Page 33 of The Two Lives of Lydia Bird

I consider the crowd on the dance floor. ‘Who’s your winner?’

The DJ turns down the music and calls Dawn and her husband to the floor, slowing the music right down to their wedding song of choice. Like millions of other couples around the world this year they’ve chosen Ed Sheeran to welcome them into wedded bliss, and as the opening bars play the DJ asks everyone to join the happy couple. It’s not long before Jonah and I are pretty much the only people still sitting down; even Ryan and Olivia are up there. He’s probably going to regret this in the morning, but for now he seems to have thrown caution to the wind because she has her tongue far enough down his throat to know whether he’s had his tonsils removed.

Phil ruffles my hair as Susan pulls him past us to join the dancers, a simple fatherly gesture that says more than words could. I watch them for a moment, and the affection I hold for them brings a lump to my throat.

Jonah looks at me, and I’m sure he can see the battle going on in my head. I don’t know what’s worse – the idea of dancing or being the only people in the room not dancing.

‘Come on,’ he says eventually, helping me up.

He holds me lightly, linking his fingers through mine, his other hand on my back.

‘It’s only dancing,’ he whispers, the ghost of a smile on his lips. We don’t speak as we move slowly amongst the other dancers. I see Dawn and her proud new husband, oblivious to everyone around them, their sleeping son on his father’s hip. I have to look away, it’s too hard.

‘Hey,’ Jonah says when I swallow a shudder of tears, his mouth close to my ear as he gathers me against him. ‘I know, Lyds. I know.’

I’m trying not to cry, but I’m not making the best job of it. It’s just so bloody unfair.

‘God, Jonah,’ I gulp, pressing my face into his shirt. He’s so physically different to Freddie; taller, lithe. My head fits easily beneath his chin even in my heels, and the familiar, understated amber-warm spice of his cologne reassures me.

‘I miss Freddie, and I miss dancing, and I miss love.’

He doesn’t answer me, because there aren’t really any appropriate words. We barely even pretend to dance any more. We stand still and hold each other in the moment as everyone moves around us. He shushes me, quiet, unintelligible words as he strokes my hair, and I try to offer him similar comfort because I remember how he looks in my other life: joyful, free of guilt, the bruises beneath his eyes nowhere in evidence. Here in my waking life he’s as damp-cheeked and heartsore as I am, as lost and in need of a shoulder. I hold him to me and hope we can help each other find the way home.

Saturday 17 November

‘And this is the barn,’ Victoria says, opening a huge pair of wooden doors with a flourish. Victoria is the wedding organizer at the place we’ve chosen to hold our wedding, a rustic country inn with a converted barn. We’re standing on the threshold of that very barn right now. Pale winter sunlight streams in through the high windows, illuminating tiny dust motes in the air. My romantic heart sees glitter.

‘It’s dressed ready for a wedding tomorrow,’ Victoria says, referring to the thick red and gold garlands around the faded old rafters. ‘Winter theme, obviously. Next month it’ll be wall-to-wall Christmas weddings, but it’s best of all in the summer. We fill it with wild-flower arrangements and hundreds of white fairy lights, a real midsummer night’s dream.’

‘I love it,’ I breathe. I must have been here before in this life – I expect we’ll have looked at various venues before deciding on this as the perfect place for our wedding. I silently congratulate myself. I can’t imagine anywhere more us. ‘It honestly couldn’t be more perfect.’

Freddie squeezes my shoulders. ‘Is the ceremony itself in here too?’

‘Yes and no.’ Victoria strides off towards a door at the other end of the barn. ‘Your ceremony will take place in here.’

The smaller side room is built from pale-grey bricks that look as if they were hand hewn in days before machinery even existed. It’s been carefully restored to retain its tumbledown charm; straight away it reminds me of the chapel where Ross married Emily in Friends. Cast-iron candelabras hang from the lintels. They’re not lit today, but in my mind’s eye I can already see how spectacular it’s going to look, how it’s going to smell of trailing honeysuckle, how Freddie will wait for me right there at the front.

‘Still love it?’ Freddie says, squeezing my hand.

So much, I think. I turn to Victoria.

‘Would it be okay if we have a couple of minutes on our own?’

She puts her hands out to the sides. She knows perfectly well that I’m smitten. ‘It’s pretty special, isn’t it? Take as long as you need. I’ll be back in the bar when you’re ready.’

Freddie and I walk slowly along the aisle as the door clicks behind her.

‘Next time you walk down here you’ll be wearing your wedding dress,’ he says.

‘And you’ll be down there in your suit,’ I say. ‘Will you be nervous?’

He starts to laugh. ‘Er, no! Unless you’re getting cold feet and planning to leave me here on my Jack Jones?’

‘I promise I won’t,’ I say. I mean it more than he could ever realize, because I know all too well what it’s like to be the one left behind.

‘Will you be nervous?’ he asks.

I nod. ‘I’ll be nervous about a hundred things. Does my dress look okay? Will Elle try to tell Victoria how to do her job? Has Jonah forgotten the rings?’

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