that you don’t ask someone who recently broken off an engagement what their first dance would have been.
‘Rhys said he wanted “What Have I Done To Deserve This?” by the Pet Shop Boys. So I dodged a bullet there.’
‘But what would you choose?’ Olivia persists.
‘Liv …’ Ben’s dismayed, failing to understand why she’s being so insensitive, whereas Olivia and I understand each other perfectly.
‘The way things are going, it’ll probably have to be Etta James, “At Last”. And some sort of young volunteer helping me and my bridegroom get out of our seats.’ No laugh. ‘We’d chosen “May You Never” by John Martyn for our first dance,’ I concede.
Ben nods, impressed: ‘Lovely choice.’
‘Never heard of it,’ Olivia snaps.
Ah well, it must be rubbish then.
‘Slightly, just slightly too fast tempo?’ Ben says. ‘I’d go for “Couldn’t Love You More”, of his.’
I nod back. Not much to say to that, other than for my pupils to dilate and to continue drinking until my liver resembles a twenty-ounce, pepper-rubbed sirloin.
‘Why didn’t you ask for it then?’ Olivia says to him, waspishly.
‘I wanted you to have what you wanted,’ Ben says.
‘I think you should have something you love as your first dance, not something cool,’ Olivia says in my direction, pointedly, not ready to forgive me.
‘No one could accuse you of choosing Coldplay to be cool,’ Ben laughs. He’s going to be in so much trouble when they get in, and he doesn’t even know it. Olivia folds her arms and doesn’t take her eyes off me. I stare at the ice in my drink.
‘Now, I know this,’ Simon says, cocking an ear to the party soundtrack. ‘“Unfinished Symphony”.’
‘“Unfinished Sympathy”,’ I correct him.
‘That’s what I said.’
38
‘Which side do you normally sleep?’ Caroline asks, once we’ve put a severely impaired Ivor to bed on the sofa. When taxi time arrived, he was slumped in some sort of cocktail coma and we took a call that it was best to accommodate him. We tucked him up with a towel underneath him, a washing-up bowl at his side and numerous tea towels round his head. He had a deathly pallor and his hands crossed on his chest, like an Egyptian funeral for a pharaoh who owned shit things.
‘There isn’t a normally yet. I haven’t been here long enough.’ What I really mean is, there isn’t a side to choose now the bulwark of Rhys’s bulk is absent.
‘You in the middle, then,’ she says, flicking a corner of the duvet back. ‘I’ll go here, Mindy the other side.’
Mindy comes back from brushing her teeth, clad in beautiful scarlet Chinese pyjamas. Next to Caroline’s black strappy lace-edged floral slip, I’m rather glad I left the toothpaste-stained Velvets t-shirt behind.
‘Ivor woke up,’ Mindy announces. ‘He made a noise like: BWORK. BWORK. BWOOORK. Then he ran off to the loo.’
‘Anything on the soft furnishings?’
‘No, I totally got behind him and pushed him faster than the speed of sick.’
‘Good, good.’
We arrange ourselves, then click the bedside lights off.
‘How did Rupa get a mattress this big up those stairs?’ I ask.
‘She had it winched in one of the windows, I think,’ Mindy says.
I feel my muscles relax against the springs.
‘What’s the deal with you and Ben then?’ Caroline says.
All the tension returns. And then some.
‘What do you mean?’ I try to convey total amazement to Caroline while horizontal and invisible to her, sure she must be able to feel the heat of the guilty sweat I’ve broken out into.
‘Weeelllll …’ Caroline says. ‘It’s a weird one.’
‘What is?’ I am ramrod straight, like an exclamation mark between their brackets. I will Deny Everything. Forever.
‘When that light bulb went and you were standing on that chair changing it with Simon holding on to your legs, I saw Ben give you two a real look.’
‘That’s because we were driving a coach and horses through health and safety regs.’
Silence. Feeble jokes are not going to work here.
‘It was very intense, very serious. And when Simon helped you down and managed to grope your arse in the process, I swear Ben almost winced.’
‘He’s not Simon’s biggest fan. I don’t think he thinks it’s a good idea we’re going on a date,’ I add, hoping I’ve done enough to close the subject.
‘Yeah. This is the thing. If I didn’t know better, I’d have said it was simply plain old violent male jealousy,’ Caroline says. ‘Why doesn’t he want you to date Simon, exactly?’
‘Lucky you do know better,’ I say. ‘Given Ben’s very happily married.’
‘If he’s happily married, he can’t have a thing for you?’
‘No.’
‘OK. Number one, there is no such thing as a happy marriage—’
‘Oh, Caroline!’ Mindy wails. ‘Enough!’
‘I haven’t finished.’
‘I know you haven’t, because I still have a shred of hope left,’ Mindy says.
‘—There is no such thing as a happy marriage if you mean an invulnerable one. Every relationship has its weaknesses and bad patches.’
‘You don’t have to be married to know that,’ I say.
‘I know, I know,’ Caroline says, trying to soothe me. ‘I’m not running down what you had with Rhys. But he hung around with other blokes in his band all the time. You never had to worry about female friends.’
‘I still don’t see what you’re getting at.’
‘That if I’m right and Ben’s got a soft spot for you, you need to be wary. You don’t want to cause trouble by unintentionally encouraging it. Weren’t you quite close at uni? Did you ever suspect anything then?’
‘No! And Ben would never have an affair.’ At last I’m able to say something with perfect certainty.
