A Bad Bride's Tale (10 page)

“Go girl!”
shrieked Lara, arm-in-arm and cancan kicking with Becca and Louise and sending bits of gravel drive flying up with the confetti. Stevie had asked her to forget what she’d said before. And this was her forgetting.

Neil slapped his bongo, which had been set up near the front door. “Mr. and Mrs . . .” trumpeted Neil laconically and hit his bongo harder. “Lewis!”

“Woo woo woo!”
Another arsenal of confetti. She laughed and waved and picked her way carefully to the balloon-strewn front door in her pale gold Jimmy Choos, wondering if she was convinc- ing anybody.

In the hall, her father staggered around beneath a bundle of guests’ coats, grinning over the mound of itchy bouclé pink wool. When he saw his daughter, he started. How beautiful, how wom- anly she looked! How surprising it all was. Stevie would forever be ten years old in his eyes. She would always be the little girl who sat quietly in the garden with her sketchbook. The one who drew him pictures of dolphins and teapots. He still had them up in his study. “Survived the ceremony okay, Stevie?”

“Just about, Dad.” She readjusted her dress, which kept swivel- ing around to her left side, a biased bias. “I really need a drink.”

“Very sensible. Where are the waiters?” He glanced anxiously around the now-bustling hallway. “Goodness, now where was I in- structed to dump these, I wonder? Any idea, dear?”

Stevie shrugged. Where
were
the waiters? She looked around. Oh, God. Yes, of course. The waiters were Neil’s friends, Toe and

Toe’s younger brother, Len, and Cosmic Kevin, stripped of their trainers and baggy skating trousers and trussed up in what looked like borrowed suits. She was oddly touched by the sight of them.

“Stevie!” Patti rushed to her, weaving through the crowd, hair and beads and sleeves flapping, like an exotic bird swerving to avoid hitting something midflight. She kissed her daughter, thrusting her into her large bejeweled bosom, where the cool out- door air resided.

“Mum!” said Stevie, as if reprimanding a hyperactive infant bridesmaid. “Careful. My hair.”

“How I love you!” exuded Patti. She couldn’t resist dramatic dis- plays of familial emotion.

“Love you, too, Mum.”

“Toe! Get my beautiful daughter a drink!” declared Patti, before launching off to crunch another relative into the cavern of her cleavage.

Stevie took a gulp of champagne and felt the effects straight away, probably because she hadn’t eaten and hadn’t slept properly the night before. Relatives she hadn’t seen for years and others, from Jez’s side of the family, who she didn’t know even existed, popped up on her left, her right, behind her, tapping her shoulder, pulling her elbow, congratulating her, telling her she was radiant, making jokes about the sound of pattering feet that would be heard in the not-too-distant future . . .

“Time to move through. This way!” Her father put on his loud- est lecture voice. “Come on, folks.”

Stevie tottered, almost carried by the swarm of guests like a coiffed actress in an old movie musical, through the large black- and-white-tiled hall to the reception room at the back of the house. While small-talking and smiling, she could see the work—endless

streamers, balloons, and banners—that her family had put in. There was only one thing missing: her husband. Where the hell was Jez?

“You do look very beautiful,” said a voice behind her right shoulder.

“Sam?” Stevie swiveled around and blushed. “Oh, er, thanks.” He looked even more handsome in a suit. “You scrub up pretty well yourself.”

“Hitched without a hitch then?” he said, his normally loose, motile face clamped shut.

“I wouldn’t speak too soon . . .” Stevie intended to refer to her mother’s organizational abilities, but something stopped her quali- fying the sentence.

Sam’s hand nervously searched for a jeans pocket that wasn’t there. “You look happy.”

Stevie felt this to be a question—one she couldn’t answer. She wouldn’t call what she was feeling happiness exactly. It didn’t have happiness’s pure hum. This was something more mixed. “Yeah.”

Sam and Stevie stood in silence for a few moments, unsaid con- versations and observations surging back and forth between them like water sluicing a glass. Stevie shifted slightly, as much as she was able within the confines of her tummy-flattening Spanx under- wear. “Well, here I am . . . married!”

Sam’s mother, Pearl, a well-rounded woman in her late fifties, with flecked greenish-brown eyes and the smooth toffee-colored skin of a thirty-year-old, saved them from further awkwardness.
“Congratulations!”
Pearl grabbed her shoulders, kissed her wetly on both cheeks, and gave her a little shake. “
Get
you, honey! Gor- geous.”

“Get
you,
Pearl. Love the turban.”

Pearl’s head was wrapped in a canary-yellow turban, like an ex- otic whipped ice cream. She exuded scent and red lipstick, and had the biggest smile in the room. Pearl was the kind of person who made people feel safe and happy. Exuberant but tactful, she was the perfect wedding guest.

“Hey, I was just chatting to your lovely new mother-in-law, here . . . Where is she?” Pearl stepped aside, exposing a stiff, sober- looking Rita. “There you are, honey! I apologize. I can hide crowds behind my backside.”

Rita stiffened further. Her frown appeared to be part of the archi- tecture of her face, lines appearing to support whole planes of skin like structural girders. “I felt someone had to explain to guests, you see, about the garden, the way things have been done . . .” she said, eyeing Sam warily and tightening her grip on her handbag.

“The garden?” asked Stevie. “I’m sorry. Please explain. It’s all been top secret. I’ve been exiled from the garden for the last two days.” She exchanged glances with Sam. What had her mother been up to this time?

“Honey, I
love
the garden. Don’t apologize.” Pearl laughed. “Well, it’s not the kind of thing one normally finds at wed-

dings,” added Rita. “And, well, you know, with the weather turn- ing and all that. Patti . . . you know Patti? Of course. Yes, well, she has a few funny . . .”

“Patti does things her own way.” Pearl nodded approvingly. She adored Patti. When Pearl moved onto Jericho Street from the grittier confines of Ladbroke Grove that wet gray Christmas of 1985, it had been Patti who’d insisted she come over for mulled wine and rock-hard mince pies; it was Patti who’d looked after Sam when he had chicken pox and she couldn’t take time off from her job at Oxford University Press; Patti who wasn’t afraid to

affectionately send her up by calling her “sister.” This had been in sharp contrast to her other North Oxford neighbors, who’d marched against apartheid with black women, but had never dreamed they might actually live near one, and were almost struck dumb by their keenness to say the right thing, terrified they might slip something into the conversation that could possi- bly be construed as recognition of her color. Pearl laughed. “She’s one of a kind, that woman. You must have been so pleased when you met her.”

Rita smiled stiffly. Was the woman joking?

“I hope when my Sam gets married . . .” Pearl patted her son’s arm, “that the lucky lady has nice folks. It’s like being blessed with a whole new family, isn’t it? Wonderful.”

“Indeed,” managed Rita. “Now, I don’t suppose you’ve spotted just a plain cucumber sandwich, have you? These exotic nibbles are playing havoc with my digestion.”

Pearl looked concerned. “Oh, dear. We can’t have that. Let me help you find one.”

Stevie watched the large backsides of Pearl and Rita waddle off into the party—Pearl’s, high and round, Rita’s, flat and square in a pink and yellow skirt, resembling a slab of Battenberg cake. “Sam, please tell me my mother is not presiding over a naked sauna in the garden.”

Sam laughed. “I haven’t checked it out yet.” He held out an arm. “Dare we?”

“Oh, anything to escape Uncle Harry.” She should be looking for Jez again now, but was rather hoping he’d come and find her. Sploshing champagne from its flute—her hands had been trem- bling since the ceremony—Stevie followed Sam.

They walked to the French windows, tied back with ribbons and

peacock feathers. Stevie pressed her hand to her mouth. “You look first. I can’t bear it.”

Sam pulled aside a wedge of curtain, raised his eyebrows, and stepped back, hamming up mock-shock. “No, I cannot do it jus- tice.”

Laughing and gripping his arm, Stevie pulled aside the curtain. The large garden had been transformed into an Indian plantation, with six tepees, a clutch of small smoking bonfires, and a lawn pop- ulated by strange carved wooden vaguely tribal
objets
, which Stevie recognized from her mother’s evening craft classes. Only one tepee was in its proper cone shape, the rest bent to the left or the right like wonky party hats. “Oh, my God, it’s the Battle of Wounded Knee!”

“Come on, let’s check it out.” Sam grabbed Stevie’s hand with- out thinking. The skin-on-skin contact startled both of them. Dis- creetly, at the right moment, so as to avoid offense and undue attention, their fingers loosened and their hands dropped apart.

Unplugging her heels from the lawn as she walked, trailed by a cone of yellow smoke from the bonfire, Stevie could hear drunken laughter and familiar hoots and giggles of friends bubbling up through the tepees where the stick frames crossed at the tops. LK Bennetts and cigarettes poked out from under the tepees. Pungent incense hit the nostrils when the wind changed direction. Neil chatted to his cousins around the bonfire, sucking on a rollup. Poppy’s children ran around, high on cupcakes. Married friends cooed approvingly, as if welcoming her to an exclusive club. At first Stevie felt uneasy. Then she had another glass of champagne. That smoothed the edges.

Stevie sighed. Yes, this was a rite of passage. This was her life marching forward. Perhaps all her doubts about Jez really were an

immature resistance, a kind of brattish commitment-phobia. This was her wedding. How strange. How wonderful. How
almost
- perfect (the groom’s presence would help). Then it started to rain. Big, fat splodges of rain, like a power shower at full blast.

“Argh. Sam, save me!” laughed Stevie, bridging her hands over her head. “My hair!”

“Your hair
must
be saved.” Sam grabbed Stevie and pulled her to- ward a tepee slightly apart from the others, to the left of the gar- den, beneath an apple tree. They ran to it, rain shaking over Stevie’s dress, leaving damp marks on the satin shaped like pressed flowers. Stevie yelped with exhilaration at the raindrops falling into her open, laughing mouth, the strange heady mix of it all.

Sam pushed back a flap of the tepee and stepped aside as Stevie stooped and bent into the little triangular gap, careful not to catch her crystal hair adornments.

“Give me shelter . . .”
she sang. Then stopped. “Oh.”

Jez, crumpled in his dark wedding suit, sat cross-legged at the back of the tepee. Next to him was a pair of long, luxurious legs. The legs belonged to Meg, an old university friend of Jez’s. At the sight of Stevie, Meg sheepishly folded the legs beneath her.

“Hey, my darling missus,” said Jez, as if it were entirely normal that he should be hiding out during his wedding reception in a te- pee with a leggy friend whom Stevie had never much liked and had wanted to invite for the evening only. “Sam? That you, mate? Come in. It’s pissing down out there.”

Stevie sat on the cushion and crossed her arms and legs across her satin-skiddy torso. The rain had brought a sudden chill to the ground. She shivered slightly. But Jez didn’t put his arms out to her. The rain drummed hard and bonfire smoke curled beneath the

canvas sides. No one spoke. Tension started to saturate the interior of the tepee, like gas leaking slowly and dangerously out of a canister.

“What a day, what a day,” mumbled Jez. “Hey, babe?” “Wonderful,” confirmed Stevie, wondering why Jez’s speech was

so slurred.

To the right of Jez, on the floor, partly obscured by his knee, were two empty bottles of champagne, two glasses, one with a smear of pink lipstick around its rim.

Stevie nodded to it. “I see you’ve been pacing yourself.” “It’s a
celebration
, pumpkin. Don’t be uptight.”

Stevie’s heart sank. Call her old-fashioned, but wasn’t there some- thing desperately unromantic about the groom’s getting drunk with another woman on his wedding day? “People are asking where you are.”

Jez raked his strawberry-blond waves, exposing a receding hair- line. His pale blue eyes were rheumy and pink. “My dad’s just died. Give me a break, sweetheart.”

Stevie was silent. There was no rebuke, was there?

Meg nervously clicked open her pink sequined clutch and drew out a cigarette. The lighter flame flickered up, flashing the inside of the tepee orange. Meg looked at Sam, coiling her hair in her fingers coquettishly. “Sorry, I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Meg.”

“Sam.”

Meg unleashed a long brown leg. “Cigarette?”

“No thanks. Don’t smoke.” Sam smiled politely and listened out for the rain. “Congratulations, Jez.”

“Thanks, mate, thanks.” He snorted, laughing at his joke before he’d said it. “Couldn’t turn into a single, aging roué, could I?”

Stevie winced.

“It’s great, this marriage lark. You should try it sometime,” slurred Jez.

“You’re a very lucky man,” said Sam, gazing through a gap in the tepee.

One drop of cold rain landed in the center of Stevie’s head, trick- ling down her scalp.

Jez nodded at Stevie. “Picked the best one, don’t you reckon?”

He made her sound like a piece of fruit. Christ, Jez could be such a boorish idiot when inebriated. His personality spilled over the sides. But he hadn’t been himself since Colin died. No. It was not his fault. It was Meg’s fault, she decided. Stevie shot Meg an acid glance. Not only had Meg been corrupting Jez with inappropriate amounts of alcohol, she was flirting with Sam, which annoyed her more than it ought, and exhaling clouds of gray smoke into the confined space that housed her bridal blow-dry.

Meg, catching Stevie’s glare, felt she had to say something. “Jez’s been telling me about his . . . his dad,” she spoke nervously. “I’m so sorry, Stevie. It must be hard for you, too.”

Stevie nodded, tried her best to smile. Perhaps she was being un- gracious, paranoid. She had just
married
Jez, for God’s sake, she need not feel threatened.

“Meg’s been so sweet, Stevie. She lost her grandfather last week.

She understands, don’t you Meg?”

And I don’t? thought Stevie. “I’m sorry, Meg.”

“It’s the hardest fucking thing in the world, it’s fucking hard, isn’t it Meg?” mumbled Jez, eyes fixed on Meg’s slim brown shin. “If it wasn’t for Stevie . . .”

Meg made an “
ahh sweet
” noise. Sam looked stone-faced.

“The best thing, the best fucking thing, is knowing that this is

the start of a new life.” He slapped his hand against his thigh, the new wedding ring tailing light as it moved. “A new life. I just can’t wait for kids and the country and all that shit. I’m going to call my son Colin. Yeah, Colin.”

Over my dead body, thought Stevie. For a fleeting second, she felt herself sucked against her will into one of those crystalline falling-out-of-love moments that everybody dreads. Could it be possible that the in-love chemicals and hormones that had insu- lated her from his faults in the past had evaporated and she was see- ing him as he really was—as he
always
was? She swallowed hard and waited for the moment to pass, listening out for the rain. It stopped. Thank God. “Jez, it’s too smoky in here. I’m going to make my escape back to the house. Coming?”

Jez made a half-hearted effort to stand up, then flopped back down again in a heap. “Give me a minute. I’ll be with you in five. Five, babe.”

Heart heavy, Stevie bent forward and poked her head out of the wet canvas door flap, water droplets sheeting off the canvas and onto her cheeks like tears. “Catch you in a bit then.” She solemnly walked back to the house, flattening the wet green grass, not caring that the mud was spattering the hem of her wedding dress.

TWELVE
Æ

poppy hitched up her dove-gray matron-of-honor
dress above her now-vast bump and squatted on the toilet. “There
is
something up between Mum and Dad. You’re right. I heard them last night when I went to the loo.”

“What did you hear? I’ve been dying to interrogate you all day.” Stevie sat on the green Lloyd Loom chair in the downstairs bath- room, opposite her younger sister. “Tell me.”

“Why don’t they ever shut that bedroom door? I mean,
pur- lease.
”

“Anyway?”

“They were arguing.” Poppy’s brow furrowed. “I got the tail end.

Mum said, ‘I’ve had enough . . . ’ ”

“. . . of this bloody marriage?” Stevie rolled her eyes. “You’ve got it.”

Stevie fidgeted her lip between her fingers. “I suspected some- thing was up. The atmosphere in the house has been deadly re- cently. Dad has withdrawn further into his shell like a scared mollusk. Mum is . . . well, more childish than ever, let’s face it.

And rather than talk directly, they speak through a third party, me, Neil, or the cat.”

“You don’t think it’s just another wobble?” Poppy asked hope- fully. “I mean, they haven’t had one for about five years. We must be due for a big one. . . .”

“It’s like living on a fault line.”

“Mum
is
dissatisfied, that much is clear.” Poppy paused thought- fully. “I can understand it, though.”

“What?”

Poppy shrugged. “The desire to shake free from the marital shackles.”

“Shackles? That’s harsh.” It didn’t make sense, thought Stevie. Poppy was not someone who craved freedom. She enjoyed the reas- suring limitations of family life. In the highly unlikely scenario that Poppy had remained single, she probably still would have adopted a marital domestic routine, all home-cooked dinners and energizing Sunday walks and monogamy. “Is everything okay with Piers?”

“Yes, well, no. Piers is . . .” “The perfect husband.”

Poppy smiled, tugging at the roll of toilet paper. “Yeah, he really is.”

“And you have two perfect children and another on the way.”

“I do, I do.” Poppy pulled up her vast flesh-colored knickers, eas- ing them over her bump. “But, I don’t know . . . I’ve been feeling a kind of discontent recently. Oh, it doesn’t matter, I shouldn’t be bringing these things up on your wedding day . . .”

“What do you mean?” Stevie hated the thought of anything hurting her younger sister, who was a mother and lived a far more grown-up life than she ever had or probably would.

“It’s funny . . . ridiculous, really.” Poppy sighed, stood up, and rearranged her dress. “But I sometimes wonder what I could have achieved if I hadn’t had the kids so early, got married so young. It’s all a bit nineteen fifties, isn’t it?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“I’ll never know how far I’d have gotten in my career. I’ll never even know what it’s like to go out with more than two men, not that I particularly want to. Silly, really.” She laughed, fixing the fall of her vanilla-blond hair into a silk flower clip. “But I don’t see that many of your friends settling down, Stev. I mean, why would they? What’s the big attraction of kids and a mortgage when . . .”

“Well, I’m doing it.” How would Poppy have reacted if Stevie had confided her pre-wedding jitters about Jez? She would have normally told her, but Colin had died so suddenly and there was so much to do and Poppy was in London with the kids . . . And now it was too late. She didn’t want to rain on her own parade.

“I know I sound like a tactless beast—blame the pregnancy hormones—but you know me well enough, Stev.”

“But you’ve got what everyone wants, Poppy. You forget, I think.”

“Have I?” Poppy looked surprised. “I suppose. But it’s not per- fect. We row. Quite a lot, actually. Piers pisses me off. Yes, he’s won- derful, but he
really
pisses me off. He never makes the kids’ lunches. He never gets them ready for bed. I know he works long hours, but just
once
would be nice. And then . . . then, maybe I would feel more romantic toward him. Maybe then I’d choose sex over sleep.”

“Oh, I see.” Stevie tried to imagine how her and Jez’s sex life would endure pregnancy, let alone children. “Listen. As your big sister, I feel I should let you in on a secret.”

“What?”

“It’s not what it’s cracked up to be, you know, on the other side. As a single person, I never felt like Carrie Bradshaw. More like one of those plump girls from the Dove ads channeling the spirit of Basil Fawlty. And, yes, a career is great, to a point. But it’s also a fi- nancial necessity for me. And you’ve got two perfectly designed prototypes out into the world.” Stevie adjusted her diamanté hair- pins in the mirror. “Hey, do you have any powder on you? My nose is taking on traffic-light duties here.”

“In that tote. Yes, the straw one.” Poppy stuck out a foot, swollen and suffering in a strappy kitten heel, and kicked the bag toward her sister. “But look at someone like Lara. She’s had such a rich life. So many . . .” She sighed. “So many adventures. I’m not sure I’ve
ever
had an adventure. Not like that.”

“Lara’s a romantic. An opportunistic romantic.” Stevie took her turn on the loo, easing down the wide elastic panels of her under- wear, sighing with relief as her flesh flopped out of captivity.

“She’s promiscuous?” Poppy tried to remove the disapproval from her voice. She was fond of Lara, but, as she hadn’t been single since she was twenty years old, struggled to understand Lara’s world.

“Well, by our age, you have to have kissed a lot of frogs. She only goes through so many because she has such high standards. She doesn’t want to compromise.”

“Good luck to her, I suppose.” Poppy stroked her bump, check- ing her reflection.

“But why all these dark thoughts, Poppy?”

Poppy smiled. “Oh, nothing really. It’s just that life is short, isn’t it? I see the kids growing up so fast. They grow out of their shoes every three months. Nothing stands still.”

Stevie held out her hand to her sister. “I think I understand.” She was a little tipsy.

Poppy giggled. “Hey, don’t worry. When you’ve got your own kids, you’ll understand.”

Stevie looked at the floor, the bits of broken parquet sticking up like fish scales brushed backward. She knew this downstairs bath- room floor intimately. Funny how we know the floors of our child- hood so well. “Hey, help me up with this dress, will you? I’m terrified of it.”

Poppy held up the folds of material as Stevie stood up from the toilet. She helped her readjust the bias. Unexpectedly, she leaned forward and kissed her sister on the cheek. “I’m so happy for you, Stevie.”

Rat a tat tat.

“Girls? Are you in there?” hissed their mother. “Let me in.” Stevie opened the door.

Patti parted her raven hair away from the drama of her face like theater curtains. “Darlings, there has been a bit of an accident.”

THIRTEEN
Æ

in the taxi, seb sat close to the door, his thigh
flat against its padded navy plastic. Katy inched closer and closer toward him, until they were both wedged against the left-hand side of the taxi, causing the cab to slope slightly to one side. The farther he pulled from her, the greater his magnetism, Seb realized, smoothing down the cream cotton of his casual summer chinos. The myth was that you wooed women with roses and dinners and “I love yous.” Rubbish. Women responded to distance. They re- sponded to disinterest. They were like cats.

The worst thing a woman could do was look in need of a lifeboat, Seb mused, as he stared out of the cab window. And that was Katy’s undoing. He had loved her most when she had seemed to be
his
lifeboat, his ride out of the stifling city and his sexually frustrated twenties. Back then she had compelled and cowed him. And that’s all any man wants, he decided—to be forced into sub- mission by a woman, to feel that they are with someone who they don’t deserve. He gazed into the distance, wishing that they could

be tele-transported to Heathrow so he could skip the traffic and Katy’s endless, questioning chat.

a few hours later,
the plane accelerated down the runway with a loud trolley-rattling screech.