‘It’s the first time I’ve got him a proper distance from home and it’s going to be a bloody disaster.’
‘Maybe he just wants to remind himself that there are worse things than dying?’
‘Funny.’
Her mind was only half on our phone call. She was preparing for a week’s residential course for ‘potential future business leaders’, and needed Mum and me to look after Thomas. It was going to be fantastic, she said. Some of the top names in industry would be there. Her tutor had put her forward and she was the only person on the whole course who didn’t have to pay her own fees. I could tell that, as she spoke to me, she was also doing something on a computer. I could hear her fingers on the keyboard.
‘Nice for you,’ I said.
‘It’s in some college at Oxford. Not even the ex-poly. The actual “dreaming spires” Oxford.’
‘Great.’
She paused for a moment. ‘He’s not suicidal, is he?’
‘Will? No more than usual.’
‘Well, that’s something.’ I heard the ping of an email.
‘I’d better go, Treen.’
‘Okay. Have fun. Oh, and don’t wear that red dress. It shows way too much cle**age.’
The morning of the wedding dawned bright and balmy, as I had secretly known it would. Girls like Alicia always got their own way. Someone had probably put in a good word with the weather gods.
‘That’s remarkably bitter of you, Clark,’ Will said, when I told him.
‘Yes, well, I’ve learnt from the best.’
Nathan had come early to get Will ready so that we could leave the house by nine. It was a two-hour drive, and I had built in rest stops, planning our route carefully to ensure we had the best facilities available. I got ready in the bathroom, pulling stockings over my newly shaved legs, painting on make-up and then rubbing it off again in case the posh guests thought I looked like a call girl. I dared not put a scarf around my neck, but I had brought a wrap, which I could use as a shawl if I felt overexposed.
‘Not bad, eh?’ Nathan stepped back, and there was Will, in a dark suit and a cornflower-blue shirt with a tie. He was clean-shaven, and carried a faint tan on his face. The shirt made his eyes look peculiarly vivid. They seemed, suddenly, to carry a glint of the sun.
‘Not bad,’ I said – because, weirdly, I didn’t want to say how handsome he actually looked. ‘She’ll certainly be sorry she’s marrying that braying bucket of lard, anyway.’
Will raised his eyes heavenwards. ‘Nathan, do we have everything in the bag?’
‘Yup. All set and ready to go.’ He turned to Will. ‘No snogging the bridesmaids, now.’
‘As if he’d want to,’ I said. ‘They’ll all be wearing pie-crust collars and smell of horse.’
Will’s parents came out to see him off. I suspected they had just had an argument, as Mrs Traynor could not have stood further away from her husband unless they had actually been in separate counties. She kept her arms folded firmly, even as I reversed the car for Will to get in. She didn’t once look at me.
‘Don’t get him too drunk, Louisa,’ she said, brushing imaginary lint from Will’s shoulder.
‘Why?’ Will said. ‘I’m not driving.’
‘You’re quite right, Will,’ his father said. ‘I always needed a good stiff drink or two to get through a wedding.’
‘Even your own,’ Mrs Traynor murmured, adding more audibly, ‘You look very smart, darling.’ She knelt down, adjusting the hem of Will’s trousers. ‘Really, very smart.’
‘So do you.’ Mr Traynor eyed me approvingly as I stepped out of the driver’s seat. ‘Very eye-catching. Give us a twirl, then, Louisa.’
Will turned his chair away. ‘She doesn’t have time, Dad. Let’s get on the road, Clark. I’m guessing it’s bad form to wheel yourself in behind the bride.’
I climbed back into the car with relief. With Will’s chair secured in the back, and his smart jacket hung neatly over the passenger’s seat so that it wouldn’t crease, we set off.
I could have told you what Alicia’s parents’ house would be like even before I got there. In fact, my imagination got it so nearly spot on that Will asked me why I was laughing as I slowed the car. A large, Georgian rectory, its tall windows partly obscured by showers of pale wisteria, its drive a caramel pea shingle, it was the perfect house for a colonel. I could already picture her growing up within it, her hair in two neat blonde plaits as she sat astride her first fat pony on the lawn.
Two men in reflective tabards were directing traffic into a field between the house and the church beside it. I wound down the window. ‘Is there a car park beside the church?’
‘Guests are this way, Madam.’
‘Well, we have a wheelchair, and it will sink into the grass here,’ I said. ‘We need to be right beside the church. Look, I’ll go just there.’
They looked at each other, and murmured something between themselves. Before they could say anything else, I drove up and parked in the secluded spot beside the church. And here it starts, I told myself, catching Will’s eye in the mirror as I turned off the ignition.
‘Chill out, Clark. It’s all going to be fine,’ he said.
‘I’m perfectly relaxed. Why would you think I wasn’t?’
‘You’re ridiculously transparent. Plus you’ve chewed off four of your fingernails while you’ve been driving.’
I parked, climbed out, adjusted my wrap around myself, and clicked the controls that would lower the ramp. ‘Okay,’ I said, as Will’s wheels met the ground. Across the road from us in the field, people were climbing out of huge, Germanic cars, women in fuchsia dresses muttering to their husbands as their heels sank into the grass. They were all leggy and streamlined in pale muted colours. I fiddled with my hair, wondering if I had put on too much lipstick. I suspected I looked like one of those plastic tomatoes you squeeze ketchup out of.
‘So … how are we playing today?’
Will followed my line of vision. ‘Honestly?’
‘Yup. I need to know. And please don’t say Shock and Awe. Are you planning something terrible?’
Will’s eyes met mine. Blue, unfathomable. A small cloud of butterflies landed in my stomach.
‘We’re going to be incredibly well behaved, Clark.’
The butterflies’ wings began to beat wildly, as if trapped against my ribcage. I began to speak, but he interrupted me.