Robin wanted to find the holdall containing the sturdy rubber protective brace, but it would be somewhere out of reach in the bridal suite, wherever that was. “If I wait, we’ll have the family on us.” The rest of the party followed, the bridesmaids’ mint-green chiffon dresses rippling in the hot breeze. Matthew had already set off after his bride, gaining on her easily as she navigated the lawn in her stilettos. Just needs a drink,” said Geoffrey comfortably. The couple had looked happy enough beneath the shower of confetti in which they had departed the church, but on arrival at the country house hotel they had worn the rigid expressions of those barely repressing their rage. “I think her arm’s hurting her,” the bride’s mother told the groom’s father.īollocks it is, thought the photographer with a certain cold pleasure. She strode out of the copse of trees into the blazing sunlight and off across the lawn towards the seventeenth-century castle, where most of the wedding guests were already milling, drinking champagne as they admired the view of the hotel grounds. “It doesn’t matter,” said Robin, pulling her long skirt up clear of her shoes, the heels of which were a little too low.

“You’d think the buggers were doing it on purpose, eh, Linda?” said Geoffrey with a fat chuckle to the bride’s mother. The moment Matthew had released Robin, the swan by the far shore had begun to paddle its way across the dark green water towards its mate. “Wait, wait, the other one’s coming now!” said the photographer crossly. “Let’s leave it,” said the groom suddenly, releasing Robin. He found the whole thing ominous and distasteful.

That long scar down the bride’s arm had put him off her from the start. Good-looking as they were, he didn’t fancy the Cunliffes’ chances. He still kept, for the amusement of friends, the blurred shot from 1998 that showed a groom head-butting his best man. One bride had stormed out of her own reception. He had known couples to start screaming at each other while he read his light meter. There was a tension about the couple that could not be wholly attributed to the difficulty of getting the shot. “Turn in to him a little bit more, please, Robin. “Have you got it?” Robin asked again, ignoring her father-in-law. The smallest bridesmaid, a toddler, had had to be restrained from throwing pebbles into the lake, and was now whining to her mother, who talked to her in a constant, irritating whisper. The couple’s parents, best man and bridesmaids were all watching from the shade of nearby trees. “You look gorgeous, flower,” said the groom’s father, Geoffrey, from behind the photographer. “Have you got it?” asked the bride, her impatience palpable. The swan’s mate, meanwhile, continued to lurk over by the bank: graceful, serene and determinedly out of shot. Cunliffe, who had already suggested this remedy, realized.

If both would clear out of the background it wouldn’t matter, but one of them was repeatedly diving, its fluffy pyramid of a backside jutting out of the middle of the lake like a feathered iceberg, its contortions ruffling the surface of the water so that its digital removal would be far more complicated than young Mr. Thankfully, the ugly mark was now hidden in the shadow cast by Mrs. He had fought off the mental image of steel slicing into that soft, pale flesh. Cunliffe-or Robin Ellacott, as she had been two hours ago-had said. He had even wondered whether she had made a botched attempt to kill herself before the wedding, because he had seen it all. It had given him quite a start when she had removed it for the photographs. She had been wearing a rubber and stockinette brace when the photographer arrived at her parents’ house that morning. The only thing that needed concealing, and it could be retouched out of the final pictures, was the ugly scar running down the bride’s forearm: purple and livid, with the puncture marks of stitches still visible. Cunliffe’s teeth were straight and white. Matthew Cunliffe, no need to angle the lady so that rolls of back fat were hidden (she was, if anything, fractionally too slender, but that would photograph well), no need to suggest the groom “try one with your mouth closed,” because Mr. There was no need for tactful tricks with the new Mr. He couldn’t remember when he had last been commissioned to photograph so handsome a couple. He was loath to change the couple’s position, because the soft light beneath the canopy of trees was turning the bride, with her loose red-gold curls, into a pre-Raphaelite angel and emphasizing the chiseled cheekbones of her husband. If only the swans would swim side by side on the dark green lake, this picture might turn out to be the crowning achievement of the wedding photographer’s career.

Happiness, dear Rebecca, means first and foremost the calm, joyous sense of innocence.

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