I wondered when the cancellation of our wedding, twenty-four hours before it was supposed to happen, had become something acceptable to joke about, especially by the groom.
‘So, the heartbreak diet obviously didn’t work for you?’ she said, as soon as Adam took himself out of the room.
I smiled and patted my flat stomach. ‘Or maybe I’m pregnant from all the amazing make-up sex we’ve had?’
I raised my eyebrows, and she frowned in distaste.
‘Are they not concerned about the effect this treatment might have on your asthma?’ I asked boldly.
‘Asthma?’ she asked, genuinely surprised by the question. ‘I haven’t got asthma.’
‘Oh, I thought I remembered Adam telling me once that you’d had it when he was younger? I’d read somewhere that certain types of chemo can have an adverse effect on asthmatics.’ I was fishing, but I needed to know with utmost certainty that the inhaler wasn’t hers, though I already knew it wasn’t.
‘No, never,’ she said, whistling and reaching over to touch wood.
‘Never what?’ asked Adam as he came back into the room.
‘Nothing, son.’
‘What have I missed?’ he asked, smiling. ‘It feels like you two have a secret.’
I smiled back and shook my head. ‘I was just saying that I’m sure you’d told me that your mum had asthma, when you were younger, but I must have dreamt it.’ I caught a glint of his set jaw, and knew I’d pushed my luck, so I laughed to lighten the mood. ‘You’d be genuinely terrified if you knew what I dreamt about.’
‘So, when are you two lovebirds going to reschedule the wedding?’ asked Pammie, clearly desperate to change the subject. ‘I guess it will be a while away now, won’t it? Be difficult to reorganize everything so quickly, what with getting everyone there again – and that’s if the venue even has free dates.’
She was rambling on, answering her own questions with what she’d like to hear. But I’m not one for giving Pammie what she wants. ‘No, I think it’ll be soon,’ I said, knowing full well that the hotel didn’t have any vacancies for at least six months. I felt the prickle of hot tears springing to my eyes unexpectedly, and batted them away. I would never allow her the satisfaction of thinking her actions could make me cry. ‘I’m hoping that it’ll happen in the next month or two.’
I watched her face crumple. ‘Oh, that will be such a relief, dear,’ she cried, pulling a tissue from a nearby box and dabbing at her eyes. ‘That will go some way to assuaging my guilt.’
‘I don’t know about that, Em,’ Adam said, his brow knitted. ‘There’s a lot to do in that time.’ He crouched down beside Pammie. ‘And you’ve got nothing to feel guilty about, Mum. That was my decision.’
He looked up at me. If he was hoping for a smile, a hint of forgiveness, he was mistaken.
I turned it on for Pammie, though, kneeling down beside Adam and taking her hand in mine. ‘But obviously we’re not going to do it until you’re better,’ I smiled piteously. ‘We need to know you’re through the treatment and out the other side.’
‘Oh, you’re a lovely girl,’ she said, patting my hand. My skin crawled at her touch.
‘She is,’ agreed Adam, pulling me towards him and kissing my cheek. I turned my face so that our lips met, and I parted mine ever so slightly, inviting him to take more. He pulled away, but the act wasn’t lost on Pammie, who turned away in disgust.
35
Adam had slept in the spare room for the two nights he’d been back home, as I naively believed that withholding sex would make him understand the severity of what he’d done and the risk he’d taken. But that was childish, and it wasn’t what either of us wanted. Yet it wasn’t until we came away from Pammie’s that I realized I’d been playing right into her hands. She wanted the cancellation of the wedding to ruin us, she was banking on it, so I needed to make sure that what she’d done was never going to have an adverse effect on us as a couple. She had changed me as a person already, had made me see myself differently. She’d stripped away my confidence and had caused hurt that I’d carry with me until the day I died, but I would not allow her to take away the one thing she wanted. She would never take Adam away from me. I’d use the only weapon in my artillery that she’d never be able to outgun me with.
The front door hadn’t even closed properly before I pushed him up against the back of it, and kissed him, searching furiously for his tongue. He didn’t say a word, but I could feel him smiling as he kissed me back, softly at first, then harder. It had been a long time for both of us, and with so many emotions in the space in between, it just felt like a pressure cooker going off. I undid his shirt buttons, ripping at the bottom two in my urgency, and he reached around to unzip the back of my dress, the intensity of our kissing not stopping for even a second. As my dress fell to the floor he swung me round and slammed me hard against the door, pinning my arms up above my head. I was helpless as he kissed my neck, before going down and moving the fabric of my bra aside with his teeth, circling my nipples with his tongue.
I went to pull my arms down, but he held them firm, changing from two hands to one, as he undid his jeans and pushed my legs apart with his feet. It couldn’t have lasted more than three minutes but the release was incredible, and the pair of us remained unmoving against the door, our breaths heavy and in unison.
‘Well, that was unexpected,’ Adam was the first to speak. ‘As you could probably tell. Sorry about that.’
I smiled and kissed him. ‘We can do it again later, slower if you like.’
He kissed me back. ‘God, I love you, Emily Havistock.’
I didn’t say I loved him. I don’t know why, because I do. Perhaps it’s all part of that in-built defence mechanism that women seem to be born with, that bogs us down and keeps us from saying the things we really want to say. Believing that holding back somehow keeps us one step ahead, making us the better, stronger race. Why then, does pretending to be someone I’m not, leave me feeling weak and bereft?
I waited until we were snuggled up on the sofa together, to broach the subject that was burning a hole in my head.
‘Can I ask you something about Rebecca?’ I said, careful to keep my voice steady.
‘Do you have to?’ Adam sighed. ‘We’re having a lovely time. Let’s not ruin it.’
‘We won’t,’ I replied. ‘We’re just talking.’
He sighed resignedly, but I pushed on.
‘Did you get a chance to say goodbye to her? Was she still alive when you found her? Did she ever regain consciousness for long enough to know you were there?’
He shook his head. ‘No. She’d already gone. She was . . . cold to the touch, and her lips were blue. I held her and kept calling her name, but there was nothing. No flicker of a pulse, nothing.’
His eyes started welling up. ‘Did you have to go through the hell of a post-mortem or inquest?’ I asked.
‘No, thankfully. She had such a detailed history of asthma, albeit not serious, or so we thought, that it was obviously the cause of death.’
‘And your mum was there with you?’
He nodded solemnly. ‘She was the one who found her. I can’t imagine what it was like for her.’
‘Who was the last person to see her? Before she became unwell?’
‘What is this,’ he said, ‘the Spanish Inquisition?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry, I just . . . I don’t know. I just want to feel closer to you, know what goes on in that head of yours. That was a huge part of your life, and I just want to be in that same space, you know, understand how it must feel for you, even now, years later. Does that make sense?’
I wrinkled my nose, and he kissed it.
‘Mum had taken up a few boxes earlier in the day, and they’d had a cup of tea, I think, in between unpacking, and she seemed fine.’
‘What, absolutely normal?’ I asked.
‘Yes, but she always was before an attack. It just creeps up on you.’