During the ceremony I’ve been sitting on my own, crammed on to a bench with some cousins of Jules’s – Charlie had a seat reserved at the front, as part of the wedding party. There was a weird moment, as Jules walked up the aisle. She wore an expression I’ve never seen on her before. She looked almost afraid: her eyes wide, her mouth set in a grim line. I wondered if anyone else noticed it, or even if I’d imagined it, because by the time she joined Will at the front she was smiling, the radiant bride everyone expects to see, greeting her groom. All around me there were sighs, whispers about how wonderful they both looked together.
The whole thing has gone very smoothly since: no fumbles over the vows, like at some weddings I’ve been to. The two of them speak the words loudly, clearly, as we all look on silently, the only other sound the whistling of the breeze among the stones. I’m not actually looking at Jules and Will, though. I’m trying to get a glimpse of Charlie, instead, all the way down at the front. I want to try and see what expression he wears as Jules says I will. But it’s impossible: I can see only the back of his head, the set of his shoulders. I give myself a little mental shake: what did I think I was going to see, anyway? What proof am I looking for?
And suddenly it’s all over. People are getting up around me with a sudden explosion of noise, laughing and chattering. The same woman who sung while Jules walked into the chapel sings us out, too, the notes of the accompanying fiddle tripping along behind. The words are all in Gaelic, her voice ethereally high and clear, echoing slightly eerily around the ruined walls.
I follow the trail of guests outside, dodging the huge floral arrangements: big sprays of greenery and colourful wildflowers which I suppose are very chic and right for the dramatic surroundings. I think of our wedding, how my mum’s friend Karen gave us mates’ rates on our flowers. It was all done in rather retro pastel shades. But I wasn’t about
to complain; we could never have afforded a florist of our choice. I wonder what it must be like to have the money to do exactly what you want.
The other guests are a very well-dressed, well-heeled bunch. When I looked around at the rest of the congregation in the chapel I realised no one else here is wearing a fascinator. Maybe they’re not the thing, in circles like this? Every other woman seems to be in an expensive- looking hat, the sort that probably comes in its own specially made box. I feel like I did on the day at school when we hadn’t realised it was home clothes day and both Alice and I wore our uniforms. I remember sitting in assembly and wishing I could spontaneously combust, to avoid spending the day feeling everyone’s eyes on me.
We’re given crushed dried rose petals to throw as Will and Jules step out of the chapel. But the breeze is stiff enough that they’re whipped quickly away. I don’t see a single petal land on the newlyweds. Instead they’re carried off in a big cloud, up and out towards the sea. Charlie’s always telling me I’m too superstitious, but I wouldn’t like that, if I were Jules.
The bridal party are taken off for photographs, while everyone else pours away to the outside of the marquee where there’s a bar set up. I need some Dutch courage, I decide. I pick my way across the grass towards it, my heels sinking in with every couple of steps. A couple of barmen are taking orders, sloshing cocktail shakers. I ask for a gin and tonic, which comes with a big sprig of rosemary in it.
I chat to the barmen for a bit because they seem like the friendliest faces in this crowd. They’re a couple of young local guys, home for the summer from university: Eoin and Seán.
‘We normally work in the big hotel on the mainland,’ Seán tells me. ‘Used to belong to the Guinness family. Big castle on a lough. That’s where people usually want to get married. Never heard of a wedding here, other than in the old days. You know this place is meant to be haunted?’
‘Yeah,’ Eoin leans across, dropping his voice. ‘My gran tells some pretty dark tales about this place.’
‘The bodies in the turf,’ Seán says. ‘No one knows for sure how they died, but they think they were hacked to pieces by the Vikings. They’re not buried in hallowed ground, so there’s all this talk about them being unquiet souls.’
I know they’re probably just pulling my leg but I feel a prickle of disquiet all the same.
‘And the rumours are that’s why the latest folk all left this place in the end,’ Eoin says. ‘Because the voices from the bog got too loud for them.’ He grins at Seán, then at me. ‘I’m not looking forward to being here after dark tonight, I tell you. It’s the island of ghosts.’
‘Excuse me,’ a man in aviators and a tweed jacket behind me says, crossly. ‘This all sounds very bloody interesting, but would you mind making me an Old Fashioned?’
I take that as my cue to leave them to their work.
I decide to sneak a peek inside the marquee, via the entranceway lit by flaming torches. Inside there’s a delicious floral scent from lots of expensive-looking candles. And yet (I’m not proud to be pleased by this) there’s definitely a whiff of damp canvas underneath. I suppose at the end of the day it’s still a big tent. But what a tent. Tents plural, actually: in a smaller one at one end there’s a laminate dance floor with a stage set up for a band and at the other end is a tent containing another bar. Jesus. Why have one bar at your wedding when you can have two? In the main tent white-shirted waiters are moving with the grace of ballet dancers, straightening forks and polishing glasses.
In the middle of everything, on a silver stand, sits a huge cake. It’s so beautiful that it makes me sad to think that later Jules and Will will take a knife to it. I can’t begin to guess how much a cake like that costs.
Probably as much as our entire wedding.
I step outside the marquee again and shiver as a gust catches me. The wind’s definitely picking up. Out to sea there are white horses on the caps of the waves now.
I look at the crowd. Everyone I know at this wedding is in the bridal party. If I don’t pluck up my courage I’ll be standing here on my own until Charlie returns – and as soon as he’s finished with the photos I suppose he’ll be straight into the MC duties. So I take a big swig of my gin and tonic and launch myself into a nearby group.
They’re friendly enough on the surface, but I can tell they’re a group of friends catching up – and I don’t belong. I stand there and sip my drink, trying not to poke myself in the eye with the rosemary. I wonder how everyone else with a gin and tonic is managing it without injuring themselves. Maybe that’s a thing you get taught at private school: how to drink cocktails with unwieldy garnishes. Because everyone here, without a shadow of a doubt, went to private school.
‘Do you know what the hashtag is?’ one woman asks. ‘You know, for the wedding? I checked the invitation but I couldn’t see it.’
‘I’m not sure there is one,’ her friend replies. ‘Anyway, the signal here’s so awful you wouldn’t be able to upload anything while you’re on the island.’
‘Maybe that’s why they chose this place for the wedding,’ the first says, knowingly. ‘You know, because of Will’s profile.’
‘It’s very mysterious,’ the other woman says. ‘I have to admit I’d have expected Italy – the Lakes, perhaps. That seems to be a trend, doesn’t it?’
‘But then Jules is a trendsetter,’ a third woman chips in. ‘Perhaps this is the new thing—’ a great gust of wind nearly sends her hat flying and she clamps it down with a firm hand, ‘weddings on godforsaken islands in the middle of nowhere.’
‘It’s rather romantic, isn’t it? All wilderness and ruined glory. Makes you think of that Irish poet. Keats.’
‘Yeats, darling.’
The women have the deep, real tans of summer holidays on Greek islands. I know this because they start talking about them next, comparing the benefits of Hydra over Crete. ‘God,’ one of them says now, ‘why would anyone fly economy with kids? I mean, talk about starting the holiday on a bad note.’ I wonder what they’d say if I chipped in and started debating the benefits of one New Forest campsite versus another. Personally I think it’s all about which has the best chemical loos, I could say, in the same tone in which they’re comparing which waterfront restaurant has the best views. I’ll have to save that one up to tell Charlie later. Though, as proven last night, Charlie always gets a bit funny around posh people – a little unsure of himself and defensive.
The guy on my right turns to me: an overgrown schoolboy, one of those very round, pink and white faces at odds with a receding hairline. ‘So,’ he says, ‘Hannah, is it? Bride or groom?’
I’m so relieved that someone’s actually deigned to talk to me I could kiss him.
‘Er – bride.’
‘I’m groom. Went to school with the bastard.’ He sticks out his hand, I shake it. I feel like I’ve walked into his office for an interview. ‘And you know Julia, how …?’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I’m married to Charlie – he’s Jules’s mate? He’s one of the ushers.’
‘And where’s that accent from then?’
‘Um, Manchester. Well – the outskirts.’ Though I always feel like I’ve lost a lot of it, having lived down South for so long.
‘Support United, do you? You know, I went up for a corporate thing a few years ago. OK match. Southampton I think it was. Two-one, one-nil – not a draw, anyway, which would have been fucking boring. Dreadful food, though. Fucking inedible.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Well, my dad supports—’
But he’s turned away, bored already, and is in conversation with the guy next to him.
So I introduce myself to an older couple, mainly because they don’t seem to be in conversation with anyone else.
‘I’m the groom’s father,’ the man says. This strikes me as an odd way to phrase it. Why not just say: ‘I’m Will’s dad’? He indicates the woman next to him with one long-fingered hand: ‘and this is my wife.’
‘Hello,’ she says, and looks at her feet. ‘You must be very proud,’ I say.
‘Proud?’ He frowns at me, enquiringly. He’s tall, with no stoop, so I find myself having to crane my neck slightly to look up at him. And maybe it’s the long, hooked shape of it, but I feel that he is looking down his nose at me. I’m aware of a slight tightness in my stomach which most reminds me of being told off by a teacher at school.
‘Well, yes,’ I say, flustered. I didn’t think I’d have to explain myself. ‘Mainly because of the wedding, I suppose, but also because of Survive the Night.’
‘Mm.’ He seems to be considering this. ‘But it’s not a profession, is it?’
‘Well, um – I suppose not in the traditional sense—’
‘He wasn’t always the best student. Got himself into a few scrapes, you know – but he’s a bright enough boy, all told. He managed to get into a fairly good university. Could have gone into politics or law.
Perhaps not of the first rank in those, but respectable.’
Jesus Christ. I’ve remembered that Will’s dad is a headmaster. Right now it sounds as though he could be talking about any random boy, not his own son. I’d never have thought I’d feel pity for Will, who seems to have everything going for him – but right now I think I do.
‘Do you have children?’ he asks me. ‘Any sons?’ ‘Yes, Ben, he’s—’
‘You could do worse than to think of Trevellyan’s. I know our methods may be considered a little … severe by some, but they have made great men out of some unpromising raw materials.’
The idea of handing Ben into the clutches of this profoundly cold man fills me with horror. I want to tell him that even could I afford it and
even if Ben was anywhere near senior school age there’d be no way I’d send my son to a place run by him. But I smile politely and excuse myself. If Will’s parents are here, the bridal party must have returned from having their photos taken. And if so, why hasn’t Charlie come to find me? I search the crowd, finally spotting him in a big group with the rest of the ushers and several other men. I feel a little dart of anger and move towards him as quickly as my heels will let me.
‘Charlie,’ I say, trying not to sound hectoring. ‘God, it feels like you’ve been gone hours. I had the weirdest conversation—’
‘Hey, Han,’ he says, a bit absently. By the slight squint he gives me, and perhaps some other subtle change in his features, I’m certain he’s already had a bit to drink. There’s a full glass of champagne in one of his hands, but I don’t think it’s his first. I remind myself that he’s always in control, that he knows what his limit is. He’s a grown-up. ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘By the way. You can probably take that thing off your head now.’
He means the fascinator. I feel my cheeks grow hot as I lift it off. Is he ashamed of me?
One of the men Charlie has been talking to walks over and claps Charlie on the shoulder. ‘This your old lady, Charlie?’
‘Yeah,’ Charlie says. ‘Rory this is my wife, Hannah. Hannah, this is Rory. He was on the stag.’
‘Lovely to meet you, Hannah,’ Rory says, with a flash of teeth. So much charm, all these public schoolboys. I think of the ushers outside the chapel: Can I offer you a programme? Would you like some dried rose petals? Butter wouldn’t melt. But I saw how they got last night. I wouldn’t trust any of them further than I could throw them.
‘Hannah,’ Rory says, ‘I think I should apologise for the state we sent your boy back in after the stag do. But it was all fun and games, wasn’t it, Charlie, mate? Last one in and all that.’
I don’t know what that means, exactly. I’m watching Charlie. And I see it as it happens, the transformation of my husband’s face. The tightening of the features, lips disappearing into a taut line, until he wears the very same expression he did when I collected him from the airport after that weekend.
‘What on earth did you all get up to?’ I ask Rory, keeping my tone playful. ‘Charlie definitely won’t tell me.’
Rory seems relieved. ‘Good man,’ he says, clapping Charlie on the shoulder again. ‘What happens on the stag stays on the stag and all that.’ He winks at me. ‘All good fun, anyhow. Boys will be boys.’
‘Charlie?’ I ask, as Rory peels away and we have a moment alone together. ‘Have you been drinking?’
‘Only a sip,’ he says. I don’t think he’s slurring. ‘You know, to lubricate things.’
‘Charlie—’
‘Han,’ he says, firmly. ‘A couple of glasses aren’t going to derail me.’ ‘And—’ I think of him emerging from Stansted airport, looking
hollow-eyed and shell-shocked. ‘What happened on the stag do? What was he talking about?’
‘Ah, God.’ Charlie runs a hand through his hair, screws up his face. ‘I don’t know why it got to me so much. It’s – well it’s because I’m not one of them, I suppose. But it was pretty horrible at the same time.’
‘Charlie,’ I say, feeling disquiet curl through my stomach. ‘What did they do?’
And then my husband turns to me and hisses, between his teeth, that nasty little trace of something – someone – else creeping into his words. ‘I don’t want to fucking talk about it, Hannah.’
There it is. Oh God. Charlie has been drinking.
