Ronnie Wood and there would be no comparison.
Her mother pushed the plate of shortbread over to her.
‘Eat that, darling. The sugar will do you good. You need energy to get through the day. Heaven knows when you’ll get a chance to sit down again.’
Kirsty picked up the biscuit absent-mindedly. It was easier to capitulate than protest. Her mind was whirling. What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t, absolutely couldn’t, confide in them, her dear parents who were obviously so excited about her big day. They would be horrified, and there would be no question of her overlooking Dan’s misdemeanour once the truth was out. Her father would confront him immediately, defend his daughter’s honour. Her mother would sob whilst trying to console her. They would be unconditionally supportive. They would whisk her back home, put her to bed in her old bedroom. Kirsty could imagine the endless cups of tea, the inquisitive noses of the dogs, the claustrophobia, the hopelessness.
But she had to make up her mind. Did she make the ultimate melodramatic gesture and walk out, here and now? Wasting several thousand pounds that had been invested in the wedding, not to mention the honeymoon in Bali they had booked? It would mean going right back to square one, to being single, and all the difficulties that entailed. She’d be no spring chicken this time round, and it was tough finding Mister Right out there.
On the other hand, did she just overlook Dan’s crime? There was no time to confront him now; the ceremony was due to start in less than a quarter of an hour.
‘Darling,’ her mother was saying. ‘Are you all right? You look pale.’
‘Leave her be,’ her father interjected. ‘She’s bound to be nervous.’
‘Perhaps she needs some fresh air ...’
‘I’m fine.’ Kirsty smiled brightly and put the shortbread down, hoping her mother wouldn’t notice. ‘I’m going to pop up to my room and finish getting ready. Dad, I’ll meet you back down here at ten to. Then we can go down to the ballroom. Mum - will you be OK to find yourself a seat? Liam will have saved you one . . .’
She could picture it all in her head. Dan and Liam and the ushers, directing people to their places, handing out orders of service. The ballroom, with its crystal chandelier, the gold chairs, the white scented flowers she had chosen . . . She closed her eyes to fight back tears as her mother hugged her, unfamiliar in a coral jacket and matching skirt that was a total contrast to her usual slacks and jumpers.
‘You look gorgeous, Mum,’ Kirsty told her, not sure if the lump in her throat was pride at her wonderful parents, who she knew would be there for her whatever she decided, or the emotional fallout from Jenna’s bombshell.
She fled the room. She would go up in the service lift - she didn’t want to risk meeting anyone in the main lift. In the quiet of her room, she’d be able to make up her mind what to do.
There was a stony silence as Liam rode down in the lift with Jenna, her bag at their feet. He wanted to see her into the taxi, make sure she didn’t cause any more trouble. He was already late - he should be in the ballroom right now, with Dan. Dan would be doing his nut.
Ting. The lift was stopping on the third floor. Shit, thought Liam as the door opened slowly. They didn’t have time for this.
Outside the lift was Kirsty.
The three of them stared at each other for a moment. The doors were about to shut again. Liam pressed the button to keep them open.
Kirsty stepped backwards instinctively. Then Jenna stepped forward.
‘I need to talk to you.’
‘Jenna!’ Liam grabbed her by the shoulder. ‘Don’t you think you’ve said enough?’
‘There’s something else—’
‘Please ...’ Kirsty put her hands up in defence. ‘I don’t want to hear any more.’
She turned to go, distressed, but Jenna put a hand on her shoulder.
‘Kirsty. Listen. Everything I said . . . it was all a total lie.’
Kirsty stopped in her tracks and turned. Liam kept his finger on the button. Jenna stepped forward.
‘I . . . didn’t sleep with Dan.’ She looked defiant, but her voice was shaky, her eyes bright with unshed tears. ‘I admit I went back with him to his tent. I would have
slept with him. I can’t pretend I wouldn’t. But he passed out. He’d had so much to drink he crashed straight away. When he woke up the next morning, I let him think . . . we’d done it. He couldn’t remember a thing from about ten o’clock, so he believed me. He was totally gutted. He went outside the tent and threw up. Then he chucked me out. Told me he never wanted to talk about it again, that it hadn’t happened. He was furious, with himself and me. It made me feel really good, I can tell you. That someone could be so disgusted they’d slept with me ...’
She pressed her lips together and blinked hard.
‘I pretended to myself that we did have sex. I wanted to think just for a moment that he’d wanted me. And then I wanted to spoil it for you, because . . . he didn’t want me. He pushed me away.’
Liam and Kirsty looked at each other over Jenna’s head.
‘He loves you,’ she told Kirsty. ‘And he wouldn’t look at another woman. Yeah, he let me kiss him. Sit on his lap. But he was only humouring me. I was kissing him. He wasn’t kissing me back. He was just going along with it to be polite. He didn’t want to cause a scene in the Ship. And he only let me go back to the campsite because I didn’t have anywhere else to stay. He said I could crash in his tent.’
She wiped away the tears that were falling again.
‘Dan wasn’t guilty of anything, Kirsty. It was all me. And I’m sorry.’
There was silence. Then Kirsty gave a little smile and a nod of understanding.
‘Thank you,’ she said finally. And then she held out her arms and gave Jenna a hug. She could, after all, afford to be magnanimous. Then she let her go and turned away.
Liam took his finger off the button and let the lift doors close.
The erstwhile bridesmaid and the best man rode down to the ground floor, as the bride ran up the stairs to her bedroom to fetch her bouquet.
The Everdene Sands Hotel was welcoming its guests, wrapping them in its four walls, listening as they ooh-ed and aah-ed in delight at its perfection as they walked down the cool, white corridors to the ballroom. Here the French windows were flung open, leading out onto the verdant lawns, beyond which the sea was laid out in an expanse of silver and turquoise. Gradually, the guests began to settle. As they sat down the noise level fell but the anticipation rose. The air was sweet with the scent of white roses and sea air, and a pianist played soft, tinkly jazz.
The Beach Hut Page 20