White Wedding (6 page)

After Bel ended the call, she scratched hard at the skin on her arms where it had grown increasingly flaky over the past few weeks, like a nervous-eczema flare-up. She’d be a pile of
powder by the time she got married at this rate. They might as well cut to the chase and do the ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ service.

The house phone rang again, just as she turned away from it.

‘Hello, darling,’ trilled the merry voice of her stepmother.

‘Hi, Faye,’ returned Bel.

‘I thought I’d let you know, I’ve just picked up my outfit for the wedding. It had to be taken in a bit at the waist – I must have lost weight.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Bel, wishing she could get off the line to open a very early bottle of red wine.

‘And Aunt Vanoushka will be in Dior.’

Step-Aunt Vanoushka. Owner of a barn conversion with five bedrooms, each with an en-suite (which she pronounced enn-suit), as she told everyone, and a hot tub in her Swedish garden summer house.
Every pretension that it was possible to have, Aunt Vanoushka had it, from her Louis Vuitton set of luggage to her garden ‘moat’, which encircled a small island where she’d had a
dovecote erected. She had a Lhasa Apso stud dog called Arctic Master of the Polar Hunt for the Sun – which made as much sense to Bel as the lyrics to ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’.
Thanks to the three tons of Botox she’d had injected into her head, Vanoushka’s expression would remain the same if she lost all her shares in a market crash or won the Euromillions
lottery. And recently she’d had her lips so inflated that she could have rented them out as a bouncy castle. It wasn’t hard to see what Shaden was going to turn out like in twenty-five
years’ time.

There was no doubt that Vanoushka would have another expensive top-up of rubber-face before the wedding. Something Bel was trying hard not to think about: how much time and money were being
spent on her behalf for this wedding. But if she didn’t push such thoughts to the back of her mind, she would never be able to do what she had to do.

‘Dior? Oh will she?’ Bel attempted to sound impressed.

‘Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to help you arrange things?’

‘No, it’s all done, thank you,’ said Bel, wishing she had a pound for every time Faye had asked her that question. She knew how much Faye would have loved to help her; but Bel
was independence personified and had insisted on doing everything herself. Plus, Faye wasn’t the real mother of the bride. That woman had been snatched away from her baby daughter and it
would have been the ultimate betrayal to her mother to have another woman step in and help with table plans and menu choices. If her real mother wasn’t around to help, no one else would
do.

‘Okay, darling,’ said Faye, managing to cover ninety-five per cent of her disappointment. ‘We’ll see you for the family dinner on Thursday, then. Just call me if you need
anything.’ She emphasized the last word and she meant it.

Bel knew she had been unfair to Faye over the years. Her stepmother had done nothing other than be a secretary who had fallen in love with her widowed boss, then married him after a whirlwind
romance and been kind to his daughter.

Bel went upstairs and opened her large French wardrobe door to look at her mother’s beautiful dress hanging there, freshly dry-cleaned for her by Faye, altered to fit her small waist and
waiting for her to wear. It was so beautiful: a dress for the elegant woman her mother must have been, although the details Bel had of her were sketchy. There were only a couple of grainy
photographs and her father didn’t talk much about his first wife. Bel knew it upset him to think about her or talk about the loss of her, so she had built up the picture of her mother in her
imagination instead. There she could clearly see the statuesque beauty of Helen Candy, her long raven-black hair and red lips as she walked towards her husband-to-be in this dress, ready to say her
sadly prophetic vows.
Till death us do part.

Then Bel moved the dress to the side and took out the other one on the rail behind it, the one she had bought online. It was a gown so plain and boring the coathanger holding it was yawning.
Round neck, straight sleeves, no detail on the bodice, no bow on the back – even a puritan bride would have expected more. It was cheap, dull and exactly fitting for the occasion to come.

‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ Bel said, turning her head upwards. ‘I can’t wear your dress. I have to wear this one. Stay with me. Keep me strong, Mum. I love you.’

While Max was stuck on the internet that afternoon, gorging herself on pictures of gypsy brides and hunting for ideas, Violet was on her way to the new ice-cream parlour to
meet with the painter. She loved it so much and couldn’t wait to start up business again. Previously she’d leased a shop near the park, but it was dropping to pieces inside and the
landlord was a nightmare. When her lease was up, she hadn’t renewed it. It meant that there would be a few months of not trading, but she was sure it would be worth it. As soon as Violet had
viewed the lovely new conical building in the Maltstone Garden Centre, she knew she had to have it. The rent was considerably higher than her last place, but her new – and much more amenable
– landlord said that he would let her have one month rent-free and two months at half price if she decorated it after the builders had finished with it. Plus, the footfall would be high all
year round as the garden centre also had a flower shop, a furniture shop, a nursery, a coffee shop – which, by agreement, wouldn’t sell ice creams – and a beautiful gift shop
too.

She’d had an instant vision of the shop as soon as she walked in. Carousel. Golden poles, pictures of carousel horses around the walls, even fairground music. The only trouble was that she
couldn’t paint for toffee.

Violet unlocked the door and walked into her new kingdom. She might have to abandon her vision of the horses if this painter couldn’t give her what she wanted. So far no one else who had
rung and offered their services painted murals. And there had been no take-up when she’d asked at the local art college.

She was just trying to imagine how the place would look with plain walls when there was a knock at the door. Through the glass Violet could see a dark-haired young man standing there, carrying
what looked to be a huge board.

Violet sprang to open the door for him and knew that the pupils in her eyes must have widened to the size of crop circles. The man who stood there was like the sexy brother of Christ. Tall,
wide-shouldered, heavy black stubble the same colour as his loose-curled hair and eyes like blue lagoons
à la
Robert Powell in
Jesus of Nazareth
.

‘Miss Flockton,’ he said in an accent that she couldn’t place, but it wasn’t British. Heaven, possibly. ‘I am Pawel Nowak, here about the painting of the
horses.’

‘Come in,’ said Violet, standing aside to let him in, hoping that her legs wouldn’t wobble so much that she fell over in front of him.

‘Thank you,’ he said, striding past her into the shop.

He had a long, powerful-looking body and the muscles on his thighs pushed at the material of his jeans. Athletic and strong. Not what Violet had imagined the artist to be like, from reading his
email. Actually she’d envisaged someone with Elton John glasses and a mincing walk, who spoke like Alan Carr. This man – Pawel – looked more like a builder who had worked the hod
since he was old enough to lift it. Admittedly that couldn’t have been very long ago, though; he must have been only in his early twenties.

He put what was not a board but a huge art folder down on the counter and then held out his hand for Violet to shake. He had a strong handshake to say the least. Violet felt the crush on her
fingers long after he had released them.

‘I have brought my portfolio to show you what I can do,’ he said.

‘Would you like a coffee or a cup of tea, Mr Nowak?’ asked Violet.

He paused for a moment, then shook his head. ‘Thank you, but it’s fine. I’m okay.’ She felt he wanted one but was being polite.

‘I’m having one,’ she smiled, going into the kitchen to put on the kettle. ‘I’m thirsty.’

He relented. ‘Yes, please. Coffee, please. Black no sugar, thank you. And please, call me Pav. Everyone does.’

While Violet busied herself making two coffees, Pav prepared to impress her, spreading out his portfolio on one of the tables. Violet’s phone rang in her pocket. Glyn again. She pulled it
out and switched it impatiently to silent. She noticed she’d apparently missed another call from him ten minutes ago.

She carried over the coffees, placing Pav’s well away from his artwork. She looked down at the first picture and her eyebrows raised.

‘Wow,’ she said at the floor-to-ceiling artist’s impression of carousel horses: nose to tail, brightly coloured, golden spikes rising from their backs.

‘Now I can see the walls, I have a better vision of what you want,’ he said.

‘This is just what I want,’ said Violet breathlessly. In fact she lied, because this was much much better than she wanted. ‘You can paint these horses? On my walls?’ His
artwork was on par with that in the Sistine Chapel.

‘Yes, of course,’ said Pav, as if it would be the easiest thing in the world to do that.

‘How much do you charge, though?’ asked Violet, getting ready to cringe.

‘Ten pounds an hour.’

‘Ten pounds?’ Blimey, thought Violet – he’s giving it away.

‘Is too much?’ Pav sounded concerned.

‘No, no,’ said Violet, suddenly thinking that it might not be such a bargain if it took him all day to paint one horse’s eyeball. ‘How long do you think it would take
you?’

‘It’s hard to say,’ he said. ‘I will have to work after I finish my day job. I am a builder. Maybe some full days at the weekend. When are you planning to
open?’

‘First week in August,’ said Violet.

‘Yes, it will be ready for then,’ said Pav.

‘How would I pay you?’

‘Cheque or cash is fine for me,’ said Pav, taking a long sip at his coffee. ‘I have a legitimate business. Everything goes into my books.’

‘When can you start?’ asked Violet, trying to appear businesslike and not as if she was fantasizing about what his arms would feel like round her.

Pav smiled and Violet noticed that he had the beginnings of crinkles at the corners of his eyes. He must laugh a lot to have got those so young.

‘I can make poles for you too,’ said Pav. ‘A pole from the ceiling to the floor through the tables and painted gold like the carnival horses have. I can make them on a router
– you know a router?’

‘Yes, I know what a router is,’ said Violet. ‘My dad was a joiner.’ Had he still been alive today, he would have been in this shop kitting it all out for her and loving
every minute.

‘And that would be fantastic,’ said Violet. She could see the poles now. The excitement levels inside her for her new venture ratcheted up another couple of notches.

Pav studied the walls hard then announced with contagious enthusiasm: ‘The horses will look as if they leaping out when I paint them.’ His hand made a flourish in the air. He had
large square hands, long clean fingers.

Violet’s heart was racing like a carousel at full pelt, just imagining it. She had dreamed of having her own ice-cream parlour since she was a little girl, but it was only three years ago
that she had taken the bull by the horns, left the head-pastry-chef job she had in a Sheffield hotel and ventured out on her own. She had made her last place into a really successful little
business, but the building didn’t have a fraction of the charisma of Carousel.

‘I’ll probably be here a lot of the time when you work. In the kitchen. Making stocks of ice cream and getting things ready, or doing my books in the room upstairs,’ said
Violet. ‘I won’t be in your way, will I?’

‘No, no,’ said Pav. He took a tape measure out of his pocket and a notepad. ‘Excuse, please.’ He began to take the measurements of the walls and write them down with a
pencil so small it was lost in his hand.

Violet drank her coffee and realized she wasn’t just watching him, she was appraising him. He had such a calm air about him, so different from the hyper-ness that surrounded Glyn.
Pav’s eyes were darting around the space as he planned his masterpiece and scribbled down notes and ideas. She recognized the passion he had for his work because that’s what she felt
about her ice cream, wanting to make the best in the world and then market it across the globe – although it sounded a little silly to admit that to anyone so she never had. Well, she had
once – to the careers officer at school, who had laughed and told her to get her head out of the clouds and stop deluding herself. The echo of his words had rung loud and long in her head and
served to hold her back from her true potential. It had far outweighed any encouragement her family and friends had given her, even though she knew it shouldn’t be that way.

Violet snatched her attention away from Pav’s big frame and back to her coffee. She shouldn’t be eyeing up young men like that. He must be about ten years her junior. Cougar. Or,
worse: cradle-snatcher. She would be married in eleven weeks and the part of her heart that might thud for another was destined to die.

Glyn’s parents, Joy and Norman Leach, were the sort of couple who finished off each other’s sentences and wore matching home-knits with native American grey wolf
heads on the front. They were joined at the hip, had the same dislikes and likes, and everything in their house, where possible, was labelled ‘his’ and ‘hers’. In a previous
life they would have been a Twix. Norman painted small models of soldiers when he wasn’t gardening and Joy did cross-stitch pictures, usually of owls, which Norman then framed and hung on the
walls for her. Joy thought she was being wanton if she had a glass of sherry at any time other than Christmas – and always Croft Original, never Harveys Bristol Cream. Norman reached the
heights of ecstasy looking through
Caravan Monthly
magazine or buying seeds. They were kind and gentle people, if incredibly dull. They made a wet weekend in Grimsby look like a
fortnight’s luxury cruise in the Bahamas.