The cab slows as we near the grand pillared entrance to the hotel. Just before it comes to a halt, I look down at our hands, then I brush my little finger softly over the top of his. But he moves away, ostensibly to open the door, so he can come around the car and get mine for me, but I know rejection when I sense it.
I want to grab for the handle and get myself out, but I know it’ll only make things worse, so when he opens it for me, I take the hand he offers. Our eyes meet briefly as I plant my feet on the gravel driveway and stand up. Not exactly a truce, but an agreement that we’ll paper over the cracks because, right now, it’s showtime.
We walk up the wide sandstone steps and into the marble-tiled reception lobby and glue on our best smiles as we walk towardsthe function room. Around the open double doors is a display of silver and white balloons, and over the entrance, spelled in large shiny letters, is: ‘Happy 10th Anniversary, Luke & Jess!’
A cheer goes up as we enter the hotel’s largest function room. Shouts of ‘Happy Anniversary!’ and ‘Congratulations!’ are almost drowned out by the setting off of what seems like a thousand party poppers. A slow-falling trail of colourful tissue paper lands on my head. I brush it away, my smile wide and bright and artificial.
Luke’s mum rushes over. ‘Congratulations, darlings!’ She kisses Luke on the cheek and envelops me in a warm hug. ‘If you can get through the first ten years, you can get through the next twenty,’ she tells us brightly as Luke’s dad comes to stand beside her.
I nod and smile, of course. I can’t tell her the truth, partly because I don’t want to upset her – I love Diane to bits – but also because I’m not certain what the truth is. Sure, Luke and I are standing here at our tenth anniversary party but, toilet paper fights and anniversary presents aside, do we really have a solid foundation for the next couple of decades?
Up until a few weeks ago, I would have said of course we had, but as our anniversary approached, I started looking at our life together more carefully. We’ve both been so busy in our jobs – him at his family’s building firm, me as a physiotherapist – that I didn’t notice the distance between us. I think we’ve been drifting apart so slowly it would have been impossible to spot in the moment.
But now we’re noticing. Which is possibly why we’re getting snippy at each other about stupid things we probably wouldhave just laughed about when we were first married. I think we need to talk. Really talk.
My father and stepmother appear before us, along with my twin half-sisters. More kisses and hugs. Someone thrusts a glass of Prosecco into my hand. Luke and I kiss them warmly, especially Adelola, who is known by her friends and family simply as ‘Lola’. I know it’s down to her that they’ve arrived on time. My father can be notoriously unreliable about times and dates and places, even though he’s extremely detail-orientated in every other area of his life.
Dad met Lola a couple of years after his messy split from my mum. A mid-life crisis, possibly? All I knew was that one moment I was a normal seven-year-old, living in a three-bed semi with my parents and two cats, and the next there was shouting and fighting and Dad disappearing in the middle of the night to go and live with someone who wasn’t my mum. She was devastated to discover he’d been having an affair with someone from work.
It didn’t last. They broke up just over a year later. Dad went through what I call his ‘teenage phase’ and then he met Lola, who is all common sense and good manners, and he regained his sanity.
My dad’s a strange sort. I keep in touch, visiting only once a month, even though they live fairly close by, and calling roughly once a week, but I never seem to feel that sense of togetherness – of family – that we had when he was living at home and I was Daddy’s little girl. It’s as if something broke and neither of us know how to repair it. I’m not resentful of Lola or the girls, though. I appreciate the woman who whipped some sense into my dad with her no-nonsense ways and soft laughter.
‘Can we have a glass of Prosecco?’ one of the twins asks, their eyes lighting up as a waiter goes past with a tray.
‘No,’ Lola says firmly, as my father opens his mouth but then sees his wife’s expression and shuts it again. Lola is very particular about bad language and alcohol where her two daughters are concerned.
‘We’ve got some mocktails on offer?’ Luke says, pointing to a table set up in the corner, and sets off to fetch one each for them.
Charity, the older of the two by five minutes, rolls her eyes. ‘We’re almost eighteen, you know,’ she says to her mum.
Constance jabs her sister in the ribs, warning her to tread carefully.
‘Do you think I do not have eyes in my head?’ Lola replies, unperturbed. ‘Or that I do not remember birthing you?’ The twins share a horrified look at the mention of the word ‘birth’ but their mother carries on. ‘Almostis the correct word. You are not eighteen yet. And if we were in Nigeria, I would have sent you to a serious boarding school by now that would train you well. Don’t try me … ’
Both girls look at the floor, but they are saved from what is promising to be one of her poetic rants because she spots Luke’s parents across the room and, after warning the twins that the angels around them are shaking their heads, she drags Dad off with her to greet them.
Charity watches her mum go. ‘She issoannoying.’
‘Facts,’ Connie says. ‘She wouldn’t even let us wear real lipstick this evening. It took all I had to convince her my tinted lip balm was okay.’
I give them both a sympathetic smile. ‘It’s not so bad to have a mum who looks out for you. I know it’s annoying, but it’s doneout of love. All she wants is to keep you safe and for you to be happy.’
I would have put up with all the curfews and make-up bans in the world to have a mother like that.
‘You probably don’t remember what it was like being a teenager,’ Charity says, trying to hide a cheeky smirk. ‘Like, you’reold.’
Luke arrives just in time to catch the comment and laughs as he hands each of the twins a Virgin Mojito.
‘Monstrous child,’ I mutter as I place my hands on her shoulders, turn her around and steer her in the direction of a huddle of people on the other side of the room. Some of Luke’s younger cousins have arrived. ‘Go and bother some people your own age while I hunt for my Zimmer frame.’
The large group of friends and family near the doorway begins to splinter as we greet more people. Some groups drift to the bar on the far side of the room, others nab tables set up around the edge of the dance floor.
It’s then I spot Hannah a short distance away and my face lights up. She rushes over and kisses both Luke and I on the cheek. ‘Congratulations on ten years!’
I pull her into a hug. ‘I don’t know what I would have done without you. You’ve been amazing helping me plan this thing.’
She squeezes me back. ‘That’s what best friends are for, aren’t they?’
