The Two Lives of Lydia Bird - Josie Silver Page 0,46

jangling louder than the bracelets Elle gave me to go with the green dress I bought when we were shopping in town a few weeks ago.

‘Honestly, not really,’ I say. ‘But this is Dawn’s big day and I promised I’d be here.’

Jonah nods, not quite meeting my eye.

‘Dress is nice.’ He sounds awkward, and I feel it. But I know he’s trying to boost my confidence, so I try to raise a smile.

‘Thanks for making an effort too,’ I say, acknowledging Jonah’s dark shirt and his attempt to tame his hair. He’s happiest in battered jeans and T-shirt, so it’s a jolt to see him scrubbed up. He nods, then puts his hand on my back and reaches for the door.

‘Come on. We can do this.’

‘You look beautiful,’ I say, careful not to leave a lipstick mark on Dawn’s cheek as I kiss her.

Her eyes are drawn to Jonah beside me, and then she squeezes my hands in hers. ‘Thank you for coming. I know it can’t be easy.’

She means because we both began wedding planning at the same time, excitedly flicking through Bride magazines in our lunch breaks. I paint a resolute smile on my face and squeeze her fingers right back.

‘I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,’ I say, and I mean it. Dawn hasn’t had it easy; her mum died when she was a child and the rest of her family couldn’t afford to make the journey up from Plymouth. Her new mother-in-law makes her life difficult too, always on hand with a criticism of Dawn’s mothering skills.

‘Everyone is over in the far corner,’ she says, nodding towards the crowd from work. They look different somehow in their wedding best with their partners by their sides. Ryan spots me first and grabs two extra chairs from a nearby table. He really is the kindest of boys; I can’t quite class him as a man yet – he still lives with his parents and spends as much time on video games as he does with the many girls he seems to date.

‘Here she is,’ Phil booms, his red bow tie tight round his neck as he stands and plants a kiss on my cheek. ‘Jonah,’ he says, pumping Jonah’s hand with great enthusiasm. They’ve met on several occasions through the school’s use of the town hall, and of course they are aware of his connection to Freddie. It’s one of the things that comes with living in a sleepy, backwater town; most people here know each other by face if not name. Freddie would have preferred to move away, to a bright city-lights apartment like his more cosmopolitan colleagues live in, but we bought locally because I wanted to stay within a cup of tea’s distance of Mum and Elle.

Julia smiles as we join them, regal in black and white, and Bruce, her painfully shy husband, catches my eye and then looks away again quickly.

‘Drink?’ Jonah murmurs beside me, and I nod, grateful. Typically, he offers to buy a round for everyone at the table and Ryan jumps up to help him at the bar. Belatedly, he looks back at me and introduces his date.

‘Lydia, Olivia.’ He nods between us and grins. ‘Olivia, Lydia.’ I’m not sure, but I think I detected the slightest pause before he said her name, as if he was just double-checking inside his own head that he’d got it right.

I take a seat next to the outrageously pretty Olivia and compliment her on her immaculate and extremely long fingernails, ice blue to match her tiny dress.

‘Have you known Ryan long?’ I say, making conversation.

‘Not really,’ she says, sucking her cocktail up through a straw. ‘We met at a foam party.’

I don’t really know how to respond to that. I’ve never been to a foam party; I didn’t know they even existed outside of the Balearics.

‘Fun,’ I say in the end, and she nods, hoovering around her ice cubes noisily.

‘How’d you meet your fella?’ she asks, her eyes on Jonah at the bar.

I’m momentarily thrown. ‘Jonah?’

I’m still trying to decide how to phrase what Jonah is to me when she speaks again.

‘Nice ass,’ she says, then laughs. ‘Sorry.’

I shake my head. ‘We’re not together,’ I say. ‘He’s just a friend.’

Olivia looks at me as if I’m lying. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘I’m serious. He has a girlfriend, and I –’ I frown, because I really don’t want to get into this. Jonah’s been seeing Dee casually for a while now, low key but there. Fortunately, Olivia