‘It’s Jackson,’ Derry called to Sofie. ‘He’s begging you to give him another chance.’
Good-humoured laughter greeted this. Sofie and Jackson had broken up about three years after they’d left school but had managed to stay the best of friends.
Sofie’s soon-to-be-husband David was a researcher in the hospital lab where she worked. He understood her in the way Jackson had.
(Nevertheless, I thought, they were ridiculously young to get married. But we all had to live our own lives. No one else could do it for us.)
‘We should go,’ Maura said.
‘Go on, then,’ Mum replied. ‘No one’s stopping you.’
‘You’re coming with me,’ Maura said.
‘I am fecking not. I’m going in Derry’s convertible. Can we put the roof down, Der?’
‘Ma, no. Our hair.’
‘I don’t want to go on my own.’ Unexpectedly Maura’s voice wobbled.
‘The Poor Bastard will see you at the venue, right?’
‘But I want company for the drive!’
Hugh stepped closer to me. ‘Soon,’ he muttered, ‘they’ll all be gone and we’ll have the house to ourselves again.’ He gave me a wink.
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘Oh, yeah.’
Suddenly I was reminded of that summer, all those years ago, when Hugh had come home again.
It had been the most extraordinary time – the empty house, all that freedom, the never-ending thrill of rediscovery. It had felt almost as if we’d just met and were in the throes of the giddy early days of a love affair. We felt – and acted – young. We ducked out of work early to see each other, we went out and got drunk together, and spent entire weekends in bed.
Everything went to hell.
We stopped cooking – if we ate at all, it was impromptu dinners at ridiculously fancy restaurants or, just as enjoyable, late-night drunken kebabs. All housework was abandoned, and so was any semblance of a budget. Hugh took me shopping in Brown Thomas, plucking things from the rails and insisting I try them on. There was a Sandro dress I loved but wouldn’t let him buy. The next day, when I got home from work, a Brown Thomas bag was waiting for me.
The entire two months were like that, a phase of our relationship that somehow we’d missed out first time round.
‘We’re making up for lost time,’ he said, often.
And it wasn’t just about sex – although there was plenty of that – it was the novelty of having each other’s undivided attention. We talked so much during those two months, rarely deep-and-meaningfuls but instead lots of light-hearted fun and the occasional nugget that surprised one of us. I mean, how had I been with him for eighteen years without knowing that, for three months during his teens, he’d been a motorbike courier? Or how had he not known that I’d once milked a cow? After all, it was one of the things I was most proud of!
Now and again the old fury would erupt in me and I’d rage at Hugh for half a day. But he took it without complaint and never reminded me of my flirtation with Josh, which had preceded his shenanigans.
I didn’t smash his record collection – I didn’t subject him to any dramatic punishment. I’d no heart for it. We’d been through enough – both of us – and the idea of piling on more pain repelled me.
I could have hazarded a guess at what Steevie thought of me, but I could live with it.
All that I knew for sure is, I wanted to be as happy as possible for as long as I’d got, and my every second was so much better with Hugh than without him.
At the end of that summer, Sofie and Kiara came home from Switzerland. In some ways, life was easier: there were fewer people thronging the house now that Neeve had her own place. For the same reason, we had more money. In addition, Sofie had matured so there was less drama, less worry.
But it was as if Hugh and I had embarked on a new marriage. Our expectations of each other were more realistic and the previous innocence was gone. It felt somewhat sad.
And then, you know, it didn’t. Then we just got on with things.
Eventually, my anger storms dispersed. (Probably around the same time as our sex life reverted to normal levels.)
‘We need to go.’ Kiara brought me back to the present. ‘Sofie and Dad can’t leave until we’ve all left.’
Everyone ran for their cars and the front lawn cleared with remarkable speed, until only Hugh, Sofie and I were left.
‘See you there.’ I kissed Hugh.
‘Mum!’ Neeve yelled from her car. She was driving Kiara and me. ‘Come on.’
‘Can’t you come with me?’ Hugh asked.
‘In the wedding car with you and Sofie? No, you big eejit.’
‘I don’t want to be without you.’
‘You’ll see me in forty minutes.’ But I knew what he meant. As we’d got older, we’d become more dependent on each other.
‘What if I make a show of her, walking her up the aisle? If I cry? If I trip and take her down with me?’
That made me laugh. ‘You won’t.’
‘Mum!’
‘Coming!’
As Neeve drove, she revisited the matter of Sofie’s wedding being held outdoors.
‘An open-air ceremony in Ireland, even in August, is risk-taking that borders on psychopathy.’ Despite countless people ‘having a quiet word’ no one had been able to dissuade Sofie from having her wedding at Apple Blossom Farm.
‘But the weather today is lovely,’ Kiara said.
‘For now,’ Neeve said darkly. ‘It could change at the drop of a hat, right? What kills me is that Sofie pretends to be such a pushover, but she’s the most stubborn person I’ve ever met.’
‘Maybe everything will turn out grand,’ I said.
And maybe it would.
‘Where the hell is this place?’ Neeve asked.
We’d turned off the motorway on to a narrow road, made even narrower by the lush vegetation of late summer crowding over walls and fences into our path.
‘It’s menacing, isn’t it? The way those bushes are?’
‘It’s here!’ I cried. ‘In here.’ We turned off the road and bumped along a track, past a whitewashed farmhouse. ‘Here they all are!’
Suddenly lots of people were milling around in the sunshine, their fancy duds fitting in unexpectedly well with all the verdant beauty. I spotted Joe and Siena, Declyn and Hayden, and the groom, looking somewhat grey around the gills. Close by were his mother and two sisters, rocking some serious hat action. I caught a glimpse of Mum’s face: she seemed extremely put out.
And there was Urzula, looking haggard and as thin as ever. I was glad to see her: it would have hurt Sofie if she hadn’t come.
Joe’s sons, Finn, Pip and Kit – each more lanky and awkward-looking than the next – were acting as ushers. Kit, his Adam’s apple the size of a small car, said, ‘Amy, would you like to be ushered?’
‘Right so.’
‘That way.’ He pointed at a path through gnarled trees, their branches heavy with fruit.
At least there was a wooden walkway so that my heels didn’t sink into the soft earth.
The clearing opened up to reveal a hundred white chairs, organized on two sides of a makeshift aisle, which led to a delicate pergola threaded with flowers and small apples.
The chairs were garlanded with lustrous ribbons blowing in the light breeze. I could actually smell the apples from the orchard – then, right into my ear, Neeve said, ‘One heavy shower, and those chairs and the pergola, the whole lot’ll be swept away!’
‘Stop it, you killjoy. This is lovely.’
‘She’s here,’ someone called. ‘Seats. Positions!’
David darted to the pergola, followed by his best man and the celebrant. The guests filed hurriedly into seats, then the music started.
First up the aisle, walking at the speed of a tortoise, as instructed, came Maisey the ring-bearer, then Kiara, followed by Neeve, smirking away good-oh. Finally, Sofie and Hugh stood where the red carpet began. Sofie looked extraordinarily happy and beautiful. I knew I couldn’t shed a single tear because if I started I might find it hard to stop.
Hugh said something to Sofie, she patted him reassuringly, tucked her hand inside his arm and they began their walk.