Cassie stood on the balcony, looking in at the party and watching as it pulsed without her. Flashes of the copper bar glinted back at her as the crowd constantly moved and shuffled, the leather chairs pushed towards the walls to make an impromptu dance floor. Henry was in there somewhere, laughing, charming, schmoozing, in his element, his formerly tattered ego now fully restored to beautiful, reckless invincibility. Usually, she could see his head above the crowd, but he was moving among fellow giants tonight – why were all sailors so tall? – and she hadn’t caught sight of him for almost an hour now.
Her mood continued to fall and she turned away to face out into Poland Street instead. Unlike everyone else in the room, she found it hard to celebrate her fiancé disappearing round the world for three months, but she was seemingly alone in that opinion. Everyone seemed so delighted by the expedition – the crew, the backup teams, the sponsors especially so, it seemed, now that Henry was on board, but she just wished they were back at the flat, the two of them sharing a bath and eating supper on the bucket before rolling around in bed till the sun came up.
But there had been no getting out of this: tonight was as much a promotional event to drum up press as it was a send-off and Henry was contractually obliged to attend. Just as he’d been obliged to have countless meetings getting to know the team, charming the sponsors, running through the technical specs and navigation charts, getting the insurance set up . . . They’d scarcely had a moment alone together since he’d signed the contract.
The mood had been sedate to begin with, as Beau and Henry – both rakishly handsome in team navy blazers and chinos – worked the room as a unit, shaking hands, dishing out Hollywood-ready smiles and whipping up interest (much to Cassie’s alarm) by bigging up the risks they faced. But no party that had Beau in it – or with a cocktail list that counted thermonuclear daiquiris in its number – was ever going to remain tame, and a hedonistic atmosphere had taken hold as the crew began to party hard, as if to make up for all the nights they wouldn’t be on dry land. Newspaper photographers prowled the room, aiming their lenses at the prettiest girls and richest-looking men, and Cassie had seen for herself how valued Henry was in the team as the money men behind the trip vied to have their photo taken with the action heroes.
Cassie sighed, feeling out of the loop as she stood alone, waiting for Suzy to return with their fresh drinks. She well knew that more wine had simply been the excuse Suzy needed to move through the crowd and spy on Archie, who was clearly delighted to be back in the fray again.
‘Hey, hey, hey! Here she is. I knew she had to be hiding around here somewhere.’
Cassie’s stomach dropped as she heard Beau’s distinctive cut-glass vowels aimed at her, and a moment later he was in her face. Quite literally.
‘How are you, gorgeous?’ he asked, swooping an arm round her waist and kissing her hard on the cheek, his stubble rasping against her skin.
She pulled away with a look of undisguised contempt – his unpleasantness was only amplified with alcohol, it seemed – and matters weren’t improved when she clocked Luke standing beside him, quietly watching on, a whisky in his hand.
What was he doing here? Were they joined at the hip?
‘I had to come over and personally thank you for what you’ve done for me.’
‘I haven’t done anything for you, Beau,’ she said stiffly.
‘Au contraire,’ he winked. ‘I thought the whole shebang was going to go down the tubes when Freddy bailed on me last week. Two years we’ve been working on this project. I won’t even bore you with the hassles we endured from the sponsors – wanting guaranteed media, carrying us over into their next year’s marketing spends because some fuckwit in accounts thinks they’ve overspent on paperclips. And then, just when we’ve got our ducks in a row, Freddy goes and almost ballses everything up ’cos he can’t keep it in his pants and now his woman’s about to drop a sprog.’ He shook his head as if in despair, before a too-bright smile split his face. ‘But then, don’t you know, I remember my old mucker walking into the bar last week, looking just as bloody good as he did ten years ago, while the rest of us are withering into broken old men. I guess it’s true what they say about a good woman.’
He winked at her again, but Cassie refused to respond in any way, shape or form. She intended to freeze him out of her personal space.
Not that it was working just yet.
‘Henry may be the man of your dreams, Cassie, but he’s the man of mine too, trust me. Bloody experienced sailor, tried and tested in extreme conditions – South Pole expedition in 2008, wasn’t it?’
She nodded, and glanced at Luke again.
‘Strong as Popeye, doesn’t drink all the booze on the first night and could charm the tail off a mermaid. Not that we’ll be asking him to charm anything off anybody, you’ll be relieved to hear.’ He winked again.
She turned to go; she’d had enough already. ‘Excuse me.’
But Beau caught her hand. ‘Wait a minute, pretty lady. You don’t have a drink. Let me get you a drink. What would you like?’
‘Nothing from you.’
His eyes glittered and she knew they understood one another. ‘You’re sure about that?’
‘She said no, Beau,’ Luke interjected, firmly removing Beau’s hand from her arm but with a matey smile. ‘Look, Amy’s over there looking for you. Why don’t you . . . ?’
Beau looked back into the crowd. ‘Shit, yeah . . .’ he mumbled, staggering off with an exaggerated gait and leaving her alone with her supposed ‘rescuer’. Only, he was just as bad. She already knew that. His gallantry was wasted on her.
‘Sorry about that. He’s drunk,’ Luke murmured.
‘You don’t say,’ Cassie said sarcastically, turning away from him.
‘How about you? Having fun? I could get you that drink . . .’
She stared back at him – a thousand words, most of them rude, running over her face – before she turned away again. ‘Just leave me alone, Luke.’ Politeness in front of others had kept the smile on her face when they’d met at the polo two weeks ago, but she owed him no such courtesy now.
They were silent amid the noise.
‘Look, Cass, I don’t blame you for hating me,’ he said after a minute, dropping the game and getting to the point. He tried to catch her attention with his gaze, but she simply turned away further still. ‘I was an asshole, I know that.’
More silence. She wouldn’t look at him. She wouldn’t.
‘But surely you know why I did it? You must have understood, even if you couldn’t forgive?’
Understood? She whirled back to face him. ‘What justification could you have had for doing what you did? You betrayed me in the worst possible way. You took something that was private between us’ – her hands had folded over her heart – ‘and showed it to the world. Him!’
He stepped towards her. ‘Yes, because I loved you, Cass. I was mad about you. I couldn’t . . . accept that what we had was over. I was trying to hurt you back, to get your attention.’
‘Well, you got that, all right. And my contempt besides.’
Her rocky words bounced off like pebbles on a giant. ‘You walked away so easily, without even a backwards glance.
‘No,’ she refuted. ‘Not without a backwards glance. I was miserable for a long time in Paris, but I had to go there. You knew that.’
‘All I knew was that you chose to leave.’
‘You could have chosen to wait. Did that ever occur to you? It would only have been for a few months, but it had to be “now or never” for you, didn’t it? Your ego couldn’t bear that I might even be able to leave you.’
He blinked at her, his hazel eyes steady, discerning. ‘And who says you would have come back? Look at you now, already engaged to another guy. When did that start, huh? Did you meet him just a few weeks later in Paris, or was it a few months later in London?’ His eyes roamed her face, but she looked away, refusing to answer. She didn’t need to explain her history with Henry to him. She didn’t need to explain herself to him at all. ‘Well, either way, it wasn’t long, I know that much. You were never coming back to me. I knew it even if you didn’t.’
She swallowed and they fell quiet again, the party thumping all around them like a giant heart. Was anyone watching them? Was Suzy? Henry? Arch?
‘Listen . . .’ he said, his hand reaching towards her, but she flinched and he took it away again. More silence and yet a running commentary in her head – all the things she’d wanted to say to him back then and hadn’t. ‘I don’t want to fight. That isn’t why I’ve come over. It was a long time ago now. We’re different people. You’ve moved on; we both have, and believe it or not, I’m actually really happy that you’ve found what you were looking for. Henry seems like a good guy. Beau can’t stop raving about him.’
Cassie wished she’d been looking at his face when he’d said that – had the words almost choked him? – but she continued looking out onto the street below.
‘I’d really like to call bygones on this whole thing. Accept my apology, Cass. I’d like us to be friends again.’
She turned to face him, her hip leaning into the cold stone. ‘But we were never friends, Luke.’
He stared back at her, both of them remembering exactly what it was they had been to each other. ‘Maybe not, no. But . . . maybe we could learn to be.’
From the corner of her eye, Cassie saw Suzy approaching, her arms held high above her head as she moved through the crowd with the wine glasses. Beau was just behind her on the dance floor, making an obscene gesture behind her back, and Cassie remembered again his final lascivious words to her at the polo. Even now they made her skin crawl. He had seen her at her most intimate, a privilege he should never have enjoyed – and it was all because of the man standing before her now.
She looked back at him coldly. ‘I don’t think so. Anything that was between us you killed off a long time ago.’ And she walked away, meeting Suzy just inside the French doors.
‘Holy crap! Isn’t that—’ Suzy asked in surprise as she clocked Luke, just as Cassie grabbed her by the elbow and steered her away to another corner of the room. She had met Luke when she and Anouk had sprung a surprise visit on her in New York.
‘He’s still staring,’ Suzy said without moving her lips, handing over her drink and clinking it with hers. ‘What the hell’s he doing here?’
‘He’s a friend of Beau’s.’
‘Ugh, that figures.’
Cassie arched an eyebrow. ‘You know Beau?’
‘He’s a dim and unwelcome ghost from the past.’ Suzy looked sheepish. ‘And I may have snogged him once after one too many snakebites at a university ball.’
‘Oh, Suze, you didn’t!’
‘I’m sorry. I was visiting Henry for the weekend and . . . well, it was a terrible lapse of taste and judgement.’
‘At least tell me he’s an atrocious kisser.’
‘Mmm, yes, about that . . . Wish I could,’ Suzy sighed with a shake of her head. ‘Still, he’s an utter git. I can’t believe Henry’s hooked up with him again.’
‘Well, hopefully three months in a tiny cabin with him will finally make the scales fall from Henry’s eyes.’ Cassie took a sip of her drink, surreptitiously checking Luke wasn’t still watching, but he had disappeared from sight – hopefully the room and country too. ‘Did you find Arch?’
‘Oh yes. He’s supervising the Drink While You Think.’ Suzy rolled her eyes, pointing to the nucleus of fun in the room. Archie’s red hair, even redder under the lights, flicked about like the Olympic flame as Cassie watched Henry cheering on someone out of sight from her position. She was sure he couldn’t have seen Luke here. He wouldn’t be smiling anywhere near as widely if he knew her ex was in the building.
‘What are they trying to do?’ Cassie asked, puzzled, just as the crowd parted momentarily and she glimpsed through the gap in the crowd a dazzling blonde-bobbed girl with a brilliant smile. ‘And who is that?’
‘Who?’ Suzy craned to see. ‘Oh, that’s Amy, the co-skipper, Henry’s opposite number.’
‘Henry’s got an opposite number?’ Cassie murmured, watching as Amy gripped her hair with one hand, her eyes scrunched shut. She was clearly trying to think of something as everyone chanted a countdown to her. ‘I thought Beau was the other co-skipper.’
‘Nope. He’s the expedition leader.’ Suzy dressed the titles with faint scorn before noticing her friend’s anxious expression. ‘Hey, don’t worry about her. She’s one of the boys apparently. They all love her.’
‘You don’t say,’ Cassie said with an edge.
‘I don’t mean they love her like that.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Arch told me.’
‘Suze, just look at her!’
‘Listen, what are you so worried about? Henry can see no one but you.’
‘But she looks just like me, only better!’
Suzy soothingly placed a hand on her arm. ‘Stop being so insecure. For one thing, she’s got a boyfriend. And for another, there’s no such thing as a better you.’
Cassie watched as Beau leaned in and said something in her ear, Amy throwing her head back in laughter in reply. Was he her boyfriend? Hadn’t Luke just sent Beau over to her?
‘Hey, guys!’
Both Suzy and Cassie turned in unison to find Gem bombing towards them like a pocket rocket. She was wearing a turquoise, brown and white crocheted dress with boy pants underneath and a black bra, her tanned skin winking through the vast openwork spaces. Her hair was still tightly bound in the cornrows, and attached to her hand was Laird.
Close up, he seemed less cartoonish than he had at the pub the other week. His eyes drooped slightly at the outer edges, giving him a vaguely melancholic air, and two weeks in England seemed to have taken the maroon tint off his tan. His hair was still improbably blond, but surrounded by the salty seadogs here tonight, it didn’t seem quite so striking, and he just seemed fit, rather than buff, now that he was wearing a shirt and not a muscle vest.
‘I’m dying for you both to meet Laird properly.’ She looked back at him with bright eyes. ‘These are the ones I was telling you about – Suzy, Henry’s sister, and Cassie, Henry’s fiancée.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ Cassie smiled, holding out her hand as she caught sight of Suzy’s expression and guessed at her displeasure at both of them being introduced only in terms of their relationships to Henry. Suzy wasn’t Henry’s anything. She was older – he was her little brother; or how about she was Archie’s wife instead? Or just the elder cousin? Even just the one with the great boobs?
‘Hi.’ Laird shook her hand lightly. ‘Sorry I didn’t get a chance to meet you at the party.’
‘It was a big party,’ Cassie smiled, feeling guilty that she and Anouk and Bas had deliberately ducked into the crowd and disappeared – pretending to get separated – as Gem had led them over with Henry to make the introduction. ‘I . . . uh, love your name. It’s so unusual.’
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘My grandparents were Scottish. It’s a Scottish name.’
‘Ah yes, of course it is,’ Cassie nodded. ‘I used to live in Scotland.’
‘Really? Whereabouts?’
‘Halfway between the border and Edinburgh. The Lammermuir Hills?’
He shook his head apologetically.
‘It’s OK. No one outside of a ten-mile radius has ever heard of them.’
‘Do you miss it?’
‘Ha! You’ve got to be joking,’ Suzy interrupted. ‘Poor Cass was trapped in a terrible marriage the whole time she was up there. Her husband worked in Edinburgh and would only come back at weekends. It was just you and the cook and the gin cupboard, wasn’t it, Cass?’
‘Suze, you’ve just totally made me sound like an alcoholic!’ Cassie protested with a laugh. She looked back at Laird. ‘For the record, I do not have a drink problem.’
‘Oh, I know,’ he replied earnestly. ‘Your skin’s too good.’
‘Oh, thanks,’ she grinned.
Gem made eye contact with Cassie, flashing her a delighted smile that said, ‘See?’ as beside them Suzy cleared her throat.
‘So, I just saw Archie,’ Gem said, speaking up to her big cousin. ‘He looks so hot.’
‘He nearly died the week before last,’ Suzy replied with an incredulous tone that suggested she was not of the same view. ‘I hardly think he’s looking his best.’
‘So?’ Gem cried. She placed a small hand on Suzy’s arm. ‘I never got what it was you saw in him till now. I always thought he looked like that Fast Show character – you know, the lord who’s in love with his estate keeper?’
Suzy’s mouth dropped open in mute horror.
‘But now! The cheekbones, his eyes are so bright, and his teeth . . . He’s got such good teeth. Who knew?’
Clearly not Suzy, who was now looking at her husband in the crowd with an expression approaching confusion. Were they talking about the same man?
‘You’re a lucky girl, cuz. We all are.’ Gem looked back at Cassie again, sipping her drink like a child at her parents’ dinner party. ‘Have you and Henry set a date?’
Oh God, not again. The same old question. ‘Not yet,’ Cassie said with a tight smile. ‘We’re just enjoying life as it is now.’
Gem looked baffled by the answer.
‘Cassie’s still recovering from her disastrous marriage. She got married too young, you see,’ Suzy butted in tactlessly. ‘A decade wasted, her best years behind her and all because she rushed into it,’ she tutted.
Cassie glared at her best friend – could she have been more unsubtle? – but Suzy’s eyes were resting solely on Gem. Laird shifted his weight uneasily. He, at least, appeared to have got the point.
‘Can I get anyone another drink?’ he asked.
Cassie gladly accepted – mainly to help justify his escape – and she watched him slip into the safety of the crowd, her eyes coming to rest on Henry again, as he still stood horsing around in a tight-knit core with Beau, Arch and Amy.
‘So I’m amazed Archie made it here tonight. He was saying he only got out of hospital, like, yesterday.’
‘Yes, and if he tries to get off that stool, I’ll personally drop-kick him back to the CCU myself,’ Suzy said, eyes slitted as Archie enthusiastically began another countdown.
‘When’s he back to work?’ Gem asked.
‘Not for at least another month. His ECGs weren’t great. He needs further monitoring before they’ll sign him off. The doctors said he’s got to fully relax and start gentle exercise.’
‘I’ll teach him yoga,’ Gem offered excitedly, grasping Suzy’s hand.
‘Ha! You wish!’ Suzy quipped. ‘Trust me, there are farmhouse tables with more flexibility in their legs than his.’
‘You really don’t need to be flexible to do yoga, you know,’ Gem said, laughing. ‘I know I could help him. I worked with some really knackered old blokes in Oz and it made such a difference to their well-being.’
Cassie had begun to get the giggles – for the first time ever, Suzy’s outspokenness was making no imprint on Gem’s blunt-headedness – and she couldn’t help but look over at Suzy’s outraged expression.
‘Well, you’re very sweet, Gem,’ Suzy said in her most patronizing tone, ‘but we’re not actually going to be around this summer. We’re decamping to Cornwall.’
‘To Butterbox?’ Gem gasped, her eyes wide and her hand slapped over her chest.
‘That’s right. The fresh air and big views are just what he needs.’
‘I couldn’t agree more. It’ll be so healing for him being by the sea. The soul needs that vista, you know. It’s too easy to disconnect from nature when you live in these big cities; you don’t even realize it’s happening. There’s just this silent erosion of something good and vital from our lives and then we wonder why we feel so out of balance.’
‘Yes. Right. That’s what I thought,’ Suzy said warily.
‘You know, this is how Laird and I connected in the first place. He’d be up for the surf and he’d go right past my dawn classes – just seven or eight of us on the beach. It was only a matter of time before we got talking and realized how connected we are.’ Her eyes glazed with the memories. ‘God, he’d love it down there. The surf’s so sick at Polzeath and—’ She stopped talking abruptly, her expression lighting up. ‘Oh my God,’ she breathed, her hand clamping suddenly on to Suzy’s arm. ‘We should totally come down with you.’
‘What?’ Suzy looked nauseous.
‘Think about it! You and Arch need to heal – because you’ve had a terrible shock too, Suzy. Don’t underestimate the pressure it’s put on you – and Laird’s just beginning to wilt, bless him, being so far from the sea. He loves me and he’d live with me in the Gobi Desert if I asked him to, but he needs that element in his life. And I can do my yoga anywhere. Plus, it’d be the perfect opportunity for us all to have some proper time together and really reconnect, you know? It’s been so long, years really, since we all had proper time together.’
Cassie wondered how many more times Gem could bring the word ‘connect’ into the conversation.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea—’ Suzy began, but Gem was on a roll.
‘And of course, while we’re there, all together, you can help me get my ideas for the wedding on track. Did Henry tell you?’
‘Huh?’
‘I mean, I’d pay you, obviously. I wouldn’t expect any freebies, although mates’ rates would be nice.’ She laughed, joshing Suzy in the ribs with an elbow. ‘But you’ve got to admit it makes sense: while Archie’s getting the rest he needs, you can have a little project to tide you over to stop you going stir-crazy, and I can try to get my head around this crazy wedding lark. I mean, really, can anyone explain to me the point of favours?’
Suzy stared at Cassie – she did, in fact, usually hold very strong views on favours – just as Laird reappeared with the drinks.
‘Babe, you’ll never guess!’ Gem gushed. ‘We’re going to spend the summer in Cornwall.’
‘Cornwall?’ If he’d drawn a blank with Lammermuir, Cornwall fared no better.
‘It’s the UK’s surf central. Polzeath is totally, like, one of the top-ten surf beaches.’
‘Oh yeah, yeah, I know Polzeath.’
‘Well, we’ve got a family place down there. Aunt Hat’s got one half, and I’ve got the other . . .’
Suzy’s eyes slid over to Cassie’s, Gem’s point quite clear: Suzy had no jurisdiction over whether or not Gem chose to go. She co-owned the house.
‘Suzy and Arch are going down there so he can recuperate. We can all bond, plan the wedding and’ – she took a deep breath – ‘you can surf every day again.’
Laird looked down at his diminutive fiancée, his expression as soft as warmed butter as he snaked his hand round her neck. ‘Seriously?’
Suzy furiously mouthed, ‘WTF?’ as the happy couple kissed.
‘Are you coming too?’ Laird asked her, forcing Cassie to break Suzy’s eye-lock.
‘Sorry?’
‘To Cornwall.’
‘Yes! That would be so perfect! And there’s loads of room,’ Gem added.
Cassie shook her head ‘Sadly not. I’ve got to work.’
‘Ah, that’s a shame,’ Laird smiled with what seemed to be genuine regret, and she wondered whether he wanted her to act as some sort of buffer between him and Gem, and Suzy. She couldn’t blame him. Suzy had been nothing short of terrifying so far tonight.
‘It really is. Especially with Henry being gone so long.’ Gem pulled an exaggerated sad face.
‘I’m used to it,’ she shrugged, trying to mask the white lie. She would never get used to being without him.
‘Yes, are you sure you couldn’t come down?’ Suzy asked, rejoining the conversation. ‘Now that you’ve got Ascot and the polo out of the way, aren’t things calming down? I thought they were your big events.’
Cassie looked at her in surprise. ‘Well, yes, but we’ve still got the smaller private events – birthdays, anniversaries, intimate weddings.’
‘But I bet Zara could cover those. I mean, Jude’s school is off for the summer holidays now, right? And she’s always saying how bored she gets at home with Zara being at work the whole time.’
Cassie laughed. ‘I’m not sure she’d thank you for signing her up to a summer of work, though.’
Suzy shrugged. ‘It’s worth an ask, though, surely? Let’s face it, you’re going to be thoroughly miz without Henry and me.’
‘You’re nothing if not modest,’ Cassie chuckled, knowing full well that the only reason Suzy was now so desperate to get her down there was for the same reasons as Laird had asked – to act as a buffer between her and Gem. There was no doubt Suzy would be at risk of a heart attack herself if she had to spend the entire summer with her little cousin.
All eyes fell on Cassie – each with different agendas and needs. ‘Look, it’s not that I don’t think it’s a lovely idea, but—’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it,’ Suzy said with a deep sigh, before holding up her drink and staring at it grimly. ‘Cheers, then. Here’s to the joys of an endless summer.’
Cassie felt instantly guilty, but what could she do? She couldn’t take off for a month just because Suzy needed some backup with her family.
‘Do either of you know where I could go to have a sneaky ciggie?’ Gem asked, before quickly putting her hand on Laird’s arm. ‘I know, and I promise this is the last one. I’ll start tomorrow, but my favourite cousin in the— I mean, my favourite male cousin in the world is disappearing round the world just as I’ve got back, which is such sucky luck. I need something to take the edge off.’
Laird rolled his eyes in disapproval and Cassie thought that was at least something he and Suzy had in common.
‘Here, Laird, let me introduce you to Arch,’ Suzy said with a burst of sudden friendliness that made Cassie’s eyes narrow. ‘He’s a demon boogie-boarder. He can tell you all about the surf down there.’
Gem smiled as Suzy towed Laird away like a tug boat and Cassie realized as Suzy began making frantic hand gestures behind her cousin’s back exactly what she was up to: this was supposedly Cassie’s cue to halt the wedding in its tracks.
‘Um, follow me, Gem,’ Cassie said, leading her back to the spot by the windows where she’d been standing earlier with Luke. Was he still here? Her eyes scanned the crowd as they passed, but she could see no sign of him. Thank God.
They leaned on the balcony together, Gem lighting a roll-up she’d stashed in her bra, and both of them staring into the brightly lit madding street, their backs to the party.
‘So I get the impression Suzy isn’t very pleased about the wedding,’ Gem said after a moment, watching as her own smoke ring wobbled into the big, wide world.
‘What? Suzy?’ Cassie asked in a new falsetto. ‘No! She’s delighted for you. Really, really happy. And of course, weddings are her business. She’s actually got a not-so-vested interest in seeing you guys get hitched.’
Gem stared at her for a minute, clearly deliberating whether or not to believe her. ‘Well, Aunt Hats is distraught. She thinks I’m rushing into it.’
Cassie swallowed. ‘That’s only natural. From what I understand, you and Laird haven’t known each other for very long.’
‘But you like him.’
‘Me? I think he’s lovely. Really charming and sweet. And he’s obviously mad about you.’
Gem smiled, her eyes on a shaven-headed security guard standing outside a nightclub across the road. ‘Exactly.’
Cassie dithered, wondering how to strike the balance between supportive and annihilative. ‘I do see why Hats is concerned, though. I don’t see what the rush is for getting married so soon. What’s so wrong with waiting a bit?’
‘What’s so right with waiting?’ Gem countered.
‘Well, it gives you time to be sure that you’re doing the right thing. What Suzy said earlier was true: I got married at exactly your age and spent a decade of my life being miserable. If I could go back and advise my twenty-one-year-old self now, it would be to just let things hang for a bit. Marriage is supposed to be forever. Don’t do what I did and rush in. Feelings change; passions cool. I don’t doubt you and Laird are nuts about each other now, but are you sure he’s still going to be what you want ten, twenty, forty years from now?’
‘But who can ever be sure of that? You could put off your entire life according to that philosophy. We’re all works in progress. If you’d told me three years ago, when I got expelled for having sex with one of the boys in sixth form, that I’d find peace in a sun salutation, I’d have laughed my head off. I was the angriest little bitch you ever saw, and yet now look at me: I’m Zen with a capital Z. Personal growth isn’t linear, Cassie. None of us knows who we’re going to become. I mean, did you ever think you’d be engaged again, so soon after your marriage broke up?’
The question momentarily floored Cassie and she watched as a fat pigeon ruffled its feathers on a telephone wire. ‘Uh, well, honestly? No. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I never thought I’d get married again full stop.’
‘Really?’
Cassie closed her eyes briefly as she remembered the last day of her marriage. ‘Everything that happened with my ex and me, it made such a travesty of our vows. I’m not sure I could ever believe in them again.’
‘But you obviously could, though, with Henry,’ Gem said, looking up at her questioningly. ‘Seeing as you’re engaged to him.’
Cassie didn’t reply. She was back in the library, overhearing Gil’s voice as he let spill the awful secret that she’d never even suspected. She’d been that naive, that gullible. That trusting . . .
‘Cassie?’
‘What? Oh. Yes, I . . .’ She hesitated. ‘Of course.’
Gem laughed. ‘Well, that didn’t sound very convincing!’
‘What? No, no, it is. I just . . .’ She forced her mind to get back on message. ‘I was just thinking about the vows, actually. You have to really think about them before you commit to them. They’re not just hollow words; you’re going to live your life according to them. I mean, “forsaking all others” . . . Is that really a decision you, as a twenty-yearold, can stand by for all of your life?’ Luke’s face swam into her mind, his words still a warm echo: ‘Who says you would have come back? . . . When did that start? ... It wasn’t long, I know that much ... You were never coming back to me . . .’
She banished him from her mind. Gil. Luke. All the ghosts from her past were revisiting her tonight, eddying round her and setting her off-balance, off-kilter. ‘I guess what I’m trying to say is, just don’t make the mistake I made. Life is long. What makes you happy today may not be what makes you happy a year from now. Keep your options open.’
‘Is that what you’re doing?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Well, you said earlier you like living in the moment, which is kind of the opposite to making plans to grow old together, isn’t it?’
‘I . . .’ Cassie wasn’t sure how to respond. Exactly how had this conversation become about her and not about Gem?
‘It sounds to me like you don’t actually believe in marriage at all, anymore,’ Gem said, flicking the stub of her cigarette to the pavement below. ‘Regardless of age.’
Cassie blinked at her, infuriated on the one hand, stunned on the other; the girl was a champion debater, leading Cassie along paths she’d had no intention of walking down. She was more confused about what she thought and felt than she’d ever realized. ‘You know what?’ she said defiantly. ‘Maybe I don’t. Maybe I bloody well don’t. It’s an outdated institution that has no relevance to modern life and modern relationships, it’s just some hangover from a time when women were like chattels; something to be traded. But you’re an independent, educated girl, Gem. Why do you need a ring on your finger? It’s just a form of ownership, not really any different from being branded like cattle, ’ Cassie said dismissively, straightening her back as she got into her stride. Oh Suzy was going to love this when she heard about it.
Gem looked at the ring winking on Cassie’s own finger. ‘Well, if that’s how you really feel, why are you wearing that then?’
Cassie looked down at the ring, remembering the moment – the perfect moment – when Henry had given it to her. She’d been so swept up in the romance of it, so carried away by the glorious shock and drama of it all, that it would have been impossible, totally unthinkable, to give voice to these thoughts. And, of course, she just loved him so, so much. But these words – they shone with the shimmer of truth in them, they sprung from feelings that had, somewhere along the line, become instincts and she herself didn’t understand how these supposedly contradictory feelings could co-exist within her. She crumpled like an autumn leaf. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said eventually.
‘Don’t you think you should tell— Oh hey, how long have you been standing there?’ Gem asked, her voice brightening as she turned to face the party again. ‘Henry?’
Cassie whipped round. How long had he been standing there? What had he heard? She was almost scared to see the expression on his face, but she needn’t have worried – the crowd was already closing around him and all she could see was his halo of gold hair disappearing into the shadows.