The rehearsal and the dinner to follow were for members of the wedding party and their partners only, so despite a few last minute pleas to Bex, I wasn’t able to yank Miranda along with me to help run interference between Alex and Julian. Jules’ absence from shooting that morning had been excused by Jamie more easily than the party the night before — after all, Friday was still a working day, and Julian had (he claimed) several meetings set up in Canary Wharf regarding the financing of a new shipping line from India. I knew better; the meetings had been on Wednesday. No, it was more likely that Julian had spent the morning lolling in bed with Fenn in his suite at Claridge’s, where she was likely to remain until he returned on Sunday. Or at least, that’s what Fenn had been texting me: “We’re going to pick up a necklace at Garrard on Monday, so please make sure he gets back. It’s not like I can pay for it myself LOL.”

“The plan,” Al yelled to me over the hiss of the shower as he lathered his face, “is to get up there, stay calm, walk back down the aisle to you, and stay the fuck away from that cunt as much as I can. I owe it to Jamie not to start something.” I could see him fussing with his dopp kit, hunting for his razor. “Sweet–”

“It’s in the shower. Sorry — I couldn’t find my own.” I’d already showered, unfortunately removing Chelsea’s makeup artistry in doing so, but honestly it was mostly rubbed off after our afternoon exertions. (“Power aerobics were a terrific idea, if I do say so myself,” Alex had muttered before drifting off for a light snooze.) I’d redone my face to focus on a strong red lip, and styled my hair with a hot brush to get out the frizz from the afternoon’s rain. The navy wool Diane von Furstenburg wrap dress I’d be wearing hung on the back of the door. Classic, understated, a little sexy, and Alex loves unwrapping me from it, too, at the end of an evening.

Alex’s grunt of frustration filtered through the pattering of the shower. “Woman, get your own razor. You get a pass this time for your excellent show in bed this afternoon. Next time –” he drew a line with his finger across his throat “– the full Anne Boleyn.”

A knock at the door interrupted Al’s threat of decapitation. “Mel? Alex? Are you decent?” Sasha’s husky voice slipped through the keyhole. Alex closed the bathroom door and I let Sasha in.

“Al’s in the shower. What’s up?” I watched as she eyed up the bed and took a running leap onto the bed. Despite her best efforts, she belly flopped onto the messy sheets.

“Ew. Your bed smells like sex.” The duvet muffled her objection before she rolled over to face the ceiling. “Julian’s downstairs. Charlie met him at the railway station — apparently there was a 20 minute wait for an Uber because of the rain so he called the only one of us here with a car.”

“Charlie brought him here.” My silk peignoir felt too loose and I clutched it tightly at the neck. “Why?”

“Mmmhmmm. So much for Chuck’s supposed big brain. ‘How much could it hurt?’ he asked me. I told him a LOT when Alex punches Julian in the face.”

A flash of lightning briefly shot through the room; the vicarage shook with the grumble of the thunder that followed. “Alex and I can’t ride with him to the rehearsal. Why didn’t he just go to the other house?” The tatty little Persian rug in front of the dressing table slid under my toes as I passed back and forth, pacing the length of the bedroom from door to fireplace and back again.

“Why are these even in here? Euggh.” Sasha flung Alex’s discarded underwear out of the bed. “He’s here because he wants to speak with you before the rehearsal. That’s what he asked me to tell you. Will and Miranda are down there with him right now, playing good cop and Satan’s bride.”

From the bathroom came the strains of Alex singing: “I am human and I need to be loved… Aw, shite, I can’t sing that fascist’s songs any more. Fuckin’ bastard.”

Another lightning strike and BOOM. I groaned — the only way to rid this house of its turbulent guest would be to confront him, preferably before Alex finished his preparations for the evening to avoid a dust up downstairs. The carriage clock on the mantel showed 5:30 pm, just enough time to dispose of Julian’s likely rubbish. I could dress myself after. He wasn’t here for me, I recognized. He wanted to start the games now with Alex, wanted to start poking at the great black bear, wanted to be the buzzing bee worrying him, wanted to commence play on that chessboard by making the first move. Something brash like walking across enemy lines as if he belonged here, and Alex was the stranger.

“Let’s do this. AL! I’m going downstairs,” I yelled at the door, but didn’t wait for a response. I pushed on the kitten heeled mules I’d been parading around the bedroom in for Alex only a few hours before and stumbled on my first step in them before righting myself. They really aren’t suitable for much more than bedroom-parading, but with the grey silk dressing gown now tightened about my waist, I felt deliciously powerful, lushly feminine. Ready to unman.

From the bed, Sasha raised an eyebrow at my wardrobe selection. Mimicking Al’s gait when he’s furious, I stomped past her, down the 15 stairs to the ground floor, taking care not to slip out of the precariously jammed-on mules. (I gave one of the vicars who looked particularly disgusted with my outfit the finger as I passed him by.) The dressing gown billowed like an angry grey cloud streaking through the hall in my wake, exposing the boy short shapewear I’d forced myself into earlier. As if I care, I thought to myself. First I’ll kill Julian, then I’ll kill Charlie. No, first I’ll kill Julian, then I’ll have Charlie bring him back to life, then I’ll kill Julian again, and then I’ll kill Charlie.

Miranda’s voice directed me towards the library. “You have the unmitigated gall to act like this is all normal. This is not normal!”

Perching myself on the low stool outside the library door, I stared at the seascape hung on the wall I faced. As my eyes accustomed to the low light of the hall, I could make out some bleary mimicry of Turner, all watery russets and blotted blues. “See some sense,” Julian reasoned smoothly. “I’m just trying to be kind. Extend an olive branch to the man. Isn’t it time we put all this nonsense behind us? I’m not expecting him to pick up with me where it all went so wretchedly wrong, but we should be civil. We’re grown men now, Ran.”

“Have to say,” Will’s voice piped up, “Julian does sound reasonable on this. Why can’t Alex be the better man and get over it?”

“Get over it? Get over it?” I crashed into the room; I’d heard enough. My peignoir had slipped off my shoulder, partially exposing my bra; I let it hang where it had dropped. Fuck it. “Get over the bullshit and tricks and lies Alex and I have been through with you for years? You want to talk, Jules? Let’s talk.”

All three were silent. Will’s jaw dangled open and he absently fumbled for the glass of brandy he’d set down beside him. Miranda stuck it in his hand (“thanks, Ran”) as her own mouth opened and closed repeatedly, skeptically, as if she might say a word but thought better of it. I followed the line of Julian’s sight to the black lace of my bra. Typical.

“Melissa.” Flinging wide his arms, Julian stood up from the same leather chair before the fire he’d occupied the night before when I fell asleep beside him. “This can’t be just for me,” he said with a lecherous wink. I could practically see his brain shuffling images of past intimacies with me. I stifled a gag.

“Don’t be creepy.” I drew the grey silk upwards to cover myself and squared my shoulders. “What do you need to say to me that can’t wait until dinner? Or is this really even about needing to see me?”

Julian dropped his arms and settled back in the burgundy chair. Another flare of lightning pulsed in the sky outside before thunder roared, even closer than before. “All rather ominous, no?” Julian quipped. “Ran, Will, may I have a few minutes with Mel? I promise I won’t disrobe her any further than she’s already done for us.”

Will — that traitor — grabbed his glass and Miranda in either hand and removed them from the room. As an inanimate object, the glass expressed no disapproval, but Miranda did not go gently into that dismal hallway. “You great fool! I’m not coming with you!” Will’s 240 lbs of rugger beefcake, though, and was more than capable of lugging her out, despite her attempts to hold onto a sideboard as she passed by it on her way out. With a slam of the door, Jules and I were alone.

“Darling, have a seat. You must be cold in that… oh, I recognize that dressing gown.” Another one of his almost-genuine, almost-wistful smiles. “From that trip to Milan, right?”

I grumbled affirmatively, and took the seat across from him, as we had the night before. I drew one of the discarded Welsh blankets over myself, partly for modesty, but mostly for warmth, and cursed myself for not taking two minutes to pull on the wool dress.

The room was silent for a moment, charged with the electricity of the storm outside. Julian opened his mouth as lightning once more lit the room, faster than before, with the thunder hitting almost immediately after in a sonorous WHAM that echoed for several seconds. It did seem ominous, though I wasn’t sure how to read these omens.

“I came by because I wanted to make something clear,” Julian said, removing the stopper of the brandy decanter to pour himself another trickle. (I don’t know how many bottles of the stuff we went through that weekend, but if there were such things, Charlie would have by now a full enough punch card at Berry Bros & Rudd to get a free bottle.) “Oh, how rude of me. Would you like a nip, darling?” I was about to demur, but he’d already poured me a small glass; it would have been rude to refuse. Our fingers met briefly as I took it from his hand, and I felt it again, the prickle of memory. Danger, my mind flashed, as it had in June, back in his apartment. Noli me tangere.

I swished the liquor around in the crystal snifter, letting the liquid coat the walls as it dripped down. The scent of almonds and brown sugar and Christmas pudding drifted up — homey, soothing, but I knew to resist the lull of alcohol. “What are you so desperate to tell me that you couldn’t wait a few hours?”

“Marvelous stuff, this. I really must ask Charlie where he gets it.” He removed a handkerchief from the inside pocket of his tweed jacket and dabbed at his forehead. “I’ll be frank with you,” he said, dropping his voice. “I think you are dangerously close to breaking our agreement. Consider this a friendly notice that if you do, not only will your payments stop, but I will no longer behave civilly towards your brute upstairs.”

Another flash, though the clap that followed was more distant, muted. The rain still beat hard on the mullioned windows of the library. I took a hurried sip of the brandy to warm myself further. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t said a word to Alex about… you know.”

“Bully for you. But will you please explain to me why I received this text from Amanda this afternoon?” He held his phone out for my inspection. I scanned the earlier part of their back and forth, lots of hearts and “luv u”‘s and “call me”‘s. Then:

Who is the girlfriend in LA?

“Now why, I asked myself, would Amanda be asking me who ‘the girlfriend in LA’ is?” Julian reached out for his phone and as I passed it to him, he gripped my wrist. I tried to shake him off but he would not let go; it was a bullying tactic I was familiar with. Best to go limp, because the struggle only fed his satisfaction in physical dominance. My hand opened, letting the phone slip onto the Persian rug between us, but he did not move to collect it, nor did he release me.

“If Alex walks in right now, this isn’t going to be nice, you know.” I blew ineffectually at a lock of hair that had drooped before my eye from where I’d looped it behind my ear. Releasing my wrist, he tucked the hair back, taking time to smooth more than just that section — he passed his palm over the crown of my head to the nape of my neck. Several beats ticked off as it passed between us again, a dampened frisson, as electric as the storm outside. Emergency! the neon sign sparked into life. Do Not Enter!

I shivered, from the chill, from fear, from… not desire. No. But it broke Julian’s touch away from me, centered him back in the now. “You should go back upstairs and get dressed, darling. It’s not right to be nearly undressed in front of me. If I were an uncharitable man, I’d say you were trying to tempt me.” He clinked the bottle against his glass again, and then mine, another drizzle for us both.

I screwed up my face in a peevish scowl. “I was surprised to hear about Amanda and you and it showed on my face when I heard. All I said to Sasha and Miranda was I thought you had something serious in Los Angeles, but I must have been mistaken. And in passing to Charlie. That’s it. I didn’t say you were seeing –“

He raised a hand in warning. “Stop. Don’t you think they’re listening at the door?” His whisper curled around me. With a shake of his golden head, he rose from his chair and tossed back the rest of the brandy before stooping to scoop up his phone. “This is my notice to you. You are very, very lucky that Amanda doesn’t seem troubled that there was a girl back in Los Angeles. She told me it was natural, and that a man like me has… needs to be met.”

I knew those needs, and I’d been foolish to believe the lie he’d have us all believe — that only I had been capable of meeting them. That he’d been celibate to mourn the death of our supposed Grand Romance.

My eyes met his, once again, twin gazes meeting each other. “What are you playing at, Jules? Why are you being so cruel to Amanda? To –“

“Who’s to say I’m being cruel? Amanda’s grateful for the attention. She’s missed me, she says. And I’m thinking practically when it comes to her. She’s utterly presentable, and can be quite well-mannered when it’s called for. In many ways, precisely the sort of companion I need.” He padded to the side of my chair, and balanced himself on its arm. Too close.

“But not the one you want,” I said flatly. “And then what?”

“A man’s needs and his wants don’t always coincide in the same woman. I was, I suppose, blessed to have met you.” The clap of his hand on my shoulder moved the blanket aside; his warmth radiated through the thin silk of my robe. “But there’s no reason why needs and wants can’t be indulged separately.”

“Pig,” I snarled. Poor Fenn, relegated, perhaps, already to mistress.

“Nothing’s written in stone, darling. I may find Amanda as exhausting as I did before, but I deserve to know if it might work this time. If it doesn’t, it will have been an entertaining interlude.” The peignoir had drifted away from my shoulder under his hand, and now we were skin to skin, body upon body as we had been so many times. He dug his fingers into me and began caressing me, a little too hard to be pure desire. Disgust and a greedy lust for more throbbed in me, a discomforting lub-dub of a heartbeat. I shucked him off before I knew what more was going to involve.

“You’d best leave before Alex comes down,” I rasped, and hated myself for sounding so weak. “And I get your message, loud and clear.”

“Glad we could sort this out as old friends,” he said, rising from the chair’s arm. “See you at the church this evening. Bring your fiancé — has he given you a ring yet? At least I had the good manners to give you one of those before calling myself yours.” Julian slipped behind me, and I heard him jostle the sticky doorknob to let himself out. In his wake, Miranda rushed in.

“What an absolute arse! Was he completely awful, darling? What did he want?” She perched on the same arm of the chair where Julian had sat minutes before, cracking up the barricades I’d built against any vestigial hunger that remained in me for him as if it were kindling for the fireplace. I leaned against her, and clasped the hand she offered in my own.

“He wanted to assure me that he’s going to be on his best behavior. I promised him we would be, too.” I had no doubt Julian and I would — there’s too much on the line for us both not to tow it.

Alex, of course, might be another story.

***

“Pssssssst.” A nubbly elbow poked me — ow! — in the ribs. “Have another nip.”

Improbably, the rehearsal was made infinitely more enjoyable by Amanda, my fellow plus-one stuck in the pews. I suppose I wasn’t that surprised to see her enter the vestibule of the church earlier, her gloved hand tucked neatly in the crook of Julian’s arm. After all, the cat was so completely out of the bag about those two by that point that it was scampering through the church and searching for mice. She was still made up like a mid-range call girl, but she was at least dressed somewhat tastefully in a boatneck shift dress and a knee-length faux fur coat (she told me later it was from Whistles, and she loved it because it was “precisely the right side of vulgar” — can’t argue with that) that I wanted for myself immediately.

I’d been sticking close to Al as he chatted with Jamie and Felix, Jamie’s younger brother and best man. Bex and her full complement of bridesmaids stood in a knot, over by what was likely the vicar’s bicycle propped against a noticeboard featuring the macaroni art of the very youngest parishioners in Sunday school. Felix’s girlfriend and the boyfriends of two of the bridesmaids had passed inside already, making a circuit of the nave and the transept to keep themselves warm. The families of the bride and groom had settled in the pews, making half-hearted stabs at finding common ground. We were waiting only on Tom Gregory (whose name Miranda always prefaces with the pretty accurate epithet “wankstain”) and Julian, whose earlier visit to the vicarage had been mentioned by no one to Alex. For the best, we’d all agreed, even Charlie.

The rain had softened somewhat but the church was frosty and more than a little damp, hardly surprising since the building was mostly 13th century. My peek inside the main body earlier that day had revealed a splendid place despite its chill — 15th century wall paintings, the Pre-Raphaelite glory of its east window, a Norman font. The heels I’d worn did little to keep my feet warm, and I stomped my feet to keep my blood moving. Cold enough that I swore I saw Jamie’s breath, a fine mist.

Al wrapped me tight to his chest, and I tucked my head under his chin. “Jamie says this won’t take more than 20 minutes once we start, and it’s warmer in the nave than it is out here. We’ll be wrapped up and in that restaurant faster than you can say –“

“Shit,” I blurted.

“Well, maybe not ‘shit,'” Alex laughed, light and clear above my head before he trailed into silence.

The hum of conversation dimmed as Julian and Amanda approached. Alex’s hand holding me to him clenched reflexively, and I could feel his jaw tighten where it rested on the crown of my head.

“James.” Julian strode up to Jamie with an air of authority, as if this were his church and Jamie was a visitor. Gently unhooking Amanda’s possessive little clutch on his arm, Julian reached forward for a handshake, but Jamie dragged him into a bear hug. “Steady on!” Julian chortled, slapping the groom on the back awkwardly, as if he were trying to wind a baby.

Jamie pulled away and held Julian at arms’ length. “Thought you’d never drag yourself away from town long enough to make it, Jules. And the gorgeous Amanda.” Amanda scoffed lightly, but her delight at the compliment was scrawled all over her tarty face, particularly when Jamie followed it up by kissing her hand. “You both remember Felix, right? Couple of years behind us. He’s a solicitor now with Freshfields, capital markets. Jules, you two should talk this weekend.”

I wriggled out of Alex’s embrace. If we were going to be polite, I did not want Julian having the upper hand in dictating what “polite” should be. “Amanda, I love your dress. Lovely to see you.” Briefly disarmed by my warmth, she returned the two-cheeked kiss I offered without the usual disdain.

Julian’s belief that he could be in control of every social situation in which he found himself could, I knew, be undermined if I simply followed his usual plan of attack, but got there first. “It pays to be the first mover,” he had told me, when trying to teach me to be more confident at the business dinners we frequently held at home. “A good handshake — not too firm for a woman, of course — and a kind word go much further as social currency when offered first.”

Julian cocked his head, surprised enough by my graciousness towards Amanda that he missed the beat to offer his greeting first.

“And Julian.” I offered him my most open smile. “Nice to have you down from London.” I drew the line at extending him such an intimate greeting as the one I’d given Amanda, lest a kiss meant for a cheek graze my lips “accidentally,” and held out my hand for a shake. He frowned at me, looking down at it like I was offering him a soiled diaper or a bag of KFC.

“Aren’t we a little past handshakes now?” Jamie jested. “Come on you three, let’s get this over with.”

Alex’s hand slid into mine, as if to remind me, we’re in this together, my love. “Julian.” His tone brought the temperature of the frigid room down another degree or twelve, enough that I could practically see my ex-husband’s name float by me in frozen letters as it left Alex’s mouth.

Julian’s revulsion towards seeing us together for the first time as a couple, hand in hand, was nearly as palpable as Alex’s cold fury, but he schooled his expression quickly. “Of course. Melissa, darling, as beautiful as any man could wish, as always. And Alex, well, I hear congratulations are in order. Please excuse my poor manners. One never really appreciates how it will feel when confronted directly with the source of one’s heartbreak.”

Neither man extended a hand for a shake. For the best, I thought. If Alex got him in his grip, he might just throw him on the grey slate of the vestibule floor. The sound of an imagined cracking skull made me wince.

“Mind you, I am moving on,” Julian continued, reaching for Amanda’s hand. He grazed her knuckles with his lips while looking not in her eyes, but mine. Fucker. Alex politely accepted Amanda’s peck on the cheek and her whisper in his ear.

Behind us, the church door creaked open, letting in the sound of the lingering rain, the glare of the churchyard floodlight, and a sheepish Tom Gregory. (Wankstain.) The dreadful spell we’d conjured dissipated as so much mist into the damp of the church. From a side door, the cheerful vicar who’d welcomed us on our arrival emerged in a surprisingly informal pair of khakis and fisherman’s sweater, and Amanda and I were dispatched into the nave to direct the parents of the bride and groom out to the vestibule to begin the rehearsal in earnest.

“Well, that was bloody awful and not as lethal as I’d expected,” Amanda whispered to me as we settled in a pew near the middle of the church, our errand complete. “You couldn’t see Al, but he went terribly pink in the face. I was genuinely worried he had some sort of medical condition for a moment.”

She greeted my look of suspicion with a mild sneer that was almost a smile. (I think she’s working on being less blatantly nasty, probably at Julian’s direction if he’s grooming her to be Wife No. 2.) “Oh, come off it. This –” she flicked her index finger back and forth in the space between us “– isn’t all me. It’s just as much you. If I can choose to drop it for a few hours, perhaps the Princess Melissa might deign to act pleasantly towards me for a change.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I reached for a copy of the Book of Common Prayer tucked into the back of the pew I faced. We hadn’t been an overly religious household growing up. My mom is nominally Presbyterian, though she only attends when she’s visiting her quite elderly mother back east now. My dad is still an active Unitarian Universalist and an atheist, which as a kid I always thought was like having your cake and eating it — you could get all the cool stuff of church, like community and singing songs and food and social justice, and you could think Jesus was a good man, but you didn’t need to believe in the divinity of the man, or that God was a thing even. In my dad’s phrasing, it was a pretty chilled out place to be.

Julian had been aghast at the idea of marrying in anything but an Anglican ceremony, but our local Episcopalian church required he and I attend four sessions of pre-marriage counselling together, in person, before we could be wed there. Since we planned on having a ceremony only about a week after Jules got to America, that was a non-starter. Another option was having a non-religious ceremony at the reception, which was also dismissed; his observant (ha!) mother pooh-poohed it as being another case where secularism was running amok over the traditional realms of religion. A third option — a UU minister at the venue — was initially rejected for being insufficiently theistic, until Jules was assuaged by the promise of clerical vestments and the inclusion of the traditional words of the Anglican service.

My familiarity, then, with the Anglican marriage rite was limited to those words I’d spoken at my own wedding nearly nine years ago. I remembered that there were mentions of carnal lusts and fornications, quite a bit about making babies, and of course the promise to “obey” Julian that I’d resisted at first. When Julian dangled a trip to Aruba as a gift for saying “just a silly word, just one to make my mum happy, not for anything else,” I caved. What was the harm if I didn’t mean it?

“It’s a holy sacrament, darling,” he took to reminding me over the years that followed. “It’s a vow. You stood before God and our families and promised you would submit to me as I do before the Lord. Remember that.”

I set the book to one side and watched the vicar line the ushers up on one side of the altar and the bridesmaids on the other, and cringed when he moved that wankstain Tom Gregory from his position as buffer between Alex and Julian to the outside spot in the lineup.

“Oh no,” Amanda said, loud enough that the plus-one of a bridesmaid sitting two rows in front of us whipped his head around and shushed her. To her credit, she shhhhhhh‘d him back. Reaching into her coat pocket, she drew out a leather-wrapped silver flask from which she took a long draw. “Have some,” she said, palming it to me beneath the line of the pew. “If you’re not too fancy for such things. It’s rum.”

“Of course not.” I turned my head to one side so the wedding party couldn’t see me, and tossed back a small measure. “Thank you.”

“I’ve got another one in the other pocket if we need it, and we may. Are you watching this fiasco?”

From our vantage point, all attention had been drawn from Bex and onto the two intransigent ushers. Everyone could hear the vicar instruct Alex and Julian that the proper way to hold one’s hands was to clasp them in front, not to cross them across one’s chest, nor to ball them into ready fists.

“I’ve been dreading this moment for four months, and now it’s here. I thought I’d have more time to prepare myself. And him.” I took the flask Amanda was offering again for another nip and passed it back under the pew.

“They’d never be ready if they weren’t forced into it. Do you want my opinion?” She pushed the bottle back in her pocket. “I think you handled the split quite selfishly. I’m not surprised they both detest each other.”

My knee started its familiar tap-tap-tap-tap of anxiety. “I didn’t mean for it to end up this way. I loved Julian, even at the end.” Even after the end, if I was being completely honest.

“And that’s how you were selfish. You should have just cut him off. Torn off the plaster like a big girl when you realized you loved Alex.” She fished the flask out again and took a swig, completely brazen this time. “Walk the walk, if you’re going to do something completely bananas like walk away from all that money.”

The rum had warmed me, loosened me up enough that I snorted. “It is a ridiculous amount of money.” I accepted the flask again, tipping my head back to drink even more shamelessly than Amanda’s last glug — Bex gave me a double thumbs up from the altar.

“The money’s very attractive,” Amanda said, accepting the bottle from me and placing it between us on the pew. “And so is he. I could be a wife, I think, even in your god-awful country.”

Up at the altar, the bridal party was getting its last words of instruction before the final walkthrough. He shook the hand of each bridesmaid as she passed to return to the vestibule with Bex and her father. “When you’re coming back in, remember: don’t walk up the aisle like it’s funeral march. This is a wedding. Be happy!”

The ushers didn’t follow, as they wouldn’t be part of the processional, but remained with Jamie and Felix. The vicar stood in front of Julian and Alex and sighed loud enough for even those of us in the cheap seats to gauge the level of his disappointment. “I have no idea what is going on between you two, but for the sake of the bride and her parents, there will be none of it while you are in this church. Save it for the reception.” Alex hung his head; Julian wandered off towards to inspect the brass First World War memorial more closely.

“What’s she like?” Amanda’s voice intruded. “The Los Angeles girl.”

“Not around in LA any longer, that’s all I can say.” That at least was true. “I thought it was going somewhere from the way he talked about it, but you know Jules and I don’t speak that much. May I?” I helped myself to one more measure of liquor before passing it over again. Mmmmm, this rum in church business is lovely, I thought.

“Oh, pooh. You’re no fun.” She stifled a hiccup. “Sorry. Min and I were drinking hot toddies back at the house and hic! Let me know something about her. Is she ginger like us?”

Careful, Melissa. “Julian asked I not speak of her. Out of respect for you.” (Oh, that was a nice little save at the end, if I do say so myself.) “But no, she doesn’t have red hair. And anyway, I’m a strawberry blonde, thanks.”

Amanda snorted. “I have never understood why you insist you’re not ginger when you quite clearly are. Hic! Here, have some more of this before I drink it all.”

As I was tipping the last of the rum in my mouth, the vicar was calling the ushers and best man back to remind everyone of their duties. “Bizarre that Bex wanted it ‘American-style’ with all the ushers and bridesmaids up there with her.” The rum was just starting to peek through her voice, making her plummy vowels sound even more mushy than usual.

“I think she’s trying to maximize the potential for violence,” I observed. “Shit, I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

“RIGHT!” The assembled group at the altar swivelled around at Amanda’s bark of concurrence. “Oh, naff off, all of you. You too, Jamie.” She flicked one hand to dismiss them all. “More rum?”

I was reaching for the second flask she was holding out when Julian slinked in the pew to Amanda’s left and snatched it from her fingers, stuffing it in his jacket pocket. “Poppet.” He kissed her flushed cheek and held a hand to her head, as if to take her temperature. “You seem a little… unwell. Perhaps you’d like to go back to the house?”

From the altar, the vicar boomed, “We have a rehearsal to finish. You’re holding everyone up.”

“I’ll mind her, Jules,” I suggested. He raised an eyebrow. “We’ve been getting along just fine, haven’t we?”

“Oh yes,” Amanda bubbled, rubbing her nose to stifle a sneeze. “I told her she was a selfish cow and she drank half my rum, but she’s all right. Aaaatchoo! Bloody cold in here, Jules. Do hurry up.”

“Go on, she’s fine.” I grinned up at Julian, loving every minute of his certain humiliation — so much for “utterly presentable Amanda.”

“Hmph,” he grunted. “Do keep an eye on her until we’re done.” With a last kiss on her forehead, he turned on his heel and stalked back to the men, his hands uncharacteristically shoved in his trouser pockets. (“Ruins the line of the trousers, and makes you look either too casual or too angry.”)

We listened in silence for a while to the vicar give his last instructions for the men. Alex’s brow knit in concentration as he studiously ignored Julian; Julian repeatedly glanced back at where we were perched. Even from where we sat, I could see the sweat on his forehead. Good.

Amanda whispered, “I don’t recall him being quite so serious all the time. Even the sex seems… I don’t know.” She’d removed her gloves and was twisting the right one distractedly, wringing it clockwise and back again. “Darker.”

“You don’t need to tell me any more.” She really didn’t, not just because I didn’t want to think of my ex-husband’s sex life any more than I was already, given that Fenn was occasionally asking me for tips on how to please him properly (I never responded). “I’m not here to put you off him, really I’m not. But he’s not an easy man. He’s not easy to live with, and he’s not easy to please. And he’s not the boy we knew when we were kids.” I surprised myself by taking her gloveless hand in my own; she surprised me by not snatching it away. “Take your time. Don’t let him force your hand. If it’s meant to be, you’ll find a way. Look at Al and me.”

The ushers were at the back of the church now, going through the paces of seating a very aged grandmother and several aunties. No sign of outward animosity flickered between Alex and Julian as they passed each other. The processional would be under way soon, and this first of the potential snares would have been avoided. I sighed deeply and slipped my hand from Amanda’s to pull my own gloves back on.

“I told him not to fuck this one up, you know.” Amanda stared straight ahead, to where Jamie and Felix were laughing near the altar. “That’s what I whispered to Alex. I saw you watching. He can’t help himself when things are too good but to fuck it up to spite himself.” She paused, and stuck her hand inside her coat to pull out a third flask. “The one Jules took had ginger beer in case we wanted to make Dark and Stormies.”

“Dark and Stormies? In what?” From her Mulberry handbag (last season, but still quite nice), she briefly withdrew a single slim bar glass and a Cartier swizzle stick before stuffing them back in. I couldn’t tell if Amanda was a raging alcoholic, completely batty, kind of a mild genius of chaos, or some combination thereof.

“I was a Girl Guide, you know. I bet you were a Scout. What’s the motto?”

Clasping hands, we shrieked, “Be Prepared!” as Bex entered on her dad’s arm, briefly startling her before she clapped her hands in delight.

Oh, this could be fun. This could be a LOT of fun.