White Wedding

by Milly Johnson

Max was still in a state of shock. ‘You did nip my bum.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. It was Stuart. He knew I fancied you, but you presumed it was me who’d done it and stormed off in a huff and he jumped in like a bloody white knight. Two minutes later you were a couple.’

  ‘I can’t stand anyone pinching my bum,’ Max shuddered. ‘If only I’d known it was him. I wouldn’t have looked at him twice.’

  ‘If only I’d dobbed him in,’ said Luke. They looked at each other and then laughed.

  ‘All these years and I never knew,’ said Max, shaking her head.

  ‘I know it might be a bit weird if I asked you to dinner,’ said Luke, after clearing a nervous cough out of his throat, ‘but would you suck it and see?’

  ‘Bit forward,’ tutted Max.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Luke, dropping his head into his hands. ‘How long have we known each other and now I’m nervous. I was scared to ask you out in case I ruined our friendship, or I upset Stuart, but sod it – I don’t care any more. I want to risk giving it a try because I really like you, Max. I think you’re fabulous. I want to take you out on a date. I know it’s early days but sod it, I’m asking anyway. Do you think you could ever see me as anything other than a mate? Oh God, I just wish we were sixteen again because I’d have told you it was Stuart who nipped your bum and claimed you for myself. What do you think? Help me, Max. I’m out of my depth here.’

  Max looked at him, this dear sweet man who had stood in the background and loved her for all this time. The person she probably had most in common with in all the world. They had always laughed at the same things, had the same work ethic, the same ambitions. And he still had a bloody gorgeous bum.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, feeling herself grow a bit quivery because it was early days but yes, she was already seeing Luke Appleby in a different light. ‘We’ll suck it and see, shall we?’

  Bel stood rigid in the middle of a vortex of confusion. How could this be her mother? Her graceful, statuesque mother was dead. This woman before her was blousy and broad, with shoulders that would have made her a cracking tight-head prop for a rugby union side, and a hard, hard face.

  ‘Helen, what on earth can you possibly want after all these years?’ asked Trevor breathlessly as he rushed to his daughter’s side and put his arm round her, as if the woman was going to suddenly snatch her away.

  ‘I think you might know,’ said this so-called Helen in a voice that sounded as if it was full of barbed wire.

  ‘Dad?’ said Bel. Her arms were prickling with anxiety. She could feel her heartbeat thumping madly in her eardrums. Trevor tightened his arm round her.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Faye, wringing her hands together. ‘Why did you have to come over today of all days, Bel?’

  ‘Dad texted me,’ replied Bel.

  ‘I don’t know how to text,’ said Trevor. ‘I didn’t even take my phone out with me.’

  Ah. I bet the phone is in the kitchen, where it usually is, thought Bel. She narrowed her eyes at Shaden. It didn’t take a genius to work out what had happened. The shit-stirring cow.

  ‘Second wife, I presume?’ Helen thumbed at Faye. ‘Well, thanks for bringing up my daughter. Looks like you did a bonza job.’

  ‘My daughter,’ said Faye, her voice suddenly full of strength. ‘And I won’t let you upset her.’ She came to the other side of Bel, her chin jutting out as if she meant business.

  ‘I don’t want to upset anyone,’ said Helen, as unruffled as could be as she inspected her long red nails. ‘I just want what is rightfully mine.’

  ‘Which is what, precisely?’ asked Trevor.

  ‘I heard about the wedding. It made the papers in Oz. I saw how much your company is worth. Treffé Chocolates? The same company that used to be Trevelen Chocolates once upon a time?’

  ‘That company sank, as you well know,’ Trevor ground his words out. ‘You bled it dry. Thirty-three years ago. Treffé was a brand-new company I formed with Faye. You’ve had all you’re getting out of me.’

  Bel felt Faye and Trevor close into her side even further.

  Helen looked at the touching family scene, then she swept her eyes round to the subsidiary characters. They settled on Shaden, sitting forward on the couch and enjoying the floorshow.

  ‘So you’re the “blonde beauty” who slept with the fiancé?’ She threw back her head and laughed as if the newspaper’s description was the biggest joke ever. ‘Oh and that must be the “man in the middle”.’ She pointed over at Richard who was lurking by the doorway, not sure where to put himself.

  ‘Never mind who is who,’ said Trevor. ‘I think you should leave. Get out, Helen. You’ve caused enough damage. You were always very good at that.’

  ‘No, don’t go,’ cried Bel, rushing forward. She threw her arms round Helen, but the woman stood unyielding and straight, her hands remaining by her sides.

  ‘Look, love, it’s all a bit late for the grand reconciliation,’ Helen stepped back out of her daughter’s embrace. ‘I didn’t come here for this.’

  ‘So it’s true, you really are my mother?’ said Bel, sobbing now. She whirled round to Trevor and Faye, but she directed the question more at her stepmother. ‘Why did you tell me she was dead? Why did you lie?’

  Trevor stepped forward. ‘That’s the way she wanted it.’ He addressed Helen. ‘Tell her the truth at least, for God’s sake, Helen. I’m begging you.’

  Helen was born a hard nut and the years in Australia being married to a man whose fortunes were up and down as much as his trousers in other women’s bedrooms had made her harder still. She needed her own independent means and seeing as her ex-husband was so incredibly wealthy these days, and no doubt would pay anything to keep her away from screwing up his daughter, it was more than worth attempting a little extortion. Unfortunately that stupid newspaper and even stupider Lydiana Bosomworth-Greaves had grossly overstated the fortunes of the Treffé Chocolate company, it seemed. And then, as if that knowledge wasn’t bad enough, in walks her daughter – tipped off by someone in this very room. Bye, bye, blackmail.

  ‘Ten thousand pounds and I’ll tell her the truth,’ said Helen. At least she wouldn’t walk away empty-handed then.

  ‘Give it to her,’ said Faye. ‘Trevor, the cheque book is there in the drawer.’

  Shaden wished she had brought popcorn. This was better than a movie. It had everything in it – drama, pathos – just a shame there was no violence.

  Trevor scrabbled in the drawer, hurriedly wrote out a cheque and then ripped it out of the book. ‘I’ve left it blank. I don’t know what your name is these days.’

  ‘Eleanor Swindell,’ she said, holding up her hand to stem any comment. ‘Please, save your breath.’ She examined the cheque. ‘I should have asked for twenty, shouldn’t I? That was too easy.’

  ‘It’s not easy,’ snapped Faye. ‘We’re having to batten down the hatches like everyone else in this economic climate.’

  ‘Helen, please,’ said Trevor.

  ‘Okay,’ Helen turned to a totally and utterly numb Bel. ‘I didn’t want kids. You were an accident. We’d filed for divorce and then I found out I was pregnant. Trevor begged me not to have an abortion. We struck a deal that he would take the baby and I’d go home to Australia. It was my idea that he told you I was dead. I didn’t want anyone coming searching for me hoping for the big family reunion.’

  ‘Don’t forget the bit about taking every single penny Trevor had as well,’ snapped Faye. ‘He had to buy the life of his own daughter.’

  ‘What about the wedding dress?’ gulped Bel. It was all she could think of.

  ‘What wedding dress?’ said Helen. ‘I got married in a trouser suit.’

  The tears sliding down Bel’s cheeks increased in volume. She felt warm arms round her. Faye’s. And heard her gentle voice trying to soothe.

  ‘So our business is really concluded, then,’ shrugged Helen. ‘Still, interesting to see what the kid turned out like. I think we did a good mix, Trev.’

  �
��You didn’t just do “good”,’ said Faye with iron in her voice, ‘you did brilliantly and you’ve missed out on some very precious years. She’s a wonderful daughter.’

  ‘Sorry, love,’ said Helen to Bel. ‘I didn’t plan on you being here.’

  Vanoushka tried to get to her feet and called for Shaden to help her. She saw an opportunity to ingratiate herself with Trevor and get back in his good books.

  ‘Get out,’ she said. ‘Get out of my sister’s house, you cruel bitch.’ She hobbled towards Helen, using Shaden’s arm as support.

  The silly woman with the paralysed forehead didn’t even show up on Helen’s radar. She ignored her and turned to face the daughter that she had never thought of in all these years. Bel noticed they had identical moles on the side of their jaws.

  ‘I tell you what,’ Helen said, leaning close and whispering as if imparting a great secret, ‘there is a gift I can give you that you will always remember.’

  Bel waited for her real mother to kiss her cheek. She didn’t bargain on Helen twisting on her heel, pulling back her head and nutting Shaden in the nose – a direct hit on the bridge. Shaden screamed and blood oozed through the fingers clamped over her face. Vanoushka threw herself at Helen, missed and fell over, then all attention shifted to Richard, who was bent double in the doorway, holding his nuts and uttering a string of profanities in the direction of the retreating iron-kneed Helen.

  Bel ran down the hallway in pursuit, just in time to see her mother climb into the taxi.

  ‘Mum,’ she yelled, springing over to it, her fingers just managing to touch the glass of the window before the car pulled away from her and was gone. Helen didn’t even wave goodbye.

  Bel hadn’t a clue what she felt as her mother disappeared from her life a second time. Her head was thrown into momentary panic and distress, mixed in with confusion, grief and a childlike desire to sink to the ground and howl, yet she remained standing and silent. The long-held image of her perfect mother had gone for ever and never again would Bel think of her without also remembering how Faye had moved in to protect her, like a caramel-haired lioness squaring up against a bulky, nasty rhino.

  Bel walked back inside the house to find it in a state of pandemonium.

  ‘My nose, my lovely nose,’ Shaden was screaming. ‘It’s broken.’

  Vanoushka was trying to apply the tea towel that Faye had just run under the tap to Shaden’s nose, but she was pushing her mother away, shrieking in pain and anger.

  ‘Shouldn’t someone ring for an ambulance?’ said Vanoushka.

  ‘Richard can drive me. It’ll be quicker,’ said Shaden.

  ‘Oh no, he can’t,’ snapped Faye. ‘I’ll take you, if I have to, you little bitch.’

  Vanoushka gasped. She had never heard her sister talk with such venom.

  ‘Oh yes, because it was ALL my fault, wasn’t it?’ snarled Shaden. ‘He was the one getting married. I was single.’

  Richard suddenly straightened up.

  ‘Okay, let’s bring this down,’ he said, attempting a peace mission.

  ‘I’m ashamed that I’m related to you, Shaden,’ Faye went on. ‘You’d better stay right away from other people’s husbands from now on.’

  Despite her pain, Shaden appeared to be smiling. Dangerously, like Caligula. ‘Are you going to tell them, or shall I?’ she said to Richard.

  ‘Shaden, I’ll get you another nose,’ he said, his voice full of desperation. ‘Just don’t. Please, I’m begging you.’

  ‘Don’t what?’ said Faye, her eyes slits of suspicion. ‘What is this?’

  She grabbed her niece and shook her hard by the shoulders and Shaden shrieked. ‘What’s all the secret code going on between you and Bel’s husband?’

  Shaden shook herself free. ‘Bel’s husband? Precious Belinda’s husband? He’s not her husband,’ she said, loading the ‘her’ with enough poison to bring down a blue whale.

  ‘Shaden, noooo . . .’ yelped Richard.

  ‘He’s my husband,’ said Shaden, so slowly and deliberately that each word seemed to last for minutes.

  Behind them Richard groaned so low and long that he sounded like an inflatable airbed with a slow puncture. Everyone else could have been musical-statue champions.

  ‘I think you’d better explain yourselves,’ said Vanoushka eventually, her eyes flicking repeatedly between Richard and Shaden as if she were watching a tennis match.

  ‘He took me to Vegas for the weekend,’ said Shaden imperiously.

  ‘I know,’ replied Bel with the hint of a yawn. That would take the wind out of her sails.

  ‘Do you know that we also both got pissed and married? No, I bet you didn’t. Ha.’

  A nuclear silence landed on the room. It was so intense that it set Shaden off giggling, happier than ever that she had made such an impact.

  ‘Yeah, it seemed a good idea at the time,’ she added casually.

  ‘It seemed like a good idea?’ said Trevor, unable to keep the furious incredulity out of his voice. ‘It seemed like a good idea?’

  ‘We didn’t know it was legally binding,’ said Richard with a desperate tremble in his voice. ‘It was just a drunken prank.’

  ‘Elvis married us,’ said Shaden, thoroughly enjoying the destruction she was causing, which offset the pain of her pretty new nose being smashed all over her face.

  Bel threw her hands up in the air. As if today wasn’t bizarre enough already with a dead mother coming back into her life and nutting the cousin who had bonked her husband, she now discovered that the husband in question, currently fondling the blood circulation back into his nuts, wasn’t her husband after all.

  ‘When exactly were you going to tell me?’ Bel asked Richard, hearing her own voice slow and calm despite the turmoil going on inside her head.

  ‘He wasn’t,’ smiled Shaden smugly. ‘We were going to have a quiet divorce, then he was going to set you up to renew your vows and hoped that would be enough.’

  ‘And he paid you enough money for a new nose to keep quiet?’ It was a question, but Faye already knew the answer.

  ‘Oh Bel,’ Richard limped forward with one hand cupping his groin. ‘Don’t let this spoil things between us.’ He threw a pointed finger at Shaden. ‘You evil bloody cow. You’ve ruined everything. Bel put her wedding ring back on tonight. It was all okay again and if you—’

  ‘Actually,’ Bel butted in, ‘it wasn’t okay again. I only wore the ring because that way I’d remember to give it back to you.’ Bel twisted the ring from her finger and popped it into the breast pocket of Richard’s suit.

  ‘It wouldn’t have worked,’ she said. ‘I thought it might have, but then you didn’t do it.’

  ‘What?’ squeaked Richard. ‘What didn’t I do?’

  ‘You didn’t have cake,’ said Bel. And she turned and walked out of the door.

  Chapter 101

  When Bel went back to her father’s house later that night, she didn’t ring the bell, she walked straight in and found Faye putting newly washed covers on the sofa and her dad helping. She’d always resented them being so ‘together’ and yet now the sight of them made her fill up with nice tears. They both looked shocked, but delighted to see her.

  ‘Hello, love,’ said Trevor, straightening up to give her a hug. ‘We’ve been worried where you got to. Again.’

  ‘Oh Dad, you know I have to go and hole myself up and think things through.’

  ‘You’ve had such a rough time. I’m so sorry.’

  Bel gave her dad a quick kiss then turned to Faye.

  ‘You’re a peach, Faye,’ she said. ‘And I’ve never said.’

  She closed her arms round her stunned stepmother and when she pulled away it was to find that Faye’s eyes were dripping with tears. Faye’s hand came out to rest on her cheek.

  ‘You’ve always been so precious to me,’ she said. ‘We never wanted you to find out the truth about your mother.’ Bel fell back against her. She was wearing another one of her soft fluffy jumpers a
nd smelled of her familiar Guerlain perfume. Faye Candy was a gentle constant presence with a hidden backbone of steel. Bel hoped she could make it up to her for all the years of not appreciating that.

  ‘What about the wedding dress, Faye?’ Bel asked, as Trevor poured them all a reconstituting brandy.

  ‘Well, all little girls want their mother’s wedding dress, don’t they? We were in Berlin and I saw this tiny wedding-dress shop – Hochzeit in Weiss – it was called. I’ve never forgotten it. The woman who owned it was just putting the most beautiful dress in the window and I suddenly had the idea of buying it for you and pretending—’

  Bel had heard enough. She could guess the rest.

  ‘Oh Faye, it’s such a shame you never had kids of your own. You’d have made such a lovely mum,’ smiled Bel, hugging her again. ‘You are a lovely mum.’

  And that was the last remaining secret, but this one would stay a secret. Faye wasn’t infertile, but when she and Trevor married she convinced Trevor that they shouldn’t try for a child. She knew that the strange little girl she had taken on needed to be the sole focus of their attention. Underneath her feistiness, Faye recognized a child who needed a hell of a lot of love and reassurance. And now, with the daughter she had always wanted clasped in her arms, Faye knew that her decision had been the right one.

  Chapter 102

  The next morning, Violet double-checked that she had her Maestro card in her handbag before she set off for the White Wedding shop. She would have to pay for the dress that was destroyed – she knew that and it was only fair, especially after all the kindness that Freya had shown her.

  When she pulled up in front of the shop it was to find the usually decorated bay window empty and a man about to nail a wooden board in front of the glass.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Violet, getting out of the car. ‘Isn’t it open?’

  ‘No, love,’ said the man. ‘It’s for lease. I’m going to put up the sign after I’ve boarded it up.’

  ‘Where’s the woman who ran it, do you know?’ asked Violet.