I can’t even remember who that was. Annalise, maybe? Annalise was at university with me, and now we work together at First Fit Physio, with Ruby, who was also in our physio course. Ruby was at the tea too, but I’m not sure she tried on the ring. Or did she?
I can’t believe how rubbish I am at this. How can I do a Poirot if I can’t even remember the basics? The truth is, everyone seemed to be trying on the ring: Natasha and Clare and Emily (old school friends up from Taunton), Lucinda (my wedding planner, who’s kind of become a friend) and her assistant, Clemency, and Ruby and Annalise (not only college friends and colleagues but my two best friends. They’re going to be my bridesmaids too).
I’ll admit it: I was basking in all the admiration. I still can’t believe something so grand and beautiful belongs to me. The fact is, I still can’t believe any of it. I’m engaged! Me, Poppy Wyatt. To a tall, handsome university lecturer who’s written a book and even been on the TV. Only six months ago, my love life was a disaster zone. I’d had no significant action for a year and was reluctantly deciding I should give that match.com guy with the bad breath a second chance—and now my wedding’s only ten days away! I wake up every morning and look at Magnus’s smooth, freckled, sleeping back and think, My fiancé, Dr. Magnus Tavish, Fellow of King’s College London, 1 and feel a tiny tweak of disbelief. And then I swivel round and look at the ring, gleaming expensively on my nightstand, and feel another tweak of disbelief.
What will Magnus say?
My stomach clenches and I swallow hard. No. Don’t think about that. Come on, little gray cells. Get with it.
I remember that Clare wore the ring for a long time. She really didn’t want to take it off. Then Natasha started tugging at it, saying, “My turn, my turn!” And I remember calling out, “Careful!”
I mean, it’s not like I was irresponsible. I was carefully watching the ring as it was passed round the table.
But then my attention was split, because they started calling out the raffle numbers and the prizes were fantastic. A week in an Italian villa, and a top salon haircut, and a Harvey Nichols voucher … The ballroom was buzzing, with people pulling out tickets and numbers being called from the platform and women jumping up and shouting, “Me!”
And this is the moment where I went wrong. This is the gut-churning, if-only instant. If I could go back in time, that’s the moment I would march up to myself and say severely, “Poppy, priorities. ”
But you don’t realize, do you? The moment happens, and you make your crucial mistake, and then it’s gone and the chance to do anything about it is blown away.
So what happened was, Clare won Wimbledon tickets in the raffle. I love Clare to bits, but she’s always been a tad feeble. She didn’t stand up and yell, “Me! Woohoo!” at top volume, she just raised her hand a few inches. Even those of us at her table didn’t realize she’d won.
As it dawned on me that Clare was waving a raffle ticket in the air, the presenter on the platform said, “I think we’ll draw again, if there’s no winner … ”
“Shout!” I poked Clare and waved my own hand wildly. “Here! The winner’s over here!”
“And the new number is … 4403.”
To my disbelief, some dark-haired girl on the other side of the room started whooping and brandishing a ticket.
“She didn’t win!” I exclaimed indignantly. “ You won.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Clare was shrinking back.
“Of course it matters!” I cried out before I could stop myself, and everyone at the table started laughing.
“Go, Poppy!” called out Natasha. “Go, White Knightess! Sort it out!”
“Go, Knightie!”
This is an old joke. Just because there was this one incident at school, where I started a petition to save the hamsters, everyone began to call me the White Knightess. Or Knightie, for short. My so-called catchphrase is apparently “Of course it matters!”2
Anyway. Suffice it to say that within two minutes I was up on the stage with the dark-haired girl, arguing with the presenter about how my friend’s ticket was more valid than hers.
I know now that I never should have left the table. I never should have left the ring, even for a second. I can see how stupid that was. But, in my defense, I didn’t know the fire alarm was going to go off, did I?
It was so surreal. One minute, everyone was sitting down at a jolly champagne tea. The next minute, a siren was blaring through the air and everyone was on their feet, heading for the exits in pandemonium. I could see Annalise, Ruby, and all the others grabbing their bags and making their way to the back. A man in a suit came onto the stage and started ushering me, the dark-haired girl, and the presenter toward a side door and wouldn’t let us go the other way. “Your safety is our priority,” he kept saying.3
Even then, it’s not as if I was worried. I didn’t think the ring would have gone. I assumed one of my friends had it safe and I’d meet up with everyone outside and get it back.
Outside, of course, it was mayhem. As well as our tea, there was some big business conference happening at the hotel, and all the delegates were spilling out of different doors into the road. Hotel staff were trying to make announcements into loudspeakers, and cars were beeping, and it took me ages just to find Natasha and Clare in the mêlée.
“Have you got my ring?” I demanded at once, trying not to sound accusatory. “Who’s got it?”
Both of them looked blank.