Girl A(103)

‘The obvious thing?’ I said.

He swallowed. ‘You don’t know?’ he said. ‘The child abuse thing.’

He paused, waiting for us to take it in.

‘It was big news,’ he said. ‘Huge. Ages ago. There were these parents keeping their kids like animals. Cages, starvation. It had been going on for years. Somewhere up north, of course. And – I’m not making this up – he was one of the children.’

‘That’s a little dark,’ Delilah said. ‘For a wedding.’

‘I feel unwell,’ I said, ‘just thinking about it.’

‘What does that do to a person?’ Delilah said.

‘That’s exactly my point,’ he said. ‘How do you trust somebody like that?’

‘Can you pass me the bread?’ I asked.

‘What happened to the rest of them?’ Delilah said.

‘God knows. A lifetime of therapy. You know, I think a few of them might have died.’

‘Just a few,’ Delilah said to me, and shrugged.

‘What do you do?’ I asked.

‘I work in money,’ he said, as if whatever it was, I wouldn’t understand it.

I said: ‘I’m a lawyer.’

‘A good one?’

I was eating. Delilah leaned across me. ‘The best,’ she said, and that was the end of it.

The dance floor was assembled at the bottom of the gardens, where Delilah and I had been drinking before dinner. Generations of Ana’s family, moving in time. The flower girls darted between them, or else rolled in the grass, snatching at one another’s dresses. Somebody had thrown Ethan into the pool, and now he was in the centre of things, hair slick and bow tie unbuttoned, dripping across the dance floor. I was sinking into myself, I knew. Becoming sadder and softer. Something about the dancing.

Delilah collapsed into the chair beside me.

‘What’s wrong?’ she said.

‘Nothing.’

‘I got the impression you were looking for someone.’

‘No. Just watching.’

She closed her eyes. ‘Always watching,’ she said. ‘What about dancing?’

She rested her head on my shoulder.

‘That man,’ she said, ‘at dinner. Who did he remind you of?’

He was at the edge of things, talking to a girl in a dress which looked cheaper than everybody else’s. Her head was tilted, as if she was trying to decide whether to be impressed or dismissive.

‘Father,’ I said.

‘That’s the thing, you see,’ she said. ‘The world’s full of them.’

She stood up and swayed, and I offered my hand to steady her. She lit a cigarette and lifted her drink, and backed away from me, starting to move and at the same time starting to laugh, reaching back for me. For a while, I watched her dancing, smiling at the absurdity of her – at the way that everybody moved out of her way. At the end of the song, she turned back to me and made a heart with her index fingers and thumbs. Love. That was Delilah: an easy convert to whatever the celebration required.

At two o’clock, I retrieved my blazer and bag. The dance floor was quiet; the last guests sat in huddles in the garden, or drinking from wine bottles on the terrace. I found Ana lying in a tepee, sharing a Magnum with a bridesmaid.

‘Where’s Ethan?’ I said, and she shrugged.

‘Come here,’ she said, and opened her arms, like a child waiting to be lifted. I held her from above, my face in her hair, and like that, close enough for secrets, she said: ‘Today was a good day.’

‘It was. It really was.’

‘I’m sorry. About the last time—’

‘Don’t be.’

‘Hey,’ she said, as if the memory had just bobbed to the surface. ‘At dinner – did you and Delilah pretend to be somebody else?’

When she had finished laughing, she kissed me on each cheek. ‘Send Ethan to me,’ she said, and I nodded. On the cusp of the goodbye, I turned back to her.

‘When we’re next together,’ I said, ‘not tonight, of course – we should talk.’

I walked backwards away from her, with my hands already in my pockets.

‘We should talk about Gabriel,’ I said. ‘He’s doing better. I think that you’d like him.’

Ethan wasn’t in the gardens or in the hotel reception. I asked for a taxi to collect me at the square, and walked back up through the still, dark streets. A few stray guests writhed in a doorway, and a girl stumbled past me, headed for the hotel. The shutters of the town were closed, but between a few of them I saw television lights and the faces of the people watching them. I buttoned my blazer, walking into the wind. In a week, the planes would stop running. The end of the season.

I found Ethan in the square, standing at the church doors. He was looking down the aisle, an amber drink in his hand. I took the few stairs up to meet him. At the threshold, I could see the glint of icons beyond us, waiting in the dark.

‘Ana’s looking for you,’ I said.

‘Lex. We’ve hardly spoken. Have we?’

‘People say that’s what happens when it’s your own wedding.’

‘For the most part,’ he said, ‘I would rather have been talking to you.’