7
Carole wasglad of Tom’s arm to lean on as they made their way towards the church. She’d forgotten how much she hated wearing high heels, especially ones as high as these. Working in a busy NHS environment meant comfortable shoes were essential, and in her free time she mostly lived in trainers and flats.
She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d worn fashion heels. Last year, probably, when she’d worn this same outfit to her parents’ anniversary party. It was possible that the passage of time meant she’d misjudged her ability to handle the shoes. The balls of her feet were already screaming at her, and she’d only climbed out of the car two minutes ago.
Well, there was nothing she could do about it now. At least she had Tom’s arm to cling to should one of the treacherous stiletto tips betray her as they walked into the church.
On their way towards the church entrance, Carole paused to say hello to a few extended family members who were lingering outside. She introduced Tom as her friend, which inevitably set eyebrows waggling amongst some of her more blunt female relatives, along with refrains of the word ‘friend’ in tonesthat made it clear they suspected there was much more than friendship between them.
“Sorry about that,” she whispered to Tom once they’d extricated themselves and were walking into the church. “Some of my aunts on this side of the family can be a bit embarrassing.”
“It’s fine,” Tom said easily. “Everyone has one or two aunts and uncles who make them cringe. It wouldn’t be a proper family wedding if they weren’t there to embarrass people.”
Carole appreciated his relaxed good humour. As they walked down the central aisle of the church, she took in the beautiful flowers at the front and the ribbons decorating the ends of the wooden pews. It was a gorgeous church, with stained glass windows through which the summer sunshine was flooding, casting rainbow colours around the vaulted space. The church was already filling up, with the wedding ceremony due to begin in less than twenty minutes.
When Carole spied her sister and brother-in-law in a pew near the front of the church, alongside her parents, she made a beeline for them. Amid greetings and exclamations about how lovely everyone looked in their best outfits, Carole once more introduced Tom to her family.
“Ah, so you’re Carole’s next-door neighbour,” her father said, shaking Tom’s hand. “Great to meet you.”
“You too, Mr Heywood,” Tom replied.
“Call me Frederick,” her father insisted.
“And call me Nina,” her mother added. “Did you two have any trouble parking?”
“Oh, it’s totally jammed out there,” her sister, Jane, chimed in. “I feel bad for all the poor people who live here and who must hate us for turning up and taking all the parking spaces.”
The friendly chatter continued as Tom explained about the lucky space they’d found close to the church and then answered her father’s questions about whether they’d had any troubleduring the drive here, and then her mother’s questions about how long he’d lived in Hamblehurst and what he did for a living. Carole was impressed by his easy conversation with her family, considering he’d only just met them.
A memory surfaced of the first time she’d introduced Greg, her ex-partner, to her family. He’d been awkward and quiet, already glancing at his watch less than an hour after arriving at her parents’ house and suggesting they ought to get back on the road in case there was traffic on the return journey to London.
Carole had almost said that of course there’d be traffic, because there was always traffic on the way into London, but hadn’t wanted Greg to feel embarrassed by such a comment. Assuming he just needed time to feel comfortable in her parents’ company, she’d agreed to get moving, although she’d originally planned to stay longer.
It was, she thought now, just one of the many ways she’d bent to Greg’s will during their time together. From his preference for grey paint on every wall in the house they’d shared to his desire to keep his visits to her family to the bare minimum, she’d gone along with what he’d wanted for reasons she scarcely understood now.
She wondered why she was even thinking of Greg at that moment as she chatted with her sister while watching Tom still exchanging friendly chit-chat with her parents. The contrast between Greg’s stand-offishness and Tom’s relaxed conversation was so stark it was hard not to compare the two men.
Which she shouldn’t be doing, she reminded herself, because Greg had been her long-term boyfriend and Tom was simply her next-door neighbour, who was only here at this wedding to help her out of a tight spot.
Still, why was Greg in her thoughts at all? Since moving to Hamblehurst, she’d barely given him a second thought. She wasrelieved their relationship was over and glad to be moving on with her life. They’d had no future together and although she was sorry things hadn’t worked between them, in the sense that it was always sad when some part of your life came to an end, she wasn’t heartbroken that they’d gone their separate ways.
Perhaps being at this wedding meant it was inevitable that she’d start thinking about the men she’d loved in her past. She’d spent most of the journey here telling Tom about Steven, after all.
Steven, the man who’d shattered her heart into a thousand pieces and taught her just how cruel love could be.
Ever since, she’d never come close to getting engaged to anyone else. Not even the three years spent with Greg had included so much as a hint that they might one day get married.
And none of the handful of men with whom she’d had relationships in the years since she finished university and settled into her career had ever caused thoughts of marriage to pop into her thoughts.
Carole hadn’t quite realised this until that very moment.
It wasn’t something she intended to dwell on. She wasn’t desperately searching for a husband, wasn’t desperately searching for ‘the one’, whatever that meant.
As a wide-eyed twenty-year-old, she’d thought she’d known what ‘the one’ meant, only for that certainty to crumble into dust. The wild love affair into which she’d fallen with Steven Weaver was so long ago, but she hadn’t forgotten any of the pain or embarrassment that had come when she realised how foolish she’d been.
The first cut truly was the deepest, as Carole knew only too well.
If she was thinking of Steven today, and of her recent ex-boyfriend Greg, and fleetingly of the small handful of other men with whom she’d become romantically involved over the years,it was only because being at a wedding inevitably triggered thoughts of past lovers who were now long gone.
