by Imogen Clark
‘That would be a really nice thing to do,’ he had said, his voice gentle and filled with concern. ‘But don’t you think that Cara is a little bit young to be left just yet? You know how she clings to you. Maybe if you’d been a bit tougher with her from the beginning . . . but as it is she can hardly bear to be apart from you if you go to the loo, let alone a little jaunt to the cinema.’
And that had been it. He had dropped his head back into his Racing Post, leaving Annie feeling ashamed that she’d ever brought it up. Since then, Annie has not asked to be released from her domestic duties.
She realises that Babs is still looking at her expectantly. She needs to say that she doesn’t fancy it or come up with a decent excuse quickly or the whole situation is going to become even more awkward. ‘To be honest,’ she begins, twisting her wedding ring round her finger. ‘To be honest, I’m not a big drinker. I’m not sure that a night out is quite my thing.’ Annie can feel her cheeks burning as the lie trips from her lips. She feels sure that Babs can see that she is talking rubbish and will be offended but Babs just says, ‘That’s okay. You should have said before. It was just a thought. Now pass me one of them custard tarts. I’m starving here.’
As Babs tucks into her custard tart and chats about children, Annie is only partly listening. Has she been hasty? Joe isn’t an ogre. If she explains what the night out is about then surely he’d look after the children, just for an hour or two?
‘I could maybe ask Joe?’ Annie blurts out, cutting right across what Babs was saying.
Babs looks confused for a moment. ‘Oh. About the night out?’ she clarifies. ‘Well, you’re welcome to come along whatever.’
‘I mean, I could just drink Coke or something,’ Annie continues, although she isn’t really talking to Babs. She deserves a night out. She hasn’t had any fun for ages. Joe will see that. He goes out every week and she never complains. She’ll have to ask him for some cash but if she only has a couple of Cokes that’s hardly going to break the bank. She feels excited about the plan. She has no idea what she’d wear but she will cross that bridge when she comes to it. Babs chatters on but Annie isn’t really listening anymore. When the time comes to wake Cara and go to collect Michael from playgroup, she has the whole evening mapped out in her head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Cara, 2017
So, what is the form when you discover an undead parent? There are no help pages for that.
I need to clear my head so I go for a walk along the river. The last few leaves are clinging petulantly to the trees. The first hard frost will bring them tumbling down but for now they sway in the breeze that always blows along the bottom of the valley. A proud heron stands on one leg in the shallows, poised to spear his unsuspecting dinner.
I can’t decide what I should do next. Everything that I think I know is spinning around inside my head and I can’t get any of it to lie still. I’m not sure that I’m strong enough to take on any more. Or at least not yet. The implications are too huge. Having a mother who is not dead is a big enough thing to deal with on its own but what about the rest of it? She said we were precious in the postcards but then she left us behind like a finished-with paperback novel. Was there something new in her life that seemed so much more appealing to her than we did, something so tempting that she couldn’t resist? Maybe she turned out not to be the maternal type after all. I mean, there’s no guarantee that you will be mother material just because you manage to get yourself pregnant. If that was it, though, you’d have thought that she might have stopped at just Michael rather than going on to have me as well. I wonder if the pair of us were too difficult to manage or just plain disappointing, not the golden children of her dreams. Perhaps it was a mixture of both. Whichever way I look at it, there seem to be two possibilities. Either something happened to her to lure her away or, more likely, she just didn’t want us anymore. This is the nub of it to me. Was she dazzled or just disappointed? Neither solution is particularly encouraging.
A dog walker with headphones jammed into his ears passes by me shoulder to shoulder on the narrow path. I smile but I get no response. When did the world become so unfriendly?
It’s not just my mother’s motives that I need to worry about. What about Dad? He has continued this ludicrous fabrication for my whole life, stringing me along, piling lie on top of lie. I am struggling to process what this says about him – was he trying to protect us or himself? And if he has lied to me about something so fundamental then how can I trust all the other things he’s told me? Have I really had chicken pox? Was the scar on my chin actually a result of falling off my bike? Do I have any other siblings that no one has thought to mention? When I think about this then my whole life begins to wobble off-kilter. I am left untethered, like an escaping helium balloon just floating up and away.
This problem aside, life beyond the question of my dead mother is pretty steady because I now have the magnificent Mrs P to help me. I can’t imagine how I used to cope without her. Her presence in our lives just makes everything feel so much calmer. Also, the house is transformed. My terrible attempts at window cleaning are a thing of the past. The cornices are no longer home to enormous spiders and the chequered tiles in the hall have never looked so shiny.
One day I find her on her hands and knees in the bathroom scrubbing the mould out of the grouting in the floor tiles.
‘You shouldn’t be doing that,’ I say.
She looks at me, her eyes wide.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she says. ‘I didn’t mean to interfere. She struggles to her feet and starts peeling off her rubber gloves.
‘No,’ I say, anxious to correct the misunderstanding. ‘I mean, we don’t pay you to clean. When Dad’s at The Limes you’re free to go home. Cleaning up my mess really isn’t part of your job.’
She looks relieved and smiles her gap-toothed smile. ‘I don’t mind, honestly,’ she says.
‘But haven’t you got things you need to be doing?’ I ask. ‘Don’t you work for other families when you’re not here?’
She shakes her head. ‘I told the agency that I didn’t want any more hours. It’s good to have the flexibility in case you need me. And there’s not much going on at home.’
I wonder briefly about her family. I’d assumed there was a Mr Partington but maybe not. I don’t ask, though, in case she thinks I’m being nosey but in any case I find that I’m pleased that she wants to spend time here, with me.
‘Well, knock yourself out with the cleaning,’ I say. ‘If you really don’t mind, that is.’
She smiles again and returns her attention to the floor. I have noticed that she seems to feel more and more at home here. She no longer asks permission before making herself a drink and she lets herself in without feeling obliged to ring the doorbell first. I suppose I could see these things as infringing on my privacy but instead it makes the house feel more lived in, like a real family home. It also leaves me with more time to get on with the tasks in hand, the main one being the creation, against all the odds, of Beth’s perfect wedding dress.
Beth rings me the next morning. As soon as I answer, I can hear that there’s reservation in her voice and some of her usual exuberance is being kept under control.
‘Hi, Beth,’ I say and wait to hear whatever it is.
‘Hi.’
There is a pause.
‘What’s up?’ I ask, although I can have a pretty good guess. ‘Have you changed your mind? That’s fine. I won’t be offended if you go somewhere else.’ In my heart, I know that I would be devastated if she did that but I can always pretend not to be for the sake of our friendship.
‘No, no, it’s nothing like that,’ she says quickly. ‘Well, it is a bit. I’ve had a few thoughts about the design . . .’
‘I should hope so too,’ I reply. ‘It’s the most important dress of your life. We can’t just go with the first thing that I scribble down, no matter how artistically brilliant it is.’ I can almost hear the tension seep out of her. ‘So, is it a p
articular part that you don’t like or shall we scrap the whole design and start again? You wouldn’t be the first bride to do that.’ I’m hoping to show her that it’s perfectly all right to criticise the design and that I’m not going to take it personally.
‘No. It’s not the whole thing,’ she says hurriedly. ‘Not at all. I just wonder whether I might not be better with a bit more fabric in the back, add some sleeves maybe?’
‘Okay,’ I say, already picturing the alterations in my mind’s eye. ‘We can lose that drape so that your back is covered, which will allow me to set in some sleeves. Are we talking caps or three quarters or the full monty?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she says. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think you should have exactly what you want,’ I say. I’m starting to smell a rat.
‘Well, I thought a capped sleeve would be lovely but Greg said . . .’ The words are out. There can be no retrieving them.
‘You didn’t show your dress design to Greg?’ I say before I can stop myself. ‘You do know that it’s bad luck for the groom to see the dress before the big day?’
‘I didn’t show him,’ she says indignantly. ‘He found it by accident.’
‘What do you mean, he found it? Did you leave it out on the breakfast table or something?’ The line goes quiet. I can feel Beth struggling between confessing all to me and staying loyal to Greg. I am gratified when I appear to win.
‘He found it in my bag,’ she said quietly.
‘What was he doing in your bag?’ I ask. ‘Does he often go snooping through your stuff?’
‘He wasn’t snooping. He was looking for my car key and it was just there.’
‘Just there, folded in two and not looking anything like a car key,’ I say.
‘Well,’ she says sharply. ‘He found it. And now that he has found it, he obviously has a view.’
‘But he’s not entitled to a view,’ I say, finding it hard to keep the irritation out of my voice. ‘The dress is all about you. He should love it because you love it and because it will make you happy.’
‘Well, he doesn’t.’
I can hear her voice starting to break and so I make my tone gentler. ‘Okay . . .’
‘And if I know that he doesn’t like it then that spoils it for me. You can see that, can’t you, Ca?’
‘Of course I can,’ I say. ‘But you have to have what you want. It’s your dress and it’s you he loves.’
Beth takes a deep breath at the other end of the line. ‘It is a wedding and not a party,’ she says, her voice regaining its strength. ‘I know we’re not getting married in church but I still need to look like a bride. And the back is very low.’
It is as if yesterday never happened. I want to remind her how blown away by my design she was when she first saw it, how perfectly it would suit the curve of her spine, but what would that achieve? The magic has been spoiled. We need to work with what we now have and move on. ‘Well,’ I say, thinking as I talk. ‘As I see it, we have two options. We either alter this dress so that it has sleeves and a less plunging back, but that will maybe be a bit of a compromise on this design and might not work out quite as well.’ I pause to give her a chance to think. ‘Or,’ I continue, ‘we just start again and design something that has sleeves and a high back right from the outset. I think that might be the better path,’ I add, daring my own opinion.
The dress as I visualised it has been damaged beyond repair. No amount of altering will turn it into something that I will be happy with. But it’s Beth’s wedding – she must decide.
‘Have we got time to start again?’ she asks.
‘Of course!’ I say. Absolutely not! I think. ‘But we’ll need to get a wiggle on. Which shift are you working today? Can you come round so that we can nail it? Your mags are all still here and I’ve got lots of other ideas that would work well.’
We agree that she will come later that afternoon and we’ll begin again.
‘And this time,’ I say cautiously, ‘I think we’ll keep the sketches here. Just in case.’
I’m laughing but it’s not funny. It’s not funny at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I redesign Beth’s dress and I keep my concerns about Greg’s need to control everything and everyone to myself. Beth isn’t stupid. She knows what she’s getting into. Again, she is delighted with the results and this time we go ahead and cut out a calico for fitting and I get started without losing any more precious time.
I might have expected that my best friend getting married would require endless discussions about which florist to use and what would be the best hors d’oeuvres to serve with the champagne. There is almost none of that. Greg’s ludicrously short timescale puts paid to any gentle deliberation. Instead we both seem to be running a solo race to our own goals. More than once I regret that the whole wedding-preparation thing is not turning out the way I had imagined, but it can’t be helped. There is just no time to waste chatting.
Apart from making the dress, the main event as far as I am concerned is the shopping trip to buy the bridesmaid dresses. There will be three of us: me and Greg’s two nieces, who are to be flower girls. Beth instructs by text as to where I need to be and when, and I turn up, ready to wear whatever she tells me. I really don’t mind what my dress is like; I will wear a hessian sack if that’s what Beth wants. But of course the dress she picks out for me is stylish and sophisticated, in a soft, sage-green satin with a sweetheart neckline and a nipped-in waist. The sleeves are cut off just beneath the elbow and the hem sits on the calf. I stand in front of the mirror in the little shop with Beth, her mother and the shop assistant, all cooing at how beautiful it is and how the colour suits my hair and skin tone. They are right. Even I can see that the dress looks perfect. Except for one thing.
I don’t think about it anymore and I don’t think Beth does either but I catch Beth’s mother looking at my hand. She is discreet about it – she doesn’t stare outright – but I see her eyes drawn to the silvery, puckered skin. I want to snatch my hand away but there’s nowhere to hide. Beth sees her mother looking and in the mirror behind me I watch a silent exchange take place between them: Beth’s mother raising her eyebrows; Beth furrowing her forehead and shaking her head.
I have found over the years that the easiest way to deal with other people’s embarrassment is to approach it head on. ‘What about gloves?’ I say. ‘I mean, it is December. Some long, satin gloves might be perfect.’
I see Beth’s mum relax as this potentially awkward moment is so easily averted but Beth is shaking her head.
‘I don’t think that would look right with the sleeve length,’ she says. ‘I like it just the way it is.’
Beth’s mother goes to contradict her but is stopped by the social awkwardness of the situation. She can hardly say out loud that the chief bridesmaid’s hideously disfigured hand will spoil the photographs.
‘I don’t mind,’ I say, anxious not to make things any worse. ‘I’ll do whatever you want, Beth.’
‘And I want no gloves,’ says Beth and it is clear that this discussion is over. ‘You look beautiful,’ she adds. ‘Really beautiful.’
The smile she offers me is wide and open and I take it deep into my heart. Thank you, Beth, I try to smile back.
Less easy to please are Greg’s nieces – or, to be more precise, their mother, Greg’s sister, Xanthe. The girls, Evangeline and Phoebe, are pretty little things with huge blue eyes and blonde hair that hangs, poker-straight, down their backs. When they are asked to try the dresses on, they do so without complaint and then twirl endlessly in front of the mirror, desperate to catch a glimpse of the back view as well as the front.
‘Can we have high heels, Auntie Beth?’ they chant. ‘Can we? Please?’ They draw the word out to its full length, adding endless vowels. Beth winks at them, which sends them into another frenzy of jumping and spinning on the spot. Their dresses are as lovely as mine. Beth has chosen an ivory organza with the sage of my dress picked out in sa
tin sashes around their waists. They suit the girls perfectly but Xanthe, standing a little bit away from us, is shaking her head. When neither Beth nor I ask what is troubling her, she sighs loudly.
‘They look gorgeous,’ she says, pulling a face that suggests the complete opposite. ‘I mean, of course they do. They’re stunning, my girls.’ She pauses so that we can acknowledge how beautiful her daughters are. Beth nods enthusiastically. I don’t react. ‘But I have to say,’ Xanthe continues, ‘that I’m a bit disappointed with the dresses.’
I cannot quite believe what I am hearing and I am about to object on Beth’s behalf but Beth throws Xanthe her best concerned face and engages.
‘Why, Xanthe? What’s the matter? The girls look absolutely delightful, don’t they, Mum?’
Beth’s mother pulls her shoulders back and sets her jaw, her lips pursed into a narrow, bloodless line. She nods her head but Xanthe pays her no attention.
‘Of course they do,’ Xanthe agrees, without a hint of modesty. ‘But green?’ She elongates the vowel, sounding it out exactly the way her daughters had done moments earlier. ‘It’s not really a colour for little girls, is it?’
I am lost for words, which is a good job as it really isn’t for me to get involved.
‘Well, green is kind of the theme,’ says Beth. ‘The flowers are all ivory and green and it all ties in with Greg’s waistcoat and the buttonholes,’ she says.
I hate to hear Beth talk as if she needs to justify her choices. What possible business is it of Xanthe’s which colour Beth chooses for her own wedding? Xanthe, however, has other ideas.
‘When you said it was going to a Christmas wedding,’ she continues, ‘I thought you’d go for red or at the very least gold. But green? It’s not very festive.’
