White Wedding (32 page)

Stuart’s head slumped into his hands. ‘God, I’m sorry,’ he said. He felt closer to tears than he could remember being for years.

‘Forget it,’ said Max with gentle firmness. She wanted to put her arms round him but she was scared, for the first time, that he might push her off. After all those years of
togetherness, she wasn’t a hundred per cent sure of how he would react any more. She felt as shaken as if she had been physically assaulted. Stuart really was stressed. ‘Look, I will
totally and utterly forget about work today, okay? See, I’m pouring myself a big glass of wine.’

Stuart resumed eating his lunch but he knew that Max not working that afternoon wouldn’t change anything now. He couldn’t remember when the course of their lives had begun to split
and started to take them in such different directions, but he faced the grim reality that travelling on those two roads would carry them further away from each other. And what was really freaking
him out was that he feared his path had met up and joined with another that was heading to the same horizon as he was destined for.

Once again Richard brought red roses to La Hacienda. Once again he was courtesy itself as he opened the door for Bel and complimented her on her outfit. It was a very simple
black dress, boat neck, three-quarter sleeves, nipped in at the waist. She carried a mint-green bag, the same shade as her oval necklace, her earrings and her eyes.

‘Good week?’ asked Richard, smiling at her across the table.

‘Not bad,’ she replied. ‘You?’

‘Busy, busy,’ he said, turning his attention to the menu. ‘Easy choice: sea bass for me.’

‘Did you ever bring Shaden here?’ Bel blurted out. Not even she knew she was going to say that.

Richard looked at her as if she had just asked if his hobby was eating slugs.

‘No, of course I didn’t,’ he replied calmly – but tightly. He was about to say more but the wine waiter arrived with two glasses of Pinot Grigio.

‘You seem to be under the impression that it was a relationship,’ said Richard when the waiter was at a safe distance away. ‘It wasn’t. It was primal and sex-fuelled and
I’m disgusted with myself.’ He shuddered. ‘We didn’t “date”; we didn’t have cosy evenings in front of the fire. It was a few lust-driven shags, which
resulted in something very unfortunate that I will bitterly regret to the end of my days. Now, please, let that be the end to it. It was sordid and I’m ashamed and I’ve truly learned
the hardest lesson that life could possibly have to offer me.’

‘Is that true, Richard?’ asked Bel. ‘I need to know the truth before I can truly move on. Why did you keep all her emails? As romantic souvenirs?’

‘As if. I swear to you, Bel, there was no romance. There was only stupidity on my part that I didn’t delete them. I filed the emails as a matter of convenience only. I had no
intention of poring over them.’ He looked intently at Bel and held out his hand across the table – the hand wearing his wedding band. She slipped hers into it and felt his fingers
stroke her knuckles. ‘You’re the only woman I want to think about, Bel. You have to trust me.’

Bel could understand why Shaden fell under his spell. He had a way of looking at her that made her feel as if she was the only thing in the world that could ever matter to him. She wanted to
believe the words he said to her so very much. She didn’t want to be alone and unloved any more.

The woman who waddled into White Wedding was as wide as a barrel and had hair of such a vibrant red dye that it could be seen from orbit. It managed to eclipse the brightness
of her fire-engine shade of lipstick, which was a feat in itself. She was about seventy and the man whose arm she was linking was approximately the same age. He was dapper and considerably slimmer
than she and kindly measured his pace to hers. In his free hand he carried a large pink-leather shopping bag initialled in huge dia-manté lettering across the front: DDT.

‘Vernon and Doreen Turbot. How d’you do?’ said the elderly man, putting the bag down on the floor and holding out his hand for Freya to shake.

When the lady started to speak, the man tilted his head towards her and looked at her with such tenderness that Freya was reminded of someone whose attention she used to hold like that, once
upon a time.

‘I’m looking for a wedding dress,’ said Doreen. ‘White. Have you owt to fit me?’

‘I have a dress for every shape in my shop,’ said Freya softly, lifting a chair and bringing it over to allow the lady to sit down.

‘Oh that’s better,’ said Doreen. ‘We’ve shopped till we’ve dropped today. Holiday clothes. Vernon and I are renewing our vows on a cruise, you see.’ She
beamed to reveal red lipstick all over her teeth. Not that her husband seemed to notice. He couldn’t have looked more love-struck if he’d tried.

‘We’re going on the
Mermaidia
,’ added Vernon. ‘We’ve got a room with a butler. We’re making up for lost time, aren’t we, cherub?’ Vernon
squeezed his wife’s shoulder. ‘We were reunited after forty years last year. We had a quickie wedding because we didn’t want to wait. But now we’re having the
works.’

‘Forty long years we were apart,’ echoed Doreen. ‘But we haven’t half made up for lost time, haven’t we?’

She nudged Vernon and they both broke into a cheeky secret grin. Freya remembered that look – the key to a lover’s secret world.

‘Quite right too,’ said Freya. ‘Let me find some things for you to try on.’

When she returned, Vernon strolled off, hands behind his back.

‘He doesn’t want to see them,’ confided Doreen. ‘Doesn’t want to encourage bad luck by seeing me before the big day.’

Freya nodded. Tradition and romance were not confined to the young, she had been more than happy to discover over the many years in her profession.

Doreen was not interested in the plain soft satin gown that Freya suggested. She wanted forty missing years of drama embodied in one gown. She heaved herself from the chair to take a tour of the
shop and her eyes lit up when she saw the dress that Freya was working on: Max’s gypsy dress.

‘Oh my life – that’s what I’ve always wanted. I dreamed of a massive frock decades before those gypsies made them popular,’ she gasped. ‘We’ll have to
buy a special suitcase for it, but that’s what I want. One of those big, big, big dresses.’

‘I can vacuum-pack a dress for you,’ said Freya. ‘It would take up less room than you might imagine.’

‘Can you put lights in it? In the shape of little fish . . . and chips.’

Freya didn’t even raise her eyebrows

‘I can,’ she nodded with confidence.

Freya pulled a dress from a rail, a voluminous one with lots of ruffles at the neck and a wide wide skirt. ‘Try this for starters,’ she said. ‘I think it would look lovely on
you.’

‘Oh now, that’s smashing,’ Doreen’s face melted into a besotted smile.

‘Come with me and try it on,’ said Freya, holding out her arm so the old lady had some support as she headed for the changing room.

Freya helped her first into three net petticoats, then into the enormous frock. The ruffles framed Doreen’s formidable bosom perfectly and the puffed-out skirt gave her the illusion of a
waist. Her figure in the gown was distinctly hourglass. Doreen looked in the mirror and saw Mae West staring back at her.

Freya chose a cathedral-length veil to go with it and a crown covered in hundreds of seed pearls. Everything the old lady wore should – by all the rules of fashion – have looked a
bugger. But the dress wove its magic. In this white cloud, Doreen was a princess marrying the prince who had kissed her and woken up her heart again after forty years of a humdrum existence. Life
without Vernon Turbot was all right but nothing special; life with him was full of fireworks and passion. In this dress, Doreen looked like the woman that she felt resided in her heart.

‘I’ll have it,’ said Doreen breathlessly. ‘Whatever it costs, I’ll have it. I don’t want to see any more. This is the one. But with those lights on, if you
don’t mind.’

‘I’ll make sure you have your lights.’

‘And more underskirts.’ She flashed the widest red-lipstick-toothed smile at Freya. ‘It feels like it was made for me. You know when something’s just right, don’t
you?’

‘Oh yes, my dear,’ Freya nodded slowly. ‘Indeed you do.’

Violet watched Pav filing down a hole he’d made through one of the tables so he could thread a long gold-painted twisting pole through it.

Glyn hadn’t been very pleased when she said she had to meet with a builder on a Saturday, though he hadn’t suspected she was lying about it. She hating lying, but Violet knew that if
she had to spend all day sitting in the flat on the sofa with his arm round her, watching TV, she would scream.

‘I love being here so much, working,’ Pav said, now climbing up his ladder. ‘Although this does not feel like work.’

His arms had dark hair on them and his biceps were pronounced, Violet noticed, as she brought over a bacon sandwich for him. She watched him drill into the ceiling joist and thought how
incredibly manly he looked pushing down on a power tool. Then a contrasting vision of Glyn in an apron at home drifted into her head, bringing with it a hiccup of nausea.

‘Violet, please can you hold the pole steady?’ Pav asked.

Violet jumped to attention. She held it as he instructed, until he had fixed it firmly in place, then Pav climbed back down the ladder and they both stood back to view his handiwork.

‘That looks amazing, Pav,’ said Violet. Considering it was just a piece of painted wood, the impact was fantastic.

‘Now it is beginning to look like a real carousel inside, don’t you think?’ said Pav, taking a bite out of his sandwich and nodding his proud approval. ‘And once I put
the other four poles in, you will really see the full effect.’

Violet smiled. She loved this shop so much and couldn’t wait to open it. But then, it would only be ready to open when Pav had done his job and gone. And she so didn’t want him to
hurry. He would take all the light from her life when he eventually left. She felt unexpected tears rise up to her eyes and turned her head away, but it was too late, for Pav had seen them.

‘Violet, are you all right?’ His hand landed on her shoulder in a gesture of concern.

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ she said. ‘Just a bit overcome with excitement about opening up Carousel.’

It sounded like the lie it was. Pav’s hand lifted from her shoulder before she could press into its warmth.

Her phone rang in her back jeans pocket. For once it wasn’t Glyn.

‘Wotcher,’ came Max’s usual bellow. ‘Did you get your invitation through the post this morning?’

‘Yes, I most certainly did,’ she replied.

‘What did you think?’

‘Beautiful,’ said Violet smiling, recalling the heavy ivory card with the shocking-pink ribbon detail along the side. ‘Has Stuart seen them?’

‘Yep,’ said Max. ‘He quizzed me about the so-called refreshments I was putting on after the wedding.’

‘And you said?’

‘Well, I replied that a couple of our relatives are a bit old and doddery and will probably want a sandwich before they go home so I was arranging for a platter of light bites to be
available after the service, seeing as we “aren’t having a reception”.’

‘And he bought it? Bloody hell.’ Violet was gobsmacked.

‘Yes, funnily enough. In fact he did a weird smiling thing and said, “That’s right, we’re not having a reception”.’

‘Why did he say that, then?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ laughed Max. ‘He knows I’ve got something up my sleeve and he’s okay about it. Anyway, why I’m ringing is that I’m popping up
to White Wedding for a dress fitting in the next half an hour. Bel’s coming too. Want to join us?’

Violet looked at Pav preparing his paints and knew she really should leave him to it. She didn’t want to pester him, however much she wanted to stay near him for as long as she could.

‘Yeah, I’ll meet you up there,’ she said. It would fill another hour of the weekend and postpone being cocooned in Glyn’s flat watching comedies on Gold. And tomorrow
there was another Joy and Norman lunch to look forward to and more wedding talk. Whoopee.

‘Dear God, you are joking,’ said Bel, drawing close to the dressed mannequin at the back of the shop. It was a gargantuan white explosion of net and ruffles and,
rather bizarrely, sitting underneath the top layer of gauze it had flashing lights in the shape of little orange fish and yellow rectangular chips.

‘That’s not mine,’ tutted Max. ‘This is mine . . .’ She pulled back a curtain and they walked through to find another mannequin wearing another dress that made the
fish-and-chip one look like a scrap of waste material. Max watched Bel’s and Violet’s mouths fall to their feet and their eyes round to the size of dustbin lids. ‘Well, whaddya
think, girls?’

Words failed her friends. The dress was as big as an igloo. What they didn’t know was that twenty-five petticoats would be going on underneath it. Max weighed fifteen stone, her dress was
going to weight twenty stone, so Stuart was going to turn round at the altar and see a thirty-five-stone tidal wave of white froth spilling towards him. He would think the River Dearne had broken
its banks and come foaming into the church, and Bel wouldn’t blame him. How the hell Max’s dad was going to have room to walk at the side of her was anyone’s guess.

‘It’s still not finished yet,’ said Max, stripping off her skirt and shirt as Freya undressed the mannequin then pooled the dress on the carpet so that Max could step into it.
‘You won’t see the full effect until the actual day. I have to keep some surprises, even from you two.’

‘There can’t be any more surprises, surely?’ Bel said.

Max said nothing. She merely climbed into the dress and Freya lifted it up so she could put her arms through the sleeves. At six foot, with gorgeous Amazonian shoulders, Max looked absolutely
stunning in it, it had to be said.

‘I’ve picked my tiara and my shoes and my veil, but I’m not letting you see them,’ Max winked at her two totally flabbergasted friends, then she shivered with excited
delight. ‘I can’t believe it’s only a fortnight away, can you?’