by Sandie Jones
‘What did he say, then?’ I’d asked confidently.
‘He just couldn’t believe it,’ she’d said. ‘Gay or not, he’s still a man, and he’s cavorting with his girlfriend, going on her hen weekend. It’s embarrassing for him.’
I took my glasses off then and sat up, but if Pammie noticed, she didn’t let on. She stayed horizontal with a floppy hat covering the top half of her face.
‘Adam actually told you I was embarrassing him?’ I’d questioned. I hated myself for falling into her trap.
She’d smiled then, warming to her theme. ‘Yes, but who wouldn’t be? It’s not Adam’s fault, it’s just a man’s natural reaction. I don’t know a man alive who’d be happy for you to spend as much time with another man as you do with Seb. It’s not how a woman, betrothed to be married, is expected to behave.’
‘We’re not living in the eighteenth century,’ I’d said, biting my tongue to stop the words I really wanted to say from spilling out. ‘Times are different to your day. Women are different.’ I was still trying to justify our relationship to her.
‘That may be so,’ she’d said calmly, the smile still toying on her lips. ‘But all I’m saying, as a favour really, to save you getting into an argument with Adam, is that it’s going to have to stop. He won’t put up with it after the wedding.’
‘It won’t be Seb I stop seeing,’ I hissed. ‘It’ll be you.’
Her hat fell onto the floor as she struggled to raise herself on the sunbed. ‘What?’
‘You heard. And if I refuse to see you, you know what that means?’
She looked at me, her face contorted with hatred.
‘It’ll make it so much harder for Adam to see you.’
‘Good luck with that,’ she said calmly, her voice masking any fear she may have felt. ‘Do you honestly think he’s going to choose you over me?’
‘Who does he live with? Who does he share his bed with? Who does he make love to? I’d say your chances are pretty slim.’
‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ she’d said, before getting up and walking slowly towards the house, her paisley kaftan billowing in the breeze. ‘You kids having a good time?’ she asked Tess and Pippa as she passed the pool, seemingly without a care in the world. Psychopath.
Now she’s telling Adam that she had a great time and that I made her feel welcome? I immediately feel wrong-footed, as if she’s playing a cat-and-mouse game. No prizes for guessing who the mouse is.
Adam pulled the duvet over our heads and I could feel him hard again as he pulled me tighter towards him. ‘It’s been four days.’ He laughed, as I tutted. ‘I can’t help it.’
‘Go to sleep,’ I said wearily. ‘We’ve got to get up in a few hours.’
‘I will, I promise. I’ll bash myself with a hammer and won’t bother you again, but only if you do me a favour.’
‘For God’s sake, what?’ I laughed.
‘Mum’s asked if she can come with you to your final fitting.’
‘What?’ I gasped, sitting up abruptly and turning to face him. ‘Seriously?’
‘She said that you both got on so well while you were away that she wondered if it would be all right to come along to see your dress.’ He screwed his face up, as if expecting a retort.
My mouth dropped open.
‘Please, Em. It’d mean the world to her. As she said, she doesn’t have a daughter so will never be able to share that special time with her. You’re the closest she’s got. She’d be so chuffed.’
‘But . . .’ I started.
‘Your mum’s already seen it, so it’s not as if she’d be stepping on anybody else’s toes as such.’
‘But Pippa hasn’t seen it yet, nor has Seb. The four of us were going to make a day of it on Saturday, go for lunch and that.’
Adam propped himself up on an elbow. ‘Seb?’
I stopped breathing.
‘Seb’s going with you?’
I slid back under the duvet with my heart hammering through my chest. Had I imagined the change in the atmosphere? I must have, because Seb was a problem that Pammie had created in her head, not Adam’s. So why did it feel like I’d just stepped on a landmine and was waiting for a delayed explosion?
‘Of course,’ I said nonchalantly. ‘Why wouldn’t he?’
‘Because it’s a girls’ thing,’ he said curtly.
I turned to face him and snuggled into his warm chest, sliding an arm around his back. ‘You’re being sexist,’ I said, laughing.
I felt him pull away, both literally and mentally. ‘So Seb’s going to sit in a bridal shop with a gaggle of women?’ he asked incredulously. ‘He’s going to see your dress before I do?’
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ I remonstrated. ‘It’s Seb, for goodness’ sake.’ Had she got to him? Had she planted this absurd seed in his head?
‘It just seems a bit much, to be honest,’ he said sharply. ‘Still, if he’s going, I really can’t see a problem with my mum going, can you?’
There was no answer to that, and I felt myself sink into the mattress, beaten and dejected. What did I have to do to get this vile woman out of my life?
25
Even Mum had struggled to keep the surprised tone out of her voice when I told her that Pammie was accompanying us on our special day out. ‘Oh, okay then, dear, whatever you want to do. It’s your day,’ she’d said democratically.
‘You are fucking joking?’ screeched Pippa, who had no such trouble with her freedom of speech.
I’d ashamedly called Seb the day before to tell him that I’d had second thoughts about him seeing my dress.
‘But I want to see you before anybody else does,’ he’d said. I could tell he was disappointed.
‘You still will,’ I’d said. ‘When you do my hair on the day.’
‘Okay then,’ he’d said abruptly, before putting the phone down.
I don’t know why I kowtowed to pressure, but it just felt the easier thing to do. It took away another problem, which gave me one less to have to deal with or worry about. I had enough going on, and I just wanted a peaceful life.
We’d been waiting at Blackheath station for twenty-five minutes when Pammie decided to show up, making us late for our appointment at the bridal boutique. I hate being late, ask anyone I know what I’m least likely to do and they’ll say, ‘be late’. It’s a real bugbear of mine, how people have so little respect for your time that they can happily waste it. I don’t accept it at work and I don’t expect it in my private life, unless of course there’s a very valid reason. Fire, earthquake, and death are permissible, however Pammie could only offer, ‘Sorry, I missed my train, haven’t made us late, have I?’
I turned my head away from her insincere air kiss and strode on ahead, up the hill towards the heath, leaving both Mum and Pammie flailing behind, and Pippa puffing to keep up.
The door to the shop chimed as we walked in, and I was immediately hit by the heat from the sun blazing through the windows. An oversized arrangement of white lilies sat on a small round table in the middle of the boutique.
‘Good morning, Emily,’ cooed Francesca, my dress designer, as she sashayed towards us. ‘Only two weeks to go till your big day! Are you ready?’
My face was red and blotchy, and I could feel the sweat as it began to collect at the base of my spine. ‘Almost.’ I smiled.
‘I’m really sorry, but as you’re half an hour late, we’re under a slight time restraint as I have my next bride in thirty minutes.’
On what was supposed to be a special day, relaxed and easy, my chest was already tight, a coiled spring of anxiety.
‘But don’t worry,’ she went on, in an attempt to counteract her previous sentence. ‘I’m sure we’ll get everything done.’
I wanted to sit down, have a glass of water, and be calm, before going into the heat of the changing room, but it seemed that time didn’t allow. It hadn’t been a good idea to wear thick tights, as black woolly particles littered the plush cream carpet and stuck firml
y between my sweaty toes. This was not going how I wanted it to go, and it took all my strength not to cry. I remonstrated with myself as to how that would make me look, like a pampered princess throwing a hissy fit over trivial details.
Francesca slowly pulled the dress down over my head, as I held my arms aloft, and then she shimmied it past my shoulders and onto my torso. ‘Now for the moment of truth,’ I said, holding my breath, as if that would make it fit better. ‘Let’s see if we need to let it out.’ I offered a half-smile, confident that I’d maintained my goal weight, but doubting my willpower at the same time.
I caught sight of myself in the mirror and almost didn’t recognize the woman staring back. Adorned with chiffon folds softly draping around my chest, my waist cinched in by invisible seams, the ivory silk falling in perfect rivulets to the floor.
How could I be getting married? I still felt like a child inside, playing at a make-believe wedding, yet here I was, supposedly all grown up, ready to take on the responsibilities of being someone’s wife. Adam’s wife. I pictured him standing at the top of the aisle, his face beaming but rigid with nerves as I approach him. My family are smiling, proud of the woman I’ve become, Mum in a navy netted hat and Dad in his smart new suit (‘it’s got a waistcoat, you know’). My brother and his own little family, baby Sophie attempting to escape the confines of her mother’s clutches to the playground of the pews below. Then I turn my head to the right, past Adam, to his brother and best man, James, standing beside him, and guilt wrenches at my heart, squeezing the very life out of it. His mother, her face twisted with hate that only I can see, is clinging onto his arm.
‘Are you ready?’ Francesca asked, popping her head round the curtain.
I nodded nervously. I could hear the chatter on the other side, Pammie’s shrill voice cutting through me like barbed wire.
‘Well, come on then,’ coaxed Francesca, ‘let your public see you.’
I pushed the heavy velvet to one side and stepped out.
‘Oh, Em,’ cried Mum.
‘You look so beautiful,’ said Pippa, her eyes wide, and a hand to her mouth.
‘You think?’ I asked. ‘Is it what you expected?’ I directed the question at Pippa, but it was Pammie who answered it.
‘No,’ she said hesitantly. ‘I thought it was going to be . . . I don’t know . . . bigger, I suppose.’
I looked down at the sleek lines which clung to my curves, went in and out at my waist, and skimmed the shape of my thighs, before pooling on the floor.
‘I think it’s just perfect, Em,’ gushed Pippa. ‘It’s so you.’
‘It looks lovely, dear, it really does,’ added Pammie. ‘You’ll get some wear out of it, that’s for sure. It’ll make a lovely outfit if you’ve got somewhere special to go.’
Her words stung, but Pippa and Mum didn’t pick up on it. That’s the thing with Pammie: she gives you a compliment that everybody hears, only to follow it with a barbed snipe that’s barely noticeable, except of course by me, its intended victim.
‘Will you be doing anything with your hair?’ she asked. ‘To dress it up a bit.’
Francesca stepped in with a simple diamanté tiara, attached to a one-tier veil.
‘Are you wearing your hair up or down?’ asked Pippa excitedly.
‘I’m thinking up,’ I said, wrinkling my nose, still undecided. Francesca scooped up my loose hair, pulling tendrils out around my face, and secured it with a few haphazard pins before gently placing the headpiece on.
‘It gives you an idea,’ she said.
‘Well, it won’t be exactly like that, will it?’ Pammie scoffed. ‘I assume you’re having professionals in on the day.’
It was a rhetorical question that I didn’t feel warranted a response.
‘So, you love it?’ I asked. ‘What do you think Adam will think of it?’
A resounding chorus of ‘amazing’, ‘he’ll love it’, ‘stunning’ reverberated around the shop, yet it was the word ‘interesting’ that seemed the loudest.
My head was pounding by the time we got out of there, exactly thirty-three minutes later. A low, bright sun sliced its way across my vision as we made our way back down through the village.
‘I’ve booked your favourite, Due Amici, for lunch,’ exclaimed Pippa. ‘We’re a wee bit early, but I’m sure they’ll be able to seat us, or we can have a drink at the bar.’
‘Actually, do you mind if we take a rain check?’ I asked.
Pippa spun round to face me, her eyebrows raised, waiting for me to continue.
‘I’ve got a killer headache, and I could just do with a sit-down and a cup of tea, to be honest.’
She took my arm, steering me away from the gossiping mums, who were too caught up in their conversation to notice. ‘Am I getting this right?’ said Pippa, ‘Is this a cockamamie?’
I smiled. We hadn’t used that expression in ages. Not since I’d been with Adam, at least. It was our secret code name for ‘get me out of here’, and I last remembered using it when I had been drunkenly persuaded to go back to some guy’s house after meeting him at a karaoke night in the Dog & Duck in Brewer Street. Pippa was snogging his mate in the corner, and it all sounded like a great idea when we were doing shots whilst murdering ‘Nutbush City Limits’. But once we were all in the cab, with Pippa sitting astride her new friend, I’d been suddenly and mercifully hit with the sensible stick. It was not what I wanted to do, and not where I wanted to be. ‘Cockamamie!’ I’d shouted, and Pippa had sat bolt upright as if she’d heard a jungle call from Tarzan.
‘Seriously?’ she’d cried.
‘Yep. Cock-a-mam-ie.’ I slowed it down, more for my benefit than hers. If it had come out wrong, God knows what a good time the boys would have thought they were in for.
‘She’s getting to you, isn’t she?’ Pippa asked now, tilting her head towards Pammie.
I nodded and felt tears prickle at the back of my eyes.
‘Okay, do you want to come back to mine?’
I thought of Adam, waiting at home, all expectant, eager to hear the news of how my special day had gone, and I just didn’t want to deal with it. I couldn’t put on my happy face and lie through my teeth about how perfect it had all been, yet I didn’t want to tell him how it had really played out: how his mother had yet again ruined it all. He was somehow under the misapprehension that we’d been getting along so much better recently, and it seemed that, all the time he thought that, me and him had been closer. There were no silly arguments about what he deemed to be my unjustified paranoia, whenever she came up in conversation. I’d learnt that it was a lot easier to listen, whenever he spoke about her, smile, and get on with it, because I was suddenly coming to the realization that she might be right: if the chips were down, and I did make him choose, I honestly didn’t know which way he’d go.
‘Ladies,’ said Pippa, as she turned to the mums. ‘Emily’s not feeling too well, so I’m going to take her home.’
‘Oh, what’s up love?’ Mum cried, as she rubbed my back. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’
I shook my head. ‘No thanks, Mum. I’ll be fine, just come over a bit queasy, that’s all.’
‘She’s probably not looking after herself,’ interjected Pammie, as if I wasn’t there. ‘No doubt trying to lose weight on some crazy diet, to get into that dress.’
Pippa must have seen the look on my face, as she quickly steered me away, stopping me from punching the interfering bitch square between the eyes.
‘Is it me?’ I asked, once we were safely ensconced on her sofa, cup-a-soup firmly in hand. ‘Everyone says how thoughtful and kind she is, yet all I can see is a red-faced devil with horns coming out of her head.’
‘But that’s how she is with everyone else. She’s seen as Little Miss Innocent, who kindly surprised you by bringing an old friend along to your hen do, begged to come along to your dress fitting because she’ll never have her own daughter to share that special experience with . . . blah, blah, blah. And to be honest, E
m, everyone’s buying it. Even her own son can’t see through her, and see the hurt she’s causing you.’
‘So, it is me, then?’ I could feel tears welling up, and swallowed hard.
‘Of course it isn’t,’ she said, moving up the sofa to put her arm around me. ‘I can see what she’s doing, but I’m no use to you, apart from at times like this.’ She pulled me towards her. ‘You need your husband-to-be on side, to make him see what she’s doing and how miserable she’s making you. You can’t begin a marriage with this much resentment hanging over you, because it will ultimately destroy it, if not you. You’ve got to talk to him, tell him everything.’
‘I’ve tried that,’ I cried. ‘But when I say it out loud, it just sounds so pathetic, like I’m a spoilt child. Even I think that, so God knows what Adam makes of it all.’
‘What did he say about Charlotte being on your hen do? That’s not pathetic. That’s a very real line she crossed, one that many wouldn’t even think of, let alone do.’
‘I haven’t told him . . .’
‘What?’ exclaimed Pippa. ‘You’re getting married in two weeks, and you haven’t told him something as important as that?’
I shook my head. ‘We’ve only been back a few days, and the odd times we have been together we’ve either spoken about Las Vegas, or the wedding itself.’
‘You’re burying your head in the sand,’ she said stiffly. ‘It’s going to make you ill.’
I nodded weakly, already aware that the situation was having an adverse effect on me. ‘I’ll talk to him tonight.’
When I got home, Adam was in the middle of watching a rugby game on TV.
‘Can we talk?’ I asked quietly, almost not wanting him to hear me, hoping I could push the inevitable under the carpet for another week.
‘Yep, sure,’ he said absently. ‘But can it wait until the game’s finished?’
I nodded and walked into the kitchen. I took some peppers out of the fridge and started hacking at them aggressively. He hadn’t even asked how the day had gone.
