John’s eyes stayed locked on mine as I lingered in the doorway.

‘Thanks for dinner,’ I called as I clung to the doorframe. Better that than nothing. ‘I’ll see you soon.’

‘You will,’ he replied.

And it sounded like a promise.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The tennis club was not a natural venue for a wedding, second or otherwise.

I’d driven past it a thousand times but never bothered to take the right turn down the long driveway to see the place for myself. In my mind, tennis clubs were Wimbledon, Roland-Garros, champagne and strawberries and lots and lots of Robinsons squash. I’d expected civilized-looking types to be wandering around in tennis whites, shouting things like ‘Jolly good forehand, wot wot’, and I’d hoped for at least one Roger Federer lookalike to ease my distress at having to race home from work and take two different buses to meet Mum and Dad at their venue of choice for six thirty, on Thursday night.

I was disappointed on all counts.

‘This is where Dad comes every Sunday?’ I whispered in Mum’s ear as we let ourselves through the fingerprint-smeared glass doors and inside the club. It looked as though someone had thrown it up as an afterthought in 1962 and hadn’t bothered to update it since. Faded sky blue and primrose yellow panels that had been patched up with bits of painted plywood ran all the way around the bottom half of the outside, with big, mucky windows above.

‘It’s looking a bit worse for wear at the moment,’ Mum agreed. ‘But I’m sure they’ll give the windows a rinse before the event. We haven’t got a lot of time to find anywhere, you know. I’m grateful they can accommodate us at all.’

‘No, you’re right,’ I replied, looking for the potential as we passed the changing rooms and entered a large, empty space.

‘And this,’ Dad said, holding his arms out wide. ‘Is the event space.’

The tennis club was impossibly sad but Dad looked more relaxed than I’d seen him in a long time. It was weird to think this was my dad’s happy place. When you think of someone in their element, you assume it’s going to be a tropical beach or a five-star hotel or a no-holds-barred spending spree at Tiffany but here he was, surrounded by pine-clad walls and orange plastic chairs and the smell of stale smoke that was baked into every single surface despite a thirteen-year-old smoking ban, walking around like a pig in shit.

‘Oh,’ Mum said weakly, pulling her beige Marks & Sparks cardi tightly over her neon-pink boob tube as the regulars around the bar leered in her direction.

My phone began to vibrate in my hand. I looked down and saw Ted’s name in all caps, screaming at me.