The Guest List(36)

JULES


The Bride


Charlie and I are up on the battlements, looking out at the glitter of lights along the mainland. We left the others to their disgusting game. There’s something illicit about it, just the two of us up here. Something reckless. Perhaps it’s being on top of the world with the steep drop beneath us – invisible but very much there – adding a frisson of excitement, making everything feel slightly freighted with danger. Or that we’re cloaked by darkness. That anything could happen up here and no one would know.

‘It’s so good to have you here,’ I tell him. ‘You know you’re my best man, really?’

‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘It’s good to be here. Why did you choose this place?’

‘Oh, you know. My Irish roots. And it’s so exclusive, I like the idea of being first. There’s the remoteness, too: good for deterring any paps.’

‘They’d really try and get photos of his wedding?’ He sounds incredulous, like he doesn’t believe Will’s celebrity justifies it.

‘They might. And it’s so on-brand for Will, having his wedding in such a wild place.’

All of what I’ve told him is true, in a way. But not the whole truth.

I rest my head against his shoulder. I think I feel him go still. Perhaps it doesn’t feel quite so natural as it once did, being physically close like this. Come to think of it, did it ever?

Charlie clears his throat. ‘Can I ask you a question?’

He sounds serious. I sense a touch of wariness. ‘Go ahead.’

‘He does makes you happy, doesn’t he?’

I lift my head a fraction off his shoulder. ‘What do you mean?’

I feel him shrug. ‘Just that. You know how much I care about you, Jules.’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘He does. And I could ask you the same about Hannah.’

‘That’s very different—’

‘Really? How so?’ I don’t want to hear his reply; I don’t need yet another person telling me that it has all been so quick, between Will and me. And then, because I’ve drunk more than I meant to this evening – and because when else am I going to be able to? – I say it: ‘Are you saying that you would have made me happier?’

‘Jules—’ He says it as a kind of groan. ‘Don’t do that.’

‘Do what?’ I ask innocently.

‘We wouldn’t have worked. We’re friends, good friends. You know that.’ At that I feel him pulling away from me, retreating from the cliff edge.

Do I, though? And is he really so convinced of that? I know he wanted me once. I still think about that night. The memory I have returned to so many times … when I have needed some inspiration in the bath, for example. We have never spoken of it since. And because we haven’t, it has retained its power. I’m sure he still thinks about it too.

‘We were different people back then,’ he says, as though he might have read my mind. I wonder if he’s as convinced by his words as he’s making out. ‘I wasn’t asking because of anything like that,’ he says. ‘Not out of jealousy … or anything.’

‘Really? Because it sounds to me like you’re a bit jealous.’

‘I’m not, I—’

‘Did I tell you how good he is in bed? That’s the sort of thing friends are meant to tell each other, isn’t it?’ I know I’m pushing it, but I can’t help myself.

‘Look,’ Charlie says. ‘I just want you to be happy.’

How bloody patronising. I lift my head fully away from his shoulder. I feel the distance between us expanding now, metaphorically as well as physically. ‘I’m perfectly capable of knowing what does and doesn’t make me happy,’ I say. ‘In case you haven’t noticed I’m thirty-four. Not a sixteen-year-old virgin totally in awe of you.’

Charlie grimaces. ‘God, I know. Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I care, that’s all.’

Something has suddenly occurred to me. ‘Charlie?’ I ask. ‘Did you write me a note?’

‘A note?’

I hear the answer to my question in his confusion. It wasn’t him.

‘It’s nothing,’ I say. ‘Forget it. You know what? I think I’m going to turn in. If I go now, I can get eight hours’ sleep before tomorrow.’

‘OK,’ he says. I sense that he is relieved I’ve called it a night and that pisses me off.

‘Give me a hug?’ I ask.

‘Sure.’

I lean into him. His body is softer than Will’s, so much less taut than it used to be. But the scent of him is the same. So familiar, somehow, which is strange – considering how long it’s been.

It’s still there, I think. He must feel it too. But then attraction never really goes away, does it? I’m sure of it: he’s jealous.

When I get back to the room Will’s getting undressed. He grins at me, I move toward him.

‘Shall we pick up where we left off earlier?’ he murmurs.

It’s one way, I think, to erase the humiliation of that conversation with Charlie.

I tear open the remaining buttons on his shirt, he rips one of the straps of my jumpsuit trying to get it off me. It’s always like the first time with him – that haste – only better, now we know exactly what the other wants. We fuck braced against the bed, him entering me from behind. I come, hard. I’m not quiet about it. In a strange way, it feels as though much of the evening since we got interrupted earlier has been a kind of foreplay. Feeling the gaze of the others upon us: envious, awed. Seeing in their reactions to us how good we look together. And yes, the hurt of having crossed a line with Charlie and being rebuffed. Maybe he’ll hear us.