Happily Ever After

‘Oh,’ said Elle. ‘Yes!’

‘Anyway, we want to get married in the States, so we get the chance to go back and see our friends and family,’ said Melissa. ‘My father has a place in upstate New York. It’s near Woodstock, it’s got beautiful gardens, right next to an old coaching inn. We’ll put a rose bower up at the bottom of the lawn, by the stream, and we’ll have the ceremony there. It’s very romantic.’

Elle’s mother sat back against the seat. ‘Oh.’

‘“Oh”?’ said Rhodes, turning to her aggressively. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘Don’t be rude to her,’ Elle was quick to defend. She hated the way Rhodes would side with Dad, act like that to Mum. They were so similar, they looked the same; so unapproachable, convinced of their own rightness, with a definite place in the world, never wrong.

Mandana was twisting her small, shiny paper napkin into a spiral between her fingers. Her big brown eyes were sunken smudges in her pale face.

Elle’s father crossed his arms and turned to Mandana. ‘Go on. Tell them.’ It was the first time he’d directly addressed his ex-wife since Elle had arrived.

‘Tell us what?’ Melissa smiled.

Elle felt an oiling trickle of discomfort, like sweat rolling down the back of her neck. Something was wrong. She didn’t know what. The alcohol rippled on her empty stomach. This was so unnatural, all of it, the four of them were never together as adults, and these words like family, engagement, bridesmaid, romantic – the Bee family didn’t use them. They didn’t do this kind of stuff.

Mandana swallowed. ‘I – oh, God. Love – Rhodes – look. I – can’t come.’

‘What?’ Rhodes said sharply. ‘What do you mean, you can’t come?’ John sat back against the banquette. ‘Go on. Tell them, then,’ he said, with something like satisfaction in his voice.

‘I can’t come … if the wedding’s … in …’ Mandana looked up, her eyes flicking from her ex-husband to her son, her thin fingers wrestling in her lap. She cleared her throat. ‘I can’t come if the wedding’s in the States. I’m not allowed back there.’

Melissa’s eyes grew huge and tendons appeared on the sides of her neck. She made a sound in her throat. ‘Mmm?’

Mandana glanced imploringly at her ex-husband. ‘Ah – well, when I was – when I was twenty-five, I was in California. In Haight-Ashbury. I got – ah.’ Her voice was so soft Elle could hardly hear her. ‘I was arrested. For dealing … for dealing pot. Just pot, a tiny bit, nothing else,’ she said, pleading. ‘I was convicted. Given a fine. I got a record. But my visa had expired too, and both those things together mean – well, I’m not allowed back in the country.’

There was a long silence.

‘I’m sorry – what?’ Rhodes said. His voice was light. ‘You what?’

Mandana didn’t say anything.

‘Mum, is that true?’ Elle asked, disbelieving. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

‘She didn’t ever bother to tell me,’ John said.

‘John, don’t,’ Mandana said, a flicker of impatience in her voice, like the furious, rollicking Mandana of old, not this timid woman terrified of making a mistake. ‘Just don’t.’

‘What, I’m the one who shouldn’t say anything?’ Elle’s father didn’t even look at her mother. ‘I always wanted you to know this, you two,’ he said, looking from Elle to Rhodes. ‘Now you understand why she didn’t come to Disney World. I didn’t find out until we actually arrived at the airport.’

The Disney World holiday. Instantly, Elle’s palms started sweating at the memory. The journey to the airport, both parents in a terrible mood, but Mandana worse than usual. She’d be fine for months, then suddenly she’d go mad, and this was one of those days. Queuing up to go through, Elle holding her Dumbo toy, making him fly along the fabric tape separating the queues. Then something happening, and Mandana screaming at John, him shouting back, in front of everyone, but they didn’t care: that was how it was with them. Rhodes and Elle, eleven and eight respectively, had stood to one side, silently watching and holding each other’s hand, not understanding how this holiday – which was basically the best thing that had ever happened to them, which their dad had booked as a surprise and only told them about a week ago – was now, suddenly, going so horribly wrong.

Their mum had left, not even said bye to them. John fussed with passports and pieces of paper, as if nothing had happened. Elle had watched her mother walk away, her shoulders hunched, head bowed, and the further away she’d got the faster she’d walked, as if she was glad to be free, till she was almost running down the long grey terminal building, no one else paying any attention. Elle gazed at her till suddenly she turned a corner and was gone.

‘Where’s Mummy?’ Elle had asked, as they were sitting in Wimpy a little later, eating burgers and chips, trying to recapture the excitement they’d had earlier.

‘She’s not coming. There was something wrong with her passport,’ John had said, and they’d left it at that, and the holiday had been great – children are selfish, it was Disney World, after all – but when they’d got back home a week later, it had been bad. Very bad, because Mum wasn’t good on her own. Curtains closed, a meaty, musty smell through the cottage, everything in a mess, Mum most of all, till she saw them and burst into tears. That was the first time Elle realised she drank too much. Not like Emily from Brownies’ mum who had three sherries and then started singing music hall songs. That was sort of funny. Different from that. This wasn’t funny. But she and Rhodes could boast about their Disney World holiday at school and things went back to normal, sort of, until the next time, and the time after that for a few years more, and then the holiday in Skye, which somehow was the final tipping point.

Elle glanced at Rhodes, wondering if he was thinking the same as she was. But he was watching their mother, and the look on his face was enough.

‘I’m sorry,’ Mandana said eventually. She looked up, her eyes full of tears, her cheeks hollow. ‘I am so awfully sorry. It was a stupid mistake when I was young. I’ve paid for it, but it’s – it’s so awful that you’re suffering too. Of course, you must have the wedding where you want. I’ll be so happy for you, wherever you do it.’

Rhodes spread his fingers out on his knees. ‘That’s not the point, is it?’ He looked at his mother. ‘How will it look, Mum? You’re always going on about that bloody San Francisco trip like it was so pure and free and everything else is crap by comparison and it’s bollocks. You’re full of shit.’

‘Rhodes,’ their dad said sharply. ‘That’s enough.’

‘Rhodes, no,’ Melissa said. She gave a fixed smile, her bottom lip pushing her top lip up, her cheeks puffed out. ‘We may well relocate to London in any case. Perhaps we should think about having the wedding here.’

‘Or in a castle in Ireland like Posh and Becks,’ Elle said, in a misplaced attempt to lighten the mood. The four of them looked at her oddly. The drinks arrived, the waiter putting them gingerly down one by one, and there was complete silence at the table.

‘Well, it would be wonderful if it was, if it was, if it was here.’ Mandana’s stuttering voice was still barely audible. ‘I am so sorry. For everything.’ She stared at her orange juice.

‘No,’ Melissa said suddenly, putting her hand on Mandana’s knee. She swallowed. ‘Um – it’s no problem. It’s good we found out now, so we can do something about it. It’s going to be great. If it’s in the UK, I’ll need Elle’s help even more. Thank goodness!’

Mandana nodded gratefully and Melissa smiled at her, and Elle found herself warming to her, though she didn’t think this was at all how Melissa had expected the announcement to turn out. She picked up her Martini, and drank half of it in a swift gulp. She’d known it was going to be a long night, but it already was.

JUST BEFORE NINE Elle left the Savoy and, dodging the rain and the churning buses, crossed the Strand. She passed the entrance to Lion Books and remembered, as she always did here, that terrible interview with Jenna Taylor where all she’d been able to say was, ‘I’m passionate about reading … I love books, I love them.’ She’d seen Jenna at a party about a year after she’d started at Bluebird and, gauchely, bounced up to her and said hello, but Jenna hadn’t recognised her. At least, she’d pretended not to. Elle had been in publishing for over three years now, and she knew enough to know that bouncing up to people and saying hello was not what you did. Sometimes she missed being gauche, though. She felt as if she’d grown up, but not necessarily learned anything.

Elle hurried up Bedford Street, past the big windows of the Garrick where you could see the walls lined with identical paintings of old white men, then past the diamond-leaded, brightly coloured panes of the Ivy. In the American diner on the corner of Cambridge Circus they were celebrating the US election with a special red, white and blue menu, and different seating areas saying ‘Gore’ or ‘Bush’. When she got to Dean Street, she pushed open a nondescript black door and went inside.

‘Hi,’ she said uncertainly to the man behind the black reception desk. ‘I’m here for the Eyre and Alcock party?’

‘Great,’ he said. ‘Sign here. It’s upstairs, to the back. The TV’s on but the announcement hasn’t been made yet.’

‘Thanks,’ Elle said. She gave him her coat and glanced in the mirror. Her hair wasn’t too wet, her black lace choker was still in place, her mascara hadn’t run. She cleared her throat. For the second time that night, she wished she wasn’t nervous, and again, she didn’t know why, she should be used to it all by now.

This was what you were supposed to do if you were in publishing, wasn’t it? Go to cool Booker Prize parties at media hotspots, hang out at Babington House, get a table at Nobu? As she climbed the narrow stairs, from the main room below she could hear guffaws of laughter, a piano playing. Who was in there? Keith Allen and Meg Mathews? Chris Evans and Blur? On the first floor there were two doors. Both had signs, printed on A4 paper and stuck to the door with sellotape. The first said:

BOOKER PRIZE PARTY: PRIVATE

The second:

Publishing Party: Private

Feeling a bit like Alice in Wonderland, Elle pushed the first door open, and went in.

The room was full of people, and everyone seemed to have their backs to her. They were all talking intently, and in the corner was a smallish TV with the Booker Prize ceremony transmitted live from the Guildhall. Elle helped herself to a glass of wine, looking around for someone she knew and trying not to feel like a spare part. She caught sight of a flash of dark blonde hair, disappearing between two suits. ‘Libby!’ she cried, and the hair turned around.

‘Oh, Elle. There you are!’ Libby embraced her enthusiastically, her face breaking into a big smile. ‘I thought you might not come.’

Elle smelt Anaïs Anaïs and cigarettes, that familiar Libby smell, and closed her eyes briefly, it was so powerful. ‘I had a shocker—’

‘Hold on,’ said Libby immediately. ‘I’m just getting a drink for Jamie. I won’t be a sec.’

She disappeared into the throng. Elle took another large sip of her wine, and remembered she was two Martinis down already. But she didn’t care, to be honest. She was happy just to be out of the Savoy. She couldn’t even begin to process how strange the earlier part of the evening had been. The incongruous memory of the four of them around the table – five, now, of course five. Melissa was going to be part of her family. Elle smiled to herself: how could you join something that didn’t exist? She knew that at some point she had to talk to her mother. Go and see her, maybe this weekend? She knew she was free. These days, Elle was always free on the weekends, just in case.

Libby had totally disappeared. Picking a handful of nuts from a passing waiter, Elle looked around the crowded, noisy room. ‘Well, my money’s on Atwood,’ she heard someone behind her say. ‘But I saw Simon on Saturday at Mark’s, and though he was keeping his cards pretty close to his chest I got the feeling that Passengers might just steal it.’