Charlie was right to be concerned about Alex’s uncommonly cheerful mood. While the little cloud above Alex’s head hasn’t been jet black since he found out Julian had bankrolled Fenn’s trip to California, it’s still his constant companion in varying shades of grey. Even when we are at our most peaceful, lying on the bed, listening to Parks, Squares and Alleys, curled into each other like quotation marks, speaking little or not or all, simply experiencing how good it is to be together, his cloud is his chaperon. Sometimes it’s a cartoon of a buoyant bit of fluff with a rosy-cheeked smile, floating alone in an aquamarine sky; rarely it’s coal black, baring its jagged maw and flashing its scarlet eyes, blotting out all reason. Mostly it’s the sad light grey of the Suffolk shore in late autumn — the faintest outline of the sun sometimes flickers into focus, reminding me of how brilliantly he shines when he lets himself. But it’s always there — so its seeming absence portends some subterfuge by my beloved, something to trick less careful observers into believing he’s doing just great. He’s not.

Despite my crashing jet lag, Sasha managed to cajole me into joining the mini-hen night at the pub. “Come ON, Mel,” she pleaded as I unpacked my clothes for the weekend into the large mahogany wardrobe in the bedroom Alex and I were sharing. “Ran is just going to sit in a corner with Amanda and Minty talking about how amazing everything will be when Minty moves to London, Bex will be with the bridesmaids, and I’m going to be bored.” Sasha darted between the wardrobe and me, brought her hands together in faux-supplication and filched my dress for the rehearsal dinner from my hands. “Pleeeeease.”

She really did look desperate, and it reminded me that for all of her beauty, she remains slightly outside the tight clutch of the M(iranda)A(manda)M(inty) triumvirate (trifeminate?), and ever-so-slightly insecure of her role in the greater group. There had always been clear alliances: the MAMs, Will and Charlie, Alex and Julian, and Jamie and Sasha. Jamie had been Sasha’s “ladybeard,” as she calls him now, during uni. The mid-2000s were still not necessarily the friendliest of times to come out of the closet, and Sasha felt her modelling career might suffer if she was fully out.

Back then, it really was only Jamie who knew — he was the only person she trusted enough not to blab (Will, Miranda) or ask too many overly-curious questions (Julian, Amanda) or feel betrayed that she hadn’t said anything earlier (Minty, Charlie, Alex). Jamie could be counted on to be her plus one at various balls and dinner parties, to hold her hand and hug her in public, and give every impression that they had an easy, if not exclusive, relationship. But beyond that they were simpatico — easygoing, affable, lovers of practical jokes. When Jamie met Bex, Sasha kept up the friendship, but understandably she took a step away when Bex became a more permanent fixture in her best friend’s life. I know she misses him.

“Maybe Alex will go in my place,” I suggested. Alex would indeed enjoy being in the middle of a swirl of women who generally doted on him (even Minty has some residual goodwill towards her former husband). “If you take Al, he won’t have to see Julian at Jamie’s stag do.”

She shook her head. “No Julian tonight. He’s in Crowborough, but he’s passing on the party. Says he’s got ‘other plans.'” She made little inverted commas with her fingers and rolled her eyes. “Speaking of, you need to come so you can hear something Minty told Miranda and me today. It is quite the tale.”

Briefly panicking, my mind immediately went to Julian and Fenn. But why Julian would turn to Minty of all people to spread that juicy morsel of gossip, I could not speculate, and quickly dismissed the thought. I did want to know exactly what this story was, but bed was a far better idea. “Why don’t you and I just have a drink here if you know the story?” I snatched the dress back from her and hung it from the wardrobe’s rail.

Sasha made a little noise of frustration and sat down on the floor to dig through my vanity case, opening lipsticks and swatching them on her tawny forearm. “Because I think we should all hear it from Amanda. It’s a little unexpected, if it’s true. Can I wear this tonight?” She held up my new Givenchy Encre Interdite.

“Amanda?” I put away the cashmere sweater from Pringle, the one Rachel had tried to steal from me this spring when she’d shown up unannounced in Berkeley, and sat next to Sasha. “That color won’t look right on you. Try this YSL lipstick instead.” I held up a little black and gold tube and swatched the bright coral on her forearm.

“Oooh, that one is lovely.” She twisted her wrist back and forth to admire the shade. “Yes, Amanda. I think it’s really her story to tell and… I won’t say any more. So you have to come.”

Blast. (Jesus, I’d only been back in the UK for a few hours and I was already thinking “blast” to myself rather than the good old-fashioned, all-purpose “fuck.”) “Fine,” I sighed. “One hour. Then I’m going to get in this bed and pass out.” I eyed the bed on the other side of the room — while it did look sumptuously made up with a white broderie anglaise duvet cover and gold-and-white striped pillows, I was unsure that I would actually be able to climb in it as the mattress seemed to rest about four feet off the floor on its frame. “If I can find a stepstool.”

Sasha tweaked my nose. “If you make it two hours, I’ll tell you where I hid it.”

***

The Blue Anchor wasn’t exactly where I would have guessed Bex would hold her mini-hen. On the one hand, it’s a handsome enough pub, open and clean and modern, the kind of place (it seemed to me) a woman could go on her own of an evening and have a quiet pint while she read the paper. On the other, it was entirely too respectable for Bex and her three bridesmaids, all (like Bex herself) yet to reach 30, and given to shrieks and fake tan. (The following evening, after I’d had the better part of a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc at the rehearsal dinner, I pulled Bex aside to tell her that Amanda had said that a tan that bronze looked cheap, which was true, but I really shouldn’t have sown any discord between them.)

However, this evening was really for “Jamie’s girls,” as she called us, and the pub was an excellent choice. We could nibble on grilled halloumi and olives and get sozzled on decent wine instead of pounding only well drinks or house white, and there was room enough for the nine of us to sit fairly comfortably at two tables. “Great choice, huh?” Bex told me as we exchanged air kisses. “I thought you might prefer something a little quieter since you all are so old and can’t hear too well.” I must have looked shocked — I claimed it was the jet lag — because she quickly assured me it was a joke, and that it really was so that she wouldn’t have to hear from Jamie for the next 50 years about that time she’d dragged Amanda Harrington and Minty Bosworth-Carr into an old man’s pub.

Minty and Amanda were running late, which was wholly unlike the former but completely true to form for the latter. “Amanda would be late for her own funeral,” Miranda clucked as she helped herself to some more of the mini-gherkins on our charcuterie plate. “And Minty would probably hoover the house and bake a Victoria sponge and make finger sandwiches for her own send off before quietly expiring with an apology on her lips for dying in the first place.”

Sasha was nervously picking at the wax on the old wine bottle serving as a candleholder on our table. “Ran?” she said, not looking at Miranda, but closely inspecting the divots she was making with her short fingernails in the dried white and red wax rivulets. “Can I tell Mel now?”

“Tell me what?” I said through a mouthful of goat cheese I’d smeared on some rather lovely baguette.

Miranda glanced at the pub’s entrance. “Might as well, I can’t wait any longer for Man to show up so we can get more details. We know the general outline well enough and, well, she might need a few minutes to digest this particular news story.”

Plunking the bottle-cum-candelabra back down on the oak table, Sasha swiftly clapped her hands over mine. “Okay, brace yourself. This is hilarious. Amanda says she thinks she may be close to locking a man down for good, which you know has been her life goal since–“

“Since she was fucking 13 years old and I met her at Roedean.” Miranda sucked the pit out of an olive and plinked it down on her bread plate. “Utterly ridiculous. She’s wasted her life doing absolutely nothing when she could have been working and meeting some poor dolt she could have locked down far earlier.”

This is true. While Miranda has no pressing financial need to work, she has two gigs as a travel writer and a PR consultant that keep her as busy as she wants to be, which is frequently quite. Sasha plays at having a vocation, but at least she does something with her time besides working out daily with her personal trainer, drinking Aperol Spritzes and watching reality television in her pyjamas, which as far as I can figure out is how Amanda spends her days. Even when I was a housewife, I filled my days with college extension classes and charity meetings and the tedious work of running a large house for a husband who frequently entertained.

“And you’ll die when you hear who it is,” Miranda drawled. “Just the worst, so I’m warning–“

“It’s Julian,” Sasha blurted.

I drew my hands out of Sasha’s and picked up my glass of wine. “I’m sorry. I could have sworn you said Julian, but that’s impossible.” I took a large gulp and prayed to a god I’d given up on years before that I was mistaken.

Sasha and Miranda exchanged glances. “Why would that be impossible? It’s not like they don’t have a history,” Miranda said. “And you told me yourself that Jules said he was lonely.”

“And it’s not like Amanda’s exactly a challenge for him,” Sasha chimed in. “He ended it with her, not the other way around, and she’s always been his strongest defender. You know that. And then there was that weird ‘AH’ thing on Instagram this summer.”

“No, it’s just…” I poured half the glass of wine in my mouth, or near enough. I looked over at Bex and her gaggle of bridesmaids, chucking cashews in each other’s mouths from across the table. “Nothing. I hope she knows what she’s doing.”

Miranda cocked her head to the left, narrowed her gaze and looked at me for a minute. “You know something. What do you know?”

“Nothing!” I snapped, a little too quickly. Sasha raised an eyebrow. “I guess… it’s too soon.” Miranda rolled her eyes. “I want him to be happy, but… Amanda?”

“Bullshit!” Miranda roared. Bex looked over at us, and Sasha gave a friendly “everything is okay!” wave. “First of all, it’s not too soon if you’re going to marry Alex. I’m sorry, that’s utterly absurd. Second, you don’t really care if he’s happy or not. Third, you look guilty. You know something. Cough it up. I won’t say anything, we won’t say anything.” Miranda popped a smoked almond in her mouth and widened her eyes.

I withered under Miranda’s mild interrogation. I knew what would follow — hours and days of pestering, in increasingly public settings, where divulging a secret might be more chancy. “Fine. Fine! I know something. But neither of you can say a word.” I glanced over at Bex and her bridesmaids, who were deep in their pints and conversation to care about what we were up to. “Julian’s been seeing someone else. He told me.”

“Ohhhhhhhh,” Miranda and Sasha whispered in unison.

“Yes, and that’s all I’m going to say. I’m going to get us another bottle of wine before we run out of this one. When I get back, if Minty and Amanda are here, I’m not saying another word about it. It’s not someone either of you know.” (This was almost true — they both met Fenn exactly once, at Alex’s wedding.) Pushing back my chair, I made a beeline for the bar, Miranda following in my wake.

“San, Sandy. Mel. You can’t leave us hanging like that,” she chided as she rested her elbows on the bar next to me while I ordered another bottle of sauvignon blanc. “Who is she? You know Julian’s been celibate” (she lowered her voice in the slightest amount of deference) “since he left you.”

“Well, he’s not any more, if he ever was.” I thanked the barman as he handed over the bottle and three fresh glasses, and walked back to the table where Sasha waited eagerly for the next crumb of gossip. “It’s someone he met up with in Los Angeles,” I continued. “I thought it was getting serious. I guess I was wrong.”

If I had been wrong, I thought, this was both a boon and a disaster in the making. If Julian had done the fuck-and-run on Fenn I’d anticipated, the danger that he’d somehow end up my quasi-brother-in-law would be quelled. Yet I didn’t care much for the alternative — Fenn discovering that the promises Julian had made to her about a possible future together were worthless.

“They’re here,” Miranda hissed. “And none of us know anything. I want to tease this out of Amanda gently, so she doesn’t get defensive and shut down. You know her victim mentality. Darlings!” Miranda waved to the pair, who were weaving their way through the tables to approach us. Minty led the way, with Amanda several paces behind, looking down at her phone.

As much as I wanted to hear Amanda’s news, if she’d tell it, I was more anxious to see Minty. I hadn’t seen her since Alex and I had come through our “what are we doing?” phase and committed to each other, and I craved her approval, especially since I’d be helping take care of her daughter in several days. Be cool, Melissa, I reminded myself. No getting drunk tonight, or any of these nights. No anger, no tears. And she did look pretty — her caramel bronde-y hair pulled back with a single gold barrette on one side, her skin glowing and completely free from makeup but for a slick of rosy-nude lipstick, and her face lit up with the joy of seeing her friends together. She looked effortless, unaffected and more beautiful than I could ever recall seeing her when she was with Alex.

“Mel.” She approached me with her arms thrust wide, and gathered me close. “We’re good, you know,” she whispered in my ear. She exchanged quick air kisses with Miranda and Sasha — whom she’d seen only this morning at a yoga session over at the other Airbnb — and moved along to greet the bride and the rest of the wedding party.

Amanda reached us next and sat down immediately, helping herself to an empty glass and immediately pouring herself a healthy measure of wine without a word of greeting.

“Appalling manners, Man,” Miranda admonished. “You can’t even manage a simple ‘hello’?”

Amanda tucked a lock of her long red hair behind her right ear and looked at me with a sullen frown. “Oh, hi Melissa. I thought you’d be off fucking Alex right now since he can’t bear to be without you.”

Sasha growled. “That was even worse than being silent.”

Rolling her eyes, Amanda poked at a piece of salami from the charcuterie plate before rejecting it with a little wiggle of disgust from her fingers. “Come on, Sash, she’s all he talked about last night at dinner. I’m all caught up on Melissa, thanks.” She shot me a rictus of a smirk as Minty plunked another bottle down on the table.

“Thought we all might do with a bit more of this,” she said, pouring out what was left in the open bottle amongst all our glasses, then topping them up with the fresh bottle. “I certainly need it. Lucy’s apparently being completely rotten to my parents while I’m out here. When she isn’t screeching about her shoes being too tight, she’s been pounding her fists on the piano in the music room or demanding that she be taken home immediately. She even told my mother I’ve been spanking her, which is quite ridiculous. Neither Alex nor I have ever touched her to punish her, even lightly. God knows where she’s getting this.”

“I blame that ghastly school,” Amanda piped up, not looking away from her phone. “All those common children. Their parents are probably beating them nightly. You simply must come back to London. Lucy can attend Thomas’s with Prince George and Princess Charlotte.”

Sasha shot her a dark glance. “Or not.” (Alone amongst my friends, Sasha is my ally in my belief that Alex should not be made to shell out more in child and marital support simply because his ex-wife wants to hang out with her friends.)

Minty sighed and held out her glass. “Cheers. To overdue reunions.” She pointed her glass at me and smiled. Kind, lovely Minty. I’m so sorry what Alex did to you.

As if reading my mind, after she clinked my glass in good health, she said, “You look well. Quite the pre-bridal glow yourself. Alex must be keeping you happier than he ever kept me.”

“Or me,” Miranda added. “I quite often detested him and his foul moods. God knows why I stayed with him so long.” (I know, Miranda: you liked having sex with him and you liked that you knew how to control him. But I’d never say that to her.)

Amanda joined the chorus. “Or me. He never thought that I might be developing feelings for him, just thought I was only in it for the sex. Bastard.” (Wow, that was something I never knew — she’d never mentioned feeling much of anything for Al besides her appreciation for the free meals and occasional gifts he gave her.) “Congratulations, Melissa. Best of luck.”

“Eugggghhh, you four,” Sasha scolded. “We’re not here to talk about Alex, and who he’s fucking and who he’s fucked.” She looked over at Amanda with a simpering grin. “Are we?”

Miranda has a terrible poker face, which is part of the reason she never gambles besides an occasional bet on the horses at Cheltenham or during Royal Ascot. “Not like I’m giving anything away besides money betting on the ponies,” she told me by way of rationalization. And right now, she was staring directly at Amanda. So much for the plan of “let me tease it out of her.”

“What?” Amanda darted her glare between her two friends repeatedly. “Who am I supposedly fucking? I can assure you — oh.” She stopped herself to pick up an almond and throw it at Minty’s head. (“Ow!”) “You bitch, you told them!”

Minty picked at the salt that the almond had left in her hair. “It’s not like they weren’t going to find out anyway. And” — she lowered her voice — “I never said you were making love to Julian.”

Sasha shot wine out of her nose. “Oh GOD, Min, that visual was totally unnecessary.”

I must have turned bright crimson, because Miranda started fanning me with a menu. Amanda snorted. “Fine, if you must all know, Julian and I have… reconnected. We’re considering if we might have a relationship again. He told me he’d been thinking about me all summer after finding some old photos. I’ll see how I feel when I see him. He breezed in and out of the house while I was taking a nap so I missed his arrival.” She inspected a dried apricot and almost put it in her mouth before thinking better of it.

“And?” Miranda asked. “That’s it? That sounds almost respectable. Like you’re actually thinking about how fucking stupid this all is. Julian? Of all people, you cretin.”

Minty had pulled her chair around to sit closer to me; she patted my hand in comfort. “Are you all right? I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean for you to find out like this.” She smelled so homey, like vanilla buttercream and grass. “I know when I found out about you and Alex, I wasn’t angry, but I did feel a bit sad. Even though I couldn’t bear to be around him then, I realized everything I’d dreamed about building with him really was over.”

“Oh hush, Min,” Amanda interjected. “That’s different. Those two actually were fucking, not like Jules and me.”

“HEY!” I shouted, shucking off Minty’s comforting hand; Bex’s entire bridal party turned to gawp at me. “I was NOT sleeping with Alex until WELL after Julian left me. That’s a lie that he tells people to make himself feel better about treating me like trash for years.”

Sasha was now shoving crumbles of blue cheese in her mouth like they were popcorn. “This is amazing,” she mused. “Keep going.”

With a little Gallic shrug and moue of her mouth, Amanda waved me away. “I know who’s the liar between the two of you. You don’t want him to be happy. I understand. You want him to be as miserable after you destroyed your marriage as he was when he was in it.”

Miranda held a butter knife up with only a small amount of menace and glowered at us all. “Stop it, all of you. Behave. We’re in public. Now Amanda, why don’t you tell us what the hell is going on so we can all stop speculating and making even greater fools of ourselves.”

Amanda demanded a bottle of champagne, which Minty offered to fetch immediately, but I know her finances so I pushed three twenty pound notes in her hand and told her to get a couple of bottles of prosecco (no way I was paying for Amanda to drink Laurent Perrier on my tab). Miranda jogged up with Minty to handle the order, leaving me with Sasha and Amanda.

“He sends his regards,” Amanda cooed. “I’m texting him right now.”

My own phone vibrated on the table. Must be Alex, I thought, with an update on his evening. Jamie had opted for some club in Crawley for his stag do — we’d hitched a ride to the Blue Anchor in the party bus carrying the nine men (sans Julian) Jamie’d assembled for the evening. Sasha had marveled at all the neon and Miranda quipped she was happy she hadn’t brought her blacklight with her. There was even a stripper pole, which Sasha gamely mounted to the initial delight of the lads on board (not every day you get to see a former model twirl around a pole, even if she is wearing a sensible gilet over her jumper and sporting skinny jeans rather than a bikini bottom, or less), before she fell on her ass when the bus almost immediately hit a pothole. She got a round of applause nevertheless. Jamie kissed her on the cheek and told her, “Still my best girl, Sash.”

“I can explain,” the text from Julian said simply. “We should talk.”

***

While Amanda had the floor — which she truly enjoyed — telling her story of how Julian had slowly won her around again for a second chance at love (barf), I texted intermittently with the man himself.

“You’d better explain or I’m telling Fenn,” I had responded initially. “I’ll give up the 2k. Happy to help Alex land a punch in your face.”

“Ouch, darling. Doesn’t need to be like that. I have my reasons and you will agree with them as you should. Meet me in an hour at your house?”

I looked up at the three women hanging on Amanda’s every word; Minty had already patted my arm several times to tell me I was being “very brave.” I was catching about 70 percent of the story due to distraction and jet lag catching up to me. “And he said to me, ‘I’ve never stopped kicking myself for treating you so poorly, poppet. My mother adored you and she never forgave me for leaving you.’ Oh, and Melissa? He said you were ‘a fancy that went too far.’ Just thought you should know.”

“Yuck,” Miranda spat out. “You two probably do deserve each other.”

Stretching my arms above my head, I yawned ostentatiously and patted my mouth in only partial facsimile of exhaustion. “Will you all hate me if I call an Uber now? This jet lag is brutal.”

Amanda preened a little, drawing her mouth into a pursed-lipped grin of satisfaction. “Too much for the Princess Melissa to cope with, to hear that there’s one man who isn’t dying of love for her any longer. Ow!”

Miranda had flicked her on the upper arm. “Perfectly fine, San. We’ll see you in the morning before the spa.” (Oh god, I’d forgotten there were additional gender-segregated activities before the rehearsal — the men were going shooting while the women were having body polishing and makeup trials. I’d asked Alex to forgo the shooting — it didn’t seem very sensible for him to be stuck in the rain for hours, let alone hanging around Julian when there were firearms involved — but he was set on it.)

After a brief apology to Bex, I ordered an Uber and replied to Julian. “I’ll be back in 15 minutes. Meet me there ASAP. Make it short.”

It wasn’t a terribly long ride back to the house — at most a mile and a half, a distance I would have happily covered on foot, had I not been exhausted and unfamiliar with the area. Julian was waiting for me, slouched against the whitewashed portico, scrolling through his phone. He raised a gloved hand in greeting as I crunched through the gravel of the driveway in my heels.

“Mind your step,” he said to me, throwing his voice a little further with a hand to his mouth. “That driver was careless in not bringing you to the door.” Julian trotted over to lend me a hand as I picked my way through the stones. “I’d leave him a poor review.” I let him help me up the front stairs and he held my handbag while I opened the front door.

“Let’s go to the library. I can get the fire started in there again.” I led the way down the hall, past the living room and an additional drawing room, both explosions in chintz — one dark blue, the other a sickening pink — to the dark but cozy brown library. I kicked off the offending heels and padded over to the stack of firewood and kindling nestled in a wicker basket, but Julian beat me to it, barring my hand from reaching in.

“I appreciate the gesture, but I have a feeling I’m probably better at this than you are.” I couldn’t disagree — the one and only time I’d successfully started a fire on purpose was at a Girl Scout camping trip in 1996, and only then with significant assistance from my troop leader. Jules busied himself with checking the flue and the draft, balling up tinder from the stack of newspapers, laying the kindling and the logs with care and some expertise. In spite of myself, I felt the slightest surge of tenderness for him — I saw the young man I fell in love with, the one who burned bright with pride at being capable and dependable in his efforts, the boy who could take pleasure in small acts of service to others. I’d seen that Julian briefly in his kitchen this past summer as he made me coffee and served me macarons. He still existed, and that boy still deserved some happiness and encouragement.

“Would you like a drink?” I pointed to the brandy, sitting on the tea chest where Charlie had left it this afternoon.

“Wouldn’t mind one.” He wiped his hands on his jeans — Julian in jeans always amuses me, though he’d taken to wearing them frequently in California — and sat back on his heels to admire his work in the fireplace before setting the structure alight with a long match. “How much time do you think we have before everyone gets back?”

I passed him a small snifter and settled down with a glass of my own in one of the burgundy leather wingback chairs placed before the fireplace. “I expect Alex and the boys won’t be back until after midnight, maybe one. The girls? Probably another hour. Amanda’s holding court right now and they’re transfixed by her story.”

Julian groaned as he eased back in the chair facing mine. “I was hoping that she’d use a little more discretion. You understand this is all just a game, I hope. A distraction.”

“No, no I don’t. What I saw back at that pub is a woman who hates my guts throwing her new ‘relationship’ in my face, bragging about how she’s going to ‘screw you down tight this time.’ What exactly are you playing at?” I felt a little bad for Amanda, a truly terrible person, which is not an emotion I wanted to embrace.

He raked his free hand through his hair (which was definitely a little darker than when I’d seen it in the summer — was he getting it highlighted back then?), and swirled the brandy in his glass slowly. “I was with Fenn yesterday and today, up in London. I… I don’t know what she’s doing to me, darling. She makes me feel out of control. I feel unbalanced around her. Like I don’t know where I am when I’m with her. It’s uncomfortable.” He shifted in his seat, scratched his arm under his sweater. “I prefer certainty, as you know.”

I refused to say what I was thinking — you’re falling in love with her, you idiot. Instead: “What does any of this have to do with Amanda?”

“To be honest, it had more to do with her at the beginning of the summer, before Fenn.” He looked down in his glass. “I miss having a partner in life. I miss the companionship, and I thought Amanda might bring some back to me. There’s only so much that, um, transactional relationships can bring.”

Knew it, I thought. “Whores, Jules?”

“No need to be crude. And every one of those women has been properly vetted — well-dressed, well-educated, well-spoken. It isn’t purely physical affection I need. I need a companion. You were a companion.” The brandy slipped out of the snifter into his mouth. “Who bought this? Decent stuff.”

“Charlie, I think. So you have Fenn as your companion if you want her. You’re going to have to make some difficult choices soon or you’re both going to be miserable.” I picked at the upholstery buttons on the arm of the chair. “You’re going to have to end it or go public.”

“Damn it, I’m not ready for that! Your fiancé is not a man I can trust to be understanding. Fenn will need to win him over, and that will take time, more time than I have this weekend. It’s bad enough that she thinks he’s on the scent.” (She does?) “So I’ve come up with a plan to distract him.”

“Hooking up with Amanda. That’s your plan.” I honored this scheme — truly one of his worst — with the slow clap it deserved. “You think that Alex will believe you’re falling for Amanda, and you’ll be… what? Able to sneak around with his sister until you find a suitable ‘companion’ in Los Angeles?”

“Well, essentially yes. But I wouldn’t call it sneaking. I’d call it being discreet, which of course I have paid you handsomely to be as well. And I’m not planning on finding anyone else. Not now. Not while Fenn… sorry, it’s too much information for you. I don’t want you to feel jealous.”

“Pfffffft, jealous. I’m very happy with Alex, Jules, and we’re getting formally engaged next week. I’m not gagging to be taken back by you.” I tilted my head to one side — the continuing unease in his posture, the way he drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair, spoke to some concealed concern of his. I have known him for too long to be thrown off by his pompous and cutting words. Watch what he does, not what he says. “What are you hiding?” (Everything, I thought.)

“Little else I haven’t spoken of already. Would you like to know how the sex is? Because your wildling fiancé’s sister is quite skilled, despite having been cloistered in that wreck of a home for decades.”

“No, I don’t really care to know. Glad you can manage to enjoy sex with an amateur.” (I couldn’t resist; he winced.) “So I take it my job is to pretend that this… thing with Amanda is real. We fold it into the deal.”

He nodded briskly. “Correct. And at one time I thought it might work with Amanda. She’s a nice enough girl –” (nice?) “– and my mother would approve. She’d make an excellent wife and she’s still young enough to be a mother to my children. But I have wanted Fenn since we were 16 years old. I don’t say this to be cruel, darling, but I don’t think I ever stopped wanting her. She is everything I should not have, which makes me need her even more.”

I would not be goaded into giving him my appraisal of the likelihood of their relationship succeeding. “Fine.” I picked a piece of lint off my black sweater; I would not look at him. “I’ll play along with your game, as long as you keep up your end of our deal. No provoking Alex. No snide comments about me, no nasty little digs about your shared past.”

“I am aware of the terms of our deal. If your neanderthal of a lover throws a punch at me, I reserve the right to defend myself, however. I’m no cowering wretch and I don’t hide behind my woman’s petticoats, like I’ve seen him do before.”

“It won’t come to that.” I watched the fire crackle in the grate, watched it pop and explode in new flames, watched the kindling consumed in the red and the yellow and the orange, watched the bark turn white on the logs as a low flame licked their sides.

We sat in silence together for some time, and I thought how if not for Alex’s misguided call to our fax machine, Julian and I might be here together, in these same chairs, here together for Jamie’s wedding as a couple, just as miserable in each other’s company, here together as husband and wife. Funny how these small forks — Uncle B’s cash situation; me finding Alex behind a sofa; Minty needing to borrow my curling iron; Julian sending Alex a forum post about Arsenal; Alex finding a picture of Minty I’d tagged on Facebook a few days before I took it down; that night in Seattle (oh, someday I will turn to that); that phone call to our fax line — led to me being here at 34, divorced, in England. Divorced and sitting next to my ex-husband, who was now tortured by his feelings for my fiancé’s sister.

When I woke to the sound of Miranda’s terse shout from the hallway that she wasn’t drunk, Julian was gone. Ever the consummate and careful skunk, he’d spirited his own glass away so that only mine remained in the room. (Leave no trace, indeed.) Sasha creaked open the door to the study, the coral YSL lipstick now smudged partially onto her face, and what looked like mustard on her mulberry thermal gilet.

“You built a fire?” She slumped in the chair where Julian had sat only — an hour? two hours? — before. “Miranda’s utterly bombed. You missed the shots Bex made everyone do.”

“You did shots at the Blue Anchor?” I felt terrible for the publican, who probably thought he was dealing with some polite and mannerly ladies but instead ended up with what was almost certainly a very drunk Amanda yelling about her strong feelings about Brexit, Bex vomiting in an umbrella stand and Miranda performing her party piece (a significant portion of Éluard’s “Liberté” en français, naturellement).

Despite looking like she was staring down an epic hangover, Sasha poured a little brandy in what had been my glass for herself. “No, we went to the other house.” After a booming belch (“awfully sorry about that”), she explained further: “Quite mysterious. We’d been expecting to find Julian but he wasn’t anywhere in the house. Amanda was so dramatic about this, texting him non-stop and threatening to call the police to report a disappearance. She’s insane, you know.”

“I know,” I grunted. “Did he ever show up?”

“Yes, and it was even curiouserer. Curiouser. More curious? Anyway, we were in the kitchen pounding shots of that Absolut Vanilla, and Bex was making us listen to K-pop. Oh, and I was snogging one of the bridesmaids, Milly? Tilly?” (That explained the lipstick.)  “Julian walked in, took a full shotglass out of Bex’s hand and pounded it as if she’d been offering to him. She adored it and made him do another one immediately.”

“Where — did he say where he’d been?” I doubted he’d say where but —

“‘Out.’ Drove Amanda barmy but she didn’t show it much. She just covered his face with kisses, said she’d been so worried about him, and now, here he was, right on time. How absurd, but then, so is Amanda. He’s looking quite handsome these days, you know.”

“So everyone tells me.”

“Mmm. Well, he loped off to bed after he’d given us each a kiss hello. Amanda disappeared to his room shortly after and I heard the lock turn. I suppose they’re ‘considering’ each other right now.” She snorted a little and rose to her feet, stumbling a little. “This weekend is utterly preposterous and it’s only Thursday. Friday?”

Friday, Sasha; the Westminster chimes of the grandfather clock had struck half twelve as we’d been speaking. Two more days of this madness, with those I cherished and scorned and feared and desired the most, bobbing like buoys in a sea of alcohol and loss and love. And in the middle of it all, a wedding.

To death us do part, Julian. You are forever in my life, even when we have put ourselves asunder.

***

I am tidying this up as Alex and I are waiting to board the first of our flights back to the Bay Area. It’s been quite a visit and I’m not spoiling anything to say that Alex proposed, at last. And though it was not quite how I expected, it was perfect. A little shambolic, a little disorganized, but perfectly him. Perfectly us. There is so very much to unspool of my time here, so I crave your indulgence as I tell it.