The thought of Rory’s note has been turning over and over in my mind all week, like a leaf in the wind. Each night, when Daniel is asleep, I flick my bedside light on, and slip it out of the drawer. I hold it between my fingers, examine it again.
Darling RRH
Wear to show me
For Ever More
W
I can’t make sense of it. To show me what?
Darling RRH
I suppose it is wrong of me, to feel so involved. But if Rory is up to something, if he is having some sort of affair with this W, whoever she is, then I can’t help but feel he is violating something that involves me too – the four of us, Daniel and me, Rory and Serena. The only family I’ve got left, unless you count Charlie, but he’s hopeless. My mind leaps ahead, imagines it all coming out, the horror of our family falling apart. Of separation, even divorce. That would spoil everything between Serena and me – all the things I’ve planned. The maternity leave coffees, walks with our babies, yoga classes. All gone. She won’t want to see me now, will she? Not after my brother betrayed her. The thought makes me feel sick, as if there’s a guillotine hanging over us all, and only I can see it.
‘Been looking at your photos. You look banging in this one. Was this at your wedding?’
Rachel is back, standing by the kitchen dresser, holding a photograph in a silver frame.
‘That’s right,’ I say carefully. ‘It’s me and my two bridesmaids. That’s Katie on the left, who you met.’ I hesitate. ‘And the other one is Serena.’
It’s not the greatest picture of me, really. I’d insisted on wearing Mummy’s wedding dress, on doing it in Marylebone Town Hall, like Mummy and Daddy had all those years ago. I thought it would be nice, a sense of tradition. In truth, the whole thing had been so drab. I don’t know what I’d been thinking.
The reception had been in the Chelsea Physic Garden. I’d imagined buzzing bees, the smell of grass, candelabras of magnolia in bloom. But we ended up taking most of the pictures inside, because of the rain. People kept saying the rain didn’t matter, but it did, of course it did. All the aunties had their husbands’ jackets over their dresses, their shoulders hunched forward, their fascinators wilting in the wet. Not many people had stayed until the end.
I gave Serena and Katie both silver-framed copies of this picture. I’m not sure where Serena keeps hers. I’ve looked in all her rooms, but I’ve never seen it on display anywhere. On her mantelpiece, she has a picture of her own wedding, her own bridesmaids. It is an informal photograph – professionally taken, elegantly framed – flooded with the sunlight of her and Rory’s beautiful July wedding day. Serena is grinning, and the bridesmaids are laughing, uproariously, at some joke. Some joke from which I have been forever excluded.
I had just assumed Serena would choose me as a bridesmaid in return for her being mine. But she didn’t. At the wedding, I had made sure to smile delightedly as the bridesmaids passed, two by two, in their floor-length, made-to-measure gowns, clutching elegant wildflower bouquets. Their dresses were duck-egg blue, a colour that has never suited me. She’d have loved to have had you, Rory told me afterwards. She’s just got so many close friends. Unlike you, he might as well have added.
Rachel hands the picture back, and I set it on the table. ‘Shall we go outside now?’ I say. ‘I could do with some fresh air.’
So we sit at the end of the garden. It is sunny, but too cold, really, for sitting outdoors. The lawn is dusted with fallen leaves, the wisteria turning from green to yellow, rustling in an autumn breeze. But it is dry, and the sky is clear, and at least we are away from the building noise. It takes us several trips to take out all the food. Then, I lay out one of Mummy’s old tartan blankets, put some cushions on top of it. I find I’m hungrier than I thought.
After I have eaten, I bend to check on our four roses, dust the white petals from their beds. I’ll need to prune them soon, but not quite yet. Their blooms are wilting, browning at the edges, but they are still soft, still beautiful.
When I return to the rug Rachel is sunbathing, taking up more than half of Mummy’s blanket, her legs stretched out on the grass, my cushion under her head and shoulders, stuffing her mouth with raspberries and peach slices. She looks perfectly relaxed. Whatever crisis brought her to my door – if there even was one in the first place – appears to have passed. She has a new pair of sunglasses on today, the lenses heart-shaped, cartoonish against her baby face. She is wearing denim cut-off shorts and a baggy T-shirt. Her bump sits underneath, a little bigger, but still tiny compared to mine. She must not feel the cold.