The Guest List(45)

A shiver of movement through the window catches my attention. Below, on the rocks, I see Olivia. She’s wearing the same baggy jumper and ripped jeans as yesterday, picking her way in bare feet towards the edge, where the sea smashes up against the granite in huge explosions of white water. Why on earth isn’t she getting ready, as she should be? Her head is bent, her shoulders slumped, her hair blowing in a tangled rope behind her. There’s a moment when she’s so close to the edge, to the violence of the water, that my breath catches in my throat. She could fall and I wouldn’t be able to get down from here in time to save her. She could drown right there while I stand here helpless.

I rap on the window, but I think she’s ignoring me – or, I admit it’s likely – can’t hear me above the sound of the waves. Luckily, though, she seems to have stepped a little further away from the drop.

Fine. I’m not going to worry any more about her. It’s time to start getting ready in earnest. I could easily have had a make-up artist shipped over from the mainland, but there is no way in hell I’d hand over control of my appearance to someone else on such an important day. If doing your own make-up is good enough for Kate Middleton, it’s good enough for me.

I reach for my make-up bag but a little unexpected tremor of my hand sends the whole thing crashing to the floor. Fuck. I’m never clumsy. Am I … nervous?

I look down at the spilled contents, shining gold tubes of mascara and lipsticks rolling in a bid for freedom across the floorboards, an overturned compact leaking a trail of bronzing powder.

There, in the middle of it all, lies a tiny folded piece of paper, slightly soot-blackened. The sight of it turns my blood cold. I stare at it, unable to look away. How is it possible that such a small thing could have occupied such a huge space in my mind over the last couple of months?

Why on earth did I keep it?

I unfold it even though I don’t need to: the words are imprinted on my memory.

Will Slater is not the man you think he is. He’s a cheat and a liar. Don’t marry him.

I’m sure it’s some random weirdo. Will’s always getting mail from strangers who think they know him, know all about his life. Sometimes I get included in their wrath. I remember when a couple of pictures emerged of us online. ‘Will Slater out shopping with squeeze, Julia Keegan’. It was a slow day at the Mail Online, no doubt.

Even though I knew – knew – it was a terrible idea, I ended up scrolling down to the comments section underneath. Christ. I’ve seen that bile on there before, but when it’s directed at you it feels particularly poisonous, especially personal. It was like stumbling into an echo chamber of my own worst thoughts about myself.

— God she thinks shes all that doesn’t she?

— Looks like a proper b*tch if you ask me.

— Jeez love haven’t you heard your never meant to sleep with a man with thighs thinner than your own?

— Will! ILY! Pick me instead! :) :) :) She doesn’t deserve you . . . . . .

— God, I hate her just from looking at her. Snotty cow.

Nearly all of the comments were like this. It was hard to believe that there were that many total strangers out there who felt such vitriol for me. I found myself scrolling down until I found a couple of naysayers:

— He looks happy. She’ll be good for him!

— BTW she’s behind The Download – favourite site everrrr. They’ll make a good match.

Even these kinder voices were as unsettling in their own way – the sense some of them seemed to have of knowing Will – knowing me. That they were in a position to comment on what was good for him. Will’s not a household name. But at his level of celebrity you get even more of this sort of thing, because you haven’t yet risen above people thinking they have ownership of you.

The note is different to those comments online, though. It’s more personal. It was dropped through the letterbox without a stamp, meaning it had to have been hand-delivered. Whoever wrote it knows where we live. He or she had come to our place in Islington – which was, until Will moved in recently, my place. Less likely, surely, to have been a random weirdo. Or it could have been the very worst kind of weirdo.

But it occurs to me it could conceivably be someone we know. It could even be someone who’s coming to this island today.

The night the note arrived I threw it into the log burner. Seconds later I snatched it back, burning my wrist in the process. I’ve still got the mark – a shiny, risen pink seal on the tender skin there. Every time I’ve caught sight of it I’ve thought of the note, in its hiding place. Three little words:

Don’t marry him.

I rip the note in half. I rip it again, and again, until it is paper confetti. But it isn’t enough. I take it into the bathroom and pull the chain, watching intently until all the pieces have disappeared, swirling out of the bowl. I imagine them travelling down through the plumbing, out into the Atlantic, the same ocean that surrounds us. The thought troubles me more than it probably should.

Anyway, it is out of my life now. It is gone. I am not going to think about it any more. I pick up my hairbrush, my eyelash curler, my mascara: my arsenal of weapons, my quiver.

Today I am getting married and it is going to be bloody brilliant.





NOW


The wedding night


‘Christ, it’s hard going in this.’ Duncan puts up a hand to shelter his face from the stinging wind, waving his torch with the other, letting off a spray of sparks. ‘Anyone see anything?’