Before She Was Mine (12 page)

‘I had this dream last night,’ she said. ‘This nightmare, that Christian was marrying Corinne and not me. It was hideous. I kept telling her it was against the law but she just
waved me away.’

‘I once dreamt I was teaching Michael Portillo to ice skate. Dreams mean nothing.’

Nicky reached up and tried to smooth her fringe. ‘What do I look like?’

‘Your eyes are a bit pink.’

‘It’s only because I’ve no make-up on. They won’t let you try on any dresses if you’ve a face full of slap.’

‘In case you smear the goods.’

‘Uh huh. God, what’s the matter with me, Frey? It should have been a really happy hour, trying on dresses.’

‘It wasn’t your fault. She was a madam, that assistant. Anyway, you can go back later and see some more, once you’ve got a shot of caffeine in you.’

‘No, no, I can’t. It’s not that sort of a shop. You have to make an appointment.’

‘Oh,’ I said, feeling the weight of my own ignorance.

A bulky woman walked past us trailing a little girl. The girl was walking with her head tipped right back, staring at the sky, allowing herself to be blindly led.

Nicky said, ‘Do you ever wish you were about six again, and all you had to do was play with your Barbies and colour in worksheets?’

‘I never had Barbies.’

‘You did. You had one, for definite.’

‘I wonder who bought me that, then? It wouldn’t have been Liv. She thinks Barbies sum up all that’s evil about western consumerism.’

‘Well your Barbie paid the price. Don’t you remember? You stuffed her in a tree up near Yockings Gate. I bet she’s still there.’

‘Unless she’s been drilled apart by death-watch beetles.’

‘Undone by earwigs.’

‘Death by invertebrate.’ I swigged my Coke thoughtfully. ‘I used to wish I could run my life backwards. But recently I’ve been wishing I was about forty, and my life was
behind me, you know?’

‘Forty? Eugh. You don’t.’

‘It looks a doddle, being forty. Everything’s in place, you don’t have to struggle any more. There’s no uncertainty. Your major decisions have been taken. It’s all
a nice slow slide from there.’ I could see myself, grown middle-aged, standing at a sink in a farmhouse kitchen somewhere, a shadowy male in the background, shadowy chickens in the shadowy
garden. I’d be wearing an apron. There’d be a cake in the oven.

‘When you turn forty you have to start wearing enormous pants. I can’t say I fancy it much.’

‘I don’t think the enormous pants thing is law. Did you solve your bogus bridesmaid problem, by the way?’

She nodded. ‘The kid’ll be on holiday in America, it turns out, so I don’t have to have her. Honour satisfied. Only there’s a new fuss, over caps. You don’t want to
wear a cap, do you?’

Bloody right I didn’t. ‘What kind of a cap? Like a jockey?’

‘Some type of bonnet, I think Corinne had in mind. I don’t know where she’s got the idea from. She thinks bridesmaids should have something on their heads.’

‘I’m not wearing a cap or a bonnet, Nicky. Much as I love you and Chris.’

‘No. The trouble is, because she’s paying, it’s hard not to sound ungrateful when you reject her ideas.’

‘Tell her
I’ve
said no.’

Nicky pulled her coat collar more tightly round her neck. ‘It’s funny, she liked me before I wanted to marry her son. Christian says it’s the pressure of the wedding
that’s making her go all picky, but I’m not so sure. I’m beginning to see she’s quite a complicated woman. For instance, did you know she still buys all Christian’s
shirts for him?’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘She orders them from some up-market catalogue. Always has done, apparently. But this is the freaky bit: she chooses without ever asking him. Just orders what she likes. Because she says
she knows his tastes.’

‘And does she?’

‘She seems to, yes.’ A cloud of steam escaped Nicky’s lips in a long sigh. ‘Sometimes she makes me feel like an outsider. I think that’s her intention,
too.’

I held out the Haribo bag. ‘What’s the dad like?’

‘Julian? He’s charming; charming, with a sliver of ice down the middle. Although he’s like that with everyone except the dogs, so it’s nothing personal against
me.’

‘That doesn’t sound too terrible. Have a gummy bear.’

We sat for a while, chewing sweets and watching tourists straggle across the grassy floor of the amphitheatre.

‘Look at it this way,’ I said. ‘All mothers are protective of their little boys, however old they are. It’s Oedipal. It’s not that she’s taken against you.
She’ll get over it, and then she’ll just be really pleased she has you for a daughter-in-law and not some cheap strumpet. And the bottom line is, whatever stress you go through planning
this bash, Christian’s worth it. Isn’t he?’

She turned her face to me. ‘Oh, he is, Frey, he is.’

‘Well, then.’

I imagined them as they’d be on their wedding day, arm in arm, enveloped in their own private bubble of bliss while the rest of us looked on.

‘Right,’ I said, ‘this is what you do. Whenever darling Mother-in-Law’s getting on your nerves, I want you to go to the loo, tear off a sheet of toilet paper, find a
biro, and draw her face—’

‘She’s not that bad, really—’

‘Then, when you next pay a call, you can use her to wipe your bum. In fact, I’ll do you a roll for your wedding present. Let me have a photo and I’ll get straight on the case.
Anyone else’s pic you want adding while we’re here? Madam from the dress shop? That bloke in the office who claimed you’d lost his file? I’m happy to take orders. Revenge
bog roll, it could really take off.’

Nicky was laughing in spite of herself. ‘Oh, Frey. I knew there was a reason I appointed you chief bridesmaid. Pass us another bear, will you?’

And I did.

Liv was laid out on the sofa watching some mad therapy show when I got back.

‘This is the weirdest programme,’ she said. ‘They’ve just had a woman on claiming owls are ruining her life.’

‘Owls? For God’s sake.’

‘I know.’

‘Does she run a mouse farm or something?’

‘She has a phobia.’

‘She’d best not go see any of the Harry Potter films, then. How are you feeling?’

‘Sore. All right apart from that.’ She touched the neckline of her dressing gown, about where the bandage was sited.

‘Look, I’m going to hoover upstairs and change the bedding now. Is there anything I can get you before I start?

‘Stay here for five minutes and be company. I’m so bored. I want to be up and busy.’

‘Give it a couple of days, the consultant said. You’ve had a general anaesthetic, remember.’

‘I could sit at a computer screen. There’s a stack of GPS data to input, all the mammal sightings from last autumn.’

On the TV screen, a painfully thin old woman was screaming at a teenage girl in a sweat top. I muted the sound.

‘Geraint can do that job,’ I said. ‘Where is he anyway?’

‘He had a call about someone trying to start a bonfire on the Moss. I told him to get straight down there and see. We don’t want to have to call the fire brigade again.’

Hadn’t even left her a tray before he buggered off; hadn’t bothered to move the phone so it was within her reach. I bet myself fifty quid there’d be a bowlful of washing-up
waiting for me in the kitchen.

She must have read my thoughts. ‘I’m fine. I’m not an invalid. I’ve had a small lump taken out of me, that’s all. This time next week I intend to be back at
work.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Yes, Frey. I don’t mean anything heavy, I’m not going to be donning waders and going out dredging or pulling reeds. But I can plonk myself in front of a desk and go through my
correspondence. Honestly, love, if I sit at home and brood, I’ll go mad. I need to be occupied. Do you understand?’

I nodded.

She swung her legs down and patted the sofa for me to join her. ‘Tell me, how was the fitting? Did Nicky find the dress of her dreams?’

‘Not exactly,’ I said, settling in next to her. ‘Actually, she had a bit of a strop. For Nicky, I mean.’

‘What happened?’

‘She flounced out of the shop. There was this completely annoying assistant who was like a wasp round a jam pot, wouldn’t give Nicky space to breathe and kept shoving these horrible
creations at her. I’ve never seen so much sparkly netting.’

‘Did she panic?’

‘I don’t know. I think mainly she got bored.’

Liv’s expression softened. ‘I panicked when I had my second fitting. The dressmaker had to stand there while I gibbered into my underslip – silly, because there was never any
doubt it was Colin I wanted. But there’s a specific point during your wedding plans when you realise the enormity of what you’re set to do. It comes like a jolt because you think you
already know, but you don’t. And so you have a wobble. That was probably Nicky’s.’

I couldn’t imagine Nicky having any kind of wobble over Christian. ‘I think it was to do with her mother-in-law, really.’

‘But Nicky likes Corinne, doesn’t she?’

‘She didn’t like her much this morning.’

‘Oh dear.’

Liv sank back so I could see her bandage clearly underneath the collar of her dressing gown. It made me wonder how much the wound hurt and how frightening it must be to be wheeled down to an
operating theatre, a needle taped to the back of your hand. In my own safe life I’d never had so much as a tooth out. I wanted to reach over and cover the bandage up, out of sight.

The TV screen was now showing an advertisement for a savings account, golden coins spinning down from a hole in the sky.

‘Corinne’s been dictating terms,’ I went on, ‘and waving her purse about when Nicky objects. Basically going, “I’m paying, so we’re having things the
way I want.”’

‘Ouch.’

‘Wants to stick me and the other bridesmaids in some stupid hat. I said, no way. Tell her from me she can bog off. Just because she’s loaded.’

‘Haven’t they got two houses?’

‘Three. They’ve one in France and a flat in London. And the main one’s a bloody mansion, well, it’s about four times the size of ours. Nicky’s shown me photos. And
what about this: Corinne’s got jewellery that’s worth so much she has to keep it in Barclay’s bank for safety.’

I knew that last would make Liv smile. Her own jewellery collection lives in a chocolate box covered in shells, and consists of African beads, polished wooden bangles, metal-cast leaf brooches,
a tumble of semi-precious stones. The only pieces she owns of any conventional value are a gold and opal pendant and two gold rings bought for her by Colin. I know that if a fire broke out,
it’s those she’d probably run to save. But she never wears them. They belong to another life.

‘It sounds to me as though there’s a culture clash going on,’ she said.

‘They’re snobs.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. It can be tricky when people from different social classes come together. There’s bound to be tension on both sides.’

I pondered this. ‘What social class are we?’

‘Hippies like us fall outside the curve.’

‘Nicky’s lot?’

‘Oh, they’re firmly inside. Middle class, the middle of the middle class.’

Obviously. Derek Steuer with his BMW, his Rotary Club crested shirts; Joan with her cruise-ship wardrobe, her shelves of Caithness glass. ‘Not posh enough for Corinne and Julian,
though.’

‘It’s possible Corinne might be staging some kind of protest, subconsciously or otherwise.’

I was appalled to think of Nicky under siege from some stuck-up bat.

‘Well, if she thinks she’s going to split them up—’ I began, and then the phone rang, making us jump.

‘That’ll be Geraint,’ said Liv, sitting up.

‘You stay there. I’ll speak to him.’

But when I picked up the receiver it wasn’t Geraint.

‘Bastard,’ went Melody’s voice. ‘Bastard bastard bastard.’

I called Michael before I set off because I didn’t want to have to deal with the crisis on my own.

It had begun to lash down, so when I reached Love Lane I let myself in rather than wait around to soak on the doorstep. The house was dark and quiet.

‘Melody? Melody!’

I blundered across the living room, knocking into jardinières and footstools and coffee tables, till I glimpsed her through the window. She was standing in the yard without even a coat
on. The rain fell in stair rods.

Melody’s back door sticks so I had to really wrench it open. The noise made her look round.

‘What in God’s name are you doing?’ I shouted. ‘Get inside. You’ll catch your death.’

‘Like I give a fuck,’ she yelled back.

‘The baby does.’

That made her shift. As she slouched towards me, I noticed that the dark paving slabs around her were scattered with nuggets of coke, the bunker lid was open, and when I glanced at her hand, her
fingers were black with grime. ‘Why have you been chucking coal around the place?’

She halted in the doorway, dripping, and just looked at me.

‘This is going to take ages to clear up,’ I said, handing her a tea towel. ‘Oh, God, you’ve no shoes on either.’

‘Genius.’

I didn’t have to come over
, I felt like saying. She slid past me into the lounge, leaving a trail of small footprints across the kitchen floor.

‘Do you want to go and put some dry clothes on?’

‘No.’

‘Give your hair a rub? I could get your slippers at least.’

That she didn’t argue with, so I nipped upstairs and into her room. It’s chintz on chintz in there, and small items can easily get lost amongst the busy colours. I remember helping
her hunt for an earring once, and we were nearly half an hour before we discovered it sitting in plain sight on the bedspread. Luckily the slippers were laid sole up across her red velvet dressing
chair.

‘I suppose you’re going to say you saw it coming,’ she said when I re-appeared.

‘Tell me what happened, exactly.’

‘What do you
think
?’

‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.’

She snatched the slippers from my grasp and whacked them down on the sofa next to her. Then she reached for her wet socks, tearing at them so fiercely that she left scratch marks on her ankles.
Each sock she pulled away, squeezed into a ball and hurled into the empty grate.