He fires through the exit, but Will is already there, thumping the door with his fist. ‘Penny? Answer the door. Answer the bloody door!’
Handing Will the key, Dan lifts his finger to his lips and shakes his head.
Will takes the card and with a trembling hand he swipes and swipes again. ‘It’s not working.’ He tries once more. ‘It’s not fucking working!’
Dan takes it from him. ‘Here, let me try.’
Fuck, Will is right. The key card doesn’t work. Time is the thing. He doesn’t want to alarm Penny, but she could jump. Fucking jump!
Staring at the woodwork, he remembers what his dad said about the sweet spot to bust open a door. Without thinking about it too deeply, he steps back, lifts his leg, and with as much momentum as he can muster, he drives the heel of his foot towards the lock. With a sickening noise the wood cracks and splinters. Kicking again, then again, the door ricochets open.
Time slows as he takes in the picture. The window is gaping, the curtains flapping in the breeze. But Penny is still there, thank God. Her narrow back towards them, she’s gazing at the trees, lightly swaying and humming a tune.
Dan lets out his breath. She’s sitting now; she’s sitting on the ledge. Though not looking at Will, he instinctively grabs his arm. ‘Easy, Will. Take it easy.’
Will clears his throat. ‘Penny? Pen? Are you coming in?’ he asks, moving slowly towards her.
Penny turns, surprise flashing on her face. ‘Oh, Will! I wanted to tell you something.’ Her forehead furrows, as though trying to remember.
His face pale and sweaty, Will’s voice is hoarse. His fear is palpable; Dan can feel it. ‘Just come in, Penny.’
‘In a minute, let me show you …’ Pushing down her skinny arms on the sill, she draws up her legs to stand.
Will steps forward, raising his arms. ‘For God’s sake, Penny, please just …’
But she’s already standing. Then suddenly she’s wobbling, her arms flailing like small propellers.
Dan dives. Like a rugby tackle, he lunges forward, holding out his hands to grab Penny’s legs, or her waist, anything, please God, other than thin air.
Nick
The first test, for better or for worse.
Nick gazes at the polite polished faces of his guests. A plastic bubble, he thinks. That’s how it feels; he can still smell the tang of roast beef and hear his new father-in-law’s heavily accented voice, but they’re muffled by his thoughts.
He tries to shake himself back to his wedding dinner. The dessert bowls have been cleared and the champagne flutes refilled. Friends and family have turned their chairs, they’re listening and smiling. He knows there’s eight tables, but he counts them, rehearsing each label: ‘St Mark’s’ for the school crowd, ‘Leeds’ for uni, ‘Swansea’ for the noisy Welsh, or ‘the coven’ as Lisa calls them …
His mind drifts to her prolific wedding lists and he smiles a small shaky smile. The handwritten plaques were her idea, pretty much everything else too. She was their clever wedding planner; centring every table with a potted flowering plant, rather than cut flowers, so that they’d last; lovingly decorating each invitation, each envelope; choosing the menu, the hymns and the flowers. Even the men’s suits, their patterned waistcoats and plain cravats.
But no one can plan everything.
A blip. That’s what Dan called it. ‘It’s only a blip, mate,’ he said when he came back from Will’s room. ‘Will has to go home with Penny, but don’t worry, leave everything with me.’
His heart thrashes. Dan caught Penny just in time. Only just in time! Moments later and she could’ve been dead. Bloody hell! A fucking vast blip in his regular safe life.
Feeling for Lisa’s fingers under the stiff tablecloth, he tunes into her father’s words. His hair is black and oiled and he speaks for some time: his birthplace of Swansea, which raises a loud cheer from his plethora of sisters; his meeting with Lisa’s mum at a church dance; moving to her home town of Prestatyn; having two burly boys before his beautiful baby daughter. He says Nick will find out, if he hasn’t already, that his girl is ‘a bossy little Miss, a bossy little Mrs now, but only in a good way, men need to be told’.
As the coven make another whoop, he squeezes his new wife’s hand. She turns towards him and her green eyes are shiny. He’s only known her for thirteen months, but he knows without a doubt she’s still grieving for her mum. He hopes Lisa and his own mum will become close, but senses a frostiness between them. ‘Your mum only had boys,’ Lisa says. ‘Of course she’s indulgent with you and Patrick, but I don’t think she knows how to relax. It’s different between mothers and daughters.’
He didn’t recognise Lisa’s description, but looking at his mum now, he can understand her mistake. Straight-backed and small, she looks timid and tense, but underneath she’s quite steely. Once Will and Penny had left, she took him aside. ‘It’s your day, love, yours and Lisa’s. No point dwelling on it, you need to put it behind you. Most people didn’t notice. Forget it and enjoy yourselves.’
Though he knew his mum’s words were partially a white lie, he found Lisa hiding in the ladies’ and repeated them. ‘It’s our day, Lisa. Hardly anyone saw. We’re going to put this behind us. Yes?’ Looking into her tearful face, willing her to agree.
It felt like the first test, for better or for worse.
The guests bang the tables as Dan stands for his speech. He takes off his jacket, rolls up his shirtsleeves and loosens his cravat. Pausing for a moment, he looks around the room, then lifts his dark eyebrows and clears his throat. ‘Mr and Mrs Quinn,’ he says. ‘… Senior. A few words to the wise before I start. Perhaps now would be a good time to leave …’
There’s laughter and a loud cheer. ‘Dish the dirt, Dan,’ a pal from university shouts.
That’s it, Nick thinks, trauma over. Please God, let that be it. Please put my regular and safe life back on track.
Yet still his heart races.
Jen
Jen picks up the ‘St Mark’s’ place card and studies it for a while. Though the music is blaring and people are milling and chatting near their table, she can’t hear anything except the clatter of her heart. It has been racing since looking up to see Penny’s pallid face at the window, and even self-medicating with champagne hasn’t helped. They’ve been joined by Dan from the top table and though usually calm, he’s agitated too, repeating himself like a record stuck in a groove. He’s been brilliant all day, hurtling with Will to deal with Penny, then taking on the role as the only best man at the meal with aplomb, but it’s as though the trauma has only recently set and is playing on a loop.
He’s shaking his dark head. ‘At a wedding of all places. I can’t believe Penny did that,’ he says again. Frowning, he turns to Geri. ‘She was humming when we got there, but after getting her to safety, she behaved as though everything was normal. Saying she had to dress and brush her hair, check her face in the mirror. Bizarre. Did