She looped her arm through his as they walked down Oxford Street towards the Tube station. He never realised an affectionate gesture like that had the capacity to make anyone feel so sad.
‘I’m pleased you’re not one of those guys,’ she looked up at him, her eyes round and pretty. ‘I know that whoever you end up with will be great, and you’ll treat her really well.’
‘Thanks,’ he replied, shy of her.
They stopped by the entrance to the Tube station. Kate had taken herself away from him and was preparing to head home. The space on his arm felt cold and empty without her holding on to it, which only made him sadder.
Before she descended underground, she looked back at him as if struck by inspiration and said, ‘Let’s do it – I’ll come to the party.’
Chapter 20
‘Well don’t you look nice!’ her mum said, pulling her glasses down on her nose so that she could get a better look.
‘It’s nothing,’ Kate replied.
‘Look, Jack. Look at your daughter! Tell her she looks nice. Because doesn’t she?’
Jack Mundy peered over the top of his newspaper and jutted his bottom lip out as he nodded approvingly.
‘Very nice,’ he agreed.
So far, living with her parents again felt almost like a holiday, her parents treating her like a treasured house guest. Kate’s laundry was folded and placed neatly on the end of her bed, her favourite foods were stocked in the fridge, and they always asked what she wanted to watch on TV in the evenings. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but she knew she was lucky.
Still, the gauntlet of having to parade in front of her parents in her Sunday finery was something Kate could have done without. It was a dress she hadn’t worn in a while, dusky pink and tea-length, with a sweetheart neckline that flattered her curves. She felt cute, even pretty, in it. Kate left her hair loose and had made up her face to emphasise her eyes.
‘I really do think you look lovely,’ her mum repeated. Kate felt it. ‘Where are you going again?’
‘Nowhere important.’ She hadn’t told her parents about Freddie yet, and certainly didn’t want to divulge that she was accompanying him to a family celebration. They weren’t ready for that. Kate didn’t feel ready for that. ‘Just meeting up with some friends.’
‘That’s very fancy for meeting up with friends,’ her dad remarked, not looking up from his newspaper.
Kate was nervous. She had wanted to go, wanted to be there for Freddie, but now that she was standing in her parents’ kitchen, checking for dog hairs and shifting the neckline of the dress so that it didn’t sit too low, she wondered what she was doing. It felt inappropriate somehow, too soon. She was meeting his parents, for goodness’ sake.
We’re just friends, Kate told herself, even though she realised now that it wasn’t true. At least, not for her any more.
She’d jumped when he’d sent her that video of the light rainbow. She didn’t know why, but then also she did. She did and she hated that she did. She had yearned for him as they wandered through the department store, tried to find ways to make him look at her, to find reasons to touch him. Outside, she’d threaded her arm through his and pretended that it was a natural, easy gesture. She’d wanted to come across as light, carefree, and therefore more attractive. Instead she had felt stupid and confused. It wasn’t as if he was giving her any signals back. Sure, he’d seen a light fitting and thought of her, but where were the words? Where was the meaning?
Then she had tried telling him about Ethan. She wanted to see how he would react, if there were any clues that would tell her that she wasn’t acting like a stupid, smitten teenager, that there was really something there. Something like jealousy. But no, nothing.
She wondered why he had asked her to the party. She wondered why she had said yes. She told herself that she would do this for any of her friends if they asked her. That this was a silly bit of fun. Just helping him out, getting Freddie out of a pickle with his relatives, pretending to be his girlfriend so that they’d give him some room to find a real one. Which meant that she wasn’t real. That these feelings weren’t real either.
‘Well, you make sure you have fun,’ her mum said, giving Kate a brief flashback to when she was fifteen and leaving to meet her friends in the park.
I can back out, there’s still time, she told herself as she locked the front door behind her and made her way to the station.
The golf club building was a boring concrete affair, built in the seventies to serve the growing, upper-middle-class neighbourhood nearby. Now, despite various renovations, it was tragically old-fashioned, but Kate thought it had charm. The suburb didn’t feel too dissimilar from where she had grown up; both were slices of a familiar Middle England despite being on opposite sides of London.
Freddie had been waiting for her outside the train station, a dark grey suit over a navy sweater. He tugged nervously at his collar, too tight even though it was open. He then briefed her on the bus ride to his parents’ house.
‘David is my brother, his wife is Stella, and their baby, my niece, is Lacey. My mum is called Christine and my dad is called Hugh. This is their thirty-fifth anniversary. There are hundreds of cousins. I mean it, hundreds. Some of them look so similar I can’t remember who is who, even though I grew up with them, so don’t worry about that.’
‘It’ll be OK,’ Kate said, ‘it’ll be fun.’
‘I don’t know. I’ve never had fun at these kinds of thing. They always make me nervous.’
‘Why?’
‘You’ll understand when you meet David. He’s the life and soul of everything. He’s just . . . he’s just perfect. And I’m not him.’
They were in the restaurant space now, and Freddie pointed out his mother, who stood in the centre of a group of ladies all holding Champagne glasses. She was wearing a tight black dress that wrapped her up like a bandage under a lime green shawl. Not too far away, standing near the bar, Freddie pointed out his father, holding a court of his own in a navy blazer with gleaming gold buttons over expertly pressed beige trousers.
‘I don’t expect you to actually pretend to be my girlfriend,’ Freddie had said on the bus ride. ‘I don’t want to make things weird, or for you to feel uncomfortable.’
‘I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable,’ Kate said, looking for a reaction, but only seeing his nerves. ‘And besides, we don’t have to give any details about anything. We can be one of those private couples. Coy and mysterious.’
Now Freddie pointed out David and Stella, holding court next to the table where the presents were being collected, all enthusiastic waves and gleaming smiles. Kate liked the way Stella looked. She was wearing a floaty mint-green dress and holding a baby swathed in pink frills, but despite being a new mum, appeared totally immaculate. David was too, Kate noticed. Like a more refined version of Freddie, broader and bulkier and with glossy hair that swooshed and conformed perfectly.
Kate could feel Freddie breathing heavily by her side and gave his arm a brief, reassuring squeeze before they ventured over.
‘Freddie!’ Stella cried out excitedly when she saw them enter. ‘And this must be Kate? We’ve heard so much about you. It’s so nice to meet Freddie’s girlfriend!’