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Chapter Seven

Rose

Rose couldn’t believe it. Steve Marsden. Here, of all places! And now, on Wendy’s hen night. What were the chances? And running The Retreat? Rose remembered he had studied Physical Education or something, at Warwick; he was often wandering round in a tracksuit, his hands in his pockets, and he was always in the gym. But he’d moved Down Under decades ago! He was someone they thought they’d never see again.

Rose leant back in her chair and exhaled. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘Are you sure it’s him?’

‘You’ll see for yourself in a minute,’ said Sal. ‘We’ll go via the lobby to the bar. Grey suit, pink shirt – it’s definitely him.’ She grabbed the menu from the centre of the table; inside was a tall thin brochure about The Retreat which she pulled out. ‘And there, look!’ She jabbed at the small print on the back page. ‘“Proprietor: S. Marsden”. We’re screwed.’

JoJo went white. ‘Oh God,’ she muttered, putting her head in her hands. ‘So not only did I book us on the wrong package, but I also inadvertently failed to notice that Wendy’s bloody Lost Love is the bloody owner of her bloody hen weekend! How could I have got it so wrong,’ she groaned. ‘This is a disaster!’

‘How could you have possibly known?’ consoled Rose, gently rubbing the back of one of JoJo’s hands. ‘It’s not something you double-check, is it? If the ex of the bride owns the hen venue! And the chance of that being the case must be one in a hundred million or something. None of us could ever have predicted this! You’re so not to blame, JoJo.’

‘I feel like it,’ moaned JoJo. ‘I feel to blame for everything.’

‘It’s just a hideous coincidence,’ reassured Sal. ‘One of those awful things. So stop that right now, JoJo.’ She stood up. ‘Come on, people, we need to go! We need absolute, one hundred per cent confirmation.’

They hurried from the restaurant, clutching each other’s arms and almost giggling in a near-frenzy of horrified anticipation. Would it really be him, Wendy’s Lost Love? wondered Rose. And if it was, what on earth were they going to do about it?

They headed for the lobby. As they rounded a marble pillar near the entrance, Rose bumped smack bang into a man coming in the opposite direction.

‘Oh, so sorry!’ she cried, mortified. She literally headbutted his chest. Her nose collided with soft, petrol blue jersey and expensive aftershave and she ricocheted backwards like an astonished skittle.

‘No, my fault,’ said a deep voice and Rose looked up, panicked, completely forgetting what Sal had said about the grey suit and the pink shirt and expecting to see the forty-something version of Steve Marsden standing there. But it wasn’t him; Steve Marsden had – or used to have – brown, curly-ish hair: this man was blond, very very blond, his hair swept back from his face. He also had a wide mouth, amused-looking lips and piercing blue eyes. ‘I should look where I’m going.’

‘Me too,’ stuttered Rose, gazing up at those dazzling blue eyes and feeling quite weak in their glare. ‘I have form for being a clumsy twit. I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s quite all right, I quite like clumsy twits,’ he replied. ‘After you.’ And he stepped back in order to give them room to pass. He was fit, Rose decided, really fit. He was tall and muscular and had amazing biceps; she could see them, saying hello to her, from the rolled-up sleeves of his polo top. He smiled at her, waiting, and for a couple of seconds Rose didn’t move, she just looked, until JoJo poked her in the ribs and Sal did a less than subtle cough.

‘Sorry!’ Rose said again, looking up at him as they scuttled past. And ‘Blimey!’ she uttered, once they were clear.

‘I know!’ said JoJo.

‘What a hunk,’ said Sal. ‘A very fine specimen.’ They all turned back and admired his rear view, as he walked out of the lobby and towards the lifts. ‘Now, down to business,’ she said, whispering like a highly skilled member of MI5. ‘Without making it too obvious, look over at reception.’

They looked.

‘Don’t make it obvious!’ chided Sal.

Rose lowered her hand from her forehead, where she’d been using it as a kind of search visor; she couldn’t see well at long distances without her glasses.

‘Sorry,’ she said.

She looked again. Behind reception was a man in a grey suit, pink shirt. He was standing up but leaning over a computer screen, his head lowered. Heidi appeared from the office behind and he looked up to say something to her. Oh God, it was definitely him! Steve Marsden. His hair was greying now; his face a little crinkly, from what she could see, at this distance, but it was him all right.

‘It’s him,’ said JoJo, from behind her.

‘I’m afraid so,’ replied Rose and her heart sank. JoJo was right: what an absolute disaster!

Steve and Wendy had been inseparable at university. They’d dated for a year and had the easiest, laziest relationship going. Literally, the laziest. They drank all night, they stayed in bed all day – lectures permitting, they ambled off to pub lunches, they cooked Pot Noodles and ate them in front of the telly; the pair of them put on a stone each when they were together, like some happy, relaxed couples do. And they were always together. The girls still saw a lot of Wendy, of course they did, but Steve was usually there too, his hands in his pockets, his ‘Ents Crew’ T-shirt on his back and a beer in his hand. He and Wendy were very well matched, everyone said so; they were always laughing, they were always snogging – it was easy, Wendy always said. Just such a great, easy relationship, and they adored each other, mostly. Shame Steve had dropped a massive bombshell onto Easy Street halfway through the third year when he’d announced he was moving to Australia, with his parents.

‘But you don’t have to go with them!’ Wendy had wailed at him, more than once and often right in the middle of the Students’ Union, pissed-up students all around them. ‘You’re a grown up! You can just stay here.’

‘I want to go,’ Steve had said, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders raised in a far too casual shrug. ‘It’s such a great life out there. I’m going to do my finals and then I’m off. Sorry, Wendy.’

‘But what about me?’ Wendy had cried, her red curls wobbling above an outfit of bright blue drainpipes, a hot pink Morrissey t-shirt and a pair of emerald DMs. ‘What about us?’

‘I love you, Hammy,’ he would say (Wendy Elizabeth Ham was her full name and Steve had lots of ham-related nicknames for her: Hammy, Hamster, Hambelina . . .), taking one hand out of a pocket to try to wipe away her tears, ‘but it was never going to be for ever. We’re only twenty years old. This is not it, for either of us.’

‘It is for me! Don’t go? Please just don’t go!’

But he was going, and in the end Wendy stubbornly split up with him, after a few weeks of wailing and pleading, saying it was easier to make a clean break there and then when it clearly wasn’t; she spent the remainder of the Third Year mooning after him and crying in the Union when she saw him kissing other girls, and then, disastrously, she slept with him at the end of the summer term, after the Big Ball. A big ball’s up, more like, Sal had remarked at the time, as Wendy was an absolute mess when she and Steve had finally said goodbye, one Saturday morning in June, with her dad waiting outside Halls with all her stuff packed in the car, ready to go home for good. She had cried for weeks. She was utterly devastated. She would never set eyes on him again.

Until now.

‘We can’t let her see him,’ insisted Sal, as they walked slowly to the bar. ‘You know what she was like over him.’

‘It might be all right,’ said Rose, unconvinced. ‘It was over twenty years ago.’ She knew it wouldn’t be; anyone who had known Wendy at that time would have seen how much Steve Marsden meant to her. He was everything to Wendy, once upon a time.

‘Of course it won’t be!’ said Sal. ‘It took her about four years to get over him, didn’t it? She didn’t date anyone again until that biologist with the dodgy shoes.’

‘It was only you who thought his shoes were dodgy,’ said JoJo. ‘Wendy quite liked them, but I agree – it took her years to get over him and years to find someone she might feel the same way about. She’s getting married next Saturday. We really don’t want Steve Marsden throwing a spanner in the works at this late stage. Especially when Wendy seems to have some . . . well . . . doubts about Frederick – not that she doesn’t love him, but that she thinks he’s too good for her, that he’s too posh to be with her, somehow.’

‘I’m a little concerned, too,’ admitted Sal, ‘about how she said it’s been such a whirlwind they might not know each other properly, and whether she’ll fit in with his family . . . especially now she’s met Tamsin.’

‘So what do we do?’ asked Rose. ‘We can’t blindfold Wendy to stop her clapping eyes on Steve. We can’t keep shoving her through doors like we’re in a West End farce!’

‘We’ll just have to do our best,’ said Sal. ‘If we spot him, we distract her. If he appears on our radar, we walk the other way. He might not even be around much, if he owns the place.’

‘True,’ said JoJo. Then, ‘Oh God,’ she muttered, stopping in her tracks. They had reached the entrance to the bar. Rose could just about make out Wendy and Tamsin at the far end, sitting on a plush sofa. ‘I’ve just had another horrifying thought. You know what Wendy was saying about Frederick, how they’re chalk and cheese, essentially . . . Well, she and Steve were chalk and chalk. Remember they kept saying they had an affinity because they’d both gone to state school and they both liked revolting food like pies from a tin and Ginsters pasties?’

‘Oh, that bloody affinity!’ exclaimed Sal. ‘And all that pastry – used to drive me nuts! Yes, I remember. They used to stand on a figurative soap box together, drinking pints of cider and black, and blather on about how marvellous the comprehensive system was. Good God!’ She tucked a short strand of hair contemplatively behind one ear. ‘All the more reason, then, that we try to keep them apart. We don’t want her comparing the two, starting to think Frederick’s not the man for her, if she already feels insecure about him. We’ve met him – he’s perfect