Chapters (40)
- Cover
- About the Author
- PENGUIN BOOKS
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- THE BEGINNING
‘Anyway, what I was going to say is that there’s a spare cabin on the boat,’ said Lorrie. ‘We booked it at the very last minute, in a kind of mad flurry, when we heard about the wedding, and they only had this huge one left. It sleeps eight or more. So if you feel like coming on holiday with a boat-load of strangers I’d be really pleased. I could do with a woman – apart from Katherine, I mean.’
‘It’s lovely of you to offer.’
‘That means no,’ said Mickey. ‘I can tell.’
‘But if you change your mind … You’ve got till Sunday.’
‘Thanks.’
They all stayed outside long after it was dark. Sometimes they talked and sometimes they sat in the warm silence.
She looked at Jem.
‘This is better than a stag night,’ he said to her.
‘You shouldn’t be with your fiancée the night before your wedding. It’s against the rules. You should be sleeping in the tent with us,’ said Mickey.
‘No chance.’
‘We’re going to be telling ghost stories,’ said Mickey. ‘You don’t want to miss that.’
‘I want to be with my bride,’ Jem said sentimentally.
Juliet gave a little snort and Irene found herself laughing – really laughing, tipping her head back and mirth rippling up from her belly and along her throat. And she thought: my God, I haven’t giggled like this for years. I haven’t been able to let myself go. What have I been doing all this time? The laughter caught in her throat.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Lorrie.
‘Yes. I’m really, really fine.’
Mary was to sleep on the floor in Irene’s tiny room, almost under the bed, though Irene tried to insist they swap places. Katherine was carried downstairs from Jem and Juliet’s room, a sweaty limp bundle, and put on a mattress on the floor, banked up by pillows to stop her rolling off. Her parents took the sofa bed and outside Mickey and Luke put up the two-man tent. Irene could hear them now, talking in the garden below. She caught the faint whiff of tobacco through the window that was still open behind the shutters, a rumble of laughter, occasional words and phrases. ‘A man you can trust.’ She hoped they were talking about Jem. ‘Loving feeling.’ Didn’t that come from a song? Then something about sleeping on top of a sharp boulder, something about needing a pee, something about a bloody thistle, fucking mosquito, budge up, something about where’s that whisky.