Beth
Beth
Nine years after
Vaughan has flown back especially for the wedding. She takes his car and meets him at Heathrow, running towards him like an excited child, and he picks her up and she swings her legs around his waist and kisses him hard on the mouth.
Breathing in his smell, that same familiar safe smell, makes her want to cry.
‘Oh my, I missed you so much,’ she says, feeling her cheeks grow hot. ‘Thank you for coming back for this.’
‘I missed you too,’ he says, and from the corner of her eye she sees something. Someone has noticed her. Has noticed them. Is pointing and getting out their camera phone.
‘Come on, the car is in car park B, wherever the hell that is,’ she says.
They find it eventually and she doesn’t turn around – barely breathes – until they are sitting in the car together and pulling out of the car park towards the motorway.
‘Are you jet-lagged?’ she asks, as he yawns. Vaughan doesn’t usually get tired.
‘Not yet. I kipped a bit on the plane.’
She smiles.
‘Thank you for doing this. It means… a lot to me.’
She was so shocked when the gilt-edged invitation plopped through her letterbox that she almost passed out. It had been around a year after that night she’d been round for dinner with Nick, and they’d kissed on the doorstep. Afterwards, she spent weeks trying to work out who had initiated it – whether it was her fault, or his, but she couldn’t come to a firm conclusion.
After that, she didn’t contact him, and he didn’t contact her, and that seemed fair enough.
The right thing to do. Clearly, they both regretted it. It was just a moment of nostalgia, or… something.
But then the invitation arrived.
The lettering was embossed.
You are cordially invited to celebrate the marriage of
Nicholas Parker
and
Margaret Sullivan-James
It took her a few seconds to work out who the invite was actually for.
Nicholas and Margaret. The most unlikely sounding pair.
She remembers them discussing him proposing as they ate takeaway, and felt briefly panicked that somehow, it was her fault. Had she pushed him into it?
But no, that was ridiculous.
Either way, she knew, as she read it, that she couldn’t go without Vaughan. She would feel too guilty, too uncomfortable, like she was trespassing somewhere she really didn’t belong.
They are due in the Cotswolds by 2 p.m. today. The happy couple have been lucky with the weather. It’s a bright November day, and unseasonably warm.
When she first saw the date on the invitation, she wondered if Nick realised that he’d chosen to get married just three days before the ninth anniversary of the fire, or whether he’d managed to forget that date, finally, and the whole thing was just a bizarre coincidence.
They’re driving up and staying over at a gastropub down the road from the venue.
Before they leave, Vaughan has a quick shower and Beth gets into her dress. It’s Erdem, a delicate floral pattern with a high lace-panelled neckline and a full skirt. Her favourite designer.
As she zips up the back she thinks how ridiculous it is that she now has a ‘favourite’ designer and knows she’s been spending too much time in this crazy industry.
Vaughan joins her in the bedroom, suit trousers on, shirt neatly tucked in. He puts his arm around her waist and kisses her on the cheek.
‘God I’ve missed you,’ he says.
She turns around to kiss him properly.
‘We’d better not,’ she says, as his fingers fumble for the zip at the back of her dress. ‘We’ll be late.’
‘I know, I know.’
He kisses her once again, then walks to his side of the bed and rummages in the drawer to find his cufflinks.
‘You look tanned,’ she says, as the hazy sun filters through the window, falling on him like a stage light. He doesn’t seem to age.
‘Honestly B, you have no idea what it’s like out there. Waking up to sunshine every day. It’s the closest I’ll ever get to heaven.’
She swallows. It has been three months since he left for Los Angeles. Three months of long-distance flights and inconvenient Facetimes.
Three months since he has seen his daughter, something that seems to upset Beth more than it upsets him.
She doesn’t want to talk about this, not today.
‘I’m so happy you’re here. Let’s just try to enjoy ourselves.’
*
‘How do you know this guy again?’ Vaughan asks, as they round the corner into the village.
She clucks her tongue. He often forgets stuff like this, and it makes her sad because they’ve been together for nearly four years now, and surely, surely, he ought to remember? But then she knows his brain must be at capacity most of the time, given all the things he’s juggling, so she can understand it too.
‘It’s Nick, remember? Nick from my halls. I shared a bathroom with him.’
He nods.
‘Ah yeah that’s right. The one who dropped out.’
She bristles.
‘He finished his degree elsewhere.’
‘And he’s a banker? Right?’
‘Um, I don’t remember exactly what he does. Something to do with hedge funds.’
Vaughan makes a small huff sound.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘No, what? Tell me.’
‘It’s just funny,’ he says, as he pulls into the hotel car park. ‘You being friends with a banker.’
‘He’s not a banker! He’s not…’ She tails off, wondering what he isn’t. Why did he go into the investment world? She never really asked him. She’s not sure he thought much about it either.
‘When did you last see him?’
‘What?’
‘This guy, Nick. When did you last see him?’
‘I can’t remember. Why?’
‘I don’t know. Just curious I guess.’
‘Oh. Last year, I guess, after I got the invitation to the wedding. But we’re not… you know, it’s uni friends, right? It doesn’t matter if you don’t see them for ages, you can pick right back from where you left off.’
Vaughan nods, switches off the engine.
The collar of her dress is itchy against her neck.
‘Hmm.’
‘I guess it’s just that thing you do, when you’re getting married. You invite everyone.’
Why does it feel like she’s trying to justify something odd?
‘Well, it depends,’ he replies.
Vaughan takes her hand, lightly strokes her wrist.
‘On what?’
‘What kind of wedding you have. I always imagined…’
‘Go on,’ she says.
‘I don’t know. Something small.’
She doesn’t say anything. He’s being disingenuous because he’s already had a big wedding. A huge one, in fact. To Sophie, his ex-wife, Edie’s mother.
‘What about you?’
‘I haven’t really thought about it too much,’ she says. Her heart is hammering – actually hammering – in her ribcage.
He gives her a tight smile and reaches into the footwell of the back seat to retrieve the bottle of champagne he insisted on bringing, even though she’d already bought them a present from their gift list: some cut-glass crystal tumblers that she really couldn’t imagine Nick picking out.
They walk together, hand-in-hand, into the venue. A beautiful stately home with a vast marble-lined lobby. She scans the crowds, hoping that there won’t be any pointers here. She hates being pointed at. But surely these people will have more manners? Surely these people – these bankers and lawyers – don’t have time to go to the theatre or watch indie films? They won’t even know who she is.
Vaughan takes two glasses of champagne from the silver tray proffered by a young boy in a waistcoat, and hands her one.
‘God, it’s very British ,’ he says, looking over at the sea of fascinators. ‘Or maybe I’ve just been in California for too long. Where are your uni lot then? Care to introduce me?’
‘I…’ She stares at him in dismay.
She doesn’t have any friends from university apart from her drama friends, who never knew Nick and won’t be here.
‘I don’t think there are any… Nick left uni after one term. I don’t think he has many other friends from that time.’
‘Oh yeah, of course. Sorry.’
‘It’s OK.’
‘Why did he drop out again?’
She feels sick, panicky. But then a man wearing a waistcoat comes out and bangs a gong, and she’s saved from explaining that he left because of what happened to them.
She has never talked about the fire with Vaughan. Not properly. It startles her then: the realisation that she’s never talked about it properly with anyone. Not even Nick. It had seemed best to just bury it. Try to move on as best they could.
The man stands stiffly beside a double door at the back of the marble lobby.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats in the Yellow Room. The ceremony is about to start.’
Beth glances at Vaughan. His cheeks are slightly red but he seems relaxed enough. She squeezes his hand as they follow the huddle of people through to the Yellow Room, which looks like it could be in Buckingham Palace.
She knows because she went to a party there in 2016, to celebrate 400 years since Shakespeare’s death.
Inside the Yellow Room, gold chairs stand side-by-side, either side of a narrow aisle, tied with great swathes of tulle, interlaced with white roses. Nothing about it says ‘Nick’ to her.
But sure enough, at the end of the aisle, dressed more smartly than she has ever seen him and looking down at his feet, there he is.