A Beautiful Day for a Wedding

by Charlotte Butterfield

  ‘So what now?’ Ben asked, still holding her hand, stroking her thumb with his.

  ‘Well first I want to blow my nose, and then…’ Then I want to kiss you. ‘Then … I think we should order some food.’

  Chapter 35

  ‘So, here’s a question for you,’ Ben said, prising the lid off the chicken chow mein and setting it down on top of the other lids on the lounge coffee table. He handed her a plate and a pair of chopsticks. ‘Dig in.’

  Eve braced herself for a personal enquiry into her love life. ‘Yes?’

  ‘When did you have your ears pierced?’

  Her hand instinctively went to her ear lobe and felt the long feather earring that Adam had bought her that she’d worn for the wedding the day before but hadn’t yet taken off.

  ‘That’s very strange question, what made you think that?’

  ‘Just that I remember you didn’t have them done, and now you do. I want to catch up on everything that’s happened to you over the last few years.’

  ‘Starting with when did I pierce my ears?’

  ‘That’s a good a place as any.’

  Eve smiled. ‘The answer is, I haven’t, as much as Tanya wanted me to. They’re clip-on. Now I have a question. Have you had the Chinese tattoo removed from your back yet that should have said “Freedom” but actually said “Free of Charge?”’

  Ben burst out laughing and almost spat his rice all over the table. ‘I completely forgot that you knew that, I have never told anyone else that!’

  ‘I don’t think you’d have told me either had I not been with you when that Chinese girl made fun of you on that beach in Worthing.’

  ‘I haven’t had it verified from another source though, so she could have just been teasing me.’

  ‘Ben, she had tears of laughter running down her face, she wasn’t joking.’

  ‘She may have been laughing at her own gag. I’ve done that plenty of times. Take Tanya’s wedding for instance. Seeing you sat with nasally Peter, that lentil-loving dark-haired bloke and the woman that breeds her own sheep had me chuckling for hours.’

  ‘Funny you should say that because the idea of you tap dancing your way through Covent Garden on Amit’s stag do made me laugh pretty hard too.’

  It wasn’t hard to fall back into the trade of easy banter they’d perfected over the previous decade. Quick quips flew back and forth, and the natural warmth and affection that was the hallmark of their friendship made two hours seem like thirty minutes. As their laughs faded they listened to the clanks and crashes of the band in the pub below packing up for the night, the musicians keen to get home to their families. Car doors slamming, shouts of farewells and finally the sound of the heavy bolt being dragged across the pub’s front door signalled that the evening, at least for the people on the street below, was over.

  ‘I should go,’ Ben said, not moving from his patch of floor.

  This was the part where Eve was meant to ask him to stay for one more drink. To stay to finish up the food. To stay for dessert. To just stay. They’d read the script, they knew what was supposed to come next. But she couldn’t.

  ‘You’re right,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s late, and we’ve got work tomorrow.’ Eve gathered up the foil boxes and started throwing them into the brown paper takeaway bag that was stained with some soy sauce that had leaked through. He read her signal and stood up stretching, clinking together their wine glasses in one hand, and picking up the empty bottle in the other.

  They tangoed around each other in the small galley kitchen. He pulled the full rubbish bag out of the bin and tied it together.

  ‘You don’t need to do that,’ Eve said, making a move to take it off him. ‘The man doesn’t always need to take the rubbish out while the little lady washes up.’

  ‘No thank goodness, because you wouldn’t know a scourer if it came up and introduced itself,’ Ben teased. ‘Don’t forget I’ve lived with you.’

  ‘I’ll have you know that I cleaned this place from top to bottom before you came around, I even bleached the plug.’

  ‘Bleach the plug? Have you ever, in the your entire life, used those three words in the same sentence before?’

  ‘I’m not sure anyone has, to be honest.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Ben said with a smile. ‘I’d put money on it being on Luke’s weekend to-do list from Tanya.’

  At the mention of Tanya’s name, Eve pulled a face. ‘Can we not say her name again without pretending to spit?’

  ‘She may be a despicable human being, but she did get us back together.’ Ben looked instantly uncomfortable with his choice of phrasing, and Eve busied herself putting away the dry cups from the draining board. ‘I didn’t mean like that, I just meant—’

  ‘It’s ok, I know what you meant.’

  ‘You know, with her wedding, and the curtains, then the gifts and the tent-sex thing, we were sort of thrown together a lot. I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Ben, it’s fine. Look, leave the bin bag, I’ll take it down on my way to work in the morning.’

  ‘It’s no problem, I’ll do it now on my way out.’

  Eve followed him to the front door and unlocked it for him. ‘I, um, look, thanks for coming round.’

  They both stood next to the open door. In one hand Ben held the bin bag, and he brought the other hand up to tuck a loose curl behind Eve’s ear. ‘You haven’t changed, you know Eve. I know you think you have, that you’ve lost all perspective and that you’ve become cynical and hard, but you haven’t. You’re still you.’

  ‘I don’t know that anymore.’

  ‘Well I can see it, even if you can’t.’

  He then ducked his head slowly until his lips brushed hers and Eve’s eyes instinctively closed.

  And then he was gone. Again.

  ***

  ‘I’m surprised to see you here.’

  Fiona’s frosty greeting stopped Eve in her tracks. It was a Monday, why would Eve being at her desk be an odd thing? She said as much.

  ‘I just thought with the email you sent me at 4 a.m. on Sunday morning I’d be recruiting for a new features editor.’

  Eve’s stomach lurched. The drama of the column had completely erased from her memory the drunken message she’d angrily typed to her boss.

  ‘Oh God Fiona, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it, I—’

  ‘Shall we talk in my office?’ It wasn’t a request that needed a response as Fiona was already striding away, fully expecting Eve to scuttle behind her. Fiona accepted the resignation that Eve didn’t really remember submitting, giving her no opportunity to explain, or backtrack. As her editor read out bits from the barely coherent email she’d sent her, Eve winced – it was as bad as it was possible to be.

  ‘So, I’ll go and pack up my desk shall I?’ Eve said, fully aware of the pleading tone in her voice imploring her boss to reconsider, to just forget about it.

  ‘I think that’s probably for the best.’

  Eve stood on the street grasping a carrier bag. It was filled with photos with drawing pin holes in the top of them that had been tacked up around her desk, a Tupperware box containing her lunch, her notebooks with feature ideas that would never get written and her diary with meetings that she’d never attend. The bright sunshine was incongruous with her mood. The clouds should have been gathering, a clap of thunder, some rain at least, but the pavement was warm, the people who passed her were basking in the summer sun with their sleeveless tops and carefree smiles. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

  If it was a movie she’d head to an open-all-day pub, settle in for the day and drink away her worries. She’d sit on a bench in a park and gaze at people with agendas, things to do, places to go, people to meet. But she wasn’t in a movie. This was her life, and she knew that at the moment she was making a giant hash of it.

  Chapter 36

  Faye was refusing to fly to Adam and George’s wedding. No amount of acupuncture, hypnosis or alcohol could get her to board the fast shuttle that
would have got them from London to Marseille in under two hours. Instead Eve had agreed to hire a car, and drive them on the thirteen-hour journey to Provence.

  It seemed like so much more than just a week had passed since Becca’s wedding. Six days since Eve’s evening with Ben, five days since leaving the magazine. When you had nothing to get up for, no reason to shower, iron creases out of work clothes, or get dressed at all, the hours seemed agonisingly long. Becca and Jack had jetted off on their honeymoon straight after the wedding, and so Eve hadn’t needed to contend with Becca’s clucks of disapproval at her daytime TV marathon sessions, or the fact that she hadn’t changed out of her pyjamas for four days straight. If Eve had thought about it she may have linked Faye’s sudden phobia of airplanes with Eve’s sudden phobia of the outside world, but she was too wrapped up in a cloud of self-pity and self-doubt to connect the two.

  ‘This is nice, isn’t it? Us girls taking a road trip.’

  Eve decided to let her mother have her Thelma and Louise moment, even allowing the reference to them both as ‘girls’ go unchecked.

  ‘We don’t do this enough, do we?’ Faye continued.

  ‘Drive through the Channel Tunnel?’

  ‘No silly, spend time together.’

  Eve’s eyes flitted to the navigation system. It was a pretty easy route down to Provence, through the French countryside, skirting the Alps. They were breaking their journey in Dijon, about halfway down, and they should be there within five hours if the traffic was light. Eve murmured so. If it was up to her she’d have wanted to press on, to not stop at a random French city where Faye would no doubt insist on them having lunch together, to spend a couple of hours having small talk when what she really wanted to do was to ask her daughter what the hell was going on.

  Eve was making sure that the volume on the French rock radio station obliterated the opportunity for conversation, and for the first three hours of the journey her plan worked well. Until, after an unscheduled loo stop, Faye abruptly flicked off the radio as Eve started the engine.

  ‘I liked that, Mum.’

  ‘We can put it on again in a bit. I fancied a bit of a chat.’

  There wasn’t a daughter alive that couldn’t hear the badly-concealed agenda behind the words ‘bit of a chat’ from their mother, and Eve was no different.

  ‘What do you want to chat about?’ she asked airily.

  ‘Why don’t you start by telling me why you left Becca’s wedding in such a hurry and then refused to answer your phone, why Ben rushed after you, and why you haven’t been at work all week.’

  ‘Oh good. For a minute I thought you were going to be subtle about it.’ Eve indicated and moved into the fast lane to overtake a tiny old Fiat, then moved back into the outside lane once passing it. ‘Why don’t you start by telling me about your evening with my personal trainer?’

  Even though she couldn’t see her mum’s face, Eve knew that she was blushing. It was a bit cruel to deflect her mum’s questions back onto her. Faye would tell her about Juan when she was ready, but they both knew that Eve was stalling for time.

  ‘Juan is a lovely chap. Kind, attentive—’ Faye’s voice dipped a little, adding a little conspiratorially ‘—and very attractive.’

  ‘Are you going to see him again?’

  Faye smiled. ‘I hope so. I was toying with the idea of asking him to be my plus one for this wedding, but didn’t have the nerve in the end.’

  ‘Oh Mum, you should have done, you deserve a bit of fun and happiness. It’s not too late, the wedding’s not for another two days, he can fly in tomorrow or Saturday morning.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know what to say. Anyway, he’s probably having huge regrets over what happened. I’m twenty years older than him for goodness sake.’

  ‘Well I actually think you two make a lovely couple. And anyway, it doesn’t need to be anything serious, just have some fun, you’ve deserved it.’

  ‘You deserve some fun too you know.’

  Eve kept her eyes on the road. ‘I do have fun.’

  ‘No, you don’t. You make sure that you’re far too busy to have fun. When is it going to be your turn Eve?’

  ‘My turn for what? If you say my turn to get married you can walk the rest of the way.’

  ‘Your turn to have people do something for you. You’re always the first to put your hand up to help, the first to get stuck in organising, or sorting things out for people, and you don’t let anyone do the same for you. It’s like if you accept help or support then you’re somehow weaker in some way.’

  ‘I don’t need any help.’

  ‘We all need help from time to time.’

  ‘Well I don’t.’

  ‘How’s work going?’

  Eve faltered. She could lie, say something like ‘same old same old’ that would have a fifty-fifty chance of being believed, or she could take advantage of the fact that her mum could only see the side of her face and not the whole of it and tell the truth.

  ‘To be honest, Mum, I’ve messed everything up.’ Eve blinked away tears that were threatening to form and her knuckles whitened on the steering wheel where she was gripping it too hard. ‘It’s all going horribly wrong.’

  They pulled off the motorway and into a roadside café. Once the matronly café owner had left a couple of strong coffees on the table, Faye reached over and put her hand over her daughter’s. ‘Begin at the beginning, the King said, very gravely, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.’

  Faye’s reference to Alice in Wonderland, one of Eve’s favourite stories from when she was young made her eyes watery again.

  ‘I miss Dad, Mum.’

  ‘Oh darling, we all do.’

  ‘How long does grief take to heal?’

  ‘Oh God Eve, I don’t know, there’s no set rule about grief. It’s not a case of waking up one morning to find the mist has suddenly lifted. Sometimes you can have weeks of clear skies and then bam, there it is, fog so thick you can’t walk through it. Why are you asking this? Is this just about Dad?’

  Eve shook her head. ‘You know when Ben never showed up at the airport? He left me to go back to New Zealand and see his ex-girlfriend that was dying.’ Eve’s tone was a lot more matter of fact than she felt. It had to be or she would never get the story out. ‘And while he was there, with her, Kate, in those final few months, he fell in love with her again. When she died, he felt so guilty for once choosing me over her, and coming to England, that he stayed there, with her family, and his, all of them grieving together.’

  ‘But now he’s back.’

  ‘And now he’s back.’

  ‘And you two are getting close again?’

  Eve’s fingers closed around the sugar sachets in the little china pot on the table. ‘We could be. But I’m so scared Mum. It’s taken me four years to get over him, and I don’t know if I have it in me to try again.’

  ‘So what’s the alternative? You find someone you don’t like as much to be with, or you resign yourself to being your ageing mum’s plus one to every party?’

  Eve smiled weakly. ‘I love being your plus one.’

  ‘Well, if my luck has changed you might need to fight a muscly Argentinian for that honour in the future,’ Faye laughed. ‘But seriously Eve, you can’t build a little wall around your heart so it never gets broken.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because that would make me extremely sad. If I knew when I married Dad that I’d be a widow before I was sixty, would I have still done it? Of course I would. If I knew I was to be a widow at fifty, forty, I still would. Did it feel like my universe had shattered into tiny shards of glass when he died, you bet it did, but that pain was worth the love, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.’

  ‘That’s the thing Mum, you talk of love like it’s this amazing thing, but my experience of it is that it’s only ever temporary. And I’m not just talking about me and Ben before you jump on me and tell me I’m wrong, but my job is…’ Eve paused at her use of the present
tense, but didn’t correct herself, she needed to tackle one topic of conversation at a time. ‘My job is about love, about the supposedly happiest day in a couple’s life, and more often than not, it doesn’t work out. In some of the brides’ cases, the flowers last longer than the marriages do.’

  ‘I think those years on that horrible reality magazine has skewed your view of normality. When you only meet and write about the strangest sort of people, of course you start to think the world is full of people that will sleep with their brother’s parrot.’

  Eve burst out laughing. ‘I think that’s actually impossible Mum.’

  ‘You know what I mean. You had years of writing about the world’s weirdos, and then years writing about brides, who, lets be fair, are not the sanest of people. Then you had all your friends’ weddings this summer, it’s no wonder that you’re viewing love as a bit of a chore. Do you still have feelings for Ben?’

  ‘It’s not my feelings I’m worried about, it’s Ben’s. He still carries Kate’s locket around in his wash bag you know.’

  ‘Did you ask him about it?’

  Eve looked sheepish. ‘No.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with him keeping a part of her close. I still have loads of your dad’s things, that doesn’t mean that I can’t like or love anyone else ever again.’

  ‘I know, I know that, but how can I compete with her? She’s like this perfect person, who I’ll never measure up to.’

  ‘This Kate was incredibly important to him obviously, and if you want to be important to him again, then you can’t ignore her.’

  Faye was saying everything that Eve had already thought. In fact, after Ben left last Sunday night, Eve had barely thought about anything else. She’d lain in bed staring up at the ceiling, going over and over everything that he’d said. She understood his thinking entirely because she understood him. And keeping Eve out of his life for her own good was also so like Ben. He was right, if he’d told her the real reason, she would never have boarded that plane to New York. As the hours and days ticked by in the last week she had ricocheted between anger that Ben made the decision for her, and absolute pride that he’d stepped up and been the friend Kate and her family needed.