Wanda has thrust both hands into her frizzy hair. She comes across a pencil, pulls it out, and absentmindedly puts it down on the table.
“I think we both need a drink,” she says at last. She heaves herself up out of the sagging chair and pours two glasses of scotch from a bottle in the cabinet. She hands one to me, raises her own, and takes a deep gulp. “I feel a bit knocked for six.”
“I’m sorry.” Immediately I feel bad.
“No!” She raises a hand. “Absolutely not! Dear girl! You do not have to apologize for a bona fide expression of your perception of the situation, be it construct or not.”
I have no idea what she’s going on about. But I think she’s trying to be nice.
“It’s up to me to apologize,” she continues, “if you have ever felt uncomfortable, let alone ‘inferior.’ Although this is such a ridiculous idea that I can barely … ” She trails off, looking baffled. “Poppy, I simply don’t understand. May I just ask what has given you this impression?”
“You’re all so intelligent.” I shrug uncomfortably. “You publish things in journals and I don’t.”
Wanda looks perplexed. “But why should you publish things in journals?”
“Because … ” I rub my nose. “I don’t know. It’s not that. It’s … like, I don’t know how to pronounce Proust.”
Wanda looks even more baffled. “You clearly do.”
“OK, I do now! But I didn’t. The first time I met you, I kept getting things wrong, and Antony said my physiotherapy degree was ‘amusing,’ and I felt so mortified—” I break off, my throat suddenly blocked.
“Ah.” A light dawns in Wanda’s eye. “Now, you must never take Antony seriously. Didn’t Magnus warn you? His sense of humor can be, shall we say, a little off? He’s offended so many of our friends with misplaced jokes, I can’t count.” She raises her eyes briefly to heaven. “He is a dear man underneath it all, though, as you’ll get to know.”
I can’t bring myself to reply so I take a gulp of my scotch. I never usually drink scotch, but this is hitting the spot. As I look up, Wanda’s sharp eyes are on me.
“Poppy, we’re not the type to gush. But, believe me, Antony thinks as highly of you as I do. He would be devastated to hear of your anxieties.”
“So what was the row in the church all about?” I fling the words at her furiously before I can stop myself. Wanda looks as though I’ve slapped her.
“Ah. You heard that. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.” She takes another gulp of her scotch, looking stressed out.
Suddenly I’m sick of being polite and talking around things. I want to cut to the chase.
“OK.” I put my glass down. “The reason I’ve come here is, it turns out Magnus has been sleeping with Lucinda. I’m calling off the wedding. So you might as well be honest and say how much you hated me from the start.”
“Lucinda?” Wanda claps a hand over her mouth, looking aghast. “Oh, Magnus. That wretched, wretched boy. When will he learn?” She seems absolutely deflated by this piece of news. “Poppy, I’m so sorry. Magnus is … What can I say? A flawed individual.”
“You guessed he might do this?” I stare at her. “Has he done it before?”
“I was afraid he might do something stupid,” Wanda says after a pause. “I’m afraid whatever gifts Magnus inherited from us, the gift of commitment was not among them. That’s why we were concerned about the wedding. Magnus has a history of leaping into romantic ventures, backtracking, changing his mind, making things messy for everyone.”
“Then he has done it before.”
“In a way.” She winces. “Although we’ve never got as far as the church before. There have been three previous fiancées, and I gather Lucinda was an almost-fiancée. When he announced yet again that he was marrying a girl we hardly knew, I’m afraid we didn’t rush to celebrate.” She eyes me frankly. “You’re right. We did try to put him off the idea in the church, quite forcibly. We thought the two of you should spend a year getting to know each other better. The last thing we wanted was for you to be hurt by our son’s idiocy.”
I feel dazed. I had no idea Magnus had proposed to anyone else, let alone four girls (including Lucinda—half). How can this be? Is this my fault? Did I ever actually ask him about his past?
Yes. Yes! Of course I did. The memory comes back to me in a fully composed picture. We were lying in bed, after that dinner at the Chinese place. We told each other about all our old flames. And, OK, so I edited very slightly.94 but I didn’t leave out four previous proposals. Magnus never said a word. Not a word. But everyone else knew.