Nora was uncharacteristically quiet and subdued for the rest of the day. Sarah hadn’t driven for over half a decade – not since she moved out of Wales – but she just about managed to chauffeur the seven-seater hire car from village to village down the winding country lanes, her knuckles white against the steering wheel at times. The staff at shops number two – Something Blue Bridal in Cobbledick – and number three – UnRuffled of Tatbury-on-the-Water – were far more polite – a veritable dream in the bruised-feelings wake of Pandora Pritchard-Bailey – but the spark seemed to have gone out of the day for Nora. She looked lifeless in the bridal finery the other boutiques draped her in – more like some sort of dress-up doll than an excited wife-to-be.
Conversely, Eileen got more and more vocal and tetchy, never missing an opportunity to harangue Nora about choosing a secular wedding, or for not having her three sisters as her bridesmaids. As they returned to the B&B to change for dinner Cleo felt exhausted; she hoped a good meal, a great bottle of wine and an even better sleep would see Nora to rights, and tomorrow would be another day. (And if Eileen happened to oversleep and somehow get left behind for the day, well, so much the better.)
You could tell the second that the car came within range of the B&B’s WiFi – every phone in the vehicle suddenly became alive with Facebook notifications, Tweet alerts and WhatsApp messages.
‘I’m starving,’ Daisy announced, staring at her phone, thumb moving over the screen as they walked up through the front garden. It was well past seven in the evening, but the little row of stone cottages were south facing, and they were still bathed in warmth and light.
‘Please don’t tell me you’re on Tinder right now,’ Bea laughed, nodding her head at Daisy’s phone.
Daisy laughed. ‘No, I was just replying to Darren, but let’s have a look shall we? It can’t all be crotchety old men and cows out here, can it? Where are the sexy farm boys?’
‘Do let me know if a cow actually comes up on there.’ Bea was yawning too as she waited for Cleo to unlock the front door to the cottage. ‘I’m wiped,’ she confessed. ‘Don’t suppose there’s any chance of a Deliveroo sort of set up out here? Or room service?’
Cleo overheard her and her face dropped. ‘No, come on!’ she urged. ‘We have to go to the pub for dinner. Apparently it’s all local produce and everything. And don’t even try to pretend to me that you don’t absolutely love sausage-and-mash.’
Bea rolled her eyes. ‘Honestly, I’m so tired right now I can’t even make an innuendo out of that.’
‘Come on!’ Cleo insisted. ‘Half an hour. A strong coffee and a hot shower and you’ll be set to go, I promise.’
‘These better be excellent sausages,’ Bea replied mildly as she took the stairs up to the bedrooms.
Cleo had known Beatrice Milton for over ten years now, and she was still no closer to understanding her than she had been a decade ago. It was like she lived to be a walking contradiction; she was the friendliest unfriendly person Cleo had ever met. One thing had been made unerringly clear from the off – Bea loved Nora more than anyone else in the world and Cleo often wondered, that if it wasn’t for the raging jealously that sprang from that, if she and Bea would get on a lot better. At least, she consoled herself, it wasn’t just directed at her; Bea had barely been able to speak normally to Harry for about three months after he and Nora had come out as being together, and he’d been one of her best friends for pretty much her entire life. Cleo remembered how anxious about it Nora had been at the time, pictured how she’d sat at the breakfast bar in Cleo’s flat, worrying the wine in her glass.
‘She’s not taking it well,’ she’d confided to Cleo, the concern written all over her face.
‘I don’t know why you pander to her,’ Cleo had complained as she liberally topped up Nora’s wine. ‘She should just be happy that you guys are happy, like the rest of us are. She shouldn’t be making it about her, as per usual.’
‘You know it’s not that,’ Nora had rebuked gently. ‘With Bea it’s just this huge fear of rejection and abandonment. Her dad, her mum – a whole bunch of shitty boyfriends, one after the other. I’m basically the one constant she’s had in her life and so the change has… shaken her up a little bit. You remember what she was like when I went to university…’
‘Hell yeah I do.’
‘It’s the same thing.’ Nora had shaken her head sadly. ‘She thinks Harry will take me away from her, the way me going to uni did.’ The words and making friends with you had hung in the air, unsaid.
‘Well. I wouldn’t worry too much. She always shakes herself out of it,’ had been Cleo’s matter-of-fact advice. And Bea did indeed always shake herself out of it; but never quite far enough that life lost its bite, or love lost its fear.
Badger’s Den Bed and Breakfast may be old, but at least the en-suites were wonderfully modern. Cleo stood under the hot water breathing in steam and using generous amounts of the complimentary Molton Brown toiletries for far longer than she should have. She was still patting her curls dry with her micro-fibre hair towel when Nora came knocking.
‘Just give me a second, I just need to put on my shoes,’ Cleo apologised as she let Nora in.
‘You’re ready?’ Nora asked, sounding dubious of that. Cleo turned back around to look at her friend properly for the first time and realised that in the last thirty minutes Nora had changed into a navy strappy sundress, blown out her hair and applied a slick of bright, summery lipstick. Nora was looking at Cleo’s combo of boyfriend jeans and loose-fit raglan tee with the same amount of confusion.
‘Oh, I didn’t realise we were going ‘out’ out,’ Cleo groaned in dismay. ‘I thought it was only a village pub?’
Nora shrugged. ‘Still a girls’ night though, isn’t it? But it doesn’t matter.’
‘Are the others in dresses too? I haven’t brought anything!’
‘It doesn’t matter!’ Nora repeated. ‘You look beautiful, as usual. Let’s just get going. Sausages and wine will be just the ticket for me tonight.’
‘Give me five minutes,’ Cleo begged. ‘I’ll just have to put on what I had on earlier.’ It was just a denim mini and a floral smock halter top, but it was a bit dressier than what she was currently wearing.
‘Okay, if you want – see you downstairs in five.’
When Cleo arrived downstairs in the lounge area, approximately six minutes and twenty seconds later, she knew she’d been right to change. Even Eileen had her glad rags on, although her face was still a little sour. The six women set off, picking their way along the pavementless country road, mostly focused on making sure their exposed toes in flip-flopped or sandaled feet didn’t meet with any nettles. Nora’s mood had already improved some; she laughed and bounced a little as she walked up ahead, chatting with Sarah and Bea. Cleo forgot how beautiful her best friend was sometimes; Nora’s job was a little full-on, and as a result she had of late become much more familiar in the skirt suits of her office, her naturally wavy hair GHDed into submission and pinned back into artificial sleekness. Now it hung loose and natural, and the last of that day’s summer sun tumbled in it, pulling out the auburn lowlights.
The village pub was just that – called The Village Pub. The organisation demon inside of Cleo started to fret the minute they came close enough that she could see that most of the outside tables were occupied by clumps of casually dressed people drinking richly coloured ales from thick, squat glasses as they kept a weather eye on their dogs and kids, running free; should she have called ahead and made them a reservation?
The reason the beer garden was so busy became immediately apparent as the girls entered the oppressively dark pub. A few lone folks – stereotypical ‘regulars’ – sat in their shadowy corners, but otherwise the patrons seemed to all be outside making the most of the mild evening.
The lone bartender was looking at them expectantly; Cleo realised belatedly that they’d all just been stood gormlessly in the door for a shade too long.
‘Hi.’ She strode up to the bar, smiling. ‘Would we be able to get a table for six, please? For dinner,’ she added, after a moment, when the man behind the bar seemed amused.
‘Are you girls staying up at Badger’s Den?’ he asked.
‘Er, yes, that’s us.’
‘Badger said you’d be in for some food.’ The bartender reached down into one of the waist-high refrigerators and pulled out a bottle of something artificially pink. ‘Compliments of your host, ladies. Which one is the bride?’
Nora waved her hand stupidly from where she still loitered near the door.
‘Congratulations, love. Will that be six glasses? Whereabouts d’you want to be sitting?’
‘Can we sit outside?’ asked Daisy.
The man shrugged. ‘As you like. There’s the menu.’ He pointed to a chalk board on the far wall, covered with coloured letters. ‘Come back and let me know what you want and where you’re sitting when you’re ready.’ And with that he handed the wine bucketless bottle to Cleo and began to line up glasses for them on the bar.
Nora nudged Cleo playfully as the group made their way out into the bright gardens. ‘Did you tell the old dear at the B&B that I like rosé wine?’
Cleo laughed. ‘No, it’s just a coincidence! What a nice guy.’
‘Yeah, lucky for you,’ moaned Bea. ‘Can’t bear rosé; it’s so sickly. Cleo, want a gin?’
Cleo shot her frenemy a grateful nod. ‘Yes please.’
‘Would you take a look and see what sherries he has in, dear?’ Eileen called after Bea as the latter doubled back towards the gloomy bar.