Jack’s arm snakes around Cassie’s waist again.
‘We’re also missing Mike,’ Charlotte continues, ‘Jack’s dad, today more than ever. Many of you knew Mike, so you’ll know how strongly he believed in marriage, and I know he would hope, as I do, that you are as happy as we were.’ Charlotte’s eyes fill as she looks at her son for a moment before she clears her throat and says, ‘Now, all that remains is for me to ask you all to raise your glasses to the bride and groom! To Cassie and Jack.’
All eyes in the room spin towards them, and, like a shoal of colourful fish, moved by some unknowable, compelling force, their guests form a circle around them and their voices echo Charlotte. ‘Cassie and Jack.’
Jack bends Cassie over his arm as he kisses her to more whoops and clapping, before they both turn to Charlotte who, speech over, is wiping her eyes.
‘Thank god for waterproof mascara,’ she says, and Cassie holds onto Jack’s hand as she hugs Charlotte.
‘I meant it, Cas,’ Charlotte whispers in Cassie’s ear, ‘every word.’
Cassie wants to tell her again how grateful she is but she can’t because Charlotte’s turning towards Jack for a hug and there’s a hand on Cassie’s forearm gently begging attention, so Cassie turns away from Charlotte, letting go of Jack, expecting one of Jack’s friends or his uncle perhaps, but the hand on her arm, Cassie realises with a sudden drop in her stomach, belongs to Marcus.
His smile stops at his mouth. Cassie can’t see any real joy in his face even today, his dark eyes a vacuum. As far as Cassie knows they’ve been empty ever since April died.
‘Got a hug for your old man?’ His attempt at an old joke rests like stale air between them. After April and Marcus married, just six months before April died, Cassie used to tease Marcus, calling him ‘Daddy’ in public to embarrass him and to make April laugh.
Cassie’s arms feel weary as she obligingly hugs her stepdad. He’s smaller than she remembers, and his body feels weak and skittish beneath the fibres of his dusty suit. She keeps herself tense, as though if she were to relax, some of his grief might seep into her. Like rich chocolate cake, Cassie finds she can only manage a little bit of Marcus at a time. Cassie gently pulls away from him, and he keeps hold of her arm with one hand; he knows she wants to float away.
‘That was a lovely speech, wasn’t it?’ His eyebrows bounce as he talks.
‘Marcus, you know, we decided not to have too many speeches, it was our …’
A small sac of skin pendulum swings beneath Marcus’s chin as he shakes his head, trying not to care that Cassie walked herself down the aisle, that he doesn’t have a spray of flowers in his jacket pocket, that there was no stepfather-of-the-bride speech.
‘No, no, Cas, I wasn’t implying that. I thought – what’s her name … Charlotte? – did a good job. Your mum would’ve loved it.’
Even a year and a half on, there still seems to be no Marcus without April. Cassie feels her dress tighten around her lungs; they feel leaden. Marcus’s hand on her arm starts to burn and she feels like she’s back in the hospice room, staring down at her mum’s empty body, Marcus opposite. Marcus makes her feel stuck, as though she should never step away from April’s deathbed.
‘I haven’t said hello yet, Marcus!’
Cassie turns with gratitude towards the familiar voice, and her lungs instantly loosen. Nicky, her oldest friend, must have seen her with Marcus and known she needs rescuing.
Nicky’s long, red hair is plaited and coiled like a rope over her shoulder; little wisps hover round her head like gas. Nicky has never liked dressing up. Her older sister told her when she was a teenager that she was too big for pretty things and the comment stuck to her like a burr. Today she’s wearing a dark-green silk dress to her knee; it flatters her lightly freckled skin.
‘How are you, Marcus?’ Nicky asks, giving him one of her firm kisses on the cheek.
Cassie keeps her eyes fixed on Nicky, but she feels Marcus’s eyes flicker to her face before going back to Nicky, as though he needs reminding who Nicky is, even though he’s met her many times.
It was Nicky who used to listen to Cassie moan about how weird Marcus was, how it was even weirder that he was her mum’s boyfriend. They got together five years before April died. Cassie could never say it to anyone, not even Jack or Nicky, but she used to think April only married Marcus because she was dying; she knew it would make him happy.
He was a retired civil servant from the Isle of Wight who never married before April, and never had kids of his own. He was not the bon vivant she imagined for her mum; he was too beige to ever be a hero, but he made her mum happy and that made Cassie happy. So she’d decided Marcus was a good man.
There’s a pause. Marcus looks stricken for a moment before he says to Nicky, ‘Long time no see.’ He squeezes Cassie’s arm before he lets go. ‘How’ve you been?’
‘Oh, I’m good, good, thanks. Just getting over another knee operation, but apart from that I’m fine. Wasn’t it a lovely ceremony?’
Marcus ignores her question and instead asks, ‘Did I hear you got a new job?’
Cassie looks away, over her friend’s shoulder.
‘Oh, no, that wasn’t me, Marcus. I’m still temping.’ Nicky tilts her champagne flute as an adolescent waiter, face swarming with pimples, refills it for her. ‘Which is, you know, fine … fine for now.’
‘Nicky works at the same place I used to work, remember, Marcus?’ Cassie says, still not looking at her stepdad.
‘I’m afraid so,’ says Nicky, nodding at Marcus. ‘I’m still on the waiting list for my Jack-in-shining-armour to appear, unchain me from my desk and whisk me off to the countryside.’
Marcus laughs at Nicky; like he doesn’t know what else to do. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. Cassie wonders if she can just walk away, or if that would be unfair on Nicky.
Nicky perseveres with Marcus. ‘How’s life on the Isle of Wight?’ she asks.
‘Oh, just the same; quiet, especially at this time of year.’
The conversation limps on. Cassie’s grateful when Charlotte catches her eye and waves Cassie over to meet an old family friend, a round jolly man whose lips feel like squashed berries as he presses them to Cassie’s cheek.
She watches over his shoulder as an old school friend, Beth, interrupts Nicky and Marcus. Beth and Nicky hug, and Marcus, as though suddenly tossed overboard, steps away from them, hobbling slightly; his hip gets worse in the winter. He moves like a lost tourist through the party, vulnerable and hesitant in this new land that is populated by much happier people than he’s used to. He pretends to admire the Christmas tree, then finds a waiter to top up his smeary glass. An old twist of guilt ripples through Cassie: Marcus getting old on his own. She thinks about going to say goodbye properly, promising him she’ll visit soon, suggesting that maybe they could go for a sea walk along the cliffs and have a pub lunch like they used to when April was alive? But suddenly Jack takes her hand.