Revenge of the Wedding Planner (30 page)

The Coven rescued Julie in the end, and took her to stay with one of them for a while. Well, they did have no small hand in getting Jay and Julie together in the first place, I suppose. Amanda and Rebecca (the prosecution lawyers, do you remember?) got right on the case. They hired a lawyer friend of theirs to help Bill and he turned up some juicy details from the police report. It turned out John
was
high on cocaine when he knocked poor Bill into the middle of next week,
and
he was currently banned from driving for five years anyway. But even though the stupid guy could well have killed my other half, his team of lawyers told our lawyer he was hoping to get off with a charge of reckless driving. And maybe he’d admit to ‘driving under the influence’ on the grounds he’d been severely provoked in his actions and was under extreme stress at the time. And also he’d promised to go back into rehab for his drug problems and give lots of interviews telling young people that drugs didn’t work. And although they didn’t say as much, I knew they were all hoping the shockingly lightweight jail sentences that reckless drivers receive in this country would be to their advantage. Of course, we were asked if we wanted to settle out of court. But Bill was determined that the case should go ahead because he said celebrities shouldn’t be allowed to buy their way out of trouble. He said he wanted John to serve time. Not usually a vindictive man, my husband. But you’ve got to remember he was on heavy medication. And so both camps withdrew to build their respective
cases and we all waited for a court date to be scheduled.

Meanwhile, Julie and Dream Weddings carried on as usual. There was some talk going about the city, naturally, about how the wedding of the century had ended in disaster. But as most of the guests were from out of town, there was nowhere for the press to dig their claws in. And the pictures of Julie stuffing Sophie’s head into the haunted-house wedding cake never saw the light of day because John’s people paid them all off. One million dollars for every reel of film. To me, an insane amount of money just to save himself from the embarrassment of being jilted at the altar. But then again, as Amanda and Rebecca pointed out, he had no choice if he wanted to salvage his rock-star reputation.

‘Who would buy the silly twat’s albums,’ they said wisely, ‘if it was known that he was cuckolded for months and then abandoned at the wedding, while he stood up like an eejit in a red velvet coat with skulls embroidered across his back, and just let it happen?’

Who, indeed? The popular music market is very fickle.

So, as I say, the whole world and his dog knew the wedding had been called off but without a set of juicy pictures to go with it, the story sank into the background after a couple of days. And was overtaken by a scare story about the amount of fat and salt in the average packet of crisps. Litres of oil, apparently, we’re all pouring down our necks each year. Maybe that’s why I still get the odd pimple at my age, I thought, and immediately decided to go cold turkey on the sour cream
pretzels. It was nearly as difficult and stressful as burying my father had been. I woke up in the night yearning both for a handful of crunchy salty pretzels, and for a lovely cosy non-threatening dad in carpet slippers and a zip-up cardigan. Just an ordinary father who grew tomatoes in the greenhouse and read gardening almanacs and maybe kept an allotment or a small quiet dog.

I sincerely hoped Emma hadn’t got wind of the oily crisps outrage because it might have set her progress back months. Those shocking pictures of young children drinking big plastic bottles of bright yellow cooking oil made even my stomach heave. And I adored crisps. But Alexander told me Emma had more or less given up watching ‘lifestyle’ telly and reading glossy gossip magazines, as part of her recovery programme. And that she was now reading quality novels in her spare time and they were thinking of rescuing a tiny dog from the animal shelter to take for walks. They’d asked the owner of the flat if they could keep a small pet and he’d said yes, they could, as long as it didn’t make a lot of noise. And that if a ground-floor apartment with a small garden ever came up for rent, he would let them know.

Anyway, I was having a little lie-down in my bed one evening about eight days after the accident. I was feeling quite worn out from the twice-daily hospital visits by then. God knows how some families manage to care for their relatives for years and years on end. But I was half asleep and wondering how Bill would manage the stairs when he came home, and if we should get a stairlift installed, when there was a loud knock at the front door. There was nobody else in the house at the time (Andrew
and Christopher were at a pop concert in the Waterfront Hall with a bunch of their mates) so reluctantly I dragged myself out of my cosy bed and went down the stairs to answer it.

‘This had better not be some jolly lady collecting for charity or, worse, some underweight young man who can’t speak English selling flipping dusters and making me feel sorry for him,’ I said crossly to one of Bill’s guitars, ‘because I’m so not in the mood for it today.’

Quick tip for you: always keep a dish of pound coins beside the front door for such eventualities. It saves you a lot of time running round the house looking for your purse while some stranger loiters in your front porch, possibly casing the joint for a burglary later on. Then, you can just hand over two quid, grab the dusters or whatever, say thanks and shut the door without getting into a lengthy chat-situation with them. Sorry to sound so cruel and detached but there you are. Ditto carol singers, cold callers, et cetera.

But anyway, to my great surprise, it was Julie.

‘Hello there, Mags Grimsdale,’ she said sheepishly. ‘How’ve you been?’

‘Hello yourself, Julie Sultana,’ I said. ‘I’m okay. Come in.’

‘How’s Bill?’

‘He’s much better. He’s coming home tomorrow. Just in time for Alexander’s wedding. The doctor says he can go if he feels up to it.’

‘Oh, how lovely for you!’

‘Yes, I can’t wait to have him home. It’s weird going to bed without him.’

‘I know the feeling,’ she said in a small voice.

‘I’m sorry, Julie.’

‘Forget it.’

Julie was looking fabulous, I have to say. Bob newly styled, gorgeous blue-stone choker round her neck with silver and white flowers dangling from it, knee-length brown leather boots and a swanky new handbag still smelling of leather and luxury. Her perfume was heavy and spicy and I felt my heart aching for the past. The past, when everything was so simple. Before Alicia-Rose went to Australia. Before Julie went off the rails and left me to run the business on my own half the time. Before my Bill was almost killed… and I knew it was finally time for me to grow up.

‘These are for you,’ Julie said sweetly, holding out an enormous bouquet of pink flowers, lots of different kinds including some exotic blooms I’d never seen before. They looked like sleeping tarantulas, to tell you the truth, except they were pink. And there was a dramatic pink grass thing going on around the bottom. Enough cellophane and ribbons to sink a ship. Very Julie, I decided. I wondered what she wanted from me. Possibly she needed me back early at the lighthouse?

‘Well, how lovely!’ I said, reaching out for the flowers. ‘Thanks very much, Julie. You shouldn’t have. But they
are
beautiful. What’s the occasion?’

‘Oh, I think we both know what the occasion is, Mags. To say how very, very silly I’ve been. And how terrific you’ve been, taking over for me at the lighthouse when I was busy… It won’t happen again, I promise. The control-freak is back for good.’

‘It’s forgotten. Really.’

‘Hopefully, everyone else will forget soon too. People have short memories, Mags. All of this will be ancient history one day. Oh, I thought we might change the name of the business when the court case is over. White Orchid Weddings, did you say once? I think that’s lovely.’

‘Oh, no, Julie. I’ve changed my mind. I think we should keep Dream Weddings, honestly I do. It feels right. We’ve been through a lot together and I want to keep it.’

‘Really? Do you?’

‘Yes. I do.’

‘Okay, then. Dream Weddings it is.’

‘Look, have you time for a cuppa?’ I said.

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ Julie purred and she gave me such an intense hug the lovely pink flowers were almost squashed between us.

‘Come through to the kitchen,’ I told her, setting off down the hall.

Seeing Julie again reminded me of the night of the accident. Which was unsettling. But, also, I was feeling delighted that she was in my house again and obviously missing me loads. ‘Here, can you pop these into the good room for me?’ I asked her. And I passed her back the bouquet. ‘It’s cooler in there. I’ll just get the kettle on.’

She took the flowers and nudged the door of the good room open with her toe.

‘Oh, Mags! It’s gorgeous in here,’ she said, clocking the depleted collection of candlesticks and the new white Roman blind. ‘Looks twice the size without the Gothic stuff and the purple silk drapes. Where’s Goily, though? Have you thrown him out?’

‘He’s in the garden,’ I told her, already gathering my best red plates and cups from the dresser shelves and switching on the toasted-sandwich maker. ‘We thought he would look nicer in the garden.’

Well, it’s a yard, really. But we call it a garden because it’s full to bursting with plants and flowers growing in pots and on a trellis Bill fixed to the wall years ago. There’s a little iron seat in the only corner that catches the sun and I like to think it’s an artistic sort of spot to relax in. So we’d heaved Goily onto an old skateboard of Alexander’s and wheeled him out to his new home, and he does look quite settled beside the creeping ivy, I have to say.

‘You should have had the room like this for your dad’s thingamajig,’ Julie said thoughtfully. She’s Free Presbyterian so she’s not very well up on wake-lingo. Julie’s biggest worry at times of bereavement is what hat to wear, but really I can’t fault her on that because she wasn’t ever close to her relatives on either side when she was growing up. I sometimes wonder how she’d cope if anything happened to the Coven, but then I scold myself for being so morbid. Anyway, I have no doubt Julie’s friends are immortal. They do give you that impression.

‘Oh, I know. I can’t believe we didn’t think of using the skateboard to move him at the time. The gargoyle, not my father! Oh, well, it’s done now. Cheese and onion do you?’ I said, fetching some Stilton with cranberries from the fridge and a shiny red onion from the vegetable rack.

‘Sounds lovely,’ Julie said, hopping up on a stool at the counter and playing with her rings and bracelets nervously.
‘I do miss your sandwiches, Mags. I think I took them rather for granted over the years.’

‘We’ve all taken things for granted,’ I said. ‘It’s human nature.’

The kitchen was warm and welcoming and Julie’s many bracelets rattled prettily as I chopped the onion and buttered four slices of bread.

‘Well,’ I asked her, ‘what’s up? Come on and tell me all the gossip.’

‘I went to visit Charlotte yesterday,’ Julie said suddenly, as the lid of the sandwich toaster hissed down.

Julie always calls her mother Charlotte, never Mummy or Mum.

‘How is she?’ I asked, pouring tea into cups and hunting through the cupboard for a packet of sugar. Julie takes sugar in her tea, and I don’t. I know, it doesn’t make sense to me either: her ankles are like straws.

‘The same. I told her my new boyfriend had cheated on me with another woman, a client of ours, to be precise. I told her he’d left me for this other woman and I was heartbroken. Well, I wasn’t really heartbroken but I wanted to see what she’d say.’

‘I can guess what she said.’

‘Yeah? “Men are all the same,” she said to me. “When will you ever learn?” That was it! Ten words in all. I counted them. She didn’t even ask for details. Wouldn’t you think she’d want to know all the gory details, Mags? Any normal woman would.’

‘No chummy advice on relationships, no anguished cries of motherly outrage? No hugs and kisses, even?’

‘Nope. Not a sausage. Same old Charlotte, dry-eyed
and cynical to the bitter end. She simply went on folding the jeans and setting out new shoes and handbags on the shelves as if I’d told her I’d broken a fingernail.’

‘Oh, Julie. I’m so sorry.’

‘Well, I didn’t expect her to be shocked or even mildly upset. But you’d think she could have faked a bit of sympathy for me, couldn’t she? Jesus! I mean, she makes chit-chat all day long to her customers, talking about all the events they’re going to and coming from. Why doesn’t she love me, Mags? Why doesn’t she love me the way you love your children? Was it my father’s fault, do you think? Did he make her so detached? Or was she born that way? Odd as a fish? Is that why she didn’t leave him when it all went pear-shaped?’

‘I don’t know, Julie. I’d say it’s all so long ago now, she’d need therapy to find out. And maybe it would only make her worse? You know, to think she wasted her life because of religion and keeping up appearances? I’m undecided on the therapy debate, to be honest with you. With some people, there’s a lot to be said for sticking their head in the sand and just getting on with life. I think Charlotte is one of those people.’

‘Maybe she is.’

‘Is that why you went so crazy for Jay O’Hanlon, though? Because he made you feel loved? Because he was so over the top you couldn’t ignore him?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘And what about Gary Devine? Didn’t he make you feel cherished? He did propose to you, remember?’

‘Yes, he did, but I didn’t realize in time how nice he was. I think I took him for granted as well. He’s moved on, by the way.’

‘Did you try to make it up with him?’ I asked her, astonished. That was very brave, I thought to myself.

‘No, I didn’t go over there or anything. I just wanted to apologize for all the hurt I caused him. I called him for a chat. But he told me he’s met a new girl. A paramedic nurse from when he broke his leg on the way to Galway. They’ve been out on a few dates. She’s only twenty-five.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry, Julie. Are you bothered?’