The Wedding Day

by Catherine Alliott

  I’d frowned as I’d read it. Sapphic fiction? I’d thought it was eighties sex and shopping he was after? Was Lucinda expected to have a lesbian scene in Gucci, perhaps? Proposition the sales assistant over the Hermès scarves? And ‘love and stuff’? Golly. Quite familiar. But no, no. Cool, actually, and I was so uncool, as Flora kept reminding me.

  I sighed as the words flickered up. The problem was that in my present frame of mind, casual sex – gay or otherwise – felt so wrong, and Lucinda’s meaningless fling with Terence at the Savoy even more wrong. Ghastly, in fact. On an impulse, and even though I knew Mr Cooper would strongly disapprove, I erased almost the entire chapter and certainly the last two lurid paragraphs. (Oh that life were that simple.) Instead, I had Terence deliver Lucinda safely back to her front door, which she shut firmly in his face, ignoring his plaintive plea for coffee.

  Lucinda glanced at her Cartier watch. The night was still young. Terence had booked the table for high tea at the Harvester, so it was only ten o’clock, and Lucinda had coffee with someone else on her mind. Coffee, but no more. This was to be a meeting of minds.

  Tottering on her Jimmy Choos, she ran to the kitchen window and gazed up. Justin’s studio light was still on. Trembling at her own temerity, she opened the back door and flew down the path to the gate in the wall which conveniently connected the two properties, a dear little Spode jug in one hand, her Marlboro Lights in another. To her astonishment, when she lifted the latch and pushed it open, Justin was on the other side, his eyes ablaze, jaw chiselled, a sugar bowl in hand.

  ‘Oh!’ he exclaimed, startled. ‘I’d run out of sugar for my coffee, and I just wondered –’

  ‘How extraordinary!’ she interjected. ‘I’d run out of milk.’

  Their eyes kindled with recognition of their secret intent. Justin took the jug. ‘I’ll fill this up,’ he promised, giving her a hot look, ‘and be over in a jiffy.’

  True to his word, moments later he was striding into her kitchen with the milk and a sketch pad. Lucinda took the jug and put the kettle on with a shaking hand.

  ‘I must admit, the coffee was a bit of a ruse,’ he murmured, moving closer. ‘You see, what I really want is to draw you. Naked.’

  The little Spode jug flew from Lucinda’s hand and smashed to smithereens on the floor. She kicked the pieces hastily under the dishwasher with her stilettos.

  ‘Where … would you like me?’ she breathed timorously. ‘In here,’ he commanded, taking her arm and leading her purposefully into the darkened drawing room, all thoughts of Nescafé forgotten. He indicated a goatskin rug by the fire.

  ‘Recline here, my beauty,’ he purred, ‘while I put a match to the fire. I’ll draw you by its tender light.’

  Lucinda’s limbs twitched ecstatically as with trembling fingers she discarded her clothing. She didn’t like to tell him the fire was only gas effect and the twigs in the rush basket merely for show, as he piled them on and set light to them. The room filled with smoke but, undeterred, Justin settled on a chair before her, his eyes roving over her nakedness. Lucinda instinctively raised her arms above her head. Breastfeeding had taken its toll, and she didn’t want a little thing like gravity to spoil her portrait – then realized she hadn’t shaved her pits and clamped them hastily back down again. She fervently hoped the children were sound asleep upstairs. This would take some explaining, particularly to Orlando who, at twelve, had been locking the bathroom door rather a lot recently.

  She watched as Justin’s hand moved skilfully over the parchment. Oh that it would move as skilfully over her!

  ‘Perhaps the fire was a mistake,’ he spluttered eventually, eyes streaming.

  ‘Not at all,’ coughed Lucinda seductively. ‘You can light my fire any time you – Damn. The doorbell.’

  Seizing the goatskin rug, she wrapped it around her and hurried to answer it.

  ‘Yes?’ she barked irritably, peering around the crack. It was Terence.

  ‘You, um, left yer ’andbag behind, like. In my Vespa.’

  ‘Keep it!’ she hissed, slamming the door firmly. If only the world would go away! She must remember to sack him tomorrow.

  She hastened eagerly back to the drawing room where she stopped and caught her breath. Justin had abandoned his chair and was lying, naked but for a black thong, in the position she’d recently vacated by the fire.

  Lucinda blinked at his muscular figure, his taut thighs, his broad shoulders, his enviable waist. Slowly, hypnotically, he knelt up and held out his arms. Shamelessly Lucinda ran to him. He clasped her tightly and her senses swam. She had to get him upstairs, she couldn’t breathe in this terrible fug, but his hands were already exploring her territories.

  ‘Come!’ she commanded suddenly, and then, seeing his startled face, wished she hadn’t. ‘To my boudoir,’ she added quickly.

  ‘Ah. Yes!’ he ejaculated joyfully.

  Hand in hand they stole upstairs, the light from the moon streaming through the landing window and gleam-

  ing on Lucinda’s pearly buttocks and Justin’s thong. She couldn’t quite work out why he got to keep that on when she was so flagrantly undone, but soon found out when she tore it aside with her teeth in her toile de Jouy bedroom.

  She blinked. ‘Oh!’

  ‘It is small,’ he agreed, ‘but very, very active.’

  And so it proved to be. Three hours later, Lucinda lay back, spent and exhausted on her Yves Delorme pillows. ‘No more!’ she croaked.

  And indeed there was no more, as my fingers too slipped exhausted from the keys. Well, Sebastian would be thrilled after all, I thought bitterly as I crawled wearily back to bed. I’d fully intended to provoke that meeting of minds with Justin, to instigate a meaningful encounter and maybe even a cosy discussion on Kierkegaard and the merits of existentialism, but the muse, it seemed, had had other ideas. Oh well, I thought, lying back drained and exhausted but hopefully unburdened. I’d always found it best to go with the flow and if it was too racy, I could always erase it in the morning and restore Lucinda’s virtue intact. For the moment though, it felt good. Very good.

  My head hit the pillows and I fell instantly and dream-lessly asleep. I would have slept on – on and on, perhaps until noon – if Mum hadn’t woken me sometime later that morning. She had hold of my shoulder and was shaking me vigorously awake.

  ‘Annabel. Annabel, wake up!’

  I remember opening my eyes blearily, and seeing the sun pouring through the thin yellow curtain behind her. I saw her anxious face silhouetted against it as she leaned over me. My eyes flickered quickly to my screen. In my comatose state I’d failed to turn it off last night, and the blue light shone out like a beacon, white letters gleaming accusingly. I groaned.

  ‘Oh Mum, you haven’t been … you didn’t –’

  ‘Listen, love, Gertrude’s been on the phone. She’s just rung.’

  ‘Gertrude?’

  I raised myself up on to my elbows. Stared into her worried face. ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  ‘Annabel, I’m so sorry.’ Her eyes filled with tears. She put a hand to her mouth. ‘It’s David. He’s taken an overdose.’

  Chapter Twenty-three

  I stared at her, horrified. ‘An overdose!’ My heart stopped. ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘No! No, he’s not dead, he’s been taken to hospital. He’s alive, but they’re pumping his stomach.’

  For a moment I could only gaze at her in frozen horror. Then I snapped to, flinging back the bedclothes and swinging my legs out. ‘Is Gertrude still on the phone?’

  ‘No, she had to go, she’s at the hospital. But, Annabel love, she said David didn’t want you to know.’

  ‘What?’ I paused to snatch up my jeans. Felt disoriented. Hearing but not hearing.

  ‘Said he’d begged Gertrude not to tell you, but she felt that you should know.’

  ‘Of course I bloody should!’ I cried, flying across the room to grab a T-shirt and some shoes. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He’s at the Ch
elsea and Westminster, I’ve written it down, it’s in Chelsea I think she said, but … Oh my love, why on earth would he do such a thing?’ Mum wrung her hands, distraught. ‘Such a terrible, terrible thing!’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I muttered, diving into my clothes and knowing full well that I did know but … God, not to this extent, surely? I hadn’t known it had affected him so deeply.

  ‘David.’ I paused to clutch my mouth in shock, and gave a muffled moan. I shook my head. I should have gone back with him, I thought suddenly, of course I should. It came to me in a flash. This would never have happened if I’d gone back to London with him, never.

  ‘But he’s getting married in a few weeks,’ wailed Mum, still clasping and unclasping her hands. ‘Why would a young man with a weddin’ coming up, with his whole life ahead of him –’

  ‘It’s not to do with me.’ I swung around suddenly and gripped her shoulders. ‘At least … I don’t think it is.’ I let her go. ‘It’s to do with work, Mum. Something at work. He … made a mistake, you see. Someone died. It upset him terribly.’

  ‘Oh!’ She sat down abruptly on a chair. ‘Oh, I see. Poor David.’

  ‘Yes. Poor David.’ I ran my hands through my hair despairingly. ‘And I should have been there for him, Mum,’ I choked.

  Suddenly my knees gave way and I sank down on the side of the bed. I put my head in my hands and burst into tears. She flew to sit by my side.

  ‘There now, don’t take on so,’ she murmured, her arm firmly around my shoulders, squeezing hard. ‘How could you have known? There’s nothing to blame yourself for, you weren’t to know this could happen, were you? And more likely as not he told you not to break short your holiday.’

  ‘Yes.’ I nodded miserably. ‘Yes, he did. Told me to stay, that I couldn’t be any help to him –’

  ‘Well, then,’ she said consolingly. ‘But, Mum …’ I looked up at her beseechingly, my face wet with tears. ‘If things had been different, I would have gone, whatever he’d said. I would have gone automatically, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘What things, love?’ Her anxious eyes searched my face, un comprehending. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  If it had been Matt, was what I meant, I thought horrified. If it had been Matt in trouble, would I have gone? Yes, like a shot. Terrified by my own feelings, I got to my feet.

  ‘I must go,’ I muttered, heading for the door. ‘Must go to him. Now.’

  ‘Of course you must, an’ he’ll be fine, don’t worry.’ She hastened out after me, across the landing and down the stairs. ‘Let’s face it, he must have called an ambulance, must have come to his senses to some extent to be in hospital in the first place, so no doubt he can put it all behind him. All will be well, you’ll see. It’s you I’m worried about,’ she said as we reached the hall.

  I turned quickly. ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, first off, I don’t want you drivin’ all that way all upset like this. You’ll have an accident. Have a cup of tea an’ put somethin’ in your stomach before you go. Calm down a bit.’

  ‘Oh. Yes, you’re right.’ I followed her numbly into the kitchen and sat down at the table as if in a dream. Watched as she poured from a pot already brewed. I glanced at the clock. Nine o’clock. She would have been up for hours when Gertrude called.

  ‘Where’s Clare?’ I glanced nervously about. ‘Still asleep. It went well with Michael. I heard her come in; she came in and sat on my bed and told me. Flora’s asleep, too.’

  ‘Good.’ I licked my lips. Swallowed hard. ‘Mum, don’t tell them, will you?’ I looked at her pleadingly as she put a cup and saucer in front of me. ‘I mean, I’m sure you’re right and he’ll be fine, and so – so there’s no reason for anyone to know really, is there?’

  She fixed me with her grey eyes. ‘No. No reason.’

  I thought of the shame he’d feel if Flora knew … Clare, Michael. Rosie and Dan … I bent my head and clutched my hair, pulling hard at the roots. Oh David, why did you do it?

  ‘Why did he do it?’ I whispered aloud to the table. ‘He didn’t,’ Mum said firmly, bustling around the kitchen, opening the bread bin and taking out a loaf. ‘He’s still alive. It’s what’s known as a cry for help.’ She reached into the fridge for the ham, and I watched numbly as she quickly sliced the bread, buttered it and cut the sandwiches into triangles before packing them neatly in the foil. ‘A cry for help,’ she repeated carefully, setting the package on the table in front of me, ‘that only he can answer.’

  I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. Felt dazed by the whole thing, actually. I gazed at the glittering tin foil.

  ‘I can’t eat,’ I muttered. ‘I know, love, that’s why I’ve packed it. Eat some on the way. It’s a long drive.’

  I nodded, then got up. ‘I’d better go. You’ll look after Flora for me?’

  ‘Of course.’ She followed me to the door. ‘Say I had to go to London to … Well. Just say David’s ill or something. Bad flu. Or – or a problem with the wedding arrangements.’

  ‘I’ll think of something.’

  As I kissed her floury cheek on the doorstep, she put a hand on my arm. ‘Think very carefully, my love,’ she said. ‘Really carefully. Nobody wants you to be a martyr.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘What I say. One in the family’s quite enough. An’ you’re very like me, Annabel. Too like me. Nothin’ like Clare or your father. Very biddable. Malleable. Like me.’

  I held her eyes, and it seemed to me all her years with Dad rolled back before me. I wondered how much she’d suffered in silence. Felt profoundly shocked. Clare had certainly been bludgeoned with education, but …

  She smiled, reading my mind. ‘Oh no, love, nothin’ terrible. Your dad and I rubbed along quite happily as it happens, an’ I never let him think otherwise. Companionship gets a very bad press these days, yet sometimes it’s worth fightin’ for. But you, Annabel, you’ve got more choice than I had. An’ I don’t think you’re lookin’ for companionship. Although if you did choose it, no doubt you’d make as good a fist of it as I did.’

  Companionship. I stared at her, wanting her to say more, but she was patting my arm, walking me to the car.

  ‘Mum.’ I licked my lips, knowing this moment might not come again. ‘Mum, with Ted, is that companionship, or …’

  She stopped in the yard. Looked ahead. ‘I’ve known Ted all my life,’ she said quietly. ‘Longer even than I knew your dad. Went to school with him. But Shirley set her cap at him, an’ Ted was an easy-goin’ young man, easily flattered, so he married her. And I married your dad. And very happy we all were too, on our neighbourin’ farms.’ She walked on and opened the car door for me.

  ‘But you always loved him?’ I stared at her back, horrified. ‘Ted? Is that what you’re saying? That you loved him all that time?’ She stayed silent. Looked up at the hills. ‘But, Mum, you were always criticizing him, always needling him. Told us his methods were all wrong, that Dad’s were much better, and –’

  ‘We must shield the heart somehow, mustn’t we, love?’ she said softly. She turned and gave me a look of perspicacity.

  I stared at her for a long moment. ‘So – so then why didn’t you … I mean, Dad’s been dead four years now, why didn’t you –’

  ‘An’ Shirley’s not been dead a year,’ she said quietly. ‘Oh,’ I breathed. ‘Yes, I see,’ I said, our eyes still locked. ‘Now come on,’ she said brightly, breaking the moment, ‘be off with you. An’ as I say, whichever way you go, whichever way the wind takes you, all will be well. You’ll be as happy as I was. It’s in your nature to make the best of things, just as it is in mine. All I’m saying is, never forget you have a choice.’ She waited for me to get in the car, then shut the door firmly behind me. I wound down the window.

  ‘I’m getting married in five weeks.’

  She regarded me for a long moment. ‘Course you are, my duck. Course you are.’

  As I turned the car around in the yard, she walked back to the open f
ront door. I saw her in my rear-view mirror, standing framed in the doorway, the green architrave freshly repainted that spring as it had been every third spring for the past thirty-five years, the well-tended bedding plants nodding in tubs beside her, soon to be replaced with autumn pansies. She’d recognized her desires, but rec- ognized her duties too. Contained her passion. She raised her hand, trying not to look anxious as she waved me off.

  As I bumped off down the potholes I gripped the wheel hard, feeling sick to my stomach. Oh David, why, why? I pleaded as I flew down the lanes. But I knew why. Knew why he’d done it. Knew how much his reputation meant to him, what he’d seen in his mind’s eye. ‘Doctor in negligence scandal!’ screamed the tabloid headlines, the cameras catching him in a blinding flash as he walked, head down, from the Royal Courts of Justice, his solicitor beside him, shielding him. Oh, I knew what being dragged through the courts would do to him – would do to anyone – but particularly a man for whom – I stopped. Was I going to say for whom appearance was all? Was that true? Was it all? Surely there was more substance to David than that? I mean, certainly the letters after his name, the surgery in Belgravia, the house in SW6 all mattered, but what about me? What about Flora, Gertrude … had he really been about to leave us? Surely we mattered more than anything else?

  I tried not to, but couldn’t help imagining him: pale, shaking, sweating, his fair hair falling over his face as he sat on the side of the bed – our bed perhaps – opened his briefcase and took out the packets of pills so readily available to him. Swallowing handful after handful, gulping them down with water, and then lying back, wide-eyed, on the bed. I was horrified to find anger welling up inside me as well as pity. How could he have decided life wasn’t worth living when I was still in it? And what if he had died, wasn’t that such a coward’s way out? Where was his strength of character, to leave a bride, weeks before she was due to walk down the aisle, except … I breathed deeply and clutched the wheel harder. Realized that in all conscience I couldn’t pursue that line of thought. Because … what if David had had an inkling about my feelings for Matt? What if that had tipped the balance?