Page 37 of Always the Bridesmaid

When I come back out, dressed for the water, Drew and Brooks are at a poolside table playing cards with Drew’s parents. Millie, Amy, Jess, Cady and Izzy appear to be midway through a group manicure. Jake and Edmond are teasing each other as they make failed attempts to light a large coal grill. And apparently Drew’s brother-in-law is back at his guest house winding down two hyper kids for the evening.

I want to tell Charlie about the dog at the restaurant but he seems much too busy to be interrupted as he floats around the pool in a giant pink flamingo, a bottle of beer tucked into each wing of the bird, chatting with Cash. Cash is lying on a blue Lilo on his tummy, his head resting on his arms.

I hold up a hand to say hello and hope he will float my way to chat but he doesn’t react at all. It’s impossible to tell from behind his polarized shades whether he has even seen me.

Considering the options, I decide I have spent less time with Drew, Brooks and Drew’s parents than the others over the last couple of days, so I pull up a seat and ask to be dealt in to the next round of cards.

15

CHARLIE

I am floating around the pool in an inflatable, simultaneously chewing the fat with Cash about everything from political affairs to arts and culture, drinking beer and fantasizing about smoking a cigarette.

I smoked my first cigarette when I was nine years old, encouraged by another foster kid I was living with at the time who was fifteen and, to my juvenile mind, really cool.

At the height of my addiction, I was smoking a pack of twenty every day and an occasional joint, too.

I remember, vividly, the day I quit smoking. It was 2014 and my twenty-second year on the planet. It was the day the statue of Amy Winehouse was unveiled in Camden.

I had happened upon the unveiling by luck, rather than judgement. I liked Amy Winehouse’s music – who doesn’t, it’s iconic – but I wasn’t fascinated enough to go along to the event.

Nevertheless, when the statue was uncovered, I was struck by a sense of waste. The singer’s life trashed by addiction. My birth mother’s life also destroyed by addiction. My own life, thrust into the system, because of said addiction. Yet, there I was, a university drop out, fag in my hand, shortening my own life, letting myself and anyone who cared even a little bit about me down, again.

In that moment, as I stared at Amy Winehouse and thought about how much greater she could have been, I decided to stop. I quit smoking and decided to turn my life around that day.

As I float around the pool now, I know, no matter how much I fancy a smoke, I won’t have one.

‘I can’t believe they’ve made a musical about The Great British Bake Off,’ Cash says, drifting by my shoulder. ‘I mean, what will they have, dancing fairies in wet trousers?’

‘You’ll have to explain that one to me,’ I tell him.

‘Fairy cakes with soggy bottoms.’

My amusement is cut short sharply as Sarah steps outside from the house.

Wow. Just wow.

She looks incredible. I don’t want to sexualize her or objectify her or do anything that is deemed entirely unacceptable in the present climate. I sure as hell don’t want to get the three amigos on my back for a second time in one day, after the dad-like talking to I had to endure in the kitchen this morning. But by God, she deserves some subtle admiration, even if it is from behind the shield of my sunglasses.

In fact, God will be disappointed in me as a man if I don’t, at least in my own mind, comment on how good Sarah looks in her black swimsuit, legs reaching from the Earth’s core to outer space, and that teasing floor-length lace robe tied around the middle, which allows me to see her slender neckline, kissable collarbones and subtle but taunting cleavage.

Whilst ever there is an ounce of testosterone in my blood, I won’t be able to notice a woman as astoundingly sexy as she is without offering mental praise.

This isn’t sexy in that way young girls think Love Island contestants are. No, Sarah is all woman. All sophistication. All glamour. All beautiful, classic, exquisite beauty.

‘Are you listening to me or are you just undressing that woman with your eyes, man?’ Cash asks.

Dammit. Maybe the polarized lenses aren’t fool-proof, after all.

‘I am 100 per cent listening to you, Cash. I am in no way shape or form interested romantically, sexually, or any other ly way in anybody in this house,’ I lie.

I risk one more decadent and naughty glance in Sarah’s direction, then erase all prior thoughts and get on with my day, my primary task being to ignore her and stay out of trouble.

‘And to your previous point,’ I tell him, diverting the subject. ‘I hear you, but I don’t read a historical novel for the precise factual detail and minutiae of historical accuracy. I like to read a romantic thread that just happens to be set against the backdrop of a significant historical moment. For that reason, Sebastian Faulks remains my favorite author. And before you say it, that doesn’t make me any more gay than you.’

Cash laughs so hard that his belly rocks him off balance on his Lilo and sends him crashing into the water. It’s his reaction, as opposed to my own joke, that makes me laugh with such vigor that I almost fall out of my big pink bird.

Though I should have known I wouldn’t escape the fall out entirely. As Cash kicks back up to the surface, he reaches up to one of my flamingo wings and with one hefty plunge, he drags me into the water.

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