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But I know that isn’t true. I need someone I can trust with my life. I thought I’d found that with Alex, but he turned out to be someone I barely knew. There’s no point in living in the past. I fell so madly in love with him that I attributed all sorts of qualities to him that he didn’t possess. That was probably as much my fault as his. And there’s nothing either of us can do about it. We’ll both have to get on with our lives in our own separate ways.

Chapter Nineteen

Alex lifts his glass and taps it with his knife. The ringing sound makes everyone turn to face him. I keep my eyes fixed on my plate. I hate speeches at the best of times, and this one promises to be especially painful. Boring, I correct myself. It promises to be especially boring. I hope he’ll get through it quickly and let everyone get on with their evening.

It’s surprising how many people have turned out on Christmas Eve. It isn’t the most convenient time to hold an event like this. Still, almost everyone here knows each other, so possibly the entire village is treating it as a giant Christmas party.

Mum and her friends have always been keen on parties, usually involving Tupperware or candles. Maybe Santa will walk in at any moment, clutching a sackful of Ann Summers products, and solemnly hand them out to everyone. Then again, perhaps not. The vicar and both the churchwardens are present, and Mum would have a heart attack.

I look across at her. She’s flushed and laughing as she talks animatedly to Elaine, whose veil is now slightly askew.

My attention is recalled by Alex clearing his throat. People around me shush each other and point towards him. I chance a look at him and look quickly away again. Most unluckily, he’s chosen the exact same moment to look in my direction.

I fix my gaze on a spot about four feet behind his right shoulder. That should give everyone the impression I’m listening closely to his speech. Meanwhile, I’ll be at liberty to allow my thoughts to wander.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he says, his voice a little higher pitched than usual. ‘It is my very great pleasure to be giving this toast today.’

He looks at his father, who gives his son an affectionate smile. Alex seems to gain confidence from this. I wonder why he seems so nervous. Surely, he has to give presentations at work, and probably to a far larger audience than is now gathered in Little Mickton parish hall.

‘I was a little taken aback when I arrived home for Christmas and found myself in the middle of wedding preparations,’ he goes on. ‘At first, I had a horrible feeling they were for me.’

There’s a burst of laughter. Everyone looks at Elaine, who takes another gulp of champagne and waves around to all her friends. I’m not sure she’s even listening. My own mother is just as bad. She’s sitting sideways on her chair as though it’s a horse and she’s one of the young ladies of the house, riding side-saddle and waving to the adoring villagers.

Alex goes on. ‘Mum has been on at me for years to find a nice girl to settle down with and provide her with a few grandchildren to spoil. I thought for a moment that she’d finally taken matters into her own hands.’

He pauses as the ripple of laughter becomes a roar. Everyone turns towards Elaine, who returns their gaze with a gracious wave of her champagne glass, spilling a little of it onto the snowy tablecloth.

Robert is laughing as hard as anyone. It’s a shame that such nice parents as these should have produced a son like Alex. They deserve so much better. If he does eventually settle down and marry someone, which is perfectly possible – he is after all very nice looking and quite personable if you don’t notice the duplicitous soul beneath the pleasant exterior – he’ll only get bored and chase after some other woman.

He clears his throat again. ‘Thankfully, that isn’t the case. But it is my very great honour and privilege to be present at my parents’ second wedding –’

This catches Elaine’s attention. She turns her eyes from her champagne glass, into which she’s been gazing as though it contains the answer to the mysteries of the universe.

‘You were at our first one too, darling, although I don’t suppose you remember much of it.’

Everyone looks from Elaine to Robert, then at Alex’s stunned face. She seems to sense some of this discomfort.

She waves her fork at him. ‘Don’t look like that! Your father did the right thing in the end, which is all that matters.’

I look at Robert, whose expression, I’m glad to see, has switched from frozen immobility to outright amusement.

For a moment, no one speaks, then Alex taps his knife again on his glass. ‘It looks as though the Fielding family will have plenty to talk about over Christmas dinner this year. It should be more interesting than our usual discussion about Aunty Em’s top secret method of making the turkey too tough to chew.’

There’s a fresh gale of laughter. I join in without thinking until I remember I’m not listening to the speech. I look out of the window. It’s almost dark now, and I see a few flakes of snow tumbling softly down through the light cast by the lamp posts. I’m glad I wore my warmest tights and boots, even though I drew the line at borrowing Mum’s thermals. The village hall isn’t exactly known for its amenities, and the temperature threatens to fall below freezing tonight.

I keep my eyes focused on the snow, which is now falling more thickly – huge flakes tumbling and scrambling over each other in an attempt to reach the pavement first.

The last time I was here was during that ill-fated painting party. I’ve often felt as though my life has been sliced into two parts – the part before I fell in love with Alex and indulged in so many ridiculous dreams about him, and the part after Suzy texted me the news that she and not I had been his choice.

Nothing has been the same since then. I’ve carried on with my plans for my life and succeeded with them. I’ve partied and had fun, exactly as students are supposed to. I’ve got the job of my dreams. Yet none of it has been even faintly like my imaginings.

Perhaps this is true for everyone. People spend their teenage years creating impossibly detailed rose-tinted dreams, only to be faced with inevitable disappointment when none of them turns out as they planned. It is, as adults repeatedly told us throughout our younger years, life.

But to me it feels different. My dreams, even before I met Alex, nevertheless contained him, or at least the promise of him. And when he disappeared from my life completely, he left an Alex shaped hole.

If he had simply left to take up the threads of his own life, it might have been different. After all, people come and go. They disappear and occasionally reappear, and that’s the way things are.

Maybe it’s only when they reject you first that the pain is so prolonged – when they go out of their way to let you know how little you mattered to them and that they preferred someone else. It’s better to be a ghost, a shadow they barely even notice, than to be someone they’ve spent time with, have clearly seen standing in front of them, and have still rejected.


Tags: Rosemary Whittaker Romance