‘No, he’s going to Antonia’s. She invited him, and I don’t think he felt able to refuse – not this year, at least. He’ll be back for New Year, though.’
‘Gosh, yes. Aren’t Walking Wounded playing the O2 on New Year’s Eve? That’ll clash a bit with your wedding, won’t it?’
‘Not really. He’ll be there for the important bits.’
‘So, how were your travels, Kate?’ Helen asked brightly.
‘Oh, great,’ Kate said, and tried to inject some enthusiasminto her voice as she told Helen about her trip. The truth was that there had been something depressingly half-hearted about her aimless wanderings – as if she was just going through the motions. It had unnerved her to feel so numb about something she usually found exhilarating, but her heart hadn’t been in it. It seemed to be AWOL a lot, these days.
When everyone moved off to the restaurant for dinner, Grace and Rachel cornered Kate.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell Lorcan about your plot,’ she said wearily.
‘Darling, you don’t have to make it sound so underhand,’ Grace quibbled.
‘Well, what wouldyoucall it? If you think it was above board and hunky-dory, why are you so worried about Lorcan finding out?’
‘You know Lorcan,’ Grace said fussily. ‘He’d overreact and make a big drama out of it. I don’t want him to fall out with Will.’
‘Well, neither do I, so you can rest easy,’ Kate said, needled that Will seemed to be the person her mother was most concerned about in all this.
‘Have you heard from Will lately?’ Grace asked.
‘No – at least I haven’t spoken to him.’ He had bombarded her with phone calls while she was away, but she had never answered them. It had been a relief to discover that there were still some places in the world where mobile coverage didn’t extend and you could be truly out of reach. It had added to the already abundant charms of Vietnam.
‘Well, you’ll see him at Lorcan’s wedding,’ her mother said consolingly. ‘You can patch things up between you then.’
‘There’s nothing to patch up, Mum. There was nothing there in the first place, remember?’
‘Oh, that’s not true, Kate,’ Grace said briskly. ‘The poor boyhas been heartbroken since you left, hasn’t he, Rachel? Moping around the place like a stray puppy.’
Kate looked up at her from under her eyelashes but said nothing. Grace sighed helplessly, which Kate found unsettling: her mother was rarely so timorous.
‘We just wanted you to be happy, darling,’ she pleaded. ‘I knew it would be disastrous for you to marry the Tree-hugger.’
‘Yes, it would – but I would have found that out for myself, Mum. And what’syourexcuse?’ she asked Rachel.
‘She was only thinking of you, weren’t you, darling?’ Grace answered hastily, clearly not trusting Rachel to speak for herself.
‘I was thinking of the whole family,’ Rachel said sullenly. ‘None of us wanted you marrying that nobhead. And none of this would have happened if you hadn’t got engaged to him in the first place.’ Rachel was a firm believer in attack as the best form of defence.
‘Oh, so it’s all my fault?’
‘Well, poor Mum was desperate,’ Rachel said, ignoring Grace’s signals to shut up. ‘I was only trying to help.’
‘Anyway, it’s all turned out for the best in the end, hasn’t it?’ Grace said hopefully to Kate.
‘No, Mum, it hasn’t. How on earth can you think that?’
‘Oh, don’t be so coy,’ Rachel snapped. ‘You always fancied Will and now you’ve got him – thanks largely to me. You might be more grateful.’
‘Grateful?’
‘Yes, grateful.’
‘Will really does love you, Kate,’ Grace said.
‘As you’d know if you’d stuck around for five minutes,’ Rachel said, still smarting from the bollocking Will had given her. It was enough to put you off good deeds for life. She had only been trying to do something nice for Will and Tina, and in return, shehad been lambasted by them both. She had never seen anyone as angry as Will was that day – at least, not until Tina turned up. Well, it was the last time she would try to dohima favour. Infuriatingly, when she had said as much to him, he had asked if he could have that in writing. Sarcastic bastard!
