‘Look, we’ll just do whatever it takes to make it fun,’ he said.
Fun. Like going to an ex’s wedding could ever be less painful than root canal surgery. But it was Will’s choice. Will’s day. I took a breath, trying to pull myself together.
‘One exception,’ I said, adjusting the wrap around my shoulders for the fourteenth time.
‘What?’
‘You’re not to do the Christy Brown. If you do the Christy Brown I will drive home and leave you stuck here with the pointy-heads.’
As Will turned and began making his way towards the church, I thought I heard him murmur, ‘Spoilsport.’
We sat through the ceremony without incident. Alicia looked as ridiculously beautiful as I had known she would, her skin polished a pale caramel, the bias-cut off-white silk skimming her slim figure as if it wouldn’t dare rest there without permission. I stared at her as she floated down the aisle, wondering how it would feel to be tall and long-legged and look like something most of us only saw in airbrushed posters. I wondered if a team of professionals had done her hair and make-up. I wondered if she was wearing control pants. Of course not. She would be wearing pale wisps of something lacy – underwear for women who didn’t need anything actually supported, and which cost more than my weekly salary.
While the vicar droned on, and the little ballet-shod bridesmaids shuffled in their pews, I gazed around me at the other guests. There was barely a woman there who didn’t look like she might appear in the pages of a glossy magazine. Their shoes, which matched their outfits to the exact hue, looked as if they had never been worn before. The younger women stood elegantly in four- or five-inch heels, with perfectly manicured toenails. The older women, in kitten heels, wore structured suits, boxed shoulders with silk linings in contrasting colours, and hats that looked as if they defied gravity.
The men were less interesting to look at, but nearly all had that air about them that I could sometimes detect in Will – of wealth and entitlement, a sense that life would settle itself agreeably around you. I wondered about the companies they ran, the worlds they inhabited. I wondered if they noticed people like me, who nannied their children, or served them in restaurants. Or pole danced for their business colleagues, I thought, remembering my interviews at the Job Centre.
The weddings I went to usually had to separate the bride and groom’s families for fear of someone breaching the terms of their parole.
Will and I had positioned ourselves at the rear of the church, Will’s chair just to the right of my end of the pew. He looked up briefly as Alicia walked down the aisle, but apart from that he faced straight ahead, his expression unreadable. Forty-eight choristers (I counted) sang something in Latin. Rupert sweated into his penguin suit and raised an eyebrow as if he felt pleased and a bit daft at the same time. Nobody clapped or cheered as they were pronounced man and wife. Rupert looked a bit awkward, dived in towards his bride like somebody apple bobbing and slightly missed her mouth. I wondered if the upper classes felt it was a bit ‘off’ to really get stuck in at the altar.
And then it was over. Will was already making his way out towards the exit of the church. I watched the back of his head, upright and curiously dignified, and wanted to ask him if it had been a mistake to come. I wanted to ask him if he still had feelings for her. I wanted to tell him that he was too good for that silly caramel woman, no matter what appearances might suggest, and that … I didn’t know what else I wanted to say.
I just wanted to make it better.
‘You okay?’ I said, as I caught up.
The bottom line was, it should have been him.
He blinked a couple of times. ‘Fine,’ he said. He let out a little breath, as if he had been holding it. Then he looked up at me. ‘Come on, let’s go and get a drink.’
The marquee was situated in a walled garden, the wrought-iron gateway into it intertwined with garlands of pale-pink flowers. The bar, positioned at the far end, was already crowded, so I suggested that Will waited outside while I went and got him a drink. I weaved my way through tables clad in white linen cloths and laden with more cutlery and glassware than I had ever seen. The chairs had gilt backs, like the ones you see at fashion shows, and white lanterns hung above each centrepiece of freesias and lilies. The air was thick with the scent of flowers, to the point where I found it almost stifling.
‘Pimm’s?’ the barman said, when I got to the front. ‘Um … ’ I looked around, seeing that this was actually the only drink on offer. ‘Oh. Okay. Two, please.’
He smiled at me. ‘The other drinks come out later, apparently. But Miss Dewar wanted everyone to start with Pimm’s.’ The look he gave me was slightly conspiratorial. It told me with the faintest lift of an eyebrow what he thought of that.
I stared at the pink lemonade drink. My dad said it was always the richest people who were the tightest, but I was amazed that they wouldn’t even start the wedding with alcohol. ‘I guess that’ll have to do, then,’ I said, and took the glasses from him.
When I found Will, there was a man talking to him. Young, bespectacled, he was half crouching, one arm resting on the arm of Will’s chair. The sun was now high in the sky, and I had to squint to see them properly. I could suddenly see the point of all those wide-brimmed hats.
‘So bloody good to see you out again, Will,’ he was saying. ‘The office isn’t the same without you. I shouldn’t say as much … but it’s not the same. It just isn’t.’
He looked like a young accountant – the kind of man who is only really comfortable in a suit.
‘It’s nice of you to say so.’
‘It was just so odd. Like you fell off a cliff. One day you were there, directing everything, the next we were just supposed to … ’
He glanced up as he noticed me standing there. ‘Oh,’ he said, and I felt his eyes settle on my chest. ‘Hello.’
‘Louisa Clark, meet Freddie Derwent.’
I put Will’s glass in his holder and shook the younger man’s hand.
He adjusted his sightline. ‘Oh,’ he said again. ‘And –’
‘I’m a friend of Will’s,’ I said, and then, not entirely sure why, let my hand rest lightly on Will’s shoulder.
‘Life not all bad, then,’ Freddie Derwent said, with a laugh that was a bit like a cough. He flushed a little as he spoke. ‘Anyway … must mingle. You know these things – apparently, we’re meant to see them as a networking opportunity. But good to see you, Will. Really. And … and you, Miss Clark.’