Chapter 32
Ginny had heard Mattia sing several times since the beginning of the year, but his soulful rendition of Schubert’s Ave Maria nearly reduced her to tears as Sophie finally made her way down the aisle on her father’s arm. Next to her, Kira was surreptitiously swiping at her cheeks.
‘Gets me every time, the fucker,’ she whispered. ‘No one should have a soul that beautiful.’
‘Shall I wangle it so you’re at the front when Sophie throws the bouquet?’ Ginny suggested under her breath.
‘Don’t you dare,’ Kira replied. ‘I will take my own damn time to marry that man.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘Shh, you two,’ Tash leaned closer to say. ‘I’d like silence while I gloat. They would never have got together if I hadn’t dragged her on that first adventure trip all those years ago.’
Sophie reached the altar and greeted Andreas with a conspiratorial smile.
Rhys stood behind the priest and slightly to the side, fading into the background as he always managed to.
Ginny enjoyed watching him for a moment, the relaxed but perfectly secure grip he had on the camera, the glint of silver at his wrist. Studying his fingers made her cheeks heat and she forced herself to look away.
For someone who avoided emotional situations, his ability to capture them on camera was remarkable.
He observed everyone, she tried to reason with herself, but every time she glanced at him – which was too often – she remembered him admitting his camera roll would make it obvious that there was something going on between them.
She wondered what he saw. The light touch to her ear had felt just as romantic as any of the weddings she’d witnessed.
When he looked up and caught her gaze, she imagined he could see what she was thinking about, because one corner of his mouth kicked up.
The opening prayer and greetings from the priest passed in a blur of stolen glances, mostly not returned, because he was busy behind his camera, and then the priest asked the bride and groom to face each other for the ceremony and Cillian came forward with the rings, earning a hug and a ruffle of his hair from his godfather.
It was a traditional Catholic wedding, mostly held in English, with a few comments in German, but all of their family and friends held their breath to hear Andreas promise to take Sophie as his wife, in sickness and in health, to love her and honour her all the days of his life.
After Sophie did the same and pressed the wedding band onto Andreas’s hand, he gave a gruff nod and exhaled on a long sigh.
Everything as it should be. He pressed a quick kiss to Sophie’s mouth.
‘Not yet,’ the priest scolded him, but Sophie just laughed.
Compared to most of the ceremonies Ginny had witnessed, this one had been simple, the same as many couples before them, with no personalised vows, no expensive violin quartet or practical challenges like sunsets or mountain tops.
But the sincerity was touching and the mood light and jovial and it was perfect – in its own way.
Perfect like a moment in time that had to be lived to the full, no matter how it came.
As Sophie and Andreas retreated down the aisle, hands clutched tightly, Ginny had the strange thought that, even though the moment was uniquely perfect, for once she couldn’t imagine herself getting married like this, to any of the faceless grooms she’d pictured over the years.
In fact, she couldn’t picture herself up at the mediaeval castle from Tuesday either. Her favourite Italian villas, the beach weddings, the freezing little chapel in snowy Tyrol, drenched in mistletoe, were all a big nope. She couldn’t picture anything – except…
As she followed the wedding party around to the golden chestnut tree on the other side of the church, a sense of dread seeped across her skin. Something had changed – something fundamental – not because of her dating ban or her experiment with a casual fling.
Because of Rhys himself.
He was the one person she’d been with who was never supposed to be the groom in her na?ve dreams. But the faceless hypothetical guy of her future was suddenly gone.
She didn’t even particularly want a wedding – any wedding. Oh, she was supremely happy for Sophie, perhaps happier than she’d been for any of her brides over the years. She loved her beautifully printed order of service and the pew bouquets and the wedding favours they’d finished off together.
But she didn’t want to be the one in the white dress.
All she wanted was what she had – or what she had had over the past few days. Secret looks and shared smiles, soft midnight conversations with everything laid bare, a quiet presence at her side and in the car with her.
Her eyes stung in earnest as her heart looped in her chest. It wasn’t supposed to feel like this. It had crept up on her so quietly, lulling her into a false sense of security and then bam! It was done. She was in love with him – awfully and marvellously in love.
‘Shit,’ she muttered to herself. ‘You fool.’ But she couldn’t even take herself to task for doing the predictable thing and falling for him. That part had happened so differently from how she’d expected, she didn’t know how she could have known – or stopped it.
The sense of unease rippling over her skin brought back the words of the hypnotherapist and her feelings from the last time she’d stood and studied this tree, where love had been photographed over two generations.
She was terrified. She didn’t know if she wanted this, at least not without the storybook guarantee of a happy ending.
But when she looked at Rhys, hunched behind his camera, the familiar sweep of hair over his forehead and his keen eyes taking in the scene in his own unique way, that wasn’t quite true.
She didn’t want this to end, but she couldn’t imagine never knowing him, never coming close to him the way he’d allowed her to.
One thing was certain: she needed to rewrite her bridesmaid speech.
‘Where’s Ginny?’ he asked Toni when they arrived at the reception venue.
Rhys hated milling groups of people at the best of times, but milling groups of people that stopped him from being near Ginny – and working out whatever was going on that made him need to be near her – were pure hell.
Delicate emotions had glowed on her face all afternoon, especially during the ceremony.
And after the ceremony, she’d thrummed with something, not upset, exactly, but if he hadn’t known her body so well, he might have been worried she was stressed.
Although it would be fair enough if she were stressed. The wedding was an enormous event.
‘She said she had to fine-tune her speech,’ Toni answered. ‘I’m supposed to hold down the fort, although this fort doesn’t look like it needs holding down.’
They were standing in the courtyard of the fortified castle on a hill above Bruneck, enjoying drinks and canapés under the ancient sundial, crenellated walls extending high above them. Two iron sculptures of eastern origin from the museum collection stood guard near the scarred wooden door.
He’d decided to take a break from shooting. The light was terrible and he’d already filled a memory card, meaning he had more than five thousand images to sift through. He wasn’t used to any of this and when Ginny had disappeared, he’d felt adrift in a way that concerned him.
‘Maybe Laurie will know where she went,’ Toni said with a perplexed smile, watching as the tall adventure guide sipped from a bottle of beer while apparently listening to Willard and Oswald, but he was probably just wondering when dinner would be served.
‘Although I still don’t quite understand that development. ’
‘Neither do I,’ he replied without thought.
‘What do you need her for, anyway? Maybe I can help?’
He’d forgotten he needed a pretext for talking to her. He couldn’t just say he wanted to look at her again and imagine his hands around her waist.
‘Oh, no, it’s fine,’ he managed. ‘I just wanted an idea of… where the, uh… the speeches…’ He made a hand gesture and hoped it was enough to end the sentence.
‘I’ll tell her to find you if I see her, but I’m sure she’ll make her presence known soon.’
He nodded thanks.
‘Has it been too bad, photographing the wedding? I don’t think Ginny knows about your… you know.’
‘She does now. But it’s okay. It’s been okay. The larger groups are difficult, but I don’t imagine it’s much easier for photographers who can remember faces. Going through all the pictures and touching them up will be a challenge, but Ginny said she’d help with that, like she did last time.’
He could suggest they look through them together.
It could be one last reason to see her. He’d accepted the idea of going home to Wales before he left for Canada, ripping the plaster off cleanly, but one more opportunity to sit with her and soak up the strange comfort of being near her could be a nice memory to consolidate all of the others.
Or maybe that was just an excuse.
‘Honestly,’ he began, ‘I’ve found… something here.
I think I never imagined I’d be able to take portraits – not before the accident and certainly not afterwards.
But now I’ve been forced to…’ He wasn’t sure what he wanted to communicate – or admit.
‘There’s more to people than their faces,’ he finished flippantly.
Toni studied him warmly. ‘I can’t wait to see the photos. I’m sure they’ll be something special.’
The photos of Ginny certainly were. She was the one. Not romantically. He didn’t believe in one soulmate. But she was so open and expressive that she’d taught him how to photograph people, just by being his subject.
His skin prickled with the awareness of how much she meant to him, months of fascination developing into something tangible over the past week. He rubbed a hand over his hair in an attempt to gather his spiralling thoughts.
‘Oh, is that Ginny’s?’ Toni gestured to his wrist, where his cuffs had ridden up to reveal the beige-striped hair tie she’d slipped over his hand the other night. Heat bloomed in his cheeks.
‘Uh…’
‘I’m sure I’ve seen her wearing this type. Did she drop it somewhere?’
‘Yes,’ he answered quickly. ‘I found it and… Oh, I didn’t realise it was hers. I can give it back when I see her.’ That would be a better idea than wearing it on his wrist until it fell to pieces, which was what he’d been planning to do.
It was just a hair tie, damn it.
‘Good evening, everyone! Hello again.’
‘There,’ Toni said, gesturing to where Ginny had appeared by the door. ‘I thought you wouldn’t be able to miss her.’
He never seemed to be able to. But when he left…
‘Welcome to the Castello di Brunico – Schloss Bruneck. Built by the bishops of Brixen many centuries ago, this building is now a museum dedicated to the cultures of mountain people across the world, a subject I’m sure you can all ask Andreas more about over dinner.
If you’d like to come through, it’s nearly time for the speeches. ’
This was professional Ginny, polished and confident, but as she stepped aside to allow others ahead of her, he saw it again – something in the set of her shoulders. Perhaps she was nervous about her speech? That didn’t seem to track with what he knew of her.
The dinner tables were set up in an ornate state room with white stucco and gold detailing. The slanted rays of the evening sun illuminated the recessed windows, boosted by soft light from the brass chandeliers.
Rhys switched the Sony’s battery and tried out a few aperture settings, testing different places to stand as the natural light faded.
Ginny was busy talking to a woman in a black service uniform.
Now was definitely not the time to ask her if anything was wrong – or if she wanted to meet to go through the photos when they were back in England.
It wasn’t long before the guests had taken their seats and the bride and groom arrived to a welcome of cheering and applause.
Rhys marvelled once more at how relaxed Andreas looked.
His old friend wasn’t a fan of crowds either, but with his hand clamped around Sophie’s, the ring on his finger, he was sanguine and quietly content.
Rhys could see it in his body language and hoped the transformation had been captured in the photos.
Andreas stood to welcome the guests. ‘I won’t bore you with a long speech, especially because most of you heard me sacrificing my dignity before the ceremony.
Besides, the important bit is done. We’ll hand over the stage to the rest of you, since apparently people have something to say that everybody needs to hear. ’
Rhys wasn’t sure if he was being intentionally funny or just his usual self, but his short welcome went down well.
Petra and Oswald delivered a speech together, translating for each other into English.
Sophie’s mother also kept hers short and sweet, tissue at the ready.
Instead of a formal speech, Willard told the story of his first summit with Andreas, the Dufourspitze on the Swiss-Italian border. Then it was Ginny’s turn.
The little details of her were familiar through his viewfinder. He noticed her throat bob and a slight tremor in her hands as she clutched her tablet. Her gaze darted to him and held there. It made his hair stand on end, to have her see him through the camera. He was her subject as she was his.
Then she lifted her chin, looked up and out at the gathered guests and started to speak.