by Lizzie Lamb
Wordlessly, for no words were necessary, Charlee stepped forward and slipped Granny’s ring back on her finger. She curled her fingers into her palm in case he, or anyone else, tried to take it from her.
‘I choose you, Rafa,’ she said and walked into his arms.
‘Then I am, without doubt, the luckiest man on earth. Home, Carlotta?’
‘Home,’ she agreed.
Chapter Thirty-eight
High Tide and Summer Solstice
A delicate knock on the door woke Charlee from a wonderful dream of her and Rafa swimming in a turquoise sea along with a school of dolphins. She was sure there must be some Freudian significance to the dream but it escaped her for the moment. Her mother entered with a tray of coffee, toast and a bright red gerbera in a vase. Bringing up the rear was Miranda, wearing one of George’s old shirts over cut-off jeans. Charlee rubbed her eyes, it was early and maybe she was still dreaming.
‘Mum?’ she said, sitting up in bed. Her mother had never brought her breakfast in bed, not even when she was a little girl and ill with the flu.
‘We thought, being as this would be your last breakfast as an unmarried girl, we’d serve it to you in bed.’
Unmarried girl? Her mother made it sound like she was the last ugly daughter left at home and they were lucky to have someone take her off their hands.
‘Thanks,’ she said and put the tray on the bedside table. Then she looked at them pointedly, willing them to leave. She didn’t want them spoiling the day with their nonsense, tears and emotional stuff. The church and the Rev Trev were booked for eleven o’clock and she didn’t want to rush. ‘Was there something else?’
‘Do you mind if I sit down, Charlotte? Now that I’m pregnant I find myself exhausted at the slightest effort.’
‘Like walking along the landing from your bedroom?’ Charlee asked, straight-faced.
Miranda and George had just had their twelve-week scan and been reassured that everything was good to go for a Christmas baby. Although she was still as thin as a rail, Miranda had taken to wearing oversized shirts in lieu of maternity clothes and had copies of the scan printed to hand out to relatives and friends. Charlee suspected that it was going to feel like a lo-o-ong pregnancy.
‘Charlotte,’ Barbara Montague snatched her daughter’s hand before she could pull it away. She patted it and her eyes filled with tears. ‘My baby girl,’ she glanced over at Miranda and their faces took on soppy expressions. ‘Such a big day for you. For us all.’ Charlee laughed, it was a bit late for her to be coming over all motherly.
‘I’m ready for it, so if you wouldn’t mind leaving me alone I’ll finish my breakfast before Poppy and Anastasia get here.’ She reached out for a slice of toast and started to chew at it but her mother and Miranda stayed put.
‘I do think that you could have asked Barbara and me to help you get ready, Charlotte. We are family, whereas the other two -’
‘Are my best friends,’ Charlee said, cutting Miranda off in mid-gripe. Then she muttered through clenched teeth, ‘and can be guaranteed not to drive me mad on my wedding day.’ She swallowed her toast and drank some coffee before continuing more diplomatically. ‘Miranda, you couldn’t help because you would exhaust yourself, and Mum - you have to supervise the church and the cars, etc. I think I can get dressed on my own, don’t you?’
‘I suppose so,’ Barbara said, dabbing at her eyes with the edge of her dressing gown. ‘Just one more thing …’
‘What now?’ Charlee asked.
‘Just to warn you, to say that … wedding night … men can … it can all be …’ Barbara and Miranda exchanged a look and Charlee blushed to the roots of her fair hair. Surely, even her mother wouldn’t deliver a Sex Ed lesson on her wedding morning?
In spite of everything that had happened at the boot camp, their headline-breaking scoop and Charlee living permanently at the mews, Barbara couldn’t quite let go of the notion that her daughter was still twelve years old. Charlee folded her arms across her chest and adopted a mutinous expression until they got the hint and stood up. Miranda pressed a hand into the small of her back like she was eight months pregnant. Barbara paused on the threshold and turned back with a woeful expression.
‘Was there something else?’ Charlee asked, hoping there wasn’t.
‘Just … relax and give in gracefully, Charlotte.’
Charlee nearly choked on her toast. They were acting like this was a Jane Austen novel and she’d never been alone with a man, let alone … Little did they know she’d been giving in disgracefully to Rafa Ffinch as often as twice a night for the past several months. The mere thought of Rafa and their lovemaking sent squadrons of butterflies fluttering in her stomach.
‘Thanks Mum,’ she said, desperate to get rid of them. ‘Miranda. That was very … uplifting.’ Dismissed, the two women exchanged a look of fellow feeling and left.
When they closed the door behind them, Charlee let out a squee of excitement and then glanced over at the white linen bag hooked over the wardrobe - her wedding dress. There’d been a tussle over that, too, her mother wanting the full meringue and Charlee demanding something more befitting a country wedding.
If she’d had her way, they’d have sloped off to Chelsea Register Office and got married like a couple of sixties film stars, with only Poppy and Anastasia to act as witnesses. But Rafa had insisted on doing everything according to time-honoured tradition. He was his parents’ only child, and felt that he couldn’t cheat them out of the wedding. Charlee acquiesced, knowing she would happily have jumped over the broom and forgone all this brouhaha as long as it meant they would be married and stay together, forever.
‘Shar-lee, you look beautiful,’ Anastasia said, as Poppy - in her role as chief bridesmaid - fastened the simple wreath of flowers on Charlee’s head. The garland of flowers had been Anastasia’s idea and she’d trimmed it with ribbons which streamed down Charlee’s back, giving her wedding outfit an almost Ukrainian look.
‘Fabulous, Charl,’ Poppy agreed and the two girls stood back to get the full effect. Much to Charlee’s relief, Poppy and Anastasia had bonded over a mutual love of horses and the countryside. It seemed an unlikely match - a girl from Odessa and one raised in the Home Counties - but somehow it worked.
‘Flowers,’ Anastasia handed Charlee a hand tied bouquet which picked out colours in the ribbons and the blue in Charlee’s eyes.
‘Ring,’ Poppy said, holding out her hand for Granny’s ring which Charlee removed, reluctantly. Poppy wrapped it in some scented tissue paper and then put it carefully inside her silk reticule to return to Charlee after the ceremony.
‘God, you two are so bossy,’ Charlee complained, stepping forward to give them both a hug. Then she composed herself. ‘You can tell my father that I’m ready.’ For the first time that morning her voice quavered and she took in a deep breath. Poppy and Anastasia had sent Barbara, Miranda and Charlee’s four brothers off to church about fifteen minutes earlier. All that remained was for the four of them to walk the few hundred metres along the lane to the village church.
Her bridesmaids gave Charlee one last, satisfied look.
Her cream silk and taffeta dress was ballerina length but with a longer fishtail at the back, the whole dress was underlaid with a stiff net petticoat which kept the hem off the floor. The bodice, tight-fitting and sewn with tiny seed pearls, had a shawl collar which perfectly suited Charlee’s slim shoulders. At her throat was the string of pearls Rafa had given to her before leaving for the Walkers’ house the previous night. They’d been nestling in a heart-shaped red velvet box for many years and Rafa’s mother had had them cleaned and restrung for her son to give to his bride.
As Poppy and Anastasia helped her to slip on cream leather ballet flats, Charlee took a deep breath, closed her fist round the pearls and whispered: ‘I love you, Rafa Ffinch.’ Then, without a backwards glance, she closed the door on her childhood, forever, and followed the girls downstairs to join her father.
The R
ev Trev was standing at the side door to the church almost beside himself with anxiety when the four of them reached the church’s lychgate. The Montague brothers, Rafa’s Fonseca cousins and two of Anastasia’s minders were arguing with a group of paparazzi and holding them at bay. Rafa had suspected that a few might turn up at the wedding of the two reporters who’d smashed a drugs ring and - more importantly for the Sundays - had chosen Yevgeny Trushev’s supermodel girlfriend for a bridesmaid. As for Trushev - he’d seemingly vanished into thin air soon after the drugs bust at the boot camp and hadn’t been seen since. The smart money was on him lying somewhere on the bottom of the North Sea wearing concrete wellies, a present from the drugs cartel whose money he’d lost.
‘My, my, my,’ the Rev Trev stammered, shaking Henry Montague’s hand and then mopping his forehead with his surplice. ‘I didn’t realise just who would be at the wedding; I mean - Ambassador and Mrs Fonseca-Ffinch. Why did no one warn me?’
‘Well, they are Rafa’s parents,’ Poppy pointed out.
‘I should have asked the bishop to officiate.’ He fingered the silken edge of his stole, clearly believing that he’d dropped a clanger.
‘I wanted you, Rev Trev,’ Charlee said sincerely, laying her hand on his arm. ‘This church and all my friends and family. Not some crusty old bishop who’d no doubt feel obliged to preach a sermon to a captive audience when everyone is desperate to get to the champagne and canapés.’
‘Quite,’ her father said with finality. ‘Shall we? Boys!’ He waved the Montagues and the Fonsecas forward. The men were standing goggled-eyed at the collective loveliness of Poppy (who the Montague brothers had previously thought of as a horse-mad teenager in jodhpurs and smelling slightly of manure); and Anastasia - who looked tall and lovely in a matching deep-blue satin dress overlaid with cream lace.
The ushers and the Rev Trev slipped away and after a few moments the organ struck up ‘The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’. Charlee and her father stepped over the threshold and into the church. The congregation got to their feet and tried their hardest not to glance over their shoulders as the bride processed up the aisle.
Charlee was oblivious to it all. The colours, the scent of dust and hymn books undercut by roses and lilies, the light streaming through the stained glass window and the choir waiting for the first hymn. Her attention was focused on the red carpet leading to the nave where a broad-shouldered man in a morning suit was waiting. The man she loved above all others. For a moment she faltered, lost step with the music, and then she was by Rafa’s side and he was looking at her as if all his Christmases had come at once.
‘I love you,’ he mouthed, making Charlee’s heart flip over and her hands shake so much that she feared she’d drop her bouquet. Smiling, but feeling a little unsteady, she handed it to Poppy. Henry Montague took a step back because Charlee had declared she was no man’s property to be ‘given away’. She’d given herself to Rafa and that was enough. There was a general rumble as the congregation sat back in the pews and the ceremony began with the time-honoured words:
‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today …’
Rafa searched for Charlee’s right hand, linking his fingers through hers. The words of the marriage service echoed round the tiny church and on the longest day of the year, in high summer, Charlee and Rafa were wed.
A huge marquee had been erected in the Montague’s orchard. Charlee and Rafa stood in the receiving line as friends and family shuffled past amidst kisses and well wishes. Rafa’s Brazilian cousins waited their turn and then solemnly kissed the back of Charlee’s hands before turning their attention to Rafa, slapping him on the back and digging him in the ribs.
They wished him a bawdy night of love (in Portuguese) and said how they envied him having the lovely Carlotta in his bed. Charlee laughed and Rafa whispered to his cousins that Charlee spoke fluent Portuguese and had understood every word. They fell over themselves apologising but Rafa waved them away.
‘I agree with all of your sentiments. I am a lucky son of a -’ Charlee dug him in the ribs as an aged aunt, wearing what looked like a lopsided turban, stood in line to give them a whiskery kiss. Rafa caught Charlee’s hand and pulled her closer into his side, whispering what he was going to do to her when they were alone. Charlee, storing up her mother’s ‘give in gracefully’ comment for later, pretended outrage at what he was proposing.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, be upstanding for Mr and Mrs Rafael Fonseca-Ffinch,’ Charlee’s father said, and they took their place at the top table amid applause from the assembled guests.
Later on, after the first dance - which was not ‘I Like Big Butts and I Cannot Lie’ - Charlee cornered Rafa and demanded to know where they were going on honeymoon. A trip to establish the Elena and Allesandro Foundation for Street Children in Bogota (with a generous donation from Anastasia) had been arranged for the near future. Fitted in, that is, between interviews about their coup on the marshes - once the case was no longer sub judice - and after-dinner talks to raise money for the foundation. There was even word of them co-authoring a book based on their experiences.
Life was good.
But that all lay in the future. Tonight, was just about the two of them. Charlee had been instructed to pack a holdall with some casual clothes. Puzzled, she’d obeyed. Anastasia and Poppy would pack her suitcases with her trousseau and drive them to the airport in two days’ time when she and Rafa would fly off to somewhere ‘hot’.
That was all he’d tell her, for now.
At four o’clock, Rafa’s navy-blue and white camper van was waiting on the drive, tied up with yards of white ribbon which was finished in a large bow over the nose. Some wag had stuck their names onto the windscreen - Carlotta and Rafa - and they laughed, remembering Christmas Eve when Charlee’d suggested the selfsame thing and Rafa hadn’t found it in the least bit funny.
‘Shall we, Mrs Fonseca-Ffinch?’ Rafa asked.
Realising she was still holding her bouquet, Charlee turned her back on her friends and family and tossed it in the air. To everyone’s bemusement it was caught by the ancient aunt wearing the lopsided turban. Tutting, Miranda snatched it from her and handed it back to Charlee for a second attempt (which was probably unlucky) but no one seemed to mind. There was a great whoop as it was caught by Poppy Walker this time. Was it Charlee’s imagination or did her brother Tom sidle closer to Poppy’s side?
Amid tears, kisses and ribald comments in Portuguese, Charlee and Rafa climbed into the VW and drove down the lane and towards the M25.
‘Where are we going?’ Charlee asked, but Rafa wouldn’t be moved.
‘Wait and see,’ he said. ‘You won’t be disappointed.’
Charlee put her hand on his right thigh and gave it an affectionate squeeze before moving it higher. Rafa put his hand over hers and held it there so he could concentrate on his driving. Charlee suddenly burst out laughing.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘I was just thinking of the old joke. You know - the one where a woman hitches a lift off a complete stranger and then reveals that she’s a witch. The man doesn’t believe her until …’
‘She puts her hand on his knee and turns him into a lay-by?’ Rafa stole the punchline. ‘That joke might be truer than you imagine, Carlotta,’ he added with a cryptic smile.
‘What does that mean?’ Charlee asked, settling down for the magical mystery tour to where they would be spending their wedding night.
It was almost ten o’clock when they drove into Thornham but, on the longest day of the year, it was still light. Ffinch made his way past The Ship Inn, so clearly they weren’t staying there, and towards Thornham Staithe and the Coal Shed. He pulled up on the hard standing, where other camper vans were parked for the night, watching the sun setting over the pine plantation and waiting for the highest tide of the year to maroon them, temporarily.
Charlee got out stiff-legged. ‘Rafa Ffinch, are you telling me that we’re spending our first night as man and wife in a camper van on
the Norfolk marshes?’ she demanded, hands on hips.
‘I am,’ he said unrepentantly, ‘and you only have yourself to blame.’
‘I do?’
‘Remember the afternoon when you came along the edge of the marshes from the boot camp?’ He climbed out of the van and joined her over by the sluice gates, looking towards Thornham Beach.
‘I do. You had the curtains closed and were having a brew up, as I remember. I was doing all the hard work; all the dangerous stuff while you were dunking a tea bag and reading the paper, at your ease.’
‘Hardly at my ease.’ He turned her round so she was leaning against the fence, wrapped his arms around her and gave her a passionate kiss. ‘I watched you coming along the path and I knew then that I would never willingly let you out of sight - or my life.’
‘You were so grumpy that afternoon,’ she said, pulling away from him slightly. ‘I felt like walking out of the van and leaving you to stew. It didn’t occur to me until later that you might not turn up, might leave me in the lurch.’
‘I was grumpy,’ he admitted, ‘but I’ll never let you down, Carlotta. I give you my word.’ Oblivious of the other campers who were sitting outside their vans enjoying the longest day of the year, he kissed her again, and then grinned. ‘Sexual frustration.’
‘What about it?’
‘A bad case of it. I kept cursing myself for being noble and returning you to your room two nights previously. That afternoon, I wanted nothing more than to convert the back of the van into a bedroom, draw the curtains and -’
‘I felt exactly the same,’ Charlee laughed at the memory. ‘But I thought you were mad at me because I hadn’t managed to get any photographs of Anastasia.’
‘At that point, Carlotta, I would have exchanged the mission’s success for half an hour in the Vee Dubbya with you.’ He sent her a passionate look, his eyes appearing almost wolf-grey in the long twilight.
