Midsummer 2013... and a few months earlier

Shaun and I and the rest of the family were happy to sleep in the marquee, in Serena’s lovely wedding field half-way to Grantchester. But we had lots of friends who wouldn’t be. So we commandeered Ben’s digs; Serena’s college room; Bink’s.

As I was getting Bink’s room ready for the wedding guest who would stay there, I noticed a sonnet to her on the mantel.

I already knew Gatsby dabbled in poetry.

I see, I thought.

I skated over a revelation a few months earlier.

Easter Monday. Everyone at home. Which meant, of course, Gatsby too.

Everything manically busy.

Can I talk to you? Bink asked after lunch.

It was a couple of hours before we could grab a room to ourselves.

Would Serena be very upset if I don’t want to be her bridesmaid?

Deep breath. Say nothing for a moment.

The beautiful dress, designed and made and already paid for doesn’t matter... of course it doesn’t.

Bink, Serena wants you to enjoy her wedding and be there to celebrate her joy with her. If you are uncomfortable being a bridesmaid, we’ll find a way around it.

Thank you, she said.

May I know why?

She looked very uncomfortable. I don’t want to wear the dress.

(Why on earth didn’t you say? It was designed especially for you...)

Would you be happy to be bridesmaid if you wore something else?

Um... I suppose so. Would that be possible?

Of course it would!

Somehow, between us, we came up with a trouser suit. Did we discuss cream silk, or is that something I just imagined?

Bink still looked very troubled.

That’s not all of it, though.

Can you tell me?

She was clearly finding this difficult. In the end, she just came out with it.

I’m pregnant.

There’s only one thing you can do.

I hugged her. Told her we would all help and support her. And the baby of course.

While a black, hungry cavern opened beneath and swallowed me whole, as I saw the next twenty years of my life disappear into the bringing-up of Bink’s bairn. I would never get back to my beloved work nor ever write another book, ever again.

I could never condemn anyone who has an abortion, whatever your views on it. Unwanted pregnancy is almost the most terrifying thing I can imagine.

Utterly.

Even when it’s not your own.

Bink has always been even more pro-Life than the rest of us.

I parked my life. All of it. Never to be mine again.

Who is the father? Will he help?

I don’t know him, she said. We only met once.

She thanked me for my reaction and went to join the others.

I found Shaun upstairs. He is pretty inscrutable anyway, and didn’t seem the slightest surprised.

You haven’t heard the half of it, he said.

That morning, Gatsby had sought Shaun out and told him he was marrying Bink, so the baby would have a father.

Horror upon horrors.

Gatsby would think he was doing us a favour. Nearer our age than Bink’s, he dared describe my objection to cannabis as because we were ‘fuddy-duddies’. He honestly would believe he was galloping in as some sepia hero rescuing a fallen daughter.

I gathered myself and went back downstairs to resume cooking dinner.

Bink came into the kitchen.

Look!

My eyes gaped. It must have cost thousands. The biggest, most vulgar clump of stones I’d ever seen. Worthy of Joan Collins, or... I don’t know. Donald Trump.

Gosh, I said. I hugged her again, and noised some enthusiasm suitable for one’s daughter’s engagement.

She took it off her finger and urged me to look.

Very generous, Bink.

Are you looking at it?

I can’t miss it.

I hadn’t yet discovered contact lenses, nor had my eyes done. All I could see was a blurred tangle of flashing.

Put on your reading specs on.

So I found them, and did, and turned this hideous monstrosity in the light.

Look inside.

Tiny, tiny. Microscopic. Tucked inside the ‘diamonds’. In little capitols.

‘April Fool’.

I screamed. And was shaking for the rest of the evening.

Asked Christian to take over the cooking. Ben to get me a whisky.

Downed three large ones. Still shaking.

I’ve never known such relief in my life.

I have engineered some fools in my time. What you dish out, you have to take.

I admitted it was a very, very good one. If you judge fooling by persuasiveness and impact. Rather than, say, wit or amusement.

The acting, from both of them, first-rate.

I kept saying so.

Well done, I said. It was a very convincing fool.

At least I must have communicated how overjoyed we were, that Gatsby wouldn’t be our son-in-law.

The next day, Shaun was angry. Not at being duped. Fair cop, we both said.

But at Gatsby’s posting it all over Facebook.

One thing to fool your friends. Another to make fools of them to the world.

As for me, I kept all these things and pondered them in my heart.

It was Gatsby’s dream come true. That was what disturbed me.

Bink fallen.

Gatsby to the rescue.

The rest of us supposed to be grateful.

O my prophetic soul.