Two Fridays in April (28 page)

Occasionally her visits have coincided with days that he brought home something he’d made in catering college: a lamb tagine, a chicken or fish pie, a rhubarb and custard tart. He endures his father’s teasing as Judy doles it out –
You’ll make someone a lovely wife one day, son
– and if there are leftovers Judy parcels them up for Una to take home. This isn’t a problem: Una tells Daphne they came from whatever friend she was supposedly having dinner with. It’s only half a lie.

Daphne has suggested, more than once, that Una bring her friends home so she can cook for them.
We should return the favour
, she says,
you’re always going to their houses
– and whenever this happens Una says,
Yeah
,
sometime
, knowing Daphne won’t try to fix a date. Daphne goes through the motions, that’s all.

The organ starts up: there’s a rustle among those assembled.
Una gets to her feet with the rest of them as the newlyweds emerge from the sacristy and parade down the aisle, Charlotte being ambushed for an inevitable hug from her tearful mother.

Her bridal dress, bought on eBay and adjusted by Gaby’s friend, is white and lacy, with tiny pearl buttons pattering up the back, and sleeves that come to a stop just below her elbows. When she moves, the train of her veil slides along behind her like the ribbon of foam that follows a cruise ship. Gaby, bringing up the rear beside the best man, gives Una a wink as she passes.

The guests leave the church in a slow, chattering mass that forms itself into little knots outside. People cluster and regroup around the bride and groom, who stand together on the steps. Cameras flash, confetti flies, laughter erupts. Shoe straps are adjusted, hats are straightened, children exclaimed over.

Judy moves from group to group, her equilibrium restored, Brian’s relatives as familiar to her as her own. All of them, it appears, have grown up within the same half a square mile. Everyone, it seems to Una, knows everyone else. Everyone except her.

She stands alone in the church doorway, trying not to shiver. A tiny headache taps at her temple – the consequence, no doubt, of the Prosecco. Her shoes, predictably, have begun to pinch: she slips each foot out in turn and wriggles her cramped toes.

She sees Theo standing with Brian and a few others. He must have spotted her, she’s in full view, but he makes no effort to approach or draw her into the group. Maybe he feels she’s taking over his family, claiming his parents for her own. Maybe he wishes he’d never introduced her to them.

She sneaks a look at her watch: half past one. Lunch over at school, double history usually on Friday afternoon but classes finishing early today because of the Easter holidays. Ciara and Emma will go into town, like they always do.
We’ll treat you to a birthday hot chocolate
, Ciara had said to Una yesterday – only of course that’s not happening now.

Jennifer, the fourth in the group, won’t be with them: she’s flying to France this evening with her mother and sisters. They’re spending Easter in a hotel that overlooks the beach in Cannes. Jennifer’s parents split up last year, a few months after Una’s dad died. Since then it’s looked like they’re in competition to see who can spoil their kids the most.

It’s a pain
, Jennifer said once,
having to spend every weekend with Dad in his stupid apartment
. And then she glanced at Una and her face went bright red, and suddenly none of them knew where to look or what to say.

‘Sorry, love, you’re all alone.’ Judy appears, clamping a hand to her hat to keep the wind from catching it. ‘Where’s that Theo? Why isn’t he looking after you?’

‘It’s OK,’ Una says quickly – but Judy has spotted him and is beckoning him across. He walks over to them, jacket flapping in the breeze.

‘Yeah?’

‘I found poor Una all by herself,’ his mother scolds. ‘She knows nobody here except us. You need to look after her.’

‘I’m fine,’ Una says – it’s plain the last thing he wants to do is have her hanging onto him – but Judy has vanished again, leaving them alone. They stand side by side in the porch as conversations continue all around them. She wants to ask if
he’s cross with her – there’s definitely something up – but the question sounds silly in her head, so she leaves it there.

She shifts her weight from one aching foot to the other, holding her wrap tightly around her, wishing she could sit down, wishing this part of the day at least was over. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to come; maybe she should have turned down the invitation.

‘I have kites,’ Theo says suddenly.

She looks up at him. He’s turned away from her, staring out into the crowd. He must be talking to someone else, although nobody seems to be paying them much attention.

He turns to face her, looking at her properly for the first time that day. ‘Kites,’ he repeats. ‘Two. I got a loan of them from a guy in the college. His uncle makes them.’

His cheeks are pink with the cold. His eyes are green as a cat’s. His nose is slightly too big for his face, but she thinks that adds to it a bit, gives it character. He is, she realises suddenly, quite good-looking.

‘Kites,’ she says, because he seems to be waiting for some sort of response. ‘Right.’ What’s he on about?

‘Have you ever flown one?’

‘No.’

‘They’re brilliant. We could do it later. They’re in the boot of Dad’s car – I put them in last night.’

She regards him with astonishment. Fly kites in the middle of his sister’s wedding – what’s got into him? And then it strikes her that he’s joking – he must be – and she laughs.

He doesn’t join in. ‘Just an idea,’ he says, looking away again. ‘I thought you might fancy it, that’s all.’

It’s not a joke. He really was suggesting that they fly kites. He actually seems disappointed that she’s not jumping at it. She shifts again from foot to foot, trying to find the right response.

‘It’s just – wouldn’t you need lots of space for that, like … a park or something?’
Not to mention that we’re at a wedding
.

He shrugs. ‘There’s a big garden at the hotel … Doesn’t matter.’

Silence resumes. She sees Charlotte throwing back her head in laughter at something Gaby has said. Confetti is strewn about on the ground, like breadcrumbs from a fairy tale.

Theo sighs, shoves his hands into his trouser pockets. Una feels she’s let him down in some way – but honestly, how could he possibly think it’s a good idea today? Running after a kite – or is it the other way around? – in a silk dress and shoes definitely
not
designed for running seems like the height of idiocy to her. And yet, if he brought them along with her in mind, is she being mean not to at least consider it?

‘We’re moving,’ he says suddenly, and walks off without waiting for her, and now she sees Judy beckoning to them from the church gate. She follows him gingerly, every step a challenge by now.

‘Your shoes are at you,’ Judy says, as she approaches. ‘Gaby has plasters; we’ll get some from her at the hotel.’

The skin beneath her eyes is spotted with black. Her lipstick has all but disappeared. One of the feathers in her hat is bent and drooping. She looks completely happy.

‘Isn’t this an absolutely wonderful day?’ she says – and immediately afterwards her mouth falls downward in an almost
comical expression of dismay. ‘Oh, my God,’ she says, hands flying to her cheeks, ‘oh, God above, I’m so sorry, love—’

Una shakes her head. ‘It’s OK,’ she says, ‘really’ – and, oddly, it is. It is OK.

The plasters are helping a lot, and so are the gel cushions Gaby gave her to slip under the balls of her feet.

I’ve been there, girl
, she told Una.
I have shoes that cripple me no matter how often I wear them. They’re a curse: don’t know why we do it to ourselves
.

It’s the middle of the afternoon, and the rain that’s been threatening has so far held off. Scores of photographs have been taken in the hotel gardens, mostly around the giant horse chestnut tree that grows beyond the tastefully designed and beautifully kept shrubberies and flowerbeds. Behind the tree is a huge, manicured lawn, easily the size of a football field, and bisected by paved walkways that are dotted here and there with benches.

Plenty of room to fly a kite, if you had a mind to.

Since their odd little conversation in the church porch, Theo has kept well away from Una. They’ve been positioned close to one another for various photos – Judy ignoring Una’s reluctance to be included – but that’s as much as she’s seen of him. Instead she’s been befriended by Ellen, a first cousin of Brian’s, and her husband Paul.

‘Weddings are horrible on your own,’ Ellen says, when Una confesses she knows only Charlotte’s immediate family. ‘They should have let you bring a boyfriend’ – and Una doesn’t want
to admit that she doesn’t have one, or elaborate on how exactly she came to be invited, so she says nothing and lets them think a boyfriend would have been available if he’d been called upon.

Over the past few years she’s been kissed by various boys. From time to time she’s indulged in a little more than kissing. She’s allowed occasional hands under her top, has felt the thrill of someone else’s touch on her bare skin, and the hot itch it has generated lower down. She’s been aware of the answering arousal of the boy in question when he has pressed against her.

But she’s drawn the line at going further, despite other girls’ hints at the excitement to be had, despite the increasingly graphic love scenes she’s seen in films on Netflix. It’s not time, she thinks, not yet. She wants it to be special, not just a coming-together of two bodies. Also, she’s a little bit scared.

She wants to be in love, however old-fashioned that might sound, and she’s still waiting for that to happen.

She excuses herself and visits the hotel bathroom. In a cubicle she takes her phone from her bag and checks her emails – and there it suddenly is, the one she’s been waiting for all week. She races through it.

She stares at the screen, rereading the few sentences, trying to take them in.
I have the information you want
– can it be true? She hardly dares believe it.

Meet him, though – she wasn’t expecting that. She assumed he’d just email her with whatever he’d found, but it appears she
was wrong. He wants to meet her. Maybe he wants to see her face when he tells her, and maybe he deserves that much.

She’s never been in the Charles but she knows where it is. The other side of the city, not far from an Irish-dancing school she and Ciara used to go to when they were younger. She’d have to get a taxi there – it’s not on any bus route she knows. Dad or Ciara’s father used to take it in turns to drop and collect them from Irish dancing. Una always preferred when it was Ciara’s father’s turn: Dad drove so slowly, and they weren’t allowed to put on the radio.

She puts a fingernail between her teeth and nibbles it as she reads the email again. He’s told her his name is Dave. He’s mentioned a wife, but she could be a figment of his imagination. There mightn’t be a word of truth in anything he’s told her.

But it might be true, he might have found something.
I have the information you want
– and she does want it, oh, she wants it so badly. The thought of getting it tonight, in just a few hours’ time, is tantalising. And meeting him in a hotel lobby should be safe enough, shouldn’t it? Even if it’s quiet, like he says, there would still be people coming and going – and surely at least one receptionist behind the desk.

But by eight-thirty she’ll be at home, eating her second dinner with Daphne and Mo. She can’t do it, she can’t not turn up for the special meal Daphne is cooking – even if Una hadn’t asked for it, even if it’s the last thing she feels like facing this evening.

She leans her head against the cubicle door and tries to think. She could ring Daphne now and explain, come clean about
what she’s been doing. She imagines Daphne’s surprise, her shock maybe, the endless injured questions that are bound to follow.

She can’t do it.

She won’t tell, not yet. She’ll send Daphne a text in a while, say she’s having dinner at Ciara’s. It won’t go down well – Mo
definitely
won’t like it – but they’ll get over it. It won’t be the end of the world.

She’d love to have someone with her when she meets him, though – because of course she’s going to meet him: she realises the decision was made as soon as she read his email. But there’s nobody she can bring with her, nobody at all. Obviously not Daphne or Mo – and certainly not Theo or any of his family, not today.

And not Ciara either, not after Una claiming to be sick. And, anyway, Ciara knows nothing about this – nobody knows anything about it except Una, and the man who may or may not be named Dave. She can’t call Ciara.

George, she thinks suddenly. George would come, she’s sure. She could swear him to secrecy, promise she was going to tell Daphne soon – but as she scrolls through her contacts she abruptly remembers his school show. Last weekend he told them about it, he wished Una a happy birthday in advance because he’d be busy on the night. So George is out too.