Here Comes The Bride

by Rebecca Winters

  ‘Here we are.’ P.J. pulled up outside the school and opened his door to get out. ‘Out you get.’

  The three children scrambled out of the back seat and he stooped, giving the girls a kiss and Jake an affectionate tweak on the nose, and then they were gone, running into school with their friends.

  ‘They’ve forgotten us already,’ he said wryly to Nell as he got back into the car, and she nodded, grasping at the chance to fill up this first moment when they were alone with polite chit-chat.

  ‘Clara’s like that. The moment she meets up with her friends, she’s completely absorbed in their own world. I’m sure she never gives me a thought when she’s with them.’

  P.J. sent her a sidelong glance. ‘You should be pleased that she’s not clinging to you. You want your child to grow up well balanced and independent, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course, but sometimes it’s a little hard when you spend your whole life thinking about them and you realise it’s all one way.’

  ‘That’s your job as a parent, isn’t it?’ he said with a lopsided smile. ‘And Clara’s the kind of child who’ll go far. She’s got charm in spades.’

  ‘When she wants to use it,’ said Nell in a dry voice. ‘She’s like her father that way,’ she added without thinking.

  ‘Ah, yes, Simon,’ said P.J. evenly. ‘How is he?’

  ‘He’s well. He’s got a new wife and a new family now, though, and I don’t see much of him.’

  ‘Janey told me that you were divorced,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. It must have been hard for you. I know how much you loved him.’

  Had she loved Simon, or had she just been carried away by an illusion? Nell wondered. It was hard to remember now.

  ‘You were right,’ she said abruptly.

  ‘I was right?’ P.J. glanced at her in surprise. ‘What about?’

  ‘You said that Simon didn’t really know me, so he couldn’t really love me. You said I didn’t really know him, so I couldn’t trust him. You said he’d break my heart and leave me…and he did.’ Nell’s smile was twisted. ‘I think you’re fully entitled to say “I told you so!’”

  ‘Nell…’ P.J. wished he could say something to help, but he couldn’t think of anything. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last, quite simply. ‘I shouldn’t have said those things to you. I was just lashing out because I was raw and bitter. I suppose I wanted to hurt you because you’d hurt me, but I swear I never wanted to be proved right.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry, too,’ said Nell quietly. ‘I never wanted to hurt you, P.J., but I know that I did.’

  ‘Hey, I survived.’ The corner of P.J.’s mouth turned up in his crooked smile as he tried to lighten the atmosphere, and Nell found herself remembering with piercing clarity exactly what his lips had felt like against her skin. Shivering a little, she turned away.

  ‘I can’t say I thought so at the time,’ he admitted, hoping to take some of the sadness from her expression, ‘but it didn’t take long for me to realise that it was all for the best.’ He hated the thought that she had spent years feeling guilty about the way their relationship had ended. She had had enough to bear without that.

  ‘Oh?’ Nell kept her eyes on the car ahead as they inched towards a busy junction. Naturally, she was pleased to know that P.J. hadn’t been heartbroken, but surely he ought to have had some regrets?

  Or had he been wanting to end things himself, so that her decision had come as a huge relief? For some reason, that thought was worse than feeling guilty about the way she had hurt him.

  ‘You were right, too,’ P.J. told her, one eye on the traffic, the other on Nell’s suddenly rigid profile. ‘We’d been together too long, and our relationship was stale. It was time for us to be braver and get out there on our own. If we’d got married then, we would have been tied down with a mortgage and babies straight away. We would never have gone to Africa or done all those things we’d planned to do, would we? We’d still be there, regretting the opportunities we’d missed, and resenting each other for it. I certainly don’t think I’d have taken the risks I did to start my company if I’d had a family to think about.’

  They had made it to the junction, and P.J. waited, looking for an opportunity to cut across the traffic. Nell studied him sideways under her lashes as he concentrated on driving. The set of his jaw was achingly familiar, and the line of his cheek and the curl of his mouth made her feel hollow inside.

  He could have been hers. They could have spent the last sixteen years loving and laughing. They could have gone to Africa, and taken any babies with them. They would have been able to do anything as long as they were together. It wouldn’t have had to end in bitterness and resentment the way P.J. thought it would.

  ‘So you think it all worked out for the best?’ she asked.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A N ONCOMING car flashed its lights, and P.J. pulled out, easing the car in the long line of traffic and lifting a hand in acknowledgement. ‘Yes, I do.’ He glanced at Nell. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right about us,’ she said quickly, in case he thought she had more regrets about their broken engagement than he did.

  ‘But?’ he prompted.

  Nell sighed. ‘But when your marriage ends in a mess, it’s hard sometimes to think that it was all for the best.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ said P.J., contrite. He hesitated. ‘Does it still hurt?’

  ‘About Simon?’

  He nodded, keeping his eyes firmly on the road ahead.

  ‘Not really. Not now. At the time it was horrible,’ she told him, surprised at how easily she had slipped back into the way of talking to P.J. about the things she would normally keep to herself. ‘But by the end it was just such a relief not to have to pretend and argue anymore.

  ‘I didn’t want Clara to grow up with us shouting at each other,’ she said, remembering how Simon had lied and blustered and finally left. ‘It wasn’t how I imagined having a family,’ she went on a little sadly. ‘I’d dreamt about giving my children a loving home with two parents but…well, it didn’t work out like that, and I think it’s better this way. At least Clara has a “normal” life when she’s with Simon and Elaine.’

  ‘How often does she see her father?’ asked P.J. after a while.

  ‘Not as often as she needs.’ Nell watched a young man walking along the pavement, a small boy perched, delighted, on his shoulders. The sight of a father being tender and loving with his children always gave her a pang, thinking about how uninterested Simon had been with Clara.

  ‘Simon’s not a cruel father. He pays his maintenance for Clara on time, and he does his duty by her…but that’s just what it feels like, a duty. It’s as if she’s a tiresome obligation now that he’s got a new family. And I don’t think Elaine feels comfortable with Clara. She’s always changing the arrangements when Clara is due to go over there, and they never include her in their family holidays.’

  ‘That’s hard,’ commented P.J.

  ‘I don’t mind not being part of Simon’s life anymore,’ Nell tried to explain, ‘but I do mind for Clara. She’s always been an incredibly sensible child and she never complains, but she’s only ten.’

  ‘I can’t imagine having a daughter like Clara and not wanting to spend as much time with her as possible,’ said P.J., stopping at a pedestrian crossing.

  ‘I know. That’s why I-’ Nell caught herself up just in time. She had been about to tell P.J. about her efforts to find a man who would be a better male influence in Clara’s life, but that would be taking confidences a bit too far. P.J. had only been back in her life for a matter of minutes, and a girl had her pride, after all.

  ‘Why you what?’

  ‘Oh, nothing.’

  P.J. sent her an uncomfortably searching glance. ‘You’ve never thought about marrying again?’

  Nell had never liked his habit of being able to follow her train of thought even when she was trying to be her most inscrutable.

  Nell thought about asking him if
he had any idea how difficult it was to find someone new when you were in your thirties, and had a child, and couldn’t afford to go out, and in any case were too dog-tired after working all day and then looking after your daughter to dream about anything more exciting than a hot bath and an early night. And that was before you started looking at the single men who were available!

  ‘No,’ was all she said in the end, though.

  It was definitely time to change the subject. ‘What nice children Jake and Emily and Flora are,’ she said, and meaning it. ‘You must be very proud of them.’

  ‘I am,’ said P.J. ‘Although I must admit that I haven’t really had that much to do with them over the last few years.’

  Nell couldn’t help staring at him. How could he sound so casual about not spending enough time with his own children? She would have expected that P.J., once he became a father, would take his role very seriously.

  ‘Their mother deserves all the credit for bringing them up, I think,’ he was saying. ‘She doesn’t get as much support as she should.’

  Nell’s brows drew together. ‘In that case, perhaps you could do a bit more to help her?’ she suggested coolly.

  ‘I’d like to,’ said P.J., ‘but it’s difficult…and I have got a business to run.’

  That had always been Simon’s excuse too, she thought bitterly. ‘I haven’t got time,’ he had used to say. ‘I can’t afford to take time off. I can’t support you and Clara unless I work, can I?’ His job, it seemed, was always more important than giving his daughter some attention.

  ‘Oh, well, if your business needs you…’ she said, not bothering to disguise her sarcasm, and P.J. looked at her with a puzzled frown.

  ‘It probably doesn’t need me as much as I’d like,’ he admitted.

  ‘Does it need you more than your children?’

  P.J.’s brow cleared. ‘Are you thinking about Flora and Emily and Jake, by any chance?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘They’re not mine,’ he told her with a grin.

  ‘But I thought…’ Nell trailed off, trying to remember exactly what he had said about the children.

  ‘They’re Janey’s. You remember my sister, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said a little stiffly, feeling foolish. It was an easy enough mistake to make, but, still, she shouldn’t have leapt to conclusions.

  And did this mean that P.J. did not in fact have the perfect marriage and the perfect family after all? Nell fought down the flicker of excitement that came with the thought.

  ‘You obviously get on very well with them, anyway,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve been based in the States for the last few years, so I just saw them occasionally, but I’ve tried to make more of an effort since I got back to London,’ P.J. told her. ‘I still haven’t sorted out a house, so I quite often spend the night with Janey. It gives me a chance to get to know the kids, and, as Janey’s husband is away on business a lot, I think she’s glad of the company.’

  He grinned. ‘Of course, the kids only like me because I give them a lift to school in the morning. Janey normally makes them walk.’

  Janey had been just another giggling friend of Thea’s when she and P.J. had been going out, but the more Nell heard about her now, the more she thought the two of them would get on. Not that she would get a chance to find out, Nell reminded herself quickly. She and P.J. had very different lives now, and it would be best to keep them that way.

  Still, she thought P.J.’s nieces and nephew probably liked him as more than a chauffeur.

  ‘It’s a lovely car,’ she said, stroking the soft leather seat appreciatively. ‘I’m not surprised they like being chauffered around in it!’

  ‘She’s a beauty, isn’t she?’ P.J. gave the dashboard an affectionate pat, and Nell was submerged in a wash of memory so powerful that she clutched onto the seat as if it were all that stopped her being swept straight back into the past.

  P.J. had always loved cars. She could see him now, showing off the first car he had ever owned, the one he had worked so hard to buy. His face had been alight with pride as he’d pointed out wheel trims and carburettors and propeller shafts, none of which had meant anything to Nell, who had only been able to see a battered old car. But she had nodded and looked suitably impressed, happy because he had been.

  ‘She’s a beauty, isn’t she?’ That was what he had said then, too, and Nell had smiled and agreed.

  Now she couldn’t help smiling. ‘She’s absolutely gorgeous,’ she teased, exactly as she had then.

  P.J. laughed and glanced at her as she sat beside him, and as their eyes met the air was suddenly charged with the memory of what had happened next.

  ‘She’s not as gorgeous as you,’ he had said, pulling her towards him and turning her so that he could press her against the car door and cup her face between his hands. ‘She’s not beautiful the way you are,’ he said, his young man’s voice low and husky, and then he kissed her the way he had never kissed her before, a boy no longer but a man with seductive lips and sure hands.

  Nell could still feel the way the door handle had pressed into her back. His urgency had taken her aback at first, until her own body had risen to meet it and match it, and she had wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back.

  Her mouth was dry, her throat tight, and she swallowed as the memories pulsed and pounded through her. His hands had been so persuasive, his mouth so warm against her skin as they had explored each other, tentatively at first and then with increasing urgency, as they had discovered new sensations that had been thrilling and almost frightening in their intensity.

  How could she have thrown all that away? Nell tried to remember when it had all changed. When had she started to take that excitement for granted? Had it been when P.J. had gone away to university, or when she had a year later? By the time she had graduated, they had been going out for five years. She had been ready to start a family, but P.J. had wanted to be sensible and wait until he was established in his new career.

  Then Simon had turned up, and everything had changed again. He had been so confident, so dangerous and intriguing and exciting, and P.J. had been dear and familiar and not there.

  And she had been young and silly, Nell knew that now. Too young to appreciate what she had in P.J. and too silly to understand the risk she was taking in throwing in her lot with a man she hardly knew.

  Now the air was crackling with the memory of that first car, and the good times she and P.J. had shared. Nell bit her lip. She had known that getting in the car with P.J. was a mistake. She should have taken the tube, and to hell with her ankle, whatever Clara might have said.

  The past was past. There was no point in sitting here and remembering how much she had loved P.J. now, not when he had turned into someone so attractive and so successful and so out of reach.

  P.J.’s eyes had gone back to the road, and Nell stared fiercely out at the traffic and willed the memories down as she tried to think of something to say.

  In the end it was P.J. who spoke. The silence between that glance and his words had probably only lasted a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity to Nell.

  ‘This car was the first thing I bought when I came back to London,’ he said. ‘Janey said it was typical of me to buy a car before a house.’

  Nell was pathetically grateful to him for turning the conversation into neutral channels. She cleared her throat and tried to pretend that she had met him for the first time a few minutes ago, that they had never loved each other.

  ‘Have you come back to London permanently?’

  ‘Yes…I think so, anyway. I had a great few years in the States but I started to feel…well, restless, I suppose.’

  P.J. couldn’t really explain how that feeling of faint dissatisfaction had crept over him, as if his life were missing something, and he couldn’t work out what it was. ‘I kept thinking about coming home,’ he said at last, ‘but, of course, I haven’t got a home here, at least not yet. I’m renting an
apartment at the moment, but it’s not the same as having your own home.’

  ‘You could buy a house, couldn’t you?’ said Nell, thinking that, if he was half as rich as Thea said he was, London property prices weren’t going to be a problem.

  ‘I guess so.’

  The trouble was that P.J. couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for the idea. He would just have to hand a house over to designers and decorators, who would make it too smart. ‘I’m not sure where I want to be yet, though.’

  ‘You could take your pick of properties, couldn’t you?’ said Nell. ‘I hear you’ve done well for yourself.’ To say the least.

  P.J. glanced at her again. ‘Where did you hear that? I never thought of you as an avid reader of the business pages.’

  ‘I hardly have time to read the headlines, let alone the business section,’ she told him dryly. ‘No, I had it from Thea, who had it from Janey when they met up on that internet site. It sounds as if Janey’s very proud of you.’

  ‘That’s not what she tells me,’ said P.J. with a wry smile. ‘She’s usually giving me a hard time about something.’

  Building up a billion-dollar business meant nothing to his sister. ‘What’s the point of all that money if you haven’t got someone to share it with?’ she would demand. ‘You need to get married and have a family.’

  ‘It’s not that easy,’ P.J. complained. ‘I don’t want to get married unless I’m sure I’ve found the right woman.’

  ‘Well, I can tell you you’re never going to find her until you stop hankering after Nell Martindale!’ Janey said.

  ‘I got over Nell years ago,’ P.J. protested, but Janey only smiled in that knowing-and particularly annoying-manner she had sometimes.

  ‘Oh, yes? Has it never occurred to you that every single one of your girlfriends has looked a bit like her, and somehow none of them has ever quite measured up to her?’

  P.J. had always pooh-poohed the whole idea. ‘Rubbish,’ he always said firmly. ‘It’s got nothing whatsoever to do with Nell at all.’