‘You know I think he might actually beher One?’ Aaliyah said. ‘Like, he’s the first boyfriend she’s ever properly introduced us to. We’ve met him more times in three days than we’ve met any of her other boyfriends ever, almost, and it isn’t just because we’re all on the same island. She could absolutely have avoided us. And he’s lovely to talk to. When we were cooking together, he spent ages asking about Patrick and the kids.’
‘I’mreallyhappy for Meg,’ Matt said, annoyed that all thisThe Onechat was making him think about the first time he and Lily had met, ‘but clearly we’re in a rush, so we should get going? I think we should phone every restaurant we can find on Google and then, if that fails, walk up to Penelope’s and wake Carole up if she hasn’t got back to us by then. She likes her lie-ins. She could easily not surface until late morning.’
‘Good plan.’ Lily turned one of her most winning smiles on Johanna and said, ‘Would you mind if we stayed in here while we made a few calls? Will you be able to cater it still if we do it elsewhere? Like, how far can the food travel?’
‘We will sort something out,’ Johanna said. ‘And, yes, yes, please, stay here to make your calls.’
‘This is just one reason,’ Aaliyah said fifteen minutes later, when they’d discovered that everywhere was indeed completely booked up because it was peak holiday season, ‘that Tess should have had the wedding at a different time of year.’
‘She wanted to do it now so that the weather would be perfect,’ Lily said.
‘Unfortunate,’ Matt said. ‘Come on. Let’s go and find Carole.’
‘We’re in a really big rush now.’ Lily turned to Johanna. ‘I know that this is ahugeask and I’m so sorry, but is there any chance you could give us a quick lift, just ten minutes up the road? Or know someone else who could help us, like a taxi, but right now if possible? We could all sit on plastic bags so that we don’t ruin the car.’
‘I have an old car I will be very happy to take you in. No plastic bags are necessary.’
The three of them followed Johanna out of the restaurant and round a corner into a little side road until she stopped next to a gobsmackingly rusty car. It was hard to tell through the rain and the rust what colour it was.
‘I am very sorry but you will all have to sit in the back,’ she told them, pointing through the front passenger window. Yup. It looked like there was no seat there, just some broken bits of metal and broken chair and wire. ‘You should sit in the middle because you’re the shortest.’ She pointed at Lily. Then she opened the left rear door and nodded at Matt. ‘You climb across, please. You cannot open the door on the other side.’
‘We’re in arush,’ Aaliyah said as Matt clambered with difficulty across the back seat and then began to fold his legs in front of him in the footwell. The car was not spacious.
‘I think he’s doing his best.’ Lily sounded as though she was trying not to laugh.
When Matt was settled, she climbed in herself. He tensed as she bumped against him a couple of times. Ridiculous. You’d think that he’d manage not to be hugely physically conscious of her when they were both fully clothed and unpleasantly damp to the skin and stuck in a small car with Lily’s friend and his cousin’s wedding venue host, but apparently not. She shifted around next to him, like she was wiggling her bottom into place, and he tensed further. His heart was definitely beating a little faster too. Really,howwas it possible that he could be feeling like this with Johanna and Aaliyah right here with them. In an effort to distract himself, he turned his head to the right and looked out of the window. There wasn’t a lot to see. Rain and greyness.
Lily finished the wiggling and sat still. She seemed to be taking a lot of care not to touch him at all now, holding herself about an inch away from him absolutely everywhere. And, God, despite how sodden they were, he could pretty much feel her across that inch, feel the tension in her body too, know where firmness yielded to softness, know also – he thought, anyway – that she was aware of him in the same way.
And then Aaliyah got in and said, ‘Budge up,’ and shoved Lily over so that she lurched into Matt, which made it even more difficult not to be very conscious of her. He turned to look out of the window again but it was already steaming up on the inside.
Aaliyah got the door solidly closed on her third slamming attempt, and then groped behind her shoulder.
‘I think the car pre-dates the introduction of seatbelts,’ Lily said.
‘Off we go,’ Johanna said, releasing the handbrake, revving and doing something violent with the throttle. ‘We will take a shorter way to get there as fast as possible.’
‘Let’s hope Carole has some bright ideas,’ said Aaliyah, seemingly oblivious to the awkwardness on Matt and Lily’s side of the car. ‘Yes, Tess has been a complete bloody nightmare over this wedding but thisisan actual bride’s-worst-nightmare situation and despite the fact that she’s been hell on legs for weeks I’m actually feeling sorry for her.’
Matt felt Lily nod.
‘Carole’s great.’ He moved his left elbow in so that it wouldn’t brush too much against Lily’s side. ‘I’m sure we’ll sort something between us.’
Johanna took a sharp left onto what felt like an unmade-up road. It was impossible to see much out of Matt’s window now – he really hoped that Johanna could see better than he could – but this couldn’t be more than a track.
‘Are you at all scared?’ whispered Lily to him and Aaliyah as they juddered along, picking up speed. ‘Do you think we’re going too fast? Like we might hit a stone and the car could just disintegrate?’
‘No, speed is good in this situation,’ said Aaliyah. ‘Time being of the essence.’
‘We’re travelling inland without any steep drops on either side, so as long as we don’t have a head-on collision I think we should be okay,’ Matt said. ‘We’d be unlucky for today to be the day its final disintegration happens. Visibility has to be very poor, though.’
‘Honestly,’ Aaliyah said, ‘you’re a proper pair of overcautious backseat drivers.’
Maybe ten seconds later, the front right of the car plunged down, they all screamed and shouted a lot ofWoahandShiiiiitand advice for Johanna, who definitely did the wrong thing with the steering and the pedals because the car started lurching and revving madly before tipping slowly and thudding over onto its right side.
Matt could hear all three of the women’s voices doing a lot of shocked screaming and no one sounded too physically distressed, so hopefully none of them were too seriously injured, and he knew that he had nothing more than maybe the odd bruise, but it didn’t feel like they were in agreatsituation. He couldn’t see a lot, because both Lily and Aaliyah had fallen on top of him, but he was pretty sure from what he’d heard and what he could feel that a lot of the car had crumpled.
‘Is everyone okay?’ he shouted. ‘If you can move and you don’t think you have broken bones I think we need to get out fast in case the petrol tank explodes.’
