Bad Boys of London: The Complete GYPSY HEROES Collection (21 page)

But suddenly, before I know it, my wedding day is upon me. I wake up early, a bundle of nerves, and lie very quietly in the dark. Already, I can hear my mother and aunts moving about the house. I put my hand on my stomach. It’s still flat, but my baby is growing inside.

‘We’re getting married today,’ I whisper, and a thrill of excitement runs through me.

Maddy is the first to arrive and we eat breakfast in my bedroom together.  We speak in whispers and giggle quietly as if we are children on a midnight adventure.

The hairdresser arrives at seven. Ma makes her a cup of coffee and she sets about separating my hair into two parts, gathering the top half into a bun at the back of my head and putting corkscrew curls into the lower half and leaving them trailing down my back and shoulders. She fits a princess tiara over my head, and the make-up artist takes me on. She spends an hour on my face, painting, dabbing, drawing, brushing, and then gluing on individual spikes of false eyelashes.

By now the house is crowded with friends and relatives bringing presents. Gypsies are generous gift givers and the pile of presents soon fills the dining table and spills onto the floor, and still more well-wishers are flooding through the doors. Ma breaks into the stack of champagne cases and the house heaves as if it is a party.

Then the dress arrives.

From my window I watch Thelma and her two assistants carefully carry it into the house. They bring it upstairs to my room and Thelma and her assistants help me into it. My heart is racing with nerves.

‘Oh, oh, oh,’ exclaims a delighted Maddie. ‘You look stunning.’

When I have been laced into the dress and the veil fixed into place, I walk over to the mirror with bated breath.

And … almost do not recognize the person in the mirror. I look like I have stepped out of a page of a fairytale. Ma, who has changed into a pretty grey-blue dress, has tears in her eyes. She dabs them away carefully with the edge of a tissue.

‘You look absolutely beautiful, Layla,’ she says.

‘You were right, Ma. The dress is perfect.’

My mother smiles through her tears.

Thelma and her assistants pick up the train and hem of the skirt as I go through the door, preventing me from stepping on it and falling headlong down the stairs. They carry the train as I go down the stairs in my pearl-encrusted slippers.

And then I am standing in front of Jake. He looks gorgeous in his grey morning suit. His eyes are so bright and full of pride.

‘Oh! Layla. If only Da could see you. You’re the princess he always said you were,’ he says.

Lily smiles. The confinement thing has really worked. She is glowing and beautiful. ‘I always knew he would get you.’

‘You did?’

She nods. ‘He’s a good guy. I’ll never forget what he did for Jake and me. I’m so happy for you. Be happy always, Layla.’

Then Dominic and Shane come to kiss me. They look incredibly handsome in their new suits. Dominic nods approvingly, and even Shane forgets to be a smartass. ‘You look truly beautiful,’ he says sincerely.

As I walk to the front door, everybody takes pictures and videos.

Gingerly, I step out of my mother’s house and scream. I can’t believe it. I don’t know whether it is Jake or BJ who has arranged it, but it is the last thing I am expecting. A glass carriage is waiting on the road. It is dainty and ornate and quite simply magical, something you would see in a Disney movie. It has two grooms in livery and two white steeds with plumed headdresses.

‘BJ insisted on it,’ Jake says.

Jake gets in first and then Thelma helps me into the carriage so that I am sitting opposite him and my train is coiled between us. The door closes and we are off, with passing cars tooting their horns at us all the way to the church. Complete strangers hang their heads out of their cars, smile, wave, and wish me well.

By the time we get to the church, we are 30 minutes late and the bridesmaids and flower girls are all lined up and waiting. Maddy winks at me. Jake reaches over and squeezes my hand.

‘Thank you, Jake. Thank you for everything,’ I say. My voice sounds shaky.

‘Never mind that. Don’t ruin your mascara,’ he says, his voice is gruff.

Thelma and her assistants help me out of the carriage. I step out into the sunshine. It is a beautiful, still spring day. There are strangers gathered all around watching the wedding procession. And suddenly I have an attack of nerves. I turn blindly to Jake. I’ve been doing that since I was child. Always Jake. Fighting all my battles.

‘I’m with you every step of the way,’ he says, holding his hand out.

I take it, and just like that I am no longer nervous that I will trip, fall, or make a mistake. I am excited by the future that awaits me in the church. We walk up the steps to the church, my fingers resting lightly on his forearm. The sound of the wedding march floats out the double doors.

We make our way to the entrance, instantly I see my bridegroom. All in white. So broad and tall and wonderful. In the periphery of my vision I can see my mother, my brothers, my friends, acquaintances, and even strangers lining the back pews. In a flash of white, BJ turns and everyone else disappears. Our eyes meet and we’re alone in the church. Only him and me.

‘Wow,’ he mouths silently, his eyes blazing possessively.

Then my brother is moving forward and my legs follow his lead. I can feel the heavy train trailing for yards behind me, hear the swishing of the taffeta, smell the sweet perfume of the bouquets, and sense the solid muscles of my brother’s arm under my hand, but I am in a total daze. My eyes never leave BJ.

My brother takes his arm away and I look at him stupidly. He smiles and I turn my face back to BJ. He puts out a hand and gently pulls me towards him. He is so big and beautiful, I cannot believe that he is really mine. The tiepin that had started everything glints on his cravat, catching my eye. It doesn’t match and yet is perfect.  

The vicar begins to recite our vows and I follow, repeating every word carefully, in awe of the sounds that leave my lips. For they come directly from some deep, unknown place inside my being.

‘I do,’ I say.

BJ slips the ring onto my finger and the vicar pronounces us man and wife. He doesn’t have time to give BJ permission to kiss the bride. BJ has already leaned over the yards and yards of material separating us and found my mouth. The congregation erupts: cheering, clapping, and whistling. We are a rowdy bunch, us gypsies.

Thelma leads me to a small room at the side of the church. Carefully, she removes the veil and the bolero. The hairdresser touches up my hair and they help me out of the door. I stand for a moment at the entrance of the church. Then I see a brilliant flash of white and the crowds part to let him through. BJ stops in front of me and stares transfixed, his eyes devouring me. The dress has been laced up too tight to take a deep calming breath so I take quick shallow breaths through my mouth. He takes my hand.

‘You ordered one princess?’ I whisper.

‘I did. And you ordered one love-sick husband?’

‘Husband,’ I repeat. The word lands onto my tongue as light as a butterfly. I find it to be a familiar word that brings peace to my entire body. As if I was always meant to be Mrs. Billy Joe Pilkington.

TWENTY-NINE

Layla

A
fter my ultimate wish-upon-a-star, fairytale wedding, BJ whisks me off to Tuscany for our honeymoon. We stay in a magnificent palazzo near Maremma’s woodlands. For four passion-drenched, slothful days we do nothing but explore each other. Once we wake up at dawn we ride into the outstandingly beautiful and wild countryside.

BJ is a strong rider, but so am I and it is exhilarating. When we stop we are both flushed and aroused. In the clear fresh morning air, we tear each other’s clothes off and indulge in the delight of outdoor sex. At the end of it, I’m startled by an audience. A pair of beautiful roe deer wearing their reddish summer coats are looking at us curiously. We freeze, BJ still deep inside me, and stay still until they amble away.

‘Wasn’t that beautiful?’ I whisper.

‘Everything with you is,’ he says. 

Everyday we discover new things about each other. I now know that BJ doesn’t have breakfast. He has eight raw eggs blended with a banana and some milk. And he knows that I like a selection of warm pastries from the village woman. And that I’ll quite happily drink chilled, raw goat’s milk with them.

In the afternoon, when it is too hot to do anything, we swim lazily consuming countless ice lollies by the pool. At night, we eat thin-crust pizza cooked in a traditional wood oven, or even barbeque fish we bought from the outdoor market on the terrace. Once BJ makes us a pasta pomodoro with steak. I discover he’s not a bad cook.

‘Did your mother teach you?’ I ask.

‘No, it’s Bertie’s recipe.’

Tonight, he’s taking me to a famous restaurant a few miles away. The man who cleans the pool tells us that one has not lived until you’ve tried Il Cinghiale Nero’s signature dish of wild boar and porcini mushrooms.

I soak in the bath inside the high-ceilinged, pink marble bathroom until he scoops me out and carries me, still dripping with soapsuds, to our enormous bedroom. He throws me on the bed and dives in after me. He has his own way of drying me. It doesn’t involve a towel, but it does feature a great deal of effort on his part, and wet sheets. Afterwards, as I lay on my back satiated, he grasps my ankle in his hand and brings it to his mouth.

‘It’s amazing how brown you have become in four days.’

I look into his love-drunk eyes. ‘Wait until you see me at the end of the week.’

He leans back on the pillows, eyes half-mast, and watches me slip into a sultry, red knee-length dress with a daring décolleté. I slip on exotic, toe-ring sandals with straps embellished with turquoise stones. I brush my hair, apply mascara and lip-gloss, and dab perfume on to my pulse points.

‘Come here,’ he says.

I cross my arms across my chest. ‘Nope, I’m not having you ruin my primping. You can have me after you feed me.’

He bounds up suddenly, sending me screaming out of the bedroom and through the tall corridor with its gilded panels and oil paintings, then down the grand marble staircase. I stand at the foot of the stairs looking up, laughing and gasping for breath, and ready to bolt outside if he decides to come down after me, but he stands leaning on the banister.

‘There’ll be hell to pay if you keep it for later,’ he calls out.

‘Is that a threat?’

He grins. ‘Consider it an invitation.’

I grin back. ‘In that case, I accept.’

He nods and disappears back down the corridor.

The pool cleaner is right. It has to be the one of the best meals I’ve eaten in my life. It’s when we’re ordering dessert that our trouble starts.

I turn to BJ after ordering my sweet from the waiter, and he is scowling at me.

‘What?’ I ask.

‘Stop fucking flirting with that waiter, or he’ll find his pepper mill sticking out of his fucking ass.’

‘Are you kidding me?’

‘Does it look like I am?’

‘I wasn’t flirting.’ 

‘No?’

‘No,’ I say very empathically.

‘So what the hell was all that hair flicking and the “
si, si, sei troppo gentile
” all about, then?’ he asks changing his voice to a mocking falsetto to imitate mine.

‘That was me being polite,’ I say, getting a bit irritated myself.

‘How would you like it if I did that with the waitress?’

‘I wouldn’t mind at all. Go ahead. Be my guest,’ I tell him.

A look crosses his face. ‘All right. Just remember you started this.’

He looks around and catches the eye of the most attractive waitress in the restaurant and lifts his eyebrow. When she comes to him he gives her a slow smile and asks if she could bring a bottle of their best champagne.

She trots off and he smiles pleasantly at me. I am determined not to react so I smile back.

When she returns, totally ignoring me, he blatantly begins to flirt and laugh with her, blatantly. My blood begins to boil. Yes, it’s true I did flirt with the waiter, but only lightly. He, on the other hand, was almost stripping her naked with his eyes.