Praise be to the God of Wayne! Maybe Wayne should write his own self-help book.

‘The most Carly’s gone without a boyfriend is twenty-five days and that was only—’

‘You’re single, aren’t you?’ I say, turning to her. It’s more of a question than a statement. Something boy-related is going on, I’m sure of that, but then something’s always going on in a teenager’s love life.

We’ve stopped walking now, Lexi is looking at me.

‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I s’pose I am. Well it’s a bit …’ She looks the other way, like she might be about to cry, and I have a sudden desire to hug her. Not that I did the whole messy teenage business of falling in and out of love, not even having a boyfriend until Martin at eighteen. But I recognize that if-you-prod-me-I-will-break look, so I smile.

‘It’s all right, Lex,’ I say. ‘You don’t have to explain yourself to me.’

I’m about to carry on walking when my eyes are drawn towards the men in the rugby shirts trying to light barbecues. One man in particular looks familiar. It’s the legs that do it. Stocky, with no ankles. Those are Martin’s legs.

Just as this thought sinks in, he looks up from the BBQ he’s poking, gives an awkward smile, and starts to walk over.

‘Bloody bugger!’ I say, squinting at him.

‘Caroline,’ says Lexi. ‘Language, please!’

Martin grins sheepishly and waves as he walks over, that same slightly lolloping walk of his. ‘Unavoidable appointment’? Likely story!

‘Hello, you.’ He’s standing right in front of us now, holding out his barbecue prongs like we should shake them or something. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here, Caro.’

He’s had his hair cut since I last saw him three weeks ago, into a bizarre little quiff that doesn’t really suit him. However, he’s tended to it like he does to everything, with meticulous precision so that it is a perfectly symmetrical, topiary-like construction on the top of his head.

‘Clearly, Martin Squire. So what’s the unavoidable appointment, then?’ I prod him jokily in the stomach. ‘A barbecue with your mates? You could have just said.’

‘I know I could, it’s just …’

‘Sorry, you know Lexi, my sister, don’t you?’ I say, when I can see he’s struggling. ‘Lexi, you remember Martin?’

‘Oh yeah, I remember Martin.’ I shoot her a look – why the rude tone? Oh. I know why the rude tone. ‘We met a few times,’ she carries on. I feel the blood rise in my cheeks. ‘The last time when you were actually engaged to my sister.’

Martin’s eyes dart to mine. Mine dart to the floor. Why didn’t I just tell her it was me who broke off our engagement?

‘So, er, how’s tricks, Caro?’ says Martin, after a very awkward pause. ‘Just having a walk?’

‘We’ve been to see an art exhibition, actually.’ Lexi folds her arms, indignantly. ‘It was at the Pulp House—’

‘The Pump House, Lexi.’

‘It was brilliant, really inspiring.’

God, Lexi, just shut the fuck up.

‘You should go if you get the chance, although probably best to go with someone, you know, if you can.’

‘Right,’ says Martin, staring at me with something combining boy-caught-out and confusion. This is dreadful.

We stand in awkward silence until I see a blonde, plumpish girl in flip-flops and a cotton shirt dress walking towards us, smiling.

‘Hello …’ She puts her arm around Martin’s back. A girlfriend?! Martin has a girlfriend?

‘Oh, hello P.’ P? Pee?! Bloody hell, were they already on pet names and he hasn’t even told me he’s seeing someone? ‘You made me jump. Caroline, Lexi this is Polly. Polly, this is Caroline and her sister, Lexi.’

‘Hi!’ She smiles. She has a ruddy complexion, well-bred teeth and earnest, uncomplicated eyes.

‘Hi,’ I say, my face fixed into something I hope resembles friendliness. I look over at Lexi, urging her to say the same, but she’s chewing the inside of her cheek and looking Polly up and down.

‘Anyway …’ I say

‘Anyway,’ agrees Martin.

‘We’d better get going.’

‘Yes, we’ve got so much to fit in today,’ says Lexi. ‘Shopping, having dinner …’

‘Nice to meet you, anyway, Polly,’ I say, squeezing Lexi’s hand tighter. ‘Have a lovely barbecue.’

‘We will,’ says Martin, somewhat feebly.

And then we carry on across the park, and the soundtrack of a summer’s day in London – planes flying into Heathrow, roller-bladers’ shrieks of delight, the laughter of friends on picnic rugs – is drowned out by the sound of my brain trying to fathom how I feel about what just happened.

CHAPTER SIX

After a bus ride, where Lexi goes on about how I am so much prettier than Polly and how Martin wanted me back, she could see it in his eyes, we end up in a Mexican on the King’s Road.

Lexi studies me over her menu, twiddling her fringe. ‘Are you all right?’ she asks.

‘Me? Fine.’

‘Are you upset about Polly?’

‘No. No,’ I say, totally unconvincingly. ‘It was going to happen sooner or later.’ Although I didn’t expect it quite so soon. We only split up last September. That’s nine months ago. Nine months to get over a fourteen-year relationship? I thought I might have made a little more impact than that.

‘Can I ask you a question, then?’

‘Fire away,’ I say, forcing a smile.

‘Was I right?’

I scour the menu, pretending to be making vital decisions between a burrito and a taco.

‘Right about what?’

‘The dress.’ She puts the menu down now and folds her slim, tanned arms. ‘The wedding dress? Look, I know it’s none of my business but I think the reason you were wearing your wedding dress when I turned up and that you were drunk …’

I wince at the drunk bit.

‘… and sh-mok-ing …’

‘Now you’re just rubbing it in.’

‘… was because you were upset about Martin, you know, and the fact –’ she cocks her head to the side sympathetically, which makes me feel even more terrible – ‘the wedding didn’t happen?’

‘If only it were that simple,’ I say, in a you-wouldn’t-understand-you’re-only-seventeen kind of a way.

But clearly she does understand, because then she says, ‘Caroline. How many times have you had that dress on?’

‘Why? What’s it to you?’

‘Come on, I just wanna know. How many times have you had it on in, say, the past six months?

I don’t know how the wedding dress thing happened, it just did, a self-indulgent little ritual that got out of control. It was a bit like how some people feel the need to get all their hair hacked off when a relationship ends, or go out and get drunk.

That dress was gorgeous, too, a vintage-style gown with silk sleeves sliced to the waist and a four foot train. I pictured myself walking down the aisle, smiling and radiant on my wedding day, arm in arm with Dad, who, for just that one day, would be there for me. Just me. I would be a success story. Because someone wanted me and loved me enough to marry me.

But, in the end, that dress, which was supposed to represent My Future, just smells faintly of cigarette smoke and regret and sits at the top of my wardrobe only to be brought out after another romance bites the dust, so I can wallow in could-have-beens.

Of course, Lexi’s right; the first time it came out was two months after Martin and I finished, which was one month after the wedding that never happened, which, like I say, was almost a year now and I’m still wracked with guilt …

‘Hello?’ Lexi says. She’s got her ‘computer generated’ voice on. ‘Calling Caroline Steele to planet Earth. Calling Caroline Marie Steele—’

‘Three times, okay? I’ve had the dress on three times.’

She raises an eyebrow.

‘Okay, possibly five. And, yes, if you must know, I did once put it on and get drunk and listen to Pat Benitar because I was upset about Martin – but that wasn’t really why I had it on when you arrived.’