23 London, September 2009
The night before the wedding
I had booked a hotel suite for Caitlin and me, just around the corner from the venue. It has two rooms with king-size beds, a huge bathroom and living area with a balcony looking over London. It’s nothing to Caitlin – she has this kind of luxury every single day – but I feel I need something special. Somewhere I can compose myself in comfort before tomorrow. There are so many things running through my mind – and not just the usual bridesmaid duties. Caitlin said she was happy to stay at home, but I said absolutely not on the eve of her wedding. She needed to be here. I wanted, needed, this time for us. I want to look back and for this to be the memory that stands out. Our time alone in the hotel. The calm before the storm. Hopefully, Caitlin will remember it too, something for her to look back on and know that my heart was in the right place and I was and have always been a good friend to her in so many ways.
I hang the wedding dress up in the bedroom on the edge of the wardrobe door and call for room service. Caitlin has decided not to drink anything tonight, so I just order French fries with truffle oil and parmesan, and a platter of cheeses and frozen grapes. Both of us are nervous about tomorrow, but in much different ways. Caitlin isn’t showing any outward signs, but I can tell from the way she is putting things away meticulously that she is channelling her nerves through organisation. I watch as she circles the room, methodically placing objects in the appropriate place: hairbrush, her curling tongs on the dressing table, toothbrush and toothpaste in the bathroom.
‘You’re very calm and collected,’ I call from the sofa in the small living area that separates our rooms, where I sit in my loungewear. I can see through the double doors that she is now laying out her silk pyjamas. It has been a long day seeing to the finishing touches, making sure the party favours are all ready and delivered to the venue. I had wanted to give everything one last check over, even though the venue has a designated wedding planner – I needed to make sure everything will be perfect. My phone alerts me to a text. My stomach does a flip when I read it.
We really can’t wait. See you tomorrow. X
How can it possibly have come to this? All the lies, the deceit and for so many years. But I know it has to happen. I want to send Caitlin away into her new life as happy as she can possibly be, and if that means relieving myself of the knowledge I have been holding on to for too many years as well, then that will be an added bonus.
The room service arrives, and Caitlin joins me on the sofa. I pick up a chip and look at it.
‘There’s about twenty-five fries in that bowl. That works out about thirty pence a fry. A whole potato costs thirty pence. Say they used two potatoes, the truffle oil and parmesan would be less than a pound. So that’s a maximum cost price of one pound sixty. These fries were seven fifty! That’s a gross profit of almost six pounds. I know they have to pay their staff and heating, et cetera, but come on. That’s a lot of profit for a potato.’ I frown at Caitlin who still hasn’t said anything.
‘You’re so weird, Sasha,’ she says absently as she picks up a piece of cheese and a frozen grape.
‘Why does that make me weird, Caitlin?’ I could have ignored her comment – she says things without even knowing she has said them sometimes, it’s like she is on unkind autopilot – but for some reason, I can’t let it drop.
Caitlin looks at me, a little startled by my response.
‘Okay. You’re discussing a chip. Do you have some last-minute bridesmaid jitters or something?’
I shake my head. ‘Nope.’
‘So that’s the sum of this evening, my last night of freedom.’ She throws her arms up in the air in that flamboyant way of hers. ‘And you’re discussing the price of chips.’ She laughs to herself.
‘Well, okay then, it’s your night, your “last day of freedom” as you put it. What should we discuss?’
‘I don’t know, maybe we should get drunk! Oh wait, you don’t do that.’ I feel the comment cut me; even though I know it doesn’t have to any more, I still let it. She can have that one. There are only a few more comments like that I will need to take.
My phone rings, the wedding planner’s name lights up the screen.
‘Pour yourself a large vodka. Knock yourself out, just don’t come crying to me when you have the hangover from hell in twelve hours on your wedding day.’
Caitlin scowls as I leave the room and go to the little hallway to take the call.
A few moments later, I begin pulling
