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The Wedding Dress

Page 4

by Dani Atkins


  *

  Those fingers were still holding mine that night, as we travelled in the taxi towards the restaurant to meet my mother. She’d politely declined our offer to pick her up, preferring to arrange her own transport. ‘She probably just wanted to terrorise another cabbie,’ I told Darrell jokingly, hoping the real reason wasn’t that she was trying to minimise the time she had to spend in the company of the man who was soon to become her son-in-law.

  My anxiety levels weren’t being helped by either the rush-hour traffic or the fact that by the time we’d flagged down a cab on the busy road outside my flat, we were almost half an hour late.

  ‘I’m so sorry, my meeting overran,’ Darrell apologised, letting himself into my flat with the key I’d had cut for him several months earlier. ‘Then by the time I’d gone back to my place and showered and changed, the traffic had already built up.’

  Acid irritation burnt in my throat, the kind that didn’t respond to Rennies and had a tendency to end up with someone saying I told you so. I swallowed down both the words and the emotion, because I wanted – no, needed – tonight to go as smoothly as possible. Things were going to get prickly enough once my father returned to the UK, so getting my mum’s albeit late-in-the-day approval of our marriage seemed doubly important.

  ‘So how did the dress fitting go today? Were you pleased with how it looked?’

  I turned my head away from the side window, where I’d been busily glaring at every car that cut into our lane, making us even moments later than we already were. For the first time that evening, I could feel a genuine smile of complete happiness creep over my face.

  ‘It was absolutely beautiful. Even better than how I remembered it. And what’s more incredible is that both Karen and my mother really loved it too. It got everyone’s seal of approval.’

  Darrell reached for my hand and kissed my knuckles, just below the large diamond he’d placed on my ring finger. ‘I really wish I could have been there. You know, I half thought about secretly following you and peering in through the window.’

  I sat up a little straighter on the worn leather bench seat of the taxi. Darrell did this sometimes; he’d say something totally unexpected, and it almost always threw me off balance. ‘Well, I’m very glad you didn’t,’ I said, aware that my voice sounded a little like a slightly irritated school teacher. I took a breath and softened my words with a smile. ‘And anyway, don’t you know that it’s bad luck for you to see the bride in her dress before the ceremony?’

  He kissed my hand again, and chuckled. ‘Don’t panic. I had back-to-back meetings all day that I couldn’t get out of. I’m just going to have to wait another three weeks for the big reveal.’ My eyes were still a little watchful, wondering if he had genuinely considered gatecrashing my fitting. ‘But, just for the record, I don’t believe in that old superstitious nonsense. I already have all the good luck in the world. I’m getting married to you, aren’t I?’

  And just like that, I was reeled right back in all over again. His arms wound around me as he pulled me towards him and kissed me with a passion that made my cheeks glow hot, right there in the back of the taxi. After a minute or two I called a halt to our passionate embrace, just in case the driver’s eyes had been tempted to stray from the road to the action taking place directly behind him.

  Darrell’s eyes twinkled mischievously, but he allowed himself to be gently but firmly pushed back.

  ‘Talking of people following people,’ I began artlessly, dropping my voice so that the driver couldn’t hear us, ‘I decided not to mention anything to Mum about what’s been going on recently. She doesn’t need another reason to raise objections.’

  The twinkle died in Darrell’s eyes and was replaced with an expression of pain. ‘I didn’t realise she still wasn’t on board.’

  I bit my lip, and thought yet again that I would make an absolutely appalling spy. I was rubbish at keeping anything from anyone.

  ‘It’s not that she’s not on board… per se,’ I said, trying to soften my words by gently running my hand down the length of his arm. I could feel the muscles, bunched and tense, beneath the expensive fabric of his Italian suit. ‘I just think it’s a combination of things. It’s how she feels about marriage, it’s how quickly we made up our minds – but most of it is probably down to my father coming back.’

  Darrell’s eyes said I told you so, but fortunately his lips knew better. But he wasn’t wrong; my mother would have been far easier to win over if I wasn’t forcing her to play happy families with the man she once claimed she never wanted to see again – well, at least not until Hell had begun offering ice-skating sessions.

  ‘Anyway, I just wanted to warn you not to mention anything about… you know… any of the stuff that’s been going on.’

  Darrell nodded, and there was a tension in his jaw that hadn’t been there before. ‘Don’t worry. That’s the very last thing I’m likely to mention tonight.’

  *

  It was exactly one week after we posted out the first wedding invitations when it started.

  *

  Weddings take a lot of organising, and the more I tried to keep on top of things, the more I could see why people hired a professional planner. When Darrell offered to help by writing out the invitations to his own guests on the list, I silenced my inner control freak and happily passed him a small bundle of engraved invitations from the box I’d collected from the printers. His pile was considerably smaller than mine, and I felt guilty that while my list kept growing like an out-of-control amoeba, his just kept depleting. ‘It’s because of my job,’ he had explained, gently smoothing away the frown lines between my brows with a tender finger. ‘I travel so much it’s hard to make new friendships or hold on to old ones.’ I opened my mouth to say something, but he silenced me with a kiss, resuming our conversation while my eyes were still fluttery and half-closed and my lips were still parted, waiting for more.

  ‘I have loads of acquaintances, both here and abroad, but nobody I care enough about to ask to our wedding. There’s only one person who has to be there, and as long as she turns up on the day, I don’t need anybody else.’

  ‘Oh, she’ll be there,’ I said, confirming my answer with a long kiss, which I broke off to teasingly question: ‘It was me you were talking about, right?’

  His laughter had filled the room, and we were both still smiling as he pushed me gently back against the settee cushions, our plans of invitation-writing suddenly abandoned for an altogether more interesting pastime.

  *

  I rarely spent the night at Darrell’s flat. To be honest, I found his one-bedroom apartment rather cold and impersonal, like a second-rate hotel room. It was a sentiment he seemed to understand and completely agree with. ‘Its only merit is that it’s convenient and practically on the airport’s doorstep, so it’s ideal for when I’ve an early morning flight to catch,’ he’d explained the first time he’d taken me back to the grey concrete block, which externally had all the charm of a municipal car park.

  The flat was a colour palette that went from grey to grey, and had obviously been decorated with practicality rather than style in mind, by someone with zero interest in making it homely or welcoming. ‘That’s why I prefer spending the night at yours,’ Darrell had said, coming up behind me and winding his arms around my waist as I stared in despair into his practically empty fridge.

  ‘Why? Because I actually have a kitchen full of luxury goods, like milk for tea or coffee?’ I said, only half teasing as I looked down at the empty fridge door.

  ‘I don’t starve when I’m here alone,’ Darrell said, nibbling my ear, as though to prove it by making me his next meal. ‘Although I admit my appetite is far better satisfied at your place.’ Darrell did that a lot, turn an ordinary conversation like asking whether he had milk for our coffee into something just a little bit risqué, a little bit provocative. And the more I blushed whenever he spoke that way, the more he did it.

  ‘Well, I definitely won’t miss anyt
hing about this place when you give up the tenancy,’ I said, pushing the fridge door to a close.

  Darrell had his back to me and was pouring hot water into our coffee mugs. Something a little like a summer heat haze shimmered over him as he froze mid-stir at my words. Very carefully – too carefully – he replaced the kettle on its base before slowly turning around.

  ‘Suzanne, I thought you realised… I’m not giving this place up. It’s just too useful for my business trips.’

  ‘But… but…’ I shook my head as though I was a stuck needle that couldn’t get past that small three-letter word. In a way, I couldn’t. ‘But why? What’s the point of keeping it? It makes no sense, especially not financially.’ There she was again, my inner accountant, screaming out to make her point.

  Darrell’s eyes met and challenged mine, and for just a moment I thought I saw a flicker of irritation dance within them. We’d been together, and practically inseparable, for months, yet suddenly, without any warning, we were here, teetering on the edge of our very first disagreement. Ever. When the ink was hardly dry on our wedding invitations, our timing couldn’t have been worse.

  Suddenly, Karen’s words whispered in my head, like an annoying ghost. She and Tom had only been to Darrell’s flat once, and her verdict the following day had hardly been complimentary. ‘A mirror on the ceiling and black satin sheets? His place looks like an archetypical bachelor pad from the seventies, or the set of a porno movie.’ I had bristled angrily, mainly because I privately agreed with her, though now I would never be able to admit it.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ I’d said obstinately, jabbing at the button to call the lift for our floor as we waited in our building’s reception.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, Suze, but I would. It looks like the kind of place you take random girls back to after picking them up in a sleazy bar somewhere.’

  I had turned to her, swivelling on my heel just in time to see her clap her hand to her mouth, remembering – just one sentence too late – how Darrell and I had first met.

  ‘Not that I meant that Darrell still does that – or that he’s ever done that,’ she said, stumbling over the apology in her haste to get it out of her mouth past her own foot. ‘I just meant his flat has a tacky retro kind of look to it. Oh God, just forget I ever said anything,’ she pleaded.

  And I thought I had done, until right now, when Darrell was looking at me and I was trying not to let myself ask if there was any other reason, apart from its proximity to the airport, why a man would want to keep a bachelor pad after he was married. Admittedly, Darrell’s job involved a huge amount of international travel, but was that a valid enough reason not to let the flat go? Who started a marriage with ‘his and hers’ homes? More worrying than those questions was the one I was deliberately avoiding: I loved Darrell, but how well did I actually know him? Enough to trust him? It would have been a hell of a lot easier to answer that if the question wasn’t ricocheting around my head in my mother’s voice.

  ‘If it’s just about the money, then don’t worry. I can afford this.’

  I shook my head. We were both on very good salaries, and I knew he could easily cover his rent and still contribute to the mortgage on my place. What worried me most was what I now saw as a reluctance to let go of life as a single man. Did it reflect a lack of commitment to our marriage… to us?

  I could feel the prickle of tears smarting like soap suds in my eyes. The invitations had been sent, the venue was booked, the flowers were chosen, and my dress had been ordered. Everything was almost ready, except, perhaps, the groom. The kitchen suddenly seemed suffocating, as though there wasn’t enough air in the room for both of us. Through a threatening shimmer of tears, I looked for an escape. ‘I… I just need to go down and get something that I’ve left in my car.’

  Darrell abandoned the coffee-making and crossed the small room, his arms outstretched. ‘Suzanne, you’re upset.’

  No kidding, Sherlock, I thought, even while I was shaking my head in denial. ‘No, no, really I’m not,’ I said, wiping the back of my hand beneath my eyes, making sure no escaping tears dared make me a liar.

  ‘Let’s sit down and talk this through, sensibly,’ he said, his voice softly cajoling as his arms wound around my waist.

  I took a single step backwards, which I think surprised him as much as it did me. His arms fell away and swung uselessly at his side, as though he’d suddenly forgotten how to work them. ‘You really are upset, aren’t you?’ There was an expression on his face that vaguely resembled a wounded puppy. He looked so hurt that I almost caved; I almost said he could have a whole string of properties, as long as he still wanted to live with me in one of them. My mother was practically screaming in dismay in my head.

  I shook my head so vigorously that my ponytail slapped me, first on one cheek and then the other, as though I was hysterical and needed a sharp wake-up call. Did I?

  ‘I really have left something in my car, Darrell,’ I pleaded, hoping he could see that I wanted – no, needed – a few minutes away from him to compose myself. ‘Let me go down and get it, and then we can talk,’ I said, already plucking my bag from the kitchen worktop.

  We did talk when I got back from the underground car park – but it certainly wasn’t about whether or not he should keep his flat.

  *

  Darrell had two allocated parking bays. His car was in one, and mine sat beside it, parked slightly at a skew, because I was always worried about hitting one of the concrete pillars. I don’t care much for underground car parks. Well, not the car parks themselves; what I mean is that I don’t much care for them when I’m alone, at night, when the overhead lights begin to flicker in the way they were doing now. Suddenly, every scary movie I’d ever seen, where someone in a hood or a mask pounces on a defenceless woman on her way back to her car, was replaying right there in the front of my mind.

  The argument – if that’s what it was – with Darrell had already set my nerves on edge. The car park setting pushed them a little closer to the precipice. But it was the thing sitting on my windshield that tipped me over the chasm.

  At first, I thought the item pinioned to the glass beneath my wiper blade was an advertising flyer, until I glanced around at the other parked cars and realised mine was the only one to have one. Without even knowing why, the small white envelope filled me with trepidation. I reached for the wiper to release it, holding it gingerly by the corner as the words scrawled on it came into focus. The writing was messy and smudged in places, as though written in a hurry. It was addressed to ‘The Bride’, which made no sense at all. I knew no one in this building, except Darrell, so how did anyone know this was my car? Even more worrying, how had they accessed a secure underground car park to put the envelope on my screen? If whoever had left it was a resident of the building, if Darrell had inexplicably decided to invite one of the neighbours he scarcely knew to our wedding, why hadn’t they just posted their reply through his letter box?

  My fingers were trembling as they broke the seal on the envelope. More scrawled writing covered the pre-printed reply. It was a standard acceptance card, the kind they sell at newsagents and stationers everywhere. It wasn’t one of the engraved personalised printed cards that I’d slipped into every invitation sent out to our family and friends. But something told me this reply hadn’t been sent by anyone who fell into either of those categories.

  Ignoring the spaces where you were meant to confirm or decline the invitation, the author of this message had written across the entire face of the card. Their disregard for the dotted lines offended me, but nowhere near as much as their words:

  I will NOT be attending your wedding… and if you’ve got any sense, you won’t either.

  *

  I didn’t wait for the lift, but took the stairs, all five flights of them, which meant that by the time I hammered on Darrell’s door I was breathless and trembling and could no longer tell whether it was from anxiety or my exertions.

  ‘What? What is it? What’
s wrong?’ Darrell asked when he opened his door and I practically fell into his arms. He looked past me into the deserted hallway as though expecting to see… I don’t know what. Perhaps that man with the axe Karen spent so much time going on about.

  He kicked the door shut and led me into the lounge, one arm circled around my waist, supporting me, because suddenly my legs couldn’t remember how to do it. Still too shocked to speak, I handed him the envelope first, and saw his brows furrow to meet in the middle in confusion, and then inch even closer together when I passed him the card. I was watching him carefully, but I could decipher none of the expressions that flitted across his familiar features, because they dissolved and changed into the next one too quickly.

  The final expression, the one he decided to stick with, was one of ironic and slightly irritated amusement. Holding one corner of the reply card, he tapped it against his outstretched palm. ‘Is this what got you so scared? I thought someone had attacked you or something.’

  I shook my head, and tried to regain control of my breathing, which proved if nothing else that I really ought to exercise more, because the climb up the stairs had totally winded me.

  ‘What does it mean? Why would someone leave it on my car? And why does it sound so threatening?’

  Of my three questions, the second one seemed to bother him most. ‘This was on your car?’

  I nodded, wiping my damp palms on the legs of my jeans. Beneath the denim I could feel the muscles of my thighs still trembling, as though electrically charged.

  For a moment I thought I saw a glimpse of anger on Darrell’s face, and then it was gone and his mouth twisted into a wry grin. ‘Well, obviously, it’s somebody’s idea of a joke.’

  ‘Who? Why would anyone do that? And if it’s a joke, it isn’t a very funny one.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Darrell, turning to a small cabinet and pulling out a bottle of amber-coloured liquid. I don’t drink whisky, but this didn’t seem the right moment to remind him of that. There was a generous double shot in the glass he passed me.

 

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