So this is a bit awkward. I flick a glance in Becky’s direction and she manages to articulate, with widened eyes, a vague gesture with her hands, and a flare of her nostrils that no, she doesn’t have a clue what’s going on, either.
I watch Alex, trying to look as if I’m not watching him. He steps across the kitchen and puts a hand to Alice’s waist, kissing her warmly on the cheek. Emma lifts an eyebrow almost imperceptibly.
‘Jess, this is Alice,’ says Alex.
And I reach out a hand – why on earth do I do that? It seems weirdly formal, but I don’t know her well enough to kiss her and it feels like I have to do something. Alice takes it and we shake in greeting. Alex gives me an odd, sideways look.
‘Very nice to meet you, Alice,’ I say. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ I add. Becky, standing behind her, widens her eyes at that and gives me A Look.
‘You have?’ Alice tilts her head slightly, smiling. ‘I hope it’s not all bad.’
‘Gosh, no,’ I say, aware I’m digging myself into a hole. ‘All very good in fact. Lovely.’
Becky’s nostrils flare.
‘Why don’t I go to the shop and get some Pimm’s? I was just saying it’s the sort of afternoon you should be drinking Pimm’s.’
I turn around and head for the door.
‘I’ll come with you,’ says Becky, hotfooting it out of the kitchen.
‘What the hell?’ I say when we get outside.
‘I have no idea. Literally none,’ Becky replies. ‘Has she come back to say she’s made a terrible mistake and she wants him back?’
I almost say ‘Bloody hell, I hope not’, but manage to turn it into a cough and then a much more appropriate: ‘Maybe she thought she should pay her respects, or something?’
‘To their non-marriage?’ Becky snorts with laughter again.
‘I don’t know. What kind of weirdo turns up on their not-wedding day and randomly appears from the garden in the middle of our Keep Alex’s Mind Off Things mission? Is this the sort of thing she always does?’
‘I dunno. I only met her a few times at work events. She always seemed quite nice, in a sort of horsey, Surrey, I’ve-got-posh-parents sort of way. Bit like Alex used to be.’
‘Did he?’ I ask, surprised.
‘God, yeah.’
I stop suddenly in the street and someone walking crashes into me from behind, swears, and then carries on, making a detour round me. I’m still not very good at the not-stopping-on-London-streets thing.
‘Alex doesn’t seem like a posh sort of person. He’s …’
‘He’s lovely, yeah. But before his dad died he was much more like your stereotypical law type. Nice suit, pretty girlfriend, liked a night out at the Sloaney Pony.’
Despite having heard about the ‘old Alex’ a few times, I struggle to reconcile the laid-back, slightly scruffy, bearded, permanently exhausted Alex with the image she’s creating.
‘That’s really weird. I can’t imagine that at all.’
‘I don’t think Alice could imagine him the way he is now. She’d have that beard off him in about five seconds flat, for one thing.’
After picking up Pimm’s, cucumber, a punnet of strawberries and some lemonade, we head back to Albany Road.
‘What d’you think’s going on in there?’ Becky nods towards our house as we approach.
‘Have you got any change yet?’ says the little girl from the lemonade stall.
‘Sorry, no,’ I say. ‘Unless you take credit cards?’
She giggles. ‘I did ask Daddy if he’d let us but he said no.’
‘You’ll have to catch me after payday, then,’ I say, only half joking. I’m still lurching precariously from one month to the other. Becky’s paid for the Pimm’s, which is just as well because I’ve pretty much run out of money and there’s still quite a lot of the month left. I clock the expensive-looking car parked opposite our house and wonder if it belongs to Alice.
‘Is that …?’
Becky nods. ‘Yep. You can see how downgrading to hoofing it on the tube on a student loan wasn’t really her style.’
Inside, Rob’s dishing up spiced chicken kebabs on a bed of colourful salad leaves. There’s no sign of Emma, or Alex, or Alice, for that matter. I can’t help feeling angry that we’ve arranged a day to take his mind off something and Alice has come along and put a massive spanner in the works.
‘They’re outside in the garden.’ Rob nods his head towards the door.
‘I’ll make the Pimm’s,’ says Becky, quickly. ‘You go and size up the atmosphere out there.’
Surprisingly, Emma’s on her hands and knees, pulling up weeds from a flower border. She’s gathered quite a pile, heaped up beside her.
‘I didn’t have you down as a gardener,’ I say, nodding at the pair of battered-looking green gardening gloves she’s wearing.
‘They’re not mine. Think they must’ve belonged to Becky’s gran. But yeah, I love gardening. Used to help my dad out at the allotment all the time. I still do, when I go home.’
Well, this day just gets weirder.
Meanwhile, Alex and Alice are sitting at a faded wooden picnic table. It’s worn smooth and silver with age.
‘Come and join us,’ says Alex, patting the bench beside him. I slide myself into the narrow gap and sit down, not too close to him, and look at Alice. She seems perfectly composed, sitting with her hands folded neatly in front of her, a glass of Rob’s wine half drunk on the table.
Well, I think. This is going to be a bit of an awkward afternoon.
‘Pimm’s, anyone?’ says Becky, in a sing-song voice.
‘God, yes,’ I say, falling on a glass with as much enthusiasm as one of our marathon runners at the support table reaching for water. I take a slightly too-large sip and cough.
But of course, we’re British, and what we do best is awkward, slightly stilted social gatherings. Rob insists there’s more than enough food for everyone, so we spend a perfectly polite and charming evening around the battered old garden table celebrating Alex’s not-wedding with the wife that never was.