Chapter 4

      Sunday, 3rd December

      At Brides by the Sea: Gravitas and Ashton Kutcher

      ‘Okay, let’s go for a shot by the window. Maybe with your arms around each other this time?’

      It comes as a bit of a shock to hear my own instructions to Nate and Becky echoing around the empty upstairs room. Although they live in London, St Aidan’s one of their favourite surfing destinations. Meeting up here with them always made it easier to persuade Luc to come to visit my parents.

      As for the location, in the end Jess was proved right. Given the choice between horizontal rain on the beach, or a studio flooded with natural light, Nate and Becky took pity on me and opted to stay inside. Today is meant to help them relax in front of the camera, but it’s great for me to have a dummy run with moving targets too. Although, when I suggested a casual dress code, with accessories to ring the changes, I didn’t bank on them turning up in wet suits and immediately adding in Santa hats and sunglasses. It’s no surprise that every shot I’ve taken so far looks like a surfie selfie from Christmas Day at Bondi.

      ‘Is this a good pose?’ Becky, bless her neoprene socks, isn’t stinting on the effort as she stares out to sea through a window and coils herself around Nate’s neck.

      ‘Brill.’ I can overlook that she’s entwined like a contortionist. The trouble is, whenever she takes up a pose she goes rigid. ‘Remember to let Nate breathe, though.’

      I was confident it would be easy to get some fabulous results in this space. But with Nate and Becky so tense it’s proving harder than I thought. I’ve been concentrating so hard on snippets of news I might get from them, I’ve completely overlooked how strange it was going to feel coming face to face with Nate and Becky without Luc. Or that seeing them again would give me quite so many pangs for the life and the boyfriend I don’t have any more. What’s worse, within a few minutes of Nate and Becky arriving, I’m getting flashbacks. And I thought I’d left those behind months ago.

      There’s no way to put this tactfully. ‘Can we lose the hats and sunnies this time?’ I beam to show them how well they’re doing. Even if this is turning into a total photographic disaster, I absolutely can’t let them know.

      ‘Without shades?’ Nate couldn’t sound more horrified if I’d asked him to get naked and pose in the buff. ‘I’m going to feel way too self-conscious staring straight into that lens.’

      Just my luck to hit a wedding couple like this, but I know exactly how he feels. I might as well ’fess up. ‘I’m just the same. I hate having my photo taken.’

      Becky gives a guilty shrug. ‘It’s why we had to have you to do the wedding. I knew you’d understand. We couldn’t possibly have a real wedding photographer.’

      Now they tell me. And all this is before we get to the not smiling thing. I have to say Luc’s friends are a lot more intense than mine. You’d at least expect surfers to be relaxed, but Nate and Becky surf so hard it’s more like work than fun. It goes without saying that jobs in insurance and finance involve a lot more responsibility than laughs. It’s understandable that a banker will be more weighed down than a cake maker or a dress designer. And Luc couldn’t have taken his own career in health and safety any more seriously. But then, as he always pointed out, it’s a life and death area. Whereas making food look pretty totally isn’t. I have this vague idea that when I accidentally gate-crashed the party at the shared house where he lived five years ago, we both got the wrong end of the proverbial stick. I thought he was an easy going, student accommodation kind of guy, whereas he was only there on the way from one massive loft apartment to another. The fact I was working on a one-off job, snapping champagne for Fortnum and Mason, gave him the entirely wrong impression about my gravitas. If we’d met up a month later when I was styling basic chicken nuggets for a cut price supermarket, he’d never have let me eat every toad-in-the-hole canapé on the plate he was circulating with. He’d have whooshed his platter further around the room until he found someone more suitable. I think more than my hunger for sausages, that night I hung on in there because he was a dead ringer for Ashton Kutcher. Although that could have been down to too many WKD’s on my part. Even if he did still go on holiday with his parents, he was hunky enough for women to give me envious glances when we were out together.

      As for his mates branding me as ‘a Cameron Diaz’, really, there’s no resemblance. I’ll admit to the odd ditsy moment. But implying I’m out there, blonde and sexy? Mainly I hide in corners, and obviously my hair’s dark and usually messy. So they’re totally wrong on every count with that comparison. Although I will admit I was Luc’s fun side.

      One last try and I’m throwing it all in. ‘Forget I’m here … talk between yourselves … think happy thoughts … try humming Heaven is a halfpipe …’ If I can’t even get one decent photo when it’s just the three of us, I’m starting to wonder how I’ll get any at their wedding.

      From the way Nate’s lips twist, he’s halfway to amused disgust. ‘Wrong sport. Halfpipes are skaters, not surfers.’ And the moment’s over and he’s back to looking like an undertaker.

      ‘Okay, take a breather, I’ll see what we’ve got so far.’ Truly, wild accessories aside, as I flick through the camera roll, if you overlook that Becky’s got a single teensy blue streak in her hair, these two wouldn’t look out of place on the front of a funeral plan brochure. Thinking back to yesterday afternoon, the ride from hell with Santa was bliss compared to this. Although it gives me an idea. ‘How about you get your hoodies on and we’ll pop for a walk round town. It’ll be more authentic. And much more like being at the wedding than this.’ I’m bullshitting here, but I’m desperate. So long as we don’t bump into Santa, things can’t get any worse than they are now.

      ‘Great.’ It’s strange how these men respond to big words and office speak. From the way Nate almost smiles again, I had him the second I said ‘authentic’.

      In no time at all, they’re changed and we’re out on the street. As I do up the top button on my jacket and hang on tight to my camera strap, I’m wishing I’d bought some fingerless gloves.

      ‘So, you two wander and look in the shop windows, and I’ll follow you with my zoom,’ I say. Then I retreat a few feet across the mews and start snapping. Becky and Nate, holding hands, ambling down the cobbles, Becky and Nate laughing – really! – Becky pulling Nate back to look at the sparkle in the Brides by the Sea window. And we’re away. Three shops along, they stumble across the Riptide surfie shop winter sale and we all troop in. Cue more cute pics. Looking at sweatshirts. Becky in a Christmas tree hat. Nate holding up a Have a Swell Christmas t-shirt. By the time we leave they’re both swinging handfuls of brightly coloured carrier bags and Nate’s carrying a body board. And I snap them spilling out onto the street.

      An hour later, after a trawl all round town and down to the harbour and back, I’ve taken what feels like a thousand shots. The light’s fading and my fingers have turned to ice. As we stagger past the window at the Hungry Shark, even though the hot drinks aren’t as delicious as the Surf Shack’s, the yellow light inside is warm and inviting.