The Foster Husband (39 page)

‘No, love. I know it looks like a mess, but I know where everything is, and it will only confuse things. You can go upstairs and talk to your sister while she has her hair done. It’s
probably best if you’re out of the way while I pack.’

‘Where’s Dad?’

Mum rolls her eyes. ‘Prue’s cut down his father-of-the-bride speech a bit. Well, a lot. By at least half. I think he’s having a sulk somewhere. Leaving me with all this!
Honestly.’

But despite her annoyance, there’s an air of hardly suppressed excitement about my mother. And it’s not just because she’s about to see her daughter become a bride. As soon as
Prue is married, Mum and Dad are off to South America for six months, maybe longer. With Dad’s pension kicking in this year, they agreed that Prue and Ben could buy them out of Baileys’
with their share of Granny Gilbert’s bungalow money. Now the newlyweds will have free rein to maximize opportunities for growth in the south west region without stepping on the parental toes.
And as a side benefit, they can live in the parental home rent-free.

And I thought nothing ever changed in Lyme. It’s a new start for all of us.

As I climb the stairs to the bedroom I can hear Prue telling the hairdresser exactly how she wants the flowers arranged in her hair. I push open the door to see my sister looking astonishingly
beautiful. A slim column of filigreed lace is draped over a simple white shift that drops to the floor. The lace rises up to my sister’s throat and extends down to her fingers. Her fine
blonde hair has been looped and plaited into a chignon, into which the browbeaten hairdresser tucks star-like white flowers and ivy leaves. Prue looks delicate, virginal and more like a princess
than any of the pictures on Eddy’s girls’ stickers.

‘So,’ I say, leaning on the doorframe. ‘You still decided to wear white, then?’

Prue looks up. ‘If you say
anything
—’

‘Prue, just joking. You look beautiful. Really.’

I move to kiss her cheek but she pushes me away, complaining that I’ll ruin her make-up. As I sit down on the bed to watch the finishing touches to her hair, my phone buzzes in my
handbag.

Prue’s head whips round. ‘Is it Matt?’

I sigh. ‘Prue. Give it up. It’s not going to be Matt.’

‘But you gave him your new number, right?’ She regards herself in the mirror, turning her head from side to side. The hairdresser hovers anxiously, awaiting further instructions.

I did. Weeks ago. And I got back a terse ‘thanks.’ Since then, nothing. At Prue’s continued urging I have sent him more texts since then. And three emails. Plus a long
handwritten letter. Next she will be encouraging me to use a carrier pigeon just to ensure I have tried every possible method of contacting my former husband. But still no reply. I can’t
blame him. At least now he knows he can contact me when he is ready. If he is ready.

‘Anyway, it’s the caterers,’ I say, looking at the lit-up screen. ‘They say do you want the champagne to keep going until everyone sits down for the meal, or do you want
to put a limit on the number of bottles?’

‘I’ve told them this already!’ says Prue. ‘Twice! Give me the phone.’ She crooks her fingers to demand I pass it over.

I hold it out of her reach. ‘You’re not allowed to get stressed on your wedding day, Prue, it’s the law – that’s why they’ve got my number instead of yours.
I’ll sort it. Just tell me what you want. Remember I used to do this for a living, okay?’

She glowers, unsure whether she can trust me to live up to her exacting standards. Finally her face relaxes a fraction. ‘I suppose you need the practice if you’re going back to work.
Non-stop champagne is what I said, and non-stop champagne is what I want.’

I convey this to the caterers as politely as possible, and manage to avert a canapé misunderstanding without my sister even being aware of it. By the time I get off the phone,
Prue’s hair is finished and the hairdresser has gone downstairs to start on Mum. Prue has decreed my own hair can do without professional assistance, since I am not a bridesmaid, but merely
the sister of the bride, so apparently no one will be looking at me.

‘Prue,’ I say, as she fiddles with a strand of ivy that’s coming loose from her chignon. She looks up.

‘What?’

‘Prue, I really am sorry for everything. For interfering with Ben. He’s a good man. I know you’re both going to be very happy together.’

‘Of course we are,’ says Prue briskly, applying a final blast of hairspray to hold the ivy in place. ‘And let’s stop going on about that stupid foster husband
business.’

She turns to face me, hands on her knees, and looks at me with infinite patience and, dare I say it, a little bit of pity.

‘Kate. You were mental, you weren’t thinking straight and you made a lot of bad decisions. I get that. Everyone gets it. So you’re forgiven. But if you ever, ever try to shove
your nose into my business again, know that I will fucking kill you. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ I agree. It is her wedding day, after all.

Prue gets up and smooths the delicate lace down over her hips. ‘And you’re going to be happy too, Kate,’ she says, her expression softening. ‘I know you don’t think
so right now, but you will. It’s a New Year, and a new start for all of us. You’ll see.’

In her white dress with her blonde hair, Prue appears like a storybook angel, come down from on high to offer me a blessing. I decide to believe her.

If you think this story is going to end with me hijacking my sister’s wedding to deliver a nicely summarizing speech about what I learned about my own marriage, you are
very much mistaken. Firstly because I’ve always thought that seems massively inappropriate when it happens in Hollywood movies – someone else’s wedding is not about
you
,
you crazy narcissist – and secondly because there is no way Prue would let me anywhere near the microphone at her nuptials. Dad’s pre-approved speech opened with a hint of resentment
that you would only notice if you were a member of the family, but by the time he got to the end he was wiping tears from his eyes about his baby girl and so were the rest of us.

The hotel staff have excelled themselves under Prue’s watchful eye, and now that the meal is over, they are busy pushing back tables to create space for a dance floor. There is a small
buffet set up for people who will be joining the evening party, and although it has been laid out for only a few minutes, Mrs Curtis is already stationed next to it, surreptitiously transferring
pork pies into her handbag.

The DJ taps his microphone to tell us all that it will soon be time for the bride and groom’s first dance, and I pick up my handbag from underneath the top table, ready to get to the front
of the crowd. I have done my sisterly duty in entertaining aged aunts, tolerating mildly racist jokes from uncles who should know better, and answering as blandly as possible all questions about my
relationship status. Even better, I’ve done it all without getting mind-blowingly drunk, since there’s been so much to do that it’s been like a work event instead of a party.

When the music starts – ‘It Had to Be You’ – Prue and Ben take to the dance floor with Dad trailing them closely, his newly purchased video camera clutched in his hand. I
wish Jay or Danny was here to see how seriously Dad frames every shot, going for avant-garde angles whenever possible. Mum appears next to me, nudging my elbow.

‘Francis Ford Coppola over there.’

‘Aw, he’s loving it,’ I say.

‘I’ll be lucky to get my hands on that camera once when we get to South America,’ says Mum.

I lean into her and she puts her arm around my waist. ‘I’m going to miss you,’ I say.

Mum kisses the top of my head as we watch my sister and her husband move around the dance floor, accompanied by the paparazzi flash of a hundred camera phones.

‘I’ll miss you too, love,’ she says. ‘But you’ll be back in London. Living your life. It’s not like you were going to stay here for ever.’

‘I know,’ I say. I try not to feel like a baby bird being pushed out of the nest before it’s quite ready.

Dad suddenly appears in front of us, pushing the camera in our faces, until Mum persuades him to put it away and dance with her instead. The floor fills with couples, including Mrs Curtis
clutching tightly onto Ben’s terrified-looking best man.

No one notices me slip away.

I squeeze past the cluster of smokers gathered at the back of the hotel, making an excuse about having to sort out the fireworks. It almost makes me miss smoking, the way it gives you a bit of
time out for yourself without anyone thinking you’re being weird or antisocial.

I’m heading for a bench out on the far lawn. In daylight it offers a sweeping view across Lyme Bay, but even on this starlit winter’s night it’s possible to make out the curl
of the Cobb, its back hunched against the sea, as if it is protecting the town. The bench is hidden from the hotel behind the thick waxy leaves of a rhododendron bush, so I know I will be out of
sight. I can take some time to be alone for a moment, away from the endless questions. What next, Kate? What are you going to do with the rest of your life? And, worse, the sympathetic looks from
those who aren’t brave enough to ask.

I hear someone stumbling in the bushes behind me, and I stay very still. I expect it’s just a drunken wedding guest – no doubt some bloke who’s decided an alfresco pee is more
manageable than negotiating the carpeted corridors of the hotel in search of the Gents. There’s a muffled exclamation as someone walks into a branch, then suddenly I am rocked forwards when a
figure lurches out of the undergrowth, knocking into the bench.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ says Matt.

Matt?

I spin around on the bench in disbelief.

‘I mean, Kate, I’ve been looking for you,’ says Matt, pulling leaves out of his hair. ‘Oh shit, this is going all wrong already. Shall I just begin again?’

‘What . . . what are you doing here?’ I ask.

‘Your sister asked me,’ says Matt, straightening his suit jacket and coming to sit on the bench next to me. I stare at him as if he’s an alien who has just stepped out of a
spaceship.

‘Prue?’

His mouth twists into an awkward smile. ‘Yes, Prue, unless you’ve got some other sister getting married this weekend?’

‘But she never said. I wasn’t expecting—’

Matt takes my cold hand in both of his. I feel like he is holding my heart right there, beating between his warm palms. As if he could cradle it or crush it, whichever he chooses.

‘Remind me again why you’re sitting outside on the coldest night of the year?’ he asks.

‘I just . . . I just wanted to be by myself for a little while,’ I say.

He raises an eyebrow and lifts a corner of his mouth. ‘Should I go then?’

‘No!’ I put my free hand on top of his. ‘Matt, don’t go. Please don’t go.’

‘Steady on,’ he says, laughing. ‘Do you think I’ve come all this way to be put off that easily?’

I shake my head, not sure if I trust myself to speak. It’s time to let Matt say his piece. I’ve said mine already, weeks ago.

Matt doesn’t speak either. He just looks at me, like he’s reading my face, as if he’s forgotten it and has to remind himself who I am all over again. He is half hidden in
shadow, the moonlight catches just the side of his jaw, and the hair that flops over his forehead into his eyes. I have to stop myself from pushing it back like I used to.

‘So,’ he says. It is not exactly the declaration of love and devotion that I was hoping for, but it’s a start.

There is a nervous fluttering in my chest; I have to breathe through my nose because I’m afraid that otherwise I might start gasping embarrassingly, begging Matt to say what it is he has
to say. He wouldn’t have come all this way to ask me for a divorce, would he? Not at my sister’s wedding.

‘Why . . . why did you come, Matt?’ I ask at last, unable to stop myself.

He drops his eyes down to the bench, where our hands are still joined.

‘I don’t even know, Kate,’ he says, forcing out an unconvincing laugh. He pulls his hands away from mine and runs his fingers through his hair, pushing it off his face.
‘I wasn’t going to. I thought I didn’t want to see you again.’

I nod, my lips pressed tightly together.

Matt sighs heavily. ‘You always seemed to want something else – something different to what you have. You didn’t know how to be grateful for what we had. I felt like I just
disappointed you all the time,’ he says. ‘As though what we had wasn’t enough for you.’

I start to say, no, you didn’t disappoint me, I disappointed myself, but he lifts his head and silences me with a look from under his dark brows.

‘I kept thinking about how angry you were with me all the time. About how I couldn’t make you happy. And, God, the truth is I’m not even sure if
you
can make you
happy, Kate.’

I say nothing, it’s not my turn. And I don’t know how to answer.

Matt reaches for my hand again. ‘And then I thought, Why am I thinking about Kate all the time if it’s really finished?’

‘So you think—’ He puts a finger on my lips and holds it there. It feels strangely more intimate than if he’d kissed me.

‘I don’t know what I think. Seriously, I don’t. I just got in the car and drove down here, thinking of what I was going to say, and now I’m here I’m as clueless as
when I started. I just wanted to see you. I miss your face.’

I feel my throat close up and my eyes burn.

‘I miss your face too,’ I whisper.

Matt moves along the bench. I can feel the warmth of his body next to me. He’s so close now that it would be strange to look at one another. Instead, we both look out towards the sea, as
if we hope that someone is going to rise up out of the waves and tell us what we should do.

‘Have I fucked it up for ever?’ I say. My shoulders are tight and hunched up around my ears, ready to hear the wrong answer.

‘I don’t know,’ says Matt. He puts his arm around me, and I allow myself to lean against him. It’s the closest we have been for months. My eyelids sink shut as I let
myself feel the luxury of having him here, even if it’s just for now.