A Rural Affair

complicated reasons, I knew Jennie was so shocked by her own behaviour she was taking it out on Angie. I was pretty sure she’d normally have roared with laughter at the Pete debacle; given her friend a comforting hug.

‘You’ve done nothing wrong,’ I said gently. ‘You had lunch with a man. Big deal. You couldn’t even get as far as the starter without blurting out that it was a big mistake. Relax.’

She nodded, but I saw her swallow. She was about to say something, then blinked and swallowed again.

‘Should I tell Dan?’ she managed eventually, in a small voice.

I was instinctively about to say: no! Then hesitated.

‘Could do,’ I said thoughtfully. She nodded, knowing I knew what she was thinking. That it might bring them closer together. Dan was no fool. He’d realize there had to be a very good reason for a woman like Jennie to put on her best bib and tucker and shimmy off to London. With no threat intended – or even apparent now – it might give him pause for thought. Might give them both pause for thought. And marriages sometimes needed that. A moment when, as you rattle along helter-skelter, helping with the homework, arguing about who’s picking up from ballet, or whether it’s your turn to entertain the Jacksons, you suddenly look at each other and go – oh, OK. A half halt, Dad would call it: when a moving horse is reined in, but not entirely stopped. Just asked to take a moment. To reflect. This might be Dan and Jennie’s moment.

Figaro was gaining momentum now, really building up a head of steam; then a dramatic change of key as Lohengrin seamlessly roared in behind it, signalling the arrival of the bride. It was prettily done, and as we all got obediently to our feet, Luke glanced over his shoulder. I gave him a smile and he grinned back, deliberately giving it some exaggerated wellie, hands raised like claws. My smile broadened. Funny. The other day I’d thought a damp church not terribly conducive to romance, but today I liked him in here. Found his particular brand of laddish humour rather infectious, probably since he’d made me laugh at the King’s Head. And perhaps Angie was right: perhaps a man shone in his natural environment. He was certainly making some prodigious music, despite the intended irony, I thought, looking at his amused profile. I glanced at Simon, the very picture of radiance, beaming in the front pew, waiting for his bride.

‘And Simon’s happy because he got the girl he always wanted,’ I murmured to Jennie, straightening the back of my skirt where I’d sat on it.

‘Exactly. And he doesn’t have to fool around with married women like me while he waits for her to make up her mind – which he wasn’t having again, incidentally. I gather there was an element of ultimatum from him about it. When she asked him to take her back, he said, “On one condition. We get married now.” ’

‘Gosh, how thrilling.’ I shivered. ‘Frightfully masterful.’ I was intrigued. Simon was quite a catch. ‘So who had she been going out with all this time, then, while he waited?’

‘Oh, some married man, apparently.’

‘Right. And what happened to him?’ I asked, as the door at the far end of the church swung open with a flourish.

‘He died,’ Jennie told me, as at that moment the gothic arched doorway filled with ivory tulle. It shimmied for an instant in the shaft of sunlight behind it, then steadied and moved towards us. Accompanied by some tiny attendants in matching ivory silk, and with lilies of the valley in a charming circlet in her blonde hair, white roses cascading like a waterfall from her bouquet, Emma Harding came gliding down the aisle.

17

It was all I could do to stay upright and not give way to my knees, which were advising me, in the strongest possible terms, to sit down. I certainly couldn’t have done without the help of the pew in front, the back of which I clutched, knuckles white. I gazed in horror and disbelief as she got ever closer, a nightmarish veiled vision, smiling coyly and acknowledging friends along the way, presumably on the arm of her father, a small, ruddy-faced man with bulbous eyes. My own eyes were giving them some competition, unable to believe what they saw.

‘Pretty,’ commented Jennie charitably in my ear, because of course we had a bird’s-eye view from the raised choir stalls.

‘Pretty unbelievable!’ I spat, a trifle loudly perhaps, causing even Molly, tone – if not stone – deaf, to turn.

‘Shh!’ Jennie hushed me, alarmed. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘That’s Emma Harding!’ I hissed. ‘The one who was bonking Phil until he up and died a few weeks ago!’

The shock on Jennie’s face gave the outrage on mine a good run for its money. The blood drained from her cheeks and the breath was seemingly sucked from her as if a high-speed vacuum had been applied to various orifices. She stared at me, dumbstruck. Then, as one, we swung back to the bride.

‘I don’t believe it,’ she gasped, joining me in clutching the pew in front.