by Jane Linfoot
She lets out a sigh. ‘It’s not everything. We need to discuss your outfit.’
Damn. ‘For your wedding?’ As if it could be anything else. ‘I thought I’d wear a very nice LBD.’ Not that I’ve got around to buying it yet. But on a need to know basis, that bit can stay quiet. ‘With a matching jacket. Obviously.’ That part’s the real sweetener. My mum’s spent her entire life trying to persuade me into one. It should be enough to send her off happy.
She frowns. ‘What’s that in English? Because the thing is, Lily, if you turn up in your usual dowdy style, looking years older than you are, it’s going to be very ageing for me. Especially now you’re centre stage giving me away.’
If I’m blinking wildly, and opening and closing my mouth, it’s due to the shock. And if we’re talking Rescue Remedy, I could do with an intravenous dose please. With an added adrenalin shot to start my heart beating again.
Poppy’s screwing her face up in horror behind my mum’s back. ‘LBD is a little black dress, Barbara. As worn by everyone young. It’ll be perfect. She won’t look a day over twenty-five.’
‘Black?’ My mum’s shriek couldn’t have been louder if Poppy had said I was going to be giving her away naked. ‘Absolutely not.’
Poppy isn’t backing off. ‘If we get the seamstress to make it really short, she might even pass for twenty.’
Now it’s my mum’s turn to blink. ‘If you’re deliberately trying to upset me here, you’re doing a damned good job.’ She’s fanning her face, and she flops down into the chair that Jess shoves behind her.
Jess switches into her soothing purr. ‘Would you like some sweet tea, Barbara? Or some Prosecco?’
Poppy joins in. ‘Or gin might be good? Or a cupcake? Or even Rescue Remedy?’
As my mum dives into her bag for a hanky, I notice it’s the same pink Gucci model as Nicole’s second best one.
She runs her hand through her sandy blonde hair and blows her nose loudly. ‘Actually, all I need is for Lily to wear something bright. White with red roses would be good. John Lewis have several suitable outfits.’
‘Alright. Fine.’ As for me looking like a blooming country garden, I suppose it’s only one day in my life.
‘And the jacket and accessories would work in cerise.’ Me giving in appears to have calmed her faster than an entire tumbler of Jess’s gin, because she’s already standing up and heading for the stairs. ‘I’ll send you the links.’
I’m shaking my head, staring at Jess and Poppy as her lilac courts clatter up the staircase. ‘Sorry, but I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to my mum being computer literate.’ And feeling like I just got run over by a lorry doesn’t begin to describe it.
Poppy’s biting her lip. ‘Shit, Lily, I can’t believe we just let you get railroaded into a bright pink jacket.’
Jess’s nostrils are flaring. ‘Barbara’s quite a force to be reckoned with.’
‘Did I really agree to matching accessories?’ My voice is a squeak.
Jess is frowning. ‘We need to help you learn to stand up for yourself, Lily.’
Poppy squeezes my arm. ‘When we were younger we used to laugh at what a nightmare she was. But no-one has the right to put you down like that at any time. And really not at our age. Even if they are getting married.’
I wrinkle my nose as I think. ‘I suppose I’m used to it. It’s easier to let it go.’ She’ll never change. And before her wedding is hardly the ideal time to challenge her on a lifetime of put downs. If anything, this is a timely reminder of why I need to get away. Although as I look around the lovely basement, which is getting more beautiful with every delivery, I’m suddenly very sad that I’ll be giving it up.
Still, there’s lots to do before I think about that. Starting with Immie’s hen outing.
Chapter 36
Saturday, 15th July
At the zoo: Hair pins and elephant trunks
‘Shit-a-doodle, my selfie with the meerkats has had a hundred and seventy likes in half an hour.’ Immie waggles her fists as she cheers, then yanks her bright pink bride-to-be sash back into place. ‘Who’d have thought the zoo would be so popular?’
As we make our way around the enclosures next morning, I’m not sure which she is enjoying most – the animals or the Instagram attention. But her phone is beeping so often, it’s like being out with a robot. Albeit a robot with a veil fluttering behind her in the breeze, attached to a diamanté headband perched at a wild angle. All rounded off with a dick-stick straw sticking out of her can of Diet Coke. Which is her one concession to cutting back on the calories in the interests of becoming a slimline bride.
I can’t help smiling at her enthusiasm. ‘You puckering up, trying to look like that haughty giraffe is way more fun than Nicole getting exfoliated with a salt scrub. Not that it’s a competition.’ Except we all know it is, and we all love that Immie’s smashing it. I know Immie wanted to back pedal on the hen party props, but we couldn’t let her walk round completely unmarked. It was thanks to the veil that the head keeper chose her to help lead the elephants when they went out on their morning ramble round the zoo.
Poppy laughs as she throws down her bag on a bench in the dappled shade of a birch tree overlooking the monkey enclosure. ‘Nicole’s made it hard for herself. It’s a huge challenge to make a selfie in a mud wrap look interesting. And steam room shots are bound to be blurry.’ She hands us a sandwich each. ‘A spa weekend might be fabulous, but the photo opportunities are limited. Whereas the zoo is fun all round.’
Immie pulls back the paper and takes a massive bite of her ham salad baguette. ‘I’d hate doing normal hen party stuff. I can’t see me making flower crowns, or being wrapped in algae. And if we’d gone out on the town my aunties would only have got rat arsed.’
Bear in mind this is Immie talking, and she can drink for England before she falls over. But Immie’s aunties are the stuff of legends. And not always in a good way. As a measure of their lairiness, the stripagram they ordered for Immie’s gran’s eightieth was so scared, he legged it while he still had his clothes on. That was the other minor technical problem which stopped us organising a hen night pub crawl – between them Immie’s female relations are banned from most of the bars in St Aidan.
Immie wrinkles up her nose. ‘They’re one reason we kept the numbers small for the wedding. Them, and Chas still owing the equivalent of the GDP of a small country from when he didn’t get married to Nicole.’
Poppy winces. ‘I didn’t know it was that much.’
Immie shrugs. ‘Poor guy. He’d planned to pay it off over a lifetime. And it was a hell of a party.’ She gives a throaty laugh, and rubs her nose with her perspex engagement ring. ‘It’s lucky I don’t want a big show, because the finances are on lockdown.’
‘So you’re sticking with your purple ring then?’ My mum still hasn’t got an engagement ring, not that I’ve seen anyway. Probably because David hasn’t got any cash of his own to buy one for her either.
Immie grins. ‘I couldn’t give up on this ring now. And we’re having simple wedding bands, so I can clean in mine without worrying.’ She’s counting off on her fingers. ‘Then Poppy’s doing the cake as our present. Rafe let me have the venue as my bonus for the next ten years. The Goose and Duck are doing the food and kegs at cost, in return for me doing extra glass collecting. Also for the next ten years. The hen do was £15 entry plus petrol and the picnic. Lily’s designed us minimalist flowers.’
When Immie and I talked about that, we settled on single roses in tumblers along the top table. Although at the time, I had no idea it was because their cash was so limited.
Immie wiggles her eyebrows. ‘All that’s left now is the dress, although there’s approximately 50p to buy it with. And we all know how well that search is going.’
Poppy’s forehead wrinkles. ‘Is that why you won’t try them on?’
Immie gives a cough. ‘Those first few appointments, I had no idea how much in debt Chas was. But I couldn’t bring myself to
try any because I was scared I’d look crap. And now, every time I start to think about the dress, I feel like I’m about to vomit.’
Poppy stares at her untouched ham sandwich. ‘Exactly how I feel when I think about the Manor, then.’
‘Immie, that’s awful.’ I stretch out and give her a hug. Brides usually shop for their dresses a year ahead of the wedding, not two weeks. And besides the times she made it to the shop, Immie has wriggled out of at least half a dozen other appointments, and blown our cover on every attempt to trick her into dress trying.
Poppy purses her lips, and goes in for a hug from her side. ‘As a last resort, you’d look fab in jeans and an I’m getting married at Daisy Hill Farm T-shirt.’
Immie’s face scrunches up. ‘Chas wouldn’t mind. He says he loves me, and that’s all that matters. I think he’d happily marry me in my cleaning pinny. And I’d be the same if it weren’t for …’ She breaks off, but this time it’s not to take a bite of sandwich. Instead she’s frowning into the distance.
‘Immie, you’re looking so much like a constipated camel there, it’s worthy of a selfie.’ Poppy lets out a giggle.
I’ll have one guess what’s making her scowl like that. ‘You aren’t worried about Nicole, are you?’
Immie’s sigh is huge. ‘I can’t help it. She was Chas’s first choice, she’s going to look a million dollars on her day. However hard I try, I’m not like her.’ Immie’s bottom lip comes out. ‘I can’t do all that lace and beady shit. And you saw what happened when I tried to walk in high heels.’
Poppy smiles at the recollection. ‘Yes, you instantly got a hundred followers on Instagram. We love you because you can’t do those things, Immie. Nicole might have a flawless complexion, Barbie’s body, and a mouth that could have come from a toothpaste ad. But she’s not funny or warm or real or down to earth. She doesn’t crease us up with her swearing and her dirty laugh, and haul us out of trouble at a moment’s notice with no thought for her chipped nails.’
I throw in another thought. ‘If I were Chas, I know who I’d rather have found at the bottom of the fireman’s pole, when I slid down it to propose.’
Immie sniffs. ‘I don’t mind about Nicole having a super expensive wedding, while we’re relying on freebies from friends.’ Her gruff voice has disappeared to a squeak. ‘I just don’t want to let Chas down, by turning up looking like a gorilla’s backside, that’s all.’
Poppy rolls her eyes at me over Immie’s spiky hair. ‘As if. Now we know what the problem is, we hens will find you the perfect dress. Won’t we, Lily?’ She gives me a sharp poke behind Immie’s shoulders.
‘Of course. Absolutely. Leave this to us. The hens are on the case.’ Although how the hell we’re going to pull this particular proverbial rabbit out of this particular proverbial hat is anyone’s guess.
Immie sniffs loudly. ‘Thanks guys. You’ve no idea what a relief that is.’ She grabs her hen’s veil, dabs at her eyes, then lets out a squawk as she sees the black mascara smears on the lace. ‘Waaaaaaaahhhh, now I’ve got panda eyes.’
I swoop in with my hanky, and wipe away the worst smudges. ‘All good again.’
Immie stares at the remains of her baguette. ‘If I can forget about the dress, I’m starting to regret opting for a dry hen party. Is there a bar round here?’
I grin as I swing my rucksack down. ‘The best hens always travel with Prosecco.’ Believe me, I thought she’d never ask. A second later, I’m twisting off the cork, and filling up the plastic flutes.
Chapter 37
Monday, 17th July
At Daisy Hill Farm Barn: Over exposure and dripping hugs
As I drive up to Daisy Hill Farm two days later, the blue and white striped marquee under construction in the wedding meadow should be getting my full attention. The fabulous tea dance wedding for a couple called Shell and Nigel, with pianos, vintage china, decorated garden sheds, and a hundred miles of bunting is one of the days Poppy and I have been looking forward to most all summer. But somehow, since Immie’s hen party, all we’ve been able to concentrate on is the massive question mark of what she’s going to wear to get married.
So even as I’ve been taking delivery of a hundred stripy deck chairs, and an entire period pub interior, not to mention stacks of vintage suitcases, packing crates, and enough potted palms to fill Kew Gardens, my mind has been on Immie. And Poppy, busy with her monster order for cakes for two hundred and fifty afternoon teas, has been the same. Five and a half months on from getting engaged, Immie still hasn’t tried on one wedding dress. So with the wedding less than two weeks away, we’ve decided on a radical change of strategy. And as soon as this is sorted, we’ll be full speed ahead on the tea dance.
‘If we’re resorting to ambush, it’s only because we’re desperate.’ I’m justifying what we’re about to do to Immie, as Poppy and I hurry up the courtyard at Daisy Hill Farm. We’re heading towards the newly converted wedding barn where Immie is assessing the final clean.
‘Bringing the dresses to the bride, rather than the other way around, was a brainwave of yours.’ Poppy wiggles her eyebrows at me mischievously. ‘Lucky we could call on the big guns too.’
She’s talking about Sera the dress designer, who’s back from another long weekend in Bristol with her lovely guy, Johnny. She’s waiting in the car, primed to follow with the dresses in approximately six minutes. This time we’ve been rigorous with our pre-selection. We’ve pared it down to three styles, meticulously chosen with Immie in mind.
As we approach the huge glazed doors across the newly laid stone flags of the courtyard, I’m wide eyed, because the old farm barn with its holes to the hayloft has changed so much since I was last here.
Poppy nods at the planters either side of the door. ‘When the bay trees arrive it’s a sign it’s almost done.’ She’s playing down how much hard work she’s put in.
‘It’s looking so pretty,’ I say. The new window frames are painted pale grey to tie in with the rest of the farm buildings, and the mellow stonework has been newly pointed. As I catch sight of a familiar truck parked in the distance, I catch my breath. ‘Is Fred here?’
Poppy laughs. ‘Only twenty-four hours a day. He’s had a big push to get it finished ahead of schedule, so he can move onto another job in town. It’s great to get it done, but we could do without the final bill coming a month early.’ Which explains why he hasn’t been up at the Manor so often lately.
I sense her tension. ‘Cash flow problems?’
She blows out a breath. ‘I was hoping if the farm was up for an award, the publicity might bring in some extra bookings to cover it. But the way the Manor’s performing, they’ll run away with it.’
I scrunch up my face. ‘When Kip started out he was a joke. So how did he get himself together so fast?’ Not that I think about him often. But when I do my heart sinks on Poppy’s behalf.
There are furrows in Poppy’s forehead. ‘There’s no limit to what guys can achieve when they’re super-motivated. A bit like Fred. Watch out, hot naked flesh alert, here he comes now …’ Sure enough, he’s coming towards the barn doors as we speak.
I wrinkle my nose at Poppy. ‘So much tanned torso? At ten in the morning?’ As he walks out into the sun, and I take in his six-pack sliding down into his low-slung jeans, I can’t help smiling. ‘Hey Fred, lovely to see you. Just here to admire the progress.’ I’m sticking to our cover story here. Although as far as Fred goes, a little less over-exposure would be preferable this early in the day.
‘And you too, Lily.’ He hovers on the step for long enough for me to get the full benefit of his gleaming pecs. Then he swoops in for a peck on the cheek, and stays a fraction too long for comfort. ‘Not long now until that date you promised me.’
‘What did I promise?’ With so much rippling muscle crushed up against my elbow, I’m not entirely clear what he’s talking about.
He flips back his mop of sandy hair, and laughs. ‘My boyfriend six-month probationary period’s over in two weeks. S
hall I book us that trip to the top of the Empire State building?’
Shucks. As breathing spaces go, that one flew by. ‘Sorry, Fred, but the wedding season comes before Central Park every time. I’ve heard Manhattan’s fab in late Autumn.’ By which time, fingers crossed, I’ll be on my way somewhere else. As I add a monster grin to make sure it’s clear I’m joking rather than leading him on, I sense Poppy moving towards the open door. ‘Are you coming in, Fred?’
He hesitates to rub his biceps, then glances at his watch. ‘Wish I could, but my guys are fresh out of wood stain. I’ll have to catch you later.’ One quick arm squeeze, and he’s dashing off up the yard. As he gets to his truck he flings his checked shirt through the open door, and turns back to call down the yard. ‘By the way, I might have found someone for your mum’s house, Lily. Great news eh?’ He gives a double thumbs up as he disappears into the cab. Then the door slams, and a second later he’s roaring past us in a dust cloud.
Poppy’s squinting at me, biting on the grit in the air. ‘That guy’s an eternal optimist. Worry about Heavenly Heights selling when it happens.’ Her pat on my arm is very welcome. ‘Come on in and see what we’ve been doing with the wedding barn.’
I know my mum’s house might go any day. Or it might not sell for months. So it’s probably best not to think about it. Especially as I’ll need every ounce of concentration for the task ahead. As I follow Poppy into the barn I’m expecting it to be as dark and agricultural as it used to be. But instead the sun is flooding in through glazed sections in the roof, and bouncing off the newly whitewashed walls.
I gaze up at the huge trusses crossing below the sloping ceilings and nod at Poppy. ‘It’s gorgeous. So rustic, and full of character. And a fabulous place to get married and have a party.’ And perfect the way it opens out onto its very own hay meadow at the back.
