Best of Friends (41 page)

“No.” Lizzie got off the bed and gave her ex-husband a brief smile. She’d made a vow not to let her own problems ruin either Debra’s wedding day or her relationship with Myles. “I was going downstairs to have a quick drink of tea before we go. You two don’t have much time, you know,” she added.

“I know,” Myles said in a low voice to Lizzie. “I didn’t want to turn up too early in case I wasn’t welcome because of … you know …”

Lizzie’s grin was genuine this time. “Don’t be an idiot,” she said. “You’ll always be welcome here.” And it was true. There was nothing to be gained by cutting off her nose to spite her face. The relationship between herself and Myles was too good to squander simply because he’d moved on and she hadn’t. “Is Sabine coming to the afters?” Lizzie added, doing her best to sound as if this wasn’t something she’d thought about night after night.

“If you’re still OK about it?” Myles said.

“I’m fine,” said Lizzie firmly.
Carpe diem.

“Daddy, what do you think of my dress?” Debra, tired of not being noticed on this, her special day, had got to her feet and was standing model-like with the tiers of her skirt spread out.

Myles touched Lizzie’s shoulder encouragingly, and turned to Debra.

“You take my breath away,” he said. “You look so beautiful.”

“Oh, Daddy,” cried Debra.

Lizzie left them to it. Nina had gone downstairs, so there were a few minutes of privacy in which Lizzie could pat some more powder on her face, beautifully made up earlier by Ruby, and tweak her hair so that the wilder strands stayed down. The hairstylist had tried to tame the unruly waves and it now felt like a piece of sculpture thanks to all the hairspray. The lemon suit was still harsh, she decided, but it was too late to do anything about it now. She picked up her handbag and went downstairs, ready for the off.

“Settle down, Bradley, and stop fidgeting!”

The woman with the purple feathery hat and the hyperactive child obviously thought she was whispering but Lizzie was sure the whole church could hear her. Bradley apparently hadn’t. He kept making “vroom vroom” noises as he rattled a selection of toy cars noisily up and down the pew on the groom’s side.

Up in the gallery, the organist was lightly practising tunes with the choir. The congregation, used to brides being late, were still arriving, doing their best to keep the squeals of greeting to a minimum in deference to the location.

“Hellooo, you look lovely,” could be heard in stage whispers every few moments, along with, “Love the dress!”

In the front pew, Lizzie sat with Gwen beside her, overshadowed by the size of her sister’s hat, an edifice purchased with glee in Naples for the shockingly cheap sum of £5.50.

“Barry’s mother’s hat can’t beat this one,” Gwen had said delightedly when she’d showed hers to Lizzie and crowed over the price.

“It’s not a competition between the two families,” Lizzie had said, astonished.

“Yes, it is,” retorted Gwen.

And then the organist began to play and the congregation rose. Lizzie didn’t know how everyone in the church didn’t start crying immediately. Watching Debra gliding up the aisle, proudly escorted by Myles, gave her a lump in her throat the size of several giant toads.

Gwen clutched Lizzie’s hand and squeezed tightly. “She’s beautiful, Lizzie love.”

As the ceremony rolled gently on, and Lizzie watched her daughter formally take a step away from her family and create a new bond with Barry’s, Lizzie felt both a sense of loss and that the weight of responsibility had been partially lifted from her shoulders. Her children were grown up; it was official. They would always be her children and she’d always want to protect them but a subtle shift had taken place. Hers was not the advice they’d ask for first. She wasn’t the most important person in their lives anymore, as she had been for so many years. Joe had his life in London with Nina, and Debra had just married into a new life with Barry. It was time for Lizzie gently to let the reins go.

At the altar, looking like a fairy princess as she’d hoped, Debra giggled self-consciously when she stumbled over her marriage vows and the whole congregation smiled affectionately at the bridal couple.

“Sorry,” Debra said to the patient priest, a man who’d had to cope with so many fainting brides that one who merely got her words mixed up was a piece of cake. “Nerves.”

“It’s me who has the nerves,” whispered Barry so that only the first two pews could hear him. The first two pews laughed, and the rest of the church whispered, “Whadidhesay?” loudly, keen not to miss a moment of the action.

When peace had been restored and the priest had cheerily told everyone that humour was an important part of marriage and it was clear this lovely couple could laugh at themselves, the ceremony continued. Lizzie found herself remembering Debra’s christening, nearly twenty-four years before in this very same church. Debra had gurgled sweetly during the whole ceremony and had brought the house down that time too.

Lizzie kept her eyes on the bride and groom and fumbled in her handbag for a tissue. She’d been more sure of herself when she was the mother of the baby than she was as mother of the bride. Being a wife and mother was what she’d done for so long that it was hard to accustom herself to anything else. But perhaps she had been quietly clinging on to the past and her role in it to make up for the fact that she hadn’t yet found her role in the future.

That would change, she vowed. In this holy place, she’d make a solemn promise to herself to change.

The reception went like a dream. Nobody’s nose appeared to be out of joint over the seating arrangements, which had to be a wedding first, Lizzie decided, and the speeches were a hit, being both funny and short. Even the best man—adept at putting his foot in his mouth in real life—managed not to upset too many people. The cake, three elegant tiers decorated with hundreds of handmade blossoms, drew delighted gasps from the crowd, while the happy smile on the bride’s face as she and her new husband cut it made more than one person reach around blindly for a tissue to wipe their eyes.

Both Lizzie and Myles made heroic efforts for Debra’s sake to look as if they adored each other despite being divorced. Etiquette decreed that they sat apart, with Lizzie beside Barry’s dad, Stan, and Myles beside Barry’s mum, Flossie. But they smiled at each other along the expanse of the top table, pleased beyond measure that their darling’s day was going so beautifully. All the scrimping and saving had been worth it, Lizzie decided as she looked around the flower-bedecked room and watched people enjoying themselves.

“The mother of the bride is holding up well,” remarked Gwen as she powdered down the shine on her nose, her one concession to what she described as “fannying around with cosmetics.” The meal was finally over and people were taking advantage of the lull to redo make-up or walk off some of the cake.

“Not bad,” Lizzie agreed, thinking for the nth time that day that lemon really wasn’t her colour. But who was looking at her? Debra was the star of the show, and beyond checking that the MOTB was dressed in a reasonably sedate fashion, and hadn’t gone all out to upstage her daughter as some did, nobody was actually that interested in what she looked like.

“Now Barry’s mother’s hat …” began Gwen, peering under the stall doors to make sure they were alone in the ladies’, “merciful hour, whoever sold it to her saw her coming. A red polka-dot veil indeed. She looks like she’s got a bad dose of measles.”

“Gwen!”

“Well, she does. You look miles better.”

“You’re very loyal but I have to say that yellow isn’t my colour.”

“And polka-dot red is hers?” Gwen sniffed and fussed a bit with her hair, lacquered into obedience thanks to half a can of hairspray wielded that morning by the hand of Maurice, the blue-rinse artiste and doyen of Chez Maurice. “I can’t wait to have a dance. Shay really got into dancing on the
Star of the Med,
you know. We had lessons one day when the weather was bad.” Gwen still liked to reminisce about her holiday of a lifetime.

Lizzie was momentarily distracted from applying coral lipstick, the only colour that didn’t look too bilious with her acid-lemon suit.

“Shay, dancing?”

“I know. Wonders will never cease. He loves it; even stops giving out about his dodgy hip when we’re dancing.”

The Abba tribute band were warming up their instruments in one corner when Gwen and Lizzie arrived back in the ballroom. A sexily curvaceous Agnetha lookalike, who was squeezed into a skintight silver jumpsuit, adjusted the microphone to her height and eyed up the male talent, who eyed her back.

The ballroom was filling up as people invited to this part of the wedding had started to arrive and were joining friends at the round tables, now cleared of the remains of the wedding meal. Only the flowers and glasses remained. At the top table, Lizzie overheard Barry and his father discussing the etiquette of the first dance.

“Now you dance with Lizzie,” Barry was reminding his father
sotto voce,
“and Mum dance with Myles, and Tony dances with Sharon, but when the dance is over, don’t ask Mum to dance unless it looks as if Myles and Lizzie are going to dance. You get to dance with Debs when her dad has danced with her, right? I only hope Lizzie does dance with Myles. He’s invited his new girlfriend to the afters, and who knows what’ll happen when Lizzie sees her. I think Debra was mad to invite her, and even though Lizzie said it was all right I have my doubts. You know what women get like at weddings. There’s bound to be war.”

Hell, Lizzie thought. She’d worked so hard to be calm and collected and still people were expecting her to go for Myles with the wedding cake knife. Her ex-husband came back in from the bar looking harassed, and sat down. Lizzie took the empty seat beside him. “I think poor Barry’s worried that we might kill each other on the dance floor.”

“He’s probably nervous that you don’t approve of Sabine coming,” said Myles, with a look that said he shared his new son-in-law’s apprehension.

“Is she here yet?”

Myles’s eyes were classic bunny-caught-in-oncoming-car-headlights, which was all the confirmation Lizzie needed.

“Introduce me to her and let’s get it over with,” Lizzie urged.

“Introduce you?”

“It’s either that or avoid each other all night. So let’s do it.”

Taking the bull by the horns was a heady feeling, Lizzie decided as she swept back out of the room to the hotel bar, which was where Sabine had told Myles she’d wait until he gauged it was all right for her to come into the wedding proper.

“She didn’t want to come at all,” he said. “She thought it would be more appropriate if she didn’t because it’s your day … and we didn’t want you to get upset.”

“Oh, Myles, it’s Debra’s day. You and I are divorced. It’s a bit stupid getting upset over that now,” Lizzie replied. And the great thing was, she felt as if she was almost speaking the truth. She was over Myles, honestly. Being piqued because he had a new partner and she didn’t was another issue entirely and not befitting a woman in the prime of her life who’d decided not to waste another moment feeling sorry for herself.
“Carpe diem,”
she whispered softly.

Sabine was sitting quietly on a small couch and Lizzie’s eyes quickly flickered over her. Sabine was definitely not a raver: soberly dressed in a navy suit, she looked pale and slim, having the sort of strawberry-blonde hair that came with white skin, freckles and blonde eyelashes. As Debra had reported, she clearly wasn’t into make-up, having nothing but a faint sheen on her lips to hint at lip-gloss that had long gone.

She’d brought a book and was engrossed in it, with an untouched glass of wine in front of her. Lizzie smiled at the thought that if
she
was going to a wedding where a possibly vengeful ex-wife was holding court with access to carving equipment, she’d have downed the wine in one already and be calling out for another.

“Sabine, this is Lizzie,” said Myles.

“Hello,” said Lizzie brightly. “Lovely to meet you. But you mustn’t stay out here. The dancing will be starting soon and you ought to see the first dance. That’s special.”

Sabine’s very pale face was almost translucent with astonishment but she didn’t lack courage. “Lovely to meet you too, Elizabeth,” she said. “I thought I’d stay out here because I didn’t want to upset you, to be honest. Weddings are very emotional occasions and I’d hate to cause a scene.”

“It’s Lizzie, and you’re not upsetting me,” Lizzie said truthfully, “although we’ll be giving Dunmore food for gossip for the next ten years if we all go back into the room together, which sounds like a good idea.”

Sabine roared with laughter at this and, eventually, Myles joined in.

“Has it been a good day?” Sabine tentatively began normal wedding conversation.

“Great. The weather’s been fabulous. Debra looks wonderful and the best man’s speech went off without a single cringe-worthy remark.”

“He went very near to the knuckle with that joke about what went on at Debra’s hen night,” said Myles, every inch the outraged father.

“It was a joke,” said Lizzie, thinking of what the best man
could
have said if he’d been given full rein. “The Chippendales haven’t toured here for years, everybody knows that.”

“Mum, Dad …” The bride stood before them, the words dying on her lips as she found the odd threesome in the bar with no sign of blood.

“Darling, I was just meeting Sabine and telling her she mustn’t miss your first dance.” Lizzie got to her feet, smiled at Myles and Sabine, and linked her arm through Debra’s white silk-covered one. “Are we all ready to go?”

“Er … yes,” said the bride.

“Yes,” said Sabine, getting to her feet and giving Lizzie a deeply grateful look.

As the four of them walked back to the wedding reception, Lizzie felt the heady sensation of triumph. She felt strong, free and powerful. Not only had she confronted her own demons, but she’d given Debra the best wedding gift ever by being a grown-up at her wedding.

On her mental check list of “Things to Do Before You’re Fifty,” as she had customised it for her own use, Lizzie added another one: “When your ex brings his new partner to your daughter’s wedding, greet your replacement with dignity and style.” No thirty-something could say she’d done that, could she?