by Claire Allan
“We can reschedule?” she had offered, calmly and softly.
“And have those women kill me? No! We must do this.” I had laughed then, and patted her on the arm. “I didn’t want to get married, but I love Paddy and this is the right thing for us, for him – so I suppose we just have to find the right dress for me to make this all as bearable as possible.”
“Thesemight help,” Kitty said now, still softly, and she held a dress up in front of me.
I was acutely aware of the size of my arse, and the curve of my hips. I was aware that my stomach was far from flat and it never had been. I looked at the dresses in front of me – at their unforgiving, sleek, shiny, brilliance and I shook my head.
Kitty sat down beside me and took my hand. She was clearly used to dealing with hysterical brides – not that I was hysterical. I was just, well, kind of determined that those dresses and my body would never meet.
“I’ve been in this business a long time,” she said softly, “and, believe me, I would never give you a dress to wear that would make you look horrendous.”
I pointed in the direction of the tulle nightmare which I had been wearing just moments before.
“Your mother chose that one,” she said with a wink. “And we have to humour our mammies, don’t we?”
It was a fair cop.
“Look, try one on. How about that one there? I assure you it will be nice.”
I looked at the duchesse satin number in front of me, gathered at the waist and pooling into a small puddle-train. An asymmetric number, I wondered would it show off my fat shoulders too much (well, one of them anyway). It did have a little bling and bling was something I was expressly against. But in this instance, well, it was kind of nice. Subtle even. A slight swirl of crystals curling upwards. It was a beautiful dress and I had no doubt on the right person it would be outstanding. But I wasn’t convinced I was the right person, or even in the vague vicinity of being the right person. I looked at Kitty as if she was just a little bit mad and she looked back at me as if I was just a little bit mad and then, to stop the bad looks if nothing else, I nodded and agreed to give it a whirl.
“Now this will be a little big,” she said, “because we only keep sample gowns – so don’t worry if it feels a little strange. I’ll do my best to give you an idea of how it will look when made to your exact measurements. Dresses as figure-hugging at these always need a little tweaking – no two of us are the same.”
I nodded. The dress was a little big? It looked tiny. I feared Kitty was in for a real shock.
She had to help me, of course, because wedding dresses have inbuilt scaffolding all of their own, even ones which look as though they would be fairly slinky and therefore easy to slip into. It was clear that no one ever slipped into a wedding dress. Stuffed would be more accurate. Folded perhaps. Tucked in, in places. But Kitty was an expert and within a minute or two she had me zipped in, and where the dress had been a little looser around my thighs she had gathered tighter with pins so that it clung to me in the right places. She pulled and straightened and tucked in and then she wasstanding back looking at me with a broad smile across her face.
“Oh, now that, Erin, is beautiful.”
I felt myself blush. There was no mirror in the cubicle. To see myself I would have to walk out to where my mother and mother-in-law-to-be were waiting and look at myself, at all angles, in the mirrors around the dressing room. Part of me wanted to believe Kitty. The dress felt comfortable, which was something I absolutely wasn’t expecting given the effort it took to put it on. Then again, part of me knew Kitty was a saleswoman and she wanted, above everything else, to sell me a dress.
“Really?” I asked, feeling like that six-year-old all over again, needing a bit of reassurance.
She took a step back and looked at me again before reaching for a clip from her pocket and asking me to twist my hair up into a makeshift French roll with it. I did it and waited for her reaction.
“Definitely beautiful. Perfect.Will we go out so you can get a proper look at it?”
“Yes,” I said, suddenly very nervous.
It had been different trying on the tulle nightmare. There was never, ever a chance that it was going to be ‘the one’. There was nothing about it which appealed to me and, even when I had put it on, Kitty had pulled a funny face and laughed before apologising. “It is nice on some people,” she had said. “But, don’t take this the wrong way, definitely not on you.” She’d said it in such a way that I had been reassured that ultimately she was on my side in all of this so I tried to remind myself of that as I agreed to step out of the cubicle in the dress she really did think would suit me.
“Okay,” I said, breathing in. “Let’s go.”
Kitty went on ahead of me and as I walked out the chatter from my two companions stopped immediately. I didn’t want to look at them. I didn’t want to see their reaction before I could gauge my own. This is it, I told myself and turned to face myself in the mirrors.
I let out a gasp. I couldn’t quite believe it was me. If it weren’t for the pasty skin looking back at me, I wouldn’t have believed it was me. The dress gave me curves in all the right places as opposed to where they normally resided which was most definitely in all the wrong places. It sculpted my body. It gave me a shape to be proud of. It made me look beautiful. Jesus, it made me look beautiful. My heart started to thud. This was the dress. My dress. My wedding dress. And it made me look amazing. I’d even fancy me in it. Oh, God, I felt as if I could sing and laugh and cry all at the one time. It was beyond comprehension that I could look this good – but I did.I was suddenly aware of my mother and Sue sobbing into their hankies. Kitty was smiling but I noticed that misty look in her eyes. And I realised I was crying too. A big, fat tear plopped onto the gorgeous satin and I looked into the mirror again and saw the pained expression on my face that I had been fighting all this time. I never wanted to get married, but here I was in a dress that I loved. I would wear this dress, which I loved, to marry the man that I loved but I couldn’t escape the fact that we were getting married because he had cancer and he might . . . No. I wouldn’t think that way just now.
“He’ll be blown away when he sees you,” Sue said and all I could do was nod back, like the stupid, stupid nodding dog I had become because I absolutely couldn’t speak for fear that one big fat tear which had slid onto my beautiful dress might turn into a big stupid flood that no one could stop.
“Well, well, how did you get on? Did our mothers kill each other? Did you kill them? Should I be expecting the police at any moment?”
Paddy was sitting, feet up, on the sofa reading the newspaper. He was grinning at me in his trademark infectious manner and I smiled back.
“We all survived. But there was a hairy moment with a big frock that we must never, ever speak of again.” I put my bag on the floor and gestured to him to move his feet from the sofa to make room for me. God, I really wanted to curl up beside him just then – just the two of us in our own wee world that didn’t involve weddings or cancer, or testicles. “Budge,” I smiled and he put his paper down, shifted over and allowed me to cuddle up to him.
“Was it really, really awful and the worse thing ever?” He kissed the top of my head and I elbowed him gently. He knew how I was absolutely opposed to weddings and he liked to tease me at every opportunity. ‘I knew I’d get you to agree to this someday,’ he would say. ‘Okay, so maybe I went a bit far in my attempts, but I got there in the end. I always win!’ he’d grin and I would grin back like a big feckwit but secretly hope that he was right and that he always would win.
“It wasn’t actually that bad, apart from the aforementioned big-frock episode of which we must never speak. I actually chose a dress!”
“Really?” He sounded genuinely shocked.
“Yes, really. I’ve to go back in a few days when I’m absolutely and completely sure and then Kitty – who runs the shop – will get out her tape measure, feel me up, take all our money for the next three mo
nths and bob’s your uncle. Your wish will come true and I will be transformed into the most gorgeous bride the world has ever known.”
“You would look gorgeous in your pyjamas, Erin.”
“Well, you could always agree to my plan to run away just the two of us to the Guildhall then? No fuss or formality and I could wear my pyjamas if I wanted . . .” Part of me, admittedly, would be really unhappy not to wear the dress which made me look like some kind of Greek goddess, but a bigger part of me would be just delighted not to have to go through with the ‘Big Day’.
Paddy looked down at me and kissed me again. “Erin, if you really don’t want to do this, we don’t have to do this. But it would be the biggest honour of my life not only to marry you, but to walk down the aisle of St Eugene’s Cathedral with you on my arm.”
“No,” I said, pushing away my own negative thoughts. “We’ll do it. And I want to do it. And I want to do it with you. And – and I know you won’t believe me when I say this, but I felt a little excited today. The dress really is lovely. You should see it – it’s ivory and –”
“La la la!” Paddy sang, sticking his fingers in his ears. “You’re not supposed to tell me. I’m the groom, remember? I’m not supposed to know anything about the big dress. It’s bad luck.”
“Fair enough,” I said, kissing him and getting up to make a pot of tea. I didn’t want to add that I was pretty sure we’d had our share of bad luck already.
“Did I tell you?” I called behind me as I walked. “I think both our mothers were scuttered before they even got there! The lady that runs the shop, she offered them a glass of champers and they weren’t even one glass down before they were acting like a bunch of schoolgirls! Your mother had to be talked out of trying on a wedding dress herself.”
I heard him laugh, a deep throaty laugh which made me feel funny – a strange mixture of wanting to keep him forever near me and never let anyone else near him ever, combined with the very real desire to shag him senseless. But of course we had to wait until he was brave enough to try that, so we would settle for some full-on cuddling instead – preferably in bed, while naked.
I switched the kettle off, walked back to the living room and told him as boldly as I could that, as I had just endured a mammoth wedding-dress trying-on session for him, the very least he could do was take me to bed and do bold things to me. Thankfully, he obliged, and I knew that one day we would even manage to go further than third base again.
Paddy had found the lump himself. He had been embarrassed telling me, but when I said I would have a good feel to double-check, he perked up a bit. I found the lump too but we managed, with the help of Google and a bottle of wine, to convince ourselves it was absolutely nothing to worry about at all. We had even had a post-lump-finding bonk and I had successfully pushed the scary thought that something might actually not be right to the back of my head. Paddy said he would make an appointment with his doctor the very next day, but when a week passed and no appointment was made I once again took things into my own hands (excuse the pun).The receptionist at the doctor’s had been very matter of fact. She didn’t scream “A lump! My God, a lump! Get a doctor stat!” so I had felt reassured. She was calm and so was I and when I told Paddy he appeared calm as well. We were just one big gang of calm people.
Two days later we went to the appointment. I had woken during the night and noticed that Paddy’s breathing just wasn’t as rhythmic as it normally was at three in the morning. He was not asleep. I turned, curled my body around his and kissed his neck and whispered that this time tomorrow it would all be over and we would be reassured. We would be able to put all of this behind us.
Paddy didn’t want me to come into the doctor’s with him. He left me with a well-thumbed copy of Hello in the reception trying to maintain my calmness and had walked towards the consulting room with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched. I had, of course, wanted to go with him. I had wanted to hold his hand and explain to the doctor that we knew we were being silly but sure wasn’t it better to get these things checked out? I knew he would be mortified at having to get his tackle out. He was, of course, absolutely fine getting it out in front of me – but a strange man, who would have a good grope and a feel was well beyond his comfort level, regardless of what medical credentials the manmighthave been in possession of. I sipped from the bottle of water I had brought with me and tried to fight the dizzy sensation which was clambering over me. This time tomorrow we’ll be wondering what we were worrying about, I reminded myself before losing myself in a story about Katie Price’s love life – which was at least two husbands and a boob-job out of date.
He walked out of the consulting room fifteen minutes later, clutching a leaflet. I didn’t like leaflets. I was pretty sure they didn’t make leaflets to say: “Congratulations! You are absolutely perfectly okay!”
I looked at him expectantly and he forced on a smile. “Well, next stop, the hospital. Someone else gets to have a play with my bad boys.”
“Lucky buggers,” I muttered, willing myself to stand up and walk to him and get out of the stuffy doctor’s surgery before I passed out. Damn legs. They wouldn’t move and my hands were shaking. He reached out to me, helped me up and I cursed myself for being the weak one.
“I think you broke Mum,” Jules said, laughing down the phone that evening. “Dad said she came back from the big shopping trip, tried to dance with him around the kitchen and then fell asleep on the sofa. Her snores would have deafened you.”
“Maybe I should call her and check she is okay?”
“Dad says she has gone to her bed proper now. She needed a dark room and a couple of paracetamol – and a box set of Inspector Morse. This is serious Mum-in-recovery mode.”
I laughed, and sat down at the kitchen table where I sipped from the vodka and Coke I’d just poured myself. Paddy had been dispensed to pick up a Chinese for dinner and I’d taken this as my chance to catch up with my baby sister.
“She wasn’t that bad,” I said, “which of course means she was horrendous. But she seemed to enjoy herself. You should have seen the dress she chose for me!”
“Shove the dress she chose for you! I want to know about the dress you chose for yourself. Dad said a decision has been made.”
“Almost,” I said, smiling as I remembered how great I had looked in it. “Kitty said I was to go home, think about it, maybe even try on a few dresses elsewhere and if I still loved it I was to come back and get measured up.”
“Does that mean more wedding-dress shops? Maybe I could make it down for the next trip?”
“No! No more shops. This is the dress, Jules, and while you are welcome to come all the way from Belfast to see it, I won’t be trying on any other wedding dresses ever, ever again. This is the one.”
“Ooh Erin, are you getting excited about a wedding? You, the wedding-phobe?”
“The dress did make my arse look really amazing!”
“Really?” she sounded surprised – too surprised for my liking.
“Bitch,” I retorted.
She laughed. “Erin, you know I’m only teasing. Jeez, that is what big sisters are for. Tell me,” she said, and I heard her sip from her wineglass, “what is it like?”
“It is exactly the very opposite of what you would expect me to wear.”
“I’m intrigued.”
We chatted on, amiably, for the twenty-four minutes it took for Paddy to pick up our chilli beef, rice and prawn crackers and serve them on the table – with our fancy cutlery and everything. We didn’t once talk about the big C – but it didn’t feel like we were avoiding it either. We were just chatting. Jules spoke easily about her work as a PA in a Belfast law firm where the lead partner was a bit of a Lothario and she spent her day trying to make sure his various women never found out about each other as well as trying to do her actual job. We spoke about what movies we had seen and what books we were planning to read and she told me about a new handbag she was lusting after.
As I
hung up the phone and looked at the very gorgeous man sitting opposite me, his glasses a little lopsided and his stubble sprouting through, I realised I was actually incredibly lucky.So lucky, in fact, that I was even looking forward to going back to Kitty and handing over a large proportion of my salary for a dress I would wear only once.
Chapter seven
Kitty
I still hadn’t heard from him. Not a peep. It had been just over twenty-four hours since I’d opened the letter which blew my life apart but it felt like so much longer. I felt as if I hadn’t spoken to him in weeks. I missed his voice. I missed just knowing he was in the next room, or on the end of a phone. I missed knowing where he was, full stop. Not that I was a crazy psycho wife or anything who tracked his every move. We just spoke – a lot. We told each other everything. At least I had thought we had told each other everything. Clearly I was delusional.
I sat on the sofa, afraid to move in case anything else changed in my life. I had survived work. I had even enjoyed part of it – seeing Erin in her dress had been a highlight. She seemed so transformed – so graceful.
It reminded me of my wedding dress – how I felt like a princess the moment I put it on. That sounds pathetic, I know. Me. A modern, career-orientated woman who enjoyed feeling like a princess. I was an eejit. I would walk up and down our kitchen, step, together, step, together, practising marching up the aisle. I would put my tiara on my head when no one else was in the house and try on my wedding ring just to see what I would look like married. I felt amazing. I felt loved.
That was the thing with me and Mark. I’d always felt loved. Perhaps that was why feeling abandoned was so hard to take. I glanced towards the kitchen door. I was thirsty but it would be a bad move to drink any more tea. My head was spinning enough as it was without adding an extra dose of caffeine to the mix. I didn’t dare drink alcohol, no matter how much I wished it was there to numb whatever was running through my head.
