The Wedding Dress

by Milly Johnson

  ‘Leonard would never give me a divorce,’ said Rusty, loading a delicate pearl bead onto her needle. And I’d never find anyone who I loved as much as Vincent.

  ‘Know what I’d do if I were you,’ said Mabel, pushing her bulky body into her armchair. ‘I’d just get married again and sod trying to get a divorce from that man.’

  ‘Auntie Mabel, that’s bigamy,’ tutted June.

  ‘Who’s to know?’ said Mabel, tipping a generous tot of brandy into a cup at her side.

  There was a sharp rap at the door and June leaped up. ‘That’ll be my Will,’ she said, her face lighting up. ‘We’re off to the cinema tonight. Bogart and Bacall,’ she sighed. Will had a look of Bogart about him, she thought.

  ‘Have a nice time, love,’ said Mabel, turning to switch on the radio. ‘I wish I could see that dress you’re making. June says it’s lovely. Will it be ready in time?’

  ‘I’m on the last few beads,’ said Rusty, rubbing her eyes. She was determined to have it finished and hanging up waiting for June when she came back from the cinema that night.

  The sitting room door opened and June came back in looking paler than the moonlight.

  ‘June, what’s the matter? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

  June nodded. ‘I just have, Rust.’ She pushed the door a little further open – and in walked Vincent.

  He had been ill for months. His arm had become infected which caused a high fever. It was touch and go that his life, never mind his arm, would be saved. But luck and good doctors were on Vincent’s side. He had something to fight the call of death for, someone to fight for.

  Freya couldn’t move. Her limbs no longer felt controlled by her brain. All she was capable of doing was to stare at him, hardly daring to blink in case the vision of him disappeared in the moment that her eyes closed. Then in a flash, he had cleared the space between them and lifted her into his arms and she was engulfed by his wonderful familiar scent and his shirt was wet from her tears.

  ‘When I go back to Berlin, I am taking you with me,’ he said again. Words she had first heard sitting by the lagoon, feeding the fishes, sharing her dreams with him of becoming a dressmaker. She had never forgotten them.

  He kept that promise, as he kept the vows he made to her in church when she stood beside him wearing her beautiful dress with the peach rosebuds at the neck. She was his, in the eyes of God now, as he was hers.

  A war which had destroyed so much brought them together. Though people’s belief in eternity was shaken, Freya and Vincent reached for theirs. Against the years gone, each small pleasure shone like a diamond for them. And at a time when so many had lost their faith, how could their love not create a little magic in the world?

  A Never Ageing Heart

  ‘I wish my dad were here to give me away,’ sighed Lizzy, looking at the beautiful ivory dress which was hanging up, waiting for her to put on. ‘He walked my two sisters down the aisle but he can’t do it for me.’

  ‘Your Rose should have been given away with a big “do not return” sticker on her,’ humphed Mags. She had never liked Rose. She was one of those who didn’t live in a top flat, she ‘resided in a penthouse’.

  Lizzy chuckled. ‘Aye, that big fancy wedding she had and it only lasted a year. And our Hannah’s was over within five – and she had a coach and horses to take her to the church. And eight bridesmaids.’

  ‘Well, I only had you as a bridesmaid and mine turned out all right. I went to church in my dad’s butcher’s van. Do you remember?’ smiled Mags. ‘He tied big white ribbons on the front and I arrived at the church smelling of pork. Here, sit down. Your hair isn’t right at the back.’

  Lizzy let Mags push her onto the chair and start faffing at her French pleat with a tail comb.

  ‘My Mr Right has been a long time coming, but I think he’s worth the wait,’ sighed Lizzy.

  ‘He’s changed a bit since school,’ said Mags which made them both giggle.

  ‘Yes, but when I look at him, I still see that boy in the green jumper with the hole in the sleeve.’

  ‘I remember Annie Wadsworth calling him bogey jumper and you cracking her across the head with your copy of Wuthering Heights.’

  ‘It was Jane Eyre,’ grinned Lizzy. ‘Mrs O’Connor smacked my legs till they were black and blue and my mother went down to school and had her by the throat.’

  ‘Aye, no one should have ever messed with your mother and her family,’ nodded Mags.

  ‘I didn’t think I had a chance with him after that. I thought he must think I was a bit rough, hitting other girls around the head with hardback books. And it turns out that he didn’t feel worthy enough of a formidable creature like me: me Boudicea, him bogey-green jumper wearer. If only I’d not interfered.’ Lizzy sighed heavily.

  ‘You can’t think like that,’ snapped Mags. ‘If he had asked you out, you might have gone to the cinema on the night when the top floor collapsed and you’d have both died. Have you seen the time, you better get your dress on, Miss.’

  ‘Mrs soon,’ said Lizzy, beaming again.

  Mags reached for the dress and slipped it out of its cover. ‘It’s a beautiful dress, isn’t it? It’s so old-fashioned that it’s back in vogue as “vintage”.’

  ‘It wasn’t good enough for my sisters, but it’s plenty good enough for me,’ said Lizzy. The last person to wear the dress was her mum. It would be lovely to have a little bit of her mother to go down the aisle with her.

  ‘Oh, I nearly forgot, I bought you this,’ said Mags, opening her handbag and passing over a small parcel wrapped in tissue. Lizzy opened it to reveal a blue garter. ‘That’s your old and your blue sorted, what about the new and the borrowed?’

  ‘I’ve got new shoes,’ said Lizzy pointing to a pair of skyscraper satin heels in the corner.

  ‘You’re never wearing them, you’ll break your bloody neck,’ said Mags.

  ‘I’ll take them off for the disco later and wear flatties.’

  Lizzy slipped the garter up her leg onto her thigh as Mags pooled the dress on the carpet so that Lizzy could step into it.

  ‘I wish I could wear something as tiny as this,’ said Mags, nudging her generous bosom. She stepped back to look at her dainty-figured friend and smiled with pride. ‘Oh Lizzy, you look so bonny. I think that Robert is a very lucky man. It’s going to be such a special day for you, love. I’m so happy for you.’

  Mags wasn’t one for emotional gush so Lizzy was touched.

  ‘Well, we won’t have my sisters’ horse and carriage or crinoline frocks but I don’t care. I’ve got my boy in the green jumper at last. Funny how things turn out isn’t it?’

  ‘Not the most romantic way to meet again though is it? Both of you in the doctors with a cough.’

  ‘And we never knew that we lived within two miles of each other. All those years so close.’

  ‘Better late than never,’ said Mags, bringing those ridiculous shoes over. ‘You’ll never walk in these. No one over sixteen wears shoes this high.’

  ‘I feel like I’m sixteen though,’ said Lizzy. ‘If that mirror weren’t there, I’d know what I looked like – long glossy hair and no wrinkles.’ She looked into the mirror and saw the sight she never thought she’d see: herself as a happy bride, eyes bright and smiling. She wished she could bottle this feeling and drink it every day of her life.

  Mags was on the mobile behind her. ‘Right, that’s sorted,’ she said. ‘You’re borrowing my Freddy. He’s walking you down the aisle before you break your neck.’

  Dear Freddy, totally and utterly hen-pecked by Mags and he loved every minute of it.

  There was a pap-pap of a car horn outside.

  ‘Your taxi’s here,’ said Mags, picking up her bridesmaid’s bouquet and the beautiful long teardrop of flowers that Lizzy would carry.

  Lizzy looked out of the window expecting to see an ordinary Barry’s taxi but instead there was a long pink stretch limo.

  ‘What the heck. . .?’

&n
bsp; ‘A little treat from me and Freddy,’ said Mags. ‘You can’t arrive at church in an ordinary car. Not with that lovely frock on.’

  ‘You’re a love, aren’t you,’ said Lizzy.

  ‘Don’t kiss me,’ Mags backed off. ‘You’ll get lipstick all over my face.’

  ‘Do you know, we’re only having a pub reception and a honeymoon shut up in his semi but I feel like I’ve won the lottery,’ said Lizzy, pulling her veil down over her face.

  ‘Nothing wrong with a man having a semi at his age,’ said Mags making the pair of them giggle like the girls they once were.

  ‘Look at the registration plate of the car,’ gasped Lizzy, as the chauffeur escorted her out of the door. ‘DAD 107. My dad’s birthday was the 1st of July.’ She beamed. ‘They’re both with me.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Mags. She wasn’t one for sentimental clap-trap but she did think that was strange. She looked at her seventy-five-year-old best friend and for a moment saw a glimpse of the young girl she still was inside: a sixteen-year-old in love with a boy who wore a bogey-green jumper.

  An exclusive extract from

  A Winter Flame,

  Milly’s amazing new novel,

  available 25 October 2012

  Two days previously, Eve had been sitting in Firkin, Mead and Mead’s office, across the desk from Mr Mead the younger. The Meads were solicitor brothers and Mr Mead the younger was so old that Mr Mead the elder must have been injected with formaldehyde in order to carry on working. Still, Aunt Evelyn had never used any other firm of solicitors and it was Mr Mead the younger who had the duty of overseeing her final wishes.

  Eve wondered how her aunt had ever been able to profess on oath that she was of sound mind. She was as batty as a bat hanging upside down in a bat cave dressed as batman. But eccentric as she was, she was also a darling and Eve had been incredibly sad that the ninety-three year old lady had passed away in her sleep. Women like Aunt Evelyn could have fooled you into thinking they would live forever: robust and bright-eyed, never moaning about any health issues, always dressed immaculately with never a hair out of place and a heel to her shoe, even if those heels had got lower and thicker over the years. As the vicar at her funeral said, ‘Evelyn Beresford died when she was healthy and happy.’ Eve couldn’t honestly say she found any consolation in that.

  She might have been happy, but she was also quite mad. Fifteen years ago, Aunt Evelyn had combatted her customary sadness at having to take the Christmas decorations down on twelfth night by deciding not to, and leave them up. She didn’t care that people said she was loop the loop, her spirits stayed continually buoyant because of that decision. She was happier than she had been for years at being continually surrounded by baubles. Of course she had to replace the real tree in the corner with a plastic one as the needles had all dropped off by mid-January, but that was a small price to pay. Her home-help went insane with all the dusting of the Christmas ornaments that she collected by the bucketload from charity shops. Anything with a connection to Christmas – however cheap and rubbish – had to be bought.

  ‘I needed to see you in person alone in my office,’ began Mr Mead the less decrepit, ‘because your aunt specifically asked me to deliver this news to you that way.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Eve. She expected the old lady had left her something, not that she had much to leave. The ashes of her cats Fancy and Kringle, no doubt, that she kept in a biscuit tin. Or, hopefully, that lovely locket that she always wore which she’d said would be Eve’s one day. It was a beautiful large oval and had two portraits in it – those of Aunt Evelyn and the love of her life, her fiancé Sam. She had married him at sixteen and he had been killed in one of the first battles of the First World War. Aunt Evelyn had never married, but chosen to live with her memories which she said were enough to keep her warm. Eve knew that feeling well. The locket would house her picture and her fiancé’s if that’s what her aunt had left her. But Eve was under no illusion that any money would be coming her way. Aunt Evelyn had said that she would leave her meagre savings and her house and contents to the local cat’s home. Eve’s grandmother had harrumphed and said that was a ridiculous decision and summed up why Aunt Evelyn should have been in a home years ago.

  ‘It’s her money, she has the right to do with it what she likes, Grandma.’ Eve had defended her aunt. Evelyn adored cats. Kringle had been her last baby and it had nearly broken her heart when the twenty-year-old deaf white cat died the year before. In fact, Eve wasn’t sure she ever quite fully recovered from the shock. There were lots of instances where a beloved animal died and the owner wasn’t long in following.

  ‘Your aunt left you this,’ Mr Mead opened a desk drawer and pulled out an envelope, which he passed across to Eve. It was the locket. Eve smiled, sighing sadly at the same time.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Mead. I hoped she had.’

  ‘And this,’ the old man carried on, taking a well-stuffed envelope out of the drawer. ‘It’s a copy of the land deed for your aunt’s theme park.’

  Eve laughed as she reached out for it, even though Mr Mead looked far too sober and professional to make jokes. Then she looked up at his face and saw no humour there. She shook her head because there was obviously something lodged in her ear.

  ‘I’m sorry, could you repeat that, Mr Mead?’ she asked.

  ‘This is a copy of the land deed,’ obeyed Mr Mead. ‘For your aunt’s theme park.’

  So, she hadn’t misheard. Mr Mead really had said that.

  ‘A theme park?’

  ‘That’s right. And here are the plans which she put in place for it.’ And he handed over a great file of papers. ‘It’s all immaculately organised and documented.’

  ‘A theme park?’ Eve said again.

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘As in rides?’ Eve was smiling but it was shock and confusion driving the corners of her mouth upwards. Was Mr Mead on drugs? Was he having a bit of a senior moment and got her aunt mixed up with Richard Branson? Aunt Evelyn didn’t own a theme park. She lived in a one-bedroomed bungalow with the ashes of her old cat and roomfuls of memories.

  ‘You don’t know anything about it?’ asked Mr Mead, scratching his ear. All those hairs in there must tickle, thought Eve.

  Eve struggled to find the words to say that no, she didn’t know anything about a theme park. Why would she? There wasn’t one. That would be ridiculous. But all that came out was a shrug and more puzzled laughter.

  ‘Well,’ Mr Mead cleared his throat, ‘many years ago, your aunt procured a one hundred and twenty acre plot of land adjacent to Higher Hoppleton. At the time the land-owner, Lord Rotherham, was on the brink of bankruptcy and needed to procure cash very quickly. The land was an albatross around his neck as it could never be used for permanent residential housing but it could be converted “for recreational purposes”. I brokered the deal and it was done. Last year your aunt employed an architect who oversaw the installation of mains services and commenced the building works.’

  ‘Aunt Evelyn?’ She wondered if Mr Mead had picked up the wrong client file. Dolly Parton’s for instance. ‘Evelyn Beresford?’ Cuckoo Aunt Evelyn with the seven-foot Christmas tree in the corner of her lounge?

  ‘My goodness, you really don’t know anything about this at all?’ Mr Mead’s shaggy grey eyebrows rose so far they almost left his head. ‘Your aunt may have lived frugally, but she was a woman of considerable means,’ he continued.

  ‘Frugally? That’s putting it mildly,’ Eve interrupted. Evelyn had a mania for Mr Kipling’s French Fancies, but she would only ever buy them when they were on special offer.

  ‘She was a genius on the stock exchange. She had a remarkable nose for exactly the right moment to buy and sell,’ Mr Mead continued.

  ‘You’re joking.’ Eve shook her head. Maybe it was she who was on drugs. Those mushrooms she had in her omelette last night did look a bit misshapen.

  ‘I’m not joking at all, Miss Beresford,’ said Mr Mead and it was quite obvious that he wasn’
t either.

  ‘You’ll forgive me if I’m a bit gobsmacked, Mr Mead,’ said Eve, flicking back a few strands which had worked loose from her usually tightly tied-back dark brown hair. Mr Mead must be getting a bit tired of her saying, ‘You’re joking’ and looking confounded. ‘It’s just a lot to take in. Old ladies don’t build theme parks. Especially old ladies who live in Barnsley in one-bedroomed bungalows.’

  ‘This one did,’ smiled Mr Mead, his eyebrows doing a Mexican wave now. ‘I think you’ll agree that your aunt Evelyn was a woman very much made from her own unique mould.’ There was a fond softness in his voice now. He lifted another document to the side of him and started to unfold it with his large gnarled fingers.

  ‘This is what your aunt wanted to achieve.’

  It was a crude plan, the words written in Aunt Evelyn’s familiar scratchy handwriting and there were illustrations simply, but deftly, drawn. There were log cabins amongst fir trees, a restaurant, a grotto, a reindeer enclosure . . . It all looked ver y festive. It was the sort of map a child would draw in a jotter.

  ‘She was building a Christmas theme park?’ Eve questioned. Of any theme it could have been, Eve should have known it would be a Christmas one.

  ‘That is correct,’ said Mr Mead.

  ‘A Christmas theme park. In Barnsley?’

  ‘Indeed. And now it’s your Christmas theme park. In Barnsley.’

  ‘Can the theme be changed?’

  ‘Most categorically not.’

  Oh God, anything but Christmas. There was no way on this planet that Eve could do Christmas as a business. She hated Christmas – loathed it, detested it, abhorred it as much as her aunt had lived, breathed and eaten it.

  ‘How long had all this been in her head?’ Eve wasn’t aware she had spoken her thoughts aloud as she stared at the plans. She was going to wake up in a moment and find that she had dropped off at her desk halfway through arranging a retirement party for a chairman with a penchant for can-can dancers.