“Olivia,” he says, grazing a barely-there kiss against my cheek. “Julia, thank you so much for coming. And Lola, Madeline will be so pleased you brought the boys.”
“Where is she?” I ask, my voice high and false.
“I’ve left my sister in charge. She’s brought a little friend from school and it’s all we can do to stop them starting in on the communion wine.”
Everyone laughs politely and then falls silent.
“So it sounds like she’s finding her feet!” says Lola, overflowing with concern. Because we’ve been existing undercover, I’d forgotten how forced and unnatural everyone is around him—it’s exhausting to even witness.
“So far, so good,” he says genially. “Now I’m afraid I’m going to have to steal Olivia away, her services are required at the front of the church.”
I’m cringing as I walk up the aisle with him. I can’t help feeling that everyone’s watching us, even though of course they’re doing nothing of the sort. Is he fighting to not be dragged under by the memory of Sally walking toward him on their wedding day? How glamorous she looked, her dress cut low, cinched in tightly around the waist she fought tooth and nail to keep tiny—“Takes more calories to eat it than it’s got in it,” she used to say, crunching theatrically on a celery stick, ignoring my entreaties that she was looking dangerously thin. And here I am, walking alongside him, a cheap, too-bright dress clinging to my podgy upper thighs, a top note of vomit detectable, at least to me.
I look to the front pew, feeling like I’m walking into a trap. There’s Sally’s mom, trying to keep it together, a fistful of tissues clasped tightly in her hand, her son and husband kept close. William’s parents stand next to them, his dad’s back ramrod straight in his charcoal pinstriped suit, his mother exuding the nervous energy of an exotic bird captured midflight. “Are you okay?” I whisper, knowing as I say it that it’s an inane question, to which he can’t possibly provide a real response. I hope he knows that it’s not really a question, more a squeeze of his hand that I’m sending him through the ether. “It all seems to be going to plan so far,” he says, not breaking his stride. I will him to look around—to give me some tiny sign that he’s here with me in spirit, that in some parallel universe we’re facing it together—but he won’t allow a single chink of himself to peep through the carapace.
Madeline comes rushing toward me once we reach the front of the church. She’s dressed in a beautiful white lace frock, hair neatly plaited, a small blond girl trailing in her wake.
“Thank you for arriving,” she says, imperiously. “I would like you to say hello to Francesca. She is my best friend now.”
It’s the sight of Francesca’s reaction that sends me close to breaking point: she can’t hide her delight, a gap-toothed smile spreading across her chubby little face, her hand instinctively reaching out to find Madeline’s. The memory of how it felt is suddenly so painfully acute—the sense of finding a different version of a soul mate, a person who shows you back to you and makes you better. Of course William couldn’t meet my eye: Sally’s presence is overwhelming—quivering, intense, permeating every single molecule and atom and particle that surrounds us, the present drowned out by the crashing cymbals of the past. I look around at her mom, our eyes filling with tears at the sight of each other. She gives me a look of such welcoming warmth that it’s almost unbearable, shame and guilt knotting up inside me until I can barely breathe.
Madeline submits to Francesca’s handhold for a couple of minutes, then violently shakes it off.
“I have to become very prepared,” she says sternly, gluing herself to William’s side, utterly oblivious to her friend’s crestfallen expression. I smile at Francesca as kindly as I can, wanting so much to take her in my lap and tell her everything I know about what she’s got left to learn, but instead I find out where her mom is sitting, and make sure that Madeline says goodbye to her properly before walking her over.
“When we are friends afterward I will be christened,” she tells her proudly.
And now it really is time. The same solemn priest takes his place at the front of the church, his words sensitively acknowledging what it was that we last gathered here to mark. I look across at Madeline, acutely protective of her, but her face shows nothing but fierce self-possession. William is equally stoic, his features arranged in an expression of earnest attention. I look over to him a couple of times during the service, but his gaze is still fixed straight ahead, one hand on Madeline’s shoulder, the other gripping the pew so fiercely that his knuckles are blanched white.
The priest summons us to the font, Madeline racing ahead, her excitement palpable, loving being the center of attention. Sally breathes past me, the memory of her ostentatious glamour at my nineteenth birthday party, all eyes trained on her. The four godparents step forward: me, William’s friend Ronan, Sally’s brother and Belinda, a handsome-looking woman who displays the same impressive self-control as the rest of the family. The rest of the guests gather around, and I force myself to find my center, giving my responses as clearly and confidently as I can. William smiles at me as I do so, his gaze finally lingering on me. I feel warmed by it, hoping my face won’t shout out a truth that cannot be so much as whispered. The priest performs the final ritual, bathing Madeline’s upturned face with the holy water, and then, finally, it’s over, the drop in tension palpable. “Well done,” mouths Jules, simultaneously jiggling the fractious baby. William turns to me, Madeline’s hand in his.
“Thank you,” he says, a careworn but lovely smile on his face. “Say thank you to your godmother, Madeline.”
“Thank you,” she says, grinning up at me, and my heart scrunches up with hope. Maybe with time they could be as happy to have me around as they look right now. Maybe the fact that I truly understand how sad it is will make it less crass, more truthful.
“No, thank you for asking me,” I say, gabbling with relief. “I didn’t get to tell you, Nathaniel threw up all over me when we were coming in and—”
Belinda comes up, laying a hand on William’s arm.
“We do need to ensure all the guests know where to go,” she says, voice terribly far back in her throat. She smiles at me in a brief, absent way that fulfills her obligations.
“I’m so sorry, you must excuse me,” says William, sliding off. “I’ll catch up with you at the reception.” I stand there, looking after him, trying not to feel crushed, trying not to feel like I’m one pebble on a shingly beach. Today is not about me.
The reception is in the function room of a lovely old country pub, all oak beams and roaring fires. They’re playing
The Best Christmas Album in the World . . . Ever
, even though it’s more than a month away, and in my weird, altered state I actually start to think I like Slade, when in fact it’s Christmas that I like. Christmas: I glance at William, who is surrounded by earnest-looking guests, all wearing versions of the same sympathetic smile. He must be dreading it.
“Shall I get us some mulled wine?” says Jules, eagerly eying the tureen.
“See if you can nab a mince pie too.”
“Here, you take Nathaniel,” she says, plunking him in my arms. I hold him a little gingerly at first, wary of any
more projectile vomiting, but he seems perfectly content to chew on his rubber giraffe. I squeeze him a little closer to me.
“Who’s this little bundle of joy?” says Claire, another one of our gang from halls, who I haven’t seen in years before these last few months. We exchanged only the briefest of hellos at the funeral.
“Oh he’s not . . .” I pull him closer toward me, loving the feel of his warm body snuggling against mine, his big eyes looking up at me in mild surprise.
“That gorgeous boy,” says Lola, appearing at my other side, “is her nephew.”
I look over to Jules, who’s fallen into conversation with someone over the other side of the room, and signal to her that she doesn’t need to rush, that I don’t want to hand him back quite yet. When Claire wanders off Lola gives me a spontaneous hug.
“It’s so nice to see you,” she says. “I’m sorry if—”
“Don’t worry,” I say, cutting her off. I don’t want to pick over anything too forensically. “It’s lovely to see you too.” I feel overwhelmed, the causes too multiple to list; the Christmassy-ness, the sight of William, so close to me and yet so far away, the mirror effect of Sally—shockingly, horribly absent and also so present. “Let’s make sure we go out again soon.”
“It’s a deal,” laughs Lola.
It seems like forever before William and I get to talk to each other. He comes over to me and Jules, deftly pulling me aside.
“Sorry,” he says, smiling down at me, his eyes crinkling. “There seem to be a million guests at least. You look lovely, by the way.”
I try not to smile at him in the wrong way, a thank-you muttered under my breath, the moment broken by Madeline appearing at our elbows, grinning from ear to ear.
“Nathaniel really, really likes me. He smiled twice and I fed him some banana.”
“That’s great!” I tell her. “He doesn’t smile for everyone.”
Then William’s father appears, pushing his way into our little group like a papa lion returning from a kill. William seems to stand to attention somehow.
“I thought that went off very well,” he says, surveying the scene. He looks down at Madeline. “Well done, little miss.”
“Without question,” says William, his jaw tightening in that way I’ve become so familiar with, one of those tiny tells that he can’t quite control. I can feel myself straining toward Lola, standing nearby with Justin. I don’t want to abandon William, but equally I don’t know if it’s exactly what he wants—is it having me in his father’s airspace that is making his vein throb?
“It does still seem a great shame that you didn’t feel able to use the family chapel. Your mother at least seems to understand your logic.”
A bolt of anger strikes William’s face, but he quickly represses it.
“As I explained, I felt the symmetry of it was important. The main thing is that it went off without a hitch.” He turns to me, eyes flashing. “Pa, have you been properly introduced to Olivia? She was a great friend of Sally’s. I think you might have met her . . .” he stumbles a little, “at the funeral.”
His father’s eyes minesweep their way across me, not a shred of warmth in his expression. Just for a second I imagine living the rest of my life within range of that gaze.
“Of course,” he says, extending a large, strong hand. It wraps itself around mine, establishing complete dominance, and then drops back to his side as fast as it appeared, his interest spent.
“Olivia is my godmother,” says Madeline, almost as if she’s protecting me from his indifference.
“I know she is.”
“That means she can stay at my house whenever she likes. On Sunday she got very, very tired and she went to sleep in Daddy’s bed and in the morning I read to her all about St. Clare’s.”
Just for a second it feels like someone’s pressed an enormous, metaphysical pause button and the world has stopped in its tracks. William’s father’s appalled face looms over me, his interest well and truly reignited. An anarchic part of me wants to stick two fingers up to him—tell him he’s got it all wrong, that what we’ve shared is something sweet and important—but then I see William’s stricken face and the fight drains out of me. My bravado was nothing but stupid, misplaced hope—the childish part of me that secretly longed for the truth to be our deliverance, our liberation from building a relationship on a mess of lies.
“We’re not going to talk about that now,” William says, voice strangulated. He leans down to Madeline. “Why don’t we get you some more cake?” If he even so much as looked at me, made it a moment shared, there might still be a way back, but instead he leaves me there, humiliated and abandoned. I catch Lola’s eye, and she whips her head away, fury in her eyes.
“William?” says his father, as the rest of the family start to notice the disturbance. I wish so much that Jules was here, but she’s taken Nathaniel away to change him.
“I’d prefer not to talk about it now,” says William, almost pleading. Sally’s brother’s watching now, looking between the two of us, his eyes like flint. William sees it too, and visibly flinches. His voice drops, but not far enough. “Besides, there’s very little to talk about.”
I break away, my eyes fixed on the door.
“Olivia . . .” he calls, but he doesn’t try to physically stop me.
Lola grabs me as I’m desperately pushing my way out, her fingers gripping the flesh of my arm.
“You’re unbelievable,” she snarls, two flashpoints of color burning her face. “I hope you can sleep at night.”
“I know what it looks like,” I plead, “but it . . . it just happened.” It’s so impossible to explain, the delicacy of it turned to something callous and brutal as soon as it’s dragged into the open. I look back to William, who now seems to be involved in a furious conversation with his father. “It wasn’t against Sally.”
“Bullshit. You had to get your own back, didn’t you? She was right to dump you, but it was all poor little Livvy, butter wouldn’t melt. Everything she said about you was true.”
There’s no coming back from this—it’s the ultimate betrayal. I know that better than anyone.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The way you made her move into the apartment in the second year. Pleading with her to take it.”
“She was the one who found it!”
“That’s not what you said at the time . . .”
“No, because she said we couldn’t tell you . . .”
Lola looks at me, an expression of complete disgust on her face. Not only have I tried to steal Sally’s husband away, I’m trashing her memory. One of her sons approaches, finally giving me the opportunity to make a run for it.
“If she could see you here she’d turn in her grave.”
Jules is in the car, on the phone to Phil. I climb into the passenger seat, tears streaming down my face. I’m sobbing so much I can barely speak.
“We need to go, right now.”
“Little one! Tell me what happened?”
“Seriously, Jules, let’s just get go.”
“Livvy, wait . . .”
William is running toward us, his hair askew. I lean out of the car.