‘Whereisyour date?’ she asked.
Who cares?he wanted to say,now that I know you’re here.He indicated over his shoulder to where he’d left her.
‘She’s pretty,’ Naomi said, ‘but then you always did pick a pretty face.’
Ignoring the comment, he said, ‘It really is great seeing you again. Why didn’t we ever stay in touch?’
‘I suppose you graduating a year before I did meant our paths then went off in separate directions.’
‘I wish they hadn’t,’ he said softly. ‘We always had so much fun together.’ A flood of memories came rushing back to him – of student parties that went on till dawn, of incomprehensible treasure hunts that involved most of them getting hopelessly lost, and of a skiing trip that ended with one of their group of friends being airlifted to hospital with a broken wrist and leg.
She smiled, but it was tainted with sadness. Or was it regret? Or was that wishful thinking on his part?
‘Seeing you again makes me realise I should have made more effort to—’ he broke off.
‘To do what?’
‘To make sure we were more than just friends,’ he responded boldly.
‘You never implied that was what you wanted,’ she said, her voice low, her gaze sliding away from his.
‘The time was never right. Either you were seeing somebody, or I was. Dare I hope that the time might be right for us now?’ Again, he was being bold.
Before she had a chance to reply there came a loud voice from behind Ellis. ‘Darling, so sorry to leave you in the lurch like that, but it turns out the duties of a best man are manifold. Remind me never to do it again!’
The owner of the voice was now standing next to Naomi and looking extraordinarily pleased with himself. And well he might, thought Ellis when Naomi introduced him as her husband, Colin. With her hands encased in gloves to fend off the cold, her ring finger had been hidden from him.
‘Where do you fit in, then?’ asked Colin, with the kind of overly firm handshake that was designed to establish the ground rules. ‘Bride or groom?’
‘The groom, sort of. Naomi and I are university buddies,’ answered Ellis pleasantly.
‘Is that so?’
‘Ellis graduated the year before I did,’ joined in Naomi, ‘and this is the first time we’ve seen each other since then.’
‘I think the last time we were together was the night of that fancy dress party, the one when you were dressed as Frida from Abba—’
‘And you were dressed as Johnny Rotten.’
They both laughed. Just as they always used to. But a glance in Colin’s direction warned Ellis that two old friends tripping down Memory Lane might not be such a good idea.Not if the proprietorial arm around Naomi’s shoulder was anything to go by. The gesture was clearly made to stake out the territory. Which made Ellis wonder why. Why did this man feel threatened by an old friend chatting to his wife?
Under ordinary circumstances Ellis might not have stuck around to the end of the wedding reception, which was held in an upmarket country hotel, but on this occasion he wanted to talk some more with Naomi. He couldn’t stop thinking about that look of sadness – or regret – on her face.
When the meal was over and the disco started up, he danced with the girl he’d come with. ‘It’s Raining Men’ by the Weather Girls was followed by David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’, and then Culture Club’s ‘Karma Chameleon’. Excusing himself, he went to find the bathroom and when he returned to the disco he saw that his date was dancing with somebody else. He then spotted Colin propping up the bar with a crowd of other men and seizing his chance, he sought out Naomi. He found her talking to the bride, Geraldine, who expressed her happily drunken surprise at the coincidence of him being there.
‘It’s just like old times,’ she declared, ‘us all being together again!’
Except it wasn’t. Everything had changed.
‘The dancefloor beckons,’ Ellis said, extending his hand to Naomi. ‘Shall we?’
She hesitated.
‘Can’t beat a bit of Phil Collins,’ he pressed.
‘Go on, Naomi,’ urged Geraldine, giving her a shove. ‘There’s no chance of Colin dancing with you,not now he and Brian have settled themselves in for the night at the bar.’
They’d just made it to the dancefloor when ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ segued into a drop in tempo to Stevie Wonder’s ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You’.
