Back out in the foyer, Jakob was waiting for her by the reception desk. A member of staff then directed them through to the ballroom where the ceremony was being held and which was due to start in ten minutes.
In the entrance to the ballroom, they were greeted with a clamour of voices from the assembled guests, some of them seated but most of them on their feet and mingling. Two ushers flanked the entrance, one of whom asked if they were for the bride or the groom, and the other pointed over to a large table where a mountainous pile of gifts had been deposited. It was just as Nina had placed her present on the table that she heard her name being called.
‘Nina, there you are!’
Turning around she saw her father-in-law bearing down on her, a smile of delight on his face.
‘Hello, Keith,’ she said after he’d swamped her with one of his big hugs, ‘good journey?’
‘Not bad. Usual hold-ups with roadworks and diversions. You probably encountered the same.’ Before she had a chance to answer, his gaze slid enquiringly towards Jakob standing next to her.
‘You remember Jakob from the gallery, don’t you?’ Nina said. ‘You met him on one occasion when you called in to treat me for lunch.’
For a split second Keith clearly didn’t know what to say. Then: ‘Yes, of course, silly me,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘I didn’trecognise you out of context. So … erm … you’re Nina’s plus-one, are you?’
‘Yes,’ Jakob said, ‘she kindly invited me to join her. I feel very honoured.’
‘Well … that’s … that’s very nice, I hope you enjoy yourself. These … erm … family get-togethers can be a bit overwhelming. It’s like marrying into the mafia. That’s what Hugh’s best man said in his speech on your wedding day, didn’t he, Nina?’ Keith gave an uncomfortably hearty laugh, but then perhaps realising how inappropriate his comment was, looked as if he wished the ground would open beneath him and swallow him whole.
‘You make it sound like I’m in some sort of danger,’ Jakob said lightly.
‘No, not at all, of course not, it’s just that they’re a close-knit bunch,’ Keith blundered on.
‘How’s Fabian coping?’ asked Nina, feeling she should come to Keith’s rescue, at the same time glancing to the front row of gold-painted chairs where she could see the groom on his feet talking to another man, presumably his best man. ‘Any nerves?’
Keith shook his head. ‘No, you know what they’re all like on Hilary’s side of the family, nerves of steel, terrifyingly fearless.’
Nina remembered how Hugh had always joked that he came from fearless stock, warriors to the last. When he’d been diagnosed with a brain tumour the family had said, ‘It’ll be fine, the tumour won’t last two minutes in a tussle with Hugh!’ It had been fighting talk designed to reassure themselves, to arm themselves against the inconceivable that one of their own could be taken well before his time. Especially someone as invincible as Hugh, whom the younger cousins looked up to. At his funeral there had been much talk in the eulogies of Hugh’s sporting ability, his prowess on the rugby and cricket pitch, his daringness on the ski slopes and his all-round likability. Someone had even joked that the man was just so damned perfect they should havehated him and not loved and admired him the way they had. Not one person had mentioned that it was a small entity, a tumour the size of a walnut, that had beaten Hugh.
‘We’d better go and sit down or she-who-must-be-obeyed will be on the warpath,’ Keith said, breaking into Nina’s painful memories of Hugh’s funeral. ‘I’m afraid we only saved you the one seat.’ His gaze flicked towards Jakob. ‘If we’d known that you were bringing someone, we’d have—’
Suddenly irritated by Keith’s customary act of hen-pecked husband, she cut him off. ‘That’s all right,’ she said, ‘Jakob and I will sit at the back, there’s plenty of room there.’ It seemed particularly unworthy of Keith to keep making his wife the butt of his jokes when he was seeing someone behind her back. Feeling sorry for Hilary was a first for Nina, not something she ever thought she’d experience.
‘You won’t be able to hide from her once the ceremony is over, you know.’
Keith’s remark was only just audible to Nina above a noisy burst of laughter from the group of girls who had earlier been in the cloakroom and were now entering the ballroom en masse, but she caught the underlying tone of what he was accusing her of.
‘I’m not hiding, Keith,’ she said sharply. ‘What’s more, I’m certainly not the one here with anything to hide. I would simply prefer to sit at the back and let the immediate members of the family be closer to the action.’
He stared at her with a stricken expression on his face. ‘I … I didn’t mean anything, Nina, I was joking. I merely meant that …’
His voice tailed off.
‘It’s fine, Keith,’ she said. ‘Enjoy the service and we’ll see you afterwards.’
‘That wasn’t at all awkward,’ Jakob said when they were seated. ‘Do you want to tell me what just happened?’
‘I behaved badly,’ she muttered, ‘that’s what happened.’
‘Is it me, my being here with you?’
Gripping the wedding order of service in her hands, Nina tried to compose herself; she was shaking with shame that she had been so rude to Keith. It had been appallingly judgemental of her, and she knew she would have to apologise just as soon as the opportunity arose. But everything about the encounter had provoked her. She had counted on Keith being entirely relaxed about her bringing a plus-one, that he of all people would think it was the most natural thing in the world that she should have a companion by her side today. Had she assumed too much? Was she, in the eyes of Hugh’s family, forever destined to remain the heartbroken, grieving widow who mustn’t ever be unfaithful to his memory? Hissaintedmemory, she thought with a flare of white-hot anger.
It was not the first time she had felt angry since Hugh’s death. There had been many gut-wrenching days of raging anger when she’d wanted to scream and shout and hurl things at the wall, to smash everything within sight. She had been advised to find an outlet for the anger and so she’d joined a running club in Cambridge. When that hadn’t been enough, she’d tried boxing, but she’d hated that.
She’d read about the so-called five stages of grief – denial, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance – and which could roll up in no particular order. She’d never experienced the bargaining stage, but the others she was well acquainted with. Even moments of acceptance.
Acceptance was why she was here today with Jakob, she realised. Hugh was dead. He was never coming back. He was never going to be her companion again. And it was time that she was treated not as a widow, but as a woman.
