‘He goes on extended breaks from time to time. It’s some arrangement he has with Granny.’
Caitlin put the bottle of lemonade down, stood up and sat down close to me. I felt my body go rigid, unsure how to react to the sudden intimacy.
‘Right then, if you and I are going to be friends, you need to tell me everything about yourself. I need to know your deepest, darkest secrets.’ Caitlin raised her eyebrows and wiggled them up and down.
I felt my cheeks redden and I wasn’t sure why I felt so hot.
‘Oh, don’t worry. You can trust me, your secrets will be safe. Friends forever?’ Caitlin held out her hand, a wicked little smile played out across her lips. I held her wide-eyed gaze for a moment, looked down at her hand, then I took it in my own, and as I did, I felt a fizzle in my gut. It felt like the sort of excitement I got the night before a school trip. It had an edge to it, as though my body was telling me anything could happen. I had been living at Saxby for months and so far nothing nearly as interesting as Caitlin had happened to me. I took her hand and shook it, for what did I have to lose?
‘Friends forever,’ I said.
5 London, June 2009
Three months until the wedding
I arrive back in Fulham, to an empty house, just before 7 p.m. It’s funny how I ended up living where my dad grew up. I find the area fitting; and I believe one day I will own one of the handsome period properties. Right now we make do with our three bedroom pokey terraced house. Quite often we have to park in the next street and so I never know if Oscar is home. I call my boyfriend’s name as I walk from room to room, but it’s obvious he isn’t here. I flop down into the plush grey sofa and kick off my black pumps. I think about the bottle of gin I was gifted by a client that I’d stashed in the back of the car, but I still can’t get on board with the idea of a drink after work or before dinner like most people I know. I just don’t get the urge. Instead, I really fancy a cup of tea, so I go into the kitchen, which is just big enough for a small dining table against the wall, and fill the kettle.
Even though I have finished work, my mind is now running on overdrive. I’ve a new idea for wedding favours and I want to run it by Caitlin. I rushed home so I could have a long chat with her about it from the comfort of my sofa, but since Greece, Caitlin has been almost permanently indisposed. It is quite like her, so I’m not fazed. Sometimes we go weeks without speaking, but at this stage, this close to the wedding, it’s plain irritating. But that still doesn’t put me off, because this sort of organisation is my forte. I guess I take after my mum in that sense. Organisation is my place in life and when Caitlin asked me to be her bridesmaid after Chuck proposed, I fell straight into my element. Despite all the things I know and am, by now, unwillingly clinging to, I have always felt it my duty to protect Caitlin. I knew I had to give her the best wedding day I possibly could.
I don’t know what I was thinking when I was in Greece, the way I had been on that last night. Looking back now, I wondered if Caitlin had some sort of inkling that I was going to drop a bombshell. I was in the midst of an early-evening hangover from the damn daytime drinking, so my perception had been slightly off kilter. I later realised that when I had mentioned to Caitlin I had something to say, she had been stalling me. I had seen her do it when we were kids; when she didn’t want to do something, she had a clever way of taking whoever was talking to her completely away from the subject, usually without them even realising. And so all the words I had wanted to say to Caitlin still remained within me. Since that night, I have started to think that I’ll be cursed with them forever because the one person I need to tell would never want to know. She is such a hardened woman, who has become even more so over the last year since Josephine died.
It is a matter of months now until Chuck and Caitlin are to be married. Chuck had been flitting in and out of Caitlin’s life for years, so when they had finally decided that they were going to tie the knot, I was mildly surprised. I didn’t think Caitlin would really see it through, but Caitlin had never really opened up about her feelings for Chuck. I had asked her many times, even when we were young, and her response had always been the same. She and Chuck were close friends. Close friends with benefits as far as I could understand. But was that enough to build a marriage on?
When Caitlin and I were twelve or thirteen, we used to discuss potential boyfriends and drool over hunks in my magazines. Caitlin was never allowed Jackie, so whenever I got my copy, she would snatch it from my hand the second she saw me. I began to make sure I had read it cover to cover before she got to it. It was one of the only times I felt I had the advantage over her in something, and it felt good.
In a way, we had been mentally preparing for Caitlin’s marriage since we were children and had discussed and rehearsed this part
