The dancing continued well into the evening until Louise slipped away with Michelle into the house to help her with her overnight bag in preparation for the short journey to the hotel where she and Andy were to spend their wedding night before leaving for the Caribbean the following day.

  ‘It’s been the most wonderful day of my life,’ sighed Michelle as Louise slipped a satin wrap around her shoulders.

  ‘Just go on being happy,’ whispered Louise as Michelle turned to face her.

  ‘Oh, I will, I will.’ Wordlessly the two friends hugged, the impending situation between Louise and Matt remaining an unspoken issue between them but Michelle obviously only too aware that by the time she returned from honeymoon the countdown to her friends’ divorce could be well under way.

  Moments later they descended the stairs to find Andy waiting for them and the vintage Bentley at the door once more as tearful farewells followed from parents and close family. The word had gone round that the bride and groom were about to leave for people, festooned with streamers, poured out of the marquee, some clutching helium-filled balloons and others running forward to shower Andy and Michelle with handfuls of confetti as they climbed into the back of the car.

  Some enthusiastic person had tied a large black boot and half a dozen cans to the bumper of the car, and as the driver drew away amidst a flurry of goodbyes and shrieks of laughter, a sudden shower of rockets soared into the night sky from the back of the house and burst into an explosion of brightly coloured stars, bringing forth cries of surprise and delight from the onlookers.

  And quite suddenly, as Louise watched and waved, Matt was there beside her with one arm around her shoulders, and in that moment she knew she was content for it to be that way and that she didn’t have the slightest inclination to push him away.

  ‘Well,’ Matt said, as the car finally disappeared out of the drive and onto the main road and people began to turn away, ‘that’s that. Do you think that’s the end of our duties now or are we expected to help with the clearing-up?’

  Louise shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I asked Sue that just now and she said we’ve more than done our bit in looking after Michelle and Andy all day and that the caterers have been employed to clear everything up. She said the disco is going on for at least another hour and that we should enjoy ourselves.’

  Matt didn’t answer and she looked up at him. ‘Matt?’ she said.

  ‘I was wondering,’ he said. ‘Do you think we would be missed if we didn’t go back?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ she replied. ‘I would imagine by now that those who are left wouldn’t have much idea of who else was there.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’ she asked curiously when he didn’t elaborate any further.

  ‘I thought perhaps we also could slip away,’ he said softly at last.

  ‘Like Michelle and Andy, you mean?’

  ‘Well, perhaps not with quite so much ballyhoo, just quietly without anyone noticing, so to speak.’

  ‘I’m sure we could. It has been quite a day—it would be rather nice to relax for a bit.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I was thinking.’

  ‘What did you have in mind?’ She threw him a curious glance, aware at the same time of a sudden tingle of excitement.

  ‘I thought I might take you home.’

  ‘Not after all that champagne,’ she protested. ‘We’ll have to leave our cars here.’

  ‘I didn’t mean by car,’ he replied lightly. ‘I thought perhaps I’d walk you home. But on the other hand, if you’re too tired, I could call a cab.’

  ‘No,’ she said reflectively, ‘a walk sounds rather nice. We’ll probably get some funny looks—you in your morning suit and me in this dress—but who cares?’

  ‘My sentiments exactly,’ he replied. ‘Who cares?’

  Somehow, they managed to slip away without anyone noticing and together they ran hand in hand down the drive to the road, leaving the lighted house behind them and the sounds of revelry pouring out of the marquee.

  It was a soft spring night and beneath a wide starlit sky they strolled through the quiet, almost deserted streets of Franchester, Louise with Matt’s jacket around her shoulders over her exquisite satin beaded dress and with coloured streamers and confetti in her hair, and Matt in his pinstriped trousers, minus his cravat, with the top buttons of his shirt undone and a bottle of champagne in one hand.

  A roving police car pulled up alongside them at one point, one of the two officers inside lowering his window. ‘Is everything all right, sir?’ he asked Matt.

  ‘Yes, Officer,’ Matt replied. ‘Everything is wonderful.’

  ‘In that case, I’ll bid you both goodnight,’ said the policeman with a grin.

  ‘So you’ve enjoyed yourself?’ asked Louise, throwing Matt a sidelong glance as the police car pulled away from the kerb and went on its way into the night.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Matt replied. ‘I’ve had a marvellous time. Haven’t you?’ He looked down at her.

  ‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘It’s been great.’ In silence they walked past Angelo’s, in darkness tonight, its shutters closed, and then they reached the front door of the middle house of the terrace, the one that was painted pink.

  Louise wasn’t quite sure what would happen next, but at the same time, somehow, she had a pretty good idea because throughout the day, from the very moment that Matt had turned from the altar and caught sight of her, the tension had been growing between them, building steadily towards this very moment.

  With hands that were shaking slightly she inserted her key in the lock. ‘Will you…will you come in?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice as light as possible.

  ‘Why not?’ he said with a little sigh. ‘After all, it would be a pity to waste this champagne.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘I’M NOT SURE that should have happened,’ said Louise, stretching luxuriously.

  ‘Why not?’ Propping himself on one elbow, Matt looked down at her where she lay against the pillows of the large double bed they had once shared and which she hadn’t slept in since he had left. ‘We are still married after all.’

  ‘I know, but the way I understand it, we have to convince a judge that our marriage has irretrievably broken down—I’m not sure what we just did constitutes that.’

  ‘It was good, though, wasn’t it?’ He grinned at her and began winding a strand of her hair round his finger.

  ‘Yes, Matt,’ she admitted, knowing because he knew her so well that to lie or to argue would be pointless, ‘it was good.’

  ‘But, then, it always was,’ he said lightly. ‘There never was any problem with that.’

  It was true, she thought as briefly she closed her eyes, sex always had been wonderful. At least, it had been to start with, until things between them had become impossible. And it had been good last night following the wonderful day they had shared. It was early morning now and beyond the window she could hear the birds singing and the intermittent call of the ducks on the river below.

  At the foot of the bed her dress was draped over a chair placed there the night before by Matt who had then gone on to slowly remove first her stockings, then unfasten one by one the hooks of the camisole she had worn under her dress. His own clothes were strewn around the room, hurriedly discarded as their need for each other had finally overwhelmed them both.

  Their lovemaking had been tumultuous, with a kind of desperation about it but at the same time with a feeling of inevitability, almost of coming home, which had left Louise thoroughly confused. Here they were on the very brink of divorce yet able to still enjoy such wonderful sex—it made no sense, no sense at all. Opening her eyes, she stole a glance at Matt and was disconcerted to see a look of amusement on his face.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’ she said indignantly.

  ‘I wasn’t laughing, not really, I was just thinking about Michelle’s mum when she realised her seating plan had been messed up.’

  ‘So, what did you say to her?’ asked Louise curiously.

  ‘You mean after I’d told her she could be mistaken for Michelle’s sister?’ He grinned. ‘Well, I confessed to having done it,’ he admitted, ‘then I told her that I was certain she wouldn’t want to be held responsible for keeping a man apart from his wife. She didn’t really have any choice after that.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ said Louise slowly, ‘but presumably Michelle would have told her we’re about to divorce. She probably now thinks she’s responsible for bringing about a reconciliation.’

  ‘Well, if it makes her happy to think that,’ said Matt with a shrug.

  For a moment Louise thought he was going to say that maybe they shouldn’t disappoint her, but he didn’t.

  ‘I have to get up,’ she said after a while.

  ‘Do you? Why?’ It was Matt’s turn to sound disappointed.

  ‘I have things to do.’

  He sighed. ‘Yes, I guess I do as well. But…five more minutes wouldn’t hurt…’ As he spoke his arm crept around her waist.

  ‘No, Matt,’ she said firmly, ‘I’m going to run a bath.’ Slipping out of bed and into a robe, Louise was suddenly aware of her nakedness and hurried to the bathroom, knowing full well what would happen if she stayed and not knowing quite how much more her emotions could cope with.

  Turning the bath taps on full, she added a generous amount of scented bath oil and when the bath was half-full and steam was filling the bathroom she discarded her robe and stepped into the foaming water. With a sigh she slid down into the bubbles and, leaning her head back, relaxed and closed her eyes.

  If she was honest, the previous day had been one of the happiest of her life, and in spite of the fact that it had been Michelle’s and Andy’s day, because Matt had been at her side throughout it all it had almost been as if they had been reliving their own wedding day but at the same time adding to it all the bits they had missed out on—the church ceremony, the music, the flowers, the reception and the dancing. Not, of course, that all those things, if they had done them, would have made the slightest difference to the way things had turned out between them…but it did no harm to fantasize…

  ‘Penny for them?’

  Louise’s eyes snapped open. Matt, clad only in a pair of briefs, had come into the bathroom and was casually perched on the side of the bath, in just the way he’d done when they’d first been married. ‘What do you mean?’ she frowned.

  ‘Your thoughts,’ he said in the same light tone. ‘You appeared to be daydreaming.’

  ‘Yes, I was,’ she said slowly.

  ‘So, are you going to tell me? Come on,’ he said, picking up a sponge, ‘lean forward and I’ll wash your back.’

  ‘I was thinking about yesterday,’ she said as she found herself obeying him, leaning forward then responding to the firm touch of his hands as he soaped her back.

  ‘What about yesterday?’

  ‘About how wonderful it all was…and yet how different it was to…to our day…’ There, she’d said it now, and as she did so the sureness of Matt’s touch faltered for a fraction of a second. It would have been imperceptible to anyone but Louise, who was his wife, who knew what his reaction would be and who knew he wouldn’t have expected her to say that.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed softly, ‘it was different but the intentions and the sentiments surely were the same.’

  ‘Yes, I guess.’ She raised her shoulders. ‘Let’s just hope they have more luck than we did.’

  ‘You think it’s all down to luck?’ he said quietly.

  ‘No, of course not, not all of it, but to whatever that magic ingredient it is that makes it a success,’ she said, shuddering with delight as he squeezed warm water over her back and shoulders. And still he didn’t go, staying there while she finished her bath then holding a towel for her when she stepped out, enfolding her in its fluffy depths as if it was the most natural thing in the world that he should be there to do so.

  He continued to hold her close for a while until at last with a sigh he released her.

  ‘I’ll have a shower,’ he said almost reluctantly, as if some spell had been re-created between them in the last twenty-four hours and he didn’t want to be the one to break it.

  ‘And I’ll go and fix us some breakfast,’ she replied faintly, knowing that if they stayed there like that, with her enfolded in his arms, for a moment longer she would have given in and they would have gone straight back to bed.

  Matt left after breakfast, going back to his rooms at the hospital to pack up his hire suit and then to keep a prearranged lunch date with Neil Richardson and his wife Izzy.

  ‘I don’t really want to go,’ he’d said as he’d helped himself to more toast liberally spreading it with marmalade, ‘but I think they feel sorry for me. Being on my own and all that. What will you do today?’ he’d added, looking up, the toast poised halfway to his mouth.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about me,’ she’d replied, ‘I’ve got loads to do, absolutely loads.’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s all right, then,’ he’d said with a little shrug.

  The trouble was, it wasn’t true. Louise didn’t really have very much to do at all and if she was honest, after the excitement of the previous day—and night—the day ahead threatened to be something of an anticlimax. And after Matt had gone and she was alone she was reluctantly forced to admit that, really, she would have liked nothing better than for them to spend the day together.

  ‘That is wonderful, Pauline. Look, Beth has put on four ounces.’ It was three days after the wedding and Louise had just come onto the ward to watch while the babies were being weighed. It was always a tense moment for any parents who were present while they waited to see whether their son or daughter had made progress since the last time they had been weighed.

  ‘So what does that make her now?’ Eagerly Pauline leaned forward.

  ‘She’s just a fraction under four pounds,’ replied Nicky, as she gently supported Beth in the sling they used to weigh the babies.

  ‘That’s good,’ said Pauline slowly, ‘but there’s still a way to go before she reaches five pounds.’

  ‘But just think how far she’s come,’ said Louise. ‘She was a little scrap of a thing when she first came to us.’

  ‘I know,’ said Pauline, her eyes misting over at the memory. ‘Malcolm still can’t get over how tiny she was—he says her little feet were no bigger than the feet on our Lucy’s dolls.’

  ‘Louise, have you got a minute?’ Louise looked up and saw that Roma had come into the ward.

  ‘Yes, Roma, what is it?’ she said.

  ‘Mike Collard is in your office. He’d like a word with you.’

  ‘Thanks, Roma, I’ll come and see him now. Do you know what it’s about?’

  ‘No.’ Roma shook her head. ‘But I’ve put the kettle on—he’ll be wanting his cup of tea.’

  ‘Good thinking, Roma,’ said Louise with a chuckle.

  She found the chaplain in her office, looking out of the window at the mass of narcissi and deep purple polyanthus in the flower-beds outside.

  ‘Mike, hello,’ she said, coming right into the room and shutting the door behind her.

  ‘Hello, Louise.’ He turned sharply. ‘I was just admiring the flowers.’

  ‘There’re lovely, aren’t they? They’ve been particularly good this year,’ she agreed. ‘How are you, Mike?’

  ‘Not so bad,’ he said. ‘A few aches and pains, but I mustn’t grumble. There are a lot who are worse off than me.’

  ‘You wanted to see me, I believe,’ said Louise. ‘Roma’s put the kettle on for tea.’

  ‘That sounds the best idea I’ve heard all day.’ Mike’s blue eyes twinkled. ‘I’ve had a call, Louise,’ he went on, growing serious again, ‘from a couple whose baby was on this unit two years ago.’

  ‘Before my time, then,’ said Louise with a frown.

  ‘Yes, it would be,’ Mike agreed. ‘Unfortunately their little one was one of those who didn’t make it. I’m told he was just too small and he died when he was only two days old. Anyway, today is the anniversary of that day and his parents rang me to ask if they could come into the unit to view the book of remembrance.’

  ‘Of course they can,’ said Louise. ‘Did they say what time?’

  ‘Well, I said I would check with you first. They suggested one-thirty, and they also want me to come along and say a prayer with them.’

  ‘One-thirty will be absolutely fine,’ said Louise, glancing up as Roma suddenly tapped on the door and entered the room, bearing a tray of tea.

  A little later, as Louise was showing Mike out of the unit, she met Rosie, who was coming in.

  ‘They said I could go today,’ said Rosie warily.

  ‘Well, that’s marvellous,’ replied Louise.

  ‘I don’t want to leave Skye,’ muttered Rosie, as she followed Louise to the sluice. She needed no reminders to scrub her hands these days before entering the ward.

  ‘I know,’ said Louise gently. ‘Where will you be going?’

  ‘Mum has found a flat and she says she’s going to stay there with me until Skye is ready to leave hospital. Dad will have to go home because of his job but he’ll come over at weekends.’

  ‘Well, I think that sounds a marvellous solution,’ said Louise. Throwing Rosie a keen glance, she added, ‘Don’t you, Rosie?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess,’ Rosie muttered, ‘just as long as they don’t keep on. They will,’ she said when she caught sight of Louise’s expression, ‘just like they used to when I was at home. About everything—what I wore, where I went, who I saw, nagging all the time. And now I’ve got Skye it’ll be worse—they’ll go on about her as well. Is she too hot, or too cold? They’ll probably drive me silly in the end.’

 

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