Come Away With Me

by Maddie Please

  Mary Dell was the sort of shop I thought had disappeared years ago along with milliners, corsetieres and furriers. There were some dull-looking wedding dresses in the window, protected from the non-existent sunlight by blinds made from orange cellophane.

  ‘I can’t go in here,’ I said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s the sort of place Mum would go in. No, Grandma. And come to think of it she’d probably be pretty reluctant.’

  ‘Well, yes, after all she died fifteen years ago –’

  ‘Yes, okay, Miss Pedantic.’

  Inside there was a slightly strange-looking woman dressed in a dark blue dress with pins stuck into a pincushion on her wrist. Behind her was a terrifying woman in black with a tape measure around her neck and Miss Dell on her name badge.

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’ Miss Dell asked.

  ‘No, sorry, I didn’t know …’

  ‘Hmm.’

  She looked into a large green leather diary on a shelf behind the till and riffled through a few pages making annoyed noises.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked at last.

  I bit back the impulse to ask for cod and chips twice.

  ‘A bridesmaid’s dress. For me. The wedding is three weeks today. Sorry.’

  Miss Dell ruffled through a few more pages and huffed a bit while the woman in the dark blue dress dusted a china cake topping of a startled groom and watched me over the top of her glasses.

  ‘Well, it’s not very convenient,’ Miss Dell said, ‘but typical I suppose.’

  I was hustled into the fitting rooms with all speed in case I was planning to escape and encouraged out of my jeans and shirt and into what Miss Dell described as a modesty robe. As I did so I fell back several decades.

  Outside the fitting room India sat on the brocade chair trying not to snort with laughter, her ankles neatly crossed like a 1950s model.

  Far from sneering at my figure, Miss Dell was, in her own way, rather excited.

  ‘Hmm. It makes a change,’ she said, writing down a few alarming-looking numbers. Were those my measurements or was she playing bingo?

  ‘I have something somewhere,’ she said at long last. ‘You should have come in months ago. We could have made something more …’ She waved her hands, trying to express something.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, chastened. ‘I was hoping to lose weight. I kept putting it off.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  At last she said she had a couple of ideas and was going to look for something but first she sent her assistant off to the other room. The woman wandered off and Miss Dell closed the door firmly behind her. Evidently we could not be left alone with her, but whether she was concerned about our safety or her colleague’s I wasn’t sure. Then she went upstairs and left India and me sitting looking at each other.

  ‘What do you think she’s gone to look for?’ India hissed.

  ‘Heaven knows. A length of rope and some gaffer tape?’

  ‘And what do you think is in the other room?’

  ‘A spare bridegroom? A fossilised cake covered in cobwebs?’

  I pulled the modesty robe around myself a bit tighter and India went to look at the eclectic mix of bridal ephemera laid out on the glass shelves behind the till.

  ‘Look, a tiara! Who was it who said you had the face for a tiara? Someone on the ship, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Put it down!’ I hissed. ‘She’ll be back in a minute and she’ll catch you!’

  ‘Are you sure you couldn’t get into that pink dress in Monsoon?’ India said. ‘It was so pretty.’

  ‘Not unless I can organise a breast reduction in the next couple of weeks,’ I said, trying on the tiara and squinting at my reflection. ‘Or I don’t mind every bloke in the reception staring at my chest all evening.’

  ‘Well, it’s a reasonable question. Would you?’

  ‘Yes, I would, India,’ I replied.

  ‘God, you’re so difficult sometimes.’

  Miss Dell was coming back downstairs so we both straightened up like a couple of naughty children. She was holding several dresses over one arm.

  ‘I have four,’ she said, ‘and a small bet with myself.’

  ‘Whether they’ll fit or not?’ I said.

  ‘Hmm. Which one you’ll buy. Of course they’ll fit.’

  And they did.

  In fact two of them were rather lovely and in the end we chose a blue one that was floor-length, with lacy sleeves and a floating satin ribbon bow on the back. The most exciting part was it was a size twelve.

  I gasped with excitement on seeing this. Miss Dell fixed me with a beady eye.

  ‘Of course it’s a US size,’ she said with a humorous twist to her mouth. ‘You mustn’t look at labels.’

  I started trying to work this out and quickly decided it would be to my disadvantage so I stopped thinking about it.

  We watched as the silent woman in dark blue reappeared and packaged the dress into several layers of tissue and then stuffed it unceremoniously into a crumpled supermarket carrier.

  ‘Right,’ India said a few minutes later when we stood outside the shop, ‘we deserve a drink. How about a cocktail?’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Especial Day

  Blackberries, Rum, Martini Rosso, Pineapple Juice, Crème de Mure, Bitters

  The week before India’s wedding day I descended into a funny sort of mood. Obviously I was thrilled for my sister and loved seeing her so happy, but at the same time I felt quite numb inside. Just sad I suppose.

  I’d spent quite a long time looking at that selfie of me with Gabriel, wondering what he had been thinking and why he had sought me out for those magical few days. But of course life had carried on. There was always work, there would always be irritating clients and unexpected successes, but for the first time in a long time I wasn’t fretting, nagging or overeating. Even with the wedding coming up, India was working harder and not making as many mistakes. Maybe we’d both needed a holiday to come back and feel fresh. It was almost fun working with her in the office now. Tim seemed happier too since India and I weren’t sniping at each other over doughnuts.

  My parents came home from Australia with sunburnt arms and all sorts of tales. Mum seemed especially surprised to find no mess in the house and pretty much all of her food still exactly where she’d put it. India and Jerry bickered happily about his stag weekend in Wolverhampton (no, I’ve no idea why he went there either), there were last-minute hitches and choices to be made about the wedding. The traumatic decisions regarding hairstyles and shoes. None of it seemed to touch me deep inside. It was as though I was pining.

  Yes, that was it – I was pining for Gabriel.

  How ridiculous. I wasn’t thirteen and in the throes of my first crush; I was nearly thirty and behaving like a complete prat.

  I owed it to India to buck up a bit and join in. I would not think about Gabriel Frost again. I would jam my memories of him into a metaphorical canvas bag and sling it somewhere deep and dark. To make up for my neglect I made her take a few extra days off work so she could get her head around things and really concentrate on the last-minute wedding details.

  Charlie Smith-Rivers from the Exeter office oiled his way over the Wednesday before the wedding. He was due to take over from me for a couple of days anyway, and he never missed an opportunity to: 1) stress his importance in helping out the ‘girls’ and 2) stare at my chest.

  ‘So you’ll be next,’ Charlie said smoothly.

  ‘Next what?’ I asked distractedly as I searched for a brochure on my tidy but somehow still not perfectly ordered desk.

  I’d been stressing about some floor plans all week. Never particularly accurate, it was a wonder the clients hadn’t dispensed with our services. I wasn’t in the mood for Charlie’s banter.

  ‘Next into the blessed institution.’

  ‘You’re going into a home?’ I said, being deliberately difficult.

  ‘No, the institution of marriage,’ he said pa
tiently.

  I waited, resigned, for the punchline, which wasn’t long in coming.

  ‘But who wants to live in an institution? Hahaha! Twenty-eight years I’ve been married to the little girlie. Or it might be twenty-nine. The Great Train Robbers got less.’

  God, Charlie, don’t give up the day job.

  ‘I can’t understand why a lovely girl like you hasn’t been snapped up long ago,’ he continued, rubbing his hands together. ‘I can’t think what the matter is with young men today.’

  ‘Me neither, Charlie,’ I retorted.

  ‘So, not got any nice young chap to take to the wedding as your plus-one?’

  Why were people so obsessed with this? Why did it matter if I went on my own?

  ‘No, I’m in charge of three flower girls,’ I said. ‘That’s far more fun than watching some random boyfriend get plastered, isn’t it?’

  ‘If you say so.’

  Charlie went and looked out of the window at the traffic.

  ‘What happened to that chap you were shacked up with? Jack or Jim?’

  ‘Ryan,’ I said, bristling a little at the term shacked up, which we weren’t because I never moved in with him.

  ‘That’s the fellow.’

  ‘He wanted to marry me but I said no. So the next day he went and walked into the sea off Woolacombe.’

  Charlie wheeled round. ‘Good God, really?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ I nodded, keeping my face as honest as possible.

  ‘What a dreadful tragedy!’

  ‘No, not really. He did have a wetsuit and surfboard at the time.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Behind him Tim snorted his amusement and I carried on typing at high speed, hoping to put Charlie off. By the middle of the afternoon I’d had enough and was checking my watch every five minutes.

  Even Charlie noticed.

  ‘Look, why don’t you hop off home? I’m sure there must be lots to do. I’ll hold the fort for the last hour or so.’

  ‘Would you?’ I felt a sudden burst of relief; perhaps I should try and be nicer to him. ‘Really?’

  ‘Sure, off you go. I mean I’m sure you have things to try on –’ he looked a bit misty-eyed for a moment ‘– stockings and the like.’

  I collected my things together and put my coat on. Outside the afternoon was dark and miserable with rain pelting down the window. What had possessed India to have a wedding in December?

  As I opened the door to leave, the phone on my desk rang and I hesitated.

  Charlie waved me off. ‘I’ll get that, don’t give it a thought.’

  He picked up my extension. ‘Fisher Estate Agents, Charles Smith-Rivers speaking, how can I help? Yes, that’s right. Yes, she does. Yes, indeed. No, can I help?’

  I raised my eyebrows at him and he imperiously waved me away again with his spare hand, mouthing it’s okay. So I opened my umbrella and fled.

  *

  The weather on India’s wedding day was slightly better but we still woke to grey skies and blustery winds. Thank heavens India had been talked out of having a marquee on the lawn or we would have been chasing it down the valley as it ripped from its moorings. Anyway, The Manor House was all ready for us and the church was decorated with as many hothouse flowers as the florists could jam into it. All we had to do was get India to the church.

  Luckily the ceremony wasn’t until two-thirty because, as I’ve said, India is not a morning person. We’d been up quite late too as she’d decided she wanted us to share a room on her last night of freedom. Her words not mine. You would have thought she was going to prison in the morning, not getting married.

  After we had spent an hour trying to remember India’s past boyfriends in chronological order, she decided she needed some champagne ‘to help her sleep’ and crept downstairs to find some. She returned a few minutes later with two glasses and a bottle with a very important-looking orange label that I’m sure she shouldn’t have taken.

  ‘I think it’s about time you got married too,’ India said a few minutes later.

  ‘Okay, I’ll try harder,’ I said with a laugh.

  India sipped her champagne and looked thoughtful.

  ‘I know I’ve been a cow to you sometimes. I don’t mean it, not really. You’ve been a great sister.’ She sniffled a bit at this as if she was getting emotional. Perhaps it was the champagne. ‘I mean I’ll never forget that fight you had with Lou Beddard, remember? When she chucked my packed lunch on to the gym roof.’

  ‘Lou Beddard?’

  ‘You must remember! I was in year eight. She’d been making my life a misery for ages until you sorted her out. My friends thought you were like a god.’

  ‘Lou Beddard?’

  ‘In my year, spotty, incredibly hairy legs and arms. When we went into summer uniform she looked like a werewolf in a frock. And I’m sorry about that time when I locked you in the cupboard under the stairs.’

  ‘That was about twenty years ago,’ I said. ‘I’d forgotten that.’

  ‘I know, and I’m sorry. And I did lose the bits out of your Polly Pocket.’

  ‘You swore you didn’t!’

  ‘Well, I did,’ India confessed.

  I thought about it. ‘If we’re in the mood for confessions, remember your imitation pink pearl necklace?’

  ‘Yes, I never did find out what happened to it.’

  ‘The string broke and I hid the beads under the carpet in the spare room,’ I said.

  ‘You rat! You swore blind you didn’t take it! I thought so!’

  We sat in silence for a few minutes and then India hopped out of bed and went to fetch something from the wardrobe. She handed me a carrier bag inside which was something wrapped in tissue paper.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘I thought you should wear this tomorrow. You’re supposed to give the bridesmaids something, aren’t you? I saw it in the shop where we bought your bridesmaid’s dress and I remembered what Ike said. Or was it Marion?’

  I unwrapped the parcel. I gasped. It was a tiara. Quite small and pretty with a fair amount of twinkle involved and two tiny enamelled bluebirds in the middle.

  ‘Oh gosh, Indie, thank you!’ I put it on and went to admire it in the dressing table mirror.

  ‘It suits you.’ India giggled. ‘Especially with your Bagpuss pyjamas.’

  ‘Perhaps I should wear these tomorrow?’

  ‘Perhaps you should!’

  ‘Thank you!’ I was quite overwhelmed for a moment.

  I went across to give India a hug, both of us rather stiff and a bit awkward. It felt nice, like it should feel when you hug your sister, and we both laughed.

  ‘S’okay,’ India said.

  I got back into bed still wearing it.

  ‘So. Are you ever going to tell me what happened at Laura’s party, with Ryan?’

  I don’t know what made me ask it, but somewhere deep inside I still needed to know. I’d been so mad at her after Ryan had said she’d made a pass at him, but now I could see how stupid that was. He was a lying, cheating bastard. Why should I ever have trusted him?

  India paused, her mouth open.

  ‘He made a pass at me. He did a bit of back rubbing, you know? The way he did? And then stuck his tongue down my throat and his hand up my skirt. He really was a shit. What did you see in him?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘And what about Gabriel Frost?’ she asked, a cheeky grin in place.

  I tried to sound vague. ‘What about him?’

  ‘He was nice. I don’t know what might have happened that day with Liam if he hadn’t been there. You liked him too, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ I said, topping up her glass and wondering how to change the subject.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Not your fault. What’s important is that you and Jerry are happy.’

  ‘Oh, we will be happy,’ India said confidently, draining her glass. ‘I’ve no doubt about that.’

  We settled
down to sleep soon after that. Just before I fell asleep India rustled about for a bit, and I could tell by her breathing she was still awake.

  ‘I do love you,’ she said, very quietly.

  And I smiled. Yep, we were sisters and nothing was going to change that.

  *

  The following morning I dragged her out of bed at seven o’clock and she went to shower and pull her dressing gown on before the hairdresser arrived with enough boxes of brushes, rollers and hairpins to style the Miss World entrants.

  ‘I can’t think straight,’ India said. ‘I’m starving but I can’t eat anything. Do you think this is last-minute nerves?’

  ‘Yes, probably.’ I was trowelling on my make-up in an attempt to look less weary. ‘I pity your poor husband; you snore like a rhinoceros.’

  ‘Ha! You can talk,’ India said.

  I thought about this as I layered on mascara. I stopped and looked rather sadly at my reflection. Maybe my lack of self-discipline and untidiness and general sloppiness regarding getting the ironing done was too much for any man to tolerate? Perhaps Marnie’s Spring-Cleaning business had something going for it. But on the other hand …

  I took stock. I was okay – I think I was anyway. If I snored and couldn’t get to the bottom of the ironing basket, so what? If I didn’t always make my bed properly and was a teeny bit overweight then so be it. It meant there was more of me to love. I was me: unstructured, a bit crackers, prone to excessive chocolate consumption on occasion, and well known for crying at Christmas films.

  This was going to be an exciting and happy day. Today was my sister’s wedding. I was going to be her bridesmaid and chief helper. For the first time in years we were getting along. I just needed to keep it all together. I had flower girls to marshal. I had a nice blue dress to wear that flattered my figure and hid the damage caused to it on the Reine de France. Lots of our friends and relations were going to be there. It was quite possible some of them wouldn’t ask why I wasn’t married yet. There was going to be cake. (Albeit slightly bashed about. We’d had to repair it when it fell over in the van on the way to The Manor House, crushing some of the sugar roses.) I did not need to obsessively google Marnie Miller any more to find out what she was doing (holidaying in Gstaad). I had absolutely no need to look at the picture of Gabriel Frost on my phone again.