Dog Handling (37 page)

“Finally found a use for it. Blair,” she muttered to the cat as she removed the cake from the Tupperware container and placed it in the sun on the windowsill. “Thought I might have to give it to the old folks home at one point. Not sure they’d have wanted it, though. They’re very strict about pensioners’ diets these days. I imagine chocolate is a bit of a no-no. Though if I were old it’d be chocolate for breakfast, lunch, and supper.”

Blair yelped for milk and Lenny put his head around the kitchen door. “Okay, well, we’ve got the tent in place. Looks a bit like a harem, but don’t think she’ll mind.” Lenny had been up since five this morning clearing old climbing frames out of the way and salvaging tennis balls so the dance floor could be laid.

“I think that was probably the intention; then we can all be very louche and decadent. Must say I can’t wait. You don’t mind if I dance with a few of the young men, do you?” Elizabeth practised a few steps she’d learned in her ecstatic-dancing class. “You do think my blue silk dressing gown’s okay, don’t you? Only it’s such short notice. I mean I’ll wear a hat and it’ll look like it’s proper clothing, I hope?” Elizabeth asked somewhat spuriously.

Lenny always thought she looked a million dollars. “Last word in chic, my love.” Only he pronounced it “chick.” He kissed the back of her head and made for the bathroom. Elizabeth smiled dreamily and looked out her kitchen window but could only make out the green stripes that were obscuring her view. Still it made a change from looking at last summer’s barbecue, which was full of leaves and rain and a bit of vegeburger the cats had left in disgust.

“Mum, we’re here.” Liv came tumbling in the back door followed by Alex and an assortment of bags. They’d caught the early train from Waterloo because neither of them had been able to sleep a wink due variously to excitement, crazy pizza dreams, and kicking bumps.

“Ah, Liv, Tim’s here already. He’s just upstairs and should be—”

“About time, too. I thought you’d got cold feet.” Tim put his head around the kitchen door and Liv looked at him and laughed.

“Oy, we’re not supposed to see each other today. It’s our wedding day—remember?”

“Oh yeah.” Tim gave Alex and then Liv a peck on the cheek each. “Just as well we’re not getting married then, isn’t it, or it’d be a bad omen or something.” Tim laughed as he helped himself to a handful of jammy dodgers and crammed two in at once.

“It really is sweet of you to come and help out, you know, Tim.” Elizabeth patted him on the shoulder and handed him a mug of tea. “I do think it’s a shame you’re not going to be my son-in-law.”

“Yeah, but this way Liv and I will always be friends. Instead of making some dumb mistake that we regret.” Tim grinned. “Not that Alex and Rob are making a mistake—I can’t believe how well you guys get on. All Rob talked about on his stag night was you. He wanted us to break into Hyde Park Barracks to nick a couple of horses and ride to South Ken and serenade you on horseback.”

“Are you sure he’s still in one piece?” Alex asked nervously.

“Tucked up in my spare room like a baby when I left this morning.”

“Thanks, Tim. Thanks, both of you, in fact. Isn’t it just a bit weird having Rob and me borrow your wedding day like this? I mean it must seem odd . . . Liv wearing her wedding dress to be the bridesmaid, having the flowers that you chose together?” Alex looked at Liv and Tim as they went halves on the last garibaldi in the tin.

“Not even slightly,” they both chimed up at the same moment.

“See, opposites attract. Tim and I are too much like brother and sister, aren’t we?” Liv turned to Tim.

“Sadly, angel, I think you’re right.” Since he’d arrived back from Australia six weeks ago Tim had thought a lot about Liv and really did believe that they could be happy together, and they might have been. Except that the next week he ran into, of all people, Sophie Barker, whom he’d worked with at Freuds. And if Liv hadn’t pointed out that Sophie had fabulous thighs like nutcrackers and wore stockings even in winter he might not have asked her out for a drink. But he was glad he had now, because on top of her Glamazonness she was also very sweet and surprisingly clever and had a golf handicap of eleven. Which Liv, in spite of all her wonderful qualities, was never likely to have. And besides, it was always much more fun being a guest at a wedding than having your own, or so he’d been told.

“Now, Alex, do you know if it’s a boy or a girl yet?” asked Elizabeth.

Elizabeth and Alex chipped back and forth with baby banter.

“Oh, I remember how it was with Liv. Nine pounds, seven ounces. Bigger than our turkey that year.”

“Oh god, Mum. It’s probably a good job that I’m not getting married or any potential husband would have run for the hills with you reminding him of my heiferish beginnings.”

“Now tell me, love, are you going back to Sydney after the wedding?” Elizabeth asked. She had no clue what Liv’s plans were as they’d only spoken briefly on the phone a few days ago when Liv had called to ask if the offer of the garden and sausage rolls for the wedding still stood. Apart from that Elizabeth was clueless. Still, that wasn’t an unusual state of affairs. She’d only learned about Liv’s success with Greta’s Grundies (dreadful name, she thought, reminded her of gym knickers) via a piece in
Woman’s Own
about what the stars wore under their frocks. It had been a proud moment and the cutting had been on the fridge door. Though it didn’t seem to be there anymore.

“I’ll go back in a few weeks, yes. But I’ve got to go to New York next week to have a meeting with the woman from Barneys.” Liv and Alex looked at each other and burst into shrieks of excitement. They still hadn’t come to terms with the unprecedented success of GG. Thanks to the huge amount of publicity the party had attracted and then even more column inches when Amelia very loudly resigned her post as spokesmodel, things had been going really well. It had definitely set tongues wagging. And you know how these things are in fashion. One minute a cronky sewing machine in a bed-sit, the next Giorgio is asking you for a weekend in his palazzo. Not that this had happened yet exactly and Liv
was
paying her own airfare to New York and planning to stalk the buyer at Barneys and strew her path with bras rather than actually having an official appointment, but still . . . things were looking good.

“But as Charlie’s said I can have the beach cottage for as long as I like, I think it would be silly not to go back. And Sydney’s so great. It’s too beautiful to leave just yet.” Liv finished her tea and thought of the colour of the sea and the sky and lunch on the seafront in Bondi and surfing in the early morning when the air was still sharp and damp and the balmy evenings and cicadas and jasmine trees. Much as she loved London, she wasn’t ready to come back just yet.

“What about this gorgeous young man I heard about a while ago?” Elizabeth asked.

“I don’t really want to talk about it actually, Mum.” That was the other reason Liv couldn’t bear to leave Sydney just yet. Even though Ben had shown less than no interest in seeing her since the night of the party, she held out hope that one day his feelings towards her might mellow just a bit so they could at least be friends. And just being in the same city as him made her inexplicably happier, even though she knew that she’d completely ruined any chance she ever had with him.

“Why not? Did you have a tiff?” Elizabeth was so uncomplicated. She would never begin to understand why Liv had even begun to bother with all that dog-handling game playing. As if life weren’t complicated enough, she’d shrug, and shake her head at the whole thing. Pity she hadn’t been around to advise Liv two months ago.

“Not exactly. Let’s just say that he learned his lesson. He’s much too clever to have anything to do with some immature, scheming idiot like me,” Liv said, and it broke her heart to remember what had happened that night. “Still, who knows? Maybe one day I’ll meet some guy that I love as much as Ben. Did I tell you, Mum, about it being Ben Parker who I met that year in Aix on holiday?”

“You’re kidding! The boy in the cottage down the road with the dreamy green eyes? Oh my goodness, that’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard. And you’re not speaking? Oh, darling, I’m sorry. There’s no hope at all?”

“He even refused to come to the wedding. Well, not exactly—he told Rob that he was away on some dig, but I imagine that it’s because he doesn’t want to set eyes on me. And I don’t really blame him.” Liv couldn’t bear to think about Ben right now. It was so painful that it sucked the air from her lungs. That she’d lost him. That Dave had even seen him in a restaurant last week and tried to smooth things over and he’d simply said he had no idea how anybody could do anything so malicious and he really was sure that he didn’t want to see her again. No, there was no hope at all. “Better go and get dressed then, hadn’t we?” Liv looked over at Alex, who was totally wiped out. “Come on; I’ll give you a hand.”

The church was littered with camellias and ivy. From the back, as Liv looked down the aisle, at the guests spilling out of the pews, it was her vision realised. Feathers rose spectacularly from hats and there was a low hum of anticipation. Liv’s stomach lurched for a moment as though she were the bride herself.

“Okay, sugar, let’s get to it.” They were already half an hour late, as they’d got stuck in traffic on the A3. Lenny had been driving and he wasn’t known for his lawbreaking abilities, unfortunately. Still, they were here now.

“Now or never,” Alex whispered, and held out her arm for Liv to slip her arm through, and they took their first step as the organ struck up.

Liv could see the cherry blossom bouquet in Alex’s hand trembling as they tiptoed down the aisle. This really is the real deal, Liv thought to herself, with just a flicker of envy as she and Alex took their final steps. They smiled conspiratorially at Luke and James, who were the groomsmen, all scrubbed in their morning suits, and a radiant Rob. And standing beside him, unless Liv was hallucinating, was Ben.

“That’s Ben. Alex, what’s he doing here?” Liv gulped as the wedding march came to an end and the vicar cleared his throat in anticipation of the proceedings.

“I have no idea. I know Rob got drunk the other night and left some slurring message that he better get over here or he’d never buy him a beer again, but I can’t imagine that would have made him come all this way,” Alex whispered over her shoulder, and the vicar gave them a disapproving look.

“Dearly beloved . . . ,” he began, and Liv stole another glance over at Ben. Who was looking at her. God, he had probably been granted the power of the evil eye and wanted to melt her in some reenactment of
The Omen.
She looked at her feet and tried to concentrate on her best friend’s wedding. She had better avoid him at the reception, too. Of all the days she didn’t want to get told off and called a malicious cow, today was definitely one of them. He looked so achingly beautiful in his grey morning suit with a scattering of freckles across his brown nose, his hair short and ruffled. In fact, he’d never looked more irresistible. And never been more inaccessible. Oh, why did he have to come, Liv wondered, and make me remember just how much I regret what I did? Ah, perhaps
that
was why he’d come. To make her suffer even more. Just as she was about to moan to herself that there was no God, she looked up and saw the crucifix and thought better of it. Nah, can’t afford to fall out with him, too, she decided.

“If any of you know of any lawful impediment . . . ,” the vicar continued, and after the tense moment when psychopathic exes are invited to leap out of the pews brandishing deranged reasons had passed uneventfully, the congregation drifted back into their various reveries, be that wondering if they’d turned the heating off at home or gazing mistily at the beautiful couple who had to cross land and seas and social divides to meet. On Rob’s side you could smell the money mingling with the incense, and on Alex’s side were many friends, some literary lions, and her tall, handsome brothers, who were a credit to her despite, the more senior members of the congregation thought, the rather uncomfortable-looking ring through Jame’s left eyebrow. Because most of Rob’s family had flown in from Australia they were determined to make the most of it and were already wondering when the fella in the dress would give it a rest and let them go and do what they did best: have a knees up.

It didn’t take long. The bride and groom, having been in a bit of a hurry to marry because Alex couldn’t face having to wear a flowing gown to conceal her tummy when a slinky one would do perfectly well, didn’t have the time to write their own vows. This pleased the vicar. In his experience such vows were usually embarrassingly earnest attempts at second-rate poetry.

Alex and Rob could have got married in Australia, but Alex, having agreed to spend at least a few years of married life there to begin with, had decided that she wanted to be married in England and while she was reasonably svelte. So had it not been for the fact that Liv had fled England a few months ago and forgotten to cancel almost everything from the dress to the morning suits to the napkins to the glorious Bedouin tent that everyone was now dancing the conga in, then they might have had a bit of a struggle arranging things.

The Carpenters tribute band, which Liv decided she would not be having to play at her own wedding, if ever she had one, played on. But the racket from the “Mr. Postman”–droning woman in the wig was so bad that the neighbours’ dogs were joining in and the cats were under the beds. Between the melon balls and chicken in white wine sauce Liv made her way across the garden into the house and escaped to the loo. All the time keeping a look-out for Ben, whom she had so far managed to avoid by diving behind guests with large hats whenever he so much as looked her way.

The loo door was locked, so she sat on the step outside and rubbed the red patches on her feet where her new shoes were rubbing like crazy. Five minutes later the door was still locked.

“Excuse me. Could you hurry up? I’m busting.” Liv rapped on the door.

“Hold on a minute,” a woman’s voice came from inside.