by Agatha Frost
“You got me something?” Dot pushed up her curls at the back.
“Of course!” Percy announced with a flourish. “How could I not get the most beautiful woman in the whole village a gift befitting her? Are you ready?”
Dot nodded and looked at the sack on the floor, but it was empty. Percy started clicking behind Dot’s ears, producing silver coins and then making them disappear.
“Wait, has he been practising?” Barker whispered to Julia. “That’s actually quite good.”
Julia was equally impressed by Percy’s sudden showmanship. She watched as the coins disappeared and reappeared, wondering how he was performing the trick. At the moment when Dot seemed to be growing tired with the clicking next to her ears, Percy clicked one final time, producing a diamond ring.
“What is happening right now?” Sue squealed, half standing up in her chair.
“Dorothy South.” Percy dropped to one knee, his tone serious and steady. “These past two months with you have been the happiest of my life. I know this is sudden, and I know it probably seems a bit silly at our age, but hell, if everyone else can do it, why can’t we? Throw caution to the wind, I say. We might not have long left, but I know I want to spend however many days I have right by your side. I can’t promise you a lifetime because I don’t have one left, but I can promise you the rest of my life. Dorothy South, I love you. What do you say? Will you be my wife?”
Julia’s hand clasped over her mouth as she stared at her gran. All the air sucked from the room, and not a sound could be heard. Dot appeared frozen in time, her mouth agape as she stared at the ring.
“Yes,” Dot said finally, followed by a small girlish laugh. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
It was Jessie of all people who jumped up and started clapping. Julia couldn’t help but join. Tears streamed down her face as she watched Percy slide the shiny ring onto Dot’s wrinkled finger. Julia turned to Sue, who was sobbing into a Christmas napkin. Even Brian and Katie were shedding tears.
“Did I just dream that?” Barker hooked his thumb over his shoulder.
“I don’t think you did.” Julia shook her head. “My eighty-four-year-old grandmother is getting married.”
“All right, Percy,” Dot ordered. “You can get up. I said yes!”
“I don’t think I can, dear.” He waved his hands. “I appear to be stuck down here. Old bones, you see!”
Alfie and Barker jumped up and hoisted Percy to his feet. When he was upright again, he caught his balance and produced a piece of mistletoe from thin air. He held it above his fiancée’s head, and they shared a kiss.
“To Gran and Percy!” Sue held her glass of buck’s fizz in the air. “And I thought we couldn’t top last Christmas with the twins coming and Barker proposing to Julia, but here we are, an octogenarian engagement! Now that is something you don’t see every day.”
“And I have more good news!” Percy announced. “The remnants of the Peridale Harmonics Choir met last night, and they voted for me to be the new leader! My first job is to recruit some new members, so what do you say, folks? Are you all on board?”
“Actually, Percy, I think I’m going to have to quit.” Alfie rose his hand in the air. “The whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth.”
“Me too, dear,” Dot said as she stared at her glittering ring. “I’ll happily cheer you on from the sidelines as your wife, but I think my singing days are well behind me!”
“What about your Miss Singing Peridale 1953 title?” Julia asked. “Would she ever stop singing?”
“About that.” Dot pushed up her curls as her eyelids fluttered. “I may have won that by default because there were only two entrants and the other girl wet herself on stage and ran off before finishing her song.”
“Gran…” Sue sighed. “You were so proud of that title.”
“I still won the money, dear!” Dot announced. “‘Don’t cry for me, Argentina!’”
Julia sipped her buck’s fizz and choked when she noticed it was only a couple of minutes to two.
“Everyone up!” she announced after slapping the table. “The excitement isn’t over yet. We all need to get across to the church right now!”
“The church?” Dot sighed. “I’ve spent enough time in there lately. You’re not making us sit through one of those boring Christmas services, are you?”
“No,” Julia said, grabbing Barker’s hand. “We’re getting married.”
“Married?” Sue cried. “But—but—the dress, the flowers, the reception—I’m wearing a Christmas jumper! What are you talking about?”
“We don’t need any of that stuff,” Julia said as she looked into Barker’s eyes. “All that matters is that there’s a man who wants to marry a woman and woman who wants to marry a man. What’s more fitting than marrying on the one-year anniversary of our engagement? Now, chop-chop everyone! Father David is waiting.”
“Let me grab my hat!” Dot announced.
“Leave it!” Julia cried, grabbing her gran’s hand. “We’re all going as we are, and that includes you, Santa.”
Julia and Barker led the way across the village green to the church. Dot and Percy’s promised snowstorm had yet to hit the country, but the weather was cold enough to chill Julia, wearing only the simple dress she had dug out of her wardrobe. She had considered bringing her wedding dress with her. Jessie had secretly had it dry cleaned, but it felt wrong to repeat the occasion in that dress. That was then, and this was now, and she finally understood what a wedding was about: the marriage of two people.
“We thought you’d chickened out!” Roxy exclaimed, shivering in the vestibule with Johnny and Leah. “Come on, bride! Let’s get this over with before the fat lady sings again.”
Without pomp or extravagance, they made their way down the aisle in one collective group. Halfway down, Julia’s father looped his arm through hers. She smiled up at him, feeling worlds apart from how she’d felt the first time. The quivering, nervous wreck of a bride had been replaced with a determined and confident woman about to marry the man she loved.
“Ah, here you are!” Father David clapped his hands together when he saw them. “Is everyone here?”
Julia looked around the church. She had her family and her friends right by her side. She looked down at her pearl engagement ring, and then up at the ceiling. She knew her mother was there too.
“Everyone that matters,” Julia said. “Let’s do this.”
Father David grinned throughout the entire service. Tears flowed freely as Julia and Barker exchanged vows. Julia cried too, but they were more tears of relief that her wedding was finally happening for real.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife!” Father David cried, his voice bellowing around the empty church. “You can now kiss the bride.”
As Julia and Barker shared their first kiss as a married couple, applause to rival a stadium full of people filled the room. A weight vanished from Julia’s shoulders, and when she opened her eyes, she smiled wider than she ever had, glad she wasn’t dreaming.
“Any regrets?” Barker whispered.
“Not one,” Julia replied, her fingers locked behind his head. “Now give me another kiss, husband.”
After signing the marriage certificate, everyone insisted on taking pictures on their phones to immortalise the moment. Once they’d posed in various groups, Julia and Barker walked down the aisle hand in hand as husband and wife. They walked through the front doors, and Julia gasped when she saw soft flakes of snow drifting from the pale sky.
“Would you look at that,” Dot said. “Someone is looking down on you, Julia.”
“Thanks, Mum,” Julia whispered to the sky.
They stood in the snow for a moment and let the first flakes of the year powder their hair.
“What now?” Jessie asked.
“We go back and enjoy Christmas,” Julia said, squeezing Barker’s hand. “What do you say, husband?”
“Sounds like a plan to me, wife.”
And
with that, they all trekked back to Dot’s cottage to spend the rest of the day in front of the television with great food and even better company—the only way Christmas should be spent.
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Also by Agatha Frost
The Peridale Cafe Series
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