The Fall and Rise of Lucy Charlton (37 page)

They were sitting around drinking gin and tonic and Mr Eve, well mannered, got up and came straight to her, saying that he loved everything about England but Durham best of all – what a cathedral, what a beautiful place, this building was so amazing and he loved animals. He shook her hand and beamed at her, and Lucy thought immediately that Mr Eve was a lost cause.

Apparently he loved northern accents; he was ready to adopt the entire area, she could tell. He was effusive and kind, and when he asked about what she did and Joe had said she was a solicitor, he told her he was very impressed. He said she should come to the States where women had been lawyers almost since time began.

Lucy laughed at this and disclaimed. The trouble was, she thought, that she was already having a very enjoyable evening. Mr Eve was charming. He was tall and slender and handsome and well dressed and made sure everyone was at ease.

The Misses Slaters were also coming to the County. She thought this was a nice touch, but then Joe really didn’t need her there; he had lied, he wanted her there, though she wasn’t quite sure why. She was wearing the most beautiful green dress, which Edgar must have choked over when he got the bill, and the Misses Slaters were done up in their best finery.

Nobody said anything about business and Lucy wasn’t sure whether she should talk about it, but in the end she couldn’t help it. Besides, she didn’t want Christopher Eve to think she was Joe’s piece of fluff, pretending to be something better, so she asked him what he thought of the car.

He glanced at Joe and then he smiled and said, ‘We’re going to have a contract drawn up and Mr Hardy, Mr Palmer and I are going into business together. He assures me that the law firm you work for is the best in the area, Miss Charlton, so we are expecting great things of you.’

Lucy sat in front of the mirror in her bedroom on her wedding day and looked at her reflection. She wondered what it must be like for a virgin to be married and was it fair considering that she was almost certain he was? What was it like when only one of you knew what to do – was that an advantage or did it put the woman into a position where she was obliged to be submissive? If he did know what to do then where had the knowledge come from and what were the circumstances of the women who had supplied it? And why should they and how clean was he and how faithful – how many times had he satisfied his baser instincts?

She felt that it was only through money and desperation on the part of women that they would do such things. She could imagine no woman doing it for any other reason. Did men really think that women enjoyed having their bodies invaded for money? Did many of them enjoy having their bodies invaded when they had married because they must?

*

Edgar had told himself that his desire to marry Lucy was based on a number of sensible reasons. He had even ticked them off to himself. He couldn’t manage at the office without
her, she would make a good solicitor and a fine partner in the firm, she was organized and would look after his house as well and they could have children. He didn’t intend to keep on the Newcastle office and he was convinced she was aware of it. She would look after her family at a distance and everything would be fine.

Lucy was attractive. She was not beautiful like her sister; Gemma was stunning. He thought of her hanging out the clothes in the sunlit backyard, even then she was amazing, but when he saw Lucy outside the office he saw things which he liked about her so very much. Since he had asked her to marry him the worry had gone from her eyes; she was excited about marrying him, he was sure, pleased that they would work together, grateful that she would be able to keep her family.

After the first time of trying to kiss her when she had avoided his mouth he contented himself with talking, holding her hand and sometimes just a brush of lips to her neck, but as the days went on he thought of them in bed. He wanted her so badly that when they were together he couldn’t concentrate on anything else.

He watched the lines of her body – she was too thin – and he wondered how her breath would come and go when they had sex and what her breasts would feel like beneath his hands. Would he be able to feel her ribs under the smoothness of her skin or would he be so grateful to have her close that he wouldn’t care?

He thought her hair smelled of lavender and noticed how her eyes danced. They were darker than her sister’s eyes but no less attractive.

They would be married before the year’s end and he would be able to have her as much as he wanted, but also it seemed to him that he should have been allowed to kiss her without her backing off. He understood that in young women inexperience made them shy, but he didn’t think she was shy, he knew her too well for that.

One afternoon that autumn when they were alone by the fire, her mother and sister having taken the children out, he got down on the hearthrug beside her, put an arm around her and kissed her.

She hesitated and then she kissed him back, but only very briefly. She stopped and made an excuse, then got up and went into the kitchen. He was left sitting by the fire wondering what he had done.

*

Lucy hadn’t slept the night before her wedding. She panicked and wondered what she was doing and she was up before anyone else. She waited in fits of impatience for the rest of the house to rouse itself and was finally grateful when she heard the children shouting.

She went down to breakfast although her mother fussed and said that she had been about to bring a cup of tea up for her – but Lucy wanted to sit there. She couldn’t eat. Her mother tutted over her lack of appetite. Lucy swallowed the tea and felt sick. She could not stop thinking about Gemma’s wedding day and what Guy had done. She thought she was going to pass out, she felt so ill.

Emily had stayed the night in the other attic room, but somehow it seemed to make things worse. Lucy wanted to run away. She went and hid in her room and as the time
drew nearer she stood in front of her mirror in a white velvet dress and a long veil, shivering. Emily and Gemma hovered in the hall. Their mother had gone off with their father and the grandchildren, to be at the church ahead of the time. St Nicholas’s Cathedral was not far away but at this moment she felt as though it were right on her doorstep.

*

Joe said, ‘I thought she was ready.’

Gemma went upstairs, but came back down again and said nothing, so Joe went up next and knocked briefly on the door. He thought he heard her voice and went in to find her seated at a tiny dressing table. It was nothing like the way that he had thought she lived in Newcastle – it was an attic room with scarcely enough space for a single bed and a chest of drawers, the kind of thing servants slept in. There was no fireplace and it was bloody freezing, despite the pale sunlight which ventured through the window.

She looked as though she were in a white mist. Really, Joe thought, did women want to envelop themselves like that when they were married – or was it tradition, was it something to do with a man unwrapping his prize? He didn’t like to think too much about it.

‘The motor’s here.’

She didn’t move. She was facing the dressing table. He could see the top of her head through the mirror. She was wearing some ridiculous ornament like a tiara, the kind of thing he had seen other women wearing at parties in London when he was young, with silver and diamonds all done up like a bow. It was awful, and the veil that went with it looked like huge curtains around her.

‘Are you coming?’

She shook her head.

Joe went over. She looked up. Brides always thought they looked beautiful. She looked scared, so pale, her eyes darker than they should have been on such a happy day. She looked like a child dressed up as though she was going to disappear in among all that white.

‘Nerves?’ Joe ventured.

She got up, taking deep breaths. The dress and its apparently endless veil got up with her, and Joe wasn’t quite sure he could get her out of such a tiny room without half the outfit left this side of the door. In the end he called down the stairs and Gemma came up and rearranged the damned dress with all the bits that went with it. She got her through the door.

It took time to get Lucy down two flights of narrow stairs but they managed it eventually and then there was another palaver to get her into the car. The car with the bridesmaids went off and Joe got in beside Lucy. He was only thankful to leave the house.

It was not far to the church but it felt like a long way. He was glad when they finally pulled up outside, though it was raining – not quite sleet, but very cold. Joe got out. Emily was standing in the porch but she ran down the path to him.

‘He isn’t here yet,’ she said.

‘But it’s twenty-five to.’ The wedding was set for half past eleven.

‘Just ask the driver to go away for ten minutes and then come back.’

Joe got back into the car and made up a story, that Edgar and his best man, Joe couldn’t remember his name, had got stuck somewhere and would be there in a minute or two. Lucy’s face grew even whiter than her dress. She looked out of the window as Joe gave instructions to the driver. They set off again.

The minutes crawled by. The driver went down to the river and then back through the city, up a couple of side streets, past some pretty terraced Georgian houses and then round again. By then, Joe thought thankfully, it would be all right, so they made their way back to the church.

Emily was still outside, her face grim. Joe got out again.

‘Where can he be?’ Emily said.

‘It’s ten to twelve,’ Joe said.

Lucy, somehow unaided, was now out of the car, scrunching up her skirts with white clenched fingers just as her sister reached the path.

‘Where on earth is he?’ Gemma said to Emily. ‘You should get back in the car, Lucy. Your dress will be spoiled.’

The rain was coming down harder now, turning to sleet.

‘I don’t want to get back in the car. I came here to be married.’

Nobody knew what to say.

‘Why don’t we all sit in the car,’ Joe said, ‘and just wait? Something has happened. Everything will be all right.’

The two women did so but Lucy stood there.

‘What if he’s had an accident?’ she said.

‘There’s no point in supposing anything bad. Just get back in or you’ll be soaked.’

She didn’t move. She didn’t even look at him. The sleet was heavy and turned the streets to darkness. There was nothing to do, he thought, but stand there with her as the dress began to show spots of grey where the sleet hit it. The bottom of the dress was gathering dirt from the wet pavement so that it already had a grimy edge and the church was beginning to blot out behind the weather.

Nobody came out of the church, nobody came into view. No cars stopped. Joe looked up and down the road so many times that his neck was weary. It must have been at least another half-hour before a black car drew up at the pavement. Joe was so relieved he could have cried out. He watched for Edgar and the best man, but only one figure emerged.

He came slowly across and looked at the bride. She was now wet through. Her veil had sopped onto her back and her skirts had gone limp. The best man cleared his throat, tried to say something and didn’t manage it.

‘Where is he, for God’s sake?’ Joe couldn’t stop himself from asking.

‘He isn’t coming.’ The man didn’t look at him, but off to the side. His voice was only just audible.

Gemma stood beside her sister, but Emily came to Joe.

‘What’s happened, Peter?’ she demanded.

‘He went home.’ Peter didn’t look at her either.

She stared for a few seconds and then said, ‘He what? Do you mean you let him go?’

‘I couldn’t stop him.’ Peter did look at her then, as though somebody was about to blame him. His words came all in a rush. ‘I did everything I could, I told him she was waiting, I
told him about the guests and the vicar and the … the food. I said everything I could, but he wouldn’t take any notice.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Nothing. Just that he couldn’t do it.’

‘Dear God,’ Emily said and turned away.

They stood about for a few more seconds and then Gemma said, ‘Somebody ought to go in and—’

‘I’ll go,’ Joe said.

Lucy turned and began to get back into the car, pulling at her clothes which by now resembled seaweed, thick and unwieldy as though they were covered in sand.

Joe was glad he had to go back into the church, even though everybody turned around and stared into the silence and he heard his shoes so sharp on the bare floor. It stopped him from running back to Durham and knocking seven kinds of shit out of Edgar. He argued with himself.

It wouldn’t have helped, he would have looked stupid and none of it made any difference. He couldn’t stop thinking about how she had looked in that awful little attic bedroom, as though only the voluminous whatever of her outfit stopped her from running down the stairs and out into the street and wherever the hell she could get to away from here. Mentally he cursed Edgar again as he went to the front of the church and whispered to Mrs Charlton that there was a problem and he thought she and her husband ought to come outside. He wheeled Mr Charlton out. Mrs Charlton went straight to Lucy and demanded to know what was going on.

Joe went back inside and he told everybody as briefly as he could that there would be no wedding and gave them his apologies.

He stood at the front as they moved awkwardly out of the pews and down the aisle towards the door, all in their wedding finery, disappointed and somewhat gleeful that they had witnessed such a display, though they weren’t sure whether it was the bride or the groom. He knew that by the time they got outside the car would have taken Lucy and Emily and Gemma back to the house. Lucy’s parents and the second car had gone too.

He was last to leave, and he thanked the vicar or whoever he was. Joe had long since stopped thinking about churches or the men concerned with them, for war had somehow knocked all faith out of him, it seemed such a useless thing to him. He strolled back up the aisle and out into the sunshine and wasn’t that just typical, he thought, the bloody sun coming out now.