The Wedding Girl Read online

  `Who's Milly?' said Francesca, picking up her glass of wine and taking a sip. `Why don't you want to talk to her?'

  `Just a weird g-girl I once knew,' said Rupert, cursing himself for stammering. He tried to shrug casually, but his lips were shaking and his face was hot with panic. `I've no idea what she wants. I'll call her tomorrow at the office.' He forced himself to look up and meet his wife's eyes steadily. `But now I want to go over my reading.'

  'OK,' she said, and smiled. She came over and sat down beside him on the sofa -a smart Colefax and Fowler sofa that had been a wedding present from one of her rich uncles. Opposite was a matching sofa which they'd bought themselves; on it sat Charlie and Sue Smith-Halliwell, their closest friends. The four of them were enjoying a quick glass of wine before leaving for the evening service at St Catherine's, at which Rupert would be reading. Now he avoided their eyes and stared down at his Bible. But the words swam before his eyes; his fingers sweated on the page.

  `Sorry, Charlie,' said Francesca. She reached behind her and turned Kiri to Kanawa fractionally down. `What were you saying?'

  `Nothing very profound,' said Charlie, and laughed. `I simply feel that it's up to people like us' he gestured to the four of them-`to encourage young families into the church.'

  `Instead of spending their Sunday mornings at Homestore,' said Francesca, then frowned. `Do I mean Homestore?'

  `After all,' said Charlie, `families are the core structure of society.'

  `Yes, but Charlie, the whole point is, they're not!' exclaimed Sue at once, in a way which suggested the argument was not new. `Families are old news! It's all single parents and lesbians these days...'

  `Did you read,' put in Francesca, `about that new gay version of the New Testament? I have to say, I was quite shocked.'

  `The whole thing makes me feel physically sick,' said Charlie, and gripped his wine glass tightly. `These people are monsters.'

  `Yes but you can't ignore them,' said Sue. `Can you? You can't just discount a whole section of society. However misguided they are. What do you think, Rupert?'

  Rupert looked up. His throat felt tight.

  `Sorry,' he managed. `I wasn't really listening.'

  `Oh sorry,' said Sue. `You want to concentrate, don't you?' She grinned at him. `You'll be fine. You always are. And isn't it funny, you never stutter when you're reading!'

  `I'd say you're one of the best readers in the church, Rupe,' said Charlie cheerfully. `Must be that university education. We didn't get taught much elocution at Sandhurst.'

  `That's no excuse!' said Sue. `God gave us all mouths and brains, didn't he? What's the reading?'

  `Matthew 26,' said Rupert. `Peter's denial.' There was a short silence.

  `Peter,' echoed Charlie soberly. `What can it have been like, to be Peter?'

  `Don't,' said Francesca, and shuddered. `When I think how close I came to losing my faith altogether ...'

  `Yes, but you never denied Jesus, did you?' said Sue. She reached over and took Francesca's hand. `Even the day after it happened, when I visited you in hospital.'

  `I was so angry,' said Francesca. `And ashamed. I felt as though I somehow didn't deserve a child.' She bit her lip.

  `Yes but you do,' said Charlie. `You both do. And you'll have one. Remember, God's on your side.'

  `I know,' said Francesca. She looked at Rupert. `He's on our side, isn't he, darling?'

  `Yes,' said Rupert. He felt as though the word had been forced off his tongue with a razor. `God's on our side.'

  But God wasn't on his side. He knew God wasn't on his side. As they left the house and headed towards St Catherine's Church-ten minutes away in a little Chelsea square Rupert found himself lagging behind the others. He felt like lagging so slowly that he would be left behind altogether. He wanted to be overlooked; to be forgotten about. But that was impossible. No one at St Catherine's was ever forgotten. Anyone who ventured through its portals immediately became part of the family. The most casual visitors were welcomed in with smiling enthusiasm, were made to feel important and loved, were exhorted to come again. Most did. Those who didn't reappear were cheerfully telephoned `Just checking you're OK. You know, we care about you. We really care.' Sceptics were welcomed almost more keenly than believers. They were encouraged to stand up and express their reservations; the more convincing their arguments, the broader the smiles all around. The members of St Catherine's smiled a lot. They wore their happiness visibly; they walked around in a shiny halo of certainty.

  It had been that certainty which had attracted Rupert to St Catherine's. During his first year in chambers, miserably riddled with self-doubt, he had met Tom Innes, another barrister. Tom was friendly and outgoing. He had a secure social life built around St Catherine's. He knew all the answers and when he didn't know the answer, he knew where to look. He was the happiest man Rupert had ever met. And Rupert, who at that time had thought he would never be happy again, had fallen with an almost desperate eagerness into Tom's life; into Christianity; into marriage. Now his life had a regular pattern, a meaning to it which he relished. He'd been married to Francesca for three contented years, his house was comfortable, his career was going well.

  No one knew about his past life. No one knew about Allan. He had told nobody. Not Francesca, not Tom, not the vicar. He hadn't even told God.

  Tom was waiting for them at the door as they arrived. He was dressed, like Rupert and Charlie, in work clothes-well-cut suit, Thomas Pink shirt, silk tie. All the men at St Catherine's had the same clothes, the same haircuts, the same heavy gold signet rings. At the weekends they all wore chinos and casual Ralph Lauren shirts, or else tweeds for shooting.

  `Rupert! Good to see you. All set to read?'

  `Absolutely!' said Rupert.

  `Good man.' Tom smiled at Rupert and Rupert felt a tingle go up his spine. The same tingle he'd experienced when he met Tom for the first time. `I'm hoping you'll read at the next chambers Bible study group, if that's OK?'

  `Of course,' said Rupert. `What do you want me to do?'

  `We'll talk about it later,' said Tom. He smiled again and moved away-and ridiculously, Rupert felt a small dart of disappointment.

  In front of him, Francesca and Sue were greeting friends with warm hugs; Charlie was vigorously shaking the hand of an old schoolfriend. Everywhere he looked, well-dressed professionals were thronging.

  `I just asked Jesus,' a voice behind him said. `I asked Jesus, and the next day I woke up with the answer fully formed in my head. So I went back to the client, and I said ...'

  `Why these people can't control themselves, I just don't know!' Francesca was exclaiming. Her voice was sharp and her eyes were shining slightly. `All these single mothers, with no means to provide for themselves ...'

  `But then, think of the backgrounds they come from,' replied a blond woman in an Armani jacket. She smiled blandly at Francesca. `They need our support and guidance. Not our condemnation.'

  `I know,' muttered Francesca. `But it's very difficult.' Unconsciously her hand stroked her flat stomach and Rupert felt a wave of compassion for her. He hurried forward and kissed the back of her neck.

  `Don't worry,' he whispered in her ear. `We'll have a baby. You just wait.'

  `But what if God doesn't want me to have a baby?' said Francesca, turning round and meeting his eyes. `What then?'

  `He does,' said Rupert, trying to sound sure of himself. `I'm sure he does.'

  Francesca sighed and turned away again, and Rupert felt a stab of panic. He didn't know the answers. How could he? He'd been a born-again Christian for less time than Francesca, was less familiar with the Bible than she was, had achieved an inferior degree to hers, even earned less money than she did. And yet she deferred to him constantly. She had insisted on promising to obey him; she looked to him for guidance in everything.

  Gradually the crowd dispersed, filing into pews. Some knelt, some sat looking expectantly ahead, some were still chatting. Many were holding crisp notes, ready for the collection. The a
mount of money generated by St Catherine's at each service was approximately the same as that gathered in a whole year at the small Cornish church Rupert had attended as a boy. The congregation here could afford to give extravagantly without their lifestyles being affected; they still drove expensive cars, ate good food, travelled abroad. They were a ready-made advertisers' dream audience, thought Rupert; if the church would only sell space on its walls, it would make a fortune. An unwilling grin passed over his face. That was the sort of remark Allan would have made.

  `Rupert!' Tom's voice interrupted his thoughts. `Come and sit at the front.'

  `Right you are,' said Rupert. He sat down on his allotted chair and looked at the congregation facing him. Familiar faces looked back at him; there were a few friendly smiles. Rupert tried to smile back. But suddenly he felt conspicuous under the scrutiny of five hundred Christian eyes. What did they see? What did they think he was? A childish panic went through him. They all think I'm like them, he suddenly found himself thinking. But I'm not. I'm different.

  Music struck up, and everybody got to their feet. Rupert stood up too, and looked obediently at his yellow sheet of paper. The tune of the hymn was jaunty; the words were happy and uplifting. But he didn't feel uplifted, he felt poisoned. He couldn't sing, couldn't free his thoughts from the same circular path. They all think I'm the same as them, he kept thinking. But I'm not. I'm different.

  He had always been different. As a child in Cornwall he'd been the headmaster's son; had been set apart before he even had a chance. While other boys' fathers drove tractors and drank beer, his father read Greek poetry and gave Rupert's friends detention. Mr Carr had been a popular headmaster the most popular the school had ever had but that hadn't helped Rupert, who was by nature academic, poor at games and shy. The boys had scoffed at him, the girls had ignored him. Gradually Rupert had developed a defensive stutter and a taste for being on his own.

  Then, at around the age of thirteen, his childish features had matured into golden good looks, and things had become even worse. Suddenly the girls were following him around, giggling and propositioning him; suddenly the other boys were gazing at him in envy. It was assumed, because he was so good-looking, that he could sleep with any girl he wanted to; that indeed he had already done so. Nearly every Saturday night Rupert would take some girl or other to the cinema, sit with her at the back and put his arm around her for all to see. The next Monday she would giggle hysterically with her friends, flutter her eyelashes and drop hints. His reputation grew and grew. To Rupert's astonishment, not one of the girls ever gave away the fact that his sexual prowess stopped at a goodnight kiss. By the time he was eighteen he had taken out all the girls in the school and was still a virgin.

  He'd thought that at Oxford it would be different. That he would fit in. That he would meet another kind of girl; that everything would fall into place. He'd arrived tanned and fit after a summer on the beach, and immediately attracted attention. Girls had flocked round him; intelligent, charming girls. The sort of girls he'd always longed for.

  Except that now he'd got them, he didn't want them. He couldn't desire the girls he met, with their high foreheads and flicking hair and intellectual gravitas. It was the men in Oxford who had fascinated him. The men. He'd stared at them surreptitiously in lectures, watched them in the street, edged closer to them in pubs. Foppish law students in waistcoats; crop-haired French students in Doc Martens. Members of the dramatic society piling into the pub after a show, wearing make-up and kissing each other playfully on the lips.

  Occasionally one of these men would look up, notice Rupert staring, and invite him to join the group. A few times he'd been openly propositioned. But each time he'd backed away, full of terror. He couldn't be attracted to these men. He couldn't be gay. He simply couldn't.

  By the end of his first year at Oxford he was still a virgin and lonelier than ever before. He belonged to no particular set; he didn't have a girlfriend; he didn't have a boyfriend. Because he was so good-looking, others in his college read his shyness as aloofness. They imbued him with a self-confidence and arrogance he didn't have, assumed his social life was catered for out of college; left him alone. By the end of Trinity term, he was spending most nights drinking whisky alone in his rooms.

  And then he'd been sent for an extra tutorial to Allan Kepin- ski, an American junior research fellow at Keble. They'd discussed Paradise Lost; had grown more and more intense as the afternoon wore on. By the end of the tutorial Rupert was flushed in the face, utterly caught up in the debate and the charged atmosphere between them. Allan was leaning forward in his chair, close to Rupert; their faces were almost touching.

  Then, silently, Allan had leaned a little further and brushed his lips against Rupert s. Excitement had seared Rupert's body. He'd closed his eyes and willed Allan to kiss him again, to come even closer. And slowly, gently, Allan had put his arms around Rupert and pulled him down, off his armchair, onto the rug, into a new life.

  Afterwards, Allan had explained to Rupert exactly how much of a risk he'd been taking by making the first move.

  `You could have had me slung in jail,' he'd said in his dry voice, caressing Rupert's rumpled hair. `Or at least sent home on the first plane. Coming on to undergraduates isn't exactly ethical.'

  `Fuck ethical,' Rupert had said, and flopped backwards. He felt shaky with relief; with liberation. `Christ, I feel incredible. I never knew-' He broke off.

  `No,' Allan had said amusedly. `I didn't think you did.'

  That summer remained etched in Rupert's memory as a perfect bubble of intoxication. He'd subsumed himself entirely to Allan, had spent the entire summer vacation with him. He'd eaten with him, slept with him, respected and loved him. No one else had seemed to matter, or even exist.

  The girl Milly had not interested him in the slightest. Allan had been quite taken with her he'd thought her naively charming; had been amused by her innocent babble. But to Rupert, she had been just another shallow, silly girl. A waste of time, a waste of space, a rival for Allan's attention.

  `Rupert?' The woman next to him nudged him and Rupert realized that the hymn was over. Quickly he sat down, and tried to compose his thoughts.

  But the thought of Milly had unsettled him; now he couldn't think of anything else. `Milly from Oxford,' she'd called herself tonight. A spasm of angry fear went through Rupert as he thought of her name on his wife's lips. What was she doing, ringing him after ten years? How had she got his number? Didn't she realize that everything had changed? That he wasn't gay? That it had all been a terrible mistake?

  `Rupert! You're reading!' The woman was hissing at him, and abruptly Rupert came to. He carefully put down his yellow sheet of paper, picked up his Bible and stood up. He walked slowly to the lectern, placed his Bible on it and faced his audience.

  `I am going to read from St Matthew's Gospel,' he said. `The theme is denial. How can we live with ourselves if we deny the one we truly love?'

  He opened the Bible with trembling hands, and took a deep breath. I'm reading this for God, he told himself-as all the readers at St Catherine's did. I'm reading this for Jesus. The picture of a grave, betrayed face filled his mind, and he felt a familiar stab of guilt. But it wasn't the face of Jesus he saw. It was the face of Allan.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Milly and Isobel waited until a foursome of guests descended on the kitchen, then slipped out of the house before Olivia could ask them where they were going.

  'OK,' said Isobel, as they reached the car. `I think there's an eight-thirty fast to London. You should catch that.'

  `What if he says something?' said Milly, looking up at Alexander's curtained window. Her lips began to shiver in the icy morning air. `What if he says something to Simon while I'm away?'

  `He won't,' said Isobel firmly. `Simon will be at work all morning, won't he? Alexander won't even be able to get to him. And by that time, at least you'll know.' She opened the car door. `Come on, get in.'

  `I didn't sleep all night,' sai
d Milly, as Isobel began to drive off. `I was so tense.' She wound a strand of hair tightly round her finger, then released it. `For ten years I've thought I was married. And now . . . maybe I'm not!'

  `Milly, you don't know for sure,' said Isobel.

  `I know,' said Milly. `But it makes sense, doesn't it? Why would Allan begin divorce proceedings and not see them through? Of course he would have seen it all through.'

  `Maybe.'

  `Don't be so pessimistic, Isobel! You were the one who said '

  `I know I was. And I really hope you are divorced.' She glanced at Milly. `But I wouldn't celebrate until you actually find out.'

  `I'm not celebrating,' said Milly. `Not yet. I'm just .. . hopeful.'

  They paused at a traffic light and watched a crocodile of children in matching red duffel coats cross the road.

  `Of course,' said Isobel, `if your charming friend Rupert had bothered to call back, you might be in contact with Allan by now. You might know, one way or the other.'

  `I know,' said Milly. `Bastard. Ignoring me like that. He must know I'm in some kind of trouble. Why else would I ring him?' Her voice rose incredulously. `How can someone be so selfish?'

  `Most of the world is selfish,' said Isobel. `Take it from me.'

  `And how come he's suddenly got a wife?'

  Isobel shrugged.

  `There's your answer. That's why he didn't call back.'

  Milly drew a circle on the fogged-up passenger window and looked out of it at the passing streets. Commuters were hurrying along the pavements, scuffing the new morning snow into slush; glancing at garish Sale signs in closed shop windows as they passed.

  `So, what are you going to do?' said Isobel suddenly. `If you find out you are divorced?'

  `What do you mean?'

  `Will you tell Simon?'

  There was silence.

  `I don't know,' said Milly slowly. `Maybe it won't be necessary.I

  `But Milly '