The Guilt Trip(36)

“I know what I heard,” says Noah. “He said, ‘Come on, this way.’”

“But you must have known it looked dangerous,” says Rachel. “If Jack told you to put your head in an oven, you wouldn’t do it, would you?” Rachel attempts to laugh.

“No, but I’d lost sight of Will, and in the absence of him telling me what I should be doing, Jack seemed the next safe bet.”

“But maybe it was just a miscommunication,” says Rachel. “Maybe he didn’t make himself clear and you didn’t hear him correctly. I’m sure he wouldn’t have taken you out there intentionally.”

Noah goes to counter the argument, but seems to think better of it. Instead, he looks at her with soft eyes and smiles. “I hope you’re right,” he says.

In that moment, it’s as if a time machine has picked them both up and dropped them into 2001.

Rachel can see him at the airport, standing under the departures board, begging her to go on the year-long trip they’d planned so meticulously.

“What if this is our only chance?” he’d said.

“But what if I came with you and forever regretted not staying with Jack?” she’d said.

He’d kissed her in answer and for those few minutes she’d wondered how she could even question it.

“I’ll wait for you,” he said, when they eventually came up for air.

“If we’re meant to be, we’ll find a way.”

“I hope you’re right,” he’d said.

By the time she saw him again, she was married with a baby, and she’s spent the past twenty years convinced she’d done the right thing. Except now, with him looking at her as if he’s trying to read her mind, she wonders if she made the wrong decision after all.

She shakes herself down as the unfamiliar, and wholly unwelcome, thoughts wrap themselves around her psyche. She tells herself that this is merely a knee-jerk reaction to seeing Noah unconscious on the beach today. That it’s natural to feel panicked and scared when faced with the prospect of losing the best friend she’s ever had. All those feelings are perfectly understandable. But what she hadn’t bargained for was the acute sense of grief she’d felt on realizing that they might never get their chance.

“Could I get a gin and bitter lemon, please?” says an old woman coming up beside Rachel and breaking the spell she’s been momentarily under.

Rachel smiles warmly and the woman smiles back, her eyes shining. “What a lovely do,” she says.

“Isn’t it?” says Rachel. “If this is just the warm-up, I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.”

The woman nods in agreement. “I’m Ali’s grandmother,” she says. “Are you friends of hers?”

“Well, yes, we are,” says Rachel, nodding. “But we’re more from Will’s side.”

“He seems a lovely boy,” says the woman.

“Oh, he is,” says Rachel. “She’s got a good one there.”

“He reminds me of my boy, looks-wise—when he was younger, of course.” She laughs ruefully. “I call him my boy, but he’s almost sixty. How on earth I could possibly have a sixty-year-old son, I don’t know.”

Rachel looks around the room of forty or so people, most of whom are now milling about, or have swapped seats, leaving glaring gaps in the carefully thought-out table plan.

“Is he here?” asks Rachel, looking for who she assumes is Maria’s brother.

“Oh no,” says the woman. “I’m Alison’s father’s mother, but since their divorce, it’s only me she stays in touch with. I’m afraid my son wasn’t the best role model. He drank too much, went out too much … he really put poor Maria through the wringer until, one day, she decided enough was enough.”

“Oh right,” says Rachel, making note of another part of Ali’s backstory that she’d omitted to reveal. “It’s interesting that Will reminds you of your son, then. They say that women often gravitate toward men like their father, even if it’s not a conscious decision.”

The old woman smiles wryly. “Well, let’s just hope that he’s only similar in looks, and not personality. As ashamed as I am to admit it, I wouldn’t want Alison to end up with someone like my son.”

Rachel smiles and puts a reassuring hand over the woman’s on the bar. “The only problem Ali will have is trying to keep up with Will’s wanderlust.” And his desire for children, she thinks.

“His wanderlust?” queries the woman in a high-pitched tone. “That doesn’t sound very conducive to a happily married life.”

Noah laughs. “It’s not that kind of wander or lust. She just means he’s always got half an eye on taking off to explore the world. It’s how he’s always been, but now he’s got Ali, he’s got someone to do it with, if they both feel so inclined.” He takes another large slug of his gin.

“Oh, I see,” says the woman, clearly relieved. “It’s all such a worry, isn’t it? You think they’re hard work when they’re little, but that’s just the start of it. You worry even more when they grow up.”

“That’s very true,” says Rachel knowingly.

“Do you have children, then?”