Midsummer Magic (11 page)

‘Come on, time to get out and at ’em. We’re going to Penzance to do some serious dress shopping.’

‘Ugh,’ said Diana, pulling the duvet back. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe Josie hadn’t been affected by last night.

‘I’m a woman on a mission,’ said Josie.

‘I can see that,’ grumbled Diana, but she got out of bed. Her throat was sore from smoking too much, her mouth tasted sour and her head was thumping. Drinking always seemed like a good idea at the time.

Half an hour later, she, Nicola and Josie were having breakfast. There was no sign of the boys.

‘Sleeping off their hangovers, bless them,’ smiled Nicola, as if she were talking about children. Diana noticed Josie give a little wince of annoyance. Diana didn’t blame her. Nicola was so meek and mild it made Diana really impatient. She hoped that Josie wasn’t cast in the same mould, and wouldn’t turn into a carbon copy of her mum once she was settled down with Harry. Di thought her friend had more about her than that, but looking at Nicola, she did wonder sometimes.

‘Where’s Peter?’ asked Diana.

‘Working,’ said Nicola. ‘I never disturb him when he’s working.’

No, I bet you don’t, thought Diana, snaffling another piece of toast. Wouldn’t want to disturb the great man, would we?

‘Come on,’ said Josie, before she’d finished, ‘time we were off.’

‘Oh, right,’ said Diana, feeling a little miffed. She liked her breakfast to be relaxed at the weekends. She had realised they were going to be busy today, but not quite how regimented things were going to be. She got up with a sigh, and went to get ready.

‘What are the boys going to do while we’re out?’ said Diana, as she climbed into the car behind Josie and Nicola.

‘As little as possible,’ said Josie firmly, exchanging looks with her mother. ‘I’ve booked them in with Garratt’s in the village to sort out their suits, but that’s it. I don’t trust Ant anywhere near the arrangements for my wedding, and as for Harry … Well, let’s just say his efforts so far have been somewhat less than helpful.’

‘Oh,’ said Diana, preparing to settle down for a journey of endless bridal chatter.

After twenty minutes in the car with Josie discussing the minutiae of flowers for the buttonholes, Diana felt like slitting her wrists. Did it matter that the bride’s side had pink, and the groom’s white? Or how big the mums’ corsages were going to be? Had she known it was going to be like this, Di might never have put the idea of weddings into Josie’s head. She was beginning to feel quite sorry for Harry. No wonder he’d wanted a fag last night. By the end of the weekend he’d probably be on forty a day. Josie’s search for the perfect wedding was beginning to grate.

But it was hard to remain irritated when they arrived in Penzance and Josie took both Diana and Nicola by the arm, saying, ‘This is so fabulous. I’m going to choose my wedding dress with my two favourite people. What could possibly be better?’

Her enthusiasm was so infectious, Diana felt a heel. Josie was so lovely and so thrilled about getting married, it was mean-spirited and churlish not to feel happy for her. Di squeezed her arm tight and said, ‘Penzance here we come!’ and happily followed Josie’s lead through the streets on the search for the perfect wedding dress.

‘Oh, Josie, that’s beautiful.’

Josie emerged from the changing room, wearing a simple but elegant gown in ivory silk, with a lacy bodice, long lacy sleeves, and a skirt that swirled as she walked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Nicola critically. ‘I think you can do better.’

‘Really?’ Diana was flabbergasted. ‘I think she looks amazing.’

‘Nah, don’t think I like this one,’ said Josie.

Half an hour later they left the shop empty-handed, and then proceeded to make their way through every bridal shop in Penzance. Josie tried on dozens of dresses, but none of them was right.

‘It pinches too much,’ she said of one dress, which admittedly looked as if it was made for a size zero American model, or ‘I look all boobs and bum,’ she wailed of another which accentuated her body into a Marilyn Monroe-type shape. But not in a good way.

Whichever dress Josie tried on was wrong. It was either too short, or too long, didn’t show enough cleavage, or showed too much. It didn’t matter that Diana and Nicola pointed out that each offending dress could be altered to suit, Josie found something to criticise about every single one, though Diana and Nicola had agreed there were at least three which made Josie look stunning. Even Nicola, whom Diana had never heard raise her voice before, said rather tetchily at one point, ‘Come on, Josie, surely something must be right?’

‘You’re going to kill me,’ said Josie. ‘But you know that very first dress we saw …’

Diana had known the elegant lace gown, which had shown Josie off to complete advantage, was the one, but Josie wouldn’t be told.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I just want everything to be perfect.’

Perfect. Of course she did. And of course it would be. Perfect – because Josie’s life was always perfect, from her looks, personality, to her boyfriend, job and home. She didn’t have messy relationships or redundancy issues. Josie’s life
was
perfect.

Hang on? Where had that come from? Diana was pleased for her friend, really she was. And yet suddenly she felt herself being ever so slightly jealous …

Harry woke up with a thumping head. He rolled over. Josie wasn’t beside him. She’d gone to bed before him last night, without saying a word, and had been fast asleep when he came to bed. And now she appeared to have got up and left without saying anything either. She must be very angry with him. He glanced at his watch. Ten-thirty already. Damn. Where was she? The thought of braving the breakfast table so late, without Josie, filled him with horror. His future in-laws always breakfasted early, and it was usually cooked. It was the only home he’d ever been in where breakfast felt formal. Josie must be furious with him to let him face the outlaws alone.

He got out of bed gingerly. Those vodka shots with Ant at two a.m. had been a mistake.

‘Go on if you want, lightweight,’ Ant had taunted when Harry had muttered something about going to bed, ‘but since Peter has given us the full run of his drinks cabinet, it seems rude not to indulge.’

So indulge they had. Blearily, he even wondered if Peter had actually given them permission to raid his drinks cabinet. Ant certainly seemed to think so – he and Peter having bonded more in six hours than Harry had in six months. But even if Peter was fancying Ant as an alternative son-in-law (as no doubt he was), would he be happy to see quite how much they’d consumed?

Ugh. He tried to stand up and the room spun. The sun was shining in. It was very, very bright, and the sound of the seagulls outside was driving him crazy. And he thought living in London was noisy. Harry was tempted to go back to bed, but that was only putting off the inevitable. Reluctantly he showered, shaved, got dressed and tried to make himself look vaguely presentable, though the hollow gauntness round his eyes rather gave the game away.

When he finally made it to the main house, Ant and Peter were drinking coffee and eating toast, bonding some more over the
FT
. Ant, he was irritated to see, was looking distinctly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

‘Ah there you are, old boy,’ said Peter, with such forced joviality that Harry wondered if he was finding this weekend as excruciating as Harry was. ‘We were about to send out search parties. The girls have gone swanning off to Penzance to buy dresses, and it’s my job to take you two reprobates to try on our monkey suits.’

‘Great,’ said Harry faintly. ‘Look forward to it.’

‘You’re looking quite green, mate,’ said Ant. ‘Hope your head isn’t throbbing too much.’

‘Yours is clearly fine,’ snapped Harry, feeling uncharacteristically irritated with his friend.

‘Some of us can take it,’ grinned Ant in an infuriatingly superior manner, and Peter grinned with him, making Harry’s sense of humiliation complete.

‘I do find that weekends like this sort the men from the boys,’ said Peter. Great. His future father-in-law clearly saw him as a total lightweight. Not for the first time, Harry wished he were somewhere else.

Josie was also feeling irritable. She’d been planning this day for weeks, and it had gone horribly wrong. She’d so wanted Mum and Diana with her to help choose her wedding dress and they’d been no help at all. Mum, who never raised her voice, had yelled at her at one point, and Di was clearly getting exasperated that Josie couldn’t make up her mind. ‘Surely there must be one you like,’ she kept saying.

‘But it’s the most important dress I’ll ever wear,’ Josie had wailed, ‘I just want it to be right.’ Josie felt they were both fed up with her, particularly Di. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. Plus, while she’d been immersing herself in dress shopping, it had kept her from thinking too deeply about what she’d witnessed in the garden last night.

Josie had played the scene over in her head from the previous evening, again and again. She had been too upset to say anything to Harry last night and gone to bed early to avoid a confrontation, but he and Di had looked so guilty as they’d walked up the path, almost as if they were hiding something. Though surely, surely, they couldn’t have? Josie hadn’t trusted herself to ask Harry directly, in case she’d seen something in his eyes to confirm her suspicions, so she’d gone to bed early, feeling utterly miserable. She’d tried to hint to Harry to join her, but he’d avoided her eye and seemed intent on drinking the night away with Ant. It was as if he didn’t want to spend time with her. He was dead to the world when she’d got up this morning, and so she’d left with a feeling of unresolved misery.

And now Diana was acting funny too. She seemed so grumpy and stressed. What if her suspicions
weren’t
unfounded? What if Di and Harry were –?

‘So, are you going to make me wear this meringue or not?’ Diana was standing in front of her, looking fed up in a pale pink ridiculously frilly dress. With her flaming red hair and fair complexion, it made her look washed out and anaemic. Even Josie had to admit that it would be a mistake to make Di wear it.

Perhaps I should make her wear it anyway
. The thought crept into her head, although she tried to shake it off. She was being unkind; a feeling Josie was unfamiliar with and which wasn’t making her feel good about herself.

‘She certainly won’t.’ For the first time that day, Mum took charge. ‘Really, Josie, what were you thinking,’ she scolded. ‘That colour makes poor Diana look pasty faced, and shows off her natural charms a little too amply.’

‘Let’s have a change of tack,’ Josie said brightly. ‘Why don’t we go for lunch and leaf through some more of those bridal magazines, to get some fresh ideas.’

‘Anything to get me out of wearing this monstrosity,’ said Diana.

‘Great,’ said Josie more cheerfully than she felt. ‘Lunch it is then.’

Ant stood in the men’s changing room, feeling as if Paul Whitehouse was about to peer round the corner at any minute. Despite cockily trying to pretend he was used to these places, he’d never had a made-to-measure before. True, his suits were expensive, but they were always off the peg.

He felt uneasy and uncomfortable. He’d spent the best part of last night trying to persuade Harry he was making a mistake. ‘Come on mate, admit it. You know you’re going to regret this,’ he said, but Harry wasn’t having any of it, replying, ‘Pisshoff and pass the vodka.’ So Ant had to give up, and now his head was pounding from the vast quantities of vodka he’d drunk (not that he was going to admit that to Harry).

‘You don’t understand,’ Harry had slurred earnestly. ‘I love her, she’s perfect.’

Ant could understand that. If Ant had Josie as a girlfriend, maybe he’d have changed his mind about marriage too. She was gorgeous, and sweet and funny. He’d known it when they’d first met all those years ago, and inexplicably, she’d chosen Harry over him. The knowledge that she was now utterly unattainable made her both more alluring to him, and viciously nastier about the wedding, despite the fact he could see it was annoying both Josie and Harry. Ant wasn’t quite sure why he was behaving like such a bastard, but Diana’s presence wasn’t helping. Why people felt the need to get married, he had no idea. He felt the world would get on much better if the sexes kept themselves separate apart from for purely recreational reasons, or perhaps, occasionally to procreate.

‘Right, sir, let me just take a tape measure to your inner thigh,’ the shop assistant was unfailingly polite, but it didn’t stop Ant from feeling incredibly awkward.

‘Suits you, sir,’ joked Ant. The guy was probably sick of that joke.

‘Indeed, sir,’ said the assistant, which instantly put him in his place. This was utter torture. Ant couldn’t believe he was being made to go through it, or how long it seemed to take to get measured up.

‘That was such an ordeal,’ he said as he emerged from the dressing room, to find Peter and Harry waiting for him. ‘I’ve never felt so uncomfortable in my life. Suits you indeed.’

Peter guffawed with laughter. ‘I’ve always thought Mr Garratt bore a passing resemblance to Mark Williams,’ he said. ‘Very good. I say, that was good, wasn’t it, Harry?’

‘Yes,’ said Harry, ‘hilarious.’

But he looked down and miserable as he said it. This would never do.

‘Pint to celebrate getting through that?’ said Ant.

‘Why not?’ said Peter. ‘The girls will be gone for hours. I think we deserve a drink.’

‘My thoughts exactly,’ said Ant, rubbing his hands.

The day was looking up already.

Harry cradled his pint, feeling miserable.

‘Hair of the dog’s what you need, old boy!’ Peter had clapped him on the back in bonhomie, and ordered a pint of Idle Brew, the strongest beer Tresgothen had to offer. Harry’s constitution was still feeling pretty delicate, and he wasn’t quite ready for beer yet. By teatime, maybe he’d be up for it, but it wasn’t even one o’clock. Besides, he didn’t think Josie was going to be too happy with him if he came back drunk.

Knowing how exacting Josie could be about sharing out domestic tasks, Harry also felt uneasy about the state they’d left the kitchen in after breakfast. But Peter had insisted that Nicola ‘wouldn’t mind’ clearing up, so Harry had tried to pretend that Josie wouldn’t mind either. After all, it wasn’t her house. But the nagging feeling that she might be cross wouldn’t quite go away. And he was certain she’d be angry with him for drinking again. That coupled with the guilt he was still feeling about last night, made him sip his beer slowly, and when Ant and Peter tried to persuade him to a second, he said no.