Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner (primary phonics .TXT) 📕

own bridesmaids. It is an informal photograph – professionally taken, elegantly framed – flooded with the sunlight of her and Rory’s beautiful July wedding day. Serena is grinning, and the bridesmaids are laughing, uproariously, at some joke. Some joke from which I have been forever excluded.

I had just assumed Serena would choose me as a bridesmaid in return for her being mine. But she didn’t. At the wedding, I had made sure to smile delightedly as the bridesmaids passed, two by two, in their floor-length, made-to-measure gowns, clutching elegant wildflower bouquets. Their dresses were duck-egg blue, a colour that has never suited me. She’d have loved to have had you, Rory told me afterwards. She’s just got so many close friends. Unlike you, he might as well have added.

Rachel hands the picture back, and I set it on the table. ‘Shall we go outside now?’ I say. ‘I could do with some fresh air.’

So we sit at the end of the garden. It is sunny, but too cold, really, for sitting outdoors. The lawn is dusted with fallen leaves, the wisteria turning from green to yellow, rustling in an autumn breeze. But it is dry, and the sky is clear, and at least we are away from the building noise. It takes us several trips to take out all the food. Then, I lay out one of Mummy’s old tartan blankets, put some cushions on top of it. I find I’m hungrier than I thought.

After I have eaten, I bend to check on our four roses, dust the white petals from their beds. I’ll need to prune them soon, but not quite yet. Their blooms are wilting, browning at the edges, but they are still soft, still beautiful.

When I return to the rug Rachel is sunbathing, taking up more than half of Mummy’s blanket, her legs stretched out on the grass, my cushion under her head and shoulders, stuffing her mouth with raspberries and peach slices. She looks perfectly relaxed. Whatever crisis brought her to my door – if there even was one in the first place – appears to have passed. She has a new pair of sunglasses on today, the lenses heart-shaped, cartoonish against her baby face. She is wearing denim cut-off shorts and a baggy T-shirt. Her bump sits underneath, a little bigger, but still tiny compared to mine. She must not feel the cold.

‘When was that other picture taken?’ Rachel asks.

‘Which picture?’

‘The one you’ve got on your hallway wall, by the mirror. The one with the four of you. In a boat.’

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘That was just one day in Cambridge. We were punting.’

‘Yeah, I thought it looked like a punt.’

I look at her, surprised. ‘Do you know Cambridge?’

She frowns, shakes her head. ‘No. Never been. I just heard it’s nice.’ She cradles her bump with both hands, her lips berry stained. ‘Did you say Serena took photographs?’

‘Yes. Her studio is in the mews just behind that street over there.’ I point, but Rachel isn’t looking.

‘What does she take pictures of?’

‘Portraits, mostly, I think. Or that’s what she sells most of. She’s got a big exhibition coming up. She’s doing really well.’

The truth is, I don’t really understand Serena’s photographs. She has them hanging all over the house, some in colour, some black and white. A wrinkled old man she saw in India, glowing-faced children with fishing nets she saw in Bali, a panoramic shot of the floating markets in the Mekong Delta, which she and Rory visited on their honeymoon. I always admire them, obviously. But I’m never sure exactly what makes a photograph good, or bad. I suppose they don’t make me feel anything much.

‘You don’t like them.’ Rachel has turned her head and is looking at my face, grinning, a hand flattened over her eyes.

My head snaps up. ‘Sorry?’

‘Her pictures!’ Rachel giggles. ‘Come on, Helen. I can tell by your face.’

‘I don’t know anything about art,’ I stutter, but I find myself laughing a little bit. I’m surprised to find how dizzyingly pleasurable it is, this minor act of disloyalty, rebellion. To laugh at Serena. To belittle her passions, her so-called talent.

‘To be honest,’ I hear myself saying, ‘I think most of it is a load of nonsense.’

Rachel throws her head back and hoots.

‘I mean, not just her,’ I say, already feeling guilty. ‘Most art, I mean. I’m sure hers is good. I just … I probably just don’t get it.’

But Rachel is shaking with laughter. She pulls a packet of cigarettes out of her pocket, and places one between her smiling lips, so that it sticks up straight from her mouth, like a pencil.

‘You crack me up, girl,’ she says, flicking at her lighter with one thumb. She lights the cigarette, inhales, then takes it between her fingers and blows a plume of smoke straight up in the air. She yawns extravagantly, her arms stretching out overhead, revealing gritty stubble in each armpit.

‘Maybe I’ll get one of her portraits,’ she says through the yawn.

‘What?’

‘A portrait. By Serena. Be nice to have some proper photos of the bump. All the celebrities do it now, don’t they?’

She winks at me, then places her hands on either side of her belly, her cigarette still perched between the fingers of her right hand, and starts drumming gently, as if she is playing the piano.

I look at her, try to gauge whether or not she is being serious about going to see Serena. The thought fills me with an irrational sense of dread.

‘I’m so comfy,’ Rachel says, yawning loudly again. ‘I might have a little nap here. You don’t mind, do you?’

Without opening her eyes, she gropes around for the raspberry punnet, takes another handful and tips them into her mouth.

It’s only later, when I notice the wedding photograph Rachel brought down, that I realise. I keep that picture on my bedside table. What was she doing in our bedroom?

32 WEEKS

SERENA

If it wasn’t for the rain, I’d probably have gone