‘Oh, my goodness.’
Maddie is crying. Not just her normal discreet sniffle, but full-blown fat blobs of tears cascading down her cheeks. She hiccups, then blows her nose loudly.
‘Mads, what’s up?’
‘It’s so lovely, so romantic, everything I thought I’d …’ Her voice tails off. ‘So beautiful.’
We are in the chapel where Rachel is going to get married, all together for the rehearsal and acting like a group of nervous virgins on a first date. Which we definitely are not. Virgins. Though we are nervous.
Well, I am. I am very nervous. My stomach feels like its got bats, not butterflies in it.
This should have been me, the next wedding I attended should have been mine. But somebody pressed the fast forward button on my life and we skipped that and we’re here, at Rachel’s.
I close my eyes for a second, fighting for control, scared that I’m about to make an idiot of myself. In my head I can see myself, in my beautiful wedding dress and my throat feels all blocked, and dampness starts to flood my eyes. I shut them tighter, dig my nails into the palms of my hand. But I can still see the image.
I stop, glance up at my groom, waiting where he should be waiting.
Then he turns to look at me, and he smiles.
And it’s Freddie.
I open my eyes with relief, blink away the dampness in my eyes, and breath. Properly. It’s like I’m breathing properly for the first time in ages. I said to Freddie that I didn’t care about Andy any more, and I did mean it, but now I can actually feel it. I’m free!
‘It’s only the rehearsal you daft bint.’ Beth nudges Maddie in the ribs, and she makes a funny mouse noise, totally oblivious to my moment of release. Which is probably a good thing. ‘You’re worse than my baby.’ But she puts an arm round Maddie’s waist and squeezes. ‘It is kind of moving though.’ She sighs. ‘Almost like watching lemmings jump off a cliff.’
‘Lemmings?’ I frown at her.
‘Shush.’ Hisses Sally, but the three of us just huddle closer and carry on.
‘Suicide mission, boom, straight off the cliff.’ Beth does a soaring up motion with one hand, followed by a splat on the palm of the other.
‘Beth!’ I think I may have broken the whisper barrier. I mean, I know I was slightly anti-Michael at the start. But we’re at the practically up the aisle stage now, all done and dusted, and now is not the time and place to declare that marriage is like a suicide mission. ‘They love each other, it’s not like that at all!’
Beth widens her eyes and opens her hands. ‘Just sayin’.’ She’s got her innocent look on, but I know she knows about Michael – and I know she doesn’t know I know, but I feel myself burning up anyway.
Maddie giggles, and Sally glares.
I frown. I’m with Sally, the last thing I want is Beth spilling about the Lexie fling, because nothing, absolutely nothing and no-one is going to be allowed to ruin Rach’s day.
Everybody else turns round and stares.
Michael winks, oblivious to what we’re actually discussing, and his mother pokes him between his shoulder blades. ‘Concentrate young man, you only do this …’
‘Once,’ we all chorus, at a whisper, of course. We are in a place of worship, after all, and we shouldn’t be taking the mick out of the groom-to-be.
But it is funny. Too funny. Probably because I feel on a knife edge, and this is tipping me into hysteria.
I’ve never been thrown out of church before, but this could be my time.
‘They are all full of hope.’ Beth’s tone of voice is dreamy, and for a moment I think she’s had a rethink on the love and marriage thing. ‘All on their way to something heavenly, only to discover it’s actual heaven, or—’ she pauses dramatically, then lowers her tone several octaves and makes the duh-duh-duh noise of doom. ‘Hell!’ Oops, she is still with the lemmings.
‘Stop it, Beth.’ I punch her arm.
‘Joke!’ She grins at me good-naturedly and I can’t help but grin back. It doesn’t sound like she’s about to drop a bomb into the proceedings, and she is taking my mind off Freddie and the fact he might be stranded out at sea or something.
It is also taking my mind off Andy who has become a bit stalkerish. There have been many texts since the morning at the flat and they are annoying. I’m ignoring them in the hope he’ll get bored.
Up until now, ignoring Andy has not been a problem. But today, he is stood next to Michael and Jack, and I keep catching him staring at me, which is unnerving. I wish Freddie was here, and not lost in the back of beyond. Then we could stare back at Andy in solidarity. Freddie is good at solidarity, and listening to me chunnering on about this wedding, and Coral, and he’s actually quite a good sounding board when it comes to my photos.
I blink. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but he has, as they say, a good eye for colour and form. He’s so much more than a kind-hearted geek who can write computer code, he’s got a sensitive, artistic side, I sigh, and feel all mushy inside as my head is flooded with thoughts of his sensitive fingers and creative moves in bed. Oh, bugger, I can’t be thinking that in church! I will be struck down!
‘Phew, thank goodness that’s over, it was so weird.’
‘Weird?’ I raise an eyebrow and take the glass of bubbly that Rachel is offering, and we sit down in the window seat together. It was our seat when we were younger, slightly hidden away, a good place to share secrets and spy on the grown-ups.
I’d been worried about dodging Andy when we were sorting out lifts back to Rachel’s house after the rehearsal, but Beth had solved the problem by jumping between Michael and Rachel and announcing that all the girls were going back together.
‘I kind of felt a bit panicky in the chapel.’ Rachel looks at me. ‘Is that odd? It’s kind of made it feel real. Up until now, I’ve just been running round planning stuff, but it’s just felt like wedding stuff, not my wedding stuff.’
‘I know what you mean.’ I hug her and try to blink away the memories. My wedding had felt real, which is why it hurt so much when that one text exploded the dream into smithereens. And it’s why Rachel’s day has to be perfect. I won’t let Michael’s past, Beth’s gossiping or Rachel’s nerves come between her and her happy ever after.
‘I am doing the right thing, aren’t I?’
‘What do you mean?’ I look straight into her eyes, which are as damp as mine. ‘It’s a great place to get married!’
‘I didn’t mean the place, I mean getting married. It’s so big, so important. How do I know it’s right?’
‘You know, Rach.’ I keep my arms wrapped around her. ‘You love him, don’t you?’ I try not to let my own feelings seep into my voice.
‘Of course I do.’ Her laugh is strained, wobbly. Then she nods her head vigorously. ‘Of course I do! I’m being silly. Everybody gets last minute nerves, don’t they?’
I hadn’t had last minute nerves. I had been rock solid certain I was doing the right thing, right up until the point of finding out I wasn’t. But I suppose I’d never got this close. This last-minute.
‘It’ll be fine, the real wedding will be fantastic, I know it will.’ I squeeze her.
‘I know, but then everything will be different. I’ll be Michael’s wife. I’ll be a Mrs!’ She rolls her eyes at me, then we grin together.
She suddenly sobers. ‘It won’t change us, will it?’
‘Definitely not.’ I squeeze her into another even tighter hug, blinking away the tears. ‘Never.’ I wonder if it will change ‘us’ though, I mean it can’t not, can it? I’ll be back in the apartment with Freddie and Rachel will have her new home. Different things to do. Couple-things with people like Sally and Jack. Making baby-things.
Adulting-things.
Oh, God, this isn’t why I finally broke my only-friends rule with Freddie, is it? It wasn’t a subliminal message from my brain, saying that I was about to lose my best friend Rach and I had to get back on the ‘date, marry, procreate, die’ wheel, as well, was it?
‘You are going to tell Coral to go screw herself, and sort your career out properly?’ Rachel prods me.
‘Soon.’ I nod.
‘Honest?’
‘Honest.’ More nodding, I’m like that dog in the Churchill adverts. ‘Me and Freddie had a big talk about it, then I made a plan. I know I’ve stuck with her longer than maybe I should, I realise that now, but I needed her, just like I needed you and Freddie.’
Rachel nods, squeezes my hand.
‘It’s been safe, my security blanket as well as a good stepping stone.’
‘But you’re ready to let go?’
‘Nearly. I’m going to prove to everybody, but most of all to myself that I can do this.’
‘That’s my girl.’ Rach hugs me, tears brimming in her eyes. She wipes them away. ‘And …’ she pauses, ‘what about Freddie?’
‘What about Freddie?’ I’m trying to sound casual, but I’m pretty sure the blush is heavy duty.
‘Oh, come on, Jane! Have you even bloody snogged him again, yet? I bet you have, admit it!’
‘Okay.’ I sigh. Take a deep breath. It’s only fair, if we’re having an honest and open discussion. ‘I slept with him.’
Rachel screams.
‘Shhh.’ This is not something everybody should know about.
‘Oh my God!’ She clutches her left boob, then starts pounding on it like Tarzan having a heart attack. ‘He should be here now! I’m going to text him, ask him.’ She’s grabbing her phone as she speaks and lifts it out of range when I try to grab it.
‘Rach stop!’ She stops. ‘There might be a problem.’
‘Problem? Rubbish, don’t you see Jane, you two were meant to be! It was fate, meeting him again just when you did, when you needed him, and—’
‘I think it might have been a massive mistake, the biggest mistake in my life,’ although surely that was Andy and not what happened with lovely Freddie? ‘I’ve not heard from him for days and he’s in the outer Outer Hebrides.’
She frowns. ‘What do you mean, not heard from him?’
‘I’ve texted and texted, and called and left messages, and nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Not since he left. His phone goes straight to voicemail.’
‘Oh, frig. Oh, Jane, that’s horrible. Maybe he’s had an accident and is lying in a ditch somewhere, or,’ she adds quickly, ‘a hospital, or been arrested, or lost his phone.’
I sniff. ‘I’ll go with the last one.’
‘Sugar.’ She puts her hand over her mouth. ‘I didn’t mean to say anything really horrible had happened. He’ll be fine, fine, not dead or anything. Just not able to text. I mean it’s not like him to not text you is it?’
‘Well, it wasn’t before, but that’s when we were just mates.’
‘But I can’t imagine that Freddie—’ She suddenly grabs my arm. Hard. ‘Oh my God, look!’
‘Where? What?’
‘There.’ She nudges me hard in the ribs and inclines her head in the way you think is inconspicuous when you’re drunk but is actually like waving a giant placard in the air. ‘Have you seen who Jack is talking to?’
I look.
He’s standing in the slight alcove of the doors that open onto the terrace, partly hidden by the floor length heavy drapes. A spot even more secret than ours.
‘I still can’t quite believe you broke his arm,’ whispers Rachel in my ear. ‘I bet not many people have wedding photos where the best man is in plaster, do they?’
‘I didn’t break his arm. He fell over.’ I give her a playful nudge in the ribs.
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m beginning to wonder about you!’
‘Who’s he talking to? Your dad?’ I lean forward a bit, I can’t quite see the other person.
‘No, not Dad! Keep your voice down, look, look!’ She points wildly.
We both lean forward and nearly fall out of our window seat.
‘Bloody hell.’ This snaps me out of my wallowing about the future.
Jack has shifted to one side slightly, and there’s no mistaking who he is talking to. Beth. Their heads are close together, as though they’re sharing a secret. ‘How weird is that?’
‘Very, he’s so not her type.’ Rachel tuts. ‘She better not be trying to bloody wind Sally up.’
This has just crossed my mind as well. Beth loves to needle Sal, who, luckily, isn’t anywhere to be seen at the moment. But what worries me more is that she might be telling him about Michael and Lexie. I feel sick.
‘Oh my God. They’re hugging! She never hugs anybody!’ Why would they be hugging if she was gossiping? She can’t be making a play for him, can she?
‘Ouch.’ Rachel yelps and I suddenly realise I’m clutching her hand.
‘Sorry. But this is wrong. Jack is married to Sal, Jack still lo—’ I stop myself a second too late. I never intended saying this to Rach. Rach is Sal’s friend. They are the fearsome foursome.
‘Jack what?’ Rach is staring at me.
‘Nothing.’
‘You were going to say loves! Jack still loves …’
‘No, I wasn’t! Well, I was, he loves Sal, he’s married to Sally.’
‘You said still loves. Oh, no.’ She puts her hands over her mouth. ‘Jack still loves Maddie?’ It’s a whisper, the kind of whisper that is really quiet, you know when something falls out of your mouth because your brain has just added everything up?
‘I could be wrong, I just, he …’
‘He, what?’
‘At your hen do, when I bumped into him … He was saying he missed her, and never meant to hurt her, and didn’t realise that she didn’t mean it when they split up.’
‘She didn’t mean it? What do you mean she didn’t mean it?’
I study my hands, then finally decide to look her in the eye and come clean. ‘I promised to keep it secret, because Mads really doesn’t want to upset things, or Sal, or anybody, but she told me when we were in Brighton. You know when she was dead upset?’ Rachel nods. ‘She told me she’d done what she thought was best at the time for both of them. She didn’t think she fitted in with his new uni friends, and would mess things up for them, but,’ I take a deep breath, ‘she thought he’d come back one day and they’d live happily ever after.’
Rachel sighs, then grabs my hand. ‘Wow, really? She really thought that?’
It’s my turn to nod.
‘Wow, poor Mads. It’s no wonder she was upset when she bumped into them. And you think he …?’
‘I dunno, really, but I know he misses her, but he’d never hurt Sal. He said so, he said he could never leave her.’
‘What a mess.’ Rachel shakes her head. ‘Poor Sal.’
‘Don’t say anything, will you?’
We sit in silence for a minute. Then Rach gives a little gasp.
‘They’re hugging properly now! He’s hugging her!’
I’d forgotten we were spying on him, well, not actually forgotten, just a bit distracted.
‘If he’s still in love with Maddie, what the fuck is he doing groping Beth?’
‘I wouldn’t say groping!’ His hands aren’t anywhere they shouldn’t be. But it does look pretty intense. Like any second now it could turn into groping.
‘They’re staring into each other’s eyes, he’s touched her cheek, it’s one step away from orgasm!’
‘Rach!’
‘Do something! If Sal sees them she’ll scratch Beth’s eyes out and have his balls on a platter!’
This would actually solve quite a few problems.
But I don’t say that. I just think it.
Luckily, they’ve pulled apart a bit, so I don’t have to leap into action. Even at this distance I can see Jack looks upset rather than amorous. And Beth looks like she might be on the verge of tears, which is totally un-Beth-like. And he’s still got his hands on her shoulders and is pulling her in for another hug.
‘Beth doesn’t do hugs.’ Rachel is frowning. She has a point, this was just what I’d been thinking. I, at least, have never seen Beth in a clinch with a man.
‘True. Though she must have done at least some hugs, to make Joe.’
‘Shit! Joe!’ We both have the thought at the same time. Stare at each other in open-mouthed shock, then stare back at Beth and Jack.
‘Bloody hell, Jane. You don’t really think?’
I don’t want to think, but I am. Gawd, the baby isn’t his, is it? Really?
Why else would she have cornered him though? Why else would they be in a huddle and both look so upset?
‘It can’t be.’ I say this, but only half mean it. ‘No. No. It just can’t be. What about Maddie? Oh my God.’ I put my hands over my mouth. ‘I nearly told her that he still loved her!’
‘Well, it’s a bloody good job you didn’t. Poor Maddie, and what about Sal? Flipping heck, I didn’t think Jack was like that!’
‘Oh, hell, I’ve just realised, that’s what he meant!’
‘What do you mean?’ Rachel stares at me, puzzled.
‘When I was talking to him at your hen party. He said he’d made so many mistakes! I thought he just meant marrying Sally, but he didn’t, did he? That would just have been one mistake! I thought he was the perfect match for Maddie, I didn’t know he dished it out right, left and centre.’
‘He’s never come on to me.’ Rachel sounds a bit affronted.
‘He’s never come on to me either!’ I fold my arms and feel slightly miffed. Not only have I misjudged the man, twice, he’s worked his way through most of Mads friends. And, I have to admit the uncharitable thought: what’s wrong with me? Not that I’d ever want one of my friend’s boyfriends to come on to me of course, that would be totally wrong and screwed up. But nobody wants to be the one girl that a guy passes on do they? It’s like being the last one to get picked for a school team. And that kind of thing lives with you, believe me. ‘Bloody hell, do you think Sal knows?’
We both take our gaze off Beth and Jack for a moment and let this sink in.
‘I always thought he was the quiet one.’ Says Rach.
‘Me, too. Though my mum always said to watch out for the quiet ones, but I think she meant girls.’
‘No wonder she’s been so bitchy with Sal.’
‘She’s always been bitchy with Sal.’ I say, for the sake of fairness. ‘Sal baiting was her hobby at school.’
‘This is going a bit far though, isn’t it?’
‘Do you think Beth has only just told him? I mean, she did say she hadn’t told the father, and he does look pretty upset.’
‘But huggy? Very huggy for a guy who’s just discovered he’s a dad. Would he be huggy?’
‘God knows!’ Then she smiles, a wistful, dreamy, very scary smile. ‘I always thought he’d make a nice dad.’
I shoot her a look. ‘Why’ve you been thinking about Jack being a dad? That’s well weird.’
She shrugs. ‘Sal isn’t keen on having kids, but he is, and, you know, well, Michael’s been putting it off as well and, well, it gets you thinking about guys you know doesn’t it? Who’d want to be a dad, who’d be a hands-on type. Who’d run a mile.’
It doesn’t get me thinking like that at all. Right now I’m happy weighing up whether a guy, one guy in particular, would be good with kittens. Mine was. Just not with me it would seem. How can he still not have replied to my texts?
It’s not crazy-possessive to expect a reply is it? It has been days. Lots of days since our night of passion and his hasty exit.
Unless he’s trying to work out how to tell me it was a mistake.
Freddie hates confrontation, he goes out of his way to finish relationships in the nicest way possible.
I shake my head, I think I need to get back on track here and concentrate. ‘But what about Sal? And Mads?’
When I’d pondered whether I should tell Maddie that all hope wasn’t lost, I hadn’t thought life would throw a curve ball like this. Thank goodness I didn’t tell her, that would have been one mistake it would have been hard to recover from.
‘Oh my God!’ Hisses Rachel, clutching at my arm. ‘It’s Maddie!’ She’s shaking me. ‘She’s heading straight towards them. Do something, shout her, distract her! We need to head her off.’
The room is too big and too busy for that to work though. We watch, hearts pounding, unable to look away. Unable to move. We’d make crap action-movie heroines.
It’s like that moment in a thriller when you just know it’s about to kick off unless somebody does something quick. Which they never do. Where would be the fun in that?
‘Sheeeet! Sal’s over there as well.’
‘Owwww!’ I’m mesmerised, but Rachel’s nails are digging so hard into my arm she’s about to draw blood.
Maddie rounds the corner. Will she burst into tears, will she thump Jack?
‘What the—’ The breath I’ve been holding shoots out of me.
She’s smiling at Jack. Okay, it’s a bit shy and awkward, but it’s a smile. She slips her arm through Beth’s, kisses her on the cheek.
Rachel and I stare at each other.
They’re laughing. Maddie is hugging Beth, who then takes a step away.
‘Oh, no! She didn’t see them all over each other! She thinks Beth is her friend.’
‘She does?’ Rachel frowns. ‘At school they were ne—’
‘No, but they are now. They got chatting at your hen party, and Beth confided in her and …’
‘Confided in her? What about?’
Shit. I still haven’t even worked out if I should tell Rachel about Michael’s ‘indiscretion’, let alone the fact that everybody else seems to know.
I had been sure that not telling her was the best way forward, in the interests of making this the best, most memorable (for all the right reasons) day of her life. With none of the upsets I’d had. But knowing that the others all know has changed that.
Really, the only way forward is to come clean, before somebody else does it for me.
It has to be top of my list. I must do it soon. Very soon. And work out how to tell Maddie that Jack still loves her, not Sal, but he’s actually just found out he’s a dad so maybe he loves Joe more. ‘Well, not confided, just, er, chatted and stuff.’ Luckily, Rach is distracted.
‘Beth’s on the move. She’s going, she’s going, we need to follow her, ask her. Don’t let her get away!’ Rach grabs my arm and shakes it. Which catches me unawares.
‘Shit.’ We both lean forward. One lean too many. We start to lose balance and grasp onto each other tighter. Mistake. We both tumble out of our hiding hole, and land in a bit of a heap. In front of some jeans with torn hems that I vaguely recognise.
Freddie?
I look up.
It isn’t. The disappointment is physical as it slams into me.
I want to cry.
It’s bloody Andy.
Could this get any worse?