22. C-could you stay with me today?
C-could you stay with me today?
Mike
Vicky was sad, and I hated it.
Since I picked her up about an hour ago, all she’d done was stare out of the window of my ancient Land Rover. The contrast between this Vicky and the Vicky I’d taken out on a date two nights ago was stark.
After the first-date disaster of taking her to a fancy restaurant where she couldn’t actually eat, a second date entailing fish and chips on my sofa—something she seemed thrilled about but which I considered well below wooing level—then a date crashed by all our nosy friends and family, I’d wanted this date to be perfect.
So I’d tried to come up with something Vicky would think was perfect. I’d told her to wear her most comfortable leggings and hoodie, picked her up from her house and taken her to a hide in Regent’s Park used by the Zoological Society of London to watch the little prickly guys.
It was the first time I’d ever made a picnic, but I’d done my research. Lottie told me, in great detail, how to make a sandwich that Vicky would eat.
It was all worth it to see the look on Vicky’s face when we arrived at the hide. The way she looked at me, like I’d hung the moon for her, when in reality, I’d made a sandwich and managed to sneak us into a park at night, was almost unreal.
“You like hedgehogs too?” she’d asked with wide eyes.
I’d pulled her into me and hugged her close, saying, “I like you, ” into her hair.
When I pulled back, she was blinking rapidly, and I could see the unshed tears in her eyes.
Bloody hell, had I actually thought that this woman wanted designer clothes and fancy cars? Had I really believed she thought she was better than everyone else?
She talked about hedgehogs and wildlife preservation for an hour straight after that. When I had to gently tell her to eat her sandwich, she’d blinked as if coming out of a trance, and then a look of mortification had swept over her features.
“I did it again, didn’t I?” she asked, her face flaming red.
“What, love?” I asked with a frown.
“Banging on about my obsessions. I did it again. Y-you should have stopped me.”
“Hey, I want to hear about the hedgehogs too, you know. You can’t be selfish with the hedgehog facts. That’s not fair.”
She tilted her head to the side. “You’re teasing me, aren’t you?” Her voice was steady, but I could just about make out a small thread of hurt running through it.
I turned fully to her on my camping chair. “Vicky, no. I’m not teasing. I like hearing about the hedgehogs. I like hearing about anything that makes you happy. You listened to me bang on about welding yesterday.”
There was a long pause before she leapt on me and kissed me.
We’d had another standoff that evening when I told her we could sleep together but couldn’t have sex because she’d be sore. That didn’t go down well at all. Then I’d refused to teach her the “logistics of a blow job”, which didn’t go down well either.
We ended up in a ridiculous negotiation over it.
Vicky wanted an exact number of “dates” before I’d teach her. It was insane. Of course, I wanted a blow job. Fuck. But this girl was a virgin three days ago, and we were going to take it slowly, goddamn it.
But now sitting in my passenger seat, she was not babbling about hedgehogs or universal income—another of her pet obsessions, which I got her started on last night on the phone, setting off an hour-long explanation—it was actually fascinating stuff, and I just loved hearing that unbridled enthusiasm in her soft voice.
No, she wasn’t talking about anything. And she looked really, really far away.
Like she’d retreated from me, like she was back behind protective walls.
I reached out and laid my hand on her leg.
She flinched as if she’d forgotten I was even there.
“Sorry, love,” I said quickly. “Is this okay?”
Before I could pull my hand away, hers had clamped down on it and gripped hard, as if holding onto a lifeline. “Yes. Very okay.”
“Are you okay?”
She bit her lip and took a deep breath in and out, but before she could answer we’d pulled into the church car park.
“We’d better go in,” Vicky said, glancing at her watch. “It’s seven minutes until the ceremony starts.”
I nodded. “Right.”
I wanted to ask her why she wasn’t coming with the family. Wasn’t that what normally happened at weddings with sisters? But then again, what did I know? My sister was getting married, and she’d asked me to walk her down the aisle, so I was definitely not sitting in the audience at the church.
But maybe rich people did things differently? Maybe they were meeting outside the church?
“Mike, do I look… do I look too showy?”
My eyebrows went up.
Vicky was wearing a soft blue shift dress. It was simple and elegant. She’d paired it with a small hat thing, the kind that I didn’t really understand how it stayed on a girl’s head.
“You look beautiful,” I told her the truth.
She looked out of the window again with a frown as she chewed on her bottom lip. Somehow, it felt like I’d said the wrong thing.
As we walked into the church, Vicky kept her head down, muttering thanks to the ushers as they gave her a programme and moving quickly past them. Nobody greeted her. Nobody tried to hug her. It was completely bizarre.
Then, compounding the bizarreness, once we were in the church, she darted into the back row and sat down. This was her sister . Why the hell would she sit in the back row?
When I sat down next to her, she huddled close to me, as close as she could get, despite the fact we had the whole church pew to ourselves.
Not that I was complaining, but it was almost as though she was scared of something.
“Vicky,” I whispered. “Shouldn’t you be up at the front where the family sits? I can stay back here if you want?”
Maybe she didn’t want to force a random into the mix on her sister’s wedding day.
I mean, she’d seemed very keen, almost desperate for me to come, but I could see how awkward it might be to have me muscling in when I’d never even met this side of her family.
“C-could you stay with me today?” she said in a small voice. “Sorry. I know it’s a bit clingy of me, but just for today, could you make sure you’re with me? Um… all the time?”
I was starting to feel a bit uneasy. My instincts were screaming at me at this point to bundle Vicky up, carry her out of the church, and take her back to my cabin where she was safe.
Which was ridiculous, wasn’t it?
This was her family. Surely, this should be a happy day?
The conversation with her mother had been a bit odd; why was Vicky buying her sister’s ten-grand wedding dress?
I definitely hadn’t liked the sound of the woman, or the way she spoke to her daughter, but when I pressed Vicky about her family, she said they were fine.
But why was she in this current panicked state if her family was fine?
Something else was going on here.
“Of course, I’ll stay with you,” I said in a firm tone.
“Oh, thanks,” she said, her voice full of relief.
When I turned to her, she smiled up at me; it was the first one she’d managed all day. But when she turned back to the front of the church, the strangest thing happened. Her smile dropped, and her face drained of all colour as she sank lower into her seat.
I followed the direction of her gaze, and there was the groom. He was staring right at Vicky, and he was smiling.
Why wasn’t she smiling back at him?
My sense of unease grew, especially when his eyes flicked over to me, and his smile wavered before he turned back to the altar.
A hush fell over the church as a blonde woman in a huge hat came down the aisle and made her way up to the front, pausing on her way to greet people and wave at different groups.
I assumed this was Vicky’s mother, but she didn’t even glance at her daughter, and if anything, Vicky shrank further into me when her mother made her entrance.
I leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Vicky, is something—?” I was cut off by the organ playing, and the vicar telling us to be upstanding for the entrance of the bride.
My God, Vicky’s sister was wearing the most complicated bloody dress I’d ever seen in my life. There was a lot of lace involved, and the train was almost the entire length of the aisle.
She had five adult bridesmaids, all in dresses the same salmon pink as the flowers the church was decked out in.
The service went on for a while. There were no fewer than five readings, and one of the bridesmaids sang a horrific song during the signing of the register.
And throughout the whole thing, not one member of her family acknowledged Vicky. Not once . It was beyond strange.
Outside the church, things got even stranger.
Vicky stood separately from everyone else as the ushers and bridesmaids organised people into rows to shower the happy couple with confetti and get photos of them emerging from the church.
Then the whole wedding party had photos together. Still, no acknowledgement of Vicky.
I was beginning to think that they hadn’t actually realised Vicky was there, until suddenly, her mother was in front of her with a sour expression on her face as she glared down at her.
It was then that I remembered Margot’s words from weeks ago:
I don’t have a high opinion of the woman, seeing as she slept with my husband for years behind my back, but she is also one of the most vile people on the planet.
“You’ll have to come for the family photo,” Vicky’s mother snapped, grabbing Vicky’s arm above her elbow.
Vicky flinched at the sudden contact, and her hand tightened in mine.
“Honestly, Victoria,” the woman spat. “Don’t embarrass me, today of all days. And for God’s sake, try and smile. It’s not that hard.”
I was already on the edge with the arm grabbing and the way she was speaking to Vicky, plus the fact that she hadn’t hugged her or acknowledged her, other than barking out orders, but what happened next pushed me right over it.
“Well?” she asked, giving Vicky’s arm a hard shake, which in turn, shook her entire body, forcing a small, distressed sound from the back of Vicky’s throat—a very quiet version of the sounds she’d made when she was under really severe stress at the fireworks.
I stepped forward, pulling Vicky behind me with my hand that was still holding hers, and putting my other hand on her mother’s arm to yank her off her daughter and set her away.
“What the fuck is going on here?” I said, my voice low and furious.
Vicky’s mother blinked at me. “Who are you?”
“Vicky’s boyfriend. Who are you?”
Her eyes went from me to Vicky and then narrowed.
I decided I didn’t like that, so I snapped my fingers in front of the woman’s face.
She jerked in shock, and her eyes went wide.
“Don’t look at her,” I snapped. “Eyes up here. Now you were going to explain who the fuck you are, and why the fuck you’re assaulting my girlfriend in broad daylight.”
“I’m her mother.”
“Well, you’ll forgive the confusion…” I deadpanned. “You see, the way you’ve just greeted your daughter did not seem very motherly to me.”
“Mike, it’s fine,” Vicky said from behind me.
“It is not fine, Vicky,” I said, keeping my eyes on this viper of a woman.
Vicky’s mother looked between me and her daughter with cold calculation, then she plastered the fakest smile I’ve ever seen in my life on her face.
“Goodness, well this is all just a misunderstanding. Of course, I’m a little tense from all the organising.” She turned to Vicky, her fake smile now looking like it was causing her actual pain. “Darling, do introduce me properly to your young man. You are naughty not telling me about him.”
“Mum, this is Mike,” Vicky said, still in that small voice. “And Mike, this is my mum. Mrs. Williams.”
“Oh please, do call me Janet.” She was all sugary sweetness now, and it was making me feel vaguely ill. But when she held out her hand to me, Vicky gave my other hand a squeeze, so I decided not to take any more of a stand.
“Janet,” I said in a short voice, giving her hand a brief but maybe too firm shake.
“Would you forgive me if I steal away my daughter?”
Could you stay with me today?
Vicky’s voice from earlier floated through my brain, along with that slight thread of fear that ran through it.
I tightened my grip on Vicky’s hand. “Lead the way.”