Five Unforgivable Things

‘Now who’s moaning?’ Beth laughed, burst into a rousing chorus of ‘Don’t Cry for me, Argentina’, and disappeared into the bathroom with a swimsuit in one hand and a bottle of screw-top wine she’d just grabbed from the mini-bar in the other.

***

‘We need to go into dinner early tonight.’ They’d spent most of Thursday, barring a break for lunch, having their backs pummelled by a rather over-zealous and over-talkative woman with green fingernails and a white coat, and then lazing about in the water to giggle about it and get over it. Now Jenny was drying her still-tangled hair under a particularly noisy dryer in the ladies’ changing room. It didn’t seem to occur to her just how loudly she was speaking.

‘Ssshh!’ Beth put her index finger up to her lips, noticed how horribly wrinkled it was from being too long under water, and put it down again. ‘We don’t want the whole hotel to know.’

‘Sorry!’ Jenny mouthed, now so quietly Beth could hardly hear her at all. She flicked the switch off to silence the dryer and put it back into its holder on the wall.

‘So, why do we have to eat early? I thought eight o’clock worked really well last night. Just right for a few drinks before and a bit of TV after. What’s your hurry? Or, more to the point, what’s your game? I know you’re up to something.’

Jenny didn’t answer straight away, choosing to fiddle a bit more with her hair before throwing her damp towel into the wicker laundry bin provided and turning back towards her. Beth was sure she was looking especially shifty, the way she used to when she’d broken a plate and didn’t want Mum to know, or when she’d sneakily borrowed a top from her or Nat and tried to put it back without owning up to the streaks of make-up down the front.

‘And, while we’re at it … You told Natalie this place was somewhere at the seaside, and it’s not, is it? We’re miles from the sea. Now, why would you do that? What if she expects a postcard or a stick of rock or something? We won’t even be going back with sand in our shoes!’

‘Oh, Beth, you are always so suspicious.’

‘With every reason, it seems to me. Now, come on, spill!’

‘Well …’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, there’s someone I’ve arranged for us to meet. This evening, at half-past seven.’

‘Now we’re getting somewhere. The truth at last. So, what sort of someone? And why’s it so secret that you couldn’t tell me before now? Or Nat? What are you up to, Jen? It’s not some internet date or something like that, is it? Someone you were too scared to meet in the flesh without a chaperone? Because I’m not playing along unless you tell me. And I don’t fancy playing gooseberry either. I’ll get a table for one at eight and then have an early night, and you can go and meet your mystery person by yourself!’

Jenny was squirming now. ‘Nat’s got enough on her plate, with the wedding to sort out. I didn’t want to add to that. And if I’d told you any sooner you might have blabbed. Or refused to come with me. And I needed you to come with me …’

‘So, one: this is going to worry Nat, and two: I can’t be trusted to keep my mouth shut. Charming, I’m sure! So, who the hell are we meeting, Jen?’

‘Well … look, it might all come to nothing. I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, that’s all. It was hard enough to track her down at all, and even harder to talk her into meeting up.’

‘Her?’

‘Yes. It’s Laura.’

‘Ollie’s Laura?’ Beth’s eyes had widened almost as much as her mouth, which was now gaping open in shock.

‘Well, not Ollie’s any more, obviously, seeing as she left him months ago. But I kind of hoped that now the dust has settled, I might be able to talk her into coming back. Ollie misses her so much. I miss her. But there’s something you need to know, Beth. Because you’ll realise anyway, as soon as you see her.’

‘She’s not married someone else, has she? Or got engaged? Not so soon. Ollie will be heartbroken if she has. Not that he isn’t already, poor bugger.’

‘No. Not married.’ Jenny picked up her bag and started back towards their room. ‘But she is six months pregnant.’

Chapter 7 (#ulink_350d2b22-2b37-524a-a48b-8872edd039e4)

Kate, 1979

We opted for a January wedding. It was long enough after Christmas for the shops to be open again and decoration-free, so we could at least hope that any presents would be wrapped in something other than silver foil with robins on it. And for the trains to be running at half empty again, with the fare prices back to normal. But soon enough to beat the bulge. The last thing I wanted was for my tummy to dominate not only the photos, but the gossip too, on what was supposed to be the most wonderful day of my life.

Mum had taken the news well. Naturally she would have preferred her only daughter to be a shining example of purity, gliding down the aisle in a dress like a meringue, but the thought of an imminent grandchild soon overrode all that. And she liked the fact that I’d told her first, before Dan’s mum, who she had still to meet.

‘You must let Trevor and me help pay for the wedding,’ she insisted. ‘I know you say it won’t be a grand affair, but maybe we could cover the cost of the car or your dress or something. And buy the pram. Grandmas always buy the pram, you know. It gives us the right to first push round the park!’

I liked seeing Mum so happy. I had wondered if the inevitable reminders of her own wedding day might have been a bit much for her, but she didn’t say anything. Only that Dad would have been so proud, and would have loved to be there, taking me down the aisle. And that being asked to do it in his place was absolutely the next best thing.

She drove down with Trevor. They offered us a lift too, but I knew I’d rather go on the train. That way, Dan and I, and my friend Linda from work, could all travel together. Linda had agreed to be my chief bridesmaid – my only bridesmaid – and the Campbells had offered us rooms at the farm the night before the ceremony, and for a few days afterwards too, if we wanted to stay on. We let Mum take all the bags in the car, though. My dress and Linda’s, our posh handbags and new satin shoes, Dan’s suit, and a big vanity case stuffed with toiletries and lipstick and lemon-scented shampoo. All we had to carry with us was a packed lunch that Linda and the other girls at work had insisted on putting together, made up of all the posh things we would never normally have eaten but that felt somehow appropriate for a bride and groom on their way to seal their fate. Smoked salmon sandwich triangles with the crusts cut off, strawberries (God knows where they got them from in January!), fancy chocolates in an even fancier box. There were a couple of quail’s eggs too, still in their shells, and wrapped up tightly in foil, although none of was quite sure what to do with them, or if we actually fancied trying them at all.

But it was the thought that counted and, by the time we arrived, a good hour ahead of Mum and Trevor, and with Dan and Linda already a bit tipsy on the wine I had righteously, as a woman in a certain condition, refused to drink, it dawned on me at last that we were really going to do this. In less than forty-eight hours I was going to be the new, and ever expanding, Mrs Dan Campbell.

The dress. What can I say about the dress? We did try a few bridal shops, Mum and me, and a couple of local dressmakers who worked from their front rooms, but apparently it takes time to make one, a proper posh one anyway, and time was something I didn’t have a lot of. With all the detailed measuring involved, I also knew damn well that, weeks later, the thing would never fit the way it should, unless I came clean about being up the duff. And why should I? To some total stranger.

So, we trawled around the ordinary shops, the department stores and boutiques, looking for something at least partially white, and long, and a teensy bit loose. What we found was pretty, in its own hippy kind of way. It was made of thin creamy-coloured cheesecloth, with several layers of lining to give it a bit of shape and stop the sun shining right through and revealing my knickers, a wide lace-edged neckline, and a big bow that tied at the back. I twirled about in front of the full-length mirror in a changing room no bigger than an under-stairs cupboard, and tried to imagine myself wearing it in the church. Was it just a touch too ordinary? A touch too flimsy? Would I be too cold? What would it look like from behind? That was the view everyone was going to get throughout the ceremony, after all, except for the groom and the vicar. I bought it, though. Or Mum did, insisting on paying for the shoes too.

I held it again now, staring out at the fields, the steeple of the small village church poking its old head above the lines of leaf-stripped trees. I was in the same bedroom I’d had that first time I’d visited the farm, but sharing with Linda this time. A vase of holly, packed with fat red berries, had replaced the flowers, but everything else was just the same. I had hoped we might have snow to make things just a little more magical, but despite a harsh grey sky and a chilly draught that seeped in through the gaps around the ancient windows, it had not obliged.

Linda and I had unpacked the bags all over the bed, declaring the room a girls-only zone and banning Dan, and in fact anyone of the male persuasion, from crossing the threshold at any time from now until the wedding was over, and were now giggling like tipsy teenagers as we moved an old towelling dressing gown, trying to guess who it belonged to, and hung our dresses in its place on the hook on the back of the door.

‘You sure you want to do this, Kate?’ Linda said, shoving the messy heap of toiletries and underwear aside and flopping down flat on her back on the eiderdown.

‘It’s a bit late to ask me that now, isn’t it?’

‘Of course not. It’s never too late, right up to the bit where you say ‘I do.’ A cousin of mine did a runner the moment she stood in the church doorway and saw all those people inside in their fancy hats, all standing up and turning to look at her when the organ started knocking out the music. She said that was when it all became real. What she was doing, and committing to, for ever. All that expectation on their faces. Up until then it had just been a fantasy thing, the chance to dress up and be the centre of attention. She ended up being that, all right, legging it down the road in her wedding dress and hopping on the first bus that came along!’

‘Linda! I’m not going to do anything like that, all right? I am getting married because I want to.’

‘And because you have to.’

‘Oh, don’t say it like that. I didn’t have to do it at all. There are always other options, but we chose not to take them. So, no, I am not backing out. And neither is Dan.’

‘Fine. Just felt I had to ask. A bridesmaid’s duty and all that. Especially as you haven’t got a dad to do it.’

‘Is that what dads do? Is that why you see them whispering a few last words to the bride before they come arm in arm down the aisle? It’s the ‘last chance to stop it all’ speech, is it?’

‘Do you know, Kate, I think it quite often is. Really. Even when dads have spent all that money they will still abandon the whole thing if they think for a moment that their precious little girl might be making a mistake.’

‘Oh, stop it. You’re making me cry now.’ Thinking about my dad did that, a lot. Would he have approved of Dan, considered him the right choice, or urged me not to be hurried into something I might regret? I’d never know, would I?

‘Sorry. Had to be done. But now I am going to be the perfect bridesmaid and make sure you are extra specially cosseted and super-happy, like a beautiful blushing bride should be.’ Linda bounced back upright, swung her legs over onto the faded rag rug beside the bed, and made for the door.

‘Blushing?’

‘Well, I could have said blooming, but we don’t want the guests to put two and two together, do we? Now, where’s the toilet? I’m bursting after all that drink I put away on the train.’

***

‘Ready?’ Linda put the hairbrush down, tweaked a few loose strands around my face, and gazed into the mirror.