Lena walked down the aisle alone, carrying a rolled-up menu instead of flowers.
The chairs had been laid out in the smaller room facing the terrace. Through its glass doors she could see the sea changing colour. Tomorrow there would be people in all these seats. Now there were six of them and the hotel woman who was helping them practise where to stand.
'Just a little slower,' the woman said.
Lena tried again. Her shoes made a soft click against the floor. Tom stood by the back row, looking at the doors rather than at her.
Owen had been told not to turn until Bea reached the third row. He turned too early twice. On the third attempt Bea stopped walking.
'You won't actually do this tomorrow, will you?'
'I'll want to see you.'
'You'll see me in a minute.'
'It's a very long minute.'
Bea made a face at him and walked the rest of the way. He reached for her hand before the hotel woman had finished speaking.
Lena moved to the side. There was a small mark on the floor for her shoe, made with tape. She stared at it while Bea and Owen listened to instructions. In the front row beside her, Kit shifted in his chair. He had come in last with Nia and they had been asked to sit in the front row as pretend relatives. Nia's knee touched his.
The hotel woman showed Owen where to stand so he wouldn't block the view of Bea. Bea listened, nodded, then moved him back towards her.
'I can lean round him,' she said.
Owen bent his knees, making himself shorter. She elbowed him, laughing. For a second Lena forgot about the green box upstairs.
Then Tom moved at the back of the room and she remembered.
They practised the walk out. Bea clapped her hands once when it was over, pleased with a job done.
'Good. That's good. Now food.'
Tom approached her before they reached the door.
'Can I have a word?'
Lena stopped too. He glanced at her.
'Only the music,' he said.
Bea looked from him to Lena. 'It's all sorted.'
'I know. We need to change something.'
Lena waited by the door while they went back towards the empty chairs. Bea's face sharpened. She reached for her phone, talking quickly. Tom stood with his hands at his sides. He did not look pleased to be part of the wedding any more.
Kit came past with Nia. 'Are you eating with us?'
'In a minute.'
Nia nodded towards the room. 'Does she ever stop?'
'Not when there's something left to do.'
'I'd better bring her some bread.'
Lena watched them go. She was hungry enough to feel slightly sick.
Dinner was in the hotel restaurant, two tables pushed together for the small group staying that night. Other guests would arrive in the morning. Bea's relatives had sent messages from the road, and most of Owen's family were coming down after breakfast. Lena sat beside Tom because his coat was already over the chair next to hers.
He moved it when she approached.
'You can sit somewhere else, if you like.'
'Here is fine.'
His face did something she couldn't bear to watch. She picked up the menu.
The food arrived slowly. Bea kept checking the doorway, then the time, and finally Owen took her phone gently from beside her plate.
'If they need you, they'll find you.'
'It might be about tomorrow.'
'It is all about tomorrow. Eat something today.'
She reached for the phone. He held it out of reach, then put it on the table by his own elbow. She could have taken it. Instead she took a piece of bread from the basket Nia passed her.
A conversation about the sea view turned into one about Owen and Bea's flat. Their tenancy ended in spring. They had been looking at houses a little farther from the front, where the rooms were bigger and there was somewhere Owen could keep his tools.
'He's found one he loves,' Bea told Lena. 'It has this awful little lean-to. He thinks it's a workshop.'
'It could be a workshop.'
'It could be demolished.'
He took out his phone to show Lena photographs. Bea leaned across him, scrolling past the outside to a small room with a bay window.
'That's where his desk could go,' she said. 'Except the radiator's under the window, and all his bits will get hot.'
'My bits?'
'Your little models. All the little things you glue.'
'They're wood. They won't melt.'
Lena took the phone. 'I'd put the desk against this wall. You can still turn towards the window. Then shelves here, quite shallow.'
Bea pointed at the other corner. 'I said that. And a chair for me there.'
'You won't sit in my workshop.'
'Of course I will. I can read while you make things.'
Owen smiled at her over the phone. 'You'd complain about the dust.'
'You can hoover.'
Lena found herself smiling too. Bea had a picture of it already, a chair in his room, the two of them doing different things in the same warm space. Lena had done that with Tom. She couldn't remember when their separate things had stopped feeling like separate things, when his plans had begun swallowing hers.
Tom's knee brushed hers beneath the table. She moved her foot to let a waiter through and didn't move it back.
'It was one of the reasons I knew,' Owen said. He was still looking at Bea. 'We wanted the same things.'
Bea reached for her water.
'You hardly knew each other,' Lena said.
'We talked a lot. Before we'd even met properly. There was a message about wanting a family. We both wanted a family. That was the important bit.'
Lena looked down at the photograph of the room.
She had written things like that to Kit once. A house loud with people, somewhere she would never have to eat dinner alone. A child, perhaps, when they were older and knew how anything worked. She had believed it when she wrote it. At twenty-four, believing a thing had felt very close to making it happen.
Bea caught her looking.
'What?' she asked.
'Nothing. I'm still thinking about the shelves.'
It was hardly an unusual thing to want. Lena handed the phone back.
'You're going to ruin my surprise,' Bea told Owen.
He sat back, grinning. 'I haven't said what it is.'
'It's got messages in it,' Kit said, from the other end of the table. 'You've said that much now.'
Owen looked mildly embarrassed. 'A little book. I've made the covers. I'm getting two copies done, for us. That's all.'
'Like a wedding album?' Nia asked.
'Not photographs. Things we've written to each other. Not all of them.' He looked at Bea. 'Some would put people off their dinner.'
Bea's colour rose. She pushed his shoulder. 'Owen.'
He laughed, but lowered his voice when he spoke to Lena again. 'The first ones, mostly. I kept them. She says more in writing sometimes.'
Lena could imagine him making it at his desk, sanding the edges until they were smooth, testing how the pages would fit. He had made Bea a little box for her earrings the previous Christmas, with felt glued inside and a lid which fitted perfectly. Bea had brought it out whenever anyone came to the flat.
'Does she know which ones you've picked?' Lena asked.
'No. I've shown her the cover. That's enough.'
Bea took her phone from beside his elbow. 'I'm checking the photographer. Then I'm eating. I promise.'
There was still bread in her hand.
The main courses came. Lena had ordered fish because it was the first thing she saw. Tom remembered she'd wanted chips and moved half his onto her plate without asking. She looked at the food, then at him.
'Thanks.'
He shrugged and reached for his glass. She wanted to say more. She wanted everyone else to leave the table so she could begin, and she wanted dinner to last until morning.
Across from her, Nia asked Owen about the wood he'd used for the covers. Not to keep a conversation going; she seemed interested. He told her, then remembered he didn't want Bea to know one detail and stopped himself. Bea rolled her eyes, almost herself again.
Lena ate enough to stop feeling hollow. When the plates had gone, the hotel woman came in to ask Bea a question about the music.
'That pause after the first dance,' she said. 'You still want it left in?'
Bea looked at Tom.
'No,' he said.
His voice was quiet but everyone heard it.
Bea stood at once. 'We've changed that. I'll explain.'
She took the woman to the doorway. Nobody at the table asked. There were all sorts of pauses and changes at weddings. You didn't need to examine every one.
Tom's hand was flat on the table beside his empty glass. Lena had held that hand when he broke a bone in it, his whole forearm swollen under the hospital light. She had sat with him all night, talking nonsense whenever he looked frightened. Back then she had known exactly where she needed to be.
Bea returned and asked if anyone wanted coffee.
'I don't,' Lena said. 'I'm going upstairs.'
Tom pushed his chair back.
No one tried to keep them there.