Chapter 2
2
‘Shit-piss-bollocks!’
In the space of five minutes, I’ve stubbed my toe, broken the handle on my suitcase and now this.
‘You OK?’ James calls from the bathroom, where he is having the world’s longest wee. You’d think we’d been travelling for hours rather than the twenty-minute drive from our house to the hotel. The door is wide open, a sign that we are way too comfortable in each other’s presence. If I’m honest, I suppose there is still a part of me that thinks Mum will somehow find it in her to make it to the wedding. Living in Hereford, and being so close to the Welsh border, means we could have had our pick of castles, but we settled on this manor house close to home instead. It’s beautiful in its own right and could easily be part of the set for the next Austen adaptation.
‘I’m fine,’ I answer rubbing my arm and flopping onto the hotel king-sized bed. ‘Just smacked my funny bone.’ I examine the bone in question where I’m sure I can see the beginnings of a purple bruise already expanding like ink on blotting paper. Great. That’ll look gorgeous on the wedding photos. ‘Why is it even called a funny bone?’ He flushes the loo and turns on the tap, meeting my reflection in the bathroom mirror.
I point the elbow in his direction as he towels his hands and joins me on the bed.
‘Because it’s called the humerus.’ He smiles, kissing the end of my elbow and lying nose to nose. ‘Better?’ he asks.
‘Much.’ My finger runs along his top lip, tracing the small scar. He takes my hand in his, bringing it to his lips. ‘Can you believe that this time tomorrow I will be Mrs Palmer.’ I run my nose alongside his. I love kissing him: the way he tastes, the way our mouths fit, the rhythm of it. He smiles into my mouth, his words spoken with his breath and mine.
‘You know you don’t have to take my name. I could always take yours.’
‘James Andrews?’ I question, as his hand slides beneath my vest top, his thumb running over my ribs. ‘It sounds like it needs another barrel – James Andrews Smythe. Hmmm it does have a ring to it.’ The humour of the conversation is transitioning, the haze in his eyes making the browns of his eyes almost black.
‘Nope. Liv Palmer it is. It feels like it was always—’ He steals the rest of my sentence with his mouth, the remainder of the conversation lost in a tangle of limbs.
We’re late to the dinner. Our faces flushed, our hands in each other’s as we approach the dinner table where the wedding party have assembled. From the raised voices and animated conversation, I can tell there have already been a few rounds bought.
‘Finally!’ Ava pushes back her chair and stands, blonde hair neatly plaited around the front. She looks as close to her Scandinavian roots as possible tonight. All Viking shield maiden. I lean in to kiss her on the cheek.
‘Hi! Sorry we’re late, stuck in traffic,’ I say, but I don’t know why I’m trying to make justifications – Ava will be able to see through my flimsy excuse for being twenty minutes late. ‘You’re so full of shite,’ she says pulling me into a hug, her voice close to my ear. ‘Feeling satiated are we?’
‘Very,’ I reply. She laughs. This is the thing when you’ve been friends with someone since childhood; no matter how ‘grown up’ you become, you still somehow can’t help but regress to your teenage selves. She’s still the girl who offered me half of her Kit-Kat on my first day of school as I stood on the outskirts of the playground, worrying about falling on the hard concrete ground. We’re still the girls who practised kissing on the mirror and gave each other marks out of ten for technique. But we are also the women who support each other. Ava was the one to hold me up when Kit disappeared.
It was Good Friday the last time I saw him. We’d spent the morning in bed, and then I’d put a washing load on, gone for a run. He was going hiking, he’d said. Pembrokeshire, coastal walks, cliffs… one of his favourites. I had work to catch up on, and wanted to finish my planning. He’d packed his gear, kissed me long and hard at the top of the stairs, and then closed the door behind him. I didn’t know that it would be the last time I’d see Kit.
Ava was the one who – rather than try to force me to eat when I couldn’t – made me take vitamins and drink water, who sat with me for hours in silence when she knew I couldn’t speak. And she was the one who told me I was allowed to love two men, to fall in love with his brother. When everyone else was looking on in judgement of James, she was the one who defended him. When people whispered about how wrong it was for us to be together, Ava was there with a quick retort, volleying back opinions and telling them to mind their own sodding business.
‘I’m so jealous,’ she says, looking over to James’s friends. ‘It’s been an age since I got laid. Who’s the Bridgerton duke lookalike who keeps throwing me shag-me eyes.’
I follow her gaze.
‘Simon? He’s one of James’s boxers.’
She takes a dainty sip of her prosecco.
‘Stay clear. He’s a player. And he has a girlfriend.’
‘Shame.’ She straightens the collar on my silk shirt before I’m pulled into more hugs from my other bridesmaids.
My eyes trail James as he begins shaking hands, making his way around the room. Space always seems to part around him. He’s the same height as Kit was, but broader, more solid: commanding. The air around Kit would skitter, bolt, magnify, pulling everyone into his orbit.
There are times when I would fall back into the past: the edge of an elbow at the same angle to the table we’d once drunk coffee at; the back of a man’s head with the same flick of brown curls around the collar; a row of trees similar to ones that we had climbed, drunk and high on each other… and I’d think, I’ve found him. He must be here somewhere – look, everything is still the same.
And then I’d realise that that line of thinking was stupid, ridiculous, cruel. Because yes, everything was the same, but I wasn’t, because he was gone.
I turn my attention to Libby, James and Kit’s cousin, who is already flushed and is talking a few notches higher than the rest of the group. I was always grateful that she stayed in touch. She was one of the few family members who didn’t turn her back on us. Her wife, Paige, is already heading back to the bar .
‘How are you feeling about the big day?’ Libby asks, taking a huge sip of her glass of white.
‘Good.’ I catch James’s eye, across the room. He tilts his head, his eyes lingering on mine for a touch longer than needed. ‘Excited.’
‘Do you wish you could go back and do it all again?’ Libby asks.
‘Sorry?’ I say, eyebrows furrowing.
‘I said I wish I could go back and do it all again.’ She smiles over at Paige. ‘It was the best day of my life.’
‘Oh, right. Yes, it was a beautiful day.’
Memories of Kit’s hand on the bottom of my back, of catching the bouquet, his eyes glinting as he made the toast as Libby’s best man. Had James been there? I have a vague memory of him arguing with his date. Nisha? Natalie? Tall, big hair, feisty. I recall seeing them arguing in the distance while Kit and I headed towards the marquee: a series of hand gestures and exasperation from James, a determined turn of the back as she stomped across the grass. He must have left not long after that as he definitely didn’t join me and Kit drunkenly dancing to ‘Sex on Fire’ and ‘Mr Brightside’. I feel the tug of a smile at a hazy image of me on Kit’s shoulders as we arched our arms in YMCA poses.
Later, we’d taken a canoe out onto the lake, Kit’s suit jacket over my shoulders, his tie discarded, his top button undone, a bottle of brandy under his arm, a platter of leftover buffet food against my chest. We’d watched the June sun starting to rise before the beginnings of a two-day hangover kicked us back to the hotel room.
I blink as I watch James’s attention being drawn away from me, handshakes and back slaps thrown in his direction as he works the room. He has this gift of making everyone feel special and heard, and he has absolutely no idea .
I take a small sip of my drink as I watch him, Libby following my gaze.
‘I’m glad you got together.’ She gives me a small nudge. ‘You’re good for him. As far as I’m concerned, the rest of the family can go fuck themselves.’
I snort at that as she gives me a wet kiss on the cheek and joins Paige at the bar.
At least Mum not being here makes it easier that James’s parents aren’t either. They haven’t spoken to him since he told them about us. He says it doesn’t matter that they’re not here, that they’ve never really been interested in him, that he’s always known Kit was the golden son.
We all take our seats around the long table at the end of the restaurant. This manor house used to be occupied by the army during the Second World War. There’s a large open fireplace taking the edge off the late April chill in the air and wall-to-wall books either side.
James’s hand finds mine, his finger drawing circles on my wrist as starters are ordered and more drinks poured.
Conversation flows around us, our friends introducing themselves to one another, regaling stories from work and home.
‘So… how did you two meet?’ Lara, Simon’s new girlfriend, asks. The conversation quietens. Glances are cast between Paige and Libby. Ava looks down at her plate and pushes some salsa around. I smile, a well-rehearsed reply ready to fall from my mouth.
I have learnt from experience that saying I was in love with his brother first isn’t the easiest of conversation points for others to navigate. I mean, how would you react to that reply? I was in love with his brother first. See what I mean? You might laugh thinking I’m joking, or have a look of shock as you realise I’m telling the truth; then you would be left feeling awkward and trying to find the right response. So I avoid telling the whole truth, by sticking as closely to the real truth, as I can.
‘We met at Waterways,’ I say with my overly large smile. I used to cover up my mouth when I smiled, but Kit would spend hours running his fingers around the edge, kissing it, telling me he couldn’t stop thinking about it. That was the thing with Kit: he made me whole again.
And then he broke me.
‘I fell into the river.’ I smile up. ‘James took me to A Kit for fun and to get out from under his parents’ feet. I used to help out in the summer holidays for a while, until Kit’s business took off and James switched to bar work in the evenings to free up his days for training at the boxing club. He started boxing after he was cautioned for fighting in a bar. An officer had suggested he ‘channel his anger in a healthier way’. James never told them that he’d been sticking up for Kit.
The year I met them, he dropped the job at Waterways and started training in earnest. He was on track to win the Middleweight National Amateur Championships the year we lost Kit. I tried to encourage him to go back to it, but he always says he missed his window and is better at training others. It was like the fight in him disappeared along with his brother.
‘Yep.’ I give Ava a reassuring smile. ‘I just hope everything goes smoothly, you know. I’m worried I’m going to fall flat on my face.’
‘It will and so what if you do? You’ll get up and carry on walking, won’t you?’ She crunches on my toast; eyes searching mine. ‘All you have to do is walk into a room, say I do, get pissed, dance and then shag your husband senseless. Easy.’ I laugh, leaning against her with my shoulder. This was one of the tactics she would use when I couldn’t get out of bed. When I would wake up with that flame of fear in my chest. It would be there every morning after he disappeared. I would hold my breath some mornings, because I knew. I knew that the minute I exhaled, the minute I allowed myself to add oxygen to my thoughts, to my fears, to the day looming ahead, that flickering flame would ignite. And for the rest of the day, it would feel like my insides were on fire.
But then Ava would be there: all you have to do is push off the covers, put your feet on the floor, and walk into the lounge. Then you turn on the TV, lift a cup of tea to your mouth and drink. Easy.
And that’s what you do, isn’t it? When you’ve lost someone? You learn to ignore the fire burning your insides; you learn to control the flames. You walk, you eat, you drink, you put the bins out, you go to work, you search for clues, you replay conversations, you call his brother. He comes over.
We travelled again and again to the cliffs, the caves, the hills: the place he disappeared. We ignored the fact that his car was still in the car park, that his backpack had been found a few days later further down the coast. Instead, we stayed up all night searching newspapers for signs of a missing person, a climber with head injuries. When spring gave way to summer, and stepping out of the house became harder for me, we drank cold beer in the garden, we ate cold pizza, we kept our phones on us at all times. When the void over the front door threatened to swallow me, James would take my hand so I could step over it. He would drive us when I couldn’t find the strength to sit behind a wheel. He sat with me in hospital waiting rooms on Bonfire Night when a climber with amnesia had been found. We spent Christmas together; we found solace in our companionship. I found strength when I was with him, and when Good Friday came back around, we waited. We waited. We waited. Even though the police told us that he was missing presumed dead. We waited.
Then, after three years had passed, we fell in love.
‘And you know,’ Ava continues. ‘There are worse things that could go wrong… You could do a Ross from Friends and say the wrong name.’ She shrugs her shoulders. Our friendship allows her to say the things that most wouldn’t. ‘Too much?’
‘Just a touch, and thanks a lot, that’s made me feel a whole lot better.’ She dusts off the crumbs from her hands and stands back up, placing a hand on my shoulder. I look up at her; her face is serious for a moment.
‘You’re doing the right thing you know, marrying him.’ She nods over to the bar where James is looking at me .
‘I know.’
He smiles; even from here I can see the intensity of his gaze. I smile back. We may not have had the meet-cute Kit and I had, we might not have had the most conventional start, but it’s moments like this, where the sound falls away so the voices and scrapes of cutlery are dimmed; moments where the edges around us blur, where it is just me and him. Looking for answers. And instead, finding each other.