Daughters (41 page)

Eve’s anger told Lara everything. The nerves. The fears. The gamble she was taking. ‘Evie, Evie, listen to me. Are you sure about this?’

The blazing, spitting bride shook like an aspen leaf. ‘Oh, Lara, you’re such a fool. I love Andrew. More than I can say. OK?’

‘Then it is OK.’ Eve clasped the bouquet tighter. ‘Careful with the flowers.’

‘Go away.’ At that, Eve’s finger caught on a tip of florists’ wire holding a peony in place.

The sprig of myrtle fell to the floor.

A tiny scarlet flower bloomed on the hem of the dress.

‘No,’ Eve cried. ‘
No!
’

The red and the white. Milk and blood. The colour of light and purity, and of the virgin’s sacrifice. The colour of death.

Eve said, ‘Quick –
do
something.’ She sucked frantically at her finger.

Lara did nothing. ‘Leave it, Eve,’ she instructed. ‘No one will see it. If you touch it, it will make it worse.’

‘I can’t be married with blood on my dress.’

‘Look at me, Eve. Look at me.’ Eve turned her face slowly to Lara’s. ‘Don’t touch it,’ Lara repeated. ‘Believe me. No one will see it.’

‘Mum!’ she cried. ‘Help me! Help me get through!’

In the car, Lara sat beside Sarah and pleated the folds of her skirt. The undertow of maternal anxiety rose in overwhelming waves to the surface. ‘I hope Eve will be OK.’

‘She’ll be fine.’ Handsome in brown silk, which suited her colouring, Sarah was matter-of-fact.

Lara wiggled a toe inside her shoe, feeling the glide of her expensive tights. ‘The business of the parent is to be better and wiser than the child,’ she told Sarah, ‘but it’s a close-run thing.’

‘Let’s give thanks that we’ve got to this point,’ said Sarah.

Lara began to feel sick and leaned forward to open the window. ‘Do you mind?’

‘Go ahead.’

The car swept onwards along a road dappled by sun. ‘I thought there would be a storm last night.’

‘Bill said the same when he came in.’ Sarah opened and shut her handbag. Then she opened it again, took out a lipstick, looked at it and dropped it back into the bag. ‘Did you talk to Bill last night?’

‘I did. Do you mind?’

‘Me? No, of course not.’

But Sarah did, and Lara hastened to explain: ‘We were sorting things out. Things that should have been sorted out long ago.’

‘Bill is very fond of you.’

‘But he loves you, Sarah. Really he does. He’s happy these days and because he’s happy we’ve sorted things out. You don’t really worry, do you?’

‘A little,’ she confessed. ‘You did have a lot together.’

‘But so do you.’

More vulnerable than she would ever let on, Sarah settled her handbag in her lap. ‘Lara, you look amazing. Hat perfect.’

‘And
you
’re perfect, Sarah.’

The car slowed, and stopped in front of the church.

Guests milled in the bright sunshine outside the church door as Sarah and Lara walked up the path.

Immediately there was a touch on her arm. ‘You look beautiful,’ said Robin, emerging from a cluster.

She turned round. ‘You’re here. That’s wonderful.’

He leaned forward and planted a light kiss on her mouth. ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’

It was a private moment, with one of the deep, penetrating, wordless exchanges that lovers, or potential lovers, enjoy. It’s a promise. It’s a manifesto. She closed her eyes. Then, opened them smartish so that she didn’t miss a second – not one second – of him.

He was in a suit with a silk tie. ‘You scrub up nicely,’ she said.

He was looking down at her with some concern. ‘You look worn out.’

‘It’s that bad?’

‘Let me see …’ He ticked off on his fingers. ‘One beautiful big mouth. One rather pretty chin. Lovely hair. Big hat. Terrible, I’d say.’

‘The hat? Am I a meringue?’

He laughed. ‘Yes. What did you expect?’

It was so silly, inconsequential … yet she experienced a profound, almost life-changing, relief. Robin was there.
He saw her for what she was … worn out and in a big hat. But he didn’t care. Because he, too, had been worn out and found wanting. Maybe he would put up with her bad singing voice, too, and all the rest of the baggage.

She introduced Robin to Sarah, who brightened considerably when she worked out how he stood in relation to Lara.

How sorry Lara was that Sarah had had to put up with the ex-wife’s spectre hanging over her relationship with Bill all these years … and how generous Sarah had been about it.

Robin parodied himself: ‘OK, you two. Are the nerves under control? I’m good at steadying. Part of the training. Off to battle. No problem. Don’t know the plan? Here’s the manual. No idea? Make it up.’

In a bright green dress, Margaret Ellis walked up the path and headed in Lara’s direction. A couple of children played among the graves where the long grass feathered around the lichened headstones. The flower arch above the church door was getting a beating from the sun. A couple of cars had parked badly in the lane, causing confusion with oncoming traffic. A trio of girls – very short skirts, low necklines and long, glossy hair with feather fascinators – walked up to the entrance. ‘Are we late?’ asked one.

Robin placed a hand on Lara’s waist – at the point where the curve met the hip – and pressed down very lightly. It sent a frisson through her body. It was a first step. It was the promise.

He removed his hand. ‘I shall be watching your hat.’ He stepped into the church.

It was almost full. She walked down the aisle behind
Sarah, accompanied by rustles as the already seated congregation clocked who they were. A royal progress.

The flowers – Eve’s hard-won flowers – were overwhelming. Waterfalls of lilies, roses, peonies and gypsophila shrouded every nook and cranny, and posies had been hung at the end of each pew.

‘Are you sure you won’t be overdoing it, Eve?’ she had asked several times.

But no. As clever Eve had foreseen, the effect was beautiful.

She paused to exchange a word with Nigel and Dorothea. (‘Dorothea’s hat was small, neat and uninspiring,’ she would write to Maudie, ‘but smartish blue dress. She and Nigel weren’t exactly
friendly
, but OKish. Slightly
de haut en bas
…’)

Once settled in her pew at the front, Lara turned round. Almost there. Just one or two to go, by the look of things. She checked her watch. Five minutes or so until the best man and groom appeared.

Was she really sitting in this pew, in a wedding hat, waiting for Eve to be married? What an unexpected journey it had been … from the girl who had served fish and chips and bad coffee in a Cornish café to now.

Her skirt had a tendency to ride up her thigh and she pulled it down.

Guests were chatting. A few sat silently, staring ahead. Weddings had a habit of reprising one’s own marital situation – as she well knew. How many of them sitting there were questioning the whole damn charade or telling themselves
If only I’d known
?

But she, smugly for those few minutes, felt very happy. So happy that she swivelled round to look at Robin. He was sitting quietly in his pew. He caught her gaze and held it.

She turned back. The idea of happiness was frequently deceptive, its radiance short-lived. But she had learned that it had to be taken up. It had to be snatched out of the jaws of misery.

The flowers smelt heavenly. The choir was in place. The order of service sheet was plain and elegant. She glanced down at her hands. All that was evident of her nerves was a quiver in a little finger. That she could deal with.

Where was the groom?

Unable to resist, she took another look at Robin … froze, swung round and stared fixedly at the altar. What
had
she seen? Answer: Fern. Stepping into the church with her hair swept up and a hat angled coquettishly over one eye – very Veronica Lake – she had looked neither right nor left as she slipped into a seat opposite the church entrance. Slight as she appeared, her expression was that of a woman who would not forgo her moment.

Had Andrew invited her? Or had she gatecrashed?

Sarah said in her ear, ‘The bridegroom’s cutting it fine.’

Lara’s attention switched from Fern. She glanced at her watch. Something was wrong.

She rose to her feet. ‘I just want a word with Robin.’ To avoid walking back down the aisle, she skirted down the chancel. His radar locked on her, and she beckoned him outside.

He walked out into the porch. ‘What’s up?’

She whispered, ‘Could you phone Duncan and find out what’s happening? Here’s the number. I’m going to call Bill and tell him to delay his and Eve’s arrival for a few minutes.’

Outside, there was the bridal huddle – the vicar, Jasmine, the flower-girls and their (now exhausted) mother.

She flashed the huddle a hostess smile, ‘Just checking,’ and speed-dialled Bill. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Robin talking into his phone. No answer from Bill.

She dropped her phone into her bag. ‘And?’ she mouthed at Robin.

‘Duncan’s trying to find him,’ he said.

Too late: the bridal car rolled up to the church gate and halted. At the best of times, the hat was a liability. Lara whipped it off, fled down the path and reached the car as Bill emerged from it.

‘Andrew hasn’t arrived,’ she informed him, in a low, urgent voice. ‘Go round the block. Turn your phone on.’

‘Haven’t got it,’ he said, shielding Eve from Lara.

‘OK. Another five minutes.’ He bent over and said to the still, white figure, ‘Evie, Andrew’s been held up. Shall we go and have a pint?’

Eyes huge, very pale under the veil, Eve replied, ‘Don’t, Dad.’

Lara bent over and said lovingly, ‘Evie, it’ll be fine.’

Eve gave her a terrified look, which almost broke her heart.

‘Evie,’ she repeated. ‘It’s fine.’

Mobile to ear, Robin paced up and down by the yew hedge. ‘Can’t reach anyone yet, Lara.’

The bridal car eased out of sight as a second car drove up at full pelt, disgorging Duncan. He ran up the path.

Lara went cold, then hot.

Jasmine had obviously taken in the situation. ‘Duncan,’ she called, and hastened towards him with Lara close behind her. ‘What’s going on?’

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘He’s on his way. He was stuck in traffic.’

‘But why wasn’t he with you?’ asked Jasmine, going red then white.

‘Because …’ Duncan’s lips tightened. ‘Because …’

Robin came up. ‘Do you need anything done?’

‘Take Lara back inside,’ said Duncan. ‘I’ll mastermind the rest.’

‘Good idea,’ said Robin. ‘I’ll brief the vicar.’

‘How could Andrew be so cruel? So stupid?’ cried Lara, driven beyond endurance. ‘Do you realize that girl is in there?’

There was a tiny shocked silence, Jasmine, Duncan, Robin and she, all acknowledging that they had colluded … in what? Each of them, she thought, would draw their own conclusions. It was a moment of utmost clarity, sharpness and tension. Then it passed.

‘The traffic
is
terrible,’ said Duncan.

‘Yes, of course,’ said Jasmine. ‘Are you sure he’s on his way now?’

‘Absolutely.’ Duncan looked shattered, with great circles
under his eyes. ‘I’ve just talked to him. He was … diverted. But it’s all fine now.’

Robin came back to them, and placed his hand under Lara’s elbow. It was confident, intimate gesture. Not so much you-are-mine but we-are-each-other’s. Observing it, Jasmine’s eyes widened.

Robin said, ‘Lara, I think we should go back inside. Everything’s fine now.’

No one was to contradict the fiction. Nor would she wish it. Already everyone was rewriting the history of the moment to suit themselves. ‘Everything’s fine,’ she agreed.

How typical of Lara, Jasmine thought, watching her stop in the church porch to put on her hat. She always wanted to shield them.

Eve must be feeling terrible, frightened, even. So thinking, her anger mounted against Andrew. Against men. No, not men. Against the thoughtless and the selfish.

What had Duncan been thinking of, letting Andrew off the rein on his wedding day? A crisis, she sensed, had taken place but, since she and Duncan were not talking, she was never going to know what it was. Still, she had an idea of what might have happened. And she wondered how much of the smoothing over (if it
had
happened) had been due to Duncan.

Duncan was talking to the vicar, and she permitted herself a quick look. Mistake. She could not take her eyes off him. It was no use denying it.

A taxi drew up and disgorged Andrew – wildly
handsome in his wedding outfit – and Duncan hurried down the path to greet him.

Her hand, holding the bouquet ever tighter, was damp with apprehension.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ Andrew apologized to the vicar. ‘The traffic.’

He looked resolved she thought, but haunted.

The vicar wasn’t pleased, but he had seen it all before.

The two men swept past her into the church.

Duncan didn’t look at her once … To her shame, this made her hot with anger.

Stop it, Jasmine. She adjusted her dress. She adjusted her spirit and expectations. Of necessity, all three had to be uncrushed and looking good.

For the second time, the wedding car made its approach up to the church and stopped. Eve emerged, and a lump flew into Jasmine’s throat. The bride, the lovely bride: shrouded in her veil and the dress that flowed so subtly, she seemed unearthly.

At the doorway to the church, Eve stooped to say something to the flower-girls, then leaned over to kiss Jasmine’s cheek. ‘Hey,’ she said softly. Tears started into Jasmine’s eyes.

No, she thought.
Mascara.

The bride stepped forward and the curious, avid gazes of the guests locked on the figure poised in the door – a wraith from another dimension. One that evoked such deep desires and hope. Then, with a shock, Jasmine saw who was sitting directly in view of the bridal party. Eve would have seen Fern too.
That
was
why Fern had positioned herself there.

Nothing to be done but go on.

She stepped into place behind her sister.

At the altar, Eve turned to give Jasmine her bouquet. As she did so, her gaze flickered down the aisle to where Fern sat. It lingered for a good ten seconds. Unmistakable. Then, turning to Andrew, she very deliberately laid her hand on his.