by Kate Field
‘Your hair is perfect. Don’t change a thing.’
There was a loud knock on the door, and I jumped back, wobbling on my heels. Ethan put his hand on my waist to steady me – it had quite the opposite effect – and then answered the door.
‘What are you doing in here?’ Mum’s strident voice blasted in from the hall. ‘Isn’t this Mary’s room?’
Mum didn’t wait for a reply, but barged in past Ethan.
‘Gracious, Mary, what are you wearing?’
She must have been shocked if she had overlooked the state of the room to focus on me. She reacted as though I were wearing nothing but a see-through basque. In fact, I was almost entirely covered up, in a full-length satin dress, with an off-the-shoulder neckline – admittedly cut very low – that clung to my body as snugly as cling film then fell in graceful folds from below my bottom.
‘I think it’s an amazing dress,’ Ethan said. He winked at me from behind Mum’s back. ‘Although I’d love to know where you’re hiding the rings.’
I laughed.
‘The other best man has those. And it’s not that bad, is it?’ I asked Mum. Perversely, her disapproval was making me warm to the dress.
‘Not if you want to be talked about. Has Leo seen it? Something simpler would have been more appropriate. You’re not the bride here.’
That knocked my smile away.
‘Do you really think I can forget that?’
‘No, Mary, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.’ Mum patted my hand. ‘Chin up, love. Are you ready to go down?’
‘Yes, but I didn’t know if Leo might come …’
‘Leo’s been downstairs for ages,’ Ethan said. ‘That’s why I’m here. I thought you might not want to go down on your own.’
‘Very kind, I’m sure,’ Mum said, while another warm surge ran through me. ‘But I’m here now. Why don’t you escort Audrey?’
‘Already done.’
I looked from one to the other. Was I supposed to choose between them? Mum, with all her faults, was still Mum. And Ethan, with all his faults, was still … Well, I wasn’t ready to think exactly what he was. Not today, when my emotions were as close to the surface as the blue veins running across the back of my hand.
‘Can’t I have you both?’
Ethan smiled, Mum sighed, and we all headed to the wedding together.
It was far and away the most romantic wedding I’d ever attended. The elegance of the arrangements was never in doubt with Clark at the helm: he could probably have made me stylish if I’d let him. But the jubilation, and the tenderness and the intimacy … no amount of money or taste could have manufactured that.
I tried my best, but comparisons were inescapable. Leo hadn’t written a sonnet for me as part of our wedding vows; he hadn’t cried when we exchanged rings; he hadn’t said, in his speech for me, that it was the happiest day of his life. There had been no first dance for us. Stranded on the end of the top table, next to Clark’s father, who clearly had no idea what to say to me, I watched as Leo brushed off the last few emotional links between us. Best friends, I had thought when we first separated: we were best friends, and that could withstand anything. But here he was, surrounded by new friends – and with a new best friend, husband, and soulmate. My role as best woman was a demotion in my status that I had failed to recognise until now; a swansong to the relationship we had shared.
And I should have been sad – and in a way, I supposed I was – but sadness wasn’t my overwhelming feeling. It was as though I’d turned the final page on a book I’d loved reading, but had then seen a vast library from which I could choose my next adventure. Or at least, I might be able to choose, if I could shake off Mum. She’d clung to my side like a third arm ever since the meal ended; goodness knows what she thought I was going to do if she left me alone. But in the end, age and a bout of cystitis saved me. Mum couldn’t resist the call of the bathroom, and I escaped through the French windows and into the garden.
A knot of smokers huddled immediately outside the doors, and I wandered past them, through a formal rose garden illuminated by the lights radiating from the hotel. A gravel path marked out by Victorian-style lanterns led the way through a cluster of trees to an arbour where a stone bench overlooked the river. Moonlight picked out the occasional ripple in the water.
Footsteps crunched the gravel, and I expected them to pass on – and yet it was no surprise, really, when a figure sat down on the bench beside me.
‘Was Irene a bodyguard in a former life?’ Ethan asked. ‘I was worried for a while that you might be stuck together. But now she’s let you out here on your own. You’re not thinking of throwing yourself in, are you? This suit was expensive, and if I have to jump in to rescue you, I’d like some warning so I can take it off first.’
‘It’s okay. I came here for some peace, that’s all. Your suit is safe.’
A lantern above the arbour cast Ethan’s face in soft focus. He smiled.
‘This reminds me of our summer in the Dordogne. All we need are two bicycles and some cheap beer.’ He laughed. ‘Fancy a skinny dip?’
‘I did not swim naked!’
‘No, I could never tempt you, could I?’ He bumped his arm against mine. ‘How are you bearing up?’
‘As well as can be expected? The copious supply of champagne has certainly helped.’
‘Mary …’
‘Don’t you pity me as well. I’ve had enough of that. I mean, it’s not as if he’s dead. He’s happy, and that makes me happy. And we’ll still be working together. Everything is fine. Fantastic. Fabulous.’
I may have protested too much; Ethan shifted on the bench.
‘I saw the article in The Times. About Leo’s discovery.’
I jumped up. I hadn’t wanted to think about that today; hadn’t wanted to let my niggling resentment sour the occasion.
‘Why did you have to bring that up? Couldn’t you resist saying I told you so?’ My voice was rising with every word, fuelled by too much champagne. ‘I can’t believe you’re still being disloyal to Leo, especially today.’
‘Disloyal?’ Ethan stood up. The lamplight sprinkled his hair with gold. ‘When have I ever been disloyal to Leo? For God’s sake, what more could I have done for him? I let him have everything.’
He stopped abruptly.
‘What do you mean?’ I demanded.
‘Nothing.’
Ethan stepped back, out of the light, so I could only make out his shape standing by the arbour, and hear his rapid breathing. I waited, but he didn’t say anything more. But there was more. There had always been something more between Leo and Ethan than the usual sibling rivalry. This was the closest I’d ever come to finding out what it was, and I needed to know. I’d closed my mind to too much, for too long.
‘When we were in Cornwall,’ I began, my voice sounding surprisingly steady and clear in the twilight, ‘you said something about Leo not having always been loyal to me.’
‘Clark,’ Ethan said. ‘I was talking about Clark.’
‘No, you weren’t. You were going to say something else until Audrey stopped you. I want to know what it was.’
‘Let’s not have this conversation now.’
‘Yes, let’s have it now. When could there be a better time? Leo has irrefutably moved on today. What harm can it do, whatever you have to say?’
‘I’m not going to hurt you.’
It was too late. Those words were enough. I’d poked at the fire and the flames had caught my fingers. He knew something, something more than Clark – and I couldn’t let it drop.
‘I need to know.’
‘No, you don’t. It can do no good now. Don’t ask me, Mary.’
I grabbed his hand, worming my fingers around his clenched ones.
‘Who else can I ask? I’d rather hear it from you than find out from anyone else. Tell me. Please. I need you to do this for me.’
The silence stretched, and I thought he wasn’t going to say anything, until he let out a sigh
of frustration.
‘Ask Leo. If you’re sure you want to know, ask him who he celebrated his First with in Oxford.’
A cool breeze ruffled my hair, lifting it from my shoulders, but it was nothing compared to the chill spreading through me. I don’t know what I’d expected, but it wasn’t this – not something that might slice through the roots of our relationship.
‘No,’ I said. This simply couldn’t be true. ‘What are you implying? Leo didn’t sleep with another woman at Oxford. I know he didn’t.’
‘Probably not.’ Ethan squeezed my fingers. ‘But do you really think that he turned forty and decided to be gay out of the blue? Without any previous experience?’
I snatched my hand away from Ethan’s.
‘Are you telling me that Leo had a homosexual relationship in Oxford?’
‘I’m not telling you anything. Don’t do this, Mary.’
‘And you knew? You knew this before I married him, and said nothing? How could you?’ I shouted, forgetting where we were, careless of who might hear. I should have been shocked by Leo’s disloyalty – but all I could focus on was Ethan’s. ‘I suppose he asked you to keep it secret and you went along with it, without giving me a second thought.’
‘You’re wrong.’ Something in Ethan’s body language changed, and he moved closer. ‘I gave you a lot of thought. I wanted to tell you, more than you know. But you loved him. You relied on him. So yes, I kept his secret. But I didn’t do it for him.’
‘Then who, for me? You think you did it for me, letting me marry a man who was unfaithful and gay?’
‘Letting you marry the man you were in love with.’
‘Love? What do you know about love? It’s never been more than a five-minute wonder for you.’
‘Five minutes?’ Ethan’s voice cracked. ‘I’ve been in love with you for over twenty years!’
‘But …’ It came out as little more than a croak. My world was spinning, and it had nothing to do with the champagne. Was he serious? Ethan was in love with me? ‘But I was with Leo.’
‘I know.’ Ethan moved into the light, so I could see every word on his face as he spoke them. ‘There was one glorious evening when I thought you might choose me, but you didn’t. I had to stand at the top of the aisle and watch you walk towards me, so beautiful in your wedding dress, and listen to you exchange wedding vows with my brother. I had to be godfather to the babies I wished were mine. I tried to make my own life, while all the time hearing about and seeing photographs of the life I wanted. So I know plenty about love. It’s year after year of jealousy and pain, without ever being able to hope it might end. But it’s part of me, and I can’t go on pretending that it isn’t.’
I kissed him – because it was the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to me, even on my own wedding day. Because the anxiety on his face tore at my heart. And because he was Ethan – and above everything, because I wanted to. One brief, perfect kiss, pressed against his lips, and then I drew back.
His eyes, centimetres away, were fixed on mine. We were both completely still, completely silent, barely breathing. And then we both moved forward, he caught me in his arms and kissed me. And I knew. The thing that Leo had found with Clark – the insatiable connection between them – I understood what it was. It was this.
I shivered as the wind blew across my shoulders and chest. I was sitting on Ethan’s knee, on the bench. I had no idea how long we’d been there. I had no idea of anything – except that my body had never felt like this before. Sensation had chased away sense. I wanted more.
Ethan raised his head from my breast and kissed my lips.
‘You’re cold. Let’s get you inside.’
‘Let’s go upstairs.’
Ethan pulled up the top of my dress, gathered me into his arms, and rested his forehead against mine.
‘Oh Mary,’ he said, and my name on his lips was as seductive as any caress. ‘Ask me that tomorrow when you’ve not had a difficult day or drunk so much.’
But that was no good. Tomorrow I would be me again – the beige housewife and mother of two, not this scarlet woman who was kissed beyond reason by a gorgeous man. Tomorrow my heart would pump with ordinary blood, not passion. Tomorrow I would be efficient and capable, seeing obstacles where now I saw dreams.
I held Ethan’s hand, and half dragged him back along the gravel path and in through the French windows. And there the warm, muggy atmosphere brought back sense more effectively than any cold shower. Ava glared at me from across the room; Leo stared, his smile missing for the first time that day. Mum, waiting by the windows, grabbed my arm, forcing me to break the contact with Ethan.
‘Oh Mary,’ she said, and her unconscious echoing of Ethan somehow made this worse. She adjusted the neck of my dress. ‘What have you done?’
Oh God. What had I done?
Chapter 23
I hid in my room the next morning until Jonas banged on the door and shouted for me.
‘We thought you might be dead,’ he said, grinning at me with no hint of concern when I opened the door. He wrinkled his nose. ‘You do look like you might be. You shouldn’t drink so much at your age.’
I hugged him, overcome with relief that at least one member of the family seemed unaware of my antics last night. If only alcohol was all I had to regret.
‘Steady on,’ he said, wriggling away after giving me a half-hearted hug in return. ‘Are you okay to drive us back? Ava’s kicking off about missing her riding lesson if we don’t leave this second.’
‘I’m ready.’ Jonas took my suitcase and I picked up the dress bag from where it was hanging on the front of the wardrobe. I’d abandoned my dress on the floor last night – most out of character – and when I’d hung it up this morning I could still smell traces of Ethan’s aftershave lingering on the fabric. ‘Has everyone else gone?’
‘Dad and Clark have gone. Dad waited for you as long as he could, but they had to catch their plane.’
‘Did Dad want me for something?’
‘Dunno.’ Jonas wheeled my case along to the top of the stairs. ‘He looked rough too. I think he was having a go at Uncle Ethan about something.’
‘Ethan?’ I stopped. ‘What was that about?’
Jonas shrugged and headed off down the stairs. I followed more cautiously, dreading who I might run into, but when I reached the entrance hall Mum was there on her own, looking like a ferocious bulldog.
‘About time too,’ she said. ‘There’s no time for dawdling in bed. I need to get back and Ava’s been waiting outside for ten minutes.’ She sighed. ‘You’ve not had a good night, have you?’
‘Not the best.’ I clutched the dress bag to me.
‘I knew that dress would be trouble.’ She shook her head. ‘But there’s no use in crying over it now. Most people were drunk enough by that point that they didn’t notice. You were lucky, this time.’
I followed her out to the car park. Ava, Jonas, and Audrey were waiting by my car. Ava turned her back as I approached: she hadn’t spoken to me since I’d returned to the wedding with Ethan last night. At least Audrey smiled.
‘Haven’t we all had the most marvellous weekend?’ she said, coming forward to kiss my cheek. ‘I haven’t enjoyed a wedding so much in years.’
She appeared to be serious – another one, clearly, who had missed my grand entrance with Ethan. Just as well: when I’d popped to the bathroom, under Mum’s armed guard, I’d been horrified at my appearance. My hair was a mess, my chest and cheeks flushed, my lips a dark shade that no lipstick could match – but my eyes gave me away more than all the rest. They were wide and bright, still shining with desire so that I hardly recognised them as mine.
I unlocked the car, but wasn’t fast enough. Ethan strolled across the car park in our direction. I tossed the dress bag on to the back seat, wishing I could crawl in after it. What if he mentioned last night? What if he kissed me? What if he didn’t – did he regret what we’d done? Never mind that I regretted it; it would be unbeara
ble if he did. And how were we supposed to act normally now, in front of Jonas and Ava, Mum and Audrey? Maddening though she so often was, Mum was right about this. It would affect the family – it already had.
‘I see Lazybones has made an appearance at last,’ Ethan said, stopping at Audrey’s side. Two more steps and he would be near enough to kiss me, but he didn’t take them. ‘She missed a stunning breakfast, didn’t she, Joe?’
‘Awesome sausages.’ Jonas nodded.
‘That’s one thing I miss in New York. The proper English sausage.’
‘You’ll have to take some back with you,’ Mum said. ‘Not long now, is it?’
‘Three weeks.’
Ethan’s eyes flickered in my direction at last. I leaned against the car. Three weeks! How could his time here have vanished so quickly? I didn’t know whether to be glad or distraught. Glad, I supposed, given his behaviour this morning. How little must last night have meant to him if he could stand there so calmly and talk about sausages?
‘Are you ready, Mum?’ I asked, as if I hadn’t been the one keeping everyone waiting for hours. ‘We’d better head off if we’re to make it back for Ava’s riding lesson.’
Ava got into the car with a huff – an improvement on silence. At this rate, she might grunt at me by bedtime.
‘Safe journey, my darlings, and we’ll see you all soon!’ Audrey said. Mum was already in her car, reverse lights lit, waiting to go. I opened my driver’s door, and glanced back at Ethan. From behind Audrey’s back, he smiled, the way he had smiled at me last night, and he carried on smiling until I could no longer see him in my mirrors.
The answering machine was flashing with a message when we reached home.
‘It’s Bridie Archer.’ It was lucky she said that – I wouldn’t have recognised the posh telephone voice. ‘We need you to come as soon as possible.’
