There it was; the question he’d been waiting for.
‘I was over at Hestacombe Lake with Didi. Left the phone in the car.’
Red nodded. ‘Thought it might have something to do with her.’
‘Don’t look at me like that. Nothing’s going to happen,’ said Shay.
Above the oxygen mask, his father gave him a ghost of a wink. ‘Sure about that?’
He couldn’t. He mustn’t. And Red wasn’t going to persuade him otherwise.
‘Quite sure,’ he said.
Didi remembered the couple well; she’d shown them over the hotel back in March and been taken by their story. Beth and Phil were in their forties and had both been through the mill. Phil’s wife had died four years ago, leaving him to bring up three small daughters. At around the same time, Beth’s violent ex-husband had landed her in hospital with severe internal injuries. Told that she was unlikely to be able to bear children as a result, she’d moved across the country from Norfolk to Oxfordshire to begin a new life. Two years on and working as a teaching assistant, she’d met Phil, whose children attended her school, and a slow, shy courtship had developed. Indescribably happy together, they were all set to get married next summer and had booked the Wickham Hotel for the ceremony and reception.
Except a problem had arisen.
‘It’s my mum,’ said Beth. ‘She’s poorly, and slowly getting worse. I asked the doctors if they thought she’d still be here next summer and they said it was . . . very unlikely. Sorry.’ She wiped away a tear. ‘It’s been a bit of a shock, although it shouldn’t be. It’s a brain tumour, you see. I just love her so much and she’s always been there for me, and she’s been so looking forward to the wedding . . .’
Didi’s heart went out to them; they’d been through so much, and now this.
‘We just wondered if there was any way we could cancel the date we booked and bring it forward, but it’d still have to be a Saturday because so many guests are teachers . . . I know it’s a long shot, but if there’s anything at all before Christmas, we’d go for that.’
‘Oh Beth, I’m so sorry . . .’ Didi scrolled through the calendar on the computer screen, just in case there’d been some last-minute cancellation she’d somehow managed to miss. But there hadn’t; with its reputation and history as one of the oldest hotels in England, the Wickham was a year-round popular venue for weddings. They were already taking bookings for eighteen months ahead.
‘It’s OK, we knew it wasn’t likely. Everyone wants to get married here.’ Beth nodded at Phil and clasped his hand. ‘We’d have loved to get married here, but Mum comes first.’
‘We’ll book the register office instead,’ Phil told her, ‘and we’ll still have an amazing day. You’ll have your mum there and the girls can still be bridesmaids. Hey, look how lucky you are.’ He lifted Beth’s hand and kissed the back of it. ‘We found each other, didn’t we? That’s the important thing.’
Beth’s eyes filled with tears once more. To stop her own doing the same, Didi conjured up a mental image of ugly politicians wrestling naked in mud. It generally did the trick.
Phil turned to her. ‘Sorry to mess you around. We know it means losing our deposit, but that’s OK, at least we—’
‘Oh will you look at that? It was there all the time!’ Eyes wide, Didi jabbed at the screen, which was tilted away from them. ‘There is a free Saturday in December. I can’t believe I missed it!’
‘Really?’ Beth’s entire face lit up. She let out a squeak of excitement. ‘In December? A Christmas wedding! That would be perfect.’
‘December the seventh,’ said Didi, and this time there was no escaping the lump in her throat as Beth and Phil clutched each other in delight.
‘We’ll take it, we’ll take it!’ Beth exclaimed. ‘Thank you so much! I can’t believe we’ll be getting married here after all. It’s going to be the best wedding ever.’
When they’d left, Didi slowly exhaled and marvelled at what her subconscious had made her do. Was it wrong? She had no idea. It was fairly momentous, certainly. But it felt right. And it was without question the answer for Beth and Phil.
All she had to do now was work out how to explain it to Aaron.
Chapter 25
On Friday afternoon, Didi drove to Moreton-in-Marsh to catch the train to London. Passing Hillcrest, she saw a couple of vans outside and some work being carried out on the roof, but no sign of Shay. His car wasn’t there, which probably meant he was over at the hospital, where he’d been spending every spare minute. They hadn’t seen each other since last weekend’s afternoon at the lake, and if he was deliberately avoiding her, she understood why and didn’t blame him one bit. She also knew that Red was recovering from the chest infection that had had such a terrifying effect on his body.
It rained all the way to London. Didi found herself sitting opposite a girl on the phone to a friend, sharing stories about her boyfriend, who was amazing in every way, honestly, and was really encouraging her to lose weight so she could fit into slinky dresses without looking like an overstuffed haggis. After twenty minutes, Didi longed to tell the girl that her amazing new boyfriend was a controlling gaslighter who was already skilfully isolating her from her own family. But the train stopped and the girl jumped off before she could intervene, her seat taken by a middle-aged man eating a tuna sandwich and slurping from a can of Foster’s. Oh joy.
Finally, after almost two hours, the train pulled into Paddington station. All she had to do now was catch the Tube; Aaron was working late but would be home soon enough.
Except when she made her way along the platform and reached the main concourse, there he was. Wearing his navy work suit and looking boyishly handsome, like a TV advert for a perfect boyfriend. He was waiting for her with a huge grin on his face and a cellophane-wrapped bouquet of gold roses in his left hand.
Predictably, women of all ages were casting admiring glances in his direction.
‘Surprise!’ He held his arms out in welcome. ‘When I said I had to work late, I lied. Come here!’
Oh help, and now everyone was watching. She had to go along with it as he enveloped her in a hug. He kissed her on the mouth, then said, ‘You came all this way. How could I not be here to meet you? Let me take your case . . . wow, it hardly weighs anything at all!’
It hardly weighed anything because it was pretty much empty. And she’d come all this way because it would be unforgivable not to. How could she let him schlep up to Elliscombe in order to be told what she had to tell him? It was an unspoken rule that the breaker of bad news had to be the one doing the travelling. Her plan was to let him down as gently as possible, then collect up the few belongings she’d left at his flat over the last year, pack them into her overnight case and catch the last train home tonight. Boom, sorted.
But it needed to be done in private rather than slap bang in the middle of Paddington station, in front of an audience of women who would without question be on his side. And Aaron, who wasn’t a fan of taking the Tube, was already leading the way to the taxi rank.
Oh, it was hard to find the right moment, though, to take the plunge and start the conversation that needed to happen. In the taxi, they got themselves landed with a chatty driver who was bursting to tell them about his son having passed his driving test that morning. Then, when they pulled up outside Aaron’s flat, Didi’s stomach gave a noisy growl of hunger and Aaron insisted on taking her across the road to his favourite restaurant.