Summer Daydreams (17 page)
Well, of course, life then goes crazy. In this age of celebrity worship, every woman under the age of sixty seems to want what Chantelle Clarke has and I can’t make stock quick enough to keep up with the orders.
I send flowers to Della Jewel at her PR agency to thank her for the exposure. I can’t believe that she’s been kind enough to do this for me when I hardly even know the woman. Her office calls and asks if there’s been some mistake. I just tell them that I’m really grateful for her input and it’s simply a small token of my thanks, but I wonder if Tod is really behind this. It’s just like him not to take the credit for it.
Christmas came and went with minimal fuss. We stopped for a turkey dinner that Olly made and then I went straight back to making handbags while we watched the ninety-seventh showing of
Raiders of the Lost Ark
and
Mary Poppins
– now a firm favourite with Petal.
Within a few short weeks, the money starts rolling in and I soon have enough to commission a website. The web designer that Tod found for me puts it together really quickly so that I can sell directly from there as well as through eBay. As soon as I’m online, the orders ratchet up one more notch.
Amid a torrent of tears, I give up my shifts at Live and Let Fry, although I keep the market stall. It’s too lucrative not to. I miss Phil and the gang terribly and try to pop into the chippy whenever I find myself in town. My phone never stops ringing. I don’t even try to pause to answer it now or I’d never get anything finished. At midnight every night, I’m still packing up orders. At six every morning, I’m up and doing it again. As my name starts to spread, I give a dozen different press interviews in trade magazines and, after that, the phone rings even more. Several high-end boutiques call me and ask to stock my handbags. Betty the Bag Lady – who has never contacted me since the day I left my first handbag there – rings and texts constantly. Peevishly, I don’t return her calls.
Then Chantelle Clarke is featured in
Heat
magazine with my bag over her shoulder and the pressure increases further.
Jen and Constance have been brilliant. When they’ve finished their shifts together at the chippy, they come straight to my house and get stuck into hand-finishing the handbags with me for a bit of extra cash. They both prove to be demons with the glue gun and the hot-fix diamanté applicator. But even that is failing to keep pace with demand and I realise that I’m going to have to take on more staff if I’m to have any hope of keeping my head above water.
Straight from his night shift, Olly has been on the phone all morning taking orders and he comes into the living room while all three of us are working. Petal is at pre-school now every morning, so that gives us some breathing space too.
‘Woaw,’ Olly says as he stands and surveys the wreckage around him. ‘It looks like a small nuclear bomb has exploded in here.’
It’s fair to say that our house is no longer our own. Every square inch of space is filled with boxes of handbags, fabric and trimmings. Cartons with orders ready to be dispatched are stacked in the hall. Even the kitchen table is covered with sketches. Family mealtimes are a distant memory. So is our sex life.
‘Who’s been on the phone?’
Olly reels off a lengthy list of the businesses he’s dealt with this morning.
‘You need to get onto Dodmans too’ – the handbag frame supplier – ‘and order some more stock. I need to have some more diamanté sparkles by the end of the week before we run out. Can you also give the printer a ring and see if the latest batch of designs is ready?’ As I’m pausing for breath, Jenny looks up from her work.
‘You look absolutely knackered, Olly,’ she says softly.
‘I am,’ he admits, seemingly pleased that someone has actually noticed.
‘We’re both exhausted,’ I butt in. This may be all my dreams come true, but there’s certainly a nightmarish quality to it as well.
‘Come here,’ Jen says to my lover (a somewhat loose term now). ‘Sit down for five minutes. Let me rub your shoulders. I have healing hands.’
Olly does as he’s told and Jen stands behind him and starts to massage his back. My dearly beloved makes suitably appreciative noises. Just as I’m starting to get a tiny bit jealous, Jenny looks up at me. ‘You next, lady,’ she says. ‘Neither of you can go on at this pace.’
Olly and I swap places and I have to say that Jen manages to find knots that I never knew I had.
‘Let’s stop for a break,’ I say when some of the tension has been eased from my shoulders. ‘I’ll go and put the kettle on.’ Olly trails after me into the kitchen. ‘Jen’s right,’ he says as I clatter about with the cups. ‘We don’t get a minute’s peace now.’
‘The business has to come first,’ I tell him. ‘Just while we’re setting up. This is critical for me. All the publicity has been fantastic and I have to make sure I capitalise on that. Tod says—’
At that Olly rolls his eyes and so I let the sentence go unfinished. But what Tod does say is that this is probably the best possible chance I’ll have to establish my brand in the public eye and I have to seize every opportunity before the media move on to someone else – as they inevitably will. I just don’t understand why Olly can’t see this. It seems as if he just wants me to knock out a few bags at Hitchin market every week and be content with that. But this is my big break. This could transform our future.
‘What about the wedding?’ Olly says.
The date that we’ve settled on is in less than a month and it’s fair to say that I’ve done very little towards organising it. I simply haven’t had the time.
‘Maybe we should postpone it,’ I suggest tentatively. We were being ridiculously optimistic about booking it for when we did. Things are quite strained between us at the moment and I’m not sure that it’s the right time to be tripping down the aisle. ‘We’ve waited this long. Can’t we wait a little longer until things settle down here?’
‘What if they never do?’ Olly says. ‘What if this craziness is how our life is going to be from now on?’ He paces the floor.
‘I saw what being obsessed by his business did to my dad. It completely destroyed him, Nell. Because of the strain, he died long before his time. I don’t want that kind of stress for us.’
‘I can understand that, but at some point we have to put in more effort to get a better life. Now is my opportunity.’
He doesn’t look convinced.
‘I want more than this, Olly.’ I gesture at the shabby kitchen. ‘I want our own home, not one where the landlord can chuck us out at any moment. I want a garden for Petal, somewhere for her to play that doesn’t involve a ten-minute walk to the park. I’d like a car. We’re too old to be riding round on a scooter now. It’s ridiculous. You’re a family man. You have responsibilities. I’m trying to do this for all of us. Don’t you want more?’
‘I want
you
,’ he says. ‘I want you and Petal and life as it was before. That’s all. I’m frightened that you want more than I can ever be.’
‘Oh, Olly. That’s so not true.’ All my rage dissipates and I go to him and we hold each other tightly.
‘You do still want to get married?’ he murmurs against my hair.
‘Of course I do.’
There’s only ever been Olly. He’s been the one love of my life. I need to make time to do this. If only I could think how.
We have a beautiful Norman church in the centre of Hitchin, set in its own grounds, but as we’re not churchgoers, we opt instead for the register office in Stevenage, which is not beautiful and not Norman and is at the back of Matalan.
I did wonder whether we were actually going to make it to this day at all. It’s been touch and go on several occasions, but somehow, in the midst of all the madness, we’ve managed it.
My plan to make my own dress seemed insane at three o’clock this morning when I was still hemming it. Pink is the theme – Petal would hear of nothing else – and so I’ve got a hot-pink shift with a vintage cream lace cape, a long string of cream pearls, and shoes that I had dyed to match. My bouquet is a handful of hot-pink and cream gerberas bound together with ribbon, the dark centres studded with diamanté. I top my outfit with my Ms & Mrs handbag. Just perfect.
Petal’s tutu-style dress is fairy tale pretty – pale pink with hot-pink details and fairy wings to match. She’s carrying a small pompom studded with daisies to complement mine. Olly is wearing a vintage sixties shirt in a pink paisley pattern with tailor-made mohair trousers and his favourite pointed Chelsea boots. He looks more handsome than I’ve ever seen him.
The wedding is small, which is probably just as well as it’s the only way that I’ve coped with it. My rocks – Jenny, Constance and Phil – are here. The reception is our wedding present from Phil and it’s going to be held back at Live and Let Fry, which he’s closed up especially for the day.
This morning I went in and decorated it all with balloons and put bunches of brightly coloured gerberas in jam jars on the tables and the place is looking great. One of Constance’s friends has made the cake for us and I put it out on one of the tables. It’s iced in a pale cream colour and has three small tiers. Truly an extravagance with the size of the wedding party! But you can never have enough cake, can you? The bottom tier is decorated with chocolate and hot-pink hearts while the middle has matching stripes and the final tier is all spotty. A marabou feather confection stands on top. Glasses are out waiting for our return and I know that there’s a stash of champagne chilling in the fridge that Phil bought from Costco.
Olly’s mother, unsurprisingly, declined to come out of her sun-soaked retirement to attend and my parents are away on a three-month cruise. They won’t mind missing it as they’ll just be delighted that we’ve finally tied the knot. Olly and I will go to visit them as soon as we can when they’re back. If I’m really honest, Phil, Constance and Jen feel more like family to us now so we won’t feel as if we’re missing out. We’ve got a few more of our friends dropping by to toast us later and Tod also said that he’ll pop in afterwards.
Thankfully, with Nell McNamara Handbags being so busy, we do have some money to spend on a few luxuries to make the day more memorable. We’ve hired two pink-and-cream stretched mini-limousines to whisk us and our guests to our wedding.
‘OK?’ Olly asks as the posh minis pull up outside the register office. I nod in response. ‘Sure?’
‘Absolutely.’ I lean against him. Despite the stresses and strains of the last few months, I’m glad that we have actually made it.
We sip chilled champagne on the journey – even Petal has a little taste – and I think I’m finally beginning to relax enough to enjoy it. Out of the other mini, Jen, Constance and Phil stumble, giggling. Looks as if they’ve been enjoying the in-car hospitality too. They all look great. Constance has toned her usual leopard print right down and is wearing a smart pink suit. I’m pleased to say that her trademark vertiginous heels are still firmly in place. Jenny is looking very comely in a Marilyn Monroe style silk number. And it looks like Phil has splashed out on a new grey suit for the occasion. As instructed, he’s wearing a pink tie and has a gerbera buttonhole.
‘You look fabulous,’ I tell my old boss, straightening his tie as I do.
‘So do you, Nell,’ he says. His voice cracks with emotion. ‘You’re a stunner. Olly’s a very lucky man.’
‘That’s what I keep telling him.’ I link my arm through his. ‘Come on, we’d better go in or we’ll miss our slot.’
We all pile into the register office, which, thankfully, is much nicer on the inside than it is on the outside.
Olly and I take our places, flanked by our witnesses, Phil and Constance. I notice that Constance slips her hand into Phil’s. Petal stands behind us, flowers in a death grip in her tiny hands, as she concentrates hard on ‘being good’ as instructed.
The registrar completes the formalities and then asks, ‘Do you, Nell McNamara, take Oliver Meyers to be your lawful wedded husband?’
As I look at Olly, my lover, my friend, my soon-to-be husband, all doubts, all fears, fly out of my mind when I say, ‘I do.’