Afterwife (26 page)

If she went on like this Sam would dump her. After being engaged for so long, to lose him now would be like queuing all night
on the pavement to buy a ticket to Wimbledon’s Center Court only to turn around and go home the moment her name was called. Yes, he’d dump her. Or, just as bad—no, worse—he’d nuke her friendship with Ollie, impose some kind of Ollie purdah. Then she wouldn’t see Freddie either. Oh, God. Unimaginable. She needed to do something, something persuasive, placating and symbolic.

And fast.

F
our days later, Jenny stood anxiously shifting from the sweaty insole of one tan gladiator sandal to the other on Tottenham Court Road, rather doubting her flash of genius. Could this really be the solution to the Ollie-versus-Sam problem? The bridge across the boiling waters? Well, she hadn’t had any better ideas. And she needed to move on. She needed to stop thinking about the letters she’d discovered in Sophie’s drawer. Stop thinking about Dominique. Ollie. The entire bad thought disco in her head. Sam was right. She needed to chill right out. Grief had knocked her off course. It was time to get back on track again. This was a start.

Twelve thirty. Jenny checked her phone in case he’d sent a message. Nothing. Maybe he’d blown her off. She’d pretty much forced him into it, after all, flexed the power of bridal entitlement like a biceps. She would give him five more minutes. Two more. One more, just in case. Until the lights changed. The pavement began to swell with office workers on their lunch break. Although it was blustery, it was hot, making her grateful that she’d slathered on the deodorant
as well as having got herself fully waxed and plucked. Today, special reinforcements would be necessary. One more light change.

Just as she turned to go, defeated, there he was, waving, walking up the street in a slim-cut black suit, white trainers, his floppy dark hair alive in the wind, more vivid than anyone else, like he was in high-def color and everyone else was in black-and-white. I’m always going to remember this moment, him walking up the street like that in his black suit. I’m going to remember it forever, she thought.

She kept her thoughts to herself.

“Am I late?”

“I was just early,” she said, even though he was late.

As they started to walk down Oxford Street Jenny became very aware of the wind, of the way it was blowing her blue dress flat against her body, showing everything: bust, belly, swell of pubic bone.

“Pretty dress,” Ollie said, giving her a sidelong glance.

She swung her big handbag over her torso shyly. “Thanks.”

“I’ve brought supplies.” He rummaged in his trouser pocket and pulled out a packet of Haribo. “I’d have brought harder drugs but I fear your disapproval.”

Jenny laughed. “I can’t believe I’m making you do this.”

“Nor can I.”

She’d already told him why she’d asked. It was quite simple. Easy to explain. He was here because Sophie wasn’t. That was the reason. He understood that. She understood that. By taking Ollie wedding dress shopping she was firmly placing him in the role of Gay Best Friend. This would clarify the relationship for all of them and stop her life from unspooling. He could be gay! He could. He could be gay and musical and sexy, like Rufus Wainwright. They must all completely forget that he was heterosexual.

Selfridges. Ollie pushed open the heavy glass doors, then stood aside to let her through into the hungry scrum of the handbag department—who were all these women feeling so rich in the middle
of a recession?—before they jostled their way toward the huge escalators that cut through the fabric of the building like a giant zipper. Jenny held on tightly to the rubber handrail. She hadn’t been to a big department store since Soph died. The glass, the chrome, the lights and noise were overwhelming. As if sensing her discomfort, Ollie put his hand on the small of her back. It burned a palm shape through the thin cotton of her blue dress.

He leaned over her from the step below, resting his chin on her shoulder. “Now, so I know, Jen, are we going white or off white or something more radical?”

“Off white. A lady at John Lewis said it was ‘softer on the mature bride’s complexion.’” His mouth was centimeters from hers. He was too close. She stepped up on the escalator.

“She actually said that? Jesus. I’m scared now.” He smiled at her, almost shyly now. “But do
you
want off white?”

“I don’t know what I want. And I should warn you now that I have to battle my inner Dolly Parton, Ollie. I’m always drawn to the most hideous dress in the shop. Your job is to stop me from buying something that should not be seen outside Nashville.”

“I may not.” His breath was on the back of her neck. For a moment she thought she smelled everything she loved in it—coffee, fresh air, sleep, sex—then she caught herself and mentally shut her nostrils. “I may let you go rhinestone yet.”

They burst into the bridal suite, the eyes of the groomed staff peering at them curiously, discreetly. Perhaps they were wondering about the handsome man with her, who he was, why he was there. If he was gay. She caught sight of Ollie’s face in the ornate white mirror on the wall opposite and started at the familiarity of it, almost as if she’d inadvertently caught a glimpse of her own reflection.

“How can I help you?” A headmistressy shop assistant with a name badge—
Penny
—approached them, beaming. Her teeth were
so white they looked almost blue, like teeth under UV light at a disco in the eighties.

“I’m looking for a dress.” State the bleeding obvious. “A wedding dress.” Even worse. She could feel Ollie smiling next to her, shifting from trainer to trainer at the inherent weirdness of the occasion.

“Well, you have come to the right place.” Penny waited for Ollie and Jenny to laugh. They laughed. “What sort of gown are you looking for?”

Something about the word “gown.” It made her feel old and musty, or like someone about to be admitted into surgery in a hospital ward.

The shop assistant raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Modern?” Ollie offered.

Jenny nodded gratefully. “Yes, yes, modern!”

“Modern gowns for the modern bride,” repeated Penny with rehearsed enthusiasm. “If you’d like to follow me.” Feeling like schoolchildren in a lingerie department, she led them giggling to a rack of serious dresses, all lined up on a rail like different mismatching sections of one long billowing curtain. She could feel her heart start to slam. Just the sight of the dresses made her anxious. They were all so forbiddingly romantic. And she was so…so…prosaic somehow. Sophie used to be able to wear frills and flounces and look like Kate Bush. Whereas if Jenny so much as went near a lace hem she looked like one of those madwomen who wander around Portobello Market mumbling about the summer of 1974 and how better the area was before the bankers moved in.

“Like?” said Ollie, picking a cream column off the rail. “Not like?”

“Like.” Jenny nodded, trying to work out if like was love. No, not love.

“Do let me know if you’d like me to put any of them in the dressing
room,” exuded Penny, block heels wedged in the deep pile carpet. She smelled a sale and clearly wasn’t going anywhere.

“This is cute,” Jenny muttered, fingering some intricate pearl beadwork around the neckline of a dress.

Penny was there in a flash. “Stunning! I’ll put it in the dressing room. What is your size?”

She felt embarrassed to be revealing such information in front of Ollie. “A size twelve?” She immediately regretted presenting as a question.

Penny gave her a quick once-over. “I’ll put a couple of fourteens in there too, shall I? The sizing varies so much from dress to dress.”

Jenny blushed again, hating the thought that Ollie would think she was trying to pretend she was slimmer than she was. Which, of course, she had been.

“I’ll let you know if we need any more help, thanks.”

Penny stepped backward with comic servility just as a twentysomething blonde and her equally blonde mother giggled into the bridal suite. Something about their excitability gave Jenny a pang of longing for a feeling she didn’t yet feel. She would soon. Yes, she would. As soon as she had her dress. Obviously, the dress was key. You couldn’t be a bridezilla without a bridal
gown.

“This rocks.” Ollie held up a long oyster-colored dress with a pale blue sash around the waist.

She fingered the frilly sleeves. “A bit trannie?”

“You’ve ruined it for me now.” He flicked it away on its hanger, making a metallic whoosh sound on the tracks. “This one?” He held up a long white dress with barely any embellishment.

She cocked her head on its side. “Gorgeous. And yet. No sparkle.”

“You’re right. The girl must have sparkle.”

He was silent for a few moments and when she next looked up at him she could see that something had changed. He looked quite
different from how he’d looked a moment before. He was frowning into the rack of dresses with a strange, distant look in his eyes. Oh, God. He was staring at a fifties-style dress, a dress just like Sophie’s wedding dress.

Sophie’s had been a vintage dress, cinched in tight at the waist, the skirt flouncing out as if hooped, filled with layer upon layer of petticoat, so that she looked like a Degas ballerina when she leaned forward. Most keenly Jenny remembered the morning of the wedding, its intimacy, the excitement. It was just her, Sophie and a makeup artist with pea green eyes called Lottie in a little boutique hotel with lilac upholstery. Jenny could still hear the hiss of the glasses of champagne and smell the basket full of untouched toast and croissants, a freshly showered Sophie sitting on a stool in her white hotel dressing gown, nervous and happy, a river of dark, freshly washed hair falling down her back.

She had watched, awestruck, as Sophie had got more beautiful with each stage of the prep process: hair dried and curled, makeup applied, diamonds clipped to her ears, blue lace garter snapped to her thigh, flower behind the ear. Sophie had worn a red flower behind her ear that day. Jenny had helped Lottie wire it and pin it on, holding the spare pins between her front teeth. She remembered wondering what it must feel like to be so blessed. Never in her wildest dreams would it have occurred to her that Sophie would be dead a few years later. Or that she’d be here choosing a wedding dress with Sophie’s groom.

She felt a shudder of guilt. In her haste and selfishness to convince Sam of the platonic nature of her relationship with Ollie she’d not considered Ollie’s feelings. She put the dress she was holding back on the hanger. “Let’s go, Ol.”

“But we haven’t found your dress.”

“I can get my dress another time.”

“This is the time.” He slipped his arm around her waist. She felt
the cuff of his suit against her skin. “I want to help you, Jenny. I really do.”

She blinked back unexpected tears. There was a part of her longing for him not to facilitate any of it. For him to stop the wedding, to tell her it was too much too soon. To tell her to stop being such a bloody idiot, and to lead her away someplace dark and quiet until the feelings that were mashing up her head abated. “You’re sure?”

“Sure. You need to try this shit on.”

Penny appeared by their side. Jenny tried to ignore her.

“I hate trying stuff on.”

She could hear Penny tutting beneath her breath.

“How many weeks until the wedding?”

“Four.”

Penny gasped before whipping their choice of dresses away to the dressing room with a stagey kick of the heels.

It didn’t take long for the changing room to whiff of sweat as she struggled into dresses, out of dresses. And yes, annoyingly, the shop assistant was right. In two dresses out of three she was a fourteen. She couldn’t help but dislike like those dresses. She yanked on the size twelve off-white column number, plain apart from a sash bow studded with crystal—just the right amount of twinkle?—and emerged self-consciously from the changing room, not knowing how to dangle her arms, aware of her corset-fortressed bosom spilling over the neckline. “This one?”

At first Ollie didn’t say anything. He just stared.

“You don’t like it?” She shyly pulled up the dress to hide her cleavage.

“You look beautiful.”

Jenny blushed, fiddled with a bit of handmade lace. Had she found the One?

“But…”

There was a but! She deflated.

“It doesn’t show off your shoulders.”

“My shoulders?” Jenny had never noticed her shoulders. No one had ever noticed her shoulders. It was like noticing her elbows. Her shoulders were entirely unremarkable.

“Try on the one with the cutaway sleeves.”

“You’re not meant to do cutaway sleeves over the age of thirty-five.”

“Says who?”

“I don’t know, the fashionistas. Women who know about these things.”

“I think we know what Sophie would say.”

“Bollocks to that.” She leapt back into the dressing room and eyed the sleeveless dress combatively. It looked heavy and overly worked, the kind of dress that would look stunning, as Penny might say, on the sylphlike twentysomething with the waist-length blonde hair in the next-door cubicle. Plus it was size fourteen.

It was harder to get into than the others. Penny had to lower it down over her face like a piece of armor. A sharp tug on the inner corset lost her a lungful of breath. Then there were dozens of pearl buttons that ran up the spine, each one requiring the fingers of an elf to fasten.

“Almost there!” Jenny called out to Ollie through the curtains, as Penny fastened the last button. “Don’t run off to the pub just yet.”

“Stunning,” sighed Penny, standing back, hand at her throat.

Jenny stole a glance at herself in the changing room mirror. The dress made her look different in some way she didn’t quite understand. It was genuinely hard to tell if she looked lovely or totally awful.

“Come on,” Ollie called from the other side of the curtain.

She yanked back the edge of the curtain. Penny gave her a little push on her flank, as if nudging a horse from its box, and she nearly
fell out of the dressing room. Under his gaze she could feel herself sweating. “Awful?”