by Dani Atkins
*
‘I thought you were never coming back. I was getting ready to launch a rescue mission,’ said Jamie, when thirty minutes later I emerged from the shop in a daze. In one hand I held the box containing Gran’s wedding dress, in the other a bag bearing the Fleurs insignia.
Gwendoline Flowers had listened to my story without interruption. Without intending to, I’d somehow told her everything: about Gran, about Josie, even about my dad. By the time I was done, I was highly embarrassed to realise my cheeks were damp with tears I hadn’t even noticed had escaped.
‘Do you know, I believe I do have a hat that will go with the dress,’ she announced, swivelling from me on a delicate black stiletto heel.
She returned moments later carrying a gorgeous satin pillbox hat with a birdcage veil dusted with tiny crystals. She held it up and I caught a glimpse of a swinging price tag before she quickly ripped it off. But not so fast that I hadn’t seen how much it cost. My heart had plummeted, because I already knew the hat would suit Gran perfectly.
‘I… er, should probably have mentioned that I don’t have very much to spend on a hat.’
‘Well, you’re in luck, as this hat is from last season’s collection and was about to go into our sample sale.’
‘Really?’ I asked, my incredulity so obvious it was practically laughable. ‘That’s really kind of you, but I still doubt I can afford it.’
‘The hat is now twenty pounds.’
‘But it’s worth way more than that – I saw the price tag.’
‘You really haven’t grasped the concept of haggling, have you?’ Gwendoline asked, the trace of a smile playing on her lips. ‘You’re meant to talk me down, not up.’
In a daze, I withdrew the notes from the envelope in my bag and passed them to her. She wrote a receipt and wrapped the hat in tissue paper, as though this was a perfectly normal transaction, which we both knew was far from the truth.
As she walked me to the door, her eyes dropped to the box I was carrying. ‘The dress you’ve bought is quite special. It has a history and your grandmother will actually be the third bride to wear it. Perhaps one day I’ll write my memoirs and tell its story. Or maybe I should allow it to keep its secrets.’
She was talking about the gown as though it had a life and a will of its own, and while that should have really freaked me out, for some reason it didn’t. Surprising myself almost as much as I did her, I turned at the door and impulsively hugged this woman who was a dressed-in-black fairy godmother.
‘I can’t thank you enough for this.’
I got the impression that Gwendoline Flowers didn’t ‘do’ emotional and, as moving as the moment was, she wasn’t about to start now.
‘The dress found you and your grandmother. All I did was help with the accessories.’
‘You did more than that,’ I contradicted as she opened the shop door and gently ushered me from the premises.
28
There was an elephant in the room. A great big one. Its presence was so expected we should probably have set an extra place at the table and invited it to join us.
‘More meat, anyone?’ Dad asked, getting to his feet. My plate was still laden, but I nodded enthusiastically. Beneath the cover of the table I gave Jamie’s ankle a subtle kick and he hastily added his voice to mine.
‘Yes please, Mr Preston, it’s delicious.’
That was probably the moment when Dad should have said, Please, call me Gerald. Instead, he just picked up the platter and headed for the kitchen.
The moment the door swung to a close behind him, the conversation switched back to the topic that had been held on ‘pause’ since my father had entered the dining room. It felt like a scene straight out of a Richard Curtis film, which is a lot less amusing in real life than it is on the big screen.
Today was the last Sunday of the month, a date when Gran always joined us for a home-cooked roast. It was also six days until the wedding, and was probably Dad’s last chance to voice his disapproval. In an act of genius or total lunacy (I still couldn’t decide which), Mum had suggested I invite Jamie to join us: Your dad is far less likely to say anything negative about Gran’s wedding with Jamie present, and he won’t be hostile to Jamie in front of your grandmother. She’d smiled at me with the delight of someone who’d just cured a disease, and I didn’t have the heart to point out a third scenario, wherein Dad went for a double whammy and decided to have a go at both of our guests.
The last few weeks had been quite tense at home, with Dad doing an outstanding impression of an ostrich by pretending the wedding simply wasn’t going to happen. He’d taken to leaving the room whenever the W-word was mentioned, or turning up the television to eardrum-damaging levels to drown out the conversation. It was a middle-aged man’s equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears and trilling La, La, La, La. But even he must surely realise that nothing short of an act of God could stop the wedding now.
‘Mum’s managed to get the stains out of your dress and done an amazing job on repairing that small tear,’ I confided, my voice low.
Gran’s eyes went fondly to her daughter-in-law, whose efforts to help with the last-minute preparations had of necessity been highly covert. ‘That’s really kind of you, Natalie. Thank you so much.’
Last night, Mum had pulled me into the spare bedroom, where Gran’s wedding dress was hidden in a suitcase beneath the bed. She’d flipped open the clasps to reveal a gown now restored to its former glory. My enthusiastic reaction made me sound like I was auditioning for a detergent commercial, but she really had done an amazing job.
‘And what’s this?’ I’d asked, picking up a small beaded bolero that she’d added to the suitcase.
‘I thought Gran might like it as her “something borrowed”. As incredible as your grandmother is, even she might struggle to pull off a strapless dress in her seventies.’
‘Good point,’ I’d said, giving her an enormous hug, which thanked her in ways I’d never be able to find the right words to do.
‘I just wish I could see it on the day,’ my mother said now, her voice a whisper and full of regret.
‘You can,’ I insisted.
A warm, wrinkled hand covered mine on the tabletop. ‘No, she can’t, sweetheart. Your mother’s loyalty is to your dad. He’s hurt and confused by my decision, and your mum needs to be with him. I understand that.’
‘I just wish I could—’
The door swung open and Dad came in carrying a replenished platter.
‘You wish you could what?’ he asked his wife, setting down the dish and reaching for his glass of wine. Was I the only one who’d noticed he’d already refilled it several times more than he usually did?
‘Make Yorkshires as good as the packet ones,’ Mum replied, with the kind of quick thinking that made me realise she was far better at this undercover stuff than I would ever be. As much as I was looking forward to Gran and Josie’s wedding, life would be far less stressful when it was over and done with.
‘Is your father in the motor trade too?’ Dad asked, which, apart from ‘More potatoes?’, was the first question he’d asked Jamie directly.
‘No, sir. He actually runs his own management consultancy company.’
I could practically see the wheels and gears realigning in my dad’s head as he assimilated that information. That’s the thing about accountants, they like to file things: tax forms… VAT returns… people into pigeonholes. Jamie wasn’t conforming to the background he’d obviously created in his head.
To be fair, today he didn’t look like he’d ever set foot inside a greasy workshop. I’d actually done a double take when I’d slipped out to meet him at the end of our street an hour ago. His blond surfer-style hair had been effectively tamed with a product he didn’t usually use, and he was formally dressed in smartly cut trousers, a long-sleeved shirt and even a tie.
I’d felt like I was kissing a candidate for a bank manager’s job when he pulled me into his arms. Thankfully, this virtual s
tranger still kissed just like Jamie did.
I’d leant back in his hold, and he’d read the look on my face with surprising accuracy. ‘Lose the tie?’ I’d nodded and grinned. ‘I told Mum it was too much. But you know what mothers are like.’
I thought I did, but mine was continually surprising me these days.
With two shirt buttons undone, the top of one tattoo was just visible, but when Jamie went to refasten his shirt, I’d stilled his hands by covering them with my own. The skin of his chest was warm beneath my fingers and was having a curious effect on my own internal thermostat. Jamie’s heart was beating beneath my palm in a quickened thud, which was either from nerves about the forthcoming lunch or a result of holding my body so close to his. I knew which one I wanted it to be.
‘We should go,’ Jamie had said, pushing me away from him with obvious reluctance. He turned to pick up the bottle of wine and bunch of flowers he’d set down on a wall and held them before him, as though waving a white flag, as we crossed the threshold and entered my house.
Dad was too well mannered to be overtly impolite, but I think Jehovah’s Witnesses and door-to-door salesmen may possibly have received more enthusiastic welcomes at our door than my boyfriend did. Fortunately, Gran had filled the breach and had warmly embraced Jamie and thanked him once again for helping us out when Josie had been ill.
‘I hope she’s feeling better now?’ Jamie asked politely, as we moved into the dining room and took our places at the table.
‘She is.’
‘Just in time for the wedding,’ Jamie said unthinkingly. My dad’s brows joined together to form a single disapproving line and he disappeared off to the kitchen, muttering something about a corkscrew. Hopefully to use on the wine and not Jamie, although it was hard to say for sure.
‘Sorry,’ Jamie said quietly, as the Preston family women eyed each other with virtually identical expressions.
‘You did nothing wrong,’ Gran assured him, giving his forearm a kindly pat. ‘I’m the one who’s put him in this bad mood, not you.’
To his credit, Dad returned to the room with an attitude reset and I could see he was clearly trying to make an effort. ‘You were practising something on the piano quite late last night, Mandy.’
My eyes flew to Gran’s old upright, which occupied one corner of the dining room. On the music stand was the piece Gran had asked me to learn in order to play at her wedding ceremony. A fact I’d obviously not shared with Dad.
‘Sorry. I’ll try to keep it down in future.’
Surprisingly, his eyes softened and he turned from me to look at his mother. ‘It’s that Pachelbel piece, isn’t it?’ he asked her, rather than me.
‘I’m surprised you knew that, Gerald.’
He shook his head, and a small, unexpected smile appeared on his lips. ‘You used to play it all the time when I was younger. It feels like the soundtrack of my childhood. You always said how much you loved it.’
‘Pachelbel’s Canon in D,’ Gran said, looking at her son with the kind of love that only a parent knows. ‘It’s always been my favourite. Which was why I asked Mandy to—’
The unseen elephant gave a warning trumpeting cry, and whatever Gran had been about to say was instantly changed.
‘That’s why I asked Mandy to learn it.’
Dad gave a small but meaningful nod. He knows. I know he knows, I thought, watching as Dad stood up and began gathering the dirty plates together. Why can’t he reach out to her? Why can’t he see how much it would mean to her if he just accepted her choice?
*
We had to wait until both my parents were busy loading the dishwasher, fortuitously refusing all offers of help, to tell Gran the good news about the wedding flowers.
‘I know we said we’d probably have to make do with whatever we could pick from the garden,’ I told Gran, my words tumbling out on a rush in case the kitchen duties didn’t take as long as I hoped.
We’d moved from the dining room to the lounge and I was excited to share the news that the last missing element of the wedding plans had miraculously fallen into place. And I hadn’t done a thing to make that happen. It had all been Jamie.
Wedding flowers sorted
was the text he’d sent me two days ago.
Will pick you up at 3.30 to explain
The hands of the clock had been particularly sluggish as I sat through the rest of the afternoon’s lessons to find out what he meant by that intriguing message.
He was parked outside the school gates in a car I didn’t recognise.
‘Stole another one?’ I teased as I slipped into the passenger seat.
‘We’re taking it for a test drive to check the repairs,’ he’d replied, a smile playing around the lips I’d just kissed. It made me want to do it all over again.
‘So what did you mean about having sorted the flowers?’ I asked, swivelling in my seat as I realised we were now in a part of town I didn’t know very well.
We were stopped at traffic lights, and in answer Jamie took one hand from the wheel and slid it behind me. His fingers grazed the inch of bare skin between the hem of my T-shirt and the waistband of my jeans, but that wasn’t his target. His hand slipped into the back pocket of my Levis. As pleasant as the sensation was as his fingers explored the confines of the pocket, I was mystified.
‘Are you looking for something specific?’
The lights changed and his hand went back to the wheel as we pulled away. ‘The card that woman gave you.’
I looked at him blankly for a moment and then remembered the soggy rectangle of cardboard I’d retrieved after accidentally leaving it in the pocket when the jeans went through the wash cycle. My mouth fell open into a small O as I realised too late how significant that ruined business card could have been. ‘Oh bugger, that woman we helped had a florist shop, didn’t she? I’d forgotten all about that.’
‘Luckily for you, she didn’t forget,’ Jamie said, sounding just a little bit smug. I was prepared to give him that, because I thought I could see now where our unexpected mystery tour was going to lead us.
‘So this morning she turns up at the garage to get some work done, which is weird because she’s not a regular customer, but even more bizarre is that she sees me and instantly recognises me. I have no idea how she remembered who I was.’
I smiled, loving the way he was truly unaware that he had that kind of face, the kind that women of all ages would always remember.
‘So I figured, what the hell, there’s no harm in asking, is there? So I told her about the wedding you were planning for your gran and how you still hadn’t sorted out the flowers, and she said she’d be happy to provide them. That’s where we’re going now,’ he declared. ‘Or rather where we are now,’ he corrected, pulling into a parking space directly outside the shop with the very unusual name: Crazy Daisy.
As much as I didn’t want to burst his bubble, one look at the area told me that even with a generous discount we weren’t going to be able to afford to shop for wedding flowers here.
‘She said not to worry about it,’ Jamie said, with so much confidence that I found myself climbing out of the car and joining him on the pavement. Still feeling as though we were probably wasting everyone’s time, I let him take hold of my hand and lead me into the shop.
The owner, whose name was Beth, was absolutely lovely. Apparently Jamie had already given her the date of the wedding, and even though it was only a few days away, she assured me it shouldn’t be a problem. She led us to a rustic-looking bench beneath a beautiful abstract painting of poppies and passed me a leather photograph album with the label ‘Wedding Arrangements’ on the cover. I opened it up and instantly fell in love with the first bouquet I saw, and then felt my heart plummet as I saw the discreet price label beside the photograph.
I shut the album and passed it straight back to her, anxious not to take up any more of her day.
‘Everything in here is going to be beautiful, I can see that, but there’s no way I ca
n afford any of them, even if you were able to discount them.’ I gave a small helpless shrug. ‘I’ve only got twenty pounds left to spend.’ I got to my feet, but before Jamie could join me Beth placed the album in my hands once again.
‘Don’t look at the prices,’ she said with a smile. ‘Just pick which ones you like. When they equal the amount I’d have had to pay a garage to come out to fix the tyre on my car, I’ll let you know, and we’ll call it quits.’
I chose two matching bouquets, buttonholes and corsages for the guests and even a table arrangement, and the owner of Crazy Daisy never once said it was time to stop.
As I explained it all to Gran, I couldn’t help but feel there was something almost magical about this wedding, and the way everything had fallen into place. The dress, the hat, and now the flowers had all just simply presented themselves, as though I was somehow meant to find them. There was now only one thing missing that would make the day complete for Gran, I thought, as my eyes turned towards the kitchen. The day lost a little of its colour as I acknowledged there were some wishes that even an army of genies couldn’t make come true.
29
I cried the first time Gran tried on her wedding dress. In keeping with tradition, Josie wasn’t allowed to see it before the big day, and had been banished from the room before I lifted the lid from the dress box. Gran had looked down at the Fleurs gown for a very long time without saying a single word. Finally, she’d turned to me, her faded green eyes sparkling in exactly the same way my own had begun to do.
‘You found it, Mandy. You found the dress I was meant to wear. It’s absolutely perfect.’
‘You don’t even know if it will fit yet,’ I’d replied, my voice oddly thick.
‘It will fit,’ she’d said, with a serenity I don’t think I’d ever heard from her before.
And of course it had.
*
I therefore assumed I’d be immune when seeing her in the dress for the second time. I was wrong. It’s just as well my mascara was the waterproof type, I thought, as Gran swam in and out of focus, making the task of fastening the lacing at the back of the dress an unexpected challenge. For a pianist, I was strangely all fingers and thumbs as I struggled to cinch the dress against Gran’s slender frame. Although, as it turned out, I didn’t need to worry about my keyboard-playing skills today.
