Page 55 of Pictures of Him

‘We’ve got some gorgeous blankets arriving later,’ Andrew says, looking up from his phone. ‘Candy-coloured stripes. Got to keep everyone warm when they’re out on the boats.’

‘You’ve thought of everything,’ Catherine says, her voice wistful. ‘It’s going to be amazing.’

Andrew puts down his phone on the jetty and looks up at her.

‘You are coming, aren’t you?’

Catherine doesn’t meet my eyes.

‘I’m afraid not, it’s a bit complicated.’

We limp through a lunch that Mary has left out in the kitchen, Alexa, Rachel, Catherine and I. Rachel is grimly silent and warding off any attempts at conversation about Max. Today after a night’s sleep she has woken to the full repercussions of yesterday’s catastrophic blowout. Hugo is refusing to take her calls, Max has left her pleading texts unanswered; there is nothing for her to do except travel through the pain, which she attempts to anaesthetise with rosé, the only one to drink wine at lunch, cradling her glass between her palms, taking regular sips as if it is medicine, which for her, for all of us, I suppose it is.

Regret and guilt have made her vicious today and it seems that Catherine will be her target. It’s my fault, I guess, for telling the girls that I plan to drive Catherine home after lunch. I see the look that comes into Rachel’s eyes, a vulture assessing her game, and I know what comes next.

‘I thought your family weren’t expecting you until tomorrow?’

‘That’s true. They’re not.’

‘So basically there’s no reason why you shouldn’t stay tonight.’

Her s’s are thick and slurred so that basically comes out with a distinct ‘sh’. I’m rooting for Catherine, proud of the way she takes a sip of her water and returns Rachel’s gaze, calm on the outside at least.

‘There are plenty of reasons,’ she says.

‘Such as?’

But Catherine doesn’t answer. I’m about to change the subject when Rachel says, ‘Is it something to do with Jack? I noticed you avoiding each other yesterday.’

And there’s this horrifying pause when Catherine’s face starts to crumple and we all witness her battle to keep herself from crying.

‘Catherine doesn’t have to explain herself to you, Rachel,’ I say as calmly as I can. Furious with her, but also shocked by Catherine’s expression. She looks … defeated, I guess.

‘True,’ says Rachel. ‘But maybe she could explain herself to you. She’s never done a very good job of that, has she? Are you just going to run out on him again, is that what’s going to happen? You do know, don’t you, how much you hurt him last time?’

‘For God’s sake, Rach, stop being so bloody horrible. This has nothing to do with you and me.’ Alexa, who abhors any kind of confrontation, says this with a tremor in her voice. She reaches forward and tips an inch of wine into her glass.

‘Well I happen to think it does. He’s our friend, isn’t he? We want him to be happy, don’t we? The thing I don’t get, Lucian,’ and here Rachel’s voice begins to crack, ‘is why when you could have anyone, the only person you seem to care about is the one who doesn’t want you back. Although I suppose I, of all people, should understand what that feels like.’

Alexa says, ‘Oh darling. You’re just tired and overemotional; it’s been a hellish couple of days.’

But Catherine moves her chair away from the table and stands up.

‘You know, Lucian is right. I really don’t need to explain myself to you. But I’m sorry for the pain you’re in today and I get why you’re lashing out at me. I’m an easy target. But you’re wrong if you think I don’t care about Lucian. There hasn’t been a single day in the last fifteen years when I haven’t thought about him, when I haven’t wished things had turned out differently. But they didn’t. And there’s nothing we can do to change that.’

She leaves the room without looking back and I feel sure that she’s crying.

‘Thanks for that,’ I say to Rachel. ‘Well done.’

Rachel buries her face in her hands. Party-ready we are not.

When Catherine walks down the staircase with her bag a little while later, I do take a moment to look, seeing, perhaps for the last time, that extraordinary beauty of hers, which gives me a feeling of vertigo, a sort of head-spinning blood rush and the knowledge that with her, looking will never be enough.

‘Ready?’ I say as she reaches me, all hair and dark eyes and a small, sad smile, and then in a moment of near-comedy I open the front door and Liv bursts through it, colliding with us and the six-foot flower tower.

‘Where on earth do you think you’re going?’ Liv says, looking from me to Catherine and at the overnight bag in my hands. ‘I’ve driven like a maniac to get here.’

‘I’m taking Catherine home.’

---