got to go.’
‘You don’t have to do that.’ Eva was crying now. ‘Please don’t go, we can talk about this. I’m so sorry. I’m not going to make this hard for you. I don’t even have to come to the wedding.’
‘How’s it going to look if you suddenly pull out of the wedding? If you’ve ever been a friend to me you’ll come and you’ll be happy for me, for us. And for God’s sake don’t tell anyone about this, not even Sylvie, just forget it.’ His voice grew quieter as he spoke, and she watched as his anger was replaced by calm resolve. ‘You know I care about you, Eva, but it has to be just as a friend now. Things have changed and this is how it has to be.’
He leant down and kissed her forehead, then turned and walked away. She watched him go, wracked with shock and shame, heart pounding painfully inside her rib cage. Eva lowered herself onto a nearby bench and watched him grow smaller as he strode away from her down the hill. For a long time after he’d finally disappeared she remained sitting there alone, letting the air darken around her and her hands grow cold and her mind go numb.
Chapter 11
Cotswolds, October 2001
O N THE DAY of the wedding Eva drove out to the village in the Cotswolds with Sylvie in the front passenger seat and Lucien and his plus-one in the back. Chas, as she introduced herself whilst clambering into the back of Eva’s car, was a six-foot podium dancer from one of Lucien’s increasingly successful club nights.
‘As in “…and Dave”?’ Eva had joked. ‘Seventies pop-rock duo credited with popularising the musical style colloquially known as “rockney”?’ she added in desperation when that failed to elicit a laugh, but Chas had just stared at her blankly and then shifted over to allow Lucien to ooze in beside her with a cat-that-got-the-cream look on his face.
Lucien and Chas were in an extremely intimate relationship. Eva knew this because they’d spent much of the two-hour drive being extremely intimate on the back seat of her car, until she’d been forced to tilt the rear-view mirror away and turn up the radio in order to stifle the steadily building urge to swerve into a tree.
They were booked into the country spa hotel where the reception was taking place, and as they approached the Georgian manor house along the gravel drive, sandstone walls glowing golden in the sun, Lucien let out a low whistle.
‘They’re certainly doing it in style. Not bad for a shotgun wedding.’
Eva had to admit that he was right. She had certainly never been the sort to fantasise about her wedding day, what with growing up with Keith’s lectures on gender oppression and the patriarchal nature of marriage, but if she’d given it any thought this would have been just the sort of place she’d have wanted to do it.
It was a relief to finally arrive so that she could escape the car to go and get changed in the room she was now apparently sharing with Sylvie. Eva had booked two rooms for the trip, waving away Sylvie’s faint mutters about repaying her. She knew that Sylvie couldn’t have afforded to come if she’d had to pay for the hotel so taking care of the booking had seemed the easiest way to avoid any awkwardness. But what hadn’t occurred to her was that Lucien would bring a date, so that she would end up sharing a twin room and shelling out the best part of two hundred quid for him to get his rocks off. The thought made her seethe. Dressed for the wedding, they reconvened in the hotel lobby where Lucien, clad in a foppish sky-blue designer suit, was leaning against an enormous carved wooden fireplace, somehow looking at once utterly ludicrous and devastatingly handsome.
‘Shall we?’ he said, proffering Eva the arm that didn’t have Chas hanging from it in a gold lamé dress.
The ceremony took place in an old chapel half a mile away, sunlight trickling in through stained glass windows and threadbare old prayer cushions hanging from the backs of the pews.
‘You don’t have to do that.’ Eva was crying now. ‘Please don’t go, we can talk about this. I’m so sorry. I’m not going to make this hard for you. I don’t even have to come to the wedding.’
‘How’s it going to look if you suddenly pull out of the wedding? If you’ve ever been a friend to me you’ll come and you’ll be happy for me, for us. And for God’s sake don’t tell anyone about this, not even Sylvie, just forget it.’ His voice grew quieter as he spoke, and she watched as his anger was replaced by calm resolve. ‘You know I care about you, Eva, but it has to be just as a friend now. Things have changed and this is how it has to be.’
He leant down and kissed her forehead, then turned and walked away. She watched him go, wracked with shock and shame, heart pounding painfully inside her rib cage. Eva lowered herself onto a nearby bench and watched him grow smaller as he strode away from her down the hill. For a long time after he’d finally disappeared she remained sitting there alone, letting the air darken around her and her hands grow cold and her mind go numb.
Chapter 11
Cotswolds, October 2001
O N THE DAY of the wedding Eva drove out to the village in the Cotswolds with Sylvie in the front passenger seat and Lucien and his plus-one in the back. Chas, as she introduced herself whilst clambering into the back of Eva’s car, was a six-foot podium dancer from one of Lucien’s increasingly successful club nights.
‘As in “…and Dave”?’ Eva had joked. ‘Seventies pop-rock duo credited with popularising the musical style colloquially known as “rockney”?’ she added in desperation when that failed to elicit a laugh, but Chas had just stared at her blankly and then shifted over to allow Lucien to ooze in beside her with a cat-that-got-the-cream look on his face.
Lucien and Chas were in an extremely intimate relationship. Eva knew this because they’d spent much of the two-hour drive being extremely intimate on the back seat of her car, until she’d been forced to tilt the rear-view mirror away and turn up the radio in order to stifle the steadily building urge to swerve into a tree.
They were booked into the country spa hotel where the reception was taking place, and as they approached the Georgian manor house along the gravel drive, sandstone walls glowing golden in the sun, Lucien let out a low whistle.
‘They’re certainly doing it in style. Not bad for a shotgun wedding.’
Eva had to admit that he was right. She had certainly never been the sort to fantasise about her wedding day, what with growing up with Keith’s lectures on gender oppression and the patriarchal nature of marriage, but if she’d given it any thought this would have been just the sort of place she’d have wanted to do it.
It was a relief to finally arrive so that she could escape the car to go and get changed in the room she was now apparently sharing with Sylvie. Eva had booked two rooms for the trip, waving away Sylvie’s faint mutters about repaying her. She knew that Sylvie couldn’t have afforded to come if she’d had to pay for the hotel so taking care of the booking had seemed the easiest way to avoid any awkwardness. But what hadn’t occurred to her was that Lucien would bring a date, so that she would end up sharing a twin room and shelling out the best part of two hundred quid for him to get his rocks off. The thought made her seethe. Dressed for the wedding, they reconvened in the hotel lobby where Lucien, clad in a foppish sky-blue designer suit, was leaning against an enormous carved wooden fireplace, somehow looking at once utterly ludicrous and devastatingly handsome.
‘Shall we?’ he said, proffering Eva the arm that didn’t have Chas hanging from it in a gold lamé dress.
The ceremony took place in an old chapel half a mile away, sunlight trickling in through stained glass windows and threadbare old prayer cushions hanging from the backs of the pews.
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