As it turned out, before I got a chance to call in on my neighbour (who I might have been avoiding since my call to Ashley) he messaged me:
What time do we leave for this wedding?
We?
I stared at my screen. We?
Was Mack coming with me to the wedding? In all the stress of the past week or so I’d barely had time to think about it beyond trying to find a dress to wear. I’d asked Ellen, but I drowned in her one posh dress that had avoided being chopped up when the triplets decided to make parachutes.
Hesitant to ask Sarah, a good couple of sizes bigger than me, when I mentioned it to Kiko she snorted. ‘No chance. You’d be better off wearing your grandmother’s old dressing gown than one of my monstrosities. Each and every one of them designed to suit a nothing, on-the-road-to-nowhere fuddy-duddy, via Blandsville, Frump-land and a 1998 factory outlet shop.’
‘Fair enough.’ It looked as though I would be wearing one of my sister’s cast-offs. To her own wedding. And if she made any comment about it (and really, it was a when not an if) and if I felt defensive and stressed (again, when not if) I might be forced to make a similar remark relating cast-offs to her choice of groom. Which would not end well.
I couldn’t afford to get arrested again.
I had way too much to do.
On Saturday, I took a lasagne and a load of ironing round to Frances’ farmhouse, only to find the village grapevine had beaten me to it.
‘The bedroom beside the bathroom, look in the wardrobe. There’ll be something that fits. Let me see you in it before you decide. I’d love to see those glad rags again but my legs aren’t friends with the stairs today.’
I left the lasagne in the oven, and went to find a dress belonging to an eighty-five-year-old farmer that might fit me. I thought it went without saying that I was praying I wouldn’t.
But I’d forgotten, this particular farmer had travelled the world, once upon a time. Rubbed shoulders with the rich and successful. Cherished quality, craftsmanship, excellence.
I swept down the staircase in the first one I tried. A silk 1950s tea-dress. Frances then insisted I try a load more (it didn’t take much persuading, to be honest). We ate our lasagne dressed like extras from Downton Abbey, hair coiffed, jewellery twinkling, silk gloves getting in the way, the air rich with memories of fabulous days gone by.
So, when Mack’s message buzzed through as we delicately nibbled at our tartes Tatin, feeling more than a little giddy in my beaded bodice and string of pearls, I replied like the suave, sophisticated socialite I was masquerading as:
Starts at 11, so leave 6.30.
‘Your face has gone an alarming shade of raspberry,’ Frances remarked.
‘I’m fine,’ I said, not sounding at all fine. ‘Mack messaged about coming to the wedding.’
‘You invited Mack?’ Frances looked at me sideways, eyes shining like the silver candlesticks she’d insisted I set out.
‘No. He offered. And I thought I’d said no.’
‘Why on earth would you do that? And sensible chap for overruling you. I’m all for making up one’s mind and sticking to it, but why on earth turn down the chance to spend the day with an attractive man with lovely manners?’
‘He’s married.’
‘Excuse me?’ Frances’ wispy eyebrows shot into her hairline.
‘Well, he’s been separated for eighteen months. But his wife has been around a bit lately. I think they’re working things out.’
‘Well, they can’t be working things out very well if he’s coming to a wedding with you. If he considers that appropriate behaviour it might explain why his marriage failed in the first place.’
‘No, it’s not like that. He offered to come as a friend, when he heard that… well. It’s complicated.’
‘Hmmm.’ Frances was not convinced. Neither was I. But the pull to have Mack with me… Seeing me looking half decent, rather than covered in mud, cobwebs or bobbly old pyjamas, was almost irresistible.
He replied that evening, as I lay in bed mooning at the borrowed dress hanging on the back of my door:
Too early. I’ve booked a couple of hotel rooms for the night before. If you feel the need to pay me back, we can work it out later. What time can you leave Thursday?
I threw good sense and sound moral judgement out of the window, and replied:
Can be ready 6.
I quickly followed it up:
And thanks, hotel sounds great. I can pay you back in cake or cash, you choose.
Him:
Always cake. What information do I need from that invitation? Hit me with the worst of it.
Me:
Being over twenty-five, it’d be impossible to type all that out without developing thumb blisters. Not a good sister-of-the-bride look. I’ll drop it round in the morning.
Him:
Along with a dossier on my fake identity? As a professional agent I expect full background, work history, hobbies, habits, style of underpants etc. if I’m going to pull this off. Who is Mack Macintyre?? And what is the nature of his relationship with Jenny Birkenshaw?
Oh, boy. I put my phone down.
I knew, knew, this man should not be making me feel like this. My heart should not be pounding for another woman’s husband. Skin humming. Stomach swooping. I sent one more message:
Just be yourself (I might get to learn something about you!) And Jenny is totally happy being FRIENDS with Mack Macintyre. See you Thursday.
I switched my phone off and picked up a gardening book I’d salvaged from the Hoard, forcing myself to concentrate on organic composting techniques until I was too tired to think any more.
I was flapping about in my bra, changing my top for the ninth time in an attempt to achieve that classic ‘don’t care, but somehow happen to appear stylish and stunning nonetheless’ look, when a jaunty toot from the front of the house signalled my wingman was ready to go.
Stuffing my head into the original T-shirt I’d chosen three days ago, I yanked a brush through the cloud of static that was once my hair, swiped my rucksack off the bed and half ran, half tripped down the stairs.
I came to an abrupt stop at the kitchen doorway, pausing to take a big breath before I opened the door and saw Mack standing in front of me, arms folded, eyes crinkled.
‘You’re fine.’ He grabbed my rucksack and disappeared.
‘What the hell am I doing?’ I muttered, as the reality of the next three days, pressing down on me for weeks now, grew to suffocating.
‘You’ll be fine. I’m with you, buddy.’ Mack had reappeared.
‘Mmmmf.’ I didn’t tell Mack that him being here was part of the issue.
‘We’re going to have enormous fun rigorously mocking your preposterous sister and her twazzock life-partner’s ludicrous nuptials. We’re going to laugh off their scorn, play up to their judgemental pre-conceptions, eat a huge amount of food and drink gallons of pretentious wine at their expense. Plus, I’m dying to see how many of those wedding etiquette rules we can break in the next thirty-six hours.’
As a degree of feeling returned to my arms and legs, Mack took hold of my hand and walked me round to the car.
‘In you get.’ He opened the door.
‘Wait.’ I reached one hand up in a ‘stop’ gesture as he started to move round to the driver’s side.
‘What? Have you forgotten something?’
‘For the record, can I stress, while it’s easier if we go with Mack Macintyre for the sake of the seating plan, guest book and whatever other dreadful nonsense has been planned, I’m not asking you to pretend we’re something we aren’t. I’m so grateful not to be walking into that wedding alone, but I don’t think it’s okay for a married man to pretend he’s with someone else. And I don’t care if everyone else there thinks I’m a sad, sorry failure. I’m starting to realise that might not be true. So, who cares what they think?’
Mack winked at me. Not helpful. ‘Okay. But while we’re on the record, I wouldn’t do anything that might upset my wife. Even if you cried. Or tripped and lost your glasses again.’
‘Okay. Great.’ More helpful, thank you.
‘Great. Let’s go. Mack Macintyre’s hoping to squeeze in a couple of wee drams before bed.’
Was there anything as bittersweet as driving through the rain at night, cheesy old pop songs crackling in the background, laughing, gently bickering, telling stories, playing Revels roulette, sometimes saying nothing at all, with a lovely man, who made your heart pound whenever he glanced across at you, or barked with amusement, or crinkled up the two lines between his eyebrows as he listened to the story of your life, when that man happened to be married?
I knew I liked Mack. Liked him plus found him attractive. I could work at keeping those two feelings in separate boxes. But in the quiet moments, with the only sound the radio and the swish of windscreen wipers, I became painfully aware that we were huddled side by side in one of the smallest cars ever invented. In the intimacy of the darkness, I didn’t feel like friends, or neighbours. I felt like a woman sitting inches apart from a man she was teetering on the edge of falling in love with.
I didn’t want the journey to end. I wanted us to get lost in the moors and end up driving all night. Or at least as long as my bladder held out. Honestly? I wanted to stay in that car forever. For the rest of my life to be one long, intimate, funny, tender, heart-wide-open journey with Mack.
After a stop for coffee and fuel (Mack wanted a full tank in case a speedy getaway became necessary), we arrived at the hotel around eleven. Crunching up a long drive to a floodlit courtyard, we pulled to a stop in front of what could only be accurately described as a castle.
‘We’re staying at the wedding venue?’ I asked, my voice a tad strangled, eyes fixed on the turrets towering above us.
Mack shrugged. ‘I figured it would be easiest. Is there a problem? The reviews were excellent. Apparently, it’s got the best venison in the—’
‘Whole of Ayrshire,’ I finished.
‘You don’t sound very happy about that.’ He turned to face me.
I pushed my glasses up, rubbed my tired eyes. ‘I’ve stayed here before. Several times. With Richard.’
‘Ah.’ He peered out through the windscreen. ‘Kind of a weird choice for his wedding, then.’
‘He likes venison.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Mack, I know how much a room here costs. When you said a hotel I was thinking a Travelodge, or a crusty B and B.’
‘Well, at the risk of sounding like the infamous blowhard Richard the Richest, I can afford it.’
‘Still, though…’
‘Still though, I’m shattered, I really want to try a whisky and the deal I got on the rooms is non-refundable so we might as well enjoy it.’
We checked in, and went to the bar for a drink. My nerves too jittery to contemplate alcohol, I sipped on lemonade until Mack asked me to go to bed so he could enjoy his whisky in peace.
‘Try to get some sleep. And if you say sorry or thank you again I’m going to abandon you to the golf course. It’s going to be fun, remember, breaking the wedding rules, drinking champagne and hunting for Z-list celebrities.’
I nodded and left before my mouth popped open and said the words expanding in my head like an airbag: Thank you, Mack Macintyre, for everything. Thank you for being you. And thank you for letting me be me. And I’m really, truly, sorry but I LOVE YOU. Goodnight.
It wasn’t a good night. But the next day? Better than I hoped.