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some family out there who had been blessed with twenty-odd years of good health and luck, because we seemed to have been given their share of dark misfortune as well as our own. And it didn’t matter that Dad said that no one was to blame for his illness, because I knew that he’d only begun smoking again after my accident. It had been his way of coping with the stress. And if he hadn’t been doing that, then he probably wouldn’t be ill now.
    So many terrible things were linked to that one awful night. A blinding twist of pain, worse than even the severest of my headaches, stopped my thoughts suddenly in their tracks before they were allowed to venture down that forbidden avenue.
    I intended to leave first thing in the morning and had looked up the times for the first train from London. I’d already booked two days off work, for although everyone wasn’t meeting up until the Thursday evening for Sarah’s hen-night dinner, I hadn’t wanted to arrive late in the day. In reality I knew I would need the time to compose myself for the three-day visit and I had no way of knowing just how hard that was going to be until I was actually there.
    I had refused Sarah’s offer to stay at her parents’ place. Much as I loved her family, they had always been more exuberant and excitable than my own, and I didn’t think I’d be strong enough to face that particular brand of crazy in the run-up to their only daughter’s wedding. They had seemed to understand and hadn’t appeared offended when I’d declined their offer and had instead booked a room in one of the town’s two hotels. Many of the guests would be doing the same, I imagined, although of course quite a large number probably still lived in the area.
    As the train slipped out of the station and began the two-hour journey, I allowed myself to think of the people I would be meeting again that night. My friends from the past. It seemed strange that the bonds I had thought would bind us for ever had not proved as resilient as I had always believed. And it hadn’t been the passing years that had slowly severed the threads apart. No, they had been sheared away by a young man’s moment of insanity and an out-of-control stolen vehicle.
    Sarah had been extremely careful and cautious when filling me in on news of our old group of friends. From visits to her parents and through the town grapevine she knew that after uni Trevor had returned to Great Bishopsford and was currently living with his girlfriend, who Sarah had yet to meet, and was working as a branch manager in a bank. I found it hard to imagine the rock-band guitar-playing Trev of my teenage years in such a sedate and respectable lifestyle.
    Phil was apparently still living the life of a nomad. He’d taken a gap year after university which had grown into a second year of basically bumming around the world. This wandering lifestyle had somehow metamorphosed into a job as a freelance photographer, and although his family still lived in the area, Phil apparently spent little time there between assignments, often electing those which sent him abroad for months at a time. Sarah said that when their paths had crossed, she sensed in him a restlessness that seemed to explain his lifestyle and reluctance to settle in any one place.
    And then there was Matt… and of course Cathy, for now their histories were inextricably linked. I could tell how hard it had been for Sarah to let me know about them. How carefully she had chosen her words, picking just the right phrase, uncertain of the pain she might be inflicting. It must be just over eighteen months since she had told me that Cathy and my ex-boyfriend were now an item. As the words had settled down the phone lines between us, I had waited for any shard of pain that this news would bring. There was none; merely surprise. And not surprise that those two unbelievably beautiful people were together, just surprise that it had taken Cathy this long to achieve her objective.
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