It was the early hours and probably too brisk and autumnal to be sitting outside, but the hens had thick enough beer-jackets and the little bistro-style courtyard under the stars had been too charming to resist. The proprietor had brought out armfuls of warm but scratchy blankets for les jolies dames which they draped over their knees to ward off the last few bites of the cold.
‘So, back to the boats after this?’ Nora asked the group as she poured out the dregs from the most recent bottle of wine.
Daisy gave such an emphatic yawn that Bea swore she could hear her jaw clicking as it stretched. ‘Yes please. I’m dead on my feet. I can’t party like its 1999 anymore.’
‘Well as we were like, 13 years old in 1999, I very much hope your parties weren’t like this,’ Nora pointed out, waggling the empty bottle of red for emphasis.
‘Oh, I seriously doubt I’m getting up to the top of the Eiffel Tower tomorrow,’ groaned Abbey, Nora’s best friend from work, even as she picked up her recently replenished wine glass. ‘Great evening. I can’t wait for the wedding!’
‘Yeah, it’s been amazing,’ Bea agreed with her, feeling a little frisson of pride at her stake in throwing her best friend a truly worthy hen extravaganza. Even if they were all a little too hanging to fully appreciate the sightseeing they’d left for tomorrow, tonight had truly been a success.
‘I mean, I’ve gotta admit, I was a little worried when I saw the invitation…’ Abbey laughed, carelessly loudly, over the rim of her glass.
‘Oh, I know,’ Bea rolled her eyes. ‘You know that was nothing to do with me, right? Claire totally railroaded us with them and we couldn’t find a way to tell her they were naff. At least Nora saw the funny side!’
‘Yeah, what is with Claire? She’s not a bridesmaid?’ Abbey asked, curious.
‘No, she’s not, and she’s got a massive stick up her arse about it,’ Bea confided. ‘She’s being a bit of a nightmare to be honest-’
‘There’s no need to be a bitch,’ snapped a tremulous voice, and Bea realised far too late that they hadn’t been being as quiet as she thought they were. Claire was wasted, but her eyes were alive and blazing, the drink she’d just knocked over bleeding a darker red patch across the spread of her dress.
Mother Cleo was on her feet and moving towards Claire immediately, palms raised, placating. ‘Claire, she didn’t mean it like that-’
‘Yes she did. You think I haven’t seen all those emails coming in and out of the RSVP email?’
Nora looked between them. ‘What RSVP email?’
Bea swallowed. ‘Claire set up a gmail for people to email RSVPs and questions about this weekend and stuff to.’ And more than a few of those emails had been less than flattering about the cringey invitations, which had lead on to discussions about Claire’s embarrassing over-involvement. Bea racked her memory – had any of them been that terrible? The champagne and the vodka and the wine and the long night had left a frustrating fog where her brain should be. Damnit – it had never occurred to her that Claire might be lurking around in the background of the inbox she’d set up.
‘Hey Nor.’ Claire was smiling, and for a moment Bea thought the coming storm had broken before it arrived. ‘Do you want to know who Bea’s real number eleven was?’
That pierced through the fog padded inside Bea’s head; she shot to her feet. ‘Claire.’
Claire didn’t break her stride. ‘It’s probably the only thing she’s never told you. But she told me.’ Her eyes flicked to Bea. ‘Didn’t you, Bea?’
‘Claire,’ Bea said again, desperation bleeding into her voice. ‘Let’s not do this, okay? I’m sorry. We’re all really drunk. Let’s not ruin the whole evening. Please.’
‘Why would it ruin the evening?’ Claire asked dismissively. ‘We’re all just friends being truthful with one another, right? It’s just a game.’
‘This is not a game,’ Bea said between tight lips. ‘Come on.’
Nora overcame what must have been raging curiosity to intervene. ‘Okay, everyone calm down. Shall we get another round of bottles of wine?’ she attempted to diffuse the situation, while her eyes still flicked to Bea.
‘Well, one person around this table deserves to know anyway,’ Claire continued, unheeding. ‘Probably the one person who hasn’t been a bitch about me behind my back. Sarah. Don’t you want to know who Bea’s mystery shag was?’
Sarah glanced at Bea, nervously. ‘I think that’s really Bea’s own business, Claire. I-’
‘Well no, sorry, it is your business, because it’s your husband, after all.’
Bea’s eyes flickered closed. The courtyard was so quiet, so achingly quiet – there weren’t any sharp intakes of breath, or any gasps or cries, and for a moment she could almost pretend that nobody had heard Claire’s words.
‘Cole?’ Sarah’s voice was slightly strangled.‘Cole?’ she repeated. Bea opened her eyes; Sarah was looking right at her. ‘Was it when you guys were at school or something?’
‘No,’ Claire interrupted, denying Bea even this small attempt at firefighting. ‘In fact I think it was just before you two got engaged. It was the night you came clean about you and Harry,’ Claire informed Nora. ‘So, in a way, it’s almost like you have Nora to thank for your marriage, Sarah!’
Sarah, to her credit, didn’t say anything at all. She just looked at Bea with eyes impossible to read. The rest of the hens shifted uncomfortably – a few even looked at Bea with open distaste, the mirror of what Bea had long felt towards herself; she felt her stomach curdling. Of all the many mistakes she’d ever made in her life, this was the one she’d always been most afraid of. When Nora had fallen into bed with her best friend, she ended up engaged. When Bea did it, she just ended up with even more self-loathing.
‘Anyway, now that’s out in the open, I think I’ll head back to the boats early. Bec, do you mind if I bunk in with you guys? I don’t really feel welcome on the bridesmaids’ boat. Not being a bridesmaid and all. I really wouldn’t want to embarrass myself by overstepping the mark.’
And with that, heels dangling from one hand, dress impossibly stained, make-up smeared underneath her eyes, Claire exited the courtyard without pausing to look back.
Cleo was still standing and she moved quickly, pulling her own discarded heels from underneath the table and cramming her feet into them. ‘I’ll go with her, make sure she gets back okay,’ she offered. A few of the other girls took the opportunity to join her, keen to get out of Bea’s earshot and commence the discussion and dissection of what the hell had just happened, no doubt. In the space of thirty seconds it was just Nora, Bea, Sarah and Daisy sat at what had minutes ago been a happy and bustling table, surrounded by a dozen abandoned glasses of wine, Claire’s overturned drink still dripping slowly and thickly onto the cobbled slabs of the courtyard.
Nora and Daisy were looking at Sarah; Sarah was looking at Bea.
‘I know you’re probably thinking it was some epic love story,’ Bea managed. ‘It wasn’t. I can promise you that. We were so drunk we didn’t even know what we were doing. And we’d had a really weird day.’
Nora gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head at this, a “don’t blame this on me” gesture.
‘And that made it okay for you to sleep with my boyfriend?’ Sarah asked carefully, still frighteningly calm.
Bea shifted uncomfortably. ‘Of course not. But you weren’t like a real thing to me. I’d met you like twice. And Cole’s girlfriends were always this big nothing, even to him. You were obviously different though. He loved you. He was d-disgusted in the morning,’ Bea stuttered, her voice breaking on the word. ‘He made me promise I’d never tell anyone ever. He was so afraid of losing you. I think it really made him realise what you meant to him and that’s why he proposed a few weeks later.’
‘Are you seriously telling me that I should be grateful my marriage exists thanks to you sleeping with my boyfriend?’ Sarah bit back, voice rising.
Bea shrank in her chair. ‘Of course not. Of course not. Jesus, Sarah, I’m so sorry. But please don’t blow this out of proportion. It was over two years ago. And Cole loves you more than anything, don’t let this stupid drunken thing that meant nothing impact on your relationship-’
‘Thank you Bea,’ Sarah interrupted, back in control, her voice calm. ‘But I think you should really uninvolve yourself from my marriage, if you don’t mind.’ With a poise that even Bea had to admire in that moment, Sarah finished off her glass of wine with a controlled swallow and got fluidly to her feet. ‘Shall we head off?’ she asked Nora and Daisy. ‘It’s gotten really cold.’
They began the walk back towards where the boats were moored, keeping an eye out for an available taxi as they went, Sarah leading the way with her arms linked through Daisy’s, their heads – one fair, one dark – bent together as they talked quietly. Nora watched from behind with concern etched across her face.
‘Well, it’s certainly a hen do memory,’ she said eventually, the first thing she’d said to Bea in the five long minutes they’d been walking side by side. ‘I can’t believe you never told me.’
‘Cole made me promise I wouldn’t tell anybody,’ Bea repeated.
Nora shot her a sideways look. ‘But you told Claire. That worked out well.’
Bea sighed. ‘I didn’t tell her straight away. I only told her last year. I just had to tell someone. It felt like it was eating me up inside.’
‘But why not me?’ Nora asked again.
‘Because. Because I couldn’t bear the thought of you looking at me in the way you’re looking at me now,’ Bea choked out.
Nora sighed. ‘You are so self-destructive – you know that Bea? And I can’t help you. Not when you insist on just making your life into shit.’
Despite the bruising she’d already taken that night, Bea bristled at that. ‘Making my life into shit?’ she echoed, incredulous. ‘My life is already shit! We’re not all so lucky as you, Nor.’
‘And you need to stop that!’ Nora snapped. ‘My life’s no fairy-tale. The only difference between you and me is that I have gone after what I wanted. I took chances.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘What’s the real reason you didn’t go to university, Bea? Why don’t you ever apply for any of the jobs I email you? Why didn’t you give Eli a chance when he came back after graduation and asked you out?’ Nora shook her head. ‘It’s like you’re frightened to be happy. I will never understand you.’ And those words, from the person she loved most in the word, stung Bea deeper than all of the slurs she’d slung at herself over a lifetime. Shocked into silence, Bea fell quiet; the pair of old friends walked the entire way back to the riverbank listening to the rise and fall of Daisy’s voice ahead of them.