I had no idea. “No, to make sure he doesn’t try to chew his leg off.”
Mark reeled back from me, screwing up his face. “Might he really do that?”
I nodded. “Yes, it’s quite common with rodents when they injure a leg.”
He shuddered. “That’s horrid.”
Grace and Rosie joined us just then, Grace slipping her arm possessively around Mark’s waist.
“What’s horrid?” asked Rosie.
“Beth and I were discussing the likelihood of an injured hamster chewing its leg off.”
Grace frowned. “Well, I do hope you won’t associate our wedding day with such a horrible image, darling.”
“Of course not,” Mark assured her, kissing her full on the lips.
“Get a room, you two,” said Rosie.
Mark smiled. “We have, sis. The honeymoon suite.”
It really was time for me to leave.
“Listen, I have to go,” I said, ignoring Rosie’s frown. “Have a wonderful honeymoon, won’t you? Say hello to Paris for me.”
Mark bent to kiss my cheek, and I kissed him back. “We will. See you at Christmas.”
Grace offered her cheek to me too. “Goodbye, Beth. Thanks so much for your gift.”
I wasn’t confident Grace would like the dog-themed espresso cups I’d bought from a potter friend. They would probably stay in the back of a cupboard forever. Either that or they’d be used once, then packed off to a charity shop. They’d been a stupid idea.
“See you soon, party pooper,” said Rosie.
Richard and Sylvia had gone off somewhere. Suddenly I didn’t think I was capable of finding them to say goodbye. “Listen,” I said to Rosie, “you couldn’t say goodbye to your parents for me, could you? I can feel a headache coming on.”
Mark looked concerned. “Will you be all right getting home?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll be fine.” Well, I would have to be, wouldn’t I? Not just now, but for the rest of my life.
It was good to get home, fictitious headache or not. I loved my flat. My parents had been young when they died, but what money they did have had gone into a trust fund for me. When I’d inherited it at twenty-one, it was enough for me to get a mortgage on a two-bedroom flat in a Victorian terraced house in East London. I’d lived there ever since. It had a large, open room—part kitchen/diner, part sitting room—and, best of all, a garden. And not a concrete yard full of dustbins posing as a garden either. A proper garden with a towering London plane tree, a wild area for the foxes and the hedgehogs, and borders for my herbs and flowers. In the summer, it was filled with the fragrance of evening primroses, lily of the valley, and sweet peas. In the winter, the bare branches of the plane tree were silhouetted against the sky. There was always something to see. It was my oasis, my place for respite. Tending my plants and communing with my wild visitors balanced me.
So I suppose it was no surprise that I kept my coat on and let myself out into the garden when I got back from Mark’s wedding. It was too cold to sit down, so I stood instead, holding a mug of coffee it was far too late in the day to sensibly drink, jiggling about to keep warm, sloshing coffee onto the paving stones. I could hear the bass of someone’s music on another street. A few passing cars at the front of the house. The clatter of bare branches scraping together in the breeze. I closed my eyes and listened to it all, breathing in deeply, telling myself it was a good thing Mark was married, swiping away the tears that insisted on running down my cheeks. I had to get a grip. Move on with my life. I’d needed to do that for a very long time, and now I had no choice. If I’d done it before, I’d probably be blissfully married with 2.4 kids by now.
I leaned against the doorframe, images of the wedding flitting through my mind. It wasn’t the ceremony I’d have chosen for myself—Grace might have opted for a buffet rather than a sit-down meal, but it had still been far too formal and traditional for my taste. If I’d been in her place, I’d have persuaded Mark we didn’t need all the rented morning suits and over-the-top hats. The wedding speeches and the hired cars and the photographers. I’d have married Mark in a meadow of wildflowers if I could find a way to make that possible. On a mountaintop or deep in a forest. Somewhere wild and elemental—maybe just the two of us with a couple of unknown witnesses. Either that or at the local register’s office with a round of bacon butties for our closest friends afterwards. I wouldn’t have made Mark slog for weeks over his vows the way Grace clearly had; I’d have been happy to hear anything that impulsively came from his heart on the day. I would have told him I loved him. That I was a part of him, and he was a part of me.
Except that I wasn’t, and he wasn’t. And never would be. At least not in the way I wanted.
A tawny owl began to hoot up at the top of the plane tree, and I dried my eyes, enjoying the sound. The owl was a frequent visitor to my tree in the autumn and winter—he felt like a friend. Like someone who knew I was feeling particularly alone tonight.
I stood listening to him, my thoughts moving on to the time I’d spent with Jaimie at the wedding. He’d been nice. Genuine. I liked him. Chatting to him had been fun, interesting. He seemed like a man who was capable of caring for people, if his love for his daughters was anything to go by. Certainly, he’d made being at the wedding just about bearable.
If I was going to have to find someone new in order to forget about Mark for good, then why not him? I was pretty sure he’d call me, but if he didn’t, maybe I should call him.
4
Rosie’s dad phoned me the next morning. “Hello, love. Hope I didn’t wake you up? Only I’ve got this little shelving unit I knocked up out of some spare wood. Thought it might be good for your bowls and vases and that. You in if I drop it over for you to take a look at it?”
“That’s sweet of you. Wouldn’t you rather have a lazy day after yesterday, though? You don’t want to drag yourself up to Dalston.”
“You know me; I don’t do lazy. Besides, it doesn’t take long to get to yours, does it? Be good to have a run out. Sylvia’s resting today. Had a bit too much fizz yesterday, between you and me. Bet she’d appreciate a bit of peace and quiet.”
I smiled. “Well, if you’re sure, it would be lovely to see you.”
When Richard knocked on my door an hour later, I could see right away that the cube unit he had with him had not been knocked up in minutes out of spare wood. It was beautiful, made of pine with tongue and groove joints.
I kissed him. “That looks gorgeous, Richard. Come in, come in. D’you want a hand with it?”
“No, love, I can manage, thanks.”
I stepped back to let him go ahead with the unit into the living room. There he stood it in front of the big oak table I’d bought at a furniture auction.
“Now, don’t go thinking you have to say yes to it,” he said. “I just thought the shelves would look nice on the wall there. You’ve got so many interesting bits and pieces. I thought maybe you’d be able to see them better up on the wall.”
“Richard, I love it. Thank you so much. But you shouldn’t have. It must have been so much work.”