“That’s not real love.”
“No, that’s a kind of manic, mad infatuation. You should know it’s the kind of feeling that can’t possibly last – but, at the time, you don’t.”
“Loving yourself is the secret.” Jude spoke very softly. “When you love yourself, you can spread love to other people.”
“I know. How easy you make it sound. But how many of us have got so few hang-ups, have suffered so few bad experiences, that we really can love ourselves?”
“It’s possible. You can learn.”
Gita was suddenly despondent. “ Some people can learn. I think if I was ever going to learn, I’d have done so by now before I became a shrivelled old bag.”
“You can learn.”
“Will you teach me?”
Jude suddenly realized how tired she was. Healing always drained her. Energy was finite. But she was going to need a lot more energy for the forthcoming conversation with Gita – and for the many other conversations that would follow.
“Yes,” she replied. “Of course I’ll teach you.”
Carole reckoned the afternoon had been a success. Gaby had been much more like the girl Carole had first encountered at the Hopwicke Country House Hotel. She and Stephen were affectionate – almost silly – together, which was a surprise to his mother because she had never imagined her son had a silly side. But Gaby also seemed to have lost her ambivalence about the wedding arrangements, and had thrown herself into everything with great gusto.
Of the three venues Stephen and his mother had looked at that morning, Gaby was taken first to the Fedborough tithe barn, which she loved on sight. Of fifteenth-century construction, it had been lovingly renovated by the farmer on whose land it stood, and turned into a venue for corporate events and celebrations. The barn itself formed one side of a rectangle of outbuildings, which had been converted into toilet facilities, kitchens and conference rooms. The complex huddled in the foothills of the South Downs and, if the weather was anything like decent on the fourteenth of September, would make an idyllic setting for a wedding reception.
The engaged couple made their decision instantly, and informed the farmer’s wife, who had shown them round, that they would like to book the venue. Only a mile outside Fedborough, travel from All Souls’ Church would not pose too much of a problem for the guests. In his negotiation of the costs Stephen then showed a toughness which surprised his mother. He also resisted the farmer’s wife’s pressure to employ the catering company in which she had an interest, until he had looked into other possibilities. Carole had never before seen him so assertive, and began perhaps to understand his success in his mysterious working life.
The venue sewn up, the three of them then went to visit three of Carole’s shortlisted caterers. As a guide, they took the menus and price lists which the farmer’s wife at the tithe barn had given them. With the caterers, Carole was interested to see that Stephen and his fiancée worked more as a double act, capping each other with ever more detailed questions. Gaby showed no signs of dilatoriness or reluctance. Her enquiries demonstrated that she had thought through all the logistical minutiae involved in making a wedding work.
At the end of the three exhaustive interviews, Stephen and Gaby had a brief discussion in his BMW and their decision was made. He rang through to thewinner of the contest – who would no doubt be ecstatic because they had selected the top-of-the-range menus – and said that, subject to written confirmation, the job was theirs. Suddenly, after months of vagueness, the wedding on the fourteenth of September had become a reality.
“We must sort out invitations next,” Stephen announced.
“I can do that. There’s a printer we use a lot at the agency. He’ll give us a good deal.”
“And we’ll have to work out who exactly we’re going to invite,” said Stephen.
“You’re still thinking of round the hundred and twenty mark?” asked Carole.
“Oh yes. And in fact we’re lucky…”
“How so?”
“Well, Mother, neither of us has a large extended family – so that means most of the people we invite to the wedding will actually be people we like.”
Carole wasn’t quite sure how to take that, but she didn’t think he meant to be insulting. Probably better, though, that her son had pursued a career in computers and finance, rather than the diplomatic service.
“Which is actually another advantage of us making the arrangements ourselves.”
“God, yes,” Gaby agreed. “Friends of mine have had dreadful fights when the parents wanted all the guests to be their friends.”
“Well,” said Carole, with a slight edge in her voice, “I’ll try and see to it that I don’t interfere.”
Stephen chuckled. “Oh, we aren’t worried about that.”
And he said it so innocently that Carole felt rather gratified.
“So,” she asked, “are you going to have all these people at the engagement party too?”
“Lord, no,” Gaby replied. “Mum and Dad couldn’t cope with those kind of numbers. Couldn’t cope with many of our friends either, come to that. Some of the actors I know would be a little too exotic for Harlow. No, it’ll really just be family. A chance for you and David to meet Phil…” She seemed for a moment about to say more about her brother, but decided against it. “And Uncle Robert and a few others. It’ll be very low key.”
“Fine,” said Carole, surprised how uncomfortable she felt at the casual coupling of her name with David’s.
“But there’ll be nothing low key about the wedding itself,” Stephen enthused. “We’re going to ensure that it’s a day when – ”
He was interrupted by the ringing of Gaby’s mobile, which she immediately answered.
“Jenny? Yes, it’s – what? Oh, God.”
“Are you OK? Well, let me know when you’ve checked. And I’ll give you a call as soon as I’ve worked out what I’m doing.”
She ended the call, and looked with horror at Stephen and Carole.
“My flat’s been burgled.”
But the manner in which she said the words made it sound more as though she was announcing a murder.
Seven
“She’s very strong-willed.” Stephen spoke with some puzzlement, as though still coming to terms with various unexpected elements in his fiancée’s personality. “I’m slowly learning not to argue when she’s clear about what she wants to do.”
“You’re quite strong-willed too.”
Carole thought back to childhood confrontations when neither she nor her son had been willing to budge an inch.
“Yes.” He took it both as a compliment and an unarguable truth. “That’s why we’re right for each other.” This too was a confident statement of fact.
They were sitting over lunch in the dining room of High Tor. Which, Carole realized, reflected a change in their relations. She couldn’t remember the last time she had cooked for her son. University vacations, it must have been. When he started working, he had distanced himself. Or perhaps that had happened when she moved down to Fethering. The timing was all tied in with her divorce from David. Without either of them commenting on what was happening, Stephen had redrawn the parameters of his relationship with his mother. From that time on, they had always met on neutral ground, in pubs and restaurants, as if he was spelling out to her that the old family intimacy could never be re-established.
But the arrival of Gaby had changed that. Inviting them both to Sunday lunch at High Tor had not seemed incongruous – in fact, Carole had relished the idea and looked forward to reminding herself of her old skills with joint of beef, Yorkshire pudding and all the trimmings.
Except, of course, Gaby wasn’t there. She was in Pimlico, assessing the loss and damage caused by her burglary. And that task was one which, very insistently, she had wanted to do on her own. That was the evidence of her strong will to which Stephen had referred.