‘Anyway, he says don’t worry … he’ll come and collect you then take you to your fitting.’
I’d got a lovely cosy feeling when Mum had hugged me at the front door, but I realised it had been leaking out of me like a slow puncture since I’d heard her talking to Justin on the landing. The last of it drained away, leaving me unsure what I was doing there.
I went back into the living room and broke the good news to Lo. ‘Justin’s going to give us a lift to the dress fitting.’
To my sister’s credit, she managed not to roll her eyes. ‘How nice of him.I suppose I’d better get ready.’ She disappeared up to her room.
When I heard Justin’s knock at the door, I instantly tensed up, knowing he wouldn’t be pleased I’d gone AWOL or that I hadn’t answered my phone. It had always been natural for me to let my feelings spill out, but Justin was different. Everything simmered inside. Sometimes, I thought things were perfectly fine, and then he’d get upset with me about something that happened days, sometimes weeks, earlier. I’d underestimated his ability tostew.
I stood up as I heard him enter the front door, ready to appease … but when he came into the living room he smiled, holding his arms out for me to walk into them and kissed me fondly before releasing me and greeting my parents. He refused a cup of tea, saying we needed to be on our way to the fitting, but added he had something he needed a quick word about first.
‘I’ve been concerned about your daughter recently,’ he said, eyes full of sincerity as he looked from Mum to Dad. As we all took a seat in the living room, I was glad Lo wasn’t here to witness this. It would have only made the car journey to the dress fitting more uncomfortable.
Mum nodded. ‘She was always sensitive that way, ever since she was little. Never found it easy to get over things. I used to try to talk to her—’ she glanced over at me sadly ‘—but sometimes nothing I said or did helped. I didn’t know how to get through.’
‘Oh, Mum …’ I said, wishing I was sitting nearer her so I could reach out and touch her.
‘I just wanted to help you,’ she continued, her voice getting thick.‘Especially after you left music school. I could see you were struggling, and I didn’t know what to do, and if I tried to say anything, you’d just get angry and push me away.’
‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise.’
Justin was sitting next to me on the sofa, and he reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘I think we’ve been experiencing some of the same issues. I’ve been able to see that she’s not herself at the moment, but if I try to help, point it out, she just flies off the handle.’
I avoided eye contact with anyone. It was true. I had been more snappy with him recently. But it wasn’t me on my own causing the problems. It was just … everything I did seemed to be wrong. From the clothes I wore to the way I kept pushing my sleek bob back behind my ears (they were too big to be elegant, apparently). What time I got up in the morning (later than him), to how I wiped the sides down in the kitchen. I suppose it was the way Justin showed his stress, but, eventually, he’d pick and pick and pick, and then I’d showmystress by snapping back at him.
It would be better after the wedding, he’d said. When it was all over, we could just go on honeymoon – no more organising, no more running around – and enjoy each other. That was the thought that kept me going.
‘You’re very lucky to have such a great guy looking after you,’ Mum said.
‘I know.’
His eyes were fixed on me with such adoration that a warm glow settled inside me. When he looked at me like he was doing at that moment, I felt like the most treasured and beautiful woman in the world.
Lo appeared at the doorway, dress and make-up immaculate. ‘Hey, there,’ she said, nodding at Justin, and I was grateful for the effort she was making. ‘Shall we get this show on the road?’
Chapter Forty-Two
Now.
BEN AND ALICE walked along the seafront as he told his story. When they reached Central Pier, he gestured towards it. Alice nodded, so they crossed the threshold into a large space full of dinging slot machines but empty of all but a handful of customers. They weaved through the lights and noise and emerged onto the weather-roughened boards of the pier, where they strolled past row upon row of sideshows and fast-food kiosks, all with their shutters firmly bolted down.
Alice listened without interrupting, which Ben found slightly unnerving. By the time he’d covered everything, starting with a wasp sting in a secret garden and finishing with a heartfelt goodbye in Heathrow’s departures hall, they were passing the Ferris wheel at the centre of the pier. The entrance was boarded up, and it sat completely still, its white struts skeletal against the sky.
Alice merely nodded, her pace steady and even, and when they finally reached the end of the pier, they circuited a pirate-themed bar, found a piece of railing they could lean on and looked out across the sea.
‘That was the last time we saw each other?’
He nodded. ‘Yes. Until four days ago.’
‘What happened? Why did we never meet up again a year later?’
He sighed and turned away from the waves to look at the weather-beaten building behind them, leaning his backside against the railing. ‘I’d like to be able to tell you that fate swooped in and did something grand to keep us apart because then I wouldn’t have to admit it was down to sheer stupidity –mystupidity.’
She raised her eyebrows, and he carried on.
‘I lost my phone.’ He still smarted with frustration about that day. ‘Running through the airport at the speed of light, reaching the gate with nanoseconds to spare, I must have dropped it somewhere, or left it in a plastic bin at the X-ray machines … I don’t really know. I contacted Heathrow multiple times, but it never showed up, and without it I had no way to contact you, and you had no way of contacting me – your phone had died before we’d even got to the airport, so you hadn’t put my number in it. So that was it. My own stupid fault.’
Alice frowned, looked at the glassy slate sea for a moment. ‘But we arranged to meet a year later – did you turn up?’
