As she follows the sign welcoming Will and Ali’s guests, she can’t help but wonder if she’s being taken for a fool.
“Wow,” says Paige as she heads through a quaint arch that’s decorated with blossoming bougainvillea, its vivid fuchsia petals trailing all the way to the ground.
They walk through to the garden where shimmering fairy lights illuminate the trunks of two tall palm trees, making them look like miniature helter-skelters. Candlelit lanterns hang from branches of cork trees and a gentle glockenspiel tune rings out from the chimes swaying in the breeze.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” says Ali happily.
“Olá bonita,” calls out a bearded man as he emerges from a low-rise white stucco building. He opens his arms wide as he rushes to embrace Ali, kissing her on both cheeks. “Como está a noiva?” he says excitedly.
“Erm…” Ali giggles, turning to look wide-eyed at Will.
Will laughs as he shakes the man’s hand. “He’s asking how the bride is.”
“Oh,” says Ali. “Good, I’m really good.”
“Paulo,” says Will warmly, pulling the man in for a bear hug. “How have you been?”
“Very good. Very busy,” says Paulo, the unfamiliar words sounding short and clipped on his Portuguese tongue.
“It’s stunning,” says Will, looking around the walled garden. “Thank you.”
Rachel follows his eyes to the open lilies that are lying serenely in a troughed water feature, the stillness reflecting the twinkling lights from the trees.
“Your guest, she is here already,” says Paulo as he ushers them toward the doorway of the restaurant.
“That’ll be my mother,” says Ali, laughing. “I’ll put money on it. She wouldn’t have been able to wait.”
“Yes, I think so,” says Paulo, smiling. “We have had a drink already.”
“That’s definitely my mum,” says Ali.
It’s not until she’s in the restaurant that Rachel shivers, as her body registers the change in temperature from outside. Jack notices, putting an arm around her and rubbing her bare arm. It takes all her willpower not to recoil from his touch that suddenly feels sullied.
As if sensing there’s more than just the chill in the air, Jack takes her hand and gives it a squeeze. “You okay?” he asks.
Rachel can’t manage anything more than a nod as her brain goes into freefall, wondering what he must think of her. Does he see her as the faithful, docile wife who just sits at home waiting for him to come in from work? Is he bored by the banal conversation in which she has nothing more to offer than telling him who she bumped into in Blackheath Village when she picked up the lamb chops from the butcher’s?
She’s become complacent, believing that putting a good dinner in front of Jack every night would be enough to keep him by her side. But she can see now that he needs more; he wants a woman with a bit more get up and go. An ambitious streak. A desire to carve a niche out for herself, rather than relying on him for her emotional, practical and financial needs.
She swallows hard. “I was thinking, when I get home, I’d like to start my teacher training.” She looks at him, expecting to see a renewed sense of respect in his eyes, but they’re devoid of anything. How long have they been like that?
“What would you want to do that for?” he asks, looking around, preoccupied by trying to find the quickest way of getting a drink.
“I just think now would be a good time to pick it up again, seeing as Josh is off doing his own thing.”
“But that’s why I work as hard as I do,” says Jack. “So that you don’t have to.”
“I know, and I’m grateful, but I just think it’s time to do something of my own. I want to do something of my own.”
He takes two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray and hands one to her. “Is this because of today?” he asks.
She clenches her insides, unable to believe he’s going to go there again.
“Life’s too short and all that…” he says, laughing, as if what happened to Noah was some kind of joke.
“Darling!” calls out a woman, emerging from behind a pillar in a wheelchair.
“Mum!” shrieks Ali, rushing toward her, almost falling onto her lap to hug her.
“Oh, darling, you look absolutely gorgeous.”
Ali straightens herself back up and pulls at the various pieces of Lycra that are just about stopping her from being arrested for indecent exposure. “Do you really think so?” Ali asks, forever looking for a compliment, even from her own mother, it seems.
Rachel hears an exaggerated sigh behind her and knows that it’s Paige without even needing to look around.
“You always look beautiful,” says Ali’s mother, looking intently at her daughter, as if really trying to drill the words home. Rachel can’t help but notice her reaching for Ali’s hand and giving it a comforting squeeze. The genuine warmth between the pair of them is unmistakable.
“Mum,” says Ali, “this is Will’s brother.”
“Ah, Jack,” she says, not needing a formal introduction, it seems.
Ali smiles tightly as she looks at Jack. “This is my mum, Maria.”
Jack takes Maria’s hand. “Pleased to meet you,” he says, in that false voice he puts on whenever he meets someone new.
It had amused Rachel the first time she’d noticed that slight change in intonation when she introduced him to some friends a few months after they’d started dating.
“Where on earth did the posh voice come from?” she’d asked afterward.
“What do you mean?” he’d said, seemingly unaware that he’d come across as anything other than how he normally did.
“There was a complete key change,” she’d commented, through fits of laughter. “And since when have you dotted your i’s and crossed your t’s?”
“I always speak nicely,” he’d said, having already discarded the plumminess that had cushioned his vowels and consonants just a few moments before.
“Not like that!” Rachel scoffed. “You sounded like you’d come straight from Eton.”
“I can’t help it if I was privately educated,” he said, smiling. “But class and etiquette are instilled from birth—you can’t buy it.”
Rachel had shaken her head. “Yet you seem to have spent a fortune on condescension.”
He’d stuck his tongue out at her, but he still continued to put “the voice” on whenever he met a stranger; at least until he knew them a bit better.
“It’s good to finally have a face to put to the name,” says Maria. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Rachel wishes that she could replay it, as she’s sure the word “lot” was emphasized.
“All good, I presume,” says Jack, laughing nervously.
Maria doesn’t answer; she just eyes him up and down with a look of … Rachel doesn’t know what. Is it disdain or a silent appreciation and understanding? She can’t quite put her finger on it.
“And this is Rachel,” says Ali.
“Ah, I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you,” says Maria, grabbing hold of both Rachel’s hands and wrapping them in hers. “After everything that Ali’s said about you, I half-expected you to have a shining halo above your head.” She cocks her head to the side and squints her eyes. “In fact, I think I can see it,” she says, smiling warmly.
Rachel is so overwhelmed by the genuine compassion she feels from this stranger, that there’s an unexpected choke at the back of her throat.
Ali had told her about her mother’s car accident five years ago, but Rachel wishes she’d asked more questions, and is now riddled with guilt for not showing more of an interest at the time, instead of writing the conversation off as another of Ali’s over-exaggerated stories. The admission shames her.
“It’s really lovely to meet you too,” says Rachel. “How was the trip over here?”
“Well, while you enjoyed the relative luxury of British Airways, we had to endure the indignity of Ryanair.” Maria laughs. “Who seem to have taken the idea of a budget airline to a whole new level. I think I might have been more comfortable in the baggage hold.”