The Wedding Dress

by Dani Atkins

  As though compiling a list for a complaint to the police, something Darrell categorically refused to consider, I began to catalogue them in the darkness of my insomnia.

  *

  After the card on my windscreen, nothing else had happened for a while, and I had happily accepted Darrell’s explanation. His muscle-head friends at the gym had been spoken to, and according to Darrell they had apologised profusely. ‘They looked like big school kids caught out in a prank,’ I remember him telling me a couple of nights later. ‘They had no idea you’d get so freaked out. Too much testosterone – or too many steroids,’ he’d quipped, drawing a very firm and final line under the incident. A line I had every reason to trust, until about three weeks later.

  *

  I was sitting at my desk, grappling with a set of figures that refused to add up to the same amount twice. Deciding what I really needed was a coffee break, I reached for the phone to see if Karen was free. Just seconds before my hand touched the receiver, it began to ring.

  ‘Hello,’ I answered, frowning distractedly as I finally spotted the mistake on the sheet of figures that had been defeating me.

  ‘Is that Suzanne? Suzanne Walters?’

  I didn’t recognise the voice. I picked up a pen and ringed the incorrect numbers on the spreadsheet. ‘Yes. That’s me. Can I help you?’

  I knew from the ringtone that it was an internal call, but the number flashing up on the display meant nothing to me.

  ‘It’s Paul here. From downstairs.’ I frowned, wondering why the name sounded familiar, and then felt a stupid blush flood my cheeks as he added, ‘From the post room.’ This was the guy Karen kept going on about. The one she reckoned should be working as an Abercrombie model, rather than a mailman.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ I said, extremely glad he didn’t know I was now picturing a model on a black-and-white photo shoot, on a windswept beach, with a half undone shirt. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Erm,’ he began hesitantly, almost as though he too felt awkward. Perhaps he was a mind reader, in which case I was probably about to be hauled in to Human Resources on some kind of sexual harassment complaint. ‘I was wondering if you’re busy right now?’

  It was such a peculiar and unexpected thing to be asked that the red pen I’d been toying with slipped from my fingers and rolled off the desk. ‘You see, I have a delivery for you down in the post room. And I was wondering if you’d be able to come down to collect it.’

  I frowned as I bent to retrieve the pen. ‘Not really,’ I said, eyeing the figures I was keen to return to. ‘I’m kind of busy at the moment. Can’t you just bring it up, as usual?’

  He was quiet for a long moment, as though there was something he really wanted to say, but couldn’t quite work out how. ‘Well, it’s not quite that simple. It would be so much easier if you could just pop down for it.’

  I looked at my desk, my eyes settling on the small framed photograph of Darrell and me. We’d asked a passer-by to take it on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the summer. We were sitting on the grass in Hyde Park. Darrell’s arm was thrown casually around my shoulders, and we were both laughing. Whatever the mysterious delivery was, down in the post room, I was pretty certain it would be from him. Even though the early days of our courtship were long behind us, Darrell still sent me thoughtful gifts for no reason whatsoever. Bouquets of flowers weren’t just for birthdays or anniversaries, at least not in Darrell’s book. I smiled at the image in the frame grinning back at me. I really was incredibly lucky.

  ‘You’re sure you can’t bring whatever it is up here?’ I asked Paul one more time.

  ‘I’d really rather not,’ he said, sounding apologetic but strangely unbending.

  ‘Okay then. I’ll come down. You’re in the basement, right?’

  ‘I’ll meet you by the lifts,’ he said, sounding curiously relieved, and then hung up without another word.

  *

  I had to take two lifts: the one down to reception had thick carpets, mirrored walls and piped music, while the service one, tucked away behind a marble pillar, was far more utilitarian. I was the only occupant of the second lift, which took me down into the bowels of the building far less smoothly than my first ride. It was quite a relief when the carriage juddered to a halt and the display lit up to announce we’d reached Level B1.

  I stepped out into a concrete corridor, which seemed to belong to an entirely different building. Fluorescent strip lights illuminated a long grey passageway, which held all the charm of one of Her Majesty’s prisons.

  ‘Suzanne – I mean Miss Walters,’ said a deep voice from somewhere behind me. I spun around, already correcting him as I turned. ‘Suzanne, please,’ I said, smiling a little dazedly in the fluorescent glare. Surely no one should look that good under this type of colour-draining artificial light? Wasn’t it, in fact, illegal to look like anything except a cholera victim on a particularly bad day? That memo had clearly never made it to the post room. The man standing before me was washed in colour, from the auburn highlights in his thick, slightly over-long hair, to the brilliant green of his eyes, the colour of jewellery-shop-window emeralds. His skin was lightly bronzed, as though the memory and the tan of a foreign sun upon it had no intention of fading just yet.

  He was tall, well over six foot, and even though I was wearing my work stilettos, the ones with the heels just this side of impossible-to-run-in, he still dwarfed me.

  He rubbed one palm against the leg of his faded denim jeans, before extending it to me in greeting. I was a few seconds too slow in raising mine in response. My cheeks felt a little warm as we bizarrely shook hands in the corridor. If Paul noticed my clumsy embarrassment, he was too polite to comment on it, while I was too busy feeling annoyed with myself for being surprised by his greeting. Why shouldn’t someone who pushed a mail cart for a living have impeccable manners?

  ‘I’m sorry for dragging you away from your desk,’ he said, beginning to walk towards a pair of swing doors at the end of the corridor. I fell into step beside him, unconsciously lengthening my stride to keep up with him.

  ‘That’s all right,’ I said, even though my in tray was so full, I was probably going to have to stay late again that night to catch up. ‘I must admit I was a little intrigued by your call.’ I must have sounded excited about whatever was waiting for me beyond the swing doors: the parcel with my name on its label.

  Paul frowned and paused with his hand flat against one half of the swing doors. ‘I just didn’t feel… comfortable… delivering this up to your desk.’

  This time it was my turn to frown. It sounded like asking me to come down to collect the item was intended to spare me in some way. For the first time it occurred to me that perhaps this might not be something I actually wanted to receive.

  ‘What exactly is it? What have I been sent?’

  In answer, Paul pushed open the door and courteously stood back to allow me to walk through it first. The post room was larger than I had imagined it would be. One wall was lined with pigeonholes and there were two enormous metal desks sitting in the centre of the room. Both were currently unoccupied.

  Around the perimeter of the room, a collection of mail carts were lined up, looking exactly like the ones the seven dwarfs had used in the diamond mine. Some were empty; some had parcels and hessian sacks filled with post, waiting for the next delivery round. Paul kept walking, stopping just short of the final cart. Within it I could see an easily recognisable cellophane-wrapped package. Darrell had sent flowers to me at work many times, although perhaps none of the arrangements had been quite this large before. The bouquet was facing away from me, so I couldn’t see the flowers within it. Paul took a discreet step to one side, turning to study a noticeboard, which largely seemed to have several-months-out-of-date memos pinned to it.

  I reached out for one corner of the cellophane bouquet and turned it around. For one crazy moment I thought the florist had mistakenly put the flowers in upside down. All I could see at the top of the arrangement we
re woody green stems, covered in thorns; I looked down to where the bouquet was bundled and tied together with ribbon, and saw the heads of the roses. Only they hadn’t accidentally been inverted in the packaging. Every single one of the rose blooms had been severed from its stem. They sat pooled at the bottom of the cellophane like tiny red decapitated heads. I pulled the bouquet from the cart.

  ‘Did they get crushed, or damaged after they were delivered? Is that what happened?’

  Paul turned back from the noticeboard, shaking his head regretfully. ‘No. That’s how they were when they arrived.’

  ‘Then… then there must have been some mix-up at the shop,’ I said, still trying to find a logical explanation. But from the quickened beat of my heart, and the sticky, sweaty film on my palms, I already knew what this was.

  ‘All deliveries to the building come in to the main reception,’ Paul said. His voice was kind, measured and sympathetic, and it made me feel like crying. And I really didn’t want to do that; not yet, not here. That was what the Ladies’ room was for. I wanted to be angry. I deserved to be angry, because it had happened again. That much I already understood. What I didn’t know, was why.

  ‘Reception then phone down here,’ Paul continued to explain, as though it was somehow important that I understood the protocols and procedures, ‘and I go up to collect the delivery.’ I nodded, unable to tear my eyes away from the mutilated flowers. ‘When I saw what had happened to these, when I saw the—’ He broke off, as though suddenly changing his mind about what he’d been about to say.

  ‘I went back up to check. But all they could tell me was that the flowers hadn’t been delivered in the usual way. No one had signed for them. They’d arrived during a busy period when the reception was crowded. When everyone had gone, they found your bouquet propped up against the counter.’ Paul got to his feet and crossed to one of the desks, pulling open a metal drawer. ‘With this.’

  The card wasn’t in an envelope this time. It was edged by a thick black border, and was instantly recognisable as the type usually found attached to funeral flowers. As before, it was addressed to ‘The Bride’. I’m no expert on calligraphy, but the handwriting looked the same as the message on the acceptance card left on my windscreen. Condolences on your forthcoming wedding.

  I swallowed noisily, and for a dreadful moment thought I might be inexcusably sick all over the post-room floor.

  ‘Sit down,’ ordered Paul, pushing me gently on to a nearby threadbare office chair. His brilliant green gaze went from me, to the card, and then back to the flowers, rapidly assessing. ‘I take it this is a little darker than just someone’s idea of a practical joke?’

  I gave a shrug, which in my head wanted to appear nonchalant, but in reality probably looked beaten and pathetic. Without bothering to ask if I wanted a drink, Paul crossed over to a small kitchen area and switched on the kettle. I have no idea how many teaspoons of sugar he put in that tea, but it was enough for the spoon to practically stand up unaided.

  ‘Better?’ he asked, after I’d taken a couple of sips and set the mug back down on the desk, before cavities the size of potholes started appearing in my teeth.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, shaking my head slightly, looking for my composure, and realising I must have left it up by my desk on the tenth floor, because it certainly wasn’t anywhere to be found down here.

  Paul sat down on the desk opposite me, his long legs swinging slowly backwards and forwards. ‘So, congratulations are in order, then? I take it you’re getting married?’

  I knew he was trying to infuse some normality into the situation, but I was still struggling to get past the nasty message on the card. Someone clearly hated me, and I had no idea why. I had no enemies – well, none that I was aware of. Was this to do with me, or Darrell? Or was it somehow connected to my mother? Some of her early fan correspondence had been a little scary and intense. Had someone discovered I was her daughter, and was so tangled up in the mystical world she’d created that they were muddling fact with macabre fiction?

  I shook my head. That made no sense. I never used her surname and very few people even knew we were related. And mostly her fans were lovely. They were far more likely to send teddy bears and cuddly toys than two dozen decapitated roses.

  The phone on the desk rang, making me jump as though the sender of the flowers had somehow found me here. Paul saw my reaction and gave a sympathetic smile as he lifted the receiver and dealt with the call, all the time glancing over at me in concern. I took a couple of deep breaths and tried to pull myself together.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he apologised as he hung up.

  I started to get to my feet. ‘Look, I really should go. I’m keeping you from your work.’

  He gave a casual shrug, as if to say the wheels of industry would probably keep turning just fine, even if the mail was a few minutes late. He was probably right.

  ‘Why don’t you stay here for a little longer, until you’ve calmed down properly,’ he suggested. ‘You’re still rather white.’

  I nodded and sank back gratefully into his chair, while he wheeled out the one from the neighbouring desk and dropped on to it.

  ‘So I take it you don’t know who sent them to you?’ I shook my head. ‘Or why?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Maybe a distraught and heartbroken ex-boyfriend?’ he suggested, his lips twisting slightly, trying to judge if it was still a little too early for humour.

  I gave a tentative smile and it felt good, like pouring alkali on acid. ‘No exes in recent history, not heartbroken or otherwise. Not for a very long time, actually,’ I added, wondering why I was suddenly baring my past to a total stranger in this way.

  His grin grew broader. ‘Well, that just can’t be true,’ he said, his green eyes twinkling.

  ‘Seriously, are you flirting with me? Now? Because that’s all kinds of wrong. Besides which, how old are you anyway? Eighteen? Twenty?’

  He laughed then, and the sound filled the room, the way music does in a chapel. ‘Hardly. Although thank you for that. Actually, I’m twenty-seven.’ I raised my eyebrows and he shrugged. ‘Yeah, I still get asked for ID wherever I go,’ he added ruefully.

  ‘I’m not surprised.’ He was only a few years younger than me, but looked a decade less. He leant forward, his elbows resting on his knees, and his work ID pass swung forward on its lanyard. It was impossible not to read the name printed on it: Paul Winterscotch. It was a very unusual name, yet one I knew well. It was etched in stone above the entrance to this building; it was written in script across the top of every piece of letterhead or stationery I pulled from my desk drawer.

  ‘Winterscotch?’ I queried. He gave a shrug. ‘Are you related to…?’ I lifted one finger and pointed it straight up.

  ‘To God, no,’ he quipped. ‘But to Donald Winterscotch up on the twentieth floor, then yes, guilty as charged. He’s my father.’

  ‘But… but you work in the post room,’ I said, instantly blushing, because I knew I must have sounded like the worst kind of snob.

  ‘I do,’ he declared. ‘And very nice it is too, because it gives me the chance to meet lots of lovely people, like you, and make tea for them.’

  I blushed again. For goodness sake, what was wrong with me today?

  ‘This is a bit of a family tradition,’ Paul explained, sweeping his arm out to encompass his surroundings. I tried very hard not to stare at the particularly well-toned bicep visible beneath his short-sleeved T-shirt. ‘Both my grandfather and father started in the company at the bottom, and worked their way up. I’m just doing it a little later in life. I spent several years travelling after getting my Business Master’s.’

  I looked down at my feet, knowing I should probably apologise for the implied insult, but wasn’t sure if that would just make things worse.

  ‘Most of the time people don’t even notice the name, even though I’m hardly going incognito with this thing hanging round my neck,’ he said, tapping the plastic badge with the
very attractive photograph on it. I looked like a startled convict in mine – it was even worse than my passport photo. Randomly, I wondered what Darrell’s passport photograph looked like. I couldn’t remember ever having seen it.

  ‘I don’t exactly advertise the family connection,’ admitted Paul.

  ‘I can totally understand that,’ I said. And then, quite bizarrely, I found myself telling him who my mother was – something that usually took many years for me to reveal to new acquaintances.

  ‘Your secret’s safe with me,’ he assured, glancing discreetly down at the watch on one tanned wrist. Despite the fact I now knew he could easily have afforded a Rolex, I caught a glimpse of the figure on the watch’s face, which, unless I was mistaken, was Mickey Mouse. I smiled and realised that even though I’d only known him for less than half an hour, I already liked and trusted him.

  ‘So what do you want to do about those?’ Paul asked, getting to his feet and nodding towards the flowers.

  ‘Bin them,’ I said decisively.

  He nodded. ‘Okay. I’ll take care of it for you. But first, do you have a phone on you?’

  I reached into my jacket pocket and drew out my mobile, vaguely shocked when I saw the time. I’d been away from my desk for ages.

  ‘Photograph them. Just in case you need… I don’t know, evidence or anything. And hang on to this,’ he said, picking up the black-edged card that I’d thrown down on his desk.

  I took it, holding it by just one corner, as though the poisonous words scrawled upon it might contaminate my fingers.

  ‘Someone out there has a nasty little mind. But don’t let them ruin your excitement about your big day. When is it, by the way?’

  ‘Soon,’ I replied. But instead of sounding happy, my voice sounded as grim as my mother’s had done when I told her I was engaged.