Rory gives a shudder. ‘Freya could be downright scary. You should have seen the way she laid into me when you first started getting the bus to senior school and she thought I might upset you. She was like a she-wolf protecting her cub.’ The way he’s talking about her so openly is lovely. Nothing can bring her back, but it’s great to be with someone who knew her well enough to remember her telling him off.
I laugh. ‘Feisty and fearless – that’s just how she was. It was awful once she wasn’t there to fight my battles for me.’ I don’t have to say it was awful in every other way too, because he was there. He already knows.
He’s looking thoughtful. ‘It’s a shame the “oomph” didn’t get shared out more equally. That way it would have saved her whipping my ass. I mean, look at your top …’
As I stare down at my boobs, I’m wishing we weren’t. ‘Don’t knock myMeet me in Parisjersey, it’s my favourite.’ It was damned hard to findanywinter PJ’s that weren’t covered in reindeers or festive robins.
He puts down his fork, rests his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand and stares at me hard. ‘But would you really be up for meeting me in Paris?’
For a second my stomach flips. Then, as I crash back to earth and remember who the hell I’m talking to, my mind finally engages with my mouth. ‘Eff off, Rory. YouknowI wouldn’t.’
He smiles. ‘Exactly what I’m getting at. If you were a tiny bit wilder, you might start to enjoy life more. If you’re always scared and sensible you’re going to miss out on so much.’
‘Crap, Rory, I’m a stay-at-home person getting over a failed relationship. I’m not going to go running off with the first chancer who reads my pyjama top.’ It’s bad enough us going to Port Giles together. If Rory were the last available guy in Cornwall, I seriously doubt if I’d go as far as Plymouth with him, let alone Paris.
‘Why wear it, if you don’t mean it, Berry?’ He gives another of those challenging stares he’s so great at.
For crying out loud. ‘Get real, Rory, it’s a meaningless printed slogan, not a manifesto. If I hadn’t been avoiding Christmas it would most probably have been a snowflake, okay? And given it’s on my sleepwear, most people wouldn’t get to see it anyway.’ Good points well made. It’s not exactly like I’m parading it around Jaggers.
From his superior expression he could be thinking he’s back in his lawyer’s office. ‘In fact, Paris would be the last place I’d offer to go to with you anyway. For the record, dating and commitment aren’t actually in my remit. I should have said before.’ Up himself doesn’t begin to cover it.
My voice rises to a screech because I’m gobsmacked. ‘Yourwhat? You grumble about my pyjamas and then come out with crap like that?’
‘What I’m saying is, we’re being thrown together a lot lately, but I can’t be around afterwards. So long as you’re clear on that.’ Now he’s found his calming tone, he’s backpedalling for England. ‘I’m sorry, mentioning meeting me in Paris was a mistake. It was only a hypothetical way of pointing out you’ll have to be more daring if you want to get your happy face back.’
And when exactly did he step in as my bloody well-being coach? He’ll be lecturing me on hygge next. As for the teensiest twinge of disappointment that he’s turned this round from real to pretend faster than you can say fairy godmother, that definitely wasn’t any twinge of mine.
I drag in a breath. ‘So now we knowneitherof us wants to go to Paris, can we please finish breakfast and get on with the day?’ I might have been stalling over my buttered bagel before. But if chewing mushrooms is the best excuse I can find not to talk, right now I’m keen to do it. As for a day that’s shaping up to be the nightmare from hell, Rory Sanderson in my kitchen is awful enough to make me rush on to even that.
‘Fine by me. It’s what I’m here for.’ If he were Gracie, she’d be pouting.
I wait until I get most of the way through my food, then I wave my phone at him, while he’s still eating. ‘So a few rules for the road. We had your tunes on Friday, so today we’ll be having mine.’ Poppy’s loaded me a specialNo need to call the lifeboat, you’re going to smash this wedding!selection onto my phone. My fave eighties tracks, interspersed with her personal ‘power up the courage’ tracks. WithDon’t Stop Me Now!a few extra times for good measure. I’m already secretly whooping at the thought of what Rory’s about to sit through.
There’s not much else he can do other than agree. ‘Whatever.’
‘And have you brought your camera?’
He shakes his head like I’m the idiot. ‘What do you think?’
I mutter. ‘Exactly as I thought.’
He looks at his phone. ‘Are you going to get ready? Or is your photographer’s attention- seeking gimmick going to beHey, look at me, I forgot to get dressed?’ However long he laughs for, the joke really isn’tthatfunny. Eventually he stops and begins to wipe up the last of his bean juice with his toast. ‘Time’s getting on. Maybe we’d better leave the washing up?’
I didn’t need to be a clairvoyant to know that was coming.
As we set off down the four flights of stairs twenty minutes later, despite a nutritionally balanced breakfast with enough calories to sustain a lumberjack, after the best part of an hour with Rory, I’m already exhausted. And I’ve still got a wedding to face.
Chapter 17
Sunday 10th December
Scott and Nancy’s wedding at the Old Lifeboat Station, Port Giles: Sponsors and driftwood
‘Breakfast still on board, Holly B?’
This is Rory, his breathless shout pursuing me as we rush towards the Old Lifeboat Station. If he’s checked the state of my jitters once, he’s checked it at least as many times in the last hour as we’ve heardDon’t Stop Me Now!And as soon as he’d got his ‘I’m not available’ speech out of the way, he went straight back to hostilities as normal. As we drew level with the coast, he said if he had to sit throughBat Out Of Hellone more time he’d leave the car.So as we drove along the last few miles gasping at the views across the beach to the glittering sea, he putTitaniumon repeat, at the same volume Jules played hisGoing to WarCollection. Just to be clear, we’re talking serious loudness here. Decibel levels that made my cheeks shudder and the door panels vibrate. Then, as we arrived at the car park and he manoeuvred the beer-mobile into his preferred, inappropriately conspicuous beach-edge space, I was still yelling ‘I’m bulletproof, no time to lose’ at the top of my voice all the way to the end of the song. So by the time we begin our hike to the venue, I’m feeling pretty damned unstoppable. Put it this way, if I were about to cycle a hundred mile stage in the Tour de France with Chris Froome, I’d put money on me getting a podium place. Add in the sunshine, and the fact Rory let me sing along toLet It Gothree times too, I’m crossing the gravel with the exuberance of a manic lemming haring towards a proverbial cliff edge. In fact, I’m zooming so fast, Rory is having to do a leap every third step to keep up.
‘I’m all good … so far,’ I try to say, but as fast as I open my mouth to form the words, from somewhere deep inside me a breath comes and whooshes the words out to sea. So instead I’m nodding, wildly. As Rory sweeps in front of me to open the diesel-blue door of the Old Lifeboat Station, my knees give a sudden, unexpected creak. When I try to move forward, it’s as if every bit of ‘unstoppable me’ has pooled in the soles of my feet and turned to glue. That’s the trouble with a spontaneous, totally unplanned stop. Rory has no idea it’s happened, so he carries on and bowls right on in, straight into the path of – according to what it says on her sweatshirt – the mother of the bride. He glances over his shoulder, clocks me, rooted to the spot in the doorway, doing my best guppie impersonation. Then makes a typically Rory Sanderson kind of executive decision and bashes on regardless.
