Page 60 of Pictures of Him

‘Catherine! I’d heard you were here. Probably the lastperson on earth I’d ever have expected to find at one of Lucian’s parties. Do you remember Johnnie?’

Johnnie’s arm is patted indifferently but her eyes remain focused on me. Yes, Charlotte, I remember him, the long-haired Golf GTI driver who used to gamble his student loan away at the casino in the first week of term and brag about it loudly in the pub afterwards.

‘How’s your husband?’ Charlotte asks, with a voice full of unexpressed laughter.

She doesn’t wait for my reply but leans in and whispers something to Jack.I turn away to find Ling watching me. She is wearing a dress of lemon yellow silk, her dark hair tied to one side and fanning out across one shoulder.

She leans in, speaks softly.

‘It will get easier, the more you see them. No one has the right to judge you.’

I’m staggered by her comprehension. This girl, whom I’ve known only a handful of days, seems able to look right into the core of me.

‘Ling,’ I say, in a quiet voice. ‘You know, don’t you? You’ve worked it out.’

I would like to explain. I’d like her to understand that this horrible dark secret I’ve carried inside me for fifteen years, has eroded my character, my life, it’s stolen away the best parts of me. But before I can say anymore, she glances at Jack and shakes her head quickly, her meaning clear.

‘Let’s have fun tonight, Catherine. You and me.’

‘Deal.’

Either side of the table, two waiters start refilling our glasses in perfect synchronicity, as if to emphasise the point.

‘They leave us no choice,’ I say taking two hefty gulps of champage.

Ling laughs and raises her glass to me, swallows half its contents.

‘Oof,’ she slams it back down on table. ‘The bubbles went right up my nose.’

She has two spots of high colour in her cheeks, matching circles the size of a ten pence piece.

‘I haven’t felt this drunk since I was fifteen,’ Ling says.

‘What happened then?’

‘My sister and I went round stealing everyone’s drinks at my cousin’s wedding. No one noticed until Amara vomited all over the bride.’

‘The Lady Muck sister?’

Ling nods.

‘She lives in Hong Kong. Nannies for an English family – two boys who have taught her all the rude words in the Oxford Dictionary. I miss her.’

‘She’ll come over for the wedding, won’t she?’

Harry, overhearing this, cuts in.

‘Hang on, you told Catherine?’

He turns to you.

‘Secret’s out, apparently. Ling and I are going to have a proper wedding. A blessing in the chapel and a big lunch afterwards. Will you be my best man?’

I love watching your face. How it changes as you take in what Harry has said, the light that rushes into it.

‘I’d be honoured.’

You reach across me to grip his hand. And then both of you are laughing, a private moment of shared happiness.

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