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I need to do something about Tania. I’ve tried to be nice to her. I’ve tried to talk to Dad about the whole insanity. They’ve had nearly a fortnight for the whole thing to fizzle out. It’s time to take action.
I leave work early, so I’ll be home before Dad comes in. I shout ‘hello’ as loudly and cheerily as I can manage as I come through the door, and wait for a response. Nothing. Tania’s not here. I run upstairs and into Dad’s room. I haven’t been in here since She arrived. It hasn’t changed much, but there are touches here and there, traces of Her. I fling open a couple of drawers. His clothes. His clothes. Her clothes. I pull a few things out and look underneath. I’m not really sure what I’m looking for. Whatever it is it’s not in the first drawer. I try the others, but there’s nothing incriminating. Clothes, a few bits of cheap jewellery, some toiletries. Something doesn’t feel right about that. I can’t put my finger on what. I survey the room, trying to commit it to memory, waiting for the moment to strike when the thing that’s out of place pops to the front of my attention. That’s how it always works on TV. The detective character has a little niggling feeling that something’s not quite right, and then five minutes from the end he has a revelation and the whole mystery becomes clear. I wait a minute, but no revelations are forthcoming.
‘Anyone home?’
Tania’s voice travels up the stairs. Shit. I scan the room to make sure I haven’t left anything out of place and dive into the hallway, just as she comes into view. She glances at the swinging door behind me. ‘Were you in our room?’
I shake my head, and push past her to go back downstairs. Not that there’s any reason that I shouldn’t go in there. It’s my house. I’ve lived here since I was a baby. She’s the interloper, not me.
I hear the click as she pulls the bedroom door shut before she follows me. ‘Where have you been?’ She doesn’t have a job and, so far as I know, she doesn’t have any friends around here.
She smirks. ‘I’ll tell you when Theo gets in.’
I let her go off into the kitchen, no doubt to prepare another of her deadly dull meals for Dad. I flick my phone on. Nothing from Dom. I texted him this morning before the funeral and got a two line reply. Nothing since. My stomach contracts. Dad is, apparently set on marrying Her, and Dom doesn’t like having me around enough to introduce me to his mother. I can feel the blackness closing in. Breathe. Slow deep breaths. I tell myself everything is going to be okay. Dom is dealing with his dad dying. He’s bound to be preoccupied. Everything will get back to normal soon. And there’s no way my dad’s actually going to go through with marrying Tania. It was a holiday romance. One way or another he’ll realise that. They can’t be serious about getting married. They’d be talking about wedding plans if they were.
I tell myself that again and again in my head, but I can’t stop thinking about what it will be like if they do go through with the wedding. Tania won’t want me living here. What if Dom carries on going off me as well? What if, in the end, everyone does leave me and it’s just me and the darkness and nothing else? The feeling of being alone competes with my hostility towards Tania. I almost go into the kitchen and make chit-chat. At least she’s somebody. At least she’s here. I put the telly on instead and turn the volume up high to drown out my thinking.
Dad comes in just after six. I stay firmly seated in the lounge so I don’t have to watch them getting all teenage up against the kitchen worktop. It’s disgusting, and it’s not like him at all.
‘I’ve poured you a drink Emily.’ Tania bears down on me clutching two champagne flutes.
I take one from her. What’s she up to? ‘What are we celebrating?’
She waits for my dad to sit down, and perches herself on the arm of his chair. ‘We are celebrating the fact that I think I’ve found the perfect wedding venue.’
Dad sits up straight. ‘Really?’
‘Really. It’s called Arden Manor. It’s about half an hour out of town – beautiful old manor house, with grounds. It’s absolutely gorgeous, and it’s just about within the budget we talked about.’
I feel myself tense. Wedding venues? Budgets? When have they been discussing all this?
My dad’s eyebrows rise. ‘How “just about” within the budget?’
Tania drops her head and looks through her lashes at him. ‘Very nearly just about. I promise. And I’ve had another idea too.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, they’ve still got the midsummer weekend free at the end of June, and so I thought, what if, instead of having hen and stag parties, we had a big midsummer’s eve party on the Friday night for everyone, and then the wedding on the Saturday?’
The end of June. That’s only five months away. ‘I thought it took years to plan a wedding.’
Tania waves her hand. ‘It doesn’t have too. Six months is plenty of time, and I love midsummer’s eve. All the folklore about the solstice, and the long light evening. When I was a little girl in Penzance, my grandmother used to tell me stories about old Cornish midsummer traditions. They call it Gollowan, and there were fireworks and parades. And you’re called Midsomer as well! It’ll be the Midsomer Midsummer wedding.’
Penzance. She had a grandmother in Penzance. I file the fact away in my memory for later. It sounds like it’ll take more than hope to stop this happening, and knowledge is power. She stops talking, keeping her eyes fixed on my dad. ‘So what do you think?’
Eventually he nods. ‘I think it sounds perfect.’ He raises his glass. ‘To the Midsomer Midsummer wedding!’