chapter 20, part 2

The beach was full of thin university students playing Frisbee in bikinis. The bars were full of well-dressed men and mini-dressed women with long legs and no interest either in or to Ben. His brother's house continued in its ordered chaos; Bill continued his life of countryside luxury in the attic and the overgrown garden; Ben cuddled his nieces and nephews, drew haphazard still lifes of fruit and portraits of sleeping babies, and wished he had this life with Tessa.

He texted her. Once. Just a slip when he'd had too much wine with Shawna. A simple Hope you're okay. He didn't hear back. He didn't need to. It wouldn't have helped.

She was still so clear in his head. Her eyes still so exactly drawn on his memory, dark and vivid. At the beginning, when she slipped by his office, little belly wobbling beneath the tight waistband of her shirt. The not-yet-plump fingers held up in a just-a-minute pose. When she sat across from him at his desk with a bag of donuts in her lap, unwrapping them like a gift as her breasts and belly pushed out against the ever-tighter buttons of her blouse.

It was a gift she'd given him, really. Her friendship. Even if just for a while. He had to be happy with it.

He didn't have a choice.

Her wedding day came. Ben hugged his nieces and nephews and his brother drove him to the train station, and Roger patted him too hard on the shoulder and told him to ring when he got home so they knew he was okay. They'd keep his room for him, just in case he changed his mind.

Ben was starting to think Roger and Shawna were right. London was dull but it had been home. Now, after weeks in Wales, it seemed both sullen and foreign, the roadworks turning the walk from the train to the flat into an unfamiliar maze. It was cool and drizzly. It seemed a dismal day for a wedding.

It was nearly dark by the time he pushed in to his flat. _She'll be married by now,_ Ben thought, turning on the lights to the familiarly sparse lounge. Sitting at the head table too fat for her mother's dress, while her twatgibbon of a husband tries to hand-feed her an entire cake in front of her guests. _I should have RSVP'd at least. Let her know I wouldn't be there. I should have been there to ask her to rethink. Preferably beforehand. Before she got married. A long time before._

Bill scratched at the carrier, wanting out. Ben sat him on the kitchen floor and eased open the door.

'There you go, buddy,' he said.

Bill stepped out hesitantly, then waddled off down the corridor.

The doorbell rang. The neighbour, probably, who was always paid strict attention to Ben's comings and goings so she knew when to complain that his telly was on too loud.

Ben sighed, stood upright, stretched his aching back. Walked the few steps to the door and tugged it open.

Only to find Tessa on the other side: silent, pink-faced, and looking very much like she would like to come in.