BATH
Sophie pressed hard on the brakes as she drove down the steep, winding road towards the centre of Bath. To her right she could see the city laid out beneath her, rows and rows of honeycombcoloured houses in their Regency splendour. It was a damp, misty day, when the sun hadn’t quite been able to burn through, but nothing could dampen Sophie’s excitement at seeing everyone again. It had been a year since their last get-together at Amy’s wedding and she wished now that she had been in a better frame of mind to enjoy what was probably the most glamorous wedding she had ever been to.
‘Well, this looks pretty special.’ Steve got out of the car in the shingle-covered car park in front of the ancient grey-stone church. It stood in the middle of the Wiltshire countryside, secluded from the rest of the world by woods and fields that had remained unchanged for centuries. He looked around him in wonder for a few seconds, before his eyes alighted on Sophie. ‘And so do you, sweetheart. You look absolutely stunning.’
Sophie flushed under his gaze and self-consciously smoothed down her cappuccino strapless dress. ‘Thanks but I feel like a fairy elephant beside the others. You look great though.’
It was true. Steve looked almost film-star handsome in his dark, slim-cut suit, which contrasted with his blond hair and sparkling blue eyes. His face was tanned and Sophie felt a sudden swell of pride that he was with her. She took his hand and led him towards the church where the others were waiting. They had all stayed overnight together with Amy at the luxurious hotel just a hundred metres away where the reception was being held and Sophie had found the whole night a struggle.
She had started taking antidepressants straight after the hen weekend in Brighton and she was still suffering with some of the side effects. Her head felt as though it was permanently stuffed with cotton wool, which perfectly matched her horribly dry mouth. She couldn’t have any of the free-flowing champagne that the others had vigorously enjoyed last night, especially Melissa, and she felt generally leaden and out of sorts. Her feelings of worthlessness were only exacerbated by the breathtaking beauty of everyone else around her. She felt embarrassed for Amy that she would be spoiling her otherwise perfect wedding photos.
As they reached the church, Melissa bounded over to them. ‘Hey, gorgeous!’ She reached up to wrap her arms around Steve’s neck and pulled him towards her in a warm embrace. Steve glanced nervously at Sophie as Melissa finally let him go, but she couldn’t give him the reassuring smile she knew he wanted. She wouldn’t blame him for fancying Melissa when he was stuck with someone as fat and unattractive as her. Melissa’s strapless dress clung to her perfect curves as if she had been poured into a liquid milk chocolate mould, and her black afro hair had been swept up into a chignon that showed off her toned, brown shoulders and elegant neck.
Emily and her six-year-old son Jack, who was the pageboy, stood off to one side and Sophie steered Steve over towards them, safely away from Melissa. ‘Hi, Em. Hi, Jack.’ Steve crouched down so that his face was at the same level as Jack’s. ‘Love the suit, buddy!’ He tugged at Jack’s miniature dark grey suit. Amy had delivered on her promise not to put him in pantaloons, much to everyone’s relief.
Jack gave Steve a wonky, gap-toothed grin. ‘Mum said I only have to wear it for an hour and then I can get changed into my comfy clothes.’
Steve shook his head vehemently. ‘Oh no, no, no, that won’t do! You need to wear it all day so that everyone thinks you’re the same age as the rest of us.’
Jack’s eyes widened. ‘Do you think they will?’
‘Course they will. But only if you wear your suit. In your comfy clothes they might mistake you for a six-year-old or something.’
Over the top of their heads, Sophie caught Emily’s eye and smiled. Steve stood up. ‘Thank you,’ Emily mouthed to him silently.
‘That was a sweet thing to do,’ Sophie murmured, giving Steve’s hand a squeeze as they walked off. ‘She’s such a great mum, isn’t she?’
Steve glanced back at Emily and shrugged. ‘Who knows? I mean, I don’t know her like you do but she’s always seemed a bit cold to me. I bet she’s not as good a mum as you are.’
Sophie smiled, despite herself. It wasn’t true but she loved Steve for saying it.
Steve reached for Sophie’s hand again. ‘Listen, I’d better get inside and leave you to do your duties.’ He kissed her on the lips, then whispered in her ear, ‘You look beautiful. Don’t forget that.’
Sophie watched him stride into the church with a mixture of feelings. She wanted to believe that she was enough for him. But she couldn’t allow herself. How could she? Beside the others, she felt dull, lumpy and colourless. Amy, standing ahead of her, preparing to walk down the aisle, looked like she had stepped straight out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting. Her smooth, creamy skin was perfectly offset by her flowing, diaphanous ivory gown and tumbling mane of gleaming auburn curls.
‘Steve looks gorgeous in his suit.’
Sophie looked down at Melissa, who had come to stand beside her and linked her arm through hers.
‘He does.’
‘And you look gorgeous in that dress. You make the perfect, gorgeous couple.’ Sophie knew that Melissa was just trying to make her feel better but even so, she was grateful. That was what Melissa always did. She would say or do something spectacularly annoying or upsetting one minute and the next, she would give the most insightful, wise advice and show incredible kindness.
Sophie watched Emily as she smoothed Jack’s hair and dabbed at an imaginary smudge on his cheek, making her think about Emma. They had decided not to bring her to the wedding, even though Amy had made it clear that she was welcome. They had left her at home with Steve’s mum, who was all too delighted to have her. But watching Emily and Jack now, Sophie felt a small ache of yearning. It was an unfamiliar sensation but it was unmistakable. She liked it.
From inside the church, the sound of a string quartet playing drifted out over the still, summer afternoon and Amy turned to look back at them. Her eyes shone with happiness and excitement. Sophie wondered if Amy had ever suffered a crisis of confidence. She doubted it. ‘No turning back now,’ Amy grinned. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Let’s go.’
Sophie looked up at Steve in surprise.
‘Really?’ She couldn’t hide her relief. It was almost ten o’clock and the evening was in full swing but she was desperate for it to be over. ‘Won’t it look bad if we leave now?’
‘I’m not sure anyone will notice if we just slip away.’
They stood for a moment longer, watching the shenanigans on the dance floor, which mainly centred around Melissa. She had been like an Exocet missile for available men all day and now that they had run out, she was busy infuriating numerous wives by making a play for their husbands. Sophie watched her with a combination of envy and unease. Envy because Melissa seemed to find it so easy to let herself go and have fun. Unease because, just like in Brighton, she seemed out of control.
Sophie strongly suspected that it wasn’t just the effects of alcohol she was witnessing and that Melissa was also getting an extra kick from somewhere. Working for a record company, Melissa had often talked about how many people used cocaine. Sophie didn’t particularly disapprove – there were plenty of people in TV who used it too – but she worried about the situations Melissa was getting herself into, especially when it came to men.
As for Amy, she had glided through her big day as if she was walking on air, and she was still positively glowing as she danced with Nick now. It was as though they were caught in their own private, beautiful bubble. She and Nick both looked as though they had stepped straight out of the pages of Vogue and they seemed so happy together. Sophie hadn’t always been sure about Nick. He was almost too good to be true. And it worried her that he had persuaded Amy to give up her job. But then again, she reasoned, Amy had never made any secret of the fact that she was desperate to start a family and she had never been particularly passionate about her career either.
Watching them today, there was no doubting the love they felt for each other, so Sophie had buried any misgivings.
She had done her bridesmaid’s duties and smiled obligingly throughout the day, all the while feeling as if she was standing apart, watching someone else. The strain was huge and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could stand it.
‘Come on – I can see how hard this is for you.’
Sophie’s stomach dropped. ‘Is it that obvious? I thought I was doing a really good job of pretending.’
Steve put his arm around her tense shoulders and pulled her to him, kissing the top of her head as he did so. ‘You are. I’m really proud of you. But I can tell that you’ve had enough. If we go now we can be home by midnight.’
Sophie wrapped her arms around him, breathing in his smell and enjoying the warmth from his body. ‘I love you.’ It was the first time she had said it for months. Probably because it was the first time she had felt it for months.
‘I love you too,’ Steve murmured, with a slight crack in his voice.
From the distance of a year, it was hard to remember how bad she had felt back then. Sophie’s insides curdled with shame if she thought about it for too long, especially how she had felt about her darling Emma, now eighteen months old and only just starting to toddle. Sophie smiled as she pictured her little girl, with her cloud of silky blonde hair and her huge navy blue eyes that always made Sophie melt. It had taken so long to bond with her but when she finally did, it was like a dam bursting and now she couldn’t get enough of her. She’d made sure she’d packed plenty of photos to show the others this time.
It seemed like a lot longer than a year since they had all been together. A new millennium had dawned and Sophie certainly felt as though she had lived a whole life in between. Becoming a mother had changed her. It had shaken her to her core but she had survived and emerged stronger than before.
The fact that Amy – or rather Nick – had organized the Brighton weekend instead of her, had added to her general feeling of being out of kilter. But now, having returned to work as a producer on a big new reality show called Big Brother, and literally being back in the driving seat, she could feel herself regaining some of the vitality she had lost.
She pulled into a side road that took her to the parking spaces behind the tall Regency town house she had rented. It was so much easier now that she could go onto the Internet and book online, seeing the house properly before actually booking it. She climbed out and stretched, looking up at the gleaming sash windows with the sun glinting against the inky blackness and smiled to herself. It was exactly as it had looked online. She took her bag out of the boot and made her way to the back door.
She was casting around for the pot under which the owner had hidden the key when the door flew open. ‘Sophie!’ yelled Amy, tumbling over the step in her hurry to embrace her.
Sophie hugged her tightly, burying her face in Amy’s silky auburn hair, which smelt of summer and combined with her Hermès scent to make Sophie feel light-headed with happiness. They broke apart and held each other at arm’s length. ‘You look incredible.’ Sophie shook her head slightly as she spoke, unable to believe that Amy could look any more beautiful. But she did. There was something new. Something unmistakable. ‘You’re not pregnant, by any chance?’
Amy gave a tiny squeal and clamped her hand over her mouth quickly. ‘Don’t say anything to the others yet. I’m only eight weeks. I don’t want to jinx it.’
Sophie grinned. ‘I’m not sure you’ll be able to keep it a secret. They’ll know the second they clap eyes on you.’
‘Is it really that obvious?’ Amy’s green eyes danced as she spoke, radiating happiness.
Sophie’s gaze moved down to Amy’s belly that, typically, was still as flat as ever. ‘Maybe it’s only obvious to me because I recognize the signs. Emily will probably clock it too.’
‘That’s why I got here early, so that I could see you alone. I’ve been so desperate to speak to someone who’d understand how it feels.’
Sophie nodded, remembering with a sudden, horrible clarity the terror she’d felt at this point in her own pregnancy. She couldn’t possibly identify with Amy’s emotions because she had no experience of the joy that anyone actually intending to become pregnant might feel. ‘Well, let’s go inside and crack open the water to celebrate! To be honest, Amy, they’ll all know the second you refuse a glass of champagne anyway.’
They made their way through the flagstoned lobby into a vast kitchen equipped with all the latest mod cons. Sophie ran her hand longingly over the granite worktop, thinking of her own tiny Ikea galley kitchen back at home.
‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ Amy filled the kettle and put it on to boil while Sophie pulled out a wooden chair and sat down at the huge, stripped oak table.
‘I’m sure it’s not that dissimilar to yours.’ Sophie looked around her in awe as she spoke. She hadn’t been to Amy and Nick’s house in Notting Hill yet but she knew it was spectacular from Melissa, who had crashed there many times after a boozy night out. Apparently, there was a separate flat in the basement that she could use whenever she liked. Melissa had tactlessly told Sophie that the flat alone was bigger than Sophie and Steve’s whole house.
Amy made a cup of tea for Sophie and a cup of hot water for herself. ‘I’ve gone right off tea,’ she mused, as she placed the steaming mug in front of Sophie.
‘I did too but it’ll come back, don’t you worry. So, how’s Nick taken the news?’
Amy sat down opposite Sophie and sighed prettily. ‘He’s thrilled. We’d been trying for a while and we were both starting to get a bit worried. It’s weird though – I just knew when I was pregnant.’
Sophie nodded, enjoying Amy’s delight but envying her too. Her own emotions had been such a mess when she discovered she was pregnant. She couldn’t say she had felt happy at any point in her pregnancy. There was just a cloud of guilt and doubt hovering over her all the way through that tarnished it. Made it less special.
‘Were you the same?’ Amy prompted.
Sophie’s attention snapped back to the present. She had to let all the negativity go. She couldn’t change what had happened so she had to accept it and move on. ‘Um, not really. Emma was a surprise in every way. A happy accident.’
Amy beamed, clearly not guessing for one second that Sophie had been anything other than delighted by her pregnancy. At least she could comfort herself that she had managed to put on a convincing act. Only Melissa knew the truth, which was that at one particularly low point, she had rung a helpline to investigate a termination. But by then it was too late. The thought made her skin prickle with horror now. The idea that her little darling might not have existed was one that she couldn’t contemplate.
‘Have you got any photos? I’m dying to see what she looks like now.’
Sophie reached for her bag and pulled out the envelope she had stuffed with pictures of Emma.
Amy took them and began to leaf through them. ‘Oh, Soph, she’s perfect!’
Sophie could feel the tears burning at the backs of her eyes. ‘Yes. She is.’
‘God, she looks so much like Steve!’
People said that all the time. But Sophie couldn’t allow herself to hope. To believe it.
She stood up and walked to Amy’s chair, looking over her shoulder at the photo she had in her hand. In it, Steve was sitting with Emma on his lap on the sofa in their tiny sitting room. He was tickling her and she was arching her little body away from him but her face was split with a wide, milky smile that perfectly matched Steve’s. She did look like him. But then, Sophie sometimes thought that at certain angles she also looked a bit like Matt. The mind played tricks like that all the time.
She would have liked to forget what Matt looked like and could easily have blotted his face from her mind if it wasn’t for the fact that his star had continued to rise and he was now presenting several of the major news bulletins. She always switched channels but it was impossible to avoid him altogether. He always seemed to be on somewhere, reading the news. She and Steve had never discussed Matt after they were reconciled. It was as if they had an unspoken rule that he should never be mentioned. Maybe it was the only way both of them could cope with it and it certainly suited Sophie. She just wanted to forget.
At that moment, the doorbell rang. ‘I’ll get it,’ she offered eagerly. The ground floor was up a flight of stairs that led to a grand, tiled hallway and Sophie gazed around her as she made her way to the door. The house was vast and stunning. It made her tiny terrace look like a shoebox. The seeds of dissatisfaction with her own humble surroundings that were beginning to take root were quickly forgotten as she threw open the wide, heavy door to reveal Melissa and Emily, who had travelled down together by train.
They gave a united squeal of delight before enveloping Sophie in a barrage of hugs, amid cries that she had ‘lost so much weight!’ and her hair looked ‘fantastic’. Sophie returned the hugs, smiling ruefully to herself at the unspoken suggestion of how truly awful she must have looked the last time they saw her.
Clattering down to the kitchen, dropping bags and jackets as they went, they gabbled various compliments about the house and moans about the train journey before they swamped Amy with yet another blanket of squeals and cries of delight.
Sophie put the kettle on and sighed happily. Things were definitely looking up for them all.