Henry fetches his keys, and whispers, ‘Chicken.’
I make a clucking noise and squeeze his bum. ‘Your family. Your problem.’
Tempe is waiting for me outside Hitchin station. She looks like a young executive in a pencil skirt and matching jacket. We laugh about my future in-laws as the satnav directs us to Milford Barn. We’ve been meeting up once a week to discuss the wedding, or to go shopping or to galleries, or to the cinema in Leicester Square. The National Portrait Gallery is a favourite because Tempe loves to look at the pencil and charcoal sketches.
We rarely talk about St Ursula’s. Back then Tempe had been a distant, unattainable figure, who was part of the ‘cool group’。 Nobody was surprised when she was voted vice-captain in the annual ballot for leadership positions. Usually, the teachers had the final say, regardless of how the students voted, but the best candidates were obvious to everyone. I can’t remember if I circled Tempe’s name on the ballot, but I hope I did.
I wish I had known her back then. I wish we’d caught the same train, or been cast alongside each other in the school musical. Instead, I had Sara as a best friend, who was fickle and judgemental and prone to careless cruelty. One moment she’d be mapping out our careers, boyfriends, weddings and children; the next she’d be ghosting me for some perceived slight. She is much nicer now, but I’m still wary of her moods.
One of the things I like about Tempe is that she admits that she’s not particularly well read or up to date on current affairs. ‘I think I peaked too early,’ she says, in a self-deprecating way. ‘I hit my limits.’ She has an interesting way of looking at the world, often sharing homespun observations that contain an innate truthfulness. One time she said, ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right, but they make a good excuse.’ And another time, ‘The grass isn’t greener on the other side. It’s greener where you water it.’
In my karate classes, she has become my star student. Her technique is excellent, but whenever she has a sparring session with a classmate, she hesitates when given an opening, as though frightened that she might go too far, or not be able to stop herself. In the changing room afterwards, she often walks naked between the shower and the lockers, not bothering to wrap herself in a towel. Sometimes, she pauses in front of me, finishing a story, unconcerned about her nudity. I’m definitely not a prude, but neither am I comfortable flashing my bits, which is why I scramble to get dressed with all the grace of a collapsing deckchair.
Pulling through the stone gates, we arrive at a parking area surrounded by trees that give us glimpses of the seventeenth-century oak barn. We follow signs along a tunnel of greenery to a reception area, which is located in a farmhouse adjacent to the barn. From the windows, I can see carthorses in a field and a family of ducks waddling towards a pond. Someone somewhere is playing ‘What a Wonderful World’ by Louis Armstrong.
‘It feels like a Disney movie,’ I whisper to Tempe as we wait for the manager.
‘Is that OK?’
‘Perfect.’
The manager is a hale and hearty, red-faced woman, who curtsies when she meets me, as though I’m royalty. Her name is Marjolein and she enthuses about the choice we’ve made and how thrilled she is to be hosting my wedding.
‘I’m surprised we could get a vacancy,’ I say. ‘When I first called, you were booked out.’
‘Oh, we can always shift things around when necessary,’ she explains. ‘And when Ms Brown explained your circumstances.’
‘Circumstances?’ I’m looking at Tempe.
She shrugs and we let Marjolein carry on.
‘On the day, the wedding cars will pull up here,’ she explains, taking us through double doors to a turning circle. ‘The guests will have entered through a different door and be waiting to welcome you.’
With great fanfare, she pulls aside the barn door, revealing a cavernous room with exposed beams that crisscross a pitched roof. It feels rustic and charming, with high windows that angle light into the upper corners. Workers are setting up tables, unfurling the white linen tablecloths and arranging chairs. Marjolein acknowledges some of them as we take the tour, and pauses to adjust a centrepiece on one of the tables.
‘This area is often set aside for a dance floor and the band normally sets up in that corner. We don’t have any nearby neighbours so there are no complaints about the noise.’
From the reception room we move to the kitchens and the restrooms, before finishing up on the patio, where we’re offered a glass of champagne and a plate of nibbles as we discuss the finer details of the feasting platters and what alcohol package we’d like to include.
Marjolein asks if we have any particular security concerns. ‘If you’re worried about gatecrashers and paparazzi, we only have limited guards and the place is rather open. It is still a working farm, after all.’
‘Why would we be worried about paparazzi?’ I ask.
Tempe touches my arm, ‘I’m taking precautions.’
I hadn’t even considered the possibility that my father’s presence would draw attention to the wedding and to me. Henry’s words come back to me. ‘Have you thought this through?’
Book Two
I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary.
MARGARET ATWOOD
21
My friends are over: Margot, Phoebe, Sara, Brianna, Georgia and Carmen. Tempe has met a few of them before, but never the whole group. Phoebe is the beauty. She studied to be a print journalist, but there aren’t many jobs these days. Newspapers and magazines are going the way of DVD shops and VCRs. We keep telling her she should work on TV because she has that girl-next-door look – big hair, wide smile, white teeth – but Phoebe is terrified she’ll finish up hosting on a lifestyle programme, telling people how to renovate their kitchens, or re-purpose junk.
Brianna works in social media. She has an older boyfriend, a high-flyer at a merchant bank or an investment bank. （I don’t know the difference.） Carmen is the most self-assured. She’s already married to Paolo, and is pregnant with her first and manages a bookshop in Barnes. My oldest friend, Sara, teaches at a language school in Hammersmith and has been boy-crazy since puberty. Margot is creative director at an advertising agency in Soho Square, and she and Phoebe have been dating since college. That’s what we’ve become: sensible twenty-somethings with sensible boyfriends （or girlfriends） （or husbands） and sensible jobs, but we occasionally go a little nuts.
Since school or university, we have shared houses and holidays and internet memes. We have backpacked through Europe and protested for climate action, and set each other up on dates when required.
I’ve known Sara since primary school and we went through St Ursula’s together, doing most of the same subjects. As soon as I mention Tempe, her eyes begin dancing.
‘Are you talking about Maggie Brown?’
‘Her family moved to Belfast.’
‘She left in her final year.’
‘Yes.’
Sara laughs wickedly. ‘You don’t remember the stories! How she was caught making out with Caitlin Penney in the changing rooms.’