I sauntered down the lawn. It was a beautiful evening, and I knew they wouldn’t be far away. I opened the back gate and went down the lane towards the beach, passing the little shop selling postcards and buckets and spades and children’s windmills, spinning in the breeze. As I walked across the dunes, shading my eyes against the sun which was sinking low and pink over the water, I saw two familiar figures huddled by a rock, gazing out to sea, while the children made sandcastles nearby. Dan had his arm around Rosie’s shoulders, which, for some reason, brought a lump to my throat as I approached.
‘Hello, young lovers,’ I said, settling down in the sand beside them, hugging my knees. ‘Admiring the sunset and counting your blessings?’
Dan looked round with a smile. ‘Spot on, actually. And to our surprise, we find we have more than we thought.’
‘Where’ve you been then?’ asked Rosie, peering around Dan to look at me carefully.
‘Oh, here and there,’ I said lightly. She caught my eye and I had a feeling she knew. ‘So come on then,’ I went on quickly, ‘what are they, these blessings?’
‘Dan’s been offered a job,’ said Rosie excitedly, forgetting about quizzing me.
‘Oh Dan, that’s marvellous.’ I put an arm round his neck and gave it a squeeze. ‘Congratulations! When did you hear?’
‘Well, it’s been in the offing for a day or two now,’ he said going a bit pink, ‘but they rang at lunchtime today, to confirm.’
‘Terrific! Back in the square mile? Dusting off your pin-stripes and flogging insurance?’
‘No, in a white coat flogging shellfish, actually.’
‘Shellfish? ’
‘Well, oysters, primarily. But I’m happy to turn my hand to all manner of crustacean. Cockles and mussels, Molly Malone style. You name it, I’ll throw it on my barrow. Splendid aphrodisiacs, incidentally, oysters.’
‘But … Hang on, where? Billingsgate market or something?’
‘Wadebridge, actually,’ put in Rosie helpfully. ‘On the industrial estate. Not the most salubrious of locations, but jolly convenient.’
‘Convenient!’ I stared. ‘Well, hardly. Only about a four-hundred-mile commute. Are you two on drugs or something?’
Rosie grinned. ‘Oh no, something much more intoxicating.’ She leaned forward excitedly. ‘Remember that supper we had the other night at Rick Stein’s? When we went out with Michael’s friends, you know, the estate agent and his wife?’
‘Er, yes.’
‘Well, the estate agent’s uncle, who joined us later for a drink, runs this seafood business down here, only he wants to retire. He’s got a fantastic supplier and sells all over the country, but mostly to all the fancy London restaurants – you know, the Ivy, the Savoy – everywhere. They’ve bought from him for years because he guarantees the quality.’
‘What – so you’re taking over or something?’
‘Exactly. He’s looking for someone to run the business.’
‘But you can’t do that from London!’
‘Oh no, we’d have to move down here.’
‘Down here!’
‘Annie, you’re doing that really annoying thing of repeating every last thing I say.’
‘Sorry, but –’
‘Yes, move. Sell Fulham for a fortune – hopefully – and buy ourselves a lovely old cottage – or a farmhouse even, property’s so much cheaper here – and then Dan can drive to work instead of sitting on a sweaty tube.’
‘But …’ I blustered. ‘Hang on. Won’t you miss London?’ I knew as I said it they wouldn’t, but I felt desperate. Horrified to lose her.
‘Not a bit. Except for friends, but even then only a few. Most have moved out. The only person I’ll really miss is you.’
A great lump came to my throat. I couldn’t speak. I knew she was right, that they should do it, but the idea of London without Rosie appalled me.
‘We were at our wits’ end, Annie,’ Rosie said softly. ‘Really desperate. We were sinking in London. Ploughing into savings and going under the waterline. Dan’s been out of work over a year now, and the City’s in turmoil, so even if he got back in, what security would he have?’
‘I’d be constantly watching my back, knowing that when heads started to roll again, mine would be first. Last in, first out, that’s the rule. And that’s not nice, Annie. Not a nice feeling, when every time the internal phone rings you wonder if someone’s PA is going to ask you to step this way to the top floor. And when it happens, you straighten your tie with a shaky hand, and you go up in that lift, heart pounding, palms sweating, to be told by someone from Personnel who you’ve never seen in your life before that they’re terribly sorry, and it’s nothing personal. Of course it’s bloody personal. Then ten minutes later you’re clearing your desk in front of embarrassed colleagues, and off home to tell the wife and kids, feeling sick to your stomach. Well, I’m never going through that again, Annie. Never. I’m going to run my own show and be my own boss, and I don’t care how hard I’ll have to work to do it. To get rid of that gut-wrenching insecurity is worth all the overtime in the world. No one can ever sack me again.’
‘And the children?’
‘They can go to the local church school, which these guys the other night say is terrific. He lost his job, incidentally, before he started the estate agency business. No school fees will save us a fortune, and we’ll all have a much better quality of life. I mean, look at it, Annie.’ He swung his arm along the coastline, taking in the dunes, the shore, the sunset. ‘This is where I grew up. Where I’d love my children to grow up. But I’d never, ever, considered it a possibility. Can you beat it?’
I stared into the setting sun as it drifted over the horizon, the huge rock in the bay silhouetted against a hazy pink sky. A lone seagull hovered overhead. Dan, the West Country doubter, had surely been down the road to Damascus and out the other side, and he was right. On a day like this, you couldn’t beat it. But in winter? Quite isolated. Quite cut off, and Rosie … I turned to her.
‘What about you?’
‘Oh, this isn’t just about Dan. We’re going to run this thing together. Go into partnership, so some days I’ll be with the kids, and some days Dan will. And we’ll be up in London a lot too, not always down here. All over the country, in fact, because that’s the sort of personal service these fancy restaurants demand. You know, with our vintage van in its smart green livery, the pair of us in matching long white aprons – despite the fact we’ve roared up the motorway in a white Transit van and transferred the produce to the cutesy antique one parked in London – but you know the sort of crap townies like. And that’s why this guy’s done so well.’
‘Well, not that well,’ cautioned Dan. ‘It’s only shellfish, not Euro bonds, but well enough to bring up his family and retire on the proceeds. And we’ll do the same. We’ll never be millionaires, but we don’t want that.’
They looked at each other and exchanged smiles. And I smiled too. Forgot my selfishness and how much I’d miss them, because I knew they were right. It would be hard work, and possibly lonely, but they were gritty and determined and devoted, and not idealistic. They’d survive. They had to. They’d been offered a chance, and they were bloody well going to grasp it in both hands.
And actually, they would thrive down here, I thought. I could just see Rosie lovingly transforming a neglected old house, just as she had in London, but where she’d got so frustrated by its size. She’d painstakingly restored it down to the last doorknob, and then looked around helplessly for more to do. She needed a project like this.
‘And you could always do B & B,’ I put in helpfully. ‘Just while you’re starting up.’
‘I could, and we thought of that, but I don’t want to be changing other people’s linen, thank you. No, this will work, you’ll see.’
‘And to get the kids out of that brat race,’ added Dan. ‘Not to worry about whether they need to play another instrument, or have extra maths to get into another school we can’t afford, to ju
st let them swim and surf …’
‘Heaven,’ I agreed. I followed their eyes out to the horizon. I was pretty sure the kids would still want ballet and riding lessons and they’d just have to drive further to get them there, and I knew too that there would be tough times ahead; it wouldn’t be a doddle financially. But they were at that lovely, euphoric, plan-making stage and I wasn’t going to tread on their dreams. I knew too that love conquers all. Believed that. I dredged up a great sigh of longing.
‘And you?’ said Rosie, softly. ‘Hm …?’
I gazed across the bay, imagining Rosie in a pretty coastal cottage garden, picking the roses around the door, waiting for Dan to come home from Wadebridge, laying a table for supper in a little cobbled courtyard …
‘Annie, Clare told us. About David.’
‘Oh.’
I was brought back to earth with a jolt. Back from the land of gingham tablecloths laid under apple trees and posies in jam jars to the hospital with staff stuffing tubes down his throat, turning on the suction pump. So. Mum had told Clare after all. Perhaps it was just as well.
‘Annie, I’m so sorry.’ Rosie laid a hand on my arm. ‘Is he OK?’
‘He’s fine,’ I said shortly. ‘Feels a bit foolish, I think. A little sheepish, and he can’t wait to get out of that hospital, but he’s fine.’
‘And the two of you …?’
I heaved up another great sigh. Seemed to have a surfeit of them these days. ‘He’s … very kindly let me go, as I believe they say in the City, Dan.’
He smiled down at the sand.
‘Very unselfishly, and very magnanimously, and in a very David-like fashion.’
‘Ah. I hoped he would,’ Rosie said. ‘You’re not surprised?’ I turned to her, astonished. ‘You were very fond of David.’
‘Still am. I like him enormously, but I wasn’t marrying him, you were. And he was … not right for you, Annie. I can’t say I’m desperately surprised, no. And neither will Clare be.’
I felt quietly shocked. How little I knew. My best friend and my sister were in agreement. Had they discussed it, I wondered? Discussed my fiancé’s unsuitability? Or mine perhaps?
‘We were worried about your lack of enthusiasm,’ she said gently. ‘Lack of … I don’t know, wedding mania, joie de vivre, excitement. God, you hardly even told me what you were going to wear, for heaven’s sake, I’m not sure I even knew. You hadn’t bothered with the flowers, hadn’t even booked a reception, left it all to David. And he’s not stupid. He would have spotted that. You weren’t exactly flicking through Brides magazine, dithering between gypsophila or a tiara. I know it’s your second time around, but even so.’
‘And I don’t know many blushing brides,’ put in Dan quietly, ‘who could happily spend the entire summer apart from their fiancé, in self-enforced isolation. Unless of course they’re Hindu and living in Nepal with strict religious customs, and incidentally, if that’s the case and you’ve changed denomination, I’ll gladly bathe you in ass’s milk and take a few conjugal rights reserved for the best friend’s husband. I’m sure that tradition still holds.’
I hung my head. ‘He was supposed to come down for weekends,’ I said defensively.
‘Weekends,’ scoffed Rosie. ‘God, if you were mad about someone, you’d be driving all over the country to see them. Wouldn’t want to waste a moment out of their sight. Come dashing back to see them rather like you’ve just done today,’ she added craftily. ‘Driven how many hundred miles in one day, Annie?’ She eyed me beadily. ‘What’s the rush?’
I flushed. ‘And I haven’t even met this guy. Clare’s certainly beaten me to it on that score. Says he’s something of a dish.’
I caught my breath. ‘You mean you both suspected?’
‘Oh, we suspected all right. What, all those quiet suppers and little fishing trips and the general lack of your company around this neck of the woods? I don’t think I’ve seen you more than twice since we’ve been here.’
‘Didn’t realize it was that obvious,’ I muttered. ‘Only to the initiated. Dan didn’t twig but then he’s only a fishmonger. I, on the other hand, am the fishwife.’
I smiled. ‘He’ll stink, you realize that?’
Dan waggled his eyebrows. ‘Some women find it very alluring.’
‘And stop changing the subject,’ put in Rosie. ‘Oh look, here’s Clare, she’ll pin you down.’
I turned as Clare, arm in arm with Michael, came strolling across the sand, for all the world like love’s young dream. Suddenly she threw back her dark head and laughed uproariously at something he said. I hadn’t seen her do that for ages. Years. God, all these happy loving couples – suddenly I didn’t want to be here. Felt sick. I wanted to leave and find my own other half. I felt my heart pounding.
‘Where’s Flora?’ I called, when she was in earshot. ‘Oh, I took her back to Taplow House!’ She stopped short in the sand. Then walked towards me quickly. ‘Sorry, I thought that was where you were going. Only I rang Mum, and she said you were on your way back, and you know what Flora’s like, she got funny about staying the night here.’
‘Oh! Did she?’ I got up anxiously. ‘Said she’d rather go back and wait for you there. I left her with Matt and Tod. I hope that’s OK?’
‘Yes, fine. But I’ll get back if she’s a bit jumpy.’ I made to go.
‘Annie.’ Clare stopped me, resting her hands on my shoulders for a moment. She looked me in the eye. ‘I’m so sorry. Mum told me about David.’
I lowered my eyes to the sand. Nodded. ‘Yes. Well, he’s going to be fine.’
‘And … she told me everything else, too. About the wedding.’
I glanced up. ‘She told you it’s off?’
She nodded. ‘Thought it would be easier coming from her.’
I swallowed. ‘And I gather from Rosie it doesn’t come as a huge surprise to anyone.’
She shrugged. ‘We were all … well, very concerned. About certain aspects. The frenetic baby-making, for instance.’
‘I know,’ I said softly, looking down again. I sighed. Watched as a tiny little crab scuttled over my foot. I glanced up. ‘Anyway. Good to see you two back in one piece.’ I slid a grin in Michael’s direction. He smiled back and hugged Clare’s shoulders.
‘As I said to you on the phone, Annie, best thing that ever happened to us. But now for different reasons.’
‘Knocked some sense into her is what he means,’ said Clare drily.
‘I’ll second that,’ I said, giving them all a backward salute as I moved away, on up the beach, towards the car.
I was aware that they were all watching me go and would probably all settle down to talk about me now. Hunker down in the sand and discuss me in worried tones; wonder if I knew what I was about, if I was doing the right thing, going straight from the frying pan into the fire?
‘I mean, it’s all very well,’ I could hear my sister say, ‘but she’s only known this guy for a week or so and he may be gorgeous, but who the hell is he? It’s classic rebound stuff, isn’t it?’
And Rosie would quickly stick up for me, saying I knew my own mind better than Clare thought I did, and Michael would agree, and so it would go on. They’d happily chew the cud for an hour or so in the setting sun, both couples bathed in a rosy optimistic glow: Dan and Rosie excited by the prospect of the new world ahead of them, and Clare and Michael relishing their new-found togetherness. And whilst they certainly wouldn’t be relishing the fact that I hadn’t quite achieved their own state of nirvana, they’d find, nevertheless, that their own happiness was vicariously heightened by the uncertainty of mine.
And I was desperate to get away from them. Longing to see Matt. To have my own joyful reunion. To have my own deeply romantic happy-ever-after experience. I hastened to my car, but as luck would have it, when I hit the road I got stuck behind the slowest tractor in the West Country. As I crawled along behind it, down the narrow, winding lanes, the floral banks rearing up mockingly on either side of me, cow parsley
nodding teasingly, I banged my fist on the wheel in frustration.
‘Oh, come on. Come on!’
But time, for this farmer, was not of the essence, and every time I tried to overtake, a car sped towards me. Finally I gave up and sank back in my seat, sometimes achieving twenty miles an hour, and willing myself to be patient.
With nothing else to do, I opened my post from London. I gathered it all from the passenger seat, and piled it into my lap. It was bills, mostly, and plenty of freebie magazines, but there was also a thick creamy envelope, recognizable from the in-house stamp as being from my publishers. My publishers. My heart did a foolish flip at the proprietorial nature of that sentence, at the use of the personal pronoun. I tore it open and propped it up on the steering wheel as I drove.
Dear Mrs O’Harran,
It has recently come to our attention that a temporary member of staff has been commissioning manuscripts when he had no authority to do so. Sebastian Cooper, nephew of our chairman, Anthony Cooper, was doing work experience here in his gap year. His task was to read unsolicited manuscripts and pass on anything of interest to a more experienced member of staff. Unfortunately, it seems he took it upon himself to write personally to prospective authors, encouraging them with offers of potential advances. We are also deeply embarrassed to learn that these prospective authors – all female – were encouraged to write as salaciously as possible. We understand you are of their number, and would like to offer our sincere and profound apologies. An experienced editor has since read your synopsis, and I’m afraid we will be unable to publish your manuscript. Mr Cooper has left our employ, and is continuing his education at Swansea University. Once again, we offer our deepest apologies.
The Wedding Day Page 34