Once in a Lifetime

Natalie nodded. ‘When the men with the white coats arrive, will I make them tea or coffee?’

Molly beamed a wide smile that lit up her small, round face and made her eyes dance. Apart from her eyes, she looked nothing like her famous mother. Short and adolescently skinny, she had reddish-brown curly hair that she liked to wear in a ponytail. Even when dressed for work and presiding over weighty reports on poverty, she looked about sixteen instead of twenty-three.

‘The men in the white coats had tea the last time,’ she said. ‘They might have coffee this. I know I’m mad, but I like the fish programmes too,’ she added. ‘Fish are very soothing. And there’s nothing else on TV tonight. I’m fed up with forensic science shows, they give me nightmares. There’s a good film on later.’

Something romantic, Natalie guessed fondly. Molly might work at the sharp end of society, but for relaxation, she devoured romantic novels and movies. The only thing that might get her off the couch was a real-life Johnny-Depp type in Regency costume with the desire to crush Molly to his manly bosom.

‘I got you a hat, just in case you wanted to come…’ Natalie plonked a zebra-skin cowboy hat on her friend’s head.

‘I love it!’ Molly sat up to adjust the hat, then wriggled back down into the couch. ‘I’m happier here, Nat, honestly. I’m no good at that party thing. I’d prefer watching it to being in the middle of it, but if you watch, everyone thinks you’re a weirdo. Besides, we haven’t organised a cat-sitter.’

‘See you later, crazy lady,’ said Natalie, leaving.

Lizzie always said that Natalie and Molly were bad for each other because they liked being home so much. Her idea of a good time didn’t involve cats, the TV or books. But then Lizzie didn’t appreciate that Natalie stayed in at night slaving away on her designs because she was determined to succeed as a jewellery designer. She couldn’t do that and be in clubs and pubs every night of the week like Lizzie. Natalie enjoyed going out when the mood took her. Though tonight, strangely, she wasn’t in the mood. Instead she was worried.

There had been such an emotional build-up to the hen night and Lizzie was so fiercely determined to have a good time, determined to have one last wild party before she tied the knot, that Natalie feared the evening wouldn’t end well.

Club Laguna itself was opaque, from the all subdued lighting that made you think you were wearing your sunglasses indoors. Even the mirrors behind the bar added to the effect: opaque glass and the lodestone was…Lizzie. Which was only fair; it was Lizzie’s hen night, after all.

Ten women from Lizzie’s life had been hauled together for this momentous party: Natalie and Anna from school, her two mad cousins from Donegal who’d rolled up looking like off-duty supermodels, a couple of girls from college and three from Lizzie’s office. The party had started three hours before in Lizzie’s flat and Lizzie clearly wanted it to go on all night. As the person charged with organising the whole thing, Natalie would have to stay to the bitter end. But she was tired. Working in the café in Kenny’s by day and designing her jewellery by night meant she had very little energy. Certainly not the energy Lizzie and the other hens seemed to have, energy for squealing as they admired dresses, shoes and passing men. Wearing their zebra cowboy hats–‘Nat, you genius! I love them!’–the hens were attracting plenty of attention from several predatory men. So far, all boarders had been repelled, although one guy–in a denim shirt that displayed his fabulous muscles and with a tiny skull-and-crossbones earring in one ear that showed off how cool he was–was watching from the sidelines, clearly pretty keen on Lizzie. He’d get bored, Natalie hoped.

She watched the barman diligently mix the cocktails. Swirl some crimson liquid into the shaker, do a little smooth move to impress the ladies, add something clear from a modern frosted glass bottle, crash in some ice, then shake.

The women clustered round the art deco glass bar murmured approval.

‘More vodka,’ shrieked Lizzie, a tousled brunette who was kneeling on the barstool so she could see all the action, though she’d definitely had enough vodka already. Four vodka tonics and a white wine spritzer, and now she’d ordered the bar’s speciality: the Laguna Beach, a concoction that came complete with a voucher for the Betty Ford Clinic. She’d already decided she wasn’t wearing enough make-up and had clumsily added another layer of eyeliner in the dark gloom of the ladies’ where you needed a torch to find the flush button on the loo. The dark and the drink combined had not resulted in a classy make-up look.

Natalie thought there was a business opening for anyone who patented a range of make-up bags with breathalyser gadgets fitted to their zips: once you were drunk, you couldn’t open the bag and start applying drag-queen levels of cosmetics.

She’d done it herself and had the photos to prove it. Marilyn Manson meets Picasso with a side order of vampire chic thrown in. It wasn’t a good look, given that she could pass for Gothic heroine easily enough anyway. Depending on what she wore, Natalie’s look could go either way: young and interesting or consumptively strange. She was pale-skinned, prone to purple shadows under her heliotrope eyes and with long ebony hair that never looked entirely brushed. In jeans and a T-shirt, her lean legginess and youthful skin gave her the look of a student, even though she was twenty-three and out of college. In tonight’s party outfit of sapphire-blue slip dress, she was working the girl-next-door-with-a-hint-of-edginess look.

‘Hot and sexy,’ Molly had decreed earlier when Natalie was getting ready. ‘But in control; not “I’m available, big boy” sexy, more “You can look, but don’t touch” sexy.’

Part of their routine was outfit-grading before they left the flat. Despite her own charity-shop look, Molly was brilliant at gauging outfits and their suitability for events. Natalie could do it with jewellery, but when it came to clothes, it was so easy to get it wrong.

‘That’s good. Don’t want to be too hot and sexy,’ Natalie said, pulling the slip dress down, wishing it was longer so it covered more leg. ‘It’ll be mad enough tonight as it is.’

‘More juice!’ she heard Anna yell to the Club Laguna barman, who winked at her as he wielded his shaker. Anna wasn’t much of a drinker. ‘I can’t stand feeling woozy,’ she said.

That statement was like a red rag to most men. In the many years the three girls had been friends–a bonding of five-year-olds in the school yard–Natalie had lost count of the number of guys who’d tried to get Anna to lose control, hoping that a few more sips of Chardonnay would make her unfurl her sweetly prim manner like a secretary in a cheesy movie letting down her hair. Lizzie, who was permanently unfurled and smiled at men like an eager puppy, was ignored in the rush to Anna.

‘It’s not fair,’ Lizzie used to say without bitterness. She adored Anna, even if her friend was a man magnet while she appeared to repel them.

‘It’s the hair,’ Anna said apologetically. ‘There’s some evolutionary thing about natural redheads; men love the hair. They’re programmed to want to mate with it. It’s nothing to do with me.’

‘It’s more than the hair,’ Lizzie would sigh. Anna was so perfect: tiny, perfectly proportioned and with those dancing pale blue eyes. Men loved how big she made them feel. She wore size three shoes and her wrists were as delicate as a porcelain doll’s.

And then Steve had come along. Without giving Anna a second look, he’d been instantly besotted with Lizzie.

Natalie wondered how Steve’s stag night was going. There had been talk of the men going to a lap-dancing club with Steve’s old college friend over from San Diego, but Lizzie had been outraged.

‘It’s supposed to be your last night out before marrying the girl you love, not an excuse to drool over naked women with figures like Barbie!’

It wasn’t the latent sexuality she had a problem with, Natalie knew: more that Lizzie wished she was a Barbie lookalike herself. The pre-wedding diet hadn’t been as successful as had been hoped. She was still eight pounds off her target weight and complained of appearing heifer-like.

‘I’ll look huge in the photos standing between you two,’ Lizzie had grumbled earlier as they changed into their party gear. She was wearing a silky slip dress with long trailing skirts and a tiny camisole bodice which was doing a mediocre job of holding her breasts in. She was not wearing a bra. Neither was Natalie, but then she was a 32A and Lizzie was a healthy 36D.

‘Oh, Lizzie, get down off the cross,’ muttered Natalie. ‘Somebody else needs the wood. We have three different looks, that’s all,’ she added, relenting. Lizzie’s figure anxiety was a barometer of her mood. In times of stress, it became more pronounced and she needed more reassurance. ‘Anna works the cute look, you do curvy and hot.’ Lizzie grinned despite herself. ‘And I’m the lanky one. I wish I had curves like yours.’

A lie, but a white one to make Lizzie feel better. Natalie’s stepmother, Bess, was a seamstress who made a lot of wedding dresses and Natalie had grown up hearing about bridal anxiety.

‘No you don’t,’ Lizzie replied, but she was smiling as she tried on her hen-night regalia.

As part of her preparations for the evening Natalie had dutifully bought pink fluffy horns, T-shirts emblazoned with Bride on Tour and had booked a booth in Laguna, a happening club where the karaoke machine got turned on at eleven and poles were put up on stage for anyone wanting to try pole dancing and willing to sign the insurance waiver first.

It was ten to eleven now. Lizzie knew there was a still long night ahead.

She was thrilled her friend was happy. Steve was such a nice guy: kind, polite, decent. But Natalie couldn’t help recalling how, when they were younger, the three of them had had such dreams about conquering the world. And now they were twenty-three and suddenly it seemed as if the world had shrunk. Anna was dating a guy who was perfect on paper but slightly dull in real life. Gavin worked in the bank, owned his own flat, played rugby with his old school friends at the weekend and wore rugby jerseys with the collars turned up. Give him another ten years and he’d have golf club membership and a rowing machine with clothes thrown over it in the bedroom. They used to laugh at guys like him, the safe guys, and now Anna was enraptured.

Lizzie was getting married in a week to the sweet and kind Steve–and she wouldn’t be wearing bright red, the way she’d always promised: ‘I’ll never go down the aisle in white: the roof of the church would fall in!!’

Instead, her dress was creamy lace with a bustier top to make the most of her assets; her dark curls would be covered by a demure veil, and the guest list included all the various horrors of relations that she’d sworn blind would never get invited.

‘You have to ask them,’ she’d said when Natalie dropped by and found her fretting over the seating plan. Great Aunt Mona couldn’t sit with Uncle Tom or they’d kill one another. They hadn’t met without rowing in fifty years and it was unlikely they were about to stop now.

‘Why do you have to ask them?’

‘Because, that’s why.’

‘You never see any of them, except at other people’s weddings and funerals. I thought this day was supposed to be about you and Steve, not the usual outdated cliché of a wedding with ninety awful second-cousins-once-removed.’

Lizzie grimaced at having her words quoted back at her.

‘My mother would die if we didn’t have a big wedding,’ she said. ‘You know what she’s like, Natalie. Anyway…’ Lizzie paused. ‘I know it sounds strange, but I like the idea of having them there. It makes it real when all the cousins and aunties show up. Like we wouldn’t be properly married if we did it on a beach somewhere without them all clucking over the waste of money spent on the flowers or giving out about the bones in the fish.’

Natalie laughed. ‘Point taken. But when they’re all squabbling because you’ve sat them too far from the top table, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

‘Mum will sort them out,’ laughed Lizzie.

Once, thinking of Lizzie’s mum might have upset Natalie. When she was a child, she’d felt different because she didn’t have a mum. She wasn’t the only kid in her class to have an unusual family set-up. There were two kids whose dads lived elsewhere, and one boy who had two families: his mother and stepfather, and his dad and stepmother, plus assorted brothers and sisters. And there was Eileen, a quiet mouse of a girl with long strawberry blonde hair she wore like a curtain hiding her eyes. She lived on her own with her mother and went mute whenever any event came up that involved dads.

Eileen might not have had a dad, but she had a mother. Even when Natalie was seven and her mind was gently exploring such things, even when Eileen was by far the strangest kid in the class, even then Natalie knew that Eileen had something she didn’t: a real mother.

Dads sometimes got involved in other things or worked all hours, but mums didn’t. Mums were there. Except for Natalie Flynn’s. Her mum was dead. She had Bess instead, her stepmum, who was wonderful, and so kind, but still wasn’t her real mum. She’d said Natalie didn’t have to call her ‘Mum’, so Natalie hadn’t; and that simple thing, that name, had strangely made all the difference. Other kids had mums and dads: Natalie had Dad and Bess. And Bess, no matter how wonderful, wasn’t Mum.

Natalie forgot loads of things: the sheer pain of writing her thesis had burned off so many brain cells, but she’d never forget the first time she was asked:

‘What’s it like not to have a mum?’