I’d brought along a special bottle of wine to give to Serena, her favourite, the same vintage we’d drunk on her twenty-first birthday. It had taken me weeks to track it down. I’d surprise her with it. I had imagined the moment while I was sitting on the train, as I held the bottle, the neck of it smooth in my hands. How touched she’d be. How her eyes would glisten with appreciation.
Of course, as soon as I’d got there, I had known straight away that I had made a mistake, that I hadn’t understood things properly, that my elaborately planned gift had been a terrible waste of time. I had stood for what felt like ages on the doorstep, my incessant ringing drowned by the stream of whoops and catcalls from within. I waited and waited, my hands getting cold, the wine bottle heavy in my bag. Eventually, the door was answered.
‘Amber. I don’t think we’ve met.’ The girl had a long, equine face, a nylon sash with the words ‘Maid of Honour’ emblazoned across it.
‘Sorry,’ I’d said, although I wasn’t sure what for. ‘I’m Helen.’ I held out the wine. ‘This is for –’
I was silenced by a burst of laughter from inside. Before I could say more, she had taken the wine from my hand and we were headed for the kitchen.
‘Thanks,’ she’d said distractedly. ‘We were out of red.’
Everyone had been in the sitting room, talking noisily in groups. There wasn’t any space on the sofas for me to sit, so I sat on the floor. When I’d first caught Serena’s eye, she’d made a charming expression of delight and surprise, smiled and waved, but then returned immediately to the conversation she’d been having. She had barely known I was there.
I spent that first night perched on sofa arms and kitchen sideboards, trying not to take up too much room or stand in front of cutlery drawers. I clutched my lukewarm cava, trying to be helpful, pretending to have a good time. Later, I found my wine bottle lying empty in the recycling bin. I don’t think Serena even had any.
For the rest of the weekend, I mostly remember being left on my own, while everyone else was either out drinking, or in bed, curtains drawn, nursing hangovers. All the activities that had been organised seemed to involve a lot of drinking. I was trying, desperately, to get pregnant. I could see my very presence was a downer. Most of the time I decided it would be better to simply take myself elsewhere. No one really seemed to mind.
On the Saturday night, they’d all gone out, and it was raining, so I just wandered around the house. It was huge, with long hallways which were, inexplicably, covered with clocks that ticked out of sync with each other. The walls had been covered with old pictures of Serena, from her glossy, blonde-pigtails childhood to the present day, which one of her bridesmaids had taken the trouble to print out and stick up.
The pictures, someone told me, were supposed to be ‘embarrassing old photographs’， which Serena would find ‘hilarious’。 As far as I could see, though, she looked beautiful in all of them. It must have taken hours to stick them all up with Blu-Tack. I had secretly hoped they would leave marks on the walls, and that Amber would lose her deposit. Her horsey face had featured prominently, leading me to suspect the gallery had been her idea. Rory was in a lot of the pictures, of course. I even spotted Daniel in a few. But my face was nowhere.
Eventually, of the dozens and dozens of photographs, I had found this one. The single photograph that featured me, stuck outside the downstairs toilet. I presume it counted as an ‘embarrassing’ photo because Serena was in a costume, even though she looked, as usual, extraordinarily beautiful. But it wasn’t that that made the tears prick at my eyes. It was the sight of myself, before Mummy and Daddy died. I was pretty. I never knew it, but I was. And my face. So young and soft and full of hope. Grinning into the camera, into my future. Before I knew what it would bring. I couldn’t even look at photographs like that. I hated them.
My cheeks sting as I remember how I’d ripped it off the wall in a rage, how I’d torn it in half, right down the middle. Then, I’d taken the Blu-Tack off the wall and shoved it on top of one of the other photographs, over Amber’s stupid head. After that, she was just a floating body. A pale blue blob where her face should have been.
Now, I hold the photograph in my hands, and look at it for a long time, until the rain stops and my tea goes cold. I hated this picture. I never wanted to see it again. So why has it been smoothed out, stuck back together? Why did I do that? Did I do that? I feel a strange prickle down both arms. I must have done. There must have been a reason. Why can’t I remember?