The Big Little Wedding in Carlton Square

by Lilly Bartlett

  Shahrzad listens carefully to my request, scribbling a few notes in a little purple notebook and nodding a lot. ‘Could you find something similar?’ I ask, showing her the photos on my phone.

  ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘It’s not a problem, just give me a few days. But your in-laws are never going to believe it’s really designer. I can find you something decent, but it won’t be the same quality.’

  Well, maybe not at first, but I’ve got a plan. Shahrzad is well-impressed when I tell her.

  But not everyone is as enthusiastic about my ideas as Shahrzad. Daniel might have joked about my hormone flare-up and refusal to live in West London, but now he’s being awkward about it. What’s worse, he won’t just come out and be awkward. He’s disagreeing by stealth.

  Two can play at that game. Since he won’t own up and tell me he doesn’t want to live in my neighbourhood, I’ve gone ahead and found us some flats to look at.

  Hopefully they look better on the inside than they do from the road. Sixties ex-council flats don’t have the same curb appeal as Chelsea’s white-stuccoed Georgian townhouses. A few geranium-filled flower boxes along the concrete external walkways can’t overcome the flat-faced brutalism of central planning.

  I purposely picked an estate agent who doesn’t know me or my family, in case I have to disappoint him later with my opinion on his offering.

  He’s on his phone in front of the building, but there’s no sign of Daniel. Avoiding anything that could be mistaken for eye contact, I throttle up past him and around the corner. I’ve made enough small talk with enough estate agents already to know it’s best to avoid.

  ‘Daniel, are you close?’ I ask when he answers his mobile.

  ‘Two minutes away. Are you there?’

  ‘I’m around the corner. The estate agent is waiting out front. Text me when you get to him, okay?’

  ‘Did you just do a drive-by? Coward.’

  ‘I’m simply checking out the neighbourhood.’ Like I don’t know it by heart. ‘See you in a minute.’

  When I walk around the corner Daniel pretends he’s surprised to see me.

  The agent shakes my hand. ‘Did you have trouble finding it?’ he asks, not looking up from his phone.

  ‘Nope, I looked at Google maps.’

  ‘Didn’t I see you drive past a minute ago? On a blue scooter?’

  ‘Oh, I was just looking for parking.’

  My eyes follow his to all the empty spots right in front. ‘Scooter parking, I mean. Does this road not have scooter parking? That’s a shame,’ I say like it’s a real deal-breaker.

  Daniel reaches for my hand as we make our way inside.

  The agent struggles with three locks on the flat’s bashed up flat-fronted door and we have to walk single file down the short corridor into the main room. The walls are a dirty yellow and the carpet could have come from Uncle Colin’s pub.

  ‘It does have a lovely big window,’ says the agent, gesturing to the single window in the tiny lounge. ‘With a nice view.’

  We both peer out the window at the buses on the main road. ‘And constant traffic noise,’ says Daniel to me.

  ‘It’s double-glazed,’ the agent points out.

  Which is fine, as long as we never open the window.

  ‘The bedroom’s at the back. It’s quiet.’

  And dark, I see as we tour the rest of the flat. Being the polite man he is, though, Daniel makes encouraging noises when the agent shows us the boiler cupboard (extra storage!) and the fact that there are two freezer drawers in the fridge (room for fish fingers and ice cream!).

  ‘All right, I admit it. That was depressing,’ I say as Daniel and I walk hand-in-hand to my scooter. ‘But we’ll find better. I promise.’

  ‘As long as it’s close to a Waitrose,’ he says. ‘I’m not sure I can rahly cope otherwise.’

  ‘Pah, Waitrose. We’ve got better. At the market you can just ask what’s best instead of trying to poke at fruit through fifteen layers of packaging. There’s the butcher for meat and Kelly for fish, and loads of bakeries. You could have fresh baked bread every day if you wanted.’

  ‘Right, but would it be the seeded bloomer with honey that I like? You know how important my seeded bloomers are.’

  And you know how important my family is to me, I think, even though he sounds like he’s only joking.

  But he won’t get off the bloomin’ seeded bloomer, and then he starts on the fact that there’s no Costa Coffee or Waterstones. On and on and on he goes, till I start to think he really is serious.

  Here I was, willing to pack up my entire life for him and move away from my family who, by the way, are ten times more important to me than his are to him, and he’s grizzling about it being a little inconvenient to get his morning latte. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Daniel,’ I finally explode. ‘Just get Ocado to deliver your bloody shopping and stop going on about it!’

  He mistakes this for a joke too, saying they probably don’t deliver to my postcode, and what about his favourite red-pepper hummus and kale chip snacks? Where is he supposed to get those all the way out here?

  That’s when I lose it. I mean, I really lose it and it all pours out. About my family being more important than his and what am I supposed to do, just swan off to Chelsea and let them starve so that he can have his flippin’ red-pepper hummus and bloody kale chips?

  It’s a classic case of misreading your audience (from both of us), but I can’t stop, even though he’s doing his best to backtrack. It all tumbles out, about Dad being ill again and how all he cares about is his stupid Waitrose, and if he’ll put kale chips in front of my family, then what does that say about us?

  I mean, really, what does it say about us? We do come from different worlds. Here I am, scrambling to make sure my parents and Auntie Rose don’t go without and he keeps spending huge sums on ridiculous things that we don’t strictly need. Which I cancel and then he just goes and books something else, which I have to cancel again. Even if I do find a decent-paying job after the dealership, we’ll always have different opinions on things like Costa Coffee and kale chips. ‘I’m never going to value Waitrose like you do,’ I tell him when I’ve calmed down enough to stop shouting. ‘You deserve to know this now before it’s too late.’

  There’s the whisper of a smile playing at his lips. ‘And I’m sorry, Emma, but I might never want to shop at a stall in the road where people’s hands have been all over the fruit. But this isn’t a deal-breaker, is it, because I’d eat fruit off the pavement if it meant being with you.’

  ‘We’re just very different,’ I say, ‘and I’d never make you eat fruit off the pavement.’

  ‘I love you, Emma. I’d give up Waitrose for you.’

  I’m touched that he’ll change his shopping habits for me, but my ringing mobile cuts off the rest of his declaration. Mum, I mouth, answering.

  Auntie Rose is gone again.

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ Daniel says, taking the spare helmet off the back of my bike.

  ‘What about Harold’s dinner?’ We’re supposed to be there in an hour. I’ve already had to cancel once because I felt so ill and exhausted. They must all think I’ve got serious digestive issues.

  ‘I’ll cancel,’ he says. ‘We have to find Auntie Rose, right? We’re in this together. When we find her I can bring her back home in a taxi.’

  Not if. When.

  But she’s not at the pub and nobody there has seen her. The clerk at the Jiffy Mart shakes his head when I pop my head in. She’s not in the laundromat watching the dryers spin or at June’s parents’ caff. And she’s not at the cinema where she and my Gran sat through three showings of Jaws back-to-back.

  She’s not anywhere.

  I can’t stop my hands from shaking as I ring Kell and tell her what’s happened. ‘Tell everyone down the market, Kell, will you?’ I look up at the darkening sky. She won’t have taken her umbrella, wherever she’s gone. ‘She could be anywhere. We’ve got to find her.’

  I
don’t find out till afterward that Uncle Colin and Uncle Barbara left the pub to join the search, with only a promise from the regulars that they wouldn’t abuse their trust. Stacy Boyle headed into the estate to knock on doors and more than a dozen of the other stallholders shut up to go look for Auntie Rose.

  A couple of the phone stall boys spot her out walking along the verge on the A12. For such loutish lads they’re touchingly tender with Auntie Rose, carefully helping her out of their car when they deliver her back to the house.

  For the first time since she started wandering, Auntie Rose doesn’t pass off her disappearance as a little adventure. She’s as scared as we are.

  Chapter 14

  If ever we needed a family conference, now’s the time. Auntie Rose might be sitting in the lounge as usual, happily munching her way through a packet of custard creams dunked in tea, but what about the next time she wanders, or the time after that? She made it to the A road when Mum turned her back. Given a few hours she could end up in Scotland.

  I’m worried about her state of mind as much as her safety. She’s always seen her wanderings as a bit of an adventure, dismissed with a knock on the temple and a cheery ‘What’s wrong with me?!’ She wasn’t bothered that she couldn’t explain them. This time it scared her. She keeps saying she doesn’t want to go out, like walking through the door will trigger some kind of migratory urge that she won’t be able to ignore. It’s heartbreaking.

  She looks so old now. Despite being solidly built, she’s actually quite frail. I didn’t notice that before, maybe because she’s so gobby. She is in her seventies, the same age as my Gran when she died.

  Gran had a heart attack in the middle of getting her weekly permanent wave. One minute she was moaning about our Eurovision entry and the next she was as flat as James Fox’s ballad would be a few years later. To this day Auntie Rose won’t watch the contest. Maybe if we’d had someone like Katrina and the Waves again that year, she says, her sister would still be with us.

  Mum agrees about the family conference, but she thinks having Auntie Rose there will only make her feel bad, since she’s the main agenda point. I say that’s exactly why she should be there. Dad doesn’t mind either way, as long as we settle things before Auntie Rose escapes again.

  ‘To be clear,’ I say to Mum the next afternoon when Auntie Rose is upstairs in the bath, ‘this isn’t the family conference and I’m not discussing Auntie Rose without her being here, because it’s wrong. I just want to know what you’re planning. Because, Mum, we can’t put her in a home. She’s always lived with her family and I–’ I take a shaky breath. ‘I can’t let her be sent away like some unwanted old person in an institution. It’s not fair.’

  I couldn’t live with myself if we sent her away, even if she went to live in one of those posh places where they do chairobics and have choices for pudding. The thought of her sitting there, without us, without the neighbourhood that she’s known her whole life, sets me off. And it’s not just hormones.

  ‘We can’t just chuck her out of her home because she’s inconvenient, like she’s the family dog who starts to wee on the floor. You wouldn’t do it to a dog. I’m not going to let you do it to my auntie.’

  Mum’s hand flies to her cocked hip. ‘I suppose that means you’d object to us putting her down too? The vet says it’s painless.’ She laughs at my expression. ‘Well, get over yourself. What you’re suggesting is just as mad. Nobody’s going to send Auntie Rose away. She’s our family.’

  That makes me feel slightly better when Mum gets Auntie Rose to come downstairs after her bath. Everyone knows right off that this is serious. Mum even opens some packets of prawn crisps, so either she thinks we’ll be here past teatime or that we’ll need some kind of savoury distraction.

  It’s not a good start when Auntie Rose – who’s been walking around like she’s waiting to be punished for something – bursts into tears when Mum says we all need to talk.

  ‘I won’t do it again!’ she wails, reaching straightaway for the crisps. ‘I’m sorry I caused you trouble, but I won’t do it again. I don’t know what came over me, but it won’t happen again.’

  It’s awkward to get my arms round her while we’re sitting round the kitchen table. ‘This isn’t your fault. You can’t help when you wander. We all do silly things sometimes.’ I want to reassure her that nobody’s perfect, but the only thing I can think of is my accidental pregnancy and it’s not the time to bring that up with Dad here.

  She takes a great big sniff but can’t quite suck up the drip at the end of her nose. Mum gets her a piece of kitchen towel.

  ‘Maybe Auntie Rose should see Helen?’ I say. ‘If she can figure out why it’s happening, then maybe there’s a cure. Isn’t that worth a try?’

  ‘I know why it’s happening, my love,’ she says. ‘It’s from the strokes.’

  She says this casually and Mum and Dad are clearly not surprised by this news. Unlike me.

  ‘Strokes?! Auntie Rose, you need to be in hospital if you’re having strokes.’

  She waves off my protest. ‘They’re only little strokes, Emma, nothing to worry about.’

  ‘And you’ve all known about this for how long? A decade? Great. Did you never think I might be interested to know?’

  ‘We didn’t want to worry you,’ Dad says.

  ‘I hate to break the news, Dad, but having to go find Auntie Rose whenever she wanders has been pretty worrying.’ I’ve never thought of my family as particularly secretive, but first there was Mum’s pregnant wedding day and now this. ‘Anything else you’d like to tell me, before it comes out casually in conversation?’

  Mum shoots me a warning look. She probably thinks I’m talking about Dad’s relapse. ‘Don’t be so dramatic,’ she says. ‘Auntie Rose, you do get confused sometimes and it’s not safe for you to be wandering all over God-knows-where. So how are we going to help this situation?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Auntie Rose says. ‘Put a bell on me?’

  ‘We could microchip you like Sheila Larkin’s Pomeranians,’ I say.

  Mum can’t resist. ‘That Sheila Larkin! The way she goes on about those dogs you’d think they’d won Crufts. It was only a titchy little show at the church. Honestly.’

  ‘I’m only joking, Auntie Rose,’ I say. ‘And I don’t think a bell would work.’

  Dad holds up his hand. ‘What we’ll do is fit the doors with two-way locks that need a key going out and coming in. That way if you do forget and want to have a wander, one of us can always go with you. But Rose, would you be happy for us to do this? I don’t want you to feel like you’re a prisoner in your own home. We’ll find an alternative if that’s the case.’

  But Auntie Rose is nodding her approval, so I guess she’s not too bothered by her prison sentence.

  Nobody wants to give up their independence, do they? Not when it’s something we fight for from the time we’re little. Dad completely lost his rag when he had to give up the taxi and start relying on Mum more. There he was in his mid-forties, having to get help from his wife to get his trousers on. And worse sometimes, when his legs gave way and he needed the loo. So Auntie Rose is being cool about it, considering we’re about to lock her into her own house. She’s not blaming her jailors, but that doesn’t stop us blaming ourselves.

  Kell’s got everyone meeting at the pub to help us sort out the rest of the wedding details now that we’ve got someplace to throw the party. It’s times like these that I appreciate my best friend’s pig-headedness. It’s useless saying no to Kelly when she wants something. And now she wants everyone’s help.

  Coming to the pub with Auntie Rose feels different now. We all try acting normal and she’s pretending she’s not been let out on good behaviour. But Mum is nervy and Dad’s being a grump. He blames our fussing, but I know from the way Mum keeps tucking her hair behind her ears – which she knows isn’t attractive with the way they stick out – that she still thinks he’s keeping things from us. Her hair-tucking shifts up a notch
when our GP, Helen, strolls in.

  This isn’t a night out, I realise. It’s an ambush. In a second Dad is going to realise it too. ‘I thought tonight was about our wedding?’ I whisper to Mum while he’s saying hello to June and Doreen at the table beside us.

  ‘Can’t it also be about your father?’ she snaps back.

  What am I thinking? Settle down, bridezilla. ‘Yes, of course it can. Sorry.’

  Daniel’s glances dart between Dad and Helen and he keeps doing cartoon-style eyebrow raises at Mum. It’s lucky he doesn’t play poker. ‘Come help me with drinks,’ I tell him before he unravels completely.

  Poor Daniel. This is new territory for him. Not everyone’s family gets quite so involved as ours. When I wonder aloud what Philippa would do in Mum’s situation, knowing Dad needs the doctor, he says she’d leave Dad to it. That’s when I have to tell Daniel that, even if it’s uncomfortable, I’ll never just leave him to it.

  Helen’s at our table when we come back with the drinks. Too late I remember that she knows about the pregnancy. And, more importantly, that Dad doesn’t. ‘Hi, Helen! Sorry, I’d have gotten you a drink. No alcohol for me, though. I’m off it till the wedding so I’ll fit into my dress!’ Dad gives me his what-is-wrong-with-you look. No wonder. I’ve delivered these awkward lines in a pitch so high the local dogs are probably howling. I sound like a lunatic. ‘I’m getting my dress tomorrow from Mrs Delaney and I can’t wait!’

  She smiles easily. ‘I don’t blame you, I ate hardly anything before my wedding. That was the last time I ever fit into my dress, mind you!’ She’s ever the professional. She’s probably got secrets about everyone in here. ‘And how are you Elaine? Jack?’