I curl up on the kitchen sofas with Merwyn to sort out available dates. Ivy and Poppy search through their diaries to find days in July when Kip’s team and the castle are both free. Meanwhile, I’m watching the frills of white breakers moving up onto the sand and looking out to the vast stretch of duck egg-blue sea streaked with jade beyond, thinking that this truly is a gem of a location.
As weekends are out, they quickly come up with some weekday dates that work for both of them. I’m nipping in and out of the room where there’s phone signal, messaging Nic to check which they’d prefer. As I listen for the distant ping of Nic’s reply on my phone, I’m rubbing Merwyn’s silky ears and eating Bill’s warm raspberry muffins.
Ivy sips her coffee then puts down her mug. ‘It’s funny, Milla, I’m so used to seeing you and Nic together, I keep having to remind myself you’re not the couple here.’
That’s the last thing I want to hear, even as a joke, but I laugh it off. ‘He’s definitely marrying someone else.’
But once you stop to think about it, it’s been one unfortunate episode after another with me and Nic. And I know Elfinor has a water-tight work reason for not being around, but it’s still strange that she hasn’t come to visit once. Having been with my own very reluctant fiancé who went on to commit the most spectacular fuck up, I hope Nic’s not on his own – possibly unconscious – mission to push his wedding off the rails faster than he’s arranging it. For his sake, I hope he’s marrying the right person.
My stomach has dropped so far my throat feels hollow, but I keep my voice steady and my words slow. ‘For the record, there are two things I’ve noticed about Nic. The first is him driving me wild by refusing to focus. And second is how truly devoted to his bride he is.’ I throw in another thought to move them on and hope like hell they don’t hark back to Valentine’s Night. However much I think about it, I can’t quite reconcile or excuse what happened there; I still feel uncomfortable about it from his side and mine. ‘But I’m not the best person to ask, because I actually haven’t got a clue what being in love actually feels like.’ As I’m here with my good friends, this could be a good opportunity to get a few things straight in my head.
I didn’t ever have any excitement or compulsion with Ben. Not in the way they talk about in the trashy songs anyway. It was all very matter of fact; our progress was logical rather than passion-based. We got engaged in the aftermath of Phoebe and Harry’s wedding and with our leases ending at the same time it made sense to get a flat together so we could save for the future.
If I’d known how picky he was going to be about me leaving my micellar water on the bathroom shelf instead of in my bedroom drawer, and that however neatly I put away his boxers, he’d have to get them all out again and re-iron and refold them, I might have thought about it harder. The only real flutter of excitement I ever had was the first time we went into John Lewis to buy light bulbs together. But Ben took so long to decide on how many lumens and if we wanted warm white or cool, and then agonised for literally hours over the shape. By the time he’d filled the basket I’d lost the will to live.
I can see Ivy giving me a sideways glance so I need to explain. ‘Poppy will tell you, I totally missed out on being a teenager because my mum was ill. I had the longest engagement known to man, and then he left me for someone else. When it comes to love I don’t really have a clue.’
She’s looking at me through narrowed eyes. ‘Love’s funny – it’s not at all rational, you often don’t have any choice about it.’
Poppy’s nodding. ‘It can be very chaotic. And it has all kinds of weird effects on your body too.’
Ivy’s agreeing. ‘You might deny it at first, but it has a power all of its own. It just grows and engulfs you.’
I have to be honest. ‘The way you two are selling it, I’ll definitely be giving it a miss.’ It’s also slightly unnerving