Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

Lauren never, she thinks, particularly wanted a wedding, never planned or imagined it, never saved pictures of wedding dresses to a secret folder. For a while when she was with Amos she wanted to be married , but not for the wedding, just for the certainty. Just for the feeling of a mind made up. She wanted to know that if something went wrong her first thought would be How can I fix this? and not Should I leave?

When Elena got engaged, it hadn't made her yearn desperately for her own big day; it had just made her think, God, must be nice to have that one ticked off the list.

She has seen so many of her own wedding photos, and she has looked happy in all of them, but the weddings themselves have been so different. She has seen herself in a dress, in a white jumpsuit, in a sari, in a sundress, in a church, in a bandstand, in a community centre. She has seen formal cutlery on tables in a hotel, a huge buffet with stacked serve-yourself plates, a burrito van. As far as she can tell, there's nothing that has been there through every wedding, nothing that every version of her past self has wanted.

Elena and Rob's wedding is good, though. The ceremony takes place under a veranda that juts out from the main farm building; for legal purposes it counts as indoors, with rows of chairs circled around it on the lawn. Picturesque chickens roam. Wind blows through leaves. Lauren cries a little during the ceremony, and some of it might be for the confusion of her own lost weddings, but mostly it's the usual: Elena and Rob seem certain and happy and they're making a decision even though nobody can ever really be sure about anything, and everything in the world is always falling apart.

Carter is the perfect escort. She looks round for him during the ceremony: he's near the back, on the far left. After everything's vowed and signed, she walks over. He's talking to an older man, an uncle maybe; nodding, turning as she approaches.

"Hey," he says, "I was just learning about woodpeckers," and he goes back to the maybe-uncle, carrying Lauren with him into the conversation.

She takes his hand and squeezes it and he feels like comfort.

○○

She only gets ten minutes with Carter before it's time for the photos, which take almost an hour, family members and friends configured in different charming pastoral poses, under that tree, in front of these roses, beside this goat (the goat tries, but fails, to eat the bridal bouquet). Just the groom's side. Just the bride's side.

She gets a minute to talk to Elena while Rob and his brothers pose for their pictures.

"Congratulations," she says.

"Yeah," Elena says. "Glad I went through with it in the end."

For a moment, Lauren feels an echo of her old feelings: just a little envy at the certainty, just a little worry about being left behind. It must be nice to be that sure of anything, to risk the mistake, to have the big party.

But of course, she remembers: in this version of the world, she's done it as well.

○○

The waiters circle guests on the lawn, dodging the picturesque chickens, carrying their bottles of champagne. Every time they orbit, people clamour for a top-up in case this is their last chance, and it never is. God, the cost of it, the glare of the sun.

"Does my hair look lank?" she asks Carter, remembering her mum on the train.

"What?"

"In the heat. Does my hair look lank? And is my face flushed?"

"No," he says. "What? You look beautiful. The little twiddly…bridesmaid bits in your hair, I don't know what they're called. Wait," he says, "do I look okay?" He looks down at himself, pulls his jacket straight.

She almost laughs at him before she realises it's a real question. "Yes," she says. "You obviously look perfect."

○○

By the time they gather in the tent to eat, half the crowd is edging towards drunk.

The seating arrangement is almost the same as the plan Lauren saw at Elena's the other night, despite the change of husband. Her main concern at the time had been Amos, but sharing a table with Toby and Maryam is also, she thinks, going to be a little weird, post-Rohan.

She's been avoiding them—they have a parcel for her that she has yet to pick up, she hasn't replied to a couple of messages. But they don't know about the swinging. She makes tense eye contact first with Maryam (that kiss) and, bracing herself, Toby (she's slept with him now; she resented it when the mismatch of experience went the other way around, but this is no better). She tells herself this is okay. She is okay.

At her seat, she picks up the bag of almonds and begins untying the ribbon. You are not, she knows, supposed to eat the almonds; you're supposed to keep them as a souvenir then throw them out a decade later to lie immaculate in the dump for centuries, the last whole thing on this earth. But she has to do something with her hands. "It's lovely to see you both," she says to Toby and Maryam, weirdly, she thinks, and to Amos, who is joining the table, "Hi! It's so nice to see you."

"Yeah," Amos says. "You too. You've met Taj, right?"

Last she'd heard Amos was married to a Lily, but she supposes that makes sense, a change to her past could change his too. "Taj," she says. "Hi." Taj is short and fat and pretty with a wide triangle of hair, and she's wearing a grey jumpsuit that is perhaps not-black enough to be appropriate for a summer wedding, but only just.She looks like she absolutely doesn't want to be at a reception where she knows the married couple, her husband, her husband's ex, and nobody else. Amos murmurs something into her ear, and she half laughs.

The last two seats on the table are taken by ex-housemate Parris, who Lauren hasn't seen for at least a year, and her new girlfriend, Tabitha, who it turns out dated Rob at university and is so pleased that he's happy with Elena, so pleased, you couldn't imagine how pleased.

Dinner is strange, but mostly good.

Tabitha goes into more and more detail about how much she likes Elena and how she thinks that she's just great for Rob, how perfect, what a wonderful match. Maryam is delighted by her, and doesn't lean towards Carter, doesn't look at him from under her eyelashes, interacts with him no more than politeness requires; there's no accounting for tastes. Carter is wonderful, though, putting in the work to keep table-wide conversations going.

"They've been lucky with the weather," Taj says, and Lauren glances towards the sky where a bird still hovers on the immaculate breeze.

"We're the lucky ones," Amos says. "Imagine if we'd had to pitch our tents in the mud. They'd be okay, they're sleeping in the farmhouse either way."

Carter did remember to bring the tent, right? She looks at him. "It's already up," he says. "Easy-peasy."

So competent! And during the main course, while Maryam pours from another bottle of wine, he leans over and whispers, "This is good, but our wedding was better."

God. It really is a shame she missed it.

"Do you think they'll have kids?" Maryam says, looking over at Rob and Elena on the top table.

"Dunno," Lauren says, although she knows Elena would like to.

"Rob always wanted kids," Tabitha says. "Even when we were still studying. He'll make a great dad, he's got the hands for it."

Someone is shuffling a microphone; there's a premature tap on a champagne flute. Speeches are imminent. Maryam grabs her glass and a half-empty bottle of wine from the table. "This is going to be interminable. Anyone want out?" She jerks her head towards the trees and the barn.

"I'm a bridesmaid," Lauren says. "Probably better not."

"Oh yeah. Anyone? Tabitha? Tabitha, c'mon, let's go."

Maryam and Tabitha sneak out, and Lauren thinks: that's a great call, actually. No loud whispers from Tabitha during the speeches. Good work, Maryam. And she takes a glass for the toasts (champagne, she remembers, was the only drink with bubbles that Amos didn't consider "for children") and sits back to listen.

The speeches are long and Rob's list of people to thank is vast, each parent individually, each specific brother and what he brought to the occasion, Noemi for everything but especially talking Elena out of fleeing the altar, that must have been hard work this morning! Lauren for being such a good friend to us both over so many years and for your sterling work with the almonds . But there are lovely moments too. And it's good to have Carter there to glance across at; the relaxation of having home turf, someone to be with by default.

And even Amos, even Amos is mostly okay. He's easier to take when she has Carter by her side. And when the cake comes, and she is served a corner piece with frosting on three sides, way too sweet for her tastes, Amos looks at it and holds up his own plate with a centre piece and frosting on the top only, and he tilts it towards her with raised eyebrows, an offer. She nods, and they exchange plates, quietly, and neither of them says anything, but it feels good to be remembered like that, to have her tastes known and acknowledged. It feels a little like being on good terms , the thing that they have never quite managed.

○○

The sky's still light when they are ushered to the barn for the first dance. She and Carter are among the last to come through the big doors. She looks for the people she knows. Maryam and Toby and Tabitha and Parris on the hay bales at the back; Amos and Taj leaning against a wall, presumably listing the things wrong with everyone else in the room. Noemi talking to her preferred groomsman. Elena's parents. Elena and Rob in the middle of the circle.

Outside, a bird is still looping in the sky, the sunlight golden and heavy. How beautiful. And then as the music starts, the bird dives, like a blessing for the dance, she thinks for a moment, embarrassed at her own cheesiness until the bird gets closer and closer still and even closer than that, and it's swooping down, down, down towards the picturesque chickens.

The chickens squawk and run.

They run towards the barn, where Rob and Elena are swaying together.

She grabs Carter's arm and he spins around. "Hawk," she says, and it only takes him a moment; he steps out and pulls her with him, and says, "Your skirt," and she holds it out as wide as she can with both arms and flaps it, shooing them away from the dance floor. The chickens turn for a moment, then they swerve back towards the barn again; but Carter is behind her, waving his jacket. The mass of the flock turns once more and runs, still squawking, but away from Rob and Elena's gentle waltz.

In the sky, the hawk is circling again.

The chickens cluster under a tree, anxious, loud. Lauren glances behind at the dance floor; a few people near the door are lookingout.

"Do we just…leave them to it and hope it doesn't come back?" Lauren says.

"No," Carter says, "gimme a moment, I'm out of practice but we can do this."

We can do what? She watches as he lays his jacket over a nearby chair, then walks up to one of the chickens and bends down as he gets closer. Surely not? Surely that's not possible? But he scoops it from the ground, his hands over its wings, and it bocks once but doesn't even try to flap, relinquishes itself utterly to his hold.

He walks with it towards Lauren, so triumphant, his face delighted. "Still got it!" he says. "You try and keep them out of the barn if the hawk comes down again? I'll ferry them over to the coop?" And that's what he does: over the course of the first dance and the next song, he collects hens, first one at a time and then, as his confidence grows and she is more and more visibly impressed, two at a time, one in each arm. It's magnificent.

"Wanna get the last one?" he says.

"…How?" she asks.

"Like it's a ball. Or a loaf of bread. Steady pace. Scoop it up. No doubts, just do it."

The hen is pecking in the grass where a kid spilled a packet of crisps earlier. "Okay."

"I believe in you," he says.

She takes firm steps and bends and puts her hands down, either side of the wings, soft feathers; she feels a flutter but she grasps and she lifts, and she's done it, the chicken lets out a loud protest but it's not struggling, and she's got it, she's holding a whole chicken.

"Oh my god," she says. "Now what?"

"Now we run, right? Make a break for it with our free chicken." And he leads her to the coop and cracks the door open and she pushes the chicken through, releases it, and it flaps out its wings and flicks its tail and runs away from her with one last indignant bock.

"That was the best thing I've ever done," she says.

"You're a chicken natural." And he takes one hand and twirls her to the music spilling from the barn. "You're so good at just trying stuff, you know," he says. "Maritozzi, catching chickens, jumping in a lake, that purple tofu milkshake at that restaurant. Marrying me. Why not, have a little adventure."

She has always thought of her willingness to go along with things, her outsourcing of decisions to friends and circumstance, as passivity, not courage. But observed and described by this man she likes so much, she can almost believe in herself as someone with an audacious spirit.

"What was your favourite thing about our wedding?" she asks him.

"The cake was good," he says. "I liked not getting kicked out of the country too. But maybe just the bit near the end where it had calmed down and we could relax and go Yeah, we're married ."

"Good pick." And she pulls him closer and holds her phone at arm's length, and takes a photo. It's not great: half of both their faces, dark with the bright barn door behind taking focus. "We're a very blurry couple," he says.

Back in the barn, they join in the dancing and, eventually, a haphazard conga line. Later on, in the dark, warm fairy lights blink by the bar in the tent. The murmur of people talking under trees, the rival sound of crickets.

Carter is blurry in the tent that night as well, as they lie on the air mattress and listen to singing, bickering, someone pissing too close, an irritated sheep. They're warm together on a warm night, and she sleeps better than she has since the husbands came.

○○

She barely drank during the wedding, in case bridesmaid duties called, but in the morning there's breakfast sandwiches and mimosas in the tent, and she takes two of each, then a third mimosa. The day is overcast and cool, and the guests are bedraggled in a mix of practical camping clothes and now-crumpled wedding outfits. Lauren is wearing her bridesmaid dress without the petticoat, plus sneakers for practicality and a big grey cardigan for warmth. Carter brought a spare shirt but it's orange; he wasn't, he explains, expecting the day to be cold enough that he'd want to wear his bright blue suit jacket over it. They look ridiculous. She doesn't care.

On the train back to London, Carter reveals a bottle of prosecco and another of orange juice, smuggled from the farm. They mix their own mimosa in a water bottle and share it, swig and swig about.

In a taxi from Fenchurch Street, they're both a little drunk; not too much, the right amount. "Hey," Carter says to her, seriously, "I like you so much."

She laughs. "I like you too. You're very pretty."

"I know," he says, so solemn. "It's the symmetry. I'm very symmetrical in the—in the face."

When they get home they kiss on the stairs. She touches the tip of one of his cheekbones, and his earlobe, and the arch of an eyebrow. Then she leans in again, her hands back by his waist to gather a handful of his crumpled shirt in each fist, and she pulls him towards her, but the steps are narrow and her bags are still over her arm and the tent over Carter's, swinging in the way, thumping into the wall, so they walk up laughing, there's no rush, and she goes to make some coffee while he rummages in the living room. "Hey," he says, "do you know where our wedding photos are?"

"Nah," she says. "Try the bookshelves," which seems like a passable guess.

She has wedding photos on her phone too. She goes to find them but instead she's distracted by the pictures she took last night, and especially by her and Carter, her arm extended, in front of the barn in the dark. It's not a good photo but it's something she remembers , even if it only happened yesterday. It would be good to remember their own wedding but she's happy to remember Elena's instead. Flowers on the table; chickens, disgruntled in their coop; the goat; Noemi giving her speech. The coffee has started bubbling through the machine but Carter is still rummaging. She hopes he can find them; she'd like to see something physical, to touch an artefact of their wedding day. Then they'll kiss again, and go to bed, and she feels a flutter of nerves and anticipation in her chest and between her legs as she wonders what that will be like but: it'll be good. Whatever it's like, it'll be good. Because she likes him so much. Maybe this is love? Maybe this is the early stages of love.

The coffee machine hisses and drips. Buzz, splatter.

While she waits she scrolls through more photos, further back: her and Carter on a picnic, on the pier in Brighton, out in the back yard. In a lot of them Carter's looking straight at the camera, photogenic smile in place, but sometimes she'll find one where he's laughing and off-guard, or where they're squeezed into the frame together and he's looking at her.

The coffee starts to burble through the paper.

"Hey," she says, heading back out from the kitchen.

And she sees the ladder pulled down on the landing.

The warmth inside her empties out, and she closes her eyes, and feels instantly sober; no furtive mimosas on the train, no laughing up the stairs, their morning together is gone and Carter is too.

Oh, but she liked his accent and his undershirts and his face, his serious enthusiasm, his smell .

She liked being married to him.

And she'll never know how long it might have lasted, and she'll never see him ride a horse which she's sure he could do although it never came up, and she'll never lie in bed with him and listen for a rainstorm that doesn't come. All because he wanted to find their wedding photos. Because he liked her too.

She looks at her camera roll: no blurry faces in the dark. The flowers, a picture of Elena, one of Toby and Maryam, and one of her with some guy, just some guy, just some husband.

"Here we go," the man says, climbing down from the attic with a pillow.

Go back in, she thinks. Turn back. Please turn back.