The Bridesmaid Pact (16 page)

Sarah

Oh god. Every day I woke up and the pain was still there. A dull ache lying across my stomach. I knew in my head that divorcing Steve was the only sensible way forward. I’d known it for months, but now it was happening a kind of paralysis had set in. I got myself through the days like an automaton and dreaded Steve’s return at night. We hadn’t spoken properly since my outburst at Dorrie’s. But every day he grew colder towards me. He’d taken to sleeping in the spare room, rather than in our bed. In fact I was sure he must be spending most of his time in hers, as there were several nights when he didn’t come home at all.

The day of reckoning was drawing near and I knew I had to face it. But now it was so imminent I couldn’t bear the thought of my marriage being over.

‘Get it over with,’ Dorrie urged me on a near daily basis. The only refuge I had from my misery was coffee and biscuits and wedding plans at Doris’s – somehow the thought of her tying the knot with Darren was immensely comforting in my misery. At least one of us was happy.

‘I know, I know,’ I said. ‘But how do you begin to have that conversation? Where do you start?’

Dorrie didn’t have an answer to that. Why should she? Sympathetic and fabulous as she was, she couldn’t really understand. She and Darren were so loved up, I couldn’t imagine them ever splitting up, or Darren being unfaithful to her. She was so lucky. Not for the first time in my life, I felt a tad jealous. Dorrie had always had it all: looks, brains, money, a fabulous home, a great life. She had always seemed so blessed to me. It was unworthy I knew, but I couldn’t help myself.

In the end, I got sick of the sound of my own voice, so insisted I help Dorrie source some more stuff on Freecycle. We’d already got napkins and name places all with a Disney theme, but Dorrie had set her heart on having Mickey Mouse disposable cameras on the tables, and Mickey and Minnie Mouse ears for everyone to wear (insisting that the grown ups wore them as well as the kids). I said I’d do that for her. She seemed so tired all the time, it was the least I could do.

‘You haven’t forgotten we’re going to lunch for Mum’s birthday on Sunday,’ said Steve without any preamble as he came in through the front door towards the end of June. It was the most he’d said to me in the tense weeks since Dorrie’s games evening.

‘What, you still think we should go?’ I said. I couldn’t think of anything I’d like to do less than spend a birthday lunch with my soon-to-be-ex mother-in-law. I got on with Maggie all right, but spending a day playing happy families would be excruciating.

‘Yes,’ said Steve, casually pulling off his tie. ‘Of course I do. We can’t miss her birthday. She’d be devastated.’

‘Like you’d care,’ I said. It had been my job all these years to remind Steve when his mum’s birthday was. ‘When was the last time you bought your mum a present?’

‘You don’t need to worry about that,’ he said. ‘Kirsty’s already sorted it.’

‘So let me get this straight. You want us to go to lunch with your mother, pretending everything is fine between us, and you will be giving your mother a present from us, supplied by your mistress. That is so bloody ridiculous it’s almost funny. You
are
planning to tell her we’re splitting up, aren’t you?’

‘When the time’s right,’ said Steve. ‘But I can’t ruin her birthday.’

‘Well, I’m sorry you feel like that,’ I said stiffly. ‘You can take the kids, but I won’t be coming.’

‘And what do you want me to tell them then?’ Steve nodded in the direction of the lounge, where luckily the kids were obliviously watching
The Simpsons
. The unfairness of that infuriated me.

‘Don’t you think you should have thought about that before you found yourself a mistress?’

‘There’s no talking to you,’ said Steve. ‘I knew you’d be unreasonable.’

‘
Me
unreasonable?’ I felt like picking a knife up and stabbing it through his heart so he’d really know what unreasonable was. ‘You chose to end this marriage by having an affair and
I’m
the unreasonable one? You are so full of shit, Steve. I wish I’d divorced you years ago.’

‘I wish you had,’ said Steve. ‘It would have saved us both a lot of grief.’

He took himself upstairs to get changed, then went in to say goodnight to the boys. He then came back into the kitchen. ‘I’m going out,’ he said.

‘Where?’ I asked.

‘It’s no longer any concern of yours what I do,’ he said, and walked out of the house.

If he’d punched me in the stomach, he couldn’t have hurt me any more.

‘More pudding, dear?’ Steve’s mum proffered some raspberry cheesecake.

I didn’t think I could eat another thing. I’d barely touched my food since I’d been in her house. What on earth had possessed me to come? I should have left Steve to go alone, but the kids had been so excited about seeing their granny on her birthday, and I felt churlish ruining the day for her, so I’d come, albeit reluctantly. We’d been pretending for so long that we were a happy couple, one more day wasn’t going to make any difference.

For Better, for Worse. In Sickness and in Health. Those vows had meant something to me. They clearly hadn’t meant anything to Steve. In Love and in Divorce – no one had yet written a vow to cover that one. And I didn’t even have any happy memories of the wedding day itself. My whole marriage had been a complete disaster.

To make matters worse, Joe was there too. His steady unflinching sympathy had been both a source of comfort and embarrassment to me through the long, farcical years Steve and I had played out this charade. I liked and respected him – amazing how different two brothers could be – but I couldn’t face him at the moment. I’m sure Steve had filled him in on what was happening. Joe was never backward with coming forward when he thought Steve was in the wrong, but they were close, and for all I knew had known about Kirsty all along. He was loyal to his brother, even if he hated the way Steve behaved.

‘You look a little peaky, dear,’ said Maggie. ‘Steve, you
need to look after Sarah better. She looks peaky, doesn’t she, Joe?’

‘I’m fine,’ I said, with embarrassment.

‘You’re too thin,’ Maggie continued oblivious. ‘You silly girls will insist on dieting.’

‘I’m not dieting,’ I protested, as Steve snorted into his glass of wine. God he could be cruel sometimes. All my married life I’d heard him going on about how fat I was and yet, I’d never gone above a size twelve, except in the months after my pregnancies. I had, I realized, let him brainwash me into thinking I was overweight.

‘I think Sarah looks lovely,’ said Joe, glaring at Steve warningly, who ignored him and said nothing.

Even Maggie couldn’t fail to notice Steve’s glaring omission. ‘Steve?’ she asked in a good-natured kind of way.

‘What?’ said Steve savagely. ‘Will you all get off my case? There’s nothing wrong with Sarah. She’s not dieting, she looks fine. Boys, why don’t you come for a kick about in the garden with your Uncle Joe?’

‘Yay!’ Sam and Will jumped to their feet, luckily unaware of what was going on, and never passing up the opportunity to play football with their dad and uncle.

I shot a glance at Steve. He seemed quite anxious. I almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.

‘Maggie, let me help you with the dishes,’ I said, both her sons being absolutely hopeless on that score.

‘Oh, thank you, dear,’ she said. She appeared completely unaware of anything untoward. As far as she was aware this was just another birthday lunch with her family.

I went into the kitchen and started to pile things up in the dishwasher while I watched the boys playing in the sunshine outside. They were all having such fun and I was
no part of it. I felt a sudden stab of loneliness as I felt keenly for the first time how great the distance between Steve and I actually was.

Eventually Joe came back in, panting heavily. ‘Sorry,’ he said, pouring himself a glass of water. ‘I didn’t mean to lumber you with the washing up. Phew, it’s hot out there.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘I’m used to it. I managed to persuade your mum to sit down with a cup of tea and read the paper for five minutes. I needed some head space.’

‘Sarah,’ Joe looked at me hesitantly, ‘what’s going on?’

‘Can’t you guess?’ I glanced out of the window at Steve who was chasing the boys around the garden pretending to be a monster. Why could he be so loving with them and not with me? ‘We’re splitting up.’

Joe thumped his hand down on the work surface. ‘God, my brother is a prize idiot. He’s never deserved you.’

We both had our back to the door, and were slow to hear Maggie’s strangled gasp of ‘Oh no’. We turned round to see her drop the cup she was holding (her best bone china), her jaw falling open. In the midst of my unhappiness, it was a wild comedy moment, and I had to stifle the impulse to giggle hysterically. She stood frozen there for a long while before shutting her mouth.

‘Oh,’ was all she could manage, before she sank against the work surface, completely oblivious to the china smashed at her feet. ‘Well, I realized you two had some problems…’

I bit my lip and refrained from saying,
Problems caused by your son’s inability to keep it in his pants
. Maggie had always been kind to me. She didn’t deserve my bitterness.

Joe took his mum gently by the arm and steered her back into the dining room.

‘I’ll go and get Steve,’ he said, ‘and keep the boys outside. You need to talk.’

‘This wasn’t my idea,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘What do you have to be sorry for?’ said Joe. ‘It’s Steve who should be apologizing.’

Steve looked in no mood to apologize, when he came storming into the dining room. ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at? I told you not to tell Mum today.’

‘I didn’t tell her,’ I said wearily, bored of having to justify myself to him. ‘She overheard Joe and I talking.’

‘Oh Steve, I knew things weren’t right between you…’

‘Mum, it’s quite simple,’ said Steve. ‘I don’t love Sarah any more. And I’ve met someone else.’

To hear it said so baldly, so coldly, was too much for me. Particularly as Maggie’s reaction was to wail loudly and hysterically.

‘Oh this is just like your father all over again. Steve, how could you do this to me?’ It didn’t seem to occur to her that he’d actually done it to his
wife.

I got up and went back to finish putting the dishes away. I was not about to be lumbered with looking after Maggie, so I buried myself in the kitchen cleaning – anything was better than sitting in the dining room with my mother-inlaw and husband and that atmosphere – and stared out of the window at Joe playing football with the boys. That’s the life I should have had.

Eventually they came piling in, and I pulled myself together to joke about Uncle Joe and how many goals they’d scored before sending them into the lounge to watch TV. I didn’t want them wandering into the dining room where Steve and Maggie were still in deep conversation.

‘You OK?’ Joe touched my arm awkwardly.

‘I’ll survive,’ I said.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Joe. ‘I wish there was something I could do.’

‘You’re already doing it,’ I said, snivelling a bit. ‘But it’s OK, Joe, I’ll manage.’

‘For what it’s worth,’ said Joe, ‘I think my brother’s bloody stupid.’

‘Please don’t be so nice,’ I said, ‘otherwise I’m really going to lose it.’

‘OK, I’ll start being a bastard then,’ said Joe.

I flicked him with a tea towel, but he’d done enough for me to pull myself together, gather the children, and say goodbye to Maggie, who’d managed to compose herself too. We couldn’t put off telling the kids any longer, but I wanted to do it my way.

Joe hugged me tightly as we left. ‘Look after yourself, kid,’ he said. ‘You know if you need anything, you only have to ask.’

I sat in the car all the way home with Steve, who barely spoke. Not for the first time I wished Steve was more like his brother.

Doris

‘Are you sure that you don’t want to make an appointment with Mr Mason?’ Darren said as he got ready for work. Woody was happily sitting in his highchair dropping bits of bread on the floor. Dear god, for a small person he made a helluva mess. I was busy sorting the washing and Darren watched me for a moment as I struggled to transfer it to the tumble dryer before saying, ‘Here, let me help you.’

‘I can manage!’ I snapped at him. ‘I’m not an invalid yet,’ even though the task felt ridiculously hard. I had good days and bad days, and this was most definitely a bad day.

‘I never said you were,’ said Darren, looking hurt, and I immediately felt a pang of guilt. Is this how it was going to be between us now? This bloody disease eating away at our happiness? I’d seen what it had done to Mum and Dad. Could I bear that happening to us?

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, burying my head in his broad shoulders. ‘It’s not your fault.’

‘It’s nobody’s fault,’ said Darren. ‘And I still think you should see Mr Mason.’

‘What can he do, really?’ I said. ‘I’ve got MS, it’s going to get worse, end of story.’

‘You have to be more positive than that,’ said Darren. ‘There’s always hope.’

Ah yes, hope. I remember I had that when Dad was first diagnosed. But the years of watching his progression with the disease had eroded the hope to nothing. And now I was so terrified of the same happening to me, I could barely bear to think about it. I knew it was foolish, but I was burying my head in the sand, hoping it would all go away. In my own way, I was as paralysed as Mum by Dad’s death, which is why Darren was the only person who knew about my illness.

‘I nearly told Caz about it the other day,’ I said.

‘Perhaps you should have,’ said Darren. ‘You’ve got good friends. It might help to talk it over with them.’

‘I don’t want to upset them though,’ I said. ‘And, after all, what can they do?’

‘Be there,’ said Darren firmly, kissing me on the head. ‘But if you don’t want to do that, you could think about a support group.’

‘What’s the point of that?’ I said.

‘It might help talking to other people in the same situation,’ said Darren. ‘However hard I try, I’m not going to understand the way someone with the disease would.’

‘I suppose,’ I said.

‘Think about it,’ he said. ‘Look, I’ve got to get to work, will you be OK?’

‘I’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘I’m just having a wobble. I’ve got plenty to keep me occupied today. I’m researching bridesmaids’ shoes on the Internet.’

‘Now, that’s something to be cheerful about, isn’t it?’ said Darren. ‘At least you’ll have your bridesmaids at the wedding.’

If I get that far, I thought, but didn’t say it.

‘Yup,’ I said, giving him my brightest, cheeriest smile, and kissing him full on the lips. ‘Say goodbye to Daddy, Woody.’

‘Dadda, Dadda,’ Woody gurgled, banging his spoon.

After Darren left, I finished feeding Woody and gingerly lifted him out of the highchair. I hadn’t yet fallen when I was carrying him, but I lived in dread of it. Luckily he was now crawling, so I popped him on the floor and guided him to the lounge, where I folded laundry and watched
GMTV
while Woody played with bricks beside me.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Dad. I wanted so badly to remember him as he’d been when I was little: tall and strong, and always there for me. But my early memories were crowded out by the misery of his last years, of seeing him retreat into grumpy despair as his world wore away to nothing, and he became totally dependent on Mum. In the end, he couldn’t even speak, but his eyes said it all. I’ve never seen such unhappiness as I saw in his eyes. He was trapped in a body he hated, and I know he longed for release.

I don’t think I could bear to put Darren through what Mum had gone through. I shut my eyes and tried to make my darkest thoughts go away. But they crowded me, making me feel faint and breathless. There had to be another way, another solution. Surely I didn’t just have to sit here and accept my fate?

I felt so drained and exhausted. What kind of future did Darren and I have together? Maybe I should call the whole thing off, and let him find someone else. Someone fit and healthy, who could live a life with him.

No. I knew Darren wouldn’t buy that one. He’s a stubborn cuss and when he asked me to marry him
again
, just after
I’d been diagnosed, he had refused to take no for an answer.

The first time Darren asked me to marry him, I thought it was a joke. We’d only been together a few weeks and though I knew without doubt that beyond the dizzying feelings of early love lurked a deeper, stronger feeling, I also wanted to be sure. I’d been planning my wedding down to the last detail since childhood; I wasn’t going to make the mistake of marrying the first man who asked me.

Of course, having given him the knockback, it took years for Darren to pluck up courage to ask me again. But when he did, he did it in style. We had combined a trip to see my Aunt Sophie in Switzerland, with a European tour. Discovering we were in the environs of Neuschwanstein, the fairytale castle featured in
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
, I’d badgered Darren to take me there. Darren, though, was one step ahead of me. On the battlements of the throne hall, overlooking the lake, he got down on one knee and produced the biggest diamond ring I’ve ever seen in my life. I’d never been so blissfully happy, and couldn’t wait to get the wedding plans started.

But things didn’t quite work out as we planned. Dad’s MS was diagnosed shortly after our return, and somehow after that the time had never been right to fix a date. And when he died, and Woody came along in short succession, I was so at sea, the last thing on my mind was my wedding. I was just coming out of all of that when I found out I had MS. But Darren insisted that didn’t matter. I wished I could believe him.

This was no good. I tried to concentrate on the TV to take my mind off things. I nearly turned it off when I realized they were doing a piece about terminal illness. Then I heard
the doctor they were interviewing say, ‘I believe I give people hope, and the ability to choose. Knowledge is power. I don’t tell them what to do with that knowledge.’

I’d heard about this guy. He was on a lecture tour of the UK, telling people with terminal illnesses how they could commit suicide. There’d been a lot of controversy about it. People called him Dr Death. I leant forward to listen some more.

I didn’t tell Darren about Dr Death, but like a secret addict, I began to read more and more about him and his theories. I avidly followed all the stories in the papers about people trying to change the laws on euthanasia or travelling with relatives to Switzerland to assist them in dying. Before I was ill, I’d never have thought about myself in such a position, but reading the stories, all of them personal, all of them tragic, I realized it was different for everyone. And it was different for me now. Could I contemplate a future with Darren caring for me 24/7? I shivered at the thought. But could I ask him to help me die? That didn’t seem right either. I spent far too much time on the Internet looking at my symptoms and wondering if I was already showing signs of the progressive form of the disease. Every time I lay awake at night because a muscle had twitched, or I got up and felt my vision go, I convinced myself that the disease was worsening, even though I knew from my Internet trawls that it was by no means certain that my MS would get worse that quickly.

I thought constantly about what I would do when the time came for me to be permanently cared for. I am by nature a sunny, cheery kind of person. I’d never harboured suicidal thoughts before, and I wasn’t harbouring them now.
Part of me kept hoping ludicrously, ridiculously, that maybe someone would find a cure, or at least a means of halting this wretched disease. How stupid it would be to end it all when maybe there could be a cure around the corner. But did I have the courage to carry on if there wasn’t?

The more I thought about it the more terrified I became, but I couldn’t tell Daz what was going on in my head, because I had a feeling I knew what he’d say about it. I was in so much turmoil I didn’t know where to turn. Until Sarah took the bull by the horns during one of our usual coffee mornings, towards the end of June. We were going through her Internet trawls – she’d sourced the Mickey Mouse cameras and was close to finding a job lot of Minnie and Mickey Mouse ears – but I was feeling lethargic from lack of sleep and my head was pounding. I couldn’t concentrate on what she was saying, and found my left hand was starting to twitch – a nervous tic that had recently appeared, which might be psychosomatic or could be a sign of the disease, I wasn’t quite sure.

‘So when are you going to tell me what’s wrong then?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Come on, Dorrie, I wasn’t born yesterday,’ Sarah said. ‘And I’m a nurse remember? Something’s wrong. You never used to be this clumsy. And you fall down such a lot. I’d say some kind of motor neurone thing myself.’

I stared into space. Could I tell her? It would be nice to confide in someone about what I was going through.

‘It’s, oh god, this is so hard to say,’ I said. ‘Darren’s the only one who knows. I’ve had odd symptoms for a while now, but six months ago I found out I’ve got MS.’

It was a relief to finally talk about it. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I told her about my fears of ending up like
Dad, my worries for Darren and Woody, and how I’d feel if I ended up in a wheelchair.

‘One thing at a time, eh?’ Sarah said, giving me a hug. ‘It’s still early days. It may not progress that fast. And it’s not a given that you’ll end up in a wheelchair. You’re probably still in a state of shock. Are you going to a support group?’

I grimaced.

‘That’s what Darren said I should do,’ I said.

‘Well, he’s right,’ said Sarah. ‘Talking to other people in your situation can help, you know.’

‘Don’t you think that’s a case of pots and kettles?’ I said.

Sarah had told me about her disastrous family lunch, but very little else, and I knew she was bottling stuff up. She looked completely washed out and far too thin.

‘Touché,’ said Sarah. ‘Actually, I’m thinking of going to counselling. I feel so bonkers at the moment.’

‘Excellent idea,’ I said. ‘Now all you need is to get together with Joe and your life will be sorted.’

‘I haven’t divorced his brother yet,’ said Sarah, laughing. ‘Anyway, we’re talking about you not me.’

‘Suppose I don’t want to talk about me?’ I said, blinking back tears.

‘Oh Dorrie, I wish you’d told me before,’ said Sarah, ‘I feel terrible you’ve been going through this alone.’

‘I haven’t been alone, I’ve had Darren,’ I said.

‘You know what I mean,’ said Sarah, hugging me. ‘Look if there’s anything I can do, you will let me help, won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘But you
have
to promise me you’ll think about Joe.’

‘Don’t change the subject,’ Sarah said, sternly. ‘Promise me you’ll go to a group?’

‘I promise,’ I said.

‘I think that’s a brilliant idea,’ said Darren when I told him. ‘I’m sure it will help. It might make you feel not so isolated.’

‘True,’ I said. ‘But what if they’re all awful? Or being with them makes me more depressed? It could be even worse than going to antenatal classes. After all, the only thing we’ve got in common is this bloody awful disease.’

‘But that’s the point,’ said Darren. ‘You will have that in common. You won’t know until you try, will you?’

‘Why do you always have to be so bloody reasonable?’ I said. ‘Have you any idea how annoying that is?’

‘Yup,’ said Darren, gathering me into his arms and kissing me. ‘But it’s good to see you smile. You haven’t done enough of that lately.’

‘Well, I haven’t felt much like it lately,’ I admitted. ‘I feel lousy a lot of the time, and I haven’t been sleeping.’

‘You should have said,’ said Darren.

‘So what? To make sure you couldn’t sleep too? I have to feel this way, no point moaning on to you about it.’

‘That’s what I’m here for,’ said Darren.

‘Oh, don’t be so bloody nice,’ I said. ‘I want to sit here and feel properly sorry for myself, can’t you let me?’

‘Nope,’ said Darren, ‘because you know that’s not going to get you anywhere.’

‘It’s really hard to be positive though,’ I said. ‘I keep thinking about the future and how you’ll manage when I can’t look after myself any longer.’

‘Dorrie, it may never come to that,’ said Darren. ‘I refuse
to hear such defeatist talk. So come on, let’s go and put Woody to bed, and then sit and cuddle up on the sofa, watching a good film.’

Sitting on the bathroom floor, watching Darren splash water on Woody’s face, and sing him nursery rhymes, I felt more content than I had in months. Somehow we would get through this. Darren was right. We had to because we had no other choice. Unless I took Dr Death’s route. I shivered. I wasn’t sure I wanted to think about that.

‘Welcome, welcome,’ a friendly lady greeted me at the door of the community centre where the MS support group was held.

Tuesday mornings, 9.45-11.30. Drop in for a coffee and a chat
, the flyer I’d picked up from the local library said. I’d left Woody with Darren’s mum, making some pretext up about wedding shopping. Darren’s mum wasn’t to know that I’d got most of my stuff off eBay. Darren was keen for me to tell his parents the truth about my illness. I knew we should, but I kept putting it off. I was worried Darren’s mum might persuade him not to marry me. Jenny was great, but she was a very clear-sighted, black and white kind of person. I could just see her thinking her son was heading for disaster. I wouldn’t blame her if that were her attitude. I’d probably think the same if Woody was planning to marry someone with a terminal illness.

‘Hi everyone, this is Dorrie. She’s new, so do make her welcome,’ a warm woman called Jean, who seemed to be in charge, introduced me to the group.

There were half a dozen or so people there. Not all of them, I was relieved to see, were in wheelchairs. There were a couple using sticks, and one like me still able to walk
unaided. Holding court in the middle of the room was a jolly woman in a wheelchair whose name I learnt was Flo. She had a tube coming out of her nose, and a loud booming voice which she used to crack any number of un-PC jokes. She was so cheerful. I didn’t get it. How could she be that happy in her condition?