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Si’s phone rang and he fumbled around in his pocket for the handset. ‘Hello?’
It would be Catherine, I bet.
He mouthed: My sister.
I knew it. My ears immediately tuned in to her shrill voice reeling off details of the latest minor setback she’d decided to turn into a catastrophe. After years of dating the good-looking but dull friends of friends from Durham university (that was how she’d billed it to me, anyway) she’d met her fiancé, Jasper, on a work trip to Amsterdam. He was ten years older than her, an art curator – a job title I still did not fully understand – and from a wealthy Dutch family who apparently owned properties all over the globe. Perhaps, for the first time in her life, Catherine felt as insecure as the rest of us. She’d been preparing for her new role with great dexterity, however, and together with her mum, Pauline, had pretty much morphed into Berkhamsted’s equivalent of Pippa and Carole Middleton. They’d thrown themselves into wedding preparations with a frightening intensity, sourcing bespoke invitations from somewhere on Mount Street and ordering personalised marshmallows for the wedding favours, because that’s what Pippa had had, apparently. As for the dress … well, I had not been trusted with the details of the dress. I knew it was from some über-expensive New Bond Street boutique, but the actual design of it was shrouded in secrecy and whenever I asked, purely out of politeness, which fabric she’d chosen, or which shade of white, or whether she was wearing a veil, she made a zipping motion across her lips and I was put firmly in my place.
‘Can’t Dad do that?’ asked Si wearily, rolling his eyes at me in an attempt at good humour.
I smiled encouragingly at him, opening my book to distract myself from the sound of Catherine’s voice, which was increasing in volume as the conversation went on and she got herself in more and more of a state. Seriously, was this what planning a wedding did to you? Magnified every single neurotic trait you’d ever had?
‘No, I’m sure Hannah won’t mind putting the napkin rings onto the napkins,’ said Si.
I widened my eyes at him, hoping to convey the message that enough was enough, that he had to put his foot down. I’d already been allocated several tasks to ensure the wedding of the year went off perfectly the next day, including compiling the two-hundred-plus place cards (Catherine claimed I was the only person she knew with neat enough handwriting) and tying magenta chiffon around the stems of each bespoke bridesmaid’s bouquet. It would have been much easier all round if she hadn’t fired the hotel’s in-house wedding planner, but when she’d dared to suggest that Catherine’s colour scheme would clash with the dining-room décor, there’d been no coming back. Pauline wasn’t exactly the voice of reason, either. Honestly, the way she and Catherine had been banging on, you’d think the ceremony was going to be televised worldwide.
‘Look, Cath,’ said Si, massaging the space between his eyebrows, ‘I’m going to have to go in a minute, all right? We’re on a train here. And, oh look, we’re slowing down and there’s a station coming up. I might have to move some bags around or something.’
I frowned playfully at him, kicking his ankle gently. We weren’t stopping, the train was picking up speed if anything. I tipped my head out into the aisle, eyeing up what everyone else was doing (sleeping, mainly) and only half-listening to Si placating his sister, telling her that everything would go smoothly, that she would look beautiful, that Jasper would be proud of her and that he, Si, was proud of her whatever happened. Even the two guys in front seemed amused; I saw them swivelling their heads to snicker at us through the slit between their seats, baffled, no doubt, by the weird gravelly tone Si reserved exclusively for his sister and which was about an octave lower than his usual speaking voice. When I’d first met Catherine, a few months after Si and I got together, I’d immediately assumed we’d have nothing in common. She was one of those privately educated girls who was pretty and smart and popular and had never really struggled with anything as far as I could tell and therefore had the sort of extreme confidence I could only dream of. But when she wasn’t talking about weddings, it turned out we weren’t as different as I’d thought. We’d bonded over a love of wine and reality TV and I thought we might actually have the beginnings of a proper friendship.
‘I really am going to have to go now, Cath. Ok? See you tomorrow, yeah?’ said Si.
He hung up and looked at me in disbelief. ‘Is it bad I’m going to be relieved when all this is over?’
I chose my words carefully. ‘She has turned into a tiny bit of a control freak.’
‘Turned into? She’s always been one. It’s been heightened by the wedding, that’s all,’ he said, throwing himself back in his chair and making a frustrated groaning sound.
‘Come on, let’s have a look through your Venice pics,’ I said as the train rattled on and someone with an unnecessarily loud voice decided to make a phone call, despite it now being one o’clock in the morning. ‘That’ll cheer us up.’
I was too exhausted to read my book and too wired to sleep, stuck instead in some terrible, restless limbo. He handed me his phone.
‘They’re not great, though, Han. Yours will be much better.’
‘They won’t,’ I assured him, although I thought they probably would be. I appeared to have finally found something I was quite good at, and rarely left the house without my beloved second-hand Canon AE-1 these days. It had been a Christmas present from Si and was the most thoughtful gift I’d received from anyone, ever.
I flicked through Si’s camera roll, starting from the shot he’d taken of me when we’d first arrived in Venice. We’d been at the airport, waiting in the queue for the water bus. For once, I didn’t mind how I looked: relaxed in cut-off denim shorts, flip flops and a black T-shirt, my hair curlier than usual because of the humidity, a guidebook open in my hand, a huge smile on my face because I was ecstatic to be there, in this place that I’d dreamed of visiting since I was a little girl, when Mum used to show me pictures of all the sights and make up stories about them. Then there was the selfie he’d snapped of us standing outside the Basilica San Marco, which wasn’t the most well-framed shot because at 6’2” Si was ten inches taller than me, so it was practically impossible not to cut off either the top of his head or everything below my nose.
While I was sending Mum a WhatsApp montage of the photos Si had taken at the Doge’s Palace, his phone vibrated and another message began to slide into view.
‘Let’s see?’ he said, whipping it out of my hand and looking at the screen. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ he said, tutting theatrically. ‘Work again.’
‘What do they want now?’ I asked.
Not that it would make much sense if he told me, anyway. I still wasn’t 100 per cent sure what he did on a day-to-day basis. I knew it was something to do with selling pharmaceuticals and that he had to travel a lot and stay in Premier Inns and that he did presentations and that he didn’t find public speaking the worst thing in the world.
‘I’m not reading it on principle,’ said Si. ‘I’m on holiday, aren’t I?’
I looked at him, hesitating. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Course it is,’ he said, laughing hollowly. ‘You’d finished with the photos, right?’
‘Not really.’
‘You shouldn’t be on the phone, I read about it somewhere. The blue light messes with your sleep pattern,’ he said.
‘It’s too noisy to sleep anyway, so what difference would it make?’
‘Why don’t you put your earplugs in?’
