I said mindless breathing. He said ‘in that case’ and put the cigarette to my mouth. I inhaled and held in the smoke for as long as I could. Above the volume of the rain, Patrick said congratulations.
Oliver looked sideways at me. ‘Yes, bloody hell, that was quick work.’
I let go of the smoke and said yes, well. A taxi came around the corner and drove towards us, spraying water from puddles. Patrick said he’d actually come down to leave and might make a break for it. He turned his collar up and ran out.
Oliver took the cigarette back and I put my head on his shoulder, exhausted by the prospect of having to go back inside and talk to people.
He let me stand like that, then a moment later said, ‘So you’re sure about the getting married to Jonathan thing. He doesn’t seem especially –’
I lifted my head and frowned up at him. ‘Especially what?’
‘Especially your type.’
I said since he had known Jonathan for two and a half hours I wasn’t massively interested in his take on things. He offered the cigarette back and I accepted it, irritated by what he’d said, more at how sullen I’d sounded in reply.
Patrick had not stopped the taxi and was waiting for another one, unsheltered on the other side of the street. I smoked and stared ahead, aware that Oliver was observing me. After a minute he said, ‘So you’re clearly not with child then. In which case, what’s the rush?’
I began to say that I didn’t have any conflicting plans but stopped because acid was starting to come up my throat and then I was coughing.
After a series of painful swallows I said, ‘He loves me.’
Oliver took back the last inch of cigarette and with it in the corner of his mouth said, ‘Not the biggest newsflash though, is it? It’s been what, ten years?’
I asked him what he was talking about. ‘I’m talking about Jonathan.’
He said, ‘Shit, sorry. I thought you meant Patrick. I assumed you knew. Sensing now, you didn’t.’
I turned and looked at him properly. ‘Patrick does not love me Oliver, that’s ridiculous.’
He replied in the slow, over-articulated tone of someone trying to explain an obvious fact to a child. ‘Ah, yes he does. Martha.’
‘How do you know?’
‘How do you not know? Everyone else does.’
I asked him who everyone was in this instance.
‘All of us. Your family. My family. It’s Russell-Gilhawley lore.’
‘When did he tell you though?’
‘He didn’t need to.’
I said oh right. ‘So he’s never said so. You’re just guessing.’
He said no. ‘But it’s –’
‘Oliver, he’s basically my cousin. And I’m twenty-five. Patrick’s whatever, nineteen.’
‘Twenty-two. And he’s not, by any definition, your cousin.’
I looked out at the street again. Patrick had given up and was walking away from us with his head bowed into the rain.
I had never consciously considered any mannerism or physical aspect of his, but everything about him – the width of his shoulders, the shape of his back, the way he walked with his hands pressed so deep into his pockets that his arms were straight and the insides of his elbows faced forwards – were as familiar to me in that moment as any known fact or person in my life.
At the end of the street, Patrick glanced over his shoulder and briefly waved. It was too dark by then to see his face properly, but for the split second before he went on, turning the corner and disappearing, it felt as if he was looking only at me. And I realised then that it was true – Patrick loved me – and, in the next instant, that I had known it for a long time. It wasn’t sympathy I had seen on his face, earlier, at the table, and that was why it was unbearable: someone conveying love while everyone else laughed at me.
Oliver said nothing, only lifted one eyebrow when I told him it didn’t matter either way since I was in love with Jonathan, then I ran through the rain and back upstairs.
9
MY WEDDING TO Jonathan cost ￡70,000. He paid for all of it. I let it be organised by his step-sister who described herself as in events and shared his gift for creating unstoppable momentum. In emails that did not contain any capitals, she told me that she had about a million strings she could pull at soho house, or any hotel in w1, meaning she could get us a date in a month. She said she knew the gatekeeper at mcqueen and had gone to school with most of the girls at chloé so, whichever I preferred, and she didn’t have to make an appointment with any of the florists on the list （attached below） like a pleb, she could one hundred per cent just walk in and get everything sorted in half an hour, even if i was thinking out of season.