Alex Hines - Chance

‘And you’d like me there?’

‘Yes, of course – I think it would be less tense if you were there and we could discuss your bridesmaid’s dress.’

Ava watched the blackbird circling the garden again, and prayed for a quick, sudden death. She swallowed another sip of wine. Being an adult bridesmaid had long been such a source of complete terror to Ava that she and Lauren had been joking about since long before she even met Rory. It was time to face the music.

‘My what …?’

‘My bridesmaid! Don’t say it like that – it’ll be fun. I’m not going to put you in a weird prom dress, you’ll be in a Viv creation just like me and we can choose it together.’

‘I’ll put the 3rd in the diary, but I want you to know that I hate you.’

‘I know you love me, sis. Honestly, if I’d known getting married was this much stress there’s absolutely no way on earth that I would have decided to do it.’

‘That couldn’t be less true. It simply could not be less true! For that ring, sis, you would have agreed to do whatever Rory asked you to do.’

‘Oh God, you’re so right!’

‘And you bloody love him …’

‘I do!’ And she did. Rory was a godsend, to the point where Ava and her mum had started to refer to him as the ‘Lauren Whisperer’. Indeed, the rest of the family was no longer able to imagine living without him. He was gentle and had eternal patience with Lauren’s more diva-ish demands, but secretly Ava suspected her sister not only really loved him but still found him wildly sexy and would do more than she was ever going to let on to keep him happy. There was also the engagement ring, which had almost blinded Ava the first time she saw it. Rory, a man who spent all day working with his hands and had been too shy to speak to Lauren’s family for the first six months they had been dating, had surpassed all expectation when he surprised Lauren with it. A woman who always maintained she would like a say in any jewellery bought for her discovered in an instant that sometimes not being in control could have its pleasures. And that instant was when she opened the small, dark green velvet box containing a 1920s Art-Deco ring: an antique-cut solitaire surrounded by three baguette cut diamonds on each side. It took her just under a second to say yes. She was as stunned with joy at being asked as she was by the heart-stopping fact that Rory had bought the piece at auction, paid for the history to be written up and presented an elegantly framed version of it to her. Lauren liked to pretend her car – a terrifyingly fast Audi TT – was her favourite possession but she wasn’t fooling anyone.

After hanging up, Ava washed up the few things in the sink. Before doing so, she carefully removed the small diamond that Rob had bought her to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Dunne’s. At the time it had seemed such a romantic gesture, so respectful of her work and her pride in the shop, but now it was hard not to see it as a friendship ring, a holding pattern to postpone any more serious discussion. Resentfully, she chipped away at the muesli around the edge of Rob’s cereal bowl, wondering if they should have a relationship more like her sister and Rory. Trying to impose such a thing would never work, but still, it already seemed as if she and Rob had been married forever and now they might never make it down the aisle. Was this the worst of both worlds , she wondered while drying up her plate and replacing it in the cupboard.

Enough , this moping must stop , she then told herself. A successful independent woman in a contented relationship should not be spending her evenings comparing diamond sizes with a sister she loves dearly. That way, madness lies. She headed upstairs, had a quick shower and set up Swing Time on her laptop to watch in bed. After half an hour, the Fred and Ginger Waltzes and the heavenly frocks lulled her into a dreamy sense of calm. Just as she turned off and turned over, her phone buzzed.

‘Sorry again about tonight, hope you had a good evening. Will make it up to you tomorrow or even better, Sunday, I promise. I won the squash!’

The thought was sweet, but Rob had clearly forgotten they were going to her parents for lunch on Sunday. As she turned over and curled up, she told herself firmly that it didn’t matter, that the absence of kisses on his text weren’t a sign. She replayed the Waltzes in her head until sleep finally came.

Chapter Three

Sunday, 28 August

‘Sunday drivers!’ spat Rob, slamming on the brakes of his somewhat battered Polo as an elderly couple in a dark green Rover pulled out in front of them with no warning. Ava winced, lurching forward and feeling the seatbelt cut into her chest across her necklace. Meanwhile, Wogan chatted chummily on the car stereo. Ava had barely slept, her nerves were jangling and there was a small well of nausea in the pit of her stomach. At this stage it could have been nerves, Rob’s driving or that extra Scotch she had had before bed last night causing it. Either way, she just wanted to close her eyes and block everything out. Instead, she turned to Rob, whose face was now puce with rage. A tiny bead of sweat trickled down from his hairline to the front of his ear. His hair seemed thinner than she had realised before, volume masking the areas of scalp that were beginning to peek through.

‘Easy!’ she said, hands pressed onto the dashboard. She looked back at the elderly couple’s heads bobbing away as they chatted away to each other, oblivious to their part in the drama playing out behind them.

‘We’re running late. You know how your parents are about us being late. We can slow down, if you like and then we’ll arrive with 10 minutes of wise-ass comments about how we’re never on time. Your choice!’ muttered Rob, raising a sanctimonious eyebrow.

‘I really do think they would prefer us late than dead …’

‘Oh, so I’m trying to kill you now? My apologies! I thought I was doing my best to employ my driving skills to get you to your parents’ in time. My mistake!’

‘Come on, I know you’re only doing your best. Relax!’

‘It’s hard to relax, knowing Lauren and Rory will have been sitting there for half an hour already when we arrive, late as usual, turning up like bad pennies.’

‘No one minds, they’ll be pleased to see us. Dad will make some stupid dig and then we’ll all forget about it. Jeez , why are you getting in such a state about it?’

‘ You’ll all forget about it – I won’t! And you know why I’m getting into a so-called “state” about it.’

‘Don’t try and pin this mood on me, that just isn’t fair!’

‘Well, there’s a marked absence of anyone else to …’

‘To what , to blame this on? Hmm … I’ll tell you what, how about you ? How about you take responsibility for this weird, petty fixation you have about my parents not liking you because it’s all in your own head! It’s simply something you invented and none of us know why.’

The track playing on the radio ended and Wogan piped up again, jolly as ever. His tone was so completely at odds with the mood in the car that Ava almost started to giggle in desperation. Instead she turned her head and gazed out of the window at the fields now whizzing by. She was exhausted at having this fight with Rob again. A couple of years ago, not long after Rory really became one of the family, Rob had convinced himself that Ava’s parents did not like him, that they somehow thought he wasn’t good enough for their daughter. It was simply not true and based on nothing beyond what seemed like an elephantine chip growing on his shoulder. He had clearly cherished his role as ‘the good boyfriend’ prior to Rory’s arrival more than any of them realised. Having known him for so long, Jackie and Andrew were thrilled when their daughter had ‘finally’ fallen for him. During those early years of Dunne’s Ava felt as if she and Rob were some kind of dream couple – blessed to see the potential in each other. Now, five years on, the cracks in their relationship were deepening but what really stuck in Ava’s mind was that neither of her parents loved Rob any less than they ever had.