Wedding Tiers. Trisha Ashley

My practical, hard-headed friend gave a dreamy sigh. ‘I hate the thought of being apart from Tim, even for one night. Isn’t it strange?’

      ‘No. And now you know how I feel when Ben goes off to London without me.’

      ‘It’s not the same. You’ve never been in love with Ben, just loved him with blind, dogged devotion.’

      ‘Not blind. You can’t live with someone for that many years and not be aware of their failings. But he’s such a brilliant artist, a genius, that I’ve had to be the one to make allowances.’

      ‘I don’t see why having any kind of talent should entitle you to get away with behaving badly,’ she said, ‘or selfishly. Though, actually, it usually does seem to have that effect. Noah—Noah Sephton, the photographer I was telling you about—goes through girlfriends faster than a hot knife through butter. He says he’s a romantic and believes in true love, but he never puts his money where his mouth is.’

      ‘Has he never been married?’

      ‘Joe said he was, briefly, when he was very young, but she died of leukaemia, so I expect it was all a bit Love Story and put him off marrying again.’

      ‘That’s terribly sad!’ Tears came to my eyes as they usually did when I heard something touching. ‘It’s probably blighted the poor man’s life.’

      ‘No, I don’t think so. The loveliest girls seem to fall for him and it all looks really promising, but by the time they start to hint that they’re getting serious ideas he’s ready to move on.’

      I thought about that. ‘Perhaps it’s because no one is going to measure up to his dead wife? I mean, if they were really young and not married long, the rosy glow wouldn’t have worn off and, looking back, she will always seem perfect, won’t she?’

      ‘Or perhaps whatever he says about love, he just prefers casual sex with no commitment?’ Libby suggested.

      ‘That makes him sound horrible—shallow and self-gratifying.’

      ‘Well, actually he’s not, he’s really warm and nice.’

      ‘I suppose he’s good-looking?’

      She considered. ‘You might not pick him out in a crowd straight away, but once you did, you’d wonder how you missed him. He’s about six foot and slim, not exactly handsome, but he’s got lovely, light grey eyes and long, long black eyelashes…His smile’s sort of quirky and goes up at one side too…and his hair’s almost black and goes curly if it gets damp.’

      ‘You sound half in love with him yourself!’ I said, dismayed at this apparent lack of loyalty to Tim.

      ‘Not me! You know I’m a hard-headed, marriage-or-nothing kind of girl!’

      ‘Maybe, but you moved in with Tim the day after you met him,’ I pointed out.

      ‘Yes, well, that’s different. And he proposed to me before I moved in, don’t forget.’

      ‘Come on, you were so love struck you would have done it anyway.’

      ‘Maybe, but so was Tim, so it doesn’t matter.’ She smiled happily. ‘Oh, Josie, it’s such bliss! I only hope Pia does come to the wedding and realises how nice he is, then she’ll soon get over her huff and we can be one happy family.’

      I thought this was more than optimistic. ‘You can see her point, Libby. She adored Joe, he was a father to her in every sense. And I think girls often get on better with their fathers than their mothers, until they get older. You were fine until she was thirteen or fourteen, and then she started seeing you as competition.’

      ‘She was lovely when she was little,’ she agreed. ‘Then—bam!—in kicked the hormones and she turned into a sulky monster in a permanent strop.’

      ‘She’ll turn back into a human being again any minute now,’ I assured her. ‘And if she surfaces in London, Maria Cazzini will make her come to the wedding.’ Maria, the formidable matriarch of the family, had married the cousin who now ran the family restaurant business. A thought struck me. ‘You have invited your mother and sister, haven’t you?’

      ‘Tim said I had to,’ Libby said unenthusiastically. ‘I’ve told Daisy she’ll have to keep Ma off the sauce the whole day. I’m trusting her, but I’ll have a hire car on standby to whisk them away if she goes off-piste. I’ve booked them into a Travelodge, where I expect they’re used to getting all types, including drunken mothers of the bride.’

      ‘But I thought she’d joined AA and gone teetotal?’

      ‘That’s what she says, but Daisy reckons she’s just got more cunning about where she hides it.’

      ‘It was very kind of Daisy to move her down there and look after her.’

      Libby gave me a scathing look. ‘It was Joe’s idea. He bought them the house and paid the bills. Now I send money every month and that’s another drain on my income, but at least I know Mum is eating properly and living respectably, because Daisy has control over everything.’

      It was some years since I’d seen Libby’s mother, but even semi-reformed, she was still likely to add a lively touch to the wedding proceedings, not to mention raking up the past in the minds of those villagers who were still finding it hard to accept that any daughter of Gloria Martin could possibly marry a Rowland-Knowles, so I could quite understand why Libby was reluctant to invite her. But Tim was right—it had to be done!

      I emailed Pia and that night she phoned me. It was such a relief to hear her voice, even if she was in a strop.

      ‘How can Mum get married so soon?’ she demanded. ‘She can’t have loved Dad at all. It’s indecent!’

      ‘But she did love Joe very much, Pia, really she did. And it’s more than a year now. She and Tim just fell in love at first sight, that’s all.’

      ‘She’s too old to fall in love,’ she stated disgustedly.

      ‘Oh, I don’t think you’re ever too old, darling. And Tim is lovely—quiet and kind. You’ll like him, honestly.’

      ‘She doesn’t care if I’m there or not. She probably doesn’t want me coming along and making three.’

      ‘There you’re quite wrong. She does worry about you, and Tim is really looking forward to meeting you. He hopes you’ll make your home at Blessings with them.’

       ‘Blessings?’

      ‘That’s the name of his house. It’s Elizabethan, and Libby’s currently designing your bedroom in one of the original chambers, so if you don’t want to find yourself in a flowery bower, with the gilded rococo bed with cherubs she is talking about shipping over from Italy, you ought to get down here and tell her so.’

      ‘Cherubs?’ she said, horrified. Then she collected herself and said tersely, ‘It doesn’t matter: I’m not coming.’

      ‘Where are you now?’

      ‘Pisa, with Gina. But she says they’re coming here for their honeymoon, so I’ll have to clear out to London then.’

      ‘Look, do come just for the wedding, Pia,’ I cajoled. ‘Some of the Cazzinis are—your aunt Maria, for one.’

      ‘Aunt Maria’s coming?’

      ‘Yes, she’s already sent an enormous Gaggia coffee machine as a present, so I think you can take it that she approves! I’m sure she’ll be disappointed in you if you don’t come—and your mum will be deeply, deeply hurt.’

      There was a small silence. ‘I might come up from London with Aunt Maria, just for the wedding,’ she conceded sulkily.

      ‘I think that would be a very kind and generous thing to do,’ I said encouragingly. ‘And perhaps you could ring your mother and tell her? She’d love