1
Kate’s Escape
‘If you’re waiting for me to get down on one knee, I wouldn’t hold your breath.’ Ian swigged his beer, wiped his mouth and nodded towards the dance floor.
Kate took a deep breath. If they carried on much longer, she wouldn’t even like Ian, let alone love him. Why on earth couldn’t she pluck up the courage to say it out loud?
‘Come on, you two, you can’t sit there all night!’ Emma swirled across to their table, glorious in a Grace Kelly-style wedding dress. She looked beautiful. Her décolletage was covered – the dress was buttoned to the neck – and her arms were sheathed in lace, but the demure dress was having quite an effect on her new husband Sam. Arms wrapped around her, he whispered into Emma’s hair and she giggled, raising her eyebrows in shock.
Ian stood up and pulled Kate into an awkward embrace. Shuffling round the floor, watching the other couples dance, Kate winced, thinking about the squabble they’d had that morning as they got ready for the wedding. Ian had been furious at Kate’s untidiness, insisting on cleaning the entire kitchen before they left, just to make a point. The never-ending bickering was so exhausting. They’d driven to the church in silence and had barely spoken to each other during the service, or the wedding meal. There was something about a wedding that brought out the worst in both of them. It wasn’t helped by the well-meaning comments from winking friends that it must be their turn soon, or the questions cheekily asking what was stopping them from making their way up the aisle? Kate shuddered at the thought.
Ian leaned closer, his mouth on her ear. ‘I think it’s over, don’t you?’
Kate stiffened, but carried on dancing, plastering a fake smile on her face.
‘What d’you mean, over?’ Her primary feeling was irritation that he’d decided to bring this up now, of all times. She swallowed away a wave of panic, imagining waking up alone. Emma caught her eye and mouthed ‘You okay?’
Kate nodded at her friend, giving a tight smile. Faced with the prospect of singlehood, she suddenly felt quite small and abandoned. She squeezed Ian’s arm, trying to placate him. ‘We’re fine, aren’t we? Have I done something wrong?’
‘Come on, Kate,’ Ian ran his hand across her back, looking at her with a gentle expression. ‘You deserve better than this.’
She caught his eye. Lovely, sweet, ever so slightly dull Ian, who’d been her best friend and lover for the last five years. But what was the alternative?
‘I can’t be on my own.’
‘Look, it’s for the best. Believe me.’
Tears were stinging her eyes now and she tried to pull away. He held her closer, whispering into her hair.
‘There’s nothing left, Kate. You know it as well as I do. All we ever do is fight.’
‘That’s because you moan at me for leaving crumbs in the bed, and coffee cups on the bedside table,’ said Kate, looking at him and remembering the first disagreement they’d had that morning.
‘And you moan at me for being boring and predictable. It’s as I said before. There’s nothing left, Kate. One of us needs to be brave and say it.’
‘It’s Emma’s wedding day, for God’s sake. Why now?’
‘There’s never a good time to say something like this, is there?’ Ian looked at her and shrugged, his mouth a resigned line.
Kate’s face in the mirror looked exactly the same as it had that morning. But the dark-brown hair, which had been blow-dried straight, had waved in the heat; her black eyeliner was smudged beneath grey eyes in a freckled face; and her strapless top had slipped down so that she was showing far too much cleavage. She wriggled it back up and ran her hands under the cold tap. Everything looked just the same from the outside, but inside everything was upside down and very wrong. She grimaced at her own reflection.
‘Darling, what’s happened?’
Just what she needed. Her mother’s concerned face appeared in the adjoining mirror. Emma and Kate had been friends since primary school, and her mother’s pride at seeing Kate’s best friend married off was equalled by her concern that Kate herself was still unattached.
‘If he’s not made wedding noises after five years, darling, he’s not going to.’ Kate had heard this with increasing regularity over the last few months. ‘You’ll be thirty and unmarried at this rate, darling.’
As usual, hours after Kate had started to look scruffy, her mother’s blonde hair was still immaculate, her bosom safely encased in a blouse from Jaeger, and her concerned eyes scanning Kate’s reflection for signs of – what? Could she actually tell? Was it so obvious?