‘I’m more worried about Orla,’ Sofia admitted as Moses’ niece toddled over and started patting her leg.
‘Do you think it’s more than letting off steam like she says?’ I asked. ‘Orla lived for going out and having a good time before Harry was born. I can’t blame her for wanting to do a bit of making up for lost time.’
Sofia lifted the little girl up onto her lap and gave her fluff of baby hair a sniff, making my heart squeeze. ‘No one picked the kids up last Thursday.’
That got my attention. ‘Why? What happened?’ Orla’s three children all attended the after-school club that Sofia ran at her church.
‘I couldn’t get hold of Orla, so I drove them home myself. Sam arrived as I got there. He’d had parents’ evening, and had no idea where Orla was. He seemed… not himself.’
‘Tell me she wasn’t with that guy from work.’
Sofia nodded grimly, before breaking into an enormous smile when she saw the baby on her lap frowning at her. ‘She was though, wasn’t she, Abigail?’ Sofia cooed. ‘She turned up a few minutes later and told us she was at the gym having a private one-on-one training session with Mr Gym Jiminy Jim, didn’t she?’
‘No wonder Sam isn’t himself.’
‘I had to break up their argument to suggest that maybe accusations about “all you care about now is your new job”, and “well at least I care about something” were not helpful, given that right now their three children needed to know that what they cared most about was, despite the evening’s actions to the contrary, them.’
‘Crap.’
‘I’m really worried about them. Orla’s going through some sort of got-a-bit-of-my-life-back crisis, and she’s lumping Sam in with all the negative things she’s trying to leave behind in this quest to find herself.’
‘He’s not exactly helping matters by refusing to be part of it. Why don’t they go out and have fun together? One of the reasons for living in Hatherstone was so Mum can babysit.’
‘I texted her yesterday and offered to have the kids for a weekend so they could go away somewhere.’ Sofia gave Abigail a kiss and let her wriggle to the ground, where she toddled off towards the next lucky relative. ‘She said there’s no point going away for a romantic weekend when Sam can’t even be bothered to talk to her, let alone do anything romantic.’
We both let out a long sigh. There was a fine line between being a supportive sister and an interfering one. We all lived in slight fear of turning into our meddling mother, but could we really sit back and watch Orla teeter ever closer towards doing something that could destroy her family – presuming that she’d not already reached that far?
‘We could visit this Jim who works at a gym. Run him off,’ Sofia mused.
‘We could. But if she found out then she’d totally shut us out, and we’d be even less able to help her. Or the kids.’
The waiters came round with goblets of chocolate mousse, and we moved the conversation onto other things. It was a wedding after all, we were meant to be celebrating.
‘I’m presuming you don’t want Moses to introduce you to his random single mates,’ Sofia asked, her eyes dancing.
‘You presumed right. If they are worth meeting, then I’ll do it when I’m in a nice dress. Or at the very least a clean one. And my hair’s been styled beyond “functional topknot”.’
‘Oh, so you are interested in meeting someone? I thought drunk neighbour might have put you off.’
‘Drunk neighbour totally put me off. I’m definitely done with dating around. And all the new men I meet are planning their wedding.’
‘What about him?’ Sofia asked from behind her water glass, her eyes on the other side of the room where a photobooth had been set up.
‘The photographer?’ I swivelled my head round to look, taking in enough with my first sneaky glance to follow up with a second, more blatant one. ‘He does look nice.’
And he did – coppery coloured hair framed an open, friendly face as he persuaded the two women now standing under the balloon arch to strike a pose.
‘Nice? I was thinking more like pretty darn hot. Maybe we should join the queue.’ Sofia grinned.
Before I could wriggle out of that suggestion, Mervyn’s best man stood up and called for everyone’s attention. Listening to all the speeches about how wonderful love is, and how amazing it is to find someone to love you for you, and how beautiful and special and magical it is when you have someone to share your life with, and how lucky they were, and how lucky Benji and Bramble and Carrots and Dink and Ms Sniffingtons and Lady Fluff were to have Mervyn as a step-doggie-dad, was not helpful.
As soon as the speeches were over, I kissed my sister and her lovely husband goodbye, gathered my stuff from where we’d hidden it behind the cake table, waved a thank you to Mervyn, and left, dragging my morose mood with me.
As I opened the door to the car park, an almighty screech echoed down the corridor from the direction of the reception room. A streak of fluff whizzed past, knocking me into the door frame as it galloped into the darkness beyond.
I stood holding the door open, unsure whether to go out after the dog myself, or leave it to someone who might stand a chance at catching it – someone who knew its name, for example, or at least knew anything about dogs at all. However, my agony of indecision lasted mere seconds, as a stampede of wedding guests, headed up by the bride, noticeably missing the groom, raced down the corridor, crushing me against the door frame as they spilled out into the car park.
A few steps behind them, looking decidedly less panicky, and quite possibly on the brink of bursting out laughing, came the Nice Photographer.
