Are you keeping it?’
Ife turned to face her mother, the ice in which her heart was encased now black and unyielding. Smash it with a sledgehammer and it won’t crack. She knows what her mother is asking, hence she wants to be unequivocal in her answer, no talking around it like her mother would often elect to.
‘Yes. I am keeping my child.’
‘Are you going to tell your husband?’
‘Are you?’ That was not a question so much as a dare, Ife’s eyes grow colder by the second.
Her mother did not respond, and she knows not to push her daughter’s buttons she pushed enough. A daughter who absolutely hates her.
‘Leave. Don’t ever come back to my house again. Ever.’ Ife issues her orders before walking out without sparing her mother a backward glance.
Evelyn sighed that deep seated heavy sign that settled in a long time ago, she knows she pushed her daughter too far, but she was only trying to do what she thought was right. Given the chance she is not sure she would take a different tact but if dealing with a daughter who hates her so much was thrown in the equation… Her husband did warn her about pushing Ife so far, appealed with her to find a different way to help her best friend but there was no other way and he didn’t know the half of it.
Evelyn left without another word to her daughter, hopefully time will heal all wounds.
…
Hendrix was just locking up the Church when he heard the knock at the door, probably a patron who’d forgotten something. He padded over the hardwood floors, echoing the empty space and unlocked the door for whomever it was.
It was her.
‘Hi.’
Hendrix thought he was seeing a ghost. She’d broken up with him six months ago and vanished from his life after a whirlwind year when he’d lost himself in her. She drove down to the Church as she’d been doing most weekends, but that weekend was different, she wouldn’t come in. Leaning against her Porsche, unsmiling steely resolve. It was that look on her face that killed him, it was alien to them, to the feeling between them. She’d come to break up with him and she did. There and then. Her parents were going to cut her off if she did not marry some pisser, they’d promised her to. All his life he thought that only happened to aristocrats in movies turned out she was one. He stood watching her drive off into the evening, that speed she craved almost as if she wanted to smash the world to pieces. And now here she was, after smashing his world to pieces.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I wanted to see you.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. To let you know we were not a mistake. To let you know that I love you- ’
‘But you’re still going to marry him.’
She walked into the pub forcing him to take steps back. God she was beautiful, her eyes haunted him, that smile of hers, full and beautiful; Ife smiled with her whole face and her laugh was his most favourite sound. He could hear it even when she was not around. For months she’d drive down ten hours to the pub to spend the weekend, a week here and there, even spent Christmas with him. She worked at the pub, kept him company as he worked in the distillery late at night; she was his mater taster and one of his most precious batches, Love, is his best-selling whiskey, limited in production and dedicated to her. She’d worked with him on the production, tasting it and giving feedback until it was perfect. Perfect like her.
‘I love you.’
‘What do you want me to say to that.’
‘That you love me?’
‘Will that make a difference? Stop you walking away from me.’
‘Hendrix…’
‘Don’t.’ He held up a hand.
Ife stepped forward and kissed him; she didn’t want to hear anything else from him denying what they have, how they felt for each other, reducing the best year of her life with him to nothing. Hendrix held onto her and lost himself in that kiss, sinking them further into the Scapa, the water engulfing them. He gasped for air and she was his, she reached for a breath and he was hers. They sunk deeper into the ocean around them, neither caring if they drowned because they would be together. Straddling her against him they headed for the bar…
…
The morning after, 11am.
‘Where is she?’ Evelyn asked Rellie, Zainab and Jacob who also looked panicked. This morning of her wedding and the bride is nowhere to be found. Ife had left home yesterday morning, and no one had heard from her since. The friends know she is acting out, she has rebelled against her parents all through this courtship knowing she did not have a choice. But she gave it a good shot of hell.
‘She’ll be here.’
‘Where has she gone?’
‘We don’t know.’
Evelyn surveyed the three guilty as sin faces looking at her, they know where she’s gone, they absolutely do and are not telling. ‘If she’s not here- ’
‘She’ll be here.’ Rellie responds emphatically but it was laced with a wish and a prayer.
Hendrix pulled up outside St Patrick’s in Knightsbridge and that heaviness settled in the car between them. He looked at Ife looking at the church as if she wanted to blow it all up. Their hands intertwined. She was taking her time, and he could almost see the wheels turning in her head. He was not going to help her get there, he had all the right words, but she had to get there herself.
Without looking at him she kissed his hand, her tears lingered on it, opened the door and got out of the car. He watched her walk into the church towards the rest of her life. Without him.
The soundtrack of their love; I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You… playing on the radio.
When Ife walked into the church to be met by her friends she could see the relief on their faces, without a word said between them, they led her to the rectory to get her dressed for the wedding she is very late for. Her mother walked into the room, face like thunder but did not dare ask her daughter any questions. She knew where she’d been.
‘I don’t want anyone walking me down the aisle, please tell my father that.’
‘Ife for the love of- ’
‘I will leave, and you will not see or hear from me again. I am here when I don’t want to be. I am doing the thing I do not want to do because I am a coward, but I will stand up to you otherwise its off. I will not be walked down the aisle by anyone.’
Ife walked down the aisle to her future, Tristan was waiting on her, she could tell by the look on his face when he looked back to see her walking towards him, how relieved he was. Poor chap, she felt a smidgen of guilt for him. They were friends, good friends because their mothers are the best of friends. He was patient with her during their courtship and accepting of her wily ways and he always would be. That relief on his face propelled her forward, she wanted to smash everything, she’d made up her mind to blow it all up when she got to the alter, answer no when asked that question, and make a run for it to Hendrix, but that look on his face, one of fear and indebtedness… she jogged the rest of the way down the aisle towards him and the congregation laughed bursting into applause; they probably thought her madly in love with him, but she wanted to get it over and done with, wanted it to end so she would not have to live through much of this insufferable day.