by Wendy Holden
Juno was not in evidence. It was only eight o’clock but she was already asleep. ‘She’s finding the new school exhausting,’ Rachel reported. Nell was impressed, as well as relieved. She wasn’t sure what she would say to a child, and Juno, to judge from the photos around Rachel’s flat, was a child with an unnervingly direct stare. She had a long, serious face and her side-parted hair, fixed neatly with a clasp, gave her an old-fashioned, Forties air.
The other notable photograph was that of a handsome, fair-haired man holding a baby. Charlie, presumably.
‘Yes, that’s him.’ Rachel handed Nell a glass of wine. ‘Isn’t he lovely?’ She spoke with as much fond ease as if Charlie were actually in the room, or had just stepped out. A wave of sympathy rippled through Nell, followed by one of relief that Joey was alive, well and indisputably hers.
‘To your wedding!’ Rachel raised her glass. ‘So tell me all about it!’
‘There’s not much to tell.’
‘Big? Small? Cathedral? Beach?’
Nell giggled. ‘It’s just going to be the two of us. Register office.’
‘How romantic! Clever, as well.’
‘Do you think so?’ Nell was relieved. Rachel’s opinion seemed important, especially as it was the only vote so far returned. For obvious reasons, her family were only going to be told afterwards. The only others in on the secret were the register office and the people booked to do her hair and make-up. She’d allowed herself that much ceremony, at least.
‘Very clever,’ Rachel confirmed. ‘Organising weddings is such a faff. Especially if you have to do everything yourself. Charlie and I were so poor we literally had to butter the bread for the sandwiches.’
She described how they had married in the country near where Rachel’s mother lived. Friends and family had pitched in with cakes, flowers and food. Even Rachel’s dress had been made by a friend. It all sounded, Nell thought with a prick of envy, rather lovely.
‘What are you going to wear?’ Rachel poured her more wine. ‘Meringue?’ She looked at Nell critically. ‘No, I can’t see you in that. You’re too stylish.’
Nell was pleased to be thought stylish by Rachel. She sipped happily from her glass. It was fun to have a girly conversation like this, one part and parcel of being a bride, especially as she hadn’t thought it was going to be possible. Friends like Rose and Lucy were not being invited or informed.
She described the minidress, a simple shift made of lots of white crocheted daisies sewn together, worn with white PVC knee boots. Both were from a website called ‘Lady Marmalade’. ‘I loved the idea of that Swinging London thing,’ Nell explained. ‘I wanted lots of Sixties touches, even though it’s just us two.’
Rachel got it immediately. ‘Absolutely. Linda McCartney outside Marylebone Register Office. You’ll look amazing. You’ve got those colt legs and I can just imagine those enormous eyes of yours with lashings of Twiggy mascara and eyeliner. And your hair will look wonderful all down and straight with a circlet of daisies.’
Nell was delighted. ‘That’s it exactly. You should be a stylist, not a lawyer.’
‘I’d rather be a lawyer.’ Rachel was beaming at her. ‘Joey’s a lucky man; I look forward to meeting him sometime.’
Something stirred in the back of Nell’s brain: her first encounter with Joey at the estate agent’s. ‘But you have met him. He sold you this flat. Dark hair, lovely smile, really charming, really, really handsome . . . ?’ She stopped herself, and blushed.
Rachel was laughing. ‘You’re crazy about him!’ She knitted her brows slightly. ‘Actually, it was a woman who showed me round. I’m not sure she smiled once.’
‘Oh well,’ said Nell, dismissing this insignificant misunderstanding. ‘You’ll meet him at some stage.’
Given their new intimacy, and all the details she had revealed, it was on the tip of Nell’s tongue to ask Rachel to the wedding. But Joey, with his embargo on guests, might not approve. She felt the unasked question hang uncomfortably in the air.
Rachel, with her talent for ungluing sticky moments, swiftly changed the subject. ‘What about the honeymoon?’
Nell relaxed immediately at the prospect of this wonderful treat. ‘We’re going to a gastropub in Leicestershire for a week. In a beautiful village in the grounds of an amazing stately home,’ she revealed. ‘Joey’s organised the whole thing.’
‘Groom’s prerogative,’ Rachel smiled. ‘And lucky you. Charlie organised a week’s camping on Skye. Sky was more or less all we saw – wet and grey for the most part. So we just stayed in the tent and . . . kept warm.’ She flashed Nell a wicked grin.
She was so brave, Nell thought. And so cheerful and generous. ‘You must miss him so much,’ she found herself saying.
‘I do, but I’ve got Juno. So part of him carries on. I’m lucky, really. She’s a wonderful girl.’
‘Well, she has a wonderful mother,’ Nell said, then reddened, this being a lavish sort of compliment. Yet she already felt closer to Rachel than to, say, Rose and Lucy. That she had only just met her did not seem to matter, any more than it did with Joey. Clearly, this was the summer for making fast, firm friends, not to mention fiancés.
‘Good. Well, I hope you’ll be really, really happy.’ Rachel was rising to her feet. ‘But you’ll have to excuse me. I’ve got to go to bed. I’m up at five, remember.’
Nell scrambled upwards.
‘Good luck,’ Rachel said warmly, at the door. ‘You have to tell me all about it afterwards. We’ll stay in touch, I hope.’
‘Of course we will!’ Nell assured her wholeheartedly.
The following evening, Nell and Joey visited the local register office to make the final arrangements. On the first floor of the Edwardian town hall, it was reached by a polished-wood staircase with fat, heavily carved banisters. The ceremony room was elegant, panelled and lit by windows leaded with municipal crests. There was a lot of civic hardware on the walls: an engraved silver spade used for some long-ago tree-planting, some chains of office spread out in a glass case and an ornate mace used for the type of civic processions that didn’t happen any more. There was a dais, with a pair of imposing chairs. ‘Disney thrones,’ Joey whispered to Nell, making her giggle.
It really was all happening, although she still worried sometimes that she was imagining it all. Sometimes she dreamed she was back in Gardiner Road and when she woke to find herself next to Joey, the sun pouring in through slatted white blinds, she felt weak with gratitude.
The registrar was large in biscuit-coloured occasion knitwear and a hairstyle reminiscent of an orange chrysanthemum. To Nell’s secret relief she seemed unfazed by the idea of just the two of them getting married. ‘But you’ll need two witnesses,’ she said. ‘I can probably get one of the staff here to be one, but you’ll need to find one yourselves.’
Joey and Nell looked at each other. An idea sprang into Nell’s mind. ‘How about Rachel?’ she suggested suddenly. ‘She’d be perfect.’
‘Who’s Rachel?’
‘My upstairs neighbour in Gardiner Road. The one you . . .’ Nell was about to say ‘sold the flat to’, before remembering that Rachel had said it was a woman. But, come to think of it, she was sure Joey had said he had done the deal.
Joey’s mobile was ringing. He frowned at it. ‘Got to take this,’ he said. He glanced at Nell. ‘Good idea. Call your friend.’
The flat sale business flew from her mind as Nell did just that. Rachel whooped with delight. ‘I’d adore to! What an honour! And a great excuse to dress up. We love dressing up.’
‘We?’ Nell echoed, uncertain. Had Rachel got some new man in her life? She hadn’t mentioned him, but there was a lot that Nell hadn’t mentioned either.
‘Me and Juno.’
‘Oh yes. Of course.’
Nell was relieved, but nervous. Would Joey mind
about Rachel’s daughter? But she could hardly be left at home.
Joey was on his mobile with his back turned, so could not be asked. And by the time he had come off, some five minutes later, Nell was back in her world of blissful pre-bridal planning, and quite forgot to mention it.
CHAPTER 13
The sun poured cheerfully down and even the traffic roared its support as Nell emerged from the taxi outside the register office. It was her wedding morning and she felt like the luckiest girl in the world.
Rachel, as arranged, was waiting on the steps. She looked magnificent in a fitted sheath of deep cherry satin, with matching heels. Her burgundy curls were twisted up into a chignon, revealing her piquant little face with some previously unsuspected high cheekbones. A girl of about ten stood beside her.
‘Fantastic dress,’ Nell said admiringly.
Rachel looked down at herself. ‘This old thing?’
‘Don’t give me that.’
‘Seriously, it is an old thing. But date-perfect for your do. Vintage Dior,1965.’
Nell smiled at the child next to Rachel. ‘And this must be Juno.’
The girl inclined her head gravely. With her long, pale face and mouse-coloured, side-parted hair, Juno looked even more serious in the flesh than in the photograph in Rachel’s flat. Her clothes were a surprise.
If she had thought about what Juno might wear, which she hadn’t, Nell might have expected something along the lines of Rachel’s own usual outfits: coloured layers, spots and stripes, something arty and shabby chic.
But the child wore a severe, old-fashioned, dark green two-piece tweed suit, set off with a small round brooch, white blouse and a pair of flat brown pumps. The effect, of a miniature headmistress from the wartime, was completed with a pair of round, gold-framed spectacles.
‘Juno’s channelling Miss Marple,’ Rachel explained.
‘Miss Marple?’ Nell was puzzled. ‘As in Agatha Christie?’
‘Absolutely. Juno’s mad about Agatha Christie.’ Rachel patted her daughter’s head. ‘She loves mysteries.’
Juno’s grey eyes, magnified by her glasses, met Nell’s calmly. She seemed incredibly self-possessed. You probably had to be, if you were an only child whose father had died, Nell remembered sadly.
‘She thought Miss Marple would be good for the Sixties theme,’ Rachel went on. ‘She found the outfit herself in a second-hand shop. It must have belonged to a very small old lady.’
‘I love the brooch,’ Nell said, dipping slightly to examine the circlet of woven metal flowers.
‘It’s got foxgloves in it,’ Juno offered, speaking for the first time in a clear, assured voice. ‘Which I think is very Marple. Foxgloves are poisonous.’
The magnified grey eyes remained steady. For Nell, the brilliance of the morning seemed to flicker slightly.
Rachel laughed. ‘She’s got quite a vivid – not to say morbid – imagination. You look gorgeous, by the way. I love the boots!’
Nell stuck out a leg to admire her gleaming footwear and smoothed down the white crochet minidress. She couldn’t wait for Joey to see it. She forgot the foxgloves and felt about to burst with happiness and excitement.
‘And your hair is beautiful,’ Rachel was saying. Nell put her hand up to feel the circlet of freshly picked daisies that the hairdresser had woven in only that morning. As dawn broke she’d been scouring Queen’s Park for them; ‘. . . and I can tell you,’ the hairdresser had said, ‘it’s not all daisies in Queen’s Park at sunrise.’
Perhaps, Nell thought, she should have got the hair daisies from the florist who had supplied the chic little bouquet of white marguerites she held in her gloved white hands. But one couldn’t think of everything.
‘Love the make-up too,’ Rachel added, to Nell’s secret relief. The make-up artist had ladled on eyeshadow of a Liz Taylor turquoise and Nell was worried she looked less Twiggy and Swinging London than Mrs Khrushchev at the Kremlin Christmas party. It was definitely something blue.
‘Where’s your husband?’ Juno asked. Her voice, after her mother’s friendly gush, sounded unemotional, almost accusing.
It sent a pang of anxiety through Nell, although she kept smiling. ‘You haven’t seen him?’
‘Were we supposed to?’ Rachel asked.
Joey was, Nell explained, meant to have been on the steps with the others when she arrived. He must have got there early and would be inside, checking last-minute arrangements.
‘He must have got here very early in that case,’ remarked Juno, her eyes through the round glasses fixed steadily on Nell. ‘Because we’ve been here for ages.’ There was, Nell decided, something rather relentless about her.
‘Not that long, darling,’ Rachel put in hurriedly.
Juno rounded on her mother. ‘Ages, Mum,’ she insisted. ‘You said we had to be here early in case Nell was.’
While rattled by Juno, Nell was touched by this evidence of Rachel’s loyalty. ‘Let’s go in, anyway,’ she suggested.
There was no sign of Joey inside, however. Nell, Rachel and Juno were shown to a side room off the main chamber by the assistant registrar, a small, bespectacled woman with thinning hair and a twittery manner. She was to be the other witness.
Muzak was playing softly in the background. ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head’ was wonderfully inappropriate, given the golden weather outside.
Nell chattered to the others to keep her nerves at bay. All brides, she knew, felt the same churning anxiety. It was perfectly normal.
It was annoying of Joey not to be here, but understandable. The groom had a lot to do on a wedding morning, even one as minimal as theirs. No doubt he would be getting ready. The assistant registrar hadn’t seen him either, but this was no cause for concern. Nell longed to call him, but getting out her mobile in front of Rachel and Juno – especially Juno – would make her look anxious. Which she wasn’t. It might even make her look desperate, which she absolutely wasn’t either.
She beamed happily at the others and shifted on her plastic chair.
‘Perhaps he’s forgotten something – the ring, maybe, ha ha – and gone back to the flat.’
Rachel smiled reassuringly, while Juno merely looked at Nell steadily.
Her heart was beating loud and fast – with excitement, Nell supposed. Inside her gloves, her hands were hot and sticky. To stop it wilting, she laid the bouquet on a seat next to the white patent clutch bag that matched the boots.
‘We have these chairs at school,’ Juno remarked suddenly.
Nell leapt on this with nervous relief. ‘How is your new school?’
‘It’s not new any more,’ Juno pointed out. ‘It’s OK, I s’pose. Though no one knows who Agatha Christie is. Someone asked me if she was on X Factor,’ the girl added contemptuously.
Nell snorted and Juno gave her a stony look. Rachel, meanwhile, was twisting her fingers together nervously. Anyone would think she was the bride, not me, Nell thought.
Quiet fell. Traffic could be heard whooshing by on the road. Come on, Joey, Nell silently urged, wishing that she hadn’t, after all, spent the previous night alone in a five-star hotel. It had been Joey’s idea; his treat, too. Husbands and wives, he insisted, should spend the night before they got married apart. It was tradition.
Nell would have preferred to spend her last night at Gardiner Road. Her dislike of it had evaporated now she was leaving it to be married and there was Rachel upstairs to celebrate with. But the flat was under offer and all her things now in storage. The grand hotel with the pillared portico and glittering, golden chandeliers overlooking Hyde Park was the alternative.
Only after Joey had gone home did it occur to Nell that this tradition of spending the pre-wedding night apart had been honoured while many others had been ignored. Such as having her family attend.
Alone w
ith the minibar and the marble-lined bathroom, she had passionately regretted giving in. She had paced around the suite, oblivious to its comforts and sophistications, seeing only, in her mind’s eye, her parents’ hurt faces when they found out. Why had she agreed not to tell them? Just because Joey had no mother or father didn’t mean she should cut her own off too. On the contrary, it made her family potentially twice as important; they could also be his.
Why, she demanded of herself, had she not said any of this? If she’d stuck to her guns, Joey would surely have dropped his objections. He was so loving, so supportive, so concerned for her happiness. But perhaps it wasn’t too late.
She had called him from the suite, seeking permission to tell her family after all. She would just have to apologise for the last-minute notice and beg them to come. They’d be alarmed, she knew. They would grumble. But they’d move hell and high water to be there.
Joey, however, had not been in. She had been unable to raise him on any of his numbers. Perhaps he had been out with a friend, celebrating. It occurred to her now, as it never had before, that she didn’t really know who his friends were. After they were married, Nell resolved, it was the first thing she would find out.
‘He’s very late.’ Juno’s detached tones broke into Nell’s thoughts.
‘Shush, darling.’ Rachel nudged her, and gave Nell a bright smile. ‘Nell’s right, he’s probably just popped back to the flat. Or maybe he’s overslept.’
Nell seized gratefully on this idea. Yes, that was it, his alarm had not gone off. Joey had probably woken in a rush and had scrabbled to get dressed. She pictured him bolting about his apartment, looking for his wedding cufflinks – special ones with Minis on so he had a Sixties touch too. She imagined him in the bathroom grabbing bottles – aftershave, mouthwash – dropping their caps in his panic.
