Page 32 of The Wedding Game

I’m scrolling through my social media while I wait for the train to come in, when Chris messages me a simpleHi. My heart rises with its usual excitement when this happens – and then falls all at the same time, when I remember I have to disentangle myself from him. The guilt is only going to gnaw away at me, if I don’t. I won’t reply immediately. I’ve got a long journey, so I’ll sit on this message for a bit and work out how to make it clear that we shouldn’t be talking as much as we are. I wonder about the possibility of keeping Chris as a friend. We both know our messaging isn’t taking us in any particular direction. But it’s laced with somethingadditional.

I put my case into the overhead rack after I’ve boarded.With the weather changing from summer into autumn, I’ve brought T-shirts and jeans, cute dresses with jumpers, trainers, some nice shoes, just in case; some very lovely underwear and, of course, my older-than-old Hunter wellies, because I’m going to a farm and the novelty of this is beyond compare. I tried them on last night with a floaty white dress and felt I’d nailed that Glastonbury look – not that I’ve ever been. Maybe I should. Maybe I should take a leaf out of Chris’s book and take myself on a date to Glastonbury. I look out of the window while we’re still in the station and smile at that thought. I hope, with all of these outfits, that I will at least be able to conjure up a couple of suitable looks for anything Josh has planned this weekend.

After an hour’s delay, when the train sat outside somewhere called Didcot Parkway for what felt like for ever, the sun started going down and the sky darkened to a deepening shade of blue, I finally arrive at Chippenham and follow Josh’s instructions out to the car park, where he’s standing by an army-green Land Rover. Of course he is.

The lights of the car park illuminate him and he looks just as he always does: button-down shirt, dark chinos, but with the addition of a gilet and some Timberland boots. It’s colder down here than it was in London.

Josh smiles when he sees me. I thought I’d look out of place here, in my receptionist work clothes, but lots of people got off the train similarly dressed. Somerset is clearly a weekend hotspot and I had fun on the train trying to work out, from people’s conversations and luggage, who might have a weekend house nearby.

‘Hi,’ Josh says with a wide smile, stepping forward to take my case. He bends down to kiss me and it’s long and deep. That chemistry from last weekend hasn’t disappeared. ‘I’m really pleased you came all the way down here, after a long day at work,’ he goes on. ‘Thanks for making the journey.’

‘It’s obscenely long,’ I joke while getting into the car’s passenger side. ‘I can’t believe you did that back-and-forth four times for me.’

‘I didn’t have an hour’s delay, though, so you had it worse. Sorry.’

‘It was worth it,’ I reply and he looks pleased as he starts the ignition and we leave the car park. ‘I’m really excited,’ I confess.

‘Me too,’ Josh says, grinning as we begin driving away from the station and out towards the countryside. ‘It’s a bit of a drive now, I’m afraid, so settle in. I can’t believe you’re here.’

‘Staying in London, or visiting you in Somerset? Tough call. So what are we doing first?’ I ask, and he tells me that he’s got dinner cooking in the Aga already and he’s brought some wine and nibbles to get us started.

‘And then maybe … I dunno; board games or—’

‘Board games?’ I cut in. ‘Is it Christmas?’

He shrugs apologetically. ‘I don’t know how to entertain a woman at my house. I’ve never had a woman back to mine before.’

I turn to him in disbelief. ‘You’ve never had a woman back to your house? What – ever?’

Josh shakes his head, flicks the indicator and we turn into a country lane.

‘How …?’

‘It’s just not happened.’

‘How old are you, Josh?’

‘Thirty-two.’

My jaw drops, not at his age, but because he’s reached thirty-two years of age and has never had a woman back to his house. I’m only a little over thirty, but I wasn’t expecting Josh also to beoverthirty and besoinexperienced with women.

‘Like I said, I’m so busy working that meeting women is difficult.’ And then he clarifies. ‘I’d like to point out that I have put it about a bit over the years. Just … when my parents lived here, I couldn’t exactly bring someone home for a casual thing. So I never did.’

OK. Phew! That makesslightlymore sense. I suppose, if I think about it, I don’t bring men back to the flat I share with Scarlet all that often. And I certainly didn’t bring any home when I lived with my folks. I settle back into my seat as we continue through the countryside. We turn into a long drive and Josh tells me, ‘It’s down here.’

After about a minute of driving along a tree-lined avenue the house appears through the darkness. There’s a series of lamps lighting up each of the windows of the ground-floor rooms – at least three long windows sprawl away on either side of the front door – which indicates that this house is not small, although I can’t see in the dark how big it is. I was expecting a dinky little tumbledown farmhouse. This is amansion, surely? Or a manor house? I’m not sure what the difference is.

Josh parks and I feel the reassuringly country-esque crunch of gravel under my feet as I get out of the car and stare around. The moon shows a series of small outbuildings, built of similar pale stone to the house, but I can’t see anything that indicates an actual farm. He leads me through the front door, carrying my luggage for me, and a wonderful smell of cooking greets me.

‘Lasagne,’ Josh tells me. ‘I popped it in before I came to get you.’

‘You’re a man of many talents,’ I say as I glance around the large hallway.

Inside, it’s like stepping back in time. The decor fits the house. It’s so comfortable, with hooks holding Barbour jackets in the hallway and a series of weather-beaten wellies waiting underneath them. To the left of the hall is a huge sitting room, with casement windows and battered red-fabric sofas that look old but in keeping, providing a hint of a well-loved family home, which is now inhabited by one man. In the middle of the quadrangle of sofas sits a fabric ottoman, piled high with farming journals and old issues ofCountry Life.

‘It’s gorgeous,’ I say. ‘So homely.’

‘Thanks. Come through to the kitchen. There’s a bottle of red with our name on it. You hungry?’

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