A Bad Bride's Tale (16 page)

“He’s doing what he really wants to do now. Some people take longer to find their thing.” And some men take a while to refine their taste in girlfriends, she wanted to add—but didn’t.

“Yeah, yeah. Photography.” Katy laughed. “God, I know the photography business. I know how hard it is, babe. He wouldn’t ac- cept my help, you know. I tried not to take it personally.”

“I wouldn’t.” Obviously it was personal, thought Stevie, unable

not
to feel a jolt of triumph.

“I offered to introduce him to a few people, but, no, he didn’t need me, did he? Hightailed off to Paris to manage that studio. Great. He did well to get that. But you need all the friends you can get in this industry, babe,” Katy added, as if Stevie were a fourteen- year-old asking for career advice. “Still, he’ll find out how hard it is soon enough. Is he still taking his own pictures, too?”

“Yeah, I think so. He’s got various personal projects going on. I haven’t seen his stuff. He hasn’t been around.”

“Projects, ah,” said Katy with a knowing nod. “The world is filled with young photographers working on ‘projects.’ I feel sorry for them. It’s so hard to earn a living. And if he ever wants a wife . . .” She blew some air out of her pout dismissively, as if the idea was slightly absurd. “Well, he’d better get back to law school.”

Jez lumbered into the conversation, beer bottle first, waving it for emphasis. “I like you, Katy. You have common sense. All the others girls fawn over Sam. They get sucked in by that ‘I’m a cre- ative, sensitive type’ thing. It takes a guy to see through it.”

Katy grinned at Jez, recognizing an ally. “Sam always thought about stuff far too much. It used to drive me bonkers. You’d never know just by looking at him, would you? Most photographer types are either rather short or rather ugly. They become photographers so they can get laid. But Sam is . . .” Coy grin. “. . . damn athletic.” She nudged Stevie and whispered, “Did you hold a torch for him? You did, didn’t you?”

Stevie shook her head furiously and checked Jez’s expression. No, he hadn’t heard or was too drunk to listen. “
No!
I’m actually trying to fix him up with my friend Lara. They’ve both just moved to New York.”

Seb, busy squashing an explorative ant on the table with the back of a matchbox, perked up. “New York?” He exuded aftershave as he spoke. “Crikey, I should hook up with these friends of yours. They sound kind of cool. Could you fix that?”

Stevie nodded. “No problem.”

“That’s what I love about Manhattan, you can call up any old chap for a drink. Nothing embarrassing about it. It’s like if you’re the type of person who has gone to New York, there’s immediate common ground.”

Katy looked irritated. “Yes, darling.”

“And my father would shoot me down for saying this, but it’s better than Ol’ Blighty,” continued Seb. “Safer. Easier to get around. The people are up, take it on the chin, you know. There’s none of that defeatist English negativity.”

“Man . . .” Jez snorted, leaning back in his chair and kicking his

legs out. “I
hate
New York. Hectic, overrated place full of jumped- up wankers who think they’re the last word in urban sophistica- tion. Why is it that all Brits who move to New York become evangelical about it?” He circled the nose of his beer bottle with his fingers, leaned back in his chair, and swung the bottle casually by his side. “It’s just fucking embarrassing, especially when the Amer- icans are so dismissive of London. Why don’t you all just wrap yourself in their flag and be done with it?”

“Wow.” Katy turned to look at him, hand across her mouth. “You stole the words right from my mouth.”

“All this ‘ultimate city’ stuff? Let them keep it.” He looked at Stevie and sighed, shaking his head. “The missus loves cities, don’t you? But city living doesn’t suit when you get older, I don’t think. The country is the place for families. We’ll probably move to Nor- folk or somewhere in the next five years.”

“Excuse me?” Stevie bristled, unwilling to have a row in front of Katy and Seb, but bugged all the same. Since when had they
ever
agreed to move to the country? Norfolk? Over her dead body.

“New York’s been a revelation to me, old chap,” Seb interjected earnestly.

Jez shrugged, not in the mood to invest time listening to the revelations of some guy he’d just met. “How can you bear to be parted from your beautiful lady?”

Katy beamed. She couldn’t have put it better herself.

“It’s tough,” replied Seb, distractedly. “Toss me the insect repel- lent, Katy.”

The edges of Katy’s glossed mouth tightened. She grabbed a spray out of her handbag and slid it across the table to Seb.

Seb rolled up his sleeves and sprayed his pale forearms. “It’s hard

being on different sides of the Atlantic. But it kind of works, doesn’t it, Katy? It means we both have our own space.”

An awkward silence changed the atmosphere suddenly, like a drop in cabin pressure. Only the exhalation of cigarette smoke and the sound of Stevie slapping a persistent mosquito on her ankle provided relief.

Katy broke the silence, slamming her wineglass on the table as prelude. “You know what, Seb? I don’t want my own space. I’d rather share yours.”

Eight feet shuffled under the table. Oh, dear. They were hanging out with a couple even less suited to a honeymoon environment than themselves, thought Stevie. Time for bed.

“Easy, girl. It’s not forever.” Seb patted Katy’s hand but his body recoiled away from her, back pressing into the linen-upholstered seat.

“Man, plenty of time for forever.” Jez pulled lazily on a Marl- boro. “Once you two are married and have a load of screaming tod- dlers tumbling around your feet, you’ll look back on these days as your last days of bleeding freedom, mate. Enjoy it while you can.” “Don’t sound quite so wistful, please,” clipped Stevie. But she smiled. This was like the old Jez talking. The Jez she’d fallen in love with once. The one who enjoyed life, who was reluctant to grow up, irreverent, and irrepressible. “I can always release you

from your burden.”

“Don’t bother.” Jez put a heavy arm around her shoulders and planted a sloppy kiss on her cheek. “Love you, missus.” He ges- tured at Seb. “Okay, I . . . I take it all back. Marriage rocks.”

Seb snatched Jez’s cigarette packet and knocked the soft carton hard against the table. “Who said anything about
marriage
?” The

words, loosened by alcohol and the oddly liberating combination of sun and strangers, dropped from head to tongue easily.

A terrible silence. No part of Katy moved—not even a blink. She didn’t speak. Eight eyes tracked the waiter. The wind stopped. It was like the retreat of the sea before the big wave, thought Stevie.

Jez looked at his Rolex. “Hey, what about turning in soon? Don’t know about you, but I am knackered.”

“Good idea,” said Stevie, quickly, feeling a surge of gratitude to- ward Katy and Seb. They were the first couple she’d met in a long time who made her feel better about her own relationship. Maybe it wasn’t so bad being married after all. At least they’d dealt with the commitment issue. “Let’s just sign off on the bill.”

“No,
wait
,” implored Katy. “Don’t go.” “Honestly, I’m fried . . .” attempted Stevie.

Seb put a hand on Katy’s back, which she shrugged off. “Come on, Katy, the guys have just stepped off the plane . . .”

Katy ignored him. “Jez? You fancy one more? You’re no light- weight.” Her eyes filled with either candlelight or tears. “Please.”

Jez stood up, brushed down his cream linen trousers, and looked at Stevie for guidance. “Well . . . I . . .”

“Right. That’s it, then,” announced Katy. “You’re staying. If you don’t want to stay out, can I steal your husband—my rescuer—for just one more drink? Would you mind horribly, Stevie?”

It all happened so quickly. The consent. The departure. The kiss on Jez’s lips. It was only when Stevie got back to the villa in the un- familiar darkness, the sky squid-ink black and shrieking with in- sects, that she realized that she was returning from the first dinner on her honeymoon alone. And she didn’t mind as much as perhaps she should.

TWENTY
Æ

stevie unscrewed the lid of the brown glass bot-
tle and tipped a folic acid pill into the creased palm of her hand. It was reassuring to swallow a pill again. Since finishing her contra- ceptives shortly before the wedding, her mornings had lost their routine. No longer did she have pills to announce the days of the week, cycle after cycle, her life broken down to a succession of shiny foil packets, each new packet, satisfyingly full, signaling a new month of inconsequential sex. She wondered whether her body would suffer withdrawal symptoms. She’d been on the pill for more years than she cared to remember, feeding her body estrogen or progesterone—she forgot which—swapping between brands, ex- cluding the ones that made her fat, psychotic, or libido-less, through a messy process of trial and error. She was surprised to find that she missed her contraceptive routine, missed the sense of con- trol and predictability it brought. It was as if by stopping it, she was actually handing over control to a man—and this made her un- easy. And she couldn’t help but wonder: If she’d known the morn- ing that she stopped her pill quite how the wedding and the

honeymoon would unfold, would she have complied with Jez’s wish for her to go off the pill so soon? She doubted it.

“Nice one.” Jez, sitting on the edge of the terrace, watched her take the pill with an approving smile. “We better start practicing.” “You’re meant to wait a couple of months, use condoms, give the

body time to adjust, I think.”

“Bollocks to that.” Jez snorted, stretching out a leg. “I don’t want to hang around anyhow.”

“We only got married last week,” she said, uneasy, but flattered by his eagerness. She had always found his keenness to be a dad en- dearing. And he’d be a good, loyal, caring dad. She knew that.

“You’ve changed your tune.” Jez sat back on his heels, agitated, his body weight turning his toes white. “We’re not getting any younger, are we?”

“Nope.” Stevie pulled a sarong off the floor and tried to work out the best way to wrap it so that it didn’t fall down at an inappropri- ate moment—as it had yesterday at breakfast when she’d gone to get seconds of mango and papaya slices.

“Sorry.” Jez spoke quietly. “I don’t mean to push you. It’s just, well, with Dad dying and everything. It’s like I kind of want to re- place him . . .”

Stevie froze.

“No, no, that’s the wrong word, sorry,” said Jez quickly. “That sounds spooky. But you know what I mean . . .”

“Thou meetest with things dying . . .” Giving up on the sarong, she screwed it into ball, tossed it at her beach bag, and reached for a blue jersey sundress. “. . . I with things newborn.”

Jez frowned, walking into the villa. “What are you going on about?”

“
Winter’s Tale
. Shakespeare. Oh, it doesn’t matter.” She pulled on

the dress and tiptoed up to give Jez a kiss on the cheek. “Let’s hit the beach.”

Jez kicked his legs into his shorts. “I’m sorry about last night.” Stevie scooped up her beach bag, trying not to freak out at him.

“What time did you get in?”

Jez fisted his hands in his pockets. “I made my excuses about five, ten minutes after you left. When I got back, you were out cold.”

“Right.” She had fallen asleep almost before her head hit the pil- low, but she wasn’t sure she believed him. Jez was prone to an elas- tic interpretation of events at the best of times. He got carried away, forgot himself easily. He was the kind of guy who would pop out to the pub for one drink and still be there, a few pints later, at closing time, singing along to the jukebox, having made five new best friends.

“We had a good chat, actually. You know, Katy lost her mum two years ago. Ovarian cancer.”

“Really?” Wait for it, thought Stevie.
She really understands
.

“It’s all so random, just meeting someone, a stranger more or less, someone who, well, just really gets it.” He twisted in front of the mirror. “Hey, where’s that sunscreen? My neck’s barbecuing here.”

“Sounds very cozy,” Stevie said, sliding her feet into polka-dot espadrille wedges. “You and Katy.”

Jez grabbed her arm gently, on the fleshy bit above her elbow. “Pumpkin, you’re being a bit uncharitable. She was in a state last night after what that Seb guy said about marriage. What was I sup- posed to do?”

“Er, go to bed with your new wife?”

He considered this for a moment. “Sorry. You’re right. You’re

totally right. But I find those kind of situations tricky. I find it hard to say no. You know what I’m like.”

“I do.” Jez liked women with problems, thought Stevie. When she’d first met him, that was one of the things she’d loved about him—his clumsy, generous heart. Now she wondered whether he just liked to step in, to rescue. And now that he’d done the ulti- mate rescue—marrying her—did he need to move on to other dis- tressed damsels? Still, she supposed he was trying to do the right thing. “Katy shouldn’t have asked you.”

Jez considered this for a moment and found the argument suited him well. “You’re quite right,” he said emphatically, tearing open one of the gourmet ginger chocolates routinely left on their pillows by maids, and popping it into Stevie’s mouth. “She really shouldn’t have put me in that position, babe.”

stevie successfully managed to
avoid Katy for the next four days, at one point hiding inside the beach bar loo while Katy sauntered past in a barely there marshmallow-pink bikini and avia- tor shades. Another time, Stevie was forced to swim underwater for almost the length of the pool—certain her lungs would burst— while Katy cautiously dipped a temperature-testing toe in the wa- ter. Jez, however, seemed to bump into Katy, rarely Seb (who she suspected was also in hiding), with regularity and would return to the villa with frequent and exhaustive updates on Katy’s leg condition—the rash had apparently gone on to scab prettily—and her sweet “uncannily perceptive” words about the grieving process. It wasn’t long before Stevie began to expand her avoidance strategies to her husband. The intensity of twenty-four-hour couple time in this living holiday brochure, unbroken as it was by any