The Bridesmaid

  The Bridesmaid

  Nina Manning

  For Hannah, the right friend at the right time.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Acknowledgments

  Book Club Questions

  More from Nina Manning

  About the Author

  About Boldwood Books

  1

  Saxby House, Dorset, Now

  The sultry heat is unusual for the British summer, even more so on the south-western coast where one would expect a cool Dorset sea breeze to offer some respite. She hasn’t felt the oppression of a long, hot summer since she herself was a child. Lying in the vast, airless master suite, she can feel it penetrating the room in the day and swaddling her like a thick blanket during the night, delivering sleep easily but bringing with it dreams of psychedelic colours, enigmatic images and voices echoing from the past. She finds she will often drift off in the middle of the day, trying to decipher who is whom from the cacophony of yelps and screams she hears coming through the prodigious bay window she keeps wide open day and night. The children seem to be thriving, running barefoot across the smouldering, cracked dusty tracks that lead up to the house, clinging to the elastic branches of the redwood, or exploring the growing wildflower meadow under the strict authority of Renata, their au pair, not to disturb the butterflies. She can often hear Renata immersing herself in the games to the point where she reverts back to a child herself, grunting and braying and spurring the children into such a hullabaloo she was never sure who was getting the most pleasure. But no matter how far she opens the great window, it makes little difference to the air, which remains stagnant and dense.

  It has been a particularly bad day for her, and so she continues the habit of dragging up painful memories, clutching the letter to her chest.

  She is sat up in bed, the thin cotton sheet twisted and snakelike at her feet, the pillows plump and thick behind her back and neck when the small familiar knock comes. She swiftly pushes the letter under her pillow. ‘Come, darling.’ Her voice is hollow and craggy.

  The door opens an inch, and a small nose appears. She pats the sheets next to her and seven-year-old Lauren tentatively comes forward and climbs onto the bed. She takes Lauren’s small hand in hers and examines the dirt amongst the grooves of her palm and under her nails. ‘Make sure you give these a good scrub before lunch.’ Lauren nods. She keeps hold of the little girl’s hand and lets her head fall back against the pillow again, her long greying locks cascade over her shoulders and across her chest; she feels too weak to pin them up. She had always kept her hair so short and never with a speck of grey. ‘And ask Renata to help if you struggle.’ She closes her eyes, but she can sense the nod that follows, then a tight squeeze of her hand, forcing her to jolt her eyes open. Lauren is smiling back up at her as she looks down, and she takes a moment to drink the little girl in: her sunshine-strawberry-blonde hair, tussled from a morning’s play; a few new freckles have arrived on the bridge of her nose from the last few days spent outdoors. She often allows her mind to toy with the prospect of ‘what if’; a highly torturous game and one she only indulges in when she is feeling particularly lonesome or sorry for herself. Which was what she had been feeling all morning. Somehow, she needs to find a way to push it all away. She should feel more gratitude towards her situation, she knows, because, of course, from an outsider’s perspective, it all appears a perfect dream. The idyllic setting of the grand country estate, the children’s au pair and Ameel, the cook, downstairs with a name so apt it amuses the children every time they see him. Yet no matter how much space there is, how many rare and beautiful plants there are to discover and marvel over, and no matter how much confectionery and sweet delicacies are available to distract the children, it doesn’t take away the sheer panic that stays high in her chest night and day. For some things, as much as they are in the past, still haven’t been laid to rest. She knows what she needs to do, she just needs to summon the strength to do it. Lauren leans over, disturbing her memories, and gives her a kiss on her cheek. As she watches her leave the room, she can feel the cold tingle on her skin from where Lauren’s lips have just been. She allows a few moments to pass. Once she is sure she won’t be disturbed again, she pulls out the letter from under her pillow. It is yellowing around the edges and the fine writing paper is almost translucent. But she doesn’t need to re-read it to know the words that are on there. She knows them verbatim; they have been haunting her for over a decade. She knows it is time.

  2

  Saxby House, Dorset, August 1990

  I arrived back at the cottage, my heart thumping in my mouth. The brown shoe box was clutched to my chest and I looked up at the cloudless inky blanket of sky, an infinite scattering of stars in every direction. An owl hooted loudly behind me. I was used to the sounds of the wild now, but tonight I jumped like a little girl, no longer feeling like the tenacious teenager I was.

  I would soon be missed, my parents no doubt on the prowl, looking for me. Already indistinct voices approached from the main house: it was them. I needed to get back before my parents saw me. What must I look like? I touched my hair – it was matted and damp. No doubt my clothes would be covered in leaves and debris. It was hard to see in the dark, but I gave myself a quick brush down with my free hand. It was a pointless act, as I would somehow need to sneak my clothes into the washing machine anyway.

  The weight of the box in my hand was suddenly more apparent. I clutched it tighter to my chest. It was too late; the voices were closer now. If I stood nearer the shadows, they might not see me, but the crunch of my wellies on the pebbled driveway gave me away.

  Mum called out. Beyond her, I could just make out the face of another, scowling, as though she already knew what I had done.

  I made my excuses and made a run for it. Inside the house, I raced to the top floor, into my bedroom and shut the door. I knew I only had a few minutes. I pulled down the old suitcase on the top of my wardrobe, which was already half full of old Jackie magazines. I buried the box beneath them, zipped the suitcase back up and carefully placed it back on top of the wardrobe. I was shaking and could feel something pressing against my body in my back pocket. I pulled it out and held it in my hand. I had forgotten it was there. A key on an ivory-skull keyring. I shuddered at the presence of it here in my bedroom, but it was too late to return it now. I stuffed it into the bottom of my old dressing-up box that had been neglected for over a year now.

  I sat back down on my bed.

  Four words on repeat in my mind.

  What have I done?

  3

  Tsilivi, Greece, May 2009

  Four months until the wedding

  * * *

  The warm water laps at my ankles as my feet sink into the sand. I look across towards the horizon where the sky is alight with fiery golds and reds as the sun begins its descent. A pleasant wave of goosebumps tickl
es over my arms, and I pull my light shawl tighter across my shoulders. The sultry beat from the DJ is getting louder, nudging me to go back to the party, to join my friends. I turn and walk a few feet back up the shore, scooping up my sandals from the sand, the hem of my cotton skirt clinging to my damp, salty skin. A loud laugh explodes from the terrace, and I look up at the beach bar and watch my best friend from afar, from the sidelines where I feel, perhaps, I’ve always been: a spectator to her life, never wholly integrated.

  Tonight, she is the life and soul of the party, which isn’t unusual for Caitlin Anderton. She oozes a confidence that I have been trying to develop for decades. Caitlin is the type of person that men and women flock to. Tonight, she looks particularly dazzling in a long, white strappy dress that hangs across her shapely tanned body. Her hair, which she now wears rusty-coloured and short, is swept back off her face and held with some sort of product. Freckles have erupted across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks; I know she hates the look of them, but they are what makes her perfectly unique to me. A small group has gathered around her. Some are the handful of girls that have come away with us, others we met this evening.

  It’s the final night of the break to Tsilivi, Greece. The hen week. The hen week that isn’t a hen week. As soon as she became engaged to Chuck a month ago in April, Caitlin demanded a holiday. But even though it was the prelude to the wedding, the few girls who had been selected to come away with Caitlin had been told in no uncertain terms that we were not to refer to this break as a ‘hen holiday’. Caitlin is not one for tradition and was already making sure that there was nothing in the wedding that vaguely resembled a cliché. I was dubbed the bridesmaid, that was allowed at least, but it was only because I needed a job title for all the effort I was putting into making Caitlin’s wedding perfect. But I embraced the role. I felt I owed her. More so now than ever. Even though I can’t imagine Caitlin doing the same for me: stepping up to the post, putting all her spare time aside to book flights, sort out venues, flowers and all the other endless little jobs that needed doing to ensure a smooth-running and memorable wedding. But that is just one of the many and major differences between us. To be honest, I am not sure how we have even made it this far as friends.

  Yet imagining a world without Caitlin in it is impossible. We have been friends for so long and when were kids, it was always Sasha and Caitlin, Caitlin and Sasha; two peas in a pod. I have tried many times to envisage my world carrying on without Caitlin in it, but that vision has yet to sit comfortably with me.

  Today had been the hottest day so far and we had spent the whole day on the beach, but now we are gathered in the local beach bar, the heat that had been stinging my skin earlier still lingers in the air, teasing my arms and legs. The perfect end to the perfect day. And I am about to shatter it all.

  I have run the scenario over and over in my head; when would be the best time to tell Caitlin? How will I tell her? But there is no point thinking it through any longer; I know I have to do it and I know the time is now.

  My childhood friend, who I have known since I was only twelve years old, is standing just a few feet away from me, looking every bit the socialite. Am I ready to do it? I don’t know why I decided today was the day, on the day Caitlin seemed so confident and happy. Maybe it’s because I thought these traits would protect her. Either way, my body is ready to reject the secrets, the way Caitlin is sure to reject me after I tell her. The same way I had been anticipating she would reject me from the very day I met her.

  We had somehow managed to navigate our way through two decades of friendship despite the odds being stacked against us.

  Yet here we are, two old friends, our past teetering between us; the truth about to be laid bare.

  The secret I had kept from Caitlin is about to emerge. I imagine it bursting out of me, then sitting between us where we would both look at the ugliness of it, neither of us daring to touch it.

  I make it to the bar as Caitlin eventually moves away from the crowd she has drawn around her. I hop up onto a bar stool, and I see her coming towards me with a glass of something tall and fizzy in her hand. I try desperately to compose myself. It’s warmer here than down on the beach, with the heat coming from the swell of bodies and the bar lights. I order a glass of water from the barman and finish it in three gulps. The sun was about to slip seamlessly into the horizon, the fiery sky becoming a darkening blue.

  Caitlin has been dragged back into the crowd again for something. I am losing my nerve. I glance anxiously around as though someone might step out and rescue me; say the words for me instead. Maybe they could also tell Caitlin that none of this is my fault. I stare at the final strip of sunlight stretched out across the water; a thin line winking at me, mocking my hesitation.

  I think about the luxury apartments we are staying in a few kilometres away, and I suddenly wish myself there. Caitlin had been determined we would have a seafront location when she first mentioned a holiday abroad. But at such short notice, I could only get us a sea glimpse. Caitlin had tried to hide her disappointment, but when you’ve studied the expressions of one person for over two decades, the emotions they try to disguise are never truly hidden.

  Caitlin is on the move again. I feel the prickly heat creeping its way across my back. I begin to imagine what her face will look like when I tell her, and how I will be reminded of the way she was when we were kids. She would almost certainly get that look in her eye, the one that suggests that tears will surely follow, but they never do. She had always allowed her years at a strict boarding school and a mother who seemed to shudder at the slightest flicker of sadness to continue to dictate her emotion. She would hold herself together, for the sake of her dignity.

  I look at Caitlin as she sashays her way towards me, her dress kicking out with every step. It is definitely tamer than some of the outfits I’ve seen her in. Caitlin’s crazy dress sense was one of the things that I found most attractive about her, and she used to be so fond of dressing up, always overdressing for occasions. She carried this on into her twenties, and I had been known to get annoyed at times when I wished she would just turn up in some sweats or jeans for a cinema date instead of arriving in a crimson blouse with emerald-green flared trousers and purple heels. But these days, she seems to only wear whites and blacks, and I’ve aligned her sudden change in dress code to her granny Josephine dying a year ago. It was as though a part of Caitlin had died too.

  They say opposites attract, and Caitlin had always been the complete opposite to me in so many ways. As we grew, I realised our friendship was not so much based on mutual likes or the need to tell each other our fears or worries. But rather, for me, it became more of an affirmation of our dedication to a friendship that would never have been had I not moved from Hackney to Dorset.

  Over the years it began to feel more as though I had to remain friends with her because of the connection we had to the old house at Saxby. It was our secret place away from society; those years of youth and innocence that we shared were something no one else would ever be able to understand, and that’s what I wanted to hold on to.

  I am starting to feel hung-over and it is barely nine o’clock. I have drunk far too much already today, far too much for me anyway. I’ve never been a confident drinker.

  Caitlin has been stopped on the way towards me again, this time next to a man and she is laughing a heady, full laugh at something he’s said. I imagine endorphins flooding her body that will protect her when I break the news.

  Caitlin is on the move again. She arrives at the bar, raises one hand to the barman and downs the last dregs of her glass of pink fizz.

  I go to speak, but my words catch in my throat, which is now dry and scratchy even though I have just drunk a glass of water. I silently curse the person who thought it was a good idea to begin the day with pina coladas.

  I swallow and clear my throat.

  ‘Caitlin.’

  She throws me a glance as I try to pick a tone to my voice that represents tender
sincerity.

  ‘I need…’ I pause and take a deep breath. ‘I need to say something.’

  ‘Oh, my! That’s a serious tone,’ she says to me. Then she looks at the barman. ‘Two Slippery Nipples.’

  The barman nods and rings up the bill. She holds her bank card out and presses it to the machine the barman is holding. She turns back to me. ‘Can it wait until I have this drink inside me? That guy over there recommended these shots. I mean, I’ve heard of it, but never actually had one, if you know what I mean!’ She laughs towards the barman who smiles back at her.

  Caitlin leans her back against the bar and begins talking about us heading home tomorrow and what a wonderful break it has been. ‘Just the ticket,’ she says. ‘You did well to get this place at such short notice.’ She pauses before she speaks again. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, Sasha.’ She sort of slurs this last part.

  My surroundings become fluid as her words get picked up by the sea breeze. What would she do without me? I have been there for her since she was a kid. I was always there for her when her parents hadn’t been – couldn’t be – the parents she needed them to be. Was I willing to throw away so much history? Here? Tonight?