“Rachel,” she says, through a controlled sigh. “Nice to meet you.”
As it turns out, innocuous conversation is just what Rachel needs. Neil, a mechanic, and his wife Liz, a doctor’s receptionist, give her a blow-by-blow account of how they’ve left their three-year-old at home for the first time, and the banality gives her a temporary respite from the nightmare she’s trapped in. Thankfully, the nerves of having to deliver his speech ironically render Jack, on her other side, almost speechless for the duration of the meal.
The sound of cutlery clinking against the side of a glass gradually stills the room and all eyes turn to Will, who’s already gazing adoringly at Ali.
“I can’t believe I get to call this incredible woman my wife,” he starts, to a rapturous round of applause.
Rachel forces herself to put her hands together, but she looks about as enthusiastic as Jack does.
“From the first time I laid eyes on Ali, I knew she was the one for me,” says Will.
Which is surprising, thinks Rachel, seeing as she was hanging off another man’s neck at the time.
“After years of being in the wilderness…,” he goes on.
“Quite literally,” one of Will’s friends heckles.
“I was thinking more from a companionship point of view.” Will laughs. “I didn’t think I’d ever meet my soul mate. But here she is…” Ali fans her face with her hands in an attempt to stop her tears from falling. Will tenderly wipes them away with his napkin. “And she is the most generous, thoughtful and funny person I’ve ever met. We have had such a laugh together and there have been times when I’ve been lost for words at how kind and caring she is.”
Rachel catches Paige’s wide-eyed look of disbelief.
“Just last week, when we found out that her grandmother wasn’t going to be well enough to fly out here, Ali’s immediate reaction was to postpone the wedding. It didn’t matter at what cost, she just knew she didn’t want to get married without her gran here to see it. But, with a little persuasion on my part, and a lot from her family, she agreed to go ahead on the condition that we recreate a mini version for Grandma Nettie when we get back home.”
Ali’s mum claps and dabs at her own eyes as she looks at her daughter with so much pride that she might burst. Rachel wonders how much more of this sanctimonious bullshit she’s going to be able to take.
“But of all Ali’s admirable qualities, it’s her loyalty that astounds me the most.”
There’s a snort from behind Rachel, at the exact same time as the wine she’s got in her mouth threatens to splutter from her nose. She doesn’t need to look to see who it is. Will gives Paige a few seconds to stop coughing and, as the clock ticks down, Rachel’s getting hotter and hotter.
“So, yeah, as I was saying,” Will continues. “Ali’s loyalty knows no bounds. When we met, I had just returned from another voyage of self-discovery in Vietnam.”
“You took ten years longer than the rest of us to find ourselves,” calls out the same heckler.
“Yes, I am aware of that, thanks,” says Will. “And, let’s be honest, my prospects weren’t great. As Ben has so helpfully pointed out, I’ve been a nomad ever since leaving university, with nothing of any relevance to show for it on my résumé. Ali had a good job and I’m sure her friends told her not to waste her time on a no-mark like me.” He looks around at the few women of Ali’s age, who all shake their heads and utter their disagreement. “Well, thank you, ladies, but frankly I wouldn’t have blamed you. Yet somehow, some way, Ali decided it was worth backing me, and there hasn’t been a single day in the last three years that she’s made me feel it’s a decision she regrets. She has stuck by me, through thick and thin—waiting patiently for me to get my act together.”
Ali grabs hold of his hand and looks up at him, her face full of devotion. Rachel empties her glass of red wine, not knowing who she feels sorrier for. Herself or Will.
“Thank you for the loyalty you’ve shown and the trust you’ve put in me,” he says to her, amidst much ah-ing and aw-ing. “I will never let you down.”
He leans down for a kiss and the guests applaud and raise their glasses.
“To the happy couple,” says Jack, taking it as his cue to stand up. He clears his throat, and Rachel almost delights in how difficult this is going to be for him. Though not nearly as difficult as it’s going to be for her.
“I’ll keep it short,” he says. “As I know you’ll all be keen to get your dancing shoes on, but I just want to say a few words about having Will as a brother.”
Will groans and puts his head in his hands.
“Well, not so much a brother, as an acquaintance, who on the odd occasion he’s bothered to call me in the last ten years, shows up on my phone as ‘Will … you lend me a hundred pounds?’” The line gives him the laugh he’d hoped for when he’d practiced on Rachel the night before they left, when her world was a thousand light years away from the one she finds herself in now. When she’d lain there in bed, watching Jack as he strode up and down at the foot of it, pointing to her whenever he delivered what was supposed to be a humorous line.
She’d kept her face deadpan for all four of the puns, until, exasperated, he’d thrown his piece of paper in the air.
“You’re supposed to laugh,” he’d sighed.
“Well, maybe I just don’t find you funny,” she’d jested.
“No?” he challenged. “So, you don’t think I can make you smile?”
“Nope,” she’d said, as his head disappeared under the end of the duvet. She’d spread her legs as her book that had been lying dormant on her chest dropped to the floor.
“Still not smiling?” he’d mumbled through the quilt.
“Uh-uh,” Rachel had managed as she arched her back.
She looks at him standing beside her now and can’t help but wonder how many times he’s made Ali smile like that.
Bile rises, burning the lining of her throat with a poker-hot ferocity. If she stays here, she’s going to purge the remnants of her lobster casserole all over the table. With her face burning, more from embarrassment than the pressure of holding it in, she pushes her chair back and scoots behind a bewildered Jack toward where she hopes the toilets are. There are two doors; one’s clearly the kitchen, so she opts for the other, without looking back to see the trail of onlookers she might have left in her wake. Shutting herself into a cubicle, she pours cold water on the insides of her wrists and wills herself to calm down. But she can’t shake the image of Jack’s head buried between Ali’s legs from her mind.
“Rach!” comes Paige’s voice through the door. “You okay?”
Rachel lets her in and falls into her arms. “I can’t do this,” she says.
Paige stiffens. “Do you want me to take you back to the villa?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know how I’m supposed to carry on and pretend that everything’s normal, when the best man, my husband, is fucking the bride.” She knows she’s had too much to drink as she’s lost all volume control as well as the propensity to care who might hear.
“Okay,” says Paige, backing Rachel onto the closed toilet seat. “You’ve got two choices here; you either find a way of getting through the next few hours without driving yourself insane, or we’ll say that you’re sick and I’ll take you back.”
“I should have stopped it,” cries Rachel, ashamed to acknowledge that if Ali didn’t have what she has over her, she would have. But instead of giving Will the chance to get out of a marriage that is destined to fail before it has even begun, she’d taken the coward’s way out, too scared of Ali’s recrimination; selfishly saving her own skin at the expense of Will’s. “He’s not done anything to deserve this and he’s going to be so devastated when he finds out he’s been betrayed by his brother and his wife. It’s him I’m most worried about in all of this. I couldn’t give a shit about Jack or Ali, or even me, but he’s done nothing wrong.”