by Sandie Jones
‘So, all that’s left to say,’ Ali goes on, picking up a champagne glass. ‘Is that William Hunter, I love you and I can’t thank you enough for choosing me to be your wife.’
As the diners stand to toast the couple, Ali throws a hand in the air. ‘Oh my goodness, I almost forgot . . . Jack, where are you?’
Rachel stiffens as Jack squirms beside her.
‘Ah, there you are,’ says Ali, as if she’d not known where he’d been sitting for the past three hours. ‘Jack, ladies and gentlemen, is the person I should really be thanking.’
Rachel falls back down into her chair, feeling like the air’s been sucked out of her.
‘Yes, please sit,’ says Ali, motioning with her free hand.
‘It would be remiss of me not to mention Jack, because if it weren’t for him, none of us would be here right now. I was working for Jack when he introduced me to his brother Will, and I will be forever in his debt. Though, that’s not to say, I’d ever work for him again.’
The audience titters nervously whilst Jack stays focused on the bitter cup of coffee in front of him.
‘I certainly hope he’s a better husband than he is a boss, Rachel,’ Ali goes on, before dissolving into a schoolgirl giggle.
Rachel’s ears go hot as she feels forty pairs of eyes turning to look at her, their laughter easier now that they’ve worked out who the butt of the joke is supposed to be. She grips at the tablecloth, desperately trying to find the strength to stand up, to put a stop to this and tell everyone that Ali already knows he’s not a better husband. How can he be, when he’s having sex with her?
She half expects Jack to stand up and defend her; tell his mistress that his wife is off-limits, but of course, he doesn’t. He just sits there, with the tightest of smiles stretched across his face, and white-knuckled fists clenching his napkin.
‘So, thank you, Jack,’ says Ali. ‘For everything. I hope I’m able to pay you back, tenfold.’
Every word grates into Rachel’s consciousness, the meaning behind each one, hidden from all but her, and most likely Paige, who she can’t bear to look at. How could any woman be so audacious as to wrap up promised pleasures to her lover in a veiled speech at her wedding?
‘But until then,’ says Ali, as if affirming Rachel’s worst fears, ‘let’s get this party started!’
20
‘I’m just going for a smoke,’ says Jack, as the restaurant staff begin to move tables to make way for a dance floor.
‘I’ll join you,’ says Paige tersely.
Rachel looks at her wide-eyed, in silent warning.
Paige, her jaw set, as if she’s in court and about to deliver the blow to the jugular, surreptitiously shakes her head, as if to say, ‘I know, don’t worry.’
As Rachel watches the pair of them walk across the emptying restaurant and out onto the terrace, there’s a part of her that wishes Paige would take him to task. She has a way with words that Rachel could never begin to emulate. She’d be able to deliver the ultimatum clearly and succinctly with no room for error or misunderstanding on Jack’s part. He either stops whatever he’s doing with Ali and begs for forgiveness, or he chooses to be with her. The very thought of him leaving sends shooting pains across her chest and she struggles for breath. Josh would never forgive him, she knows that much, but then he’d never forgive her either, if he found out the father he was mourning wasn’t his father after all.
‘Hey, you okay?’ asks Noah, coming over just as the table in front of her is taken away. She hasn’t even noticed that she is almost the last person on a chair.
‘You still not feeling well?’
‘Erm no,’ she says, getting up. ‘I feel a bit sick.’
‘Could it be something you’ve eaten?’ he asks, his voice full of concern.
‘Well, if it’s something I’ve eaten, then we’re about to see everyone else drop like flies too.’ It’s an attempt at a joke, to ease the tense atmosphere, but it comes out like a sarcastic barb.
‘I want a paternity test,’ says Noah.
Rachel’s blood feels like it’s stopped moving, her heart shocked into submission. The whole room and all the people in it seem frozen in time, in suspended animation. Will has his head thrown back, laughing heartily; Chrissy is in the throes of being twirled around by a waiter; and Ali . . . Ali is looking directly at Rachel and Noah with a knowing expression.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she says through a forced smile, refusing to give Ali any more power to wield over her.
‘I need to know if Josh is my son,’ says Noah.
Her head snaps round to face him, so incensed that she doesn’t care who might be watching anymore. ‘And have you thought about what he might need?’ she hisses. ‘What do you suppose would happen to him if it turned out you were his father? That Chloe is actually his half-sister? How do you think that would make him feel? But yet, like everybody else, all you can think about is yourself. How you need to know. How it will make you feel. Well, guess what? This isn’t just about you.’
‘Are you honestly telling me that it has never occurred to you?’ asks Noah.
‘Yes,’ she lies. ‘Why would it?’
‘Because it’s a very real possibility,’ he says, his voice high-pitched.
She shakes her head in disagreement, though she’s not convincing herself, let alone anyone else. ‘Whatever you may remember of that time is wrong,’ she says.
‘I remember that you cut off all communication while I was away,’ says Noah. ‘How could you not have had the decency to at least tell me what was going on? Why would you have denied me that?’
‘Because it had nothing to do with you,’ she snaps, desperately looking around for a way out of the conversation.
‘So, I went from being your best friend to a stranger who wasn’t entitled to know that you were pregnant and getting married?’
Rachel shifts from one foot to another, whilst she thinks of a logical reason to counteract his argument, but the only one she can think of is the truth. So instead, she lies.
‘You were on the trip of a lifetime,’ she says. ‘You didn’t need to be bogged down with the minutiae of my life back home.’
‘You didn’t tell me because you knew there was a good chance that Josh was mine.’
She looks at him exasperated, but tears are springing to her eyes as the skeleton in her cupboard falls out and lands in a jumbled mess of bones at her feet. The relief at having someone to share the burden with is almost as powerful as the fear of the consequences.
‘I would never share the results with Josh,’ Noah says, leaning in closer as the strains of Ed Sheeran’s ‘Thinking Out Loud’ start up. ‘I just need to know.’
Rachel looks out at Paige and Jack, deeply engrossed in animated conversation and wants to scream that, actually, it doesn’t matter anymore, because whatever Jack is doing with Ali, it will pale into insignificance if it turns out Noah is right.
‘And how do you think that would sit in your marriage?’ asks Rachel, acerbically.
‘Paige would never know,’ says Noah.
‘But you knowing would affect your relationship – it has to. And Paige is my best friend. It would change everything.’
‘Maybe everything needs to change,’ says Noah, looking at her.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ comes an announcement over the speaker. ‘Would you please welcome Mr and Mrs Hunter onto the floor for their first dance.’
Paige comes up to them with a fixed smile on her face, though Rachel can tell it’s fake from a mile off. ‘Can you get me a gin and tonic please?’ she says to Noah.
‘Yep, sure,’ he says resignedly. ‘Rach?’
She looks at her half-full glass of wine, disappointed that her emotions are still crystal clear and her feelings on high alert. ‘I’ll have a gin as well, please,’ she says, hoping that it might be what’s needed to numb her nerve endings.
Noah’s not even a metre away when she turns to Paige. ‘You didn’t say anything, did
you?’
Paige shakes her head, exasperated, but Rachel can’t tell if it’s because of Jack or the fact that Ali and Will are recreating the dance from the song’s video. The audience stand watching, transfixed by the grace with which Ali moves and the obvious hours they’ve both put into rehearsing. If Rachel could concentrate for more than a second, even she would admit to being captivated.
‘Not per se,’ says Paige quietly, when she eventually finds her voice.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I just told him what it looks like,’ says Paige. ‘That the way Ali’s behaving is going to put a few people’s backs up, and that he might need to have a word with her, because it’s only going to be a matter of time before you or Will pick up on it.’
‘And what did he say to that?’ asks Rachel, her heart thumping in her chest.
‘He said she was just a silly little girl who didn’t know what she was doing.’
Rachel inhales sharply as relief floods through her, closely followed by the realization that he was never going to say anything else. He’d never be as stupid as to incur Paige’s wrath by admitting it; it’d be worse than her own.
‘And you believe him?’ asks Rachel.
‘Well, considering we know her to be a pathological liar, then yes. Perhaps, she’s wishing it so hard, she believes it. That’s what I think folk like her do.’
Rachel nods thoughtfully as Noah hands her a fishbowl glass with a straw and a long cucumber-shaving sticking out the top of it. This should do the trick.
‘You okay for a drink, darling?’ asks Jack, as he sidles up to Rachel and puts an arm around her waist. She can’t help but notice the tumbler he’s holding, with an inch’s worth of whisky in – the drink he refers to as alcoholic’s ruin, because it’s so strong, you only need one.
‘Yes,’ she says, holding up her glass. ‘Is everything all right?’ she asks, as he knocks his Scotch back in a single hit.
‘Yeah, good,’ he says, planting a kiss on her cheek.
‘Anyway, never mind me,’ he says, looking at her as if he means it. ‘How are you feeling? Any better?’
She nods, but if the truth be known, there’s still a gnawing in the pit of her stomach.
‘Why don’t we get out of here?’ he says.
‘What, now?’ she exclaims. ‘The best man can’t leave before the first dance is over. What excuse would you give?’
The cheers from the wedding party surrounding Will and Ali on the dance floor drown out Jack’s reply.
‘Just when you think you’ve seen it all . . .’ she says bitterly, nodding towards Ali as she jumps up into Will’s arms and he spins her around.
Ed Sheeran stops singing and the audience clap and whoop as Ali throws her hands up in the air.
‘We should go away,’ says Jack, talking to Rachel, but his eyes are still on Ali.
‘We are away,’ she says sourly.
‘No, not like this,’ he says. ‘Just you and me, somewhere warm, somewhere secluded, where we can just be on our own together, without all this bollocks.’
Rachel wants to believe that that’s what he wants, but as she follows his eyes to where Ali’s kissing Will, she can see his frustration, feel it. His eyes narrow and his jaw spasms involuntarily, his body unable to hide the envy; of wanting something he can’t have.
Ali is giddy as she twirls off the dance floor towards them. ‘Phew, I need some air,’ she says loudly, fanning herself.
‘You were incredible!’ Ali’s friend calls after her as she walks out through the door to the terrace. She brushes the comment off with a look that says, ‘Oh, stop’, quickly followed by one that says, ‘I know’.
‘We should get something booked up as soon as we get home,’ says Jack. ‘Maybe the Maldives, where I can have you all to myself.’ He flashes her a smile that normally gets him anything he wants, but she doesn’t feel like giving it to him today.
‘Let’s see,’ she says, noncommittally.
‘I’m going to get another drink,’ he says, going to walk away.
‘Why don’t you have a soft drink?’ says Rachel.
He looks at her as if she’s mad. ‘Why would I do that?’ he says, over his shoulder.
‘Just because the evening’s only just started and you don’t want to peak too soon,’ says Rachel, looking over at Noah and Paige at the bar. ‘We could all do with pacing ourselves a bit.’
She doesn’t know whether she includes them to make Jack feel she’s not singling him out, or whether she really means it. In all honesty, it’s probably the latter, as any one of them getting too drunk and loose-lipped could be dangerous.
Her insides coil as she watches him walk towards the bar, but at the last minute he swerves towards the door to the terrace. The door that Ali had walked through just a few seconds before. He’s either getting exceedingly desperate or terribly careless in his pursuit of her. She wonders if it’s perhaps both and he just doesn’t care anymore. The thought of that almost hurts her more than what he’s physically doing.
She takes a giant swig of her G&T and grimaces, her throat unaccustomed to the famous European measures. But the very next second, a warmth is running through her chest and across her shoulders, loosening the knots that have been making her feel as if she’s bound by an invisible rope.
She starts to make her way across the dance floor that is still littered with guests eulogizing about how wonderful Ali is. Rachel wonders if they’d still feel the same if they knew she was cheating on the husband who’d just held her tight, looking as if he depended on her to complete him.
She pretends in her head that she’s just going to the toilets, but she knows she’s got to go past the very same door that Jack and Ali have just walked through, to get there. She looks to the back of the restaurant, where Noah and Paige are deep in conversation, and alternates between whether she wants to alert Paige to what she’s doing or not. It would be useful to have the back-up if she stumbles across what she fears she’s going to stumble across. But if Paige is with her, Rachel knows she’ll lose control over the situation, as Paige won’t be able to hold back. No, she needs to do this on her own.
The door to the terrace is within touching distance, but she could still easily walk past and go to the toilets or bar instead. She tries to fight the urge, convincing herself that she’d prefer to be kept in the dark about whatever it is they’re doing than be faced with the deceit in real time. She wonders whether she could pretend that none of this ever happened. If she and Jack could go away to an idyllic island and work through their problems. But that would mean that she has to swallow her pride and she’s not sure she can do that.
Pushing the door open, a cool fresh breeze whips around her body. The wind’s really picked up since they’ve been inside and she holds onto her skirt to stop it from billowing up. As if on legs that aren’t under her control, she steps onto the terrace that is littered with a slew of smokers, huddled together under the outdoor heaters.
Now that the sun is setting, the sky is a swirl of blue and orange, descending into burnt amber the closer it gets to the horizon. Rachel remembers when she and Jack went to Santorini a few years ago – their first holiday without Josh – and walked to the top of Oia to witness what the locals call, ‘the best sunset in the world’.
‘Can you hear it?’ Jack had said, as they’d sat on a stone wall, along with a hundred or so other awe-struck tourists.
She’d looked at him, full of love and excitement at what this new phase in their life would bring. With Josh fast becoming an independent teenager, they could certainly look forward to more trips like this, and the warm feeling that the thought evoked had wrapped itself around her.
‘Hear what?’ she’d asked, smiling.
‘The sizzle as the sun disappears into the ocean.’
Her chest physically hurts at the thought he could be saying that to Ali now. There’s no sign of either of them on the terrace, and she casts an eye over the beach below. The
cliff face is now highlighted by neon-pink strobes from a laser beam, masking the multitude of darkened crevices within. Any one of them would be perfect for the two of them to hide in. Though, with the tide coming in so quickly, the water would soon flush them out.
Rachel imagines Ali floating face down in the rising water and can’t help but feel satisfied by the thought of her not being around to create havoc anymore.
Removing her wedged shoes, Rachel starts to descend the wooden staircase onto the beach. Feeling the sand between her toes, she sees a notice nailed to a precarious-looking crag, PERIGO DE DESMORONAMENTO and then written below, BEWARE OF FALLING ROCKS.
More horrific images of Ali’s head, smashed to a pulp by a dislodged boulder, do little to incur any sympathy within Rachel, and she wonders what the hell’s wrong with her. Hating a woman for sleeping with your husband is understandable. Wanting her to die an incredibly grisly death isn’t.
Going against her better judgement, Rachel stays close to the base of the cliffs, edging her way towards the first cave. She can hear something, but with the sound of the crashing waves, creeping ever closer, it’s difficult to be sure what it is. Birds soar overhead, squawking as they make their way home to their ledges further up the rock face, and there’s a faint pounding from the bass of the music reverberating from the reception.
It all merges into a cacophony that threatens to drown out the very thing she came looking for. Though, she wonders if that’s not such a bad thing, as to actively seek out proof that your husband is being unfaithful must surely be masochistic. Yet still she pushes on, as if seeing it for herself is the only way she will believe it. The first nook is barely deep enough to obscure one person, let alone two, so Rachel moves onto the next, just a few metres on. She peeks around a jutting rock to see that it’s dark and forbidding, too deep to see the back wall, but there are voices coming from within. Rachel cranes her neck to hear Jack, whose speech is slurred, yet there’s no mistaking the wrath of his words.
‘If you ever do that again, I swear to God, I’ll . . .’
‘You’ll what, Jack . . .?’ comes a female voice. Rachel knows that it’s Ali, but she so desperately wants it not to be. She begins to step backwards, wishing she could just go back to twenty seconds ago when she still just had suspicions.
