you been seeing him? I mean, how come I didn’t know you’ve even been seeing him?’
‘Two weeks. Don’t shout at me, Thea!’
‘Two weeks? And now you’re engaged?’
‘Be happy for me – or you can’t be bridesmaid.’
‘Of course I’m happy for you, idiot. Ecstatic. I’m just shocked. Two weeks?’
‘He’s perfect. What was the point of waiting? Kind, considerate, calm – there are no safer hands in the world for handling me.’
‘Are you madly in love with him? With Mark Sinclair?’
Alice looked at Thea. ‘You do know that feeling of “madly in love” is merely phenylethylamine, Thea?’ Alice said with a sigh. ‘It’s just a natural amphetamine – which is why it’s addictive. It’s the same hormone that’s released during high-risk sports and eating chocolate.’
‘Whatever,’ said Thea, ‘but you need to be in love with someone to actually marry them.’
‘So fiction and films would have us believe,’ Alice said. ‘There’s more to marriage than being head over heels. In fact, my feet are firmly rooted and my head is now out of the clouds and firmly on my shoulders – that’s why I know it’s going to work. I’m ready for this.’
‘And you do love him,’ Thea said.
‘Everyone loves Mark,’ Alice smiled, ‘he’s one of life’s good guys.’
‘And you love him,’ said Thea.
‘I’m the love of his life. And he’s my love for life. That’s why we’re marrying. What more could I ask for?’
Now, contemplating quietly in the conducive early hours, Thea likened it to Alice having a good tidy-up and coming across something she’d forgotten all about. Like something never worn, bought on impulse, never even tried on, pushed to the back of a cupboard, then rediscovered. A perfect fit, it transpired. A delightful surprise. What disconcerted Thea was that she hadn’t ever thought that when Alice did her tidy-up, she’d find Mark. What unnerved her most – and she could now admit it in the silence and privacy of her space – was that she was actually slightly taken aback. Alice had brought Thea the best news in the world. But for the first time in their friendship, she’d done so without the need to ask Thea’s advice or seek her opinion first.
Mark Sinclair had an aptitude for diplomacy and an instinct for manners. They hadn’t been drilled into him at home, he hadn’t learnt them at school or been trained in them after university. They were simply part of his personality and throughout his thirty-two years they had won him friends and influence. These qualities, combined with a head for figures and a heart with a strong work ethic, saw his rapid promotion through the hierarchies at ADS Internationale for whom he worked as an investment analyst. He was invaluable to them. He could speak languages, keep calm under the pressure of City finance, didn’t get drunk over business lunches, never fell out with colleagues or associates, travelled uncomplainingly and trained his immediate team into an efficient, likeable unit. The company had no need to incentivize him and every reason to reward him which they did, handsomely.
Whoever met Mark, wished to befriend him. It helped that he was fluent in Spanish and French, passable in German and Italian, and that his work took him abroad frequently. A full Filofax and a packed Palm Pilot kept track of his worldwide friendships. He was a terrific host when people came to London. He’d stock the fridge for them, tailor a list of sights to see, and provide his membership cards for a variety of museums. He’d meet them after work, having secured great seats at theatres or enviable tables in top restaurants. Mark was also a wonderful guest – as comfortable sleeping on the bottom bunk of his godson’s bed in Didsbury as he was staying in palatial grandeur in a suite at the Peninsula, Hong Kong. He loved hiking hard in Skye with his old friends the McLeods and he enjoyed putting the world to rights in French with his new friend at the Paris office, Pierre. He went on safari by himself in Kenya and made Jeep-loads of new friends there. He was a Friend of the Royal Academy of Arts and soon made friends at the Royal Academy. He had friends who’d invite him to Glyndebourne and others he’d accompany to Glastonbury. Mark Sinclair was open-minded, kind-hearted and plain good company. He hated confrontations and far preferred to bite his tongue than fall out with anyone he cared for. An even keel was what he aimed for. Which is why he had so many friends but not actually one best one.
Alice looked at Mark expectantly. She smoothed her white shirt, flicked her hair back, cocked her head and regarded him again.
‘Are you ready?’ he asked, while patting his pockets to double-check on keys, wallet, mobile phone. ‘Shall we go?’
‘But how do I look?’ Alice said, standing her ground a little petulantly. ‘Will they approve? Do you think I should wear a skirt instead?’
‘You look gorgeous,’ Mark assured her, congratulating himself on the earrings he’d bought her. ‘You look – brown?’
‘Thea did my fake tan,’ Alice said, with no embarrassment. ‘I felt a bit pale and peaky from my cold last week – I don’t want your mum to think you’re not looking after me. Do you think your parents will approve? Do you think they’ll like me? I hope your mum is a good cook – I’m starving.’
‘Of course they will,’ said Mark, ‘who wouldn’t. Come on. Mum’s Sunday Roast is legendary – but don’t touch the white wine. They only do Liebfraumilch.’
Gail Sinclair busied off to the kitchen to prepare the dessert, turning down Alice’s keen offer to help. Gail was delighted. Better still, she was charmed.
‘Charmed, absolutely charmed,’ she practised quietly to herself in the kitchen whilst decanting Marks & Spencer custard into a jug and carefully transferring their cherry Bakewell onto her best cake dish. Charmed, she continued in a whisper, Alice is delightful, Hazel. Absolutely winning to look at. A magazine person. She brought us copies – a real variety, Mary. She dotes on Mark, Carole – absolutely dotes on him. Chris and I couldn’t be more happy.
‘She’s a cracker,’ Chris Sinclair, who’d never mastered the art of the whisper, told his son; while Alice sat to his right and tried to look as though she wasn’t eavesdropping. Gail heard, even though she was at a clatter changing their everyday crockery for the best china. Chris thinks she’s a cracker, Joyce, and I know you’ll agree once you’ve met her.
Alice reckoned Chris to be in his mid-sixties, dapper despite the patterned sweater and corduroy slippers. Thinning silvery hair cut neatly, bright eyes, elegant hands and a healthy complexion due to his love of golf and gardening. She reckoned Gail to be five years younger, her hair cut into a short, neat style appropriate for her age, any grey expensively masked by an overall coppery sheen. While Mark talked to his father about PELS and Gail poured Marks & Spencer’s coulis into another jug, Alice thought how best to describe Mark’s parents and his childhood home to Thea. ‘Refreshingly nice,’ she would probably say, ‘just normal, nice people.’ She stifled giggles into her serviette, predicting how she and Thea would then analyse the mothers of boyfriends past. Callum’s mother who wore the same Whistles jeans as her own but a size smaller, Finlay’s mother who’d insisted Alice call her Mrs Jones despite allowing them to sleep together. Tom’s mother who was insanely jealous of his affection for Alice and would thus drape herself
