by Paige Toon
‘You carrying on?’ Sonny asks me.
It’s the first time he’s spoken to me in almost two hours. He returned my keys to me when he got back, but barely looked at me, then proceeded to talk to Archie’s cricket mates for the rest of the evening.
‘No. I’ve had too much to drink. I need to go home. You?’
He nods, his lips drawn into a thin line. ‘Same.’
‘You don’t look pissed to me,’ I say. ‘Neither of you do.’
He glances to his left with a frown then meets my eyes again. ‘Are you seeing double?’
I giggle, delighted at my joke.
‘Oh Hannah, you are so drunk.’ He shakes his head at me woefully.
‘I’m completely and utterly shitfaced,’ I reply.
‘I’ll walk you home.’
‘You don’t need to.’
‘I know I don’t. You’ve already told me you’re capable of fending off giant Germans and no doubt Justin Timberlake lookalikes too. What happened to that idiot anyway? I didn’t see you talking to him again.’
‘No, my heart wasn’t in it.’
He looks at me with surprise. I’m a bit surprised myself at my honesty.
‘Turns out I wasn’t so keen on Keane after all,’ I whisper gravely, trying to keep a straight face.
We say goodbye to Archie and Matilda, who conspiratorially admit to us that they’re desperate to head home, but they’re dealing with a hefty amount of peer pressure.
‘Are you still on for tomorrow?’ Matilda asks me.
‘Yes.’ I nod purposefully. ‘What time?’
‘The service is at ten thirty.’
‘Eesh.’ I pull a face.
‘I’m being mental, aren’t I? We’re going to be so hungover,’ she laments.
‘Nah, let’s do it,’ I urge. ‘Swing by mine at ten? We can have our cuppa afterwards.’
‘Done. See you then.’
Nessa’s mouth falls open at the sight of Sonny and me leaving together. She turns to say something to Keri.
I am that close to giving them the finger.
We set off along the pavement and I’m grossly aware of the hole being bored into the back of my head by Superbitch and her sidekick.
‘Are you okay?’ Sonny asks after a while, noticing that my limp is more pronounced than usual.
‘I’ve been standing up for too long,’ I reply, brushing him off. ‘Wasn’t loving the company at the table.’
‘Ah.’
‘I can understand Faith, but Nessa?’ I erupt. ‘What were you thinking?’
He exhales on a rush of breath. ‘Yeah,’ is all he says in a heavy, resigned sort of way.
We walk the rest of the way in brilliantly drunk, contemplative silence.
When we reach my front door, I spend a significant amount of time fumbling around in my bag for my keys. Where are they? Oh, here. Why are there so many?
Sonny extricates the bunch from me and deftly unlocks the door.
‘Clever,’ I murmur, staggering into the hallway.
‘Want me to make you some tea and toast?’ he asks, waiting on the doorstep.
I spin around to look at him. ‘God, you’re adorable.’
‘I’m adorable?’ He grins.
‘A-DOR-A-BLE,’ I repeat, stressing each syllable.
‘Not a word that’s often used to describe me.’
‘It’s true.’ I turn and walk towards the kitchen, dumping my bag on the hallway floor as I go. I expect him to follow so I’m glad he does, pushing the front door closed behind him with a click.
I pull a chair out noisily from under the kitchen table and slump onto it, then drag another chair over so I can put my foot up.
Bertie’s asleep in her basket in front of the Aga, too knackered to even look up, let alone wag her tail.
‘Where do you keep your bread?’ Sonny asks, searching kitchen cupboards.
I point at the pantry door.
He finds everything else he needs. I track his movements around the kitchen slowly and deliberately.
After what seems like either a very short time or an eternity, he places buttered toast and a cup of tea on the table in front of me and pulls up a chair for himself.
‘How are you so perky?’ I mutter, picking up a slice and tucking in.
‘I slept all afternoon,’ he reminds me.
‘Oh yeah. So how was New York? Did you sleep with any models?’
‘No!’ He recoils, then when he’s recovered, asks with a frown, ‘Did you think that I would?’
I shrug. ‘Dunno.’
‘The only time I’ve come close to breaking my vow was with you.’
A shiver goes down my spine. Alcohol dulled the sensation, but I definitely felt it.
‘Can I ask you a question?’ he asks after a minute or so.
‘Depends what it is.’
‘Were you trying to make me jealous earlier?’
‘Yes,’ I reply without a second thought.
He lets out a snort of amusement.
‘Did it work?’ I ask boldly.
‘Yes,’ he admits, resting his chin on the palm of his hand and staring at me.
‘Really?’ I’m thrilled.
‘Why were you trying to do that?’ He seems puzzled.
‘I would’ve thought that’s obvious,’ I reply.
‘I’d like some clarification.’
‘Why do you think I did it?’
He regards me for such a long moment that dozy butterflies start to awake in my stomach. I realise I’ve stopped eating.
‘Probably for the same reason that I got jealous,’ he murmurs.
‘I really fancy you,’ I say suddenly, dropping the last mouthful of toast down on the plate and leaning back in my seat, eyeing him recklessly.
He’s caught off guard, surprised.
‘Are you one hundred per cent committed to your vow?’ I continue without waiting for a response. ‘Because I’m thinking that maybe we should just do it and get it out of our systems.’
His eyes widen. ‘Should I take everything you’re saying tonight with a pinch of salt?’ he asks after a long moment.
‘Definitely not. I speak the most truth when I’m drunk.’
‘Is that right? I’m going to struggle not to take advantage of that.’
A memory from university assaults me and I cringe.
‘I’m joking,’ he reassures me, his brow furrowing as I stand up.
‘Whoa.’ The room is spinning.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I think I’m going to be sick.’
He’s on his feet in an instant. ‘Bathroom?’
‘Upstairs.’
I stumble, but he catches me, lifting me into his arms and somehow managing to navigate the steep, narrow cottage staircase without cracking my head against a wall. The bathroom is straight ahead – he switches on the light and gently places me on my feet, only for me to drop to my knees in front of the toilet. Everything is swimming, from the contents of my gut to the thoughts whirling around my head.
Sonny gathers my hair together as I retch, vomiting the quantity of approximately two bottles of Prosecco into the toilet bowl, plus the toast I’ve just consumed. When I’m finally done, I grab some toilet paper and wipe my mouth before flushing the loo.
‘Yuck,’ I say. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘It’s all right.’ He carefully unravels my hair from where he’d wound it around his fist.
I shakily stand and hunt out my toothbrush from the left-hand mirrored cabinet, squirting out some toothpaste. I still feel wretched, but less spinny from having expelled some of the booze.
Sonny is waiting with his back resting against the wall and his arms folded. He’s staring at the floor.
‘Do you want me to stay?’ he asks, lifting his head to look at me.
I balk at him.
‘Not like that!’ he says gruffly. ‘Just to make sure you’re okay.’
‘Oh. All right then.’ I nod.
I put the toothbrush and paste away, but leave the cabinet ajar in its usual position.
On the way out of the bathroom, he reaches over and closes it.
I frown and take a step backwards, opening it back up again so two reflections are once more visible in the angle of the mirrors.
He cocks his head to one side, baffled, but doesn’t question my actions.
I walk out of the bathroom.
Chapter 30
Sonny is gone when I wake up in the early hours of the morning with a dry throat and a pounding headache. He’s left a glass of water and two paracetamol on the bedside table with a note to say he decided to head home – he’ll see me at the cricket match. I swallow the pills and down the water before endeavouring to get back to sleep.
My memory is hazy, but a few things begin clicking into place and soon the likelihood of me being able to fall back asleep goes from slim to non-existent.
I groan and cover my face with my hands.
Downstairs I can hear Bertie’s claws clipping over the kitchen tiles. There’s nothing wrong with her hearing. She lopes up the stairs and appears at the bedroom door, her tail moving leisurely from side to side.
I pat the bed, having long since given up keeping her off it.
She climbs into her place at my side and I edge closer, needing to feel the heat and warmth of another being.
‘I’ll take you for a walk in an hour or so,’ I promise in a whisper.
Her tail thumps twice against the duvet and she rests her chin on her paws.
I close my eyes and let the events from the previous night play out in my mind.
‘I do fancy him,’ I whisper when I’ve exhausted racking my brain for information. ‘But I also like him. I like being with him and I like talking to him. It scares me how much.’
Bertie’s tail thumps half-heartedly.
I sigh and nestle closer to her, but I can’t escape the feeling of being unbearably alone.
*
Matilda is late. She arrives wearing sunglasses.
There’s no time to waste if we’re going to make this service.
‘I’ve never seen you looking so rough,’ she has the audacity to say when I’ve pulled the front door shut behind me.
I laugh then regret it because it hurts my poor dehydrated brain. ‘Speak for yourself!’
‘I feel so shit,’ she admits, opening the garden gate. ‘Can’t actually believe we’re going through with this. Shall we go for Sunday lunch instead?’
‘It’s ten twenty in the morning,’ I point out, turning left towards the church.
‘Doesn’t the Red Lion serve food all day?’
‘They won’t serve lunch until lunchtime. Clue is in the name.’
‘Guess we’d better stick to the plan then.’
We’re already a third of the way there. The church is literally a hundred metres away on the other side of the road.
‘So you got roped into going clubbing?’ I ask.
She nods slowly and painfully. ‘What’s your excuse?’
‘Too much alcohol and not enough sleep.’
‘Why didn’t you sleep? You must’ve been home by eleven thirty. Wait!’ she gasps. ‘Did you and Sonny—’
‘No!’
‘Nessa was convinced you were going home to shag.’
‘Urgh, she’s unbearable. I don’t know how you can be friends with her.’ I glance at her. ‘Too honest?’
She smirks. ‘No, you’re right, she can be awful. She’s more Archie’s sister’s friend than mine. Or at least, she was. Their friendship seems to have fizzled out. She was on the boat the day Archie and I met. I thought she was his girlfriend from the way she was shooting daggers at me, but he soon put me right. She used to fancy him too.’
‘You can’t blame her,’ I say flippantly, and she sniggers.
Neither of us says anything as we cross the road – too much concentration involved.
‘Anyway, she got over it when she started dating someone from work,’ Matilda continues, nodding politely at a couple of elderly lady parishioners, dressed in their Sunday best.
We are looking very worse for wear in comparison.
‘We hung out for a while as a four, but they broke up and it was a bit messy until her ex left and got another job. Nessa is a woman who doesn’t like to be scorned.’
‘You don’t say.’ I feel an unanticipated pang of sympathy towards Sonny for having to bear the brunt of her fury.
I don’t think Matilda would mind that Sonny has already told me some of what she’s revealed, but I don’t have the energy to repeat our conversation.
We’ve now reached the church entryway so we stop speaking as we walk inside, nodding and smiling at anyone in the vicinity and trying to pretend we’re not two desperately hung-over heathens.
‘It really is the church from Grantchester, isn’t it?’ Matilda says in amazement as she looks around. It’s true: they do film scenes for the television series inside as well as out. ‘I haven’t been here in years,’ she adds.
I catch sight of the prayer board and falter. Matilda has also seen it. She wanders over and begins to read some of the messages that parishioners have pinned up.
I’m about to suggest that we sit down when I hear her murmur, ‘Oh,’ and I see that her eyes have filled with tears.
‘That’s so sad,’ she mumbles, and grief momentarily engulfs me at the memory of some of the messages I’ve penned myself over the years on the rare occasions I’ve come.
Matilda reaches for a piece of paper and grapples with a pen, sniffing as she scrawls out a message. I avert my gaze from the tears rolling down her cheeks, unsure why she’s so upset and too consumed with swallowing the lump in my own throat to ask.
She pins up the message: For my dad, Peter Walker. I still miss you so much and hope you’re at peace, wherever you are.
Okay, now I’m crying too. What must we look like? First we walked in, a couple of hung-over heathens, and now we’re blubbing by the prayer board. Maybe we’re not heathens, after all, if we’re taking it this seriously. However we are definitely hung-over, overtired and emotional. A fair sign that alcohol is the devil’s work.
‘Are you not going to write one?’ Matilda whispers in a choked voice. The service is about to start.
I take the pen from her, scribbling out a message: Please look after Charles on his travels and keep June safe at the end of her journey.
‘That’s lovely,’ Matilda mumbles.
As she blows her nose and goes to sit down, I surreptitiously pen another message: For Anna. May you never walk alone.
Chapter 31
‘What did you think?’ I ask Matilda.
We’re on our way back to mine for our long overdue cuppa. Matilda is still banging on about a Sunday roast, but that will have to wait until after the match – Archie has begged her not to go to the pub without him. My friend, who is definitely at least part-heathen, was texting him during Holy Communion.
To be fair, we’re running short of time anyway. The match is supposed to start in an hour.
‘Once I got over the fact that the vicar is a lovely woman and not James Norton or Tom Brittney from Grantchester, it was fine. This is such a gorgeous cottage,’ she says, looking around as we walk up the garden path. ‘I was feeling too sick earlier to take it in.’
It’s the first time she’s been to Charles’s.
We go into the kitchen and I make us tea and toast, the whole time remembering Sonny doing the same thing last night. Matilda is also unusually quiet.
‘You okay?’ I ask, wondering if her sombre mood is entirely alcohol-related.
She swallows and hesitates before answering in a shaky voice, ‘I’m feeling a bit emotional.’
And then she begins to cry.
‘I still miss my dad so much,’ she tells me when she’s recovered a little. ‘Ever since I was a girl, I’ve dreamed about walking down the aisle of a church like St Andrew and St Mary with Dad at my side. The thought of wal
king down an aisle without him hurts so much. Archie doesn’t even want to get married in a church. He’d do it for me, but if he saw me like this, he’d give me hell. I’ve already turned down one marriage proposal from him on account of my dad,’ she admits to my surprise. ‘Archie proposed to me a year ago, but it still felt too raw. Plus, I was at uni and I wanted to get my course out of the way. But mostly it was because of Dad. Archie said he’d wait until I was ready, until it wouldn’t hurt as much, but I can’t imagine getting married and it not hurting. How is that ever going to be the happiest day of my life?’ She grabs another tissue. ‘Are you close to your dad?’ she asks.
‘I mean, obviously I love him, but Charles was as much of a father figure to me.’
She knows that I lived here from the age of thirteen.
‘Who would walk you down the aisle?’
I’m never getting married, but she doesn’t need to know that, so I claim I haven’t really thought about it.
She’s taken aback. ‘Not even when you were a little girl?’
‘Nope.’
‘I was always daydreaming about my wedding. When I was a teenager, my parents fought like cats and dogs, but even then I never stopped believing in the fairy tale, the big princess-style wedding with flowers hanging from every pew. It’s actually quite embarrassing, now that I think about it. We couldn’t afford a wedding like that. Not even close.’ She purses her lips, deep in thought, then seems to shake herself out of it. ‘I should probably get myself sorted before the game.’ She checks her watch. ‘Argh, it starts in ten minutes! Can I use your loo?’
‘It’s upstairs, straight ahead.’
She jumps up and I sit there for a moment, toying with my bracelet with my name engraved on the inside – two capital Hs flanking a lowercase anna. And I wonder what it might’ve been like to grow up in a normal household where weddings were something someone could daydream about as a matter of course.
*
Our boys are already playing by the time we arrive – the other team are batting. Archie clocks us and waves. I spy Sonny on the other side of the field, closer to the river, and nerves jangle around the walls of my stomach. I wonder if he’s hung-over – he’s too far away to tell. Archie is definitely looking off colour.