‘He seemed nice,’ I said, as we moved away. I lifted my hand from Will’s shoulder and took a long sip of my Pimm’s. It was actually tastier than it looked. I had been slightly alarmed by the presence of cucumber.
‘Yes. Yes, he’s a nice kid.’
‘Not too awkward, then.’
‘No.’ Will’s eyes flickered up to meet mine. ‘No, Clark, not too awkward at all.’
As if freed by the sight of Freddie Derwent doing so, over the next hour several more people approached Will to say hello. Some stood a little way back from him, as if this absolved them of the handshake dilemma, while others hoisted the knees of their trousers and crouched down almost at his feet. I stood by Will and said little. I watched him stiffen slightly at the approach of two of them.
One – a big, bluff man with a cigar – seemed not to know what to say when he was actually there in front of Will, and settled for, ‘Bloody nice wedding, wasn’t it? Thought the bride looked splendid.’ I guessed he hadn’t known Alicia’s romantic history.
Another, who seemed to be some business rival of Will’s, hit a more diplomatic note, but there was something in his very direct gaze, his straightforward questions about Will’s condition, that I could see made Will tense. They were like two dogs circling each other, deciding whether to bare their teeth.
‘New CEO of my old company,’ Will said, as the man finally departed with a wave. ‘I think he was just making sure that I wouldn’t be trying to stage a takeover.’
The sun grew fierce, the garden became a fragrant pit, people sheltered under dappled trees. I took Will into the doorway of the marquee, worried about his temperature. Inside the marquee huge fans had been kicked into life, whirring lazily over our heads. In the distance, under the shelter of a summer house, a string quartet played music. It was like a scene from a film.
Alicia, floating around the garden – an ethereal vision, air-kissing and exclaiming – didn’t approach us.
I watched Will drain two glasses of Pimm’s and was secretly glad.
Lunch was served at 4pm. I thought that was a pretty odd time to serve lunch but, as Will pointed out, it was a wedding. Time seemed to have stretched and become meaningless, anyway, its passage blurred by endless drinks and meandering conversations. I don’t know if it was the heat, or the atmosphere, but by the time we arrived at our table I felt almost drunk. When I found myself babbling incoherently to the elderly man on my left, I realized it was actually a possibility.
‘Is there any alcohol in that Pimm’s stuff?’ I said to Will, after I had managed to tip the contents of the salt cellar into my lap.
‘About the same as a glass of wine. In each one.’
I stared at him in horror. Both of him. ‘You’re kidding. It had fruit in it! I thought that meant it was alcohol free. How am I going to drive you home?’
‘Some carer you are,’ he said. He raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s it worth for me not to tell my mother?’
I was stunned by Will’s reaction to the whole day. I had thought I was going to get Taciturn Will, Sarcastic Will. At the very least, Silent Will. But he had been charming to everybody. Even the arrival of soup at lunch didn’t faze him. He just asked politely whether anybody would like to swap his soup for their bread, and the two girls on the far side of the table – who professed themselves ‘wheat intolerant’ – nearly threw their rolls at him.
The more anxious I grew about how I was going to sober up, the more upbeat and carefree Will became. The elderly woman on his right turned out to be a former MP who had campaigned on the rights of the disabled, and she was one of the few people I had seen talk to Will without the slightest discomfort. At one point I watched her feed him a slice of roulade. When she briefly got up to leave the table, he muttered that she had once climbed Kilimanjaro. ‘I love old birds like that,’ he said. ‘I could just picture her with a mule and a pack of sandwiches. Tough as old boots.’
I was less fortunate with the man on my left. He took about four minutes – the briefest of quizzes about who I was, where I lived, who I knew there – to work out that there was nothing I had to say that might be of interest to him. He turned back to the woman on his left, leaving me to plough silently through what remained of my lunch. At one point, when I started to feel properly awkward, I felt Will’s arm slide off the chair beside me, and his hand landed on my arm. I glanced up and he winked at me. I took his hand and squeezed it, grateful that he could see it. And then he moved his chair back six inches, and brought me into the conversation with Mary Rawlinson.
‘So Will tells me you’re in charge of him,’ she said. She had piercing blue eyes, and wrinkles that told of a life impervious to skincare routines.
‘I try,’ I said, glancing at him.
‘And have you always worked in this field?’
‘No. I used to … work in a cafe.’ I’m not sure I would have told anybody else at this wedding that fact, but Mary Rawlinson nodded approvingly.
‘I always thought that might be rather an interesting job. If you like people, and are rather nosy, which I am.’ She beamed.
Will moved his arm back on to his chair. ‘I’m trying to encourage Louisa to do something else, to widen her horizons a bit.’
‘What did you have in mind?’ she asked me.
‘She doesn’t know,’ Will said. ‘Louisa is one of the smartest people I know, but I can’t make her see her own possibilities.’
Mary Rawlinson gave him a sharp look. ‘Don’t patronize her, dear. She’s quite capable of answering for herself.’
I blinked.
‘I rather think that you of all people should know that,’ she added.
Will looked as if he were about to say something, and then closed his mouth. He stared at the table and shook his head a little, but he was smiling.
‘Well, Louisa, I imagine your job at the moment takes up an awful lot of mental energy. And I don’t suppose this young man is the easiest of clients.’
‘You can say that again.’
‘But Will is quite right about seeing possibilities. Here’s my card. I’m on the board of a charitable organization that encourages retraining. Perhaps you would like to consider something different in the future?’
‘I’m very happy working with Will, thank you.’
I took the card that she proffered regardless, a little stunned that this woman would have the slightest interest in what I did with my life. But even as I took it, I felt like an imposter. There was no way I would be able to give up work, even if I knew what I wanted to learn. I wasn’t convinced I was the kind of person who would suit retraining. And besides, keeping Will alive was my priority. I was so lost in my thoughts that I briefly stopped listening to the two of them beside me.