The Witness at the Wedding

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“Oh, I didn’t tell you there’s a history of murder in my fiancée’s family, did I?”

The speaker was Stephen, Carole Seddon’s son, and as soon as he’d said the words, she wished he hadn’t. Everything had been going well up until that point. Carole was entertaining Stephen and Gaby on her own ground, over lunch in the Crown and Anchor pub in Fethering, and discussion of the wedding arrangements had been harmonious, even at times exciting.

But Gaby hadn’t liked the mention of murder. The bubbliness of her personality had been instantly punctured, and she looked pained as she turned to her fiancé and said, “You’re exaggerating. I don’t think local gossip qualifies as a ‘history of murder’” To give him his due, he did back off very quickly, aware that he had crossed a threshold into forbidden territory. Carole was again surprised by her son’s sensitivity. In Gaby’s company Stephen displayed sides of his personality whose existence his mother had never suspected…or, Carole thought ruefully, had never taken the trouble to explore. She still didn’t ever feel quite at ease with her son, still a little guilty for her lack of instinctive maternal feelings, for her part in the break-up of the marriage to his father David.

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