by Dani Atkins
I was still trying to get my head around that fact, and how it made me feel, when he threw open the door and we entered the room, to a chorus of delighted cries and – embarrassingly – even a small round of applause.
The wedding festivities had begun.
*
Given the whirlwind nature of our courtship and engagement, this was actually the first time that many members of my family had even met Darrell. It could have felt awkward and uncomfortable introducing him to strangers who he’d be related to the following day. But Darrell was on a major charm offensive. Both of my young teenage cousins clearly thought I’d won the fiancé lottery and giggled and blushed prettily whenever he spoke to them. Even my usually prickly elderly aunt took me to one side and murmured that it looked like I’d found a ‘good ’un’. I smiled weakly as she continued with her usual lack of filter: ‘At least you picked more carefully than your mother did.’
Both of us looked across the room. My father was in the middle of telling a story to a group of family members he’d probably not seen in years. My mother was part of that group and, astonishingly, when the entire circle erupted into gales of laughter, she not only joined in, but also briefly laid one hand on his arm. I caught the look he fleetingly gave her, and turned away, as though I’d intruded on something intimate. Could Darrell be right? They did appear to be getting on unaccountably well for a couple whose divorce was neither amicable nor civilised.
By the time we’d taken our places at the table, two glasses of Prosecco had filed the rough edges off my jangly mood. Everything was going to be fine; the wedding was going to go without a hitch, I vowed, smiling around at the room full of people. Everyone here was important to me in some way, and just having them there empowered me. I felt stronger and braver knowing they were on my side. All of them – even my outspoken aunt – wanted only what was best for me. I glanced over at Darrell sitting beside me and felt suddenly sad that in a room full of people, he had no one. Except me, of course. He had me.
I wondered if, beneath the charm, he felt isolated. He might be able to fool the giggly cousins and my aunt, but I could see he was still on edge. I knew that even before one of the waitresses dropped a tray of cutlery on to the parquet floor. As the clatter of falling silverware ricocheted around the room, Darrell had half leapt from his chair as though someone had launched a grenade through the open French windows. His eyes darted between them and the door to the room.
‘Hey, you’re jumpy,’ Karen’s boyfriend, Tom, observed. They were sitting diagonally opposite us and must have seen the way Darrell’s eyes had flown from window to door, as though at any moment he expected a crack SAS squad to come crashing into the room… or someone equally dangerous.
‘You look like a man planning a hasty getaway,’ Tom joked, unfortunately. A comment that earned him a sharp kick beneath the table from his girlfriend. ‘Ow! What did you do that for?’ he asked, turning to Karen with a hurt expression on his face.
‘My foot slipped,’ she replied sweetly, before turning to me and mouthing Sorry.
All things considered, the meal was progressing exactly the way I had planned. The conversation was flowing, the food was delicious and I was finally starting to relax, until the moment when everything changed. I felt it first in the bones of my ankle, where my black beaded evening bag was propped up against my foot. I’d almost left my phone in the hotel room, purely because everyone I knew was either going to be at the rehearsal dinner or would know that I was, so wouldn’t be trying to call me.
At the last moment I switched off the ringer and dropped the mobile into my bag, where it landed on top of my comb and lipstick. And now it was ringing, silently ringing. Very subtly, as though retrieving a dropped serviette, I leant down and popped open the bag’s clasp. An insistent buzzing sounded from within, as though I’d accidentally trapped an exceedingly pissed-off bee inside it. My hand hovered over the phone and then hesitated.
‘What is it?’ asked Darrell, drawing his chair a little closer to mine. I looked up, caught my mother’s far too perceptive eyes watching me from across the room, and tried to summon up the most natural smile I could find to plaster across my face.
‘Someone’s phoning me.’
It’s weird how instantly we were on exactly the same page. Did that signify how compatible we were, or just that we were both trapped in the same nightmare? ‘Don’t answer it,’ Darrell said sharply.
I didn’t even bother to ask him why. We both knew why. She’d already found out so much about me: where I worked; where I lived; the car I drove. Tracking down my mobile number was yet another trump card she’d managed to score.
‘It’s probably just some random PPI call,’ said Darrell, but I could tell from the tone of his voice that he didn’t really believe it was.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Did you see the number?’ he asked, speaking out of one side of his mouth. The other half was still smiling at the room in general.
I looked down into my bag at my now silent phone. The last thing I intended to do was to start scrolling through my call log with my entire family watching on.
‘Well, they’ve gone now,’ Darrell declared, reaching for his glass of wine and taking a generous swallow. He hadn’t even replaced the glass on the white-linen-covered table before my phone began to ring once more.
I didn’t stop to think, I just jumped to my feet and bundled my bag beneath my arm, as though trying to stifle its soundless cry.
‘Suzanne—’ began Darrell, his hand reaching out to me, but he touched nothing except the space where I had been sitting. I was already halfway across the floor, heading towards the discreetly illuminated Exit sign.
As soon as I was clear of the room, my hand dived into the bag and plucked out my phone, like a furious kingfisher swooping for a minnow. There was a number on the screen that I didn’t recognise. My heart was pounding as I side-swiped to accept the call.
‘Who is this?’ It wasn’t the way I usually answered the phone, and clearly it surprised the caller, for there was a moment of stunned silence before I heard my own name being posed as a question.
‘Suzanne?’ So much for the PPI theory, I thought, leaning heavily against a large marble column in the reception area. Thankfully, the foyer was empty except for the two members of staff behind the desk, who were busily absorbed in their own conversation.
The voice in my ear repeated their question. ‘Suzanne? Is that you?’
I opened my mouth to confirm my identity, but never got the chance to speak, for the phone was suddenly whisked out of my hand. Darrell’s eyes were glittering with anger, directed not at me, but at my caller.
‘This has to stop,’ he said tersely into the phone. ‘Right now. Right this moment. It all has to stop.’
I was watching his face anxiously. The emotions passed over it, like clouds scudding over the moon. His expression was unreadable as he listened to the person at the end of the phone for a moment, before slowly withdrawing the mobile from his ear and handing it out to me. There was a new look on his face, and frankly I didn’t like it much better than the one that had come before it.
‘It’s for you,’ he said darkly.
‘Yes, well, it would be, seeing as it’s my phone.’ Suddenly I was annoyed, and embarrassed, dreadfully, awfully, scarlet-faced embarrassed.
‘I thought—’ he began, and then broke off.
‘Yes, I thought so too.’ I looked pointedly at the door to the private dining room. ‘I think one of us had better go back to our guests.’ Darrell waited for a moment, as though there might follow a discussion as to which one of us that should be. I didn’t move.
‘Yeah, well. I’ll go back in then, shall I?’
I waited until he’d taken half a dozen steps before slowly lifting my phone once again to my ear. ‘I am so sorry about that.’
‘No problem.’ Paul’s voice was calm, as though being yelled at by two different people within as many seconds happened every time he
made a call. ‘Is everything okay over there?’
I gave a sound that I truly thought was going to be a laugh. No one could have been more surprised than me when it turned into a sob. ‘Yes. No. Not really.’
‘Okaaaay,’ said Paul, clearly at a loss to know what to say. And who could blame him?
‘Things have been a bit… fraught… tonight,’ I began, and then realised I had no reason to be dragging Paul into our horrible, ugly situation. Another thought suddenly occurred to me.
‘How did you get this number? I’ve never given it to you.’
This time he was the one who sounded awkward. ‘Ah well, that’s a case of total abuse of privilege. I shamelessly exploited the fact that my father’s elderly secretary has a soft spot for me, and I got her to pull your personnel file.’
I may have gasped a little, but it was a nice kind of gasp, not the kind you make when someone is stalking or threatening you. I now knew the difference.
‘I know,’ Paul replied solemnly. ‘Shocking misuse of power, isn’t it? I’ll probably have to spend the next five years of my life working in the post room as a penance.’
Amazingly, I laughed, and it felt so good that I still remembered how to do it.
‘So what turned you to the dark side?’ I asked, still smiling, and wondering if he could tell that I was from my voice. ‘Why did you want my number?’
‘Because I’ve been off all week, and I got my dates mixed up and thought your wedding wasn’t for another fortnight. I came by your desk this morning at—’
‘Eleven o’clock,’ I interrupted, with another smile.
‘Yes, at eleven o’clock, and saw everything tidied up and squared away. And then your colleague – the one with the glasses – said you were getting married tomorrow.’
‘I was. I mean, I am,’ I corrected, wondering what that very telling Freudian slip might have revealed.
‘Yeah, well, I know that now. And there was something important I wanted to say to you, before you got yourself hitched.’
Everything around me suddenly went very quiet. The women behind reception were still talking, I could tell that from their moving lips; a concierge wheeled a luggage trolley across the marble tiled floor, and yet it made no noise at all. The only sound I could hear was my own heartbeat.
‘What? What was it you wanted to say to me?’ That surely couldn’t be my voice. It sounded nothing like me.
‘I… I just wanted to say… to say…’ This was very unlike him. I might not know Paul well, but eloquence was never something he’d struggled with. He knew all the words, only for some strange reason he appeared to be having trouble finding the right ones tonight.
‘I just wanted to say… good luck. I hope everything goes well tomorrow. I wish you all the happiness in the world.’
A single tear formed at the corner of my eye. I tried to blink it back, but it was determined, and slid slowly down my cheek. I tasted its saltiness as it grazed against my lips. No more followed it. I wasn’t crying. I had no reason to cry. It was a perfectly nice message from someone I hardly knew, not really.
The man I loved was sitting in a room full of my family and friends, doing his best to make them see why he was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. And I had no business being out here talking on the phone to another man.
‘I have to go,’ I said hurriedly.
‘Of course,’ Paul responded, and I could tell he was both annoyed and embarrassed.
‘Goodbye, Paul,’ I said softly, and then broke the connection before he could reply.
*
‘Well, that was awkward,’ said Darrell under his breath, as I slid back on to my seat beside him. ‘The post room certainly works late at your office, doesn’t it?’ he added.
He was half turned in his chair, his body language an open challenge. Okay, he had a right to be annoyed. Your fiancée is not meant to be taking telephone calls from other men on the night before your wedding. But then she’s not meant to be the target of a hate campaign from your deranged ex-girlfriend either. We were both guilty. We were both innocent.
‘He just wanted to wish us well,’ I said, subtly altering Paul’s message.
‘That was nice of him,’ Darrell said. Even a deaf man could have heard that he didn’t mean it.
‘Paul is just a friend,’ I said, annoyed with myself for having to justify one tiny secret, while Darrell was holding on to so many more.
‘Is he coming to the wedding tomorrow?’
I sat up sharply in my seat, genuinely shocked. ‘No. Of course he isn’t.’
Something seemed to relax in Darrell then, and for the first time since taking the phone call, he reached for my hand and laced his fingers through mine.
‘Sorry. I overreacted. I guess even tonight, with our wedding in the morning, I still can’t believe how lucky I am to be marrying you.’
I smiled, or at least I tried to. I think I did okay.
7
The make-up artist packed away the collection of products it had taken to effect my transformation, while I stared at the stranger in the mirror, who looked a little bit like me and an awful lot like someone far more polished and glamorous. At least I’d look good in the wedding photos, I thought. I’ll probably be glad of that over the next fifty years or so. I gulped, and saw the woman in the glass do likewise. Fifty years of marriage… what would that feel like? I had no point of reference, no compass locator to guide me. My own parents had barely even managed three. Had my mother felt like this on her wedding day? I could have asked her, I suppose; she was only three doors down the corridor right now, already getting dressed in her mother-of-the-bride outfit.
I cinched the silk robe a little more securely around my waist and thanked both the hairdresser and the beautician for their work. As soon as they left I went straight to the large Georgian windows and threw them open, letting out the lingering aroma of hairspray (my hair was going nowhere today) and cosmetics. I breathed in deeply, waiting for the feeling that I was slowly suffocating to fade. Perhaps breathing into a brown paper bag would have been more beneficial than inhaling a lungful of country air? That was the recommended treatment for anxiety attacks, wasn’t it? I felt my lips twist into a smile as I visualised walking down the petal-strewn aisle in my flowing wedding dress, a bouquet in one hand and a brown paper sack in the other. That’d be a good photo for the album.
A deep-cushioned window seat was set beneath the casement, and I sank down on to it, curling my legs up beneath me like a child. If I leant out and craned my neck to the right, I could see the ornamental lake, and beside it the decorated wedding canopy. I could also see the neatly lined-up rows of chairs, each tied with a red satin bow, and beside them a long linen-covered table, already set up with champagne glasses. I leant out further and stared at the red-carpet aisle that I would walk down as a single woman, and walk back up as someone’s wife. A light knock on the door, and I drew my head rapidly back inside, like a startled tortoise.
‘Suzanne, open up, it’s me,’ hissed my bridesmaid, as my fingers fumbled awkwardly with the door catch. It was strange how even the simplest of motor skills were a struggle for me this morning. It was probably just as well that hands other than mine had been responsible for my hair and make-up.
I eventually pulled open the door to find Karen standing in the public corridor wearing only an incredibly short towelling robe. She dived into my room, just as a young family emerged from a door opposite. ‘Definitely a bad idea to stand in a corridor semi-naked,’ she said, pulling ineffectually on the hem of her robe.
‘Tell me about it,’ I replied, without thinking.
Karen’s neatly plucked eyebrows rose slightly, but I shook my head and changed the subject. ‘If that’s what you’re wearing to walk down the aisle behind me, you’re going to totally upstage my lovely dress.’
She smiled. ‘Even if I dropped the robe, all eyes would still be on you,’ she said loyally. ‘Your hair and make-up look amazing, by the way.�
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‘Thank you,’ I said, claiming credit I hadn’t earned. All I’d had to do was sit there.
‘Have you heard from Darrell this morning?’ asked Karen, bending down and lifting the silver lids off a largely untouched selection of breakfast plates on my room service tray. She selected a soft buttery croissant from one and flopped down on to a wing chair to eat it. ‘My diet’s officially over, by the way,’ she said, sinking her teeth deep into the golden flakes of pastry.
‘Help yourself,’ I said, indicating the bowls of fresh fruit, cereals and jams also on the tray. ‘I couldn’t face eating anything,’ I confided.
‘If you swoon going up the aisle, don’t expect me to catch you.’
‘Do people still swoon these days?’ I asked, sitting down opposite her and glancing at the time on my phone. ‘In answer to your question, I haven’t spoken to Darrell today, but he did message me.’
I swivelled the device around so she could read the screen. ‘Good morning, wife. Tomorrow I’ll whisper that to you as you lie beside me.’
‘Aw, sweet,’ declared Karen. ‘He’s quite the romantic, isn’t he? Tom would never send me a message like that in a million years.’
I smiled and nodded, feeling disloyal that sometimes – just sometimes – I found it all a little too much. How ungrateful would that have made me sound? I didn’t show her the second message, the one he’d sent a short while ago, which asked: ‘Is everything still quiet at your end?’ It was. But the fact that both of us were still anticipating some last-minute attempt to derail our day was hardly comforting.
‘It’ll soon be over,’ he had whispered as he folded me into his arms and kissed me goodnight after the rehearsal dinner. The taxi he’d ordered was waiting at the bottom of the hotel steps, but Darrell had seemed in no hurry to leave me. ‘We’ll soon be married and then there’ll be nothing anyone can do to keep us apart,’ he vowed. The love on his face jarred slightly with the steel in his voice.
