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‘I’m fine.’
‘I’ve been so worried about you, sweetheart. Where are you now?’ he asked.
It was good to hear his voice. I imagined him perched on a stool in the hotel bar, could picture the frown lines he got between his eyes when he was worried about something. The way he pulled absentmindedly at strands of his hair when he was on the phone.
‘Paris, still,’ I said.
From somewhere in the park I could hear children shrieking, the sound carried on the wind, most likely, from the playground we’d passed earlier.
‘Jesus. This is a nightmare, Han. I’m having to re-allocate all the jobs you were supposed to do, when everyone’s already snowed under.’
I brushed imaginary dirt off my jeans. ‘How did Catherine take it?’
‘How do you think?’ he said, with the exasperation of someone who’d had his highly strung sister in his ear for the last half-hour and was at the end of his tether.
I glanced at Léo, who was pulling up strands of grass and rolling them between his fingers.
‘If we’d been in the couchette like we were supposed to be, none of this would have happened,’ said Si. ‘So it’s partly my fault, isn’t it, for not being organised enough? I should have insisted they find us another first-class cabin.’
‘Oh well,’ I said, not wanting him to get wound up. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it now.’
There were lots of different voices in the background, and the clatter of glasses knocking together. Tables being set, perhaps. Things being polished and laid out. Every detail had been carefully considered, that was how Si’s family rolled. They didn’t do anything by halves, which I’d always been the tiniest bit intimidated by. When Si described his childhood, it sounded like the kind of idyllic life I’d only ever seen in American films, where the characters had wealthy, doting parents who had home-made cookies in the oven when you arrived home from school. And your friends had endless parties at which everyone would want to talk to you/get off with you and somebody would get too drunk and then everyone would jump in the pool.
‘What are you up to?’ I asked.
‘Down in the restaurant,’ he said. ‘Helping Mum with the table plans.’
I imagined him there, delegating jobs, organising everyone, bossing them about with such easy authority that you couldn’t help but nod and agree.
‘What’s the hotel like?’
‘Amazing. Super modern. There are these huge, dramatic light installations hanging from the ceiling, you’ll love it.’
The hotel was called the Lux and was the sort of pretentious place I usually went to great lengths to avoid. I’d seen pictures of it on the website, which had pretty much been a permanent fixture on Catherine’s laptop since I’d met her. It was a different world, all of this, which had only served to fuel my suspicion that Si’s family must think he could do better. That an administrator from a council estate in Enfield wasn’t exactly what they’d had in mind for their beloved son/brother. He, of course, was oblivious to the differences between us and had even suggested that we invite my mum and Tony over for lunch in Berkhamsted one Sunday, so that all the parents could meet. I hadn’t been able to imagine anything worse than an afternoon spent pretending we were all getting along and very likely culminating in my mum saying something inappropriate about Brexit. And so I’d shut down that bright idea of his very quickly, convincing him that it was too soon for all of that but that we’d definitely arrange something at some point in the future (i.e. never).
‘How’s your sister bearing up?’ I asked.
I sneaked another look at Léo, who was now trying to skim stones through the trees and into the water.
‘She’s, um, naturally a bit tense,’ said Si.
‘Yeah. I reckon most brides would be.’
I heard a woman’s voice in the background. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, not exactly, but there was an accent. Something about a ring, the end of the word pronounced with a hard ‘g’, like they did in Manchester. It was Alison, I knew it was. Si started talking, but his voice was muffled, as though he’d purposely held the phone away from his mouth.
‘Sorry, Han,’ he said eventually, coming back on the line.
‘Who was that?’
He hesitated. ‘One of the bridesmaids. The make-up artist hasn’t turned up, apparently.’
‘Oh right. Which bridesmaid’s that, then?’
‘Um, one of Cath’s old friends. Alison, her name is. You might have met her at the hen do.’
I dug my thumbnail into the arm of the bench, leaving an impression of my nail in the soft wood, like a new moon. Why hadn’t he told me about her messages on the train? And it made me think that if he’d kept that from me, what else was there? A couple of months ago I’d accidentally bashed the hoover into a box of handwritten letters stashed under his side of the bed. When I’d got down on all fours to make sure I hadn’t damaged them I’d peered at them for ages, wondering how old they were, who it was he used to write to. And why he’d kept them. But in the six months since we’d moved in together he hadn’t mentioned them once and for some reason I hadn’t dared to ask.
‘I’d better go, actually,’ said Si. ‘Mum’s waving me over.’
