by Claire Allan
“We will talk about this,” I said.
“Maybe later. Surely you have shopping to do? I mean, I know we were supposed to choose the shoes together but I got here early and had a look around – so now I feel I’ve robbed you of your shopping experience. So, my dear, I thought we could have a quick look at some bridesmaid dresses!”
I almost yelped in delight before remembering my face was a little sallow from the after-effects of my four glasses of wine the night before and my serious lack of sleep. Not to mention my hair still had that bird’s-nest quality about it which was deeply unattractive. I could have said no, but Fionn looked so excited and, damn it, dress-shopping was exciting even if I did look like crap.
“Oh, you say the nicest things,” I grinned and we headed in the direction of a local bridal shop where we hoped to bagsy a viewing of the very, very pretty dresses without an appointment. We had already discussed what we wanted and thankfully Fionn was not of the opinion I should look like a total feckwit and had imagined me sailing up the aisle behind her in a Sex and the City type creation – gloriously stylish and a wee bit sexy.
But I was open to trying anything on, well, at least anything that was not meringue-looking in design or quality. Thankfully the shop assistants were agreeable to our request – probably due to Fionn spending a small mortgage on her own frock there –and we were taken to a gorgeously opulent changing room where a rack of dresses was placed in front of me.
The same exceptionally enthusiastic sales assistant who had sold Fionn her dress tended to us and smiled sweetly as she looked me up and down.
“A Size 14,” she declared.
“Size 12,” I corrected. I was very proud of my Size 12 self. I worked hard at it. You couldn’t date a chef for several years and not have to work hard at burning off all the nice food – not to mention the increasing quantity of wine you drank to get through the increasingly boring dates you shared with him.
“Ah, but bridesmaid dresses are cut smaller,” she said. “You always go a size up.”
“Well, in that case let’s just call it Size 12 and ignore what the labels say,” I said, not sure if the assistant was just trying to make me feel like a heifer. I wanted to tell her I was a very sexy woman actually and that my curves were amazing – and that a very hunky (if hairy) man had told me that just last night. But I decided to keep my smugness to myself and just show her instead how fabulous I could look in a satin gown.
“Well,” I said to Fionn, “anything take your fancy?”
She fingered her way along to rack, a look of complete concentration on her face. “I like this colour,” she eventually said, lifting out a champagne creation in finest duchesse satin and silk. I almost fainted at the very beauty of it.
“Oooooh!” was all I could manage in place of an intelligent response as she held it up against me and stood back to admire it.
“Try it on,” she said, and I didn’t need asking twice.
The sales assistant directed me to a small cubicle and handed me the dress before turning her back and starting to chat to Fionn about the plethora of accessories she could sell her which would add, no doubt, to the mammoth commission she had already earned from my friend.
I slipped my clothes off and slipped the dress on. It was strapless and boned – holding me firmly in all the right places and showing off my definitely Size 12 curves as perfectly as possible. The skirt spread out in a stylish A-line below the waist – which was decorated with a thin satin belt and gorgeously ornate corsage. Stopping just at the knee, it looked as if it had been made just for me and when I saw myself in the mirror I could not help but smile. I looked good – really good – even though the canvas on which I had thrown this work of art was a complete wreck at that moment.
I pulled back the curtain with a joyous “Ta-daa!” and watched as the sales assistant went into over-excited overdrive and Fionn burst into a flood of tears. And I knew they weren’t happy tears. They were the tears of someone having a crisis. Believe me, I knew from experience that she was not a happy camper.
The sales assistant looked vaguely horrified, reached for a box of tissues and handed them over silently. She was clearly not used to negative emotion in her shop so she nervously excused herself, telling us to take our time and suggesting we try on another few dresses before making any decision. The cynic in me was sure that was her delicate way of telling me to change out of the dress before letting Fionn snotter all over it – but Fionn was clearly in need and there was no way I wasn’t going to run straight to her aid – fancy dress or no.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, sitting her down on the plush velvet sofa across the room.
She shook her head and sobbed loudly.
“You know you can tell me,” I said. “Is it Alex? Is it fecking Rebecca? Or is it just that I look so much more amazing than you could ever have imagined in this dress and you now know that I’ll be the best-looking girl there on the day?”
I should have known that it was not the best time to try and inject some humour into the situation. She sobbed all the louder, like she was actually in physical pain, and I started to get really worried.
“There might not be a day,” she stuttered.
“What?”
“There might not be a da-ay,” she sobbed again, her voice breaking further. “All this – dresses and pink shoes and everything – could all be for feck all. There might not be a wedding. I’m not even sure there’ll still be an Alex and me any more . . .”
I caught a glance of myself in the full-length mirror across the room. There was me in the most beautiful dress in the world ever, with my jaw almost touching the floor. Seriously, the shocked expression on my face was almost of cartoon proportions. I looked ridiculous. And beside me I could see a woman in contortions of agony at whatever crap thing had just happened in her relationship.
Alex and Fionn were in trouble – this was not good. This was not good at all.
As suspected, Rebecca was involved. I managed to drag that from Fionn after ten minutes of sobbing had subsided. I had rubbed her hand for five minutes, then changed from the dress (a wee bit reluctantly) and escorted her to a nearby coffee shop which was thankfully still quiet.
“She doesn’t want us to get married,” she said. “She told Alex last night that there was no way she was going to change her shift patterns so we could go on honeymoon without Emma. She told him that if I wanted to be the ‘perfect little mammy’ I’d have to get used to Emma being around. But, Annie, it’s not like I’m not used to it, is it?” She looked at me for reassurance that she was indeed a good mammy-in-training.
“Of course you’re used to it,” I replied.
“And the thing is, whatever way she talked to him, he agreed with her. He asked me would it be so bad if Emma did come with us and then I felt like a complete cow because, yes, it would be so bad. We have little enough time together anyway. And then he said I knew all along he came with baggage –”
“Aye, a big baggage called Rebecca,” I interjected, increasingly angry with the woman who was scuppering what should have been the happiest ending in history.
“I told him I loved Emma,” Fionn went on, “but that I loved him more – and that was, apparently, the very worst thing I could have said because I should love her as much. And I do love her – just not the same way.”
“You’d be arrested if you did,” I said with a small smile and this at least made Fionn laugh – well, more burst into a funny mixture of laughing and crying all at once. The noise made the old woman drinking tea across the shop look around, very alarmed, and almost choke on her fruit scone.
“So he said that if I didn’t love Emma and couldn’t accept her as part of his life, then maybe we shouldn’t be getting married and he stormed out. When he came back he slept in the spare room. He never sleeps in the spare room. And I’m wondering how on earth we can fix it, and how on earth we reached a stage where he ever questioned my commitment to his daughter. For the love of God, I have
almost maxed out my credit card on Hannah Montana goodies for her. I know all the words to the ‘High School Musical’ songs and, let’s not forget, my choice of wedding dress has been largely influenced by the Little fecking Mermaid!”
I nodded and listened as best I could. There was only one answer to her question. There was only one reason that Alex was questioning how his fiancée felt about him and his daughter. And that reason was a loud-mouthed freaky nurse bitch called Rebecca.
“Oh Fionn, I don’t really know what to say. Is there anything you want me to do?”
“I’m not sure there is anything you can do. I’m not sure there is anything anyone can do. If I thought it was as simple as saying, yes, Emma can come on honeymoon with us, I would – even if I wouldn’t have him to myself. But then I have a feeling Rebecca would just think of something else. And what annoys me most about it is that he believes her. He sees what I’m like with his daughter but he believes her anyway.” Fionn sighed shakily and took a sip of tea.
I have to admit I was pretty pissed off at Alex myself – but not half as much as I was pissed off at Rebecca. I’d only met her once – at Emma’s birthday party. She was nothing much to write home about. She had a good enough figure. Her hair was kind of shiny but she had a face that looked as if she was permanently really, really annoyed about something. Even when she was smiling she had a vague look of ‘I could kill you any minute’ about her. She had been perfectly pleasant that day – and I could tell she was a good mum but I wasn’t buying it, not for one second, that Alex meant nothing to her. Fionn had told me that Emma was conceived after a few fumbles between her mummy and daddy and that they probably wouldn’t still be in touch if they weren’t tied together by the existence of a precocious five-year-old. But I saw that day how Rebecca looked at Alex. I saw how she referred to all their joint experiences over and over again, as if to assert her ownership of him. If Fionn mentioned their engagement, Rebecca was able to segue that into a conversation about how Alex had mopped her brow as her perineum split in the throes of labour. You had to admire that – the ability to equate a romantic proposal in Venice to the tearing of human flesh and pooping on the delivery table. It was genius really.
But Alex wouldn’t hear a bad word about her. Not that Fionn generally badmouthed Rebecca and certainly not to her intended. Generally such chat was reserved for our FSB’s. She thought it wouldn’t do her any good to get offside with the ex-girlfriend – but it seemed she had managed that anyway without even trying.
I was fecked off on her behalf – and slightly gutted that, if things really were going tits-up, I might not get to wear the most beautiful dress in the world ever. Of course I reminded myself I was being a shallow cow and instead switched back into one hundred per cent sympathetic-friend mode.
“Alex loves you. This will all be okay,” I soothed.
Fionn nodded, before once again switching back into her calm and collected persona and saying we really should take a look in the local department store for a few ideas on wedding jewellery.
She only ever let her guard down so far – she was the complete opposite of me.
10
When Ant phoned that night I found myself agreeing to his coming over. I had intended a night to myself. There was a kingsize bag of Maltesers cooling in the fridge for just that purpose and I had already poured an ice-laden glass of Diet Coke to give my poor liver a chance to recover from the night before. I had changed my bed sheets and cleaned my room and was looking forward to slipping between the fresh sheets in fresh jammies with a good romance read and getting an early night.
And yet when Ant phoned. I was powerless to resist. He asked, and I agreed. To be honest, he didn’t really ask so much as tell me he was on his way over with a bottle of Pinot Grigio and I found myself speed-shaving my legs and spraying some Alien between my breasts in a fit of excitement.
I had just about finished tousling my hair into that just-out-of-bed look when the intercom buzzed. I heard a husky, definitely hairy voice say hello and I felt myself blush from head to foot. This was ridiculous, I chided myself – but also deeply satisfying. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so excited about anything – apart of course from the most gorgeous dress in the world ever. I had certainly not felt this excited with Pearse any time in last few years – not even when he had whispered sweet nothings in my ear and caressed me with fingers that knew my body better than I knew it myself.
I knew what was going to happen before it did. Ant would run up the stairs, probably taking them two at a time with his long, strong legs. He would arrive at my door breathless from exertion and passion and hand me the wine. Before I would have the chance to open the bottle in my impossibly small kitchen he would have me pressed against the fridge and my just-out-of-bed hair would be a minute away from right-in-the-middle-of-the-bed hair.
It happened kind of like that. Except we didn’t even make it to the impossibly small kitchen. I’m amazed the wine bottle didn’t smash as it was almost dropped to the floor as he walked into the flat and took me in his arms. I guess my primeval instincts to save a good bottle of plonk were in top form as I somehow managed to rest it comfortably by the door before I was carried (yes, carried, and he didn’t even look as if he was developing a hernia or anything) into the bedroom.
And then, dear reader, he ravished me. I don’t use that word lightly. Or often. But ravished is the only way to describe just exactly what he did. I’m sure that excess of hair signalled an excess of testosterone or the like because he was as manly as he could be and when he was finished all thoughts of Maltesers and Diet Coke and a night alone with a good book were long gone.
In fact, all thoughts of almost anything, bar the stars swimming before my eyes, were gone. I was blissed out. So blissed out, in fact, that I ignored the fact that after he was finished – and he had shared his bottle of wine in record speed – he left and promised to be in touch soon.
It was only the next day, when Fionn’s eyebrow raised to a whole new level during our Sunday morning bacon-bap fest that it struck me as anything other than perfectly normal.
“So, essentially, you’re telling me he made a booty call?”
“A what?” I asked incredulously.
“You know, a booty call. He called, said he would come round, he did. You had a little jiggery pokery and he cleared off again. And you didn’t even voice an objection.” Fionn looked concerned, but mildly amused at the same time.
I felt myself blush but this time it wasn’t with passion. Could Fionn have a point, I wondered? Was Ant likely to be only using me for sex? And did I mind?
I mean, I still had my Life Plan. I still wanted the same things I always wanted. And yes, that included finding the right man and getting married and having children. But did that mean I was never to have fantastic sex with a semi-stranger? Could I write Ant off because he had booty-called me – especially since I had very much enjoyed the booty call?
“It wasn’t quite like that,” I sniffed, my defences shooting up.
She smiled, sipping from her tea.
“Well, it was, but it’s okay,” I said. “Honest.”
She smiled again and then reached her hand out and squeezed mine. “Annie, I’m glad you’re having fun. Lord knows you deserve it. But, you know, I worry about you and I don’t want you getting hurt. I mean, you are on the rebound. You’ve only just split with Pearse.”
“Pearse and I were over a long time ago. I just didn’t realise it.”
“I’m only saying,” she added, “be careful. You know very little about this man.”
I could feel my hackles rising. I was a grown woman. I could make my own decisions and my own mistakes if necessary. And there was nothing to say Ant was a mistake. Nothing at all. There was only one way out of this and that was to change the subject, in perhaps a not so subtle way.
“So, anyway, how are things with you and Alex?”
Fionn’s face fell. And I knew I was off the hook and, even though it
probably made me a very, very bad person, I was glad of it.
“He slept in the spare room again last night,” she said with a look of devastation on her face. “And Emma was staying around so she asked this morning why Daddy slept in the spare room. No doubt that nugget will make it back to Rebecca and by tonight she will be dancing her happy dance of success.”
I tried to hide the grimace on my face – to show Fionn that I believed this was not as bad as she thought it was. But it was. Rebecca would be delighted with the news that the soon-to-be newly weds were having trouble.
“What did you tell her?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Fionn replied, a faint blush creeping up her cheeks. “I just told her to ask her daddy.”
“You see,” I laughed, “you are halfway there to being a proper mammy! That was my mother’s stock reply to almost anything.”
She raised a half-smile, before it quickly faded. “And Alex told her sometimes grown-ups have little arguments – like she does with her friends at school – and that they need some time on the Naughty Step to cool down.”
I asked the obvious question, not sure I really wanted to hear the answer: “So, is it your bed or the spare room that is the metaphorical Naughty Step?”
“He didn’t say, but I can guess. And I tell you it did nothing at all for my sense of worth to have him going all Supernanny on me. If our bedroom is going to be a Naughty Step, I’d at least like to have a say in what kind of Naughty Step that is. I certainly wouldn’t be opting for the punishing, stern, reprimanding kind of definition.”
“Some people would pay for that,” I said. “But seriously though, Alex has now sent Emma back to Mummy Dearest with the notion in her head that you’ve been naughty and need ‘time out’?”
