The Wedding Dress

by Dani Atkins

  ‘Are you in some sort of witness protection scheme?’ I hazarded uncertainly. ‘I tried to find your family. I wanted to invite his parents – your parents – to our wedding, but I couldn’t track them down.’

  ‘Well, wouldn’t that have been fun?’ Catherine replied bitterly. ‘I doubt they’d have said yes though, even if you’d found them. You see, we’ve already been to Darrell’s wedding.’

  My heart began hammering against the wall of my chest, as though it was trying to get out of here before the woman sitting opposite me totally destroyed it. Too late. There was nowhere for it to go.

  ‘You’re so stupid. You’re all so stupid. Darrell is already married – and has been for the last seven years.’

  There was a glass of iced water in my hand. I had no idea how it got there. It was almost a shock to see Catherine replace the glass jug on the tray. ‘You should drink that. You’ve gone a funny colour,’ she observed.

  ‘Darrell was married for seven years? He’s divorced?’ My voice was tentative, as though I already knew the answer to those questions. I just wasn’t ready to hear them.

  ‘Is married. Not divorced. Not separated. He’ll never leave Alice. And she’ll keep taking him back and forgiving him, time after time.’

  ‘What? Alice? He has a wife called Alice? But he can’t have,’ I said, getting shakily to my feet. ‘Because we’re getting married. We’re getting married today,’ I said stupidly, indicating my long white bridal gown, as though she might possibly have forgotten the occasion I was dressed for.

  ‘Not if I can help it, you’re not. Not unless you deliberately want to enter into a bigamous marriage. Oh, and by the way, those are my great-grandmother’s earrings. I’ll have them back, please.’ She held out her hand for the diamonds. I tore them from my ears so roughly I actually made them bleed and never even noticed. Catherine dropped them into the pocket of her jacket.

  ‘This isn’t the first time he’s done this, you know,’ she said, pulling a packet of cigarettes from her bag and lighting one. In view of the larger issues, it seemed ridiculous to point out that this was a ‘no smoking’ room. ‘I have to admit, I’m surprised it went this far. I thought he’d have stopped it long before now, once he realised that I’d found out what he was doing again.’

  ‘How many times has this happened? How many other women has he done this to?’ That voice wasn’t mine. It was the voice of a victim; a victim who’d just crawled away from the wreckage of an almost fatal accident.

  ‘This is the second time,’ Catherine admitted, destroying the structure of my future with her words. ‘After the first time, it all got very ugly. That was why we had to move and change our name. That was what Darrell’s feud with the family was about. But Alice… well, she loves him. She stayed with him. He persuaded her he’d get counselling, he told her he would never, ever do it again. And yet…’ She stopped and swept her hand around the room, full of wedding paraphernalia.

  I made a low noise, which sounded like an animal in pain. I’d been so stupid, so trusting and so very, very stupid. How could I not have seen through all the lies? The constant business trips; the second phone; the two passports?

  ‘If it’s any consolation, he probably loves you very much,’ observed Catherine drily, drawing heavily on her cigarette.

  That was the moment when finally – thankfully – I got angry. Blood-red, boiling angry. ‘Love?’ I shrieked. ‘He doesn’t even know the meaning of the word. How can you love someone and do this to them? To me? To the woman who came before me, and to his goddamn wife?’

  Catherine looked at me through a long exhaled plume of cigarette smoke. ‘You think you know Darrell, but you don’t. Not the real Darrell, not the boy I grew up with. He was the golden child. He always had everything. He had the looks, the intelligence and the ability to do or be anything he damn well wanted. And he wanted it all. You think it’s an accident that he has the kind of job he’s got, the type that allows him to lead two entirely separate lives? Of course it’s no fucking accident. Darrell’s greedy—’ She spat out the word nastily, and it was only then that I realised that as much as she might love him, she really didn’t like her brother very much. ‘He’s always had everything, and he just doesn’t see any reason why that shouldn’t continue. I’ve no doubt he wants very much to be your husband. But he also still wants to be Alice’s.’

  I felt sick, actually physically sick. I wanted this woman out of there, but she looked almost comfortable now. The power in the room was all hers.

  ‘Why… why hasn’t he been arrested? You say he’s done this before? Then why haven’t the police arrested him? He should be in prison.’

  Catherine’s eyes flickered, and just like that the power shifted, and suddenly it was all mine. ‘Because, so far, I’ve been able to stop him. The other woman was so humiliated by what had happened, she refused to press charges, and anyway I managed to stop it far sooner than this time.’ She looked at me with something that in another time and place might actually be admiration. ‘You don’t scare off easily, do you? Whatever I did, I couldn’t seem to drive the two of you apart. You must love him very much.’

  ‘The man I thought I loved doesn’t even exist.’

  Catherine nodded, and there was actually sympathy on her face. ‘He needs help,’ she said solemnly. ‘Proper help this time.’

  ‘He needs to be behind bars,’ I countered, my voice as hard as the diamonds in the earrings he’d given me to wear.

  ‘Well, technically he hasn’t actually committed a crime yet. It’s only bigamy if you go through with the ceremony. He refuses to listen to me, and he knows me too well, that’s the trouble with being a twin. He knows I’ll never report him, whatever he does. He really believes that once the two of you are married, I’ll disappear back into the shadows and say nothing.’

  ‘Would you?’ I asked, horrified.

  She was quiet for a long time, considering her answer. ‘Probably. If he went to prison it would destroy my parents. I couldn’t do that, not to them, or to Alice. I really like my sister-in-law.’

  It was as if she’d taken a knife, sliced it through my beautiful white dress, and plunged it straight into my heart. ‘Okay,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘You can leave now. You’ve said what you came here to say.’

  ‘So you’ll call it off? You’ll just walk away?’ she said hopefully, reaching for yet another cigarette from the packet. Her fingers were trembling as she extracted one.

  ‘Or maybe I’ll just walk down those stairs in the next fifteen minutes and marry him after all,’ I said, throwing open the door. ‘And then, right after, I’ll phone the police to make sure that this never happens to another dumb bride. Ever again.’

  *

  ‘Fuck me.’

  ‘You said that already.’

  ‘I’m probably going to continue saying it for some time to come,’ said Karen. ‘Get used to it. I always knew there was something fishy about him. I just knew it.’

  I looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘I think this goes way beyond “fishy”, don’t you? This is criminal.’

  There was a knock on the door and Karen leapt up to get it. Gwendoline came into the room carrying a silver tray with three large brandies on it, and a bottle ready for refills.

  ‘I told them you might be a little late down, that there was a small problem with the dress and we were waiting for a seamstress.’ She gave a small sound to indicate just how unlikely that lie had been.

  ‘It’s probably bought you a little more time, but if you don’t do something soon, both of your parents are going to get suspicious. Your mother is a very perceptive and determined woman,’ Gwendoline added.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Karen.

  ‘I know what I want to do,’ I said darkly, feeling the fire of the brandy score a path down my throat. ‘I want to kill him.’

  ‘Ditto that.’

  ‘I want them to lock him up and throw away the bloody key.’

  ‘
Perfectly understandable,’ Karen conceded. ‘But to do that, he actually has to commit a crime. He actually has to marry you. Is that really what you want to do?’

  I shook my head miserably. ‘I just feel so stupid. So gullible and dumb. I feel like the biggest idiot that ever walked the face of the earth.’

  ‘You’re not the idiot. He is,’ said Karen. ‘But as ugly as all this is now, if you go through with the ceremony just to bring him down, what will that do to you?’

  I went to the window. Over the noise of the chirping birds I could hear the vague strains of the string quartet, who were filling in time while they waited for the bride to put in her appearance. Brides were traditionally late. It was what everyone expected. But not me. I was never late. Not for anything. A sob tore from me, as I thought of everyone down by the lake, waiting for me.

  Suddenly I couldn’t breathe.

  I hurled the empty brandy glass across the room, not even noticing when it shattered against the wall.

  ‘Get me out of this dress,’ I cried, pulling frantically at the boned neckline, as though it was crushing my chest. ‘Get this bloody thing off me.’ My hands were scrabbling at the ribbons, which had laced me in as tight as a straitjacket.

  Both women flew across the room to reach me. Karen was crying along with me, but Gwendoline was amazing, all calm voice and soothing arms. ‘Hush now, it’s coming off, it’s coming off. Stand still, sweetheart, you’ll soon be free of it.’

  And when the final ribbon was pulled out of its loop, when the dress fell around my feet like a pool of white lava, I breathed easily and felt it then, the cool breeze of freedom, soothing my panic.

  Karen gave me her hand, and I stepped out of the fallen white folds as though escaping from quicksand. I looked back once over my shoulder and saw Gwendoline crouched down, picking the dress up from the floor. ‘Get rid of it for me, please. I never want to see it again.’ She nodded sadly.

  *

  I felt better when I was back in jeans and a T-shirt. I felt like me again, or as much like me as I was going to be for a while.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ I asked.

  Karen nodded solemnly. ‘It will be the pinnacle of my career as your bridesmaid.’

  ‘As my chief bridesmaid,’ I corrected, tears slowly falling down my cheeks. They’d been doing that for a while now, totally ruining the beautician’s hard work.

  ‘They still probably think you’re just going to be late,’ she added. ‘But if you want to get away without facing anyone, you’re going to have to do it right now.’

  I nodded slowly. ‘Tell my parents I’ll call them later. Make sure they know that I’m okay.’

  ‘Consider it done,’ assured Karen.

  ‘Tell everyone else that I changed my mind.’

  ‘And Darrell?’ Karen prompted hesitantly. ‘What do you want me to tell him?’

  I gave a small bitter laugh. ‘Tell him I met his sister. That should do it.’

  Karen smiled in a way that told me that of all the tasks I was asking of her, that one would be her favourite.

  ‘Do you want me to call you a cab so you can be gone before I go down?’ she asked, reaching in her bag for her phone.

  I shook my head and instead picked up my own. ‘It’s okay. I’ll do it.’

  Things happen for a reason. Good things and bad things. Sometimes you need distance to work out which is which. Sometimes, you just know.

  The number was in my call log. It was answered on the second ring. I glanced at my watch. It was exactly the time I was supposed to be walking down the aisle.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’re available for an emergency eleven o’clock collection, are you?’

  ‘I’ll be right there,’ said Paul.

  8

  Six Months Later

  The first flakes of snow started to fall just as we pulled up outside the church. They swirled lazily down, settling on my hair and bare shoulders like confetti. I resisted a childish urge to stick out my tongue to taste the icy crystals, which would probably have earned me a disapproving look from my mother, who’d emerged from the limo right behind me. Or maybe not. She’d changed recently. We all had. I imagined there was very little I’d ever thank Darrell for, but the events of last summer had brought about a new closeness between Mum and me. She was softer now, less judgemental, except on those occasions when Darrell’s name was mentioned. Then she morphed into a Fury-like creature, with a murderous gleam in her eyes. ‘I could happily kill him,’ she’d said at least a hundred times, which was better than the ‘I told you so’s I’d been expecting. Strangely, she’d never said those words, not even once. ‘If you want to kill that little toerag, take a number and get in line,’ my dad had growled.

  He’d hugged me fiercely at the airport before flying back to Spain one week later. It had felt odd having Mum beside me to wave him off. That definitely wouldn’t have happened before Darrell and the wedding-that-never-was.

  ‘I might actually miss your father a little, now that he’s gone,’ Mum had confessed, as we’d stood at the huge plate-glass windows watching his plane take to the sky.

  Somehow I’d managed to hide my smile and I’d reached for her hand, surprised at how comforting it felt to have it wrapped around mine once more. ‘Spain’s not so very far away. Perhaps—’ She’d shot me down with a single look. Yes, she’d changed… but not quite that much.

  And now my father was back again. To attend a wedding that everyone hoped would be a great deal more successful than the last one I’d planned. It was already off to a good start, I thought with a smile. At least this time the groom wasn’t already married.

  The chiming of the church bells beckoned us towards the oak doors, which were flung open in welcome. Waiting inside the familiar parish church of my childhood were my family, friends and – of course – the man I loved. I wondered how many guests on the left-hand side of the church, the bride’s side, were thinking back to the much grander affair they’d attended last summer. At least those on the groom’s side didn’t have those memories to taint today.

  The limo driver, who was holding an enormous golf umbrella above our heads, waited patiently as I picked up my bouquet of yellow gerberas. They were an unconventional choice for a wedding, but they were the first flowers Paul had ever given me and had become our ‘thing’. Roses, for obvious reasons, would always hold far less pleasant memories.

  Paul had even produced a bunch of the cheery yellow blooms from the boot of his car when we’d gone away for a recent trip to the coast. It had been our first holiday together and the beachside property he’d found couldn’t have been more perfect. The quaint clapboard cottage was set almost directly on the sand at the end of a long, twisty lane and was an idyllic spot for a romantic getaway. And we clearly weren’t the only people to have thought so, for the guest book was filled with the names of couples who’d celebrated landmark moments in their relationship by staying there. Among the ‘Perfect spot for our anniversary’ and ‘We got engaged!!!’ comments were two particularly intriguing entries.

  ‘What do you think happened here?’ I asked, swivelling the guest book towards Paul and running my finger beneath the names of a Sophie and Ben, who in a previous February had written ‘So happy he brought me here’. Then, I flicked forward to six months later where I’d spotted the same distinctive penmanship beside another entry that read ‘We came back’, but oddly this time the only name beside it was Sophie’s.

  Paul had smiled and gently lifted the book from my hands. ‘Who knows? Maybe they split up.’ I’d shaken my head, my interest still piqued, but then all thoughts of previous guests disappeared as Paul reached for my hands. ‘I’d like to see your name and mine together in that book for many years to come,’ he’d said, his voice suddenly husky. We were careful never to talk about the future, although increasingly it was becoming harder and harder for me to imagine one without him in it. ‘I know you want to take this thing slowly,’ he said, his green eyes holding mine captive, �
��and I understand why, I really do. But I want to make sure you know that I’m all in. I’m done. This is it for me.’

  ‘Me too,’ I whispered.

  ‘Good,’ he said, his breath mingling with mine in the gentlest of kisses. ‘The future will find a way of sorting itself out,’ he promised. ‘It always does.’

  It was warm sitting beside the cottage’s inglenook fireplace, but it wasn’t flames that melted my heart, it was the look in his eyes. ‘I don’t care if some people say it’s too soon – I knew you were the one from that very first day, when you sat in my post room, trying so hard not to cry.’

  ‘Your post room?’ I asked, my voice caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob. ‘And there I was thinking you were just the guy who delivered the post.’

  He grinned. ‘Ah, didn’t I tell you? My father owns the company.’

  I grinned right back at him. ‘My mother’s a famous novelist.’

  ‘You win,’ Paul said, bending down and kissing me in a way that made all further conversation redundant.

  *

  It wouldn’t have surprised me if some of the guests in the church today thought this wedding was a little hasty; rushed even. I’d heard it referred to as a whirlwind courtship by more than one person. And in a way they were right, because it had swept through our lives like a gust of exhilarating fresh air. The only thing that really mattered was that the people I loved, the people I truly cared about, all knew differently.

  Today’s celebration would be nothing like the wedding Darrell and I had planned to have. And that was no happy accident; it was one hundred per cent deliberate. From the time of year – winter rather than summer – to the flowers, and the cake, everything was completely different. And that included the dress. This gown hadn’t come from Fleurs and was a world away from the dress I’d chosen from there. This one was a sophisticated slim sheath in champagne-coloured satin. It was a Grace Kelly meets Audrey Hepburn kind of gown, and when I saw the price tag I felt a wave of guilt that my mother had now bought two extremely expensive gowns in a little over six months.