White Wedding (7 page)

They’d had Glyn – their only child – considerably late in life. Joy was forty-two and they had both given up hope of ever conceiving. As such, he was their precious jewel and
they worried about him constantly and still treated him as if he was five. When she was in town Joy was always buying him pants and socks.

Their house was a remarkably neat and twee bungalow in Pogley, backing onto a dribble of a stream known as the Stripe. Their garden was immaculate and would have made Alan Titchmarsh’s
head nod in approval. Everything about the Leachs was immaculate. Even Misty, their immaculately Persil-clean West Highland white terrier, always shat in the same spot in the garden – out of
sight behind the aloe vera plant.

They gushed out of the door when they saw Violet’s car draw up, waving and fussing. They were so pleased to see her that Violet felt more than a stab of guilt that they annoyed her so much
with their over-the-top gratefulness to her for marrying their son. There was no harm in either of them, quite the opposite – they would help anyone with anything within their capabilities.
They were wonderfully agile for a couple in their mid-seventies. The ill-health fairy had stayed away from their door, except for a heart scare for Norman last year, and the odd cold. Mental
illness was something they couldn’t understand – and wouldn’t ever be able to – so they overcompensated and padded around Glyn on eggshells, not wanting to risk upset and
send him back to the dark places he had visited during his breakdown.

Norman rushed Glyn inside to show him the new TV they’d just bought for their caravan. Joy followed behind with Violet, taking slow pin steps and hoping for her usual ‘quiet
word’.

‘How’s he been?’ she asked, her smile sad but hopeful of good news.

‘Fine,’ nodded Violet. ‘In good spirits.’ She didn’t add that his paranoia seemed to be getting worse. That if she was out of the house for longer than an hour
without reporting in, he would get in a flap. Some things were best left unsaid. The Leachs were Olympic champions at worrying.

‘You are making sure he takes his anti-depressants regularly, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, Joy,’ said Violet, psyching herself to ask what had been on her mind to say for weeks now. ‘It might . . . it might help if you encouraged him to go out and get some
fresh air and stretch his legs. Occasionally.’

Glyn’s diet wasn’t the healthiest and the fact that he got absolutely no exercise bothered Violet. Especially because her concern seemed to gratify Glyn and made him doubly reluctant
to do anything about his increasing waist measurement. ‘It’s not good for him to be so inactive, Joy. I wish you’d say something to him about it. He won’t listen to
me.’

Joy’s eyes nearly sprang out of their sockets in horror. ‘He needs to rest, surely. At least for the time being. It’s early days, Violet. A breakdown can take years to get
over. I got a book from the library about mental health. He goes out in the garden, doesn’t he? He tells us he’s planted all sorts of flowers. Daddy’s given him all manner of
seeds.’

‘He has, yes,’ conceded Violet. The flats all had individual patches of garden at the back. Patch being the operative word.

‘And he’s growing some violets for you, I hear.’ Joy grinned at the romance of it all.

‘Yes, he’s growing some violets,’ echoed Violet, knowing now that she was on the highway to nowhere by asking Joy to help her gee up her son.

‘Violet, dear, I know Glyn feels bad about not being strong enough yet to get another job, because he’s always had such a professional work ethic. But, for the moment, he’s
enjoying being at home and looking after you. And that can only be a good thing – if he’s happy.’

‘Yes, yes, I know,’ said Violet. ‘I wasn’t implying he was lazy, it’s just that . . .’

‘These modern marriages have a lot to be said for them when the wife is happy working out and the husband is happy working in.’

Violet didn’t say it but she felt that wouldn’t have been the natural way round of things for Joy. She couldn’t imagine either Joy mowing the lawn or Norman ironing. But Joy
had obviously tried hard to rationalize the situation so that it made sense to her tradition-loving brain.

Glyn wasn’t idle, but he was doing himself no favours ‘institutionalizing’ himself in his flat. His therapist had said the same, until he stopped going to see her. Violet was
now totally on her own trying to get him back to being part of the bigger world again.

She followed Joy into the chintzy roast-pork-scented kitchen, where a warmed teapot was waiting under a crocheted cosy. Pans of vegetables were bubbling away on her old electric hob.

‘Can I do anything?’ asked Violet as Joy slipped her apron back on. She always felt duty-bound to ask though she knew that Joy would sooner gouge out her own eyeballs than have
anyone help her in her kingdom. Unless it was after the meal when Norman had the customary duty of drying the washed plates.

‘No, dear, it’s all under control.’

Joy stirred the gravy with one hand and tipped the teapot over her china cups with the other. It looked a struggle and Violet watched her awkwardly. It was uncomfortable to be so redundant. Both
here and at home.

‘We’ve brought you some of that non-alcoholic wine,’ said Glyn.

‘Oh lovely. We’ll have that with pudding,’ replied Norman.

‘It’s ready,’ trilled Joy as a choir of buzzers all went off at the same time. ‘Daddy, would you carve?’

‘Certainly, Mum,’ saluted Norman, and he picked up the meat and the electric knife and then carried them into the dining room.

‘Go and sit down, dear,’ Joy instructed, juggling pans with the panache of a top-of-the-bill circus act.

Violet followed Norman and Glyn into the wood-panelled dining room. The decor of the house was immaculate but dreadfully dated. She was sure the Leachs had injected all the furniture with
formaldehyde because it was all so fabulously preserved.

The table was set with frilly doily place mats and beige cloth napkins and an ancient silver cruet stood in the middle of the table, sharing space on a wooden trivet with a milk jug and sugar
bowl. In one corner of the room was the old hostess trolley that Joy still occasionally used when they had visitors; in another corner stood an upright piano polished to a dazzling shine. Neither
of them could play it. It was a relic from the music lessons Glyn had taken between the ages of seven and fifteen.

‘Dad has asked us if we want to borrow the caravan for our honeymoon,’ said Glyn, with the excitement of someone who had just found a Rolex in the street.

Violet gulped. ‘Oh. A honeymoon? I didn’t even think about that. I presumed you wouldn’t be able to manage one.’

‘We should at least consider it. And quickly,’ said Glyn. ‘The wedding will be here before we know it.’

‘Seventy-six days and counting,’ chuckled Joy, ferrying in dishes of vegetables. ‘You might as well have a nice holiday, just the pair of you, before the babies come
along.’

‘Babies?’ Violet nearly choked.

‘You don’t want to be hanging about at your age,’ said Joy. ‘The younger you are when you have children, the more energy you have – trust me on that one. If
you’re thirty-three now, even if you caught on straight away, you’re going to be halfway to thirty-five by the time the first one comes along. Then you’ll need a rest before
number two . . .’

Violet didn’t say anything; she just let Joy prattle on about grandchildren and kept schtum. She and Glyn had talked about having children in the heady rush of feelings at the beginning,
but it hadn’t been mentioned since. He wasn’t in any fit state to be a father with his agoraphobia and anxieties. And it wasn’t on Violet’s agenda any more.

‘I need to get my new business up and running,’ Violet excused.

‘And I’m quite happy for you to do that,’ smiled Glyn. ‘I’m looking forward to being a house-daddy as well as a house-husband.’

Blimey, he’d got all this worked out in advance, thought Violet. It was like watching John Noakes on
Blue Peter
saying, ‘Here’s one I made earlier.’ She had an
awful feeling that if she looked in Joy’s knitting bag she would find a stockpile of little blue and pink cardigans.

‘Glyn says you haven’t got your wedding dress yet,’ said Joy, passing the sprouts.

‘Not yet,’ said Violet as she speared some pork. It was cooked to perfection, as always.

‘You’re leaving it a bit late, aren’t you?’ Norman put in.

‘Well, it’s not a big wedding, is it? I’m sure I’ll find something in time.’

‘I don’t mind coming shopping with you, if you want,’ Joy volunteered.

‘No, it’s fine,’ said Violet. ‘I’m more of a lone shopper.’

‘But you went dress hunting with friends yesterday, didn’t you?’ said Glyn. Violet could have kicked him. Luckily she thought of something off the cuff that sounded perfectly
acceptable.

‘Yes, and that’s most probably why I didn’t find anything, because I’m better off shopping by myself. Other people put me off.’

‘Come on, Violet. That wouldn’t fill a bird,’ urged Joy, gesturing towards her plate. She said the same every time they dined there, though Violet wasn’t a huge
eater.

She glanced over at Glyn’s plate, which had an Alp of food on it. He was tucking in as if he hadn’t eaten for days. His chin was glossy with dribbled gravy and Violet flicked her
eyes away because these days the sight of him eating made her feel slightly queasy. He hadn’t been overweight when they met; in fact at a distance, with bad glasses on, he could have passed
for a Phillip Schofield look-alike. Now he had a big wobbly belly and more than a hint of moobs. Glyn didn’t see a problem in his meteoric weight-gain – he just said that there was
‘more of him to love’.

‘I can’t wait to get married. I don’t know how I’d live without you, Violet,’ Glyn reached over the table and squeezed her hand.

‘Aw,’ chorused Joy and Norman.

Monday morning was the first chance Violet had to visit Postbox Cottage. For once, Glyn remained asleep when she stole out of bed. She tiptoed around getting dressed and
didn’t use the loo in case the flush woke him. At every second she was convinced his eyes would flick open and there would begin the inquisition about where she was going and when she would
be back and what did she want to eat for lunch/tea and what should he buy from the shop. Glyn had a strange kind of agoraphobia, Violet decided. It would allow him to visit the row of shops round
the corner and his parents’ house, but nowhere else. Although she could add a caravan at the seaside to the list as well now, apparently. As guilty as it made her feel, Violet was only glad
that his complex neurosis didn’t permit him to venture to her workplace
.
Going out to create her dishes was her freedom, her oxygen. Without it, she didn’t know how she would
stand her life. And now she had another place – a secret place – to hide.

Miraculously she made it outside into the fresh air and couldn’t help but breathe a massive sigh of relief after starting up the car. She knew that she shouldn’t feel so
‘free’ at being away from the man she was going to marry in seventy-five days. But, for now, there was nothing she could do about it but enjoy the periods of parole away from the prison
of his flat.

Postbox Cottage was on the other side of Maltstone, in a nuclear hamlet called Little Kipping. The last in a row of three double-fronted – but tiny – properties, the cottage
resembled a doll’s house with its lozenge-paned windows. Violet sat behind the steering wheel staring at the facade of her grandparents’ cottage and she sighed. She couldn’t
believe it was all hers.

She eventually got out of the car, pushed open the creaky wooden front door and lifted up all the junk mail that had collected behind it. She walked from room to room, seeing it through new
eyes: the eyes of an owner. It sent a delicious thrill tripping across her heart. The last tenants had left it in a reasonable state inside but not clean enough by Violet’s standards. The
bathroom, especially, needed an extra scrub, and a lot of food had been left in the cupboards and needed to be thrown out.

It was a dear little place. The front windows were small and leaded and didn’t let in a great deal of light so Nan and Grandad Jack had knocked down the wall between the lounge and kitchen
to ‘borrow’ light from the south-facing back windows. A heavily shelved cellar housed a box freezer and was dry enough to be used for storage. Upstairs there was a large bedroom, a much
smaller bedroom and the sweetest square bathroom ever; on the second floor was a long attic room with a large dormer window affording views of the Pennines and beyond. Outside at the back was a
cottage garden, once Jack’s pride and joy but now an overgrown mess. Violet had spent many happy hours trailing after him, helping him plant seeds and taking the fat white rose heads that he
cut off for her so she could make some rose-water perfume with Nan. But now the rosebushes and flower beds had been swamped by virulent choking weeds rampaging over everything they could grab at
and cling to.

Violet’s eyes filled with a blind of tears. She loved this cottage; it was so full of warm memories for her. She wished she could lock the door and stay there.

So why can’t you?
asked a tempting voice inside her.
It would be the simplest thing.

She opened the bag of cleaning products she had bought en route and began to scrub at everything in sight, as if she were scrubbing at her own life, trying to take the grunge from it and make it
clean.

Bel’s father’s house was a beautiful new build, constructed to make it look old and as if it had been there for ever. An architectural triumph, it was built five
years ago on the site of his previous house – the much smaller, but still sizeable, nineteen thirties dwelling in which Bel grew up. Faye was naturally gifted at interior design and had done
a fabulous job of making the huge new home feel like an old lived-in and loved one. While Vanoushka and Martin’s house was magazine perfect, it wasn’t cosy at all. But the Nookery was a
place where comfort came before the need to impress. It was a welcoming house, and even though Bel had long since left home, the Nookery had a bedroom for her use only. Not that she had ever used
it.