The Guest List(62)

Before I have a chance to ask her to try again, my mother is upon us. ‘Oh my girls, my girls.’ She clasps us both to her bony embrace. Beneath the billowing cloud of Shalimar I smell the sharp, acrid tang of her sweat, her fear. It is Olivia she’s really reaching for, of course. But for a moment I allow myself to yield to her embrace.

Then I glance behind me. The other guests are catching up with us. I can hear the murmur of their voices, sense the excitement coming off them. I need to defuse this whole situation.

‘Anyone else fancy a swim?’ I call. No one laughs. The silence seems to stretch out. They all seem to be waiting, now the show is over, for some cue as to where to go now. How to behave. I don’t know what to do. This is not in my playbook. So I stand, staring back at them, feeling the dampness of the beach soaking into the skirt of my dress.

Thank God for Aoife, who appears among them, neat in her sensible navy dress and wedge shoes, absolutely unflustered. I see them turn to her, as though recognising her authority.

‘Everyone,’ she calls. ‘Listen up.’ For a small, quiet woman, her voice is impressively resonant. ‘If you’ll all follow me back this way. The wedding breakfast will be served soon. The marquee awaits!’





JOHNNO


The Best Man


Look at him. Playing the hero, carrying Jules’s sister out of the water. Just fucking look at him. He’s always been so good at getting people to see exactly what he wants them to see.

I know Will better than other people, maybe better than anyone in the world. I’ll bet I know him a lot better than Jules does, or probably ever will. With her he’s put on the mask, put up the screen. But I have kept his secrets for him, because they are both of ours to keep.

I always knew he was a ruthless fucker. I’ve known it since school, when he stole those exam papers. But I thought I was safe from that side of his character. I’m his best friend.

That’s what I thought until about half an hour ago, anyway.

‘It was such a shame,’ Piers said, ‘when we heard you didn’t want to do it. I mean, Will goes down an absolute storm with the ladies, of course. He’s made for TV. But he can be a bit too … smooth. And between you and me, I don’t think male viewers like him all that much. The consumer research we’ve done has suggested they find him a bit – well, I think the expression one participant used was: “a bit of an arse”. Some viewers, the men, especially, are turned off by a host who they see as a bit too good-looking. You’d have balanced all that.’

‘Hang on, mate,’ I said. ‘Why did you think I didn’t want to do it?’

Piers looked a bit put out at first – I don’t think he’s the sort of bloke who likes to be cut off in full flow when he’s talking about demographics. Then he frowned, registering what I’d said.

‘Why did we think—’ He stopped, shook his head. ‘Well, you never turned up at the meeting, that’s why.’

I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. ‘What meeting?’

‘The meeting we had to discuss how everything would progress. Will turned up with his agent and said unfortunately you and he had had a long discussion, and you’d decided it wasn’t for you after all. That you weren’t “a TV sort of bloke”.’

All the stuff I’ve been saying to everyone these past four years. Except I never said it to Will. Not then, anyway. Not before some sort of important meeting. ‘I never heard of any meeting,’ I said. ‘I got an email saying you didn’t want me.’

It seemed to take a while for the penny to drop. Then Piers’ mouth opened and closed gormlessly, silently, like a fish: bloop bloop bloop. Finally he said, ‘That’s impossible.’

‘Nope,’ I told him. ‘No, it isn’t. And I can tell you that for certain – because I never heard about a meeting.’

‘But we emailed—’

‘Yeah. You never had my email though, did you? It all went through Will, and his agent. They sorted everything like that.’

‘Well,’ Piers said. I think he’d just worked out that he’d opened up a massive can of worms. ‘Well,’ he went on, like he might as well say it all now. ‘He definitely told us that you weren’t interested. That you’d had this whole period of soul searching and told him you’d decided against it. And it was such a shame, because you and Will, as we’d always planned … the rough and the smooth. Now, that could be TV dynamite.’

There was no point in saying any more to Piers about it. He already looked like he wished he could teleport to anywhere else. We’re on a small island, mate, I nearly told him. Nowhere to go. I wasn’t surprised he felt like that, though. I could see him glancing over my shoulder, searching for someone to save him.

But my beef wasn’t with him. It was with the bloke I thought was my best friend.

Speak of the devil. Will had started striding towards us, grinning at us both, looking so fucking handsome with not a hair out of place, despite the wind. ‘What are you two over here gossiping about?’ he asked. He was close enough that I could see the beads of sweat on his forehead. See, Will is the sort of bloke who hardly ever sweats. Even on the rugby pitch, I barely saw him break much of one. But he was sweating now.

Too late, mate, I thought. Too fucking late.