Alice Adams - Invincible Summer

Eva tried a joke. ‘Well, Benedict has been known to have that effect on women.’

‘Ha ha,’ said Lydia without actually laughing. ‘No, it’s the morning sickness. Except that’s the biggest lie in history, because it doesn’t begin and end in the morning, or if it does it’s followed by the afternoon sickness. Which lasts just until the evening sickness kicks in.’

‘Oh. Sorry. You’d never know it to look at you. You were positively radiant today in church.’

‘That’s just the sweat.’ Lydia wiped her brow and underarms with a paper towel. ‘Another thing they don’t tell you about pregnancy, the amount you perspire. Plus, I gained a certain sheen from throwing up five minutes before the ceremony.’

‘Oh dear. In any case, the chapel was beautiful,’ Eva said, clutching at straws.

Lydia brightened. ‘It was, wasn’t it? If it had been up to me we’d have just run off and done it in Vegas, but I’m really glad that we did it this way now. I wasn’t sure about going for the whole church thing at first, but you know how Benedict is about all that.’

Eva shot her a quizzical look. ‘I don’t, actually. I mean, I didn’t know it was a big deal to him. It was Benedict who was keen to have a church wedding?’

‘Oh yes. Hugely important to him. I found it a bit strange at first because let’s face it, you don’t meet many religious physicists, but he absolutely insisted. I thought that your little gang was as thick as thieves, I’m surprised you wouldn’t know that about him.’

‘Well, I suppose we don’t know him as well as you do, obviously,’ Eva said, adding internally, or anything like as well as I thought I did, as it turns out.

The first few bars of Spandau Ballet’s ‘Gold’ floated in from the dance floor.

‘God, this DJ. Where did my mother find him? Still, it seems like everyone’s up and dancing so he must be doing something right. Better get back out there.’ Lydia took Eva’s hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘I’m glad we had the chance to have a chat, I do want to get to know my husband’s friends better. You’ll have to come out for a weekend once we’re settled in Geneva.’ She swept away, leaving Eva mumbling something about how nice that would be.

*

Back in the ballroom Marina was working the room like a pro, towing a visibly reluctant Hugo behind her. The long, cowl-necked russet dress she had chosen for the occasion was draped glamorously over her shoulders, a rather fashion-forward selection for the mother of the groom, Eva thought, but of course perfectly in tune with the season, and beautifully offset by a messy chignon of grey-blonde hair.

‘Eva, my dear, how lovely to see you again,’ she cried on spotting her. ‘Benedict tells us you’re a rising star in the City these days. It’s always marvellous to see one of us ladies giving the other side a run for their money.’

‘Well, “rising star” might be a bit of an exaggeration.’ Eva smiled, genuinely pleased to see them. ‘But yes, the job’s going pretty well. Exciting that Benedict’s off to CERN.’

‘Isn’t it? We’re terribly proud of him, and of course it’s lovely to see him so happy with Lydia. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, of course, but aren’t all the best romances?’

Was it Eva’s imagination or was this just a little too pointed?

‘Thought it might be you, actually, at one point,’ chuckled Hugo.

Eva struggled to prevent her facial features from arranging themselves into a look of mortification but Marina had already dug a sharp elbow into her husband’s ribcage and begun to tug him away, reaching back to pat Eva’s arm and say that they would have to catch up again later and, oh, was that Martin Wentworth-Oxley over there?

Out on the dance floor, Lucien and Chas were grinding their pelvises together to a medley of Eighties classics. Eva looked around for Sylvie but couldn’t see her anywhere so she wandered out onto the terrace, moving to the far end away from the muffled thud of the music and the glow of the lights from the ballroom doors. She dug a cigarette out of her handbag and lit it, blowing the smoke in satisfying jets out into the darkness. Eva had barely smoked in the last couple of years but she’d had a premonition that she might need a cigarette before the day was up, and had bought a packet of Marlboro Lights and a cheap lighter when they’d stopped for petrol on the motorway. Now she savoured the treacly rasp of tobacco hitting the back of her throat and the welcome light-headedness that followed.

‘Room for one more?’

The voice startled her, making her jump and spin round so fast that she almost knocked the lit end of her cigarette on the morning-suited figure behind her.

‘Benedict! Christ, you startled me, creeping up like a bloody ninja penguin. I thought I was alone. What are you doing out here?’

‘Just getting some air. I wasn’t sure I had the stomach for “Agadoo” hot on the heels of “Love Shack”.’ He reached out and gently extracted the cigarette from between her fingers before taking a long pull on it.

‘You won’t be able to do that for much longer.’

‘I know. Not once the baby comes. Lydia would kill me now, actually, if she caught me,’ he added, exhaling through his nostrils so that the smoke emerged in two swirling streams.

‘She looked lovely today,’ Eva told him, trying to inject some sincerity and goodwill into her voice. ‘You both did. I’m really happy for you. I don’t know if I should even be saying this on your wedding day, but, Benedict, I know things got a bit awkward there for a moment, but I’ve got my head straight now. You’re leaving soon and I so want it to be on a good note.’

‘Thanks.’ He nudged her with his shoulder. ‘Thanks for saying that, and for coming today. I’m really happy and I’m glad you’re happy for me.’

Eva shrugged. ‘How could I not be? It only hit me today how close you must be to Lydia. She mentioned something about how important it was to you to get married in a church. I didn’t even really know you were religious, Benedict. After all these years.’ She tried to keep her tone light and not allow a note of reproach to creep into it.

‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘it’s mostly not been a big deal in my life, just something I grew up with, I suppose. Anyway, I’d never have mentioned it when we were at uni because I’d never have heard the last of it from you lot, particularly Lucien, who, by the way, appears to have brought an extremely drunk stripper as his plus-one. Last I saw she was practically giving a lap dance to my highly appreciative father while my mother expended all her energies pretending to be deep in conversation with Great-Aunt Gwendoline.’

‘Ah. That would be Chas. She’s a podium dancer, apparently. Just be thankful that you aren’t the one driving them back tomorrow. If I have to put up with another two hours of dry-humping on my back seat I may be forced to set fire to the upholstery.’

Benedict took another drag and handed the cigarette back to Eva and they both stood in silence for a minute, leaning forward against the balustrade and looking out across the darkened gardens.

‘I’ve been thinking about it a lot more recently, I suppose,’ Benedict said eventually, prompting Eva to spend a confused few seconds trying to work out why he would have been thinking about Lucien frotting on the back seat of her car. ‘The religious side of things, I mean. I’m about to become a father of an actual baby. As we stand here a tiny human with my DNA is growing from nothing. That seems like a sort of miracle. An everyday miracle to be sure, but then, perhaps the miracle is that something so astonishing, so remarkable, can just happen every day, that something so miraculous is available to everyone, rich and poor, no qualifications needed.