Made in Heaven
Authors: Adale Geras
Made in Heaven
Adèle Geras
First published in Great Britain in 2006 by Orion
This ebook edition published in 2013 by
Quercus Editions Ltd
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7th Floor, South Block
London
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Copyright © 2006 by Adèle Geras
The moral right of Adèle Geras to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78206 613 2
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
You can find this and many other great books at:
www.quercusbooks.co.uk
Adèle Geras is the author of many acclaimed stories for children as well as four adult novels:
Facing the Light
,
Hester's Story
,
Made in Heaven
and
A Hidden Life
. She lives in Cambridge.
Also by Adèle Geras and available from Quercus
Facing the Light
Hester's Story
A Hidden Life
Critical acclaim for Adèle Geras
Hester's Story
âHer engaging style keeps the story fresh. The world of international ballet provides colourful characters and is the perfect setting for passion and tragedy in this slick and ultimately likeable novel'
Bella
âGeras's many stories for children are wonderful and now she brings her finely observed gifts to adult readers with an extra emotional punch'
Oxford Times
âIn an always entertaining and absorbing tale, Geras ⦠captures the erotic character of dance and dancers'
Jewish Chronicle
âA spellbinding saga'
Company
Facing the Light
âA real lose-yourself-in-it book,
Facing the Light
has everything: a wonderful matriarch, a family gathering, a tragedy, a mystery â and a great love affair. Beautifully written, wonderfully evocative, it draws you into its haunting past and complex present, weaving the two together with charm and skill ⦠A not-to-be-missed treat' Penny Vincenzi
âA hugely enjoyable read, the perfect accompaniment to lazing in a bubble bath after a hard day at the office. If you like Wesley and Howard, or Binchy and Pilcher even, you will love this book ⦠this is about as good as popular fiction gets' Amy Matheson,
Scotsman
âAn enjoyable and entertaining read from an accomplished storyteller'
Time Out
âYou'll be hooked from the start and when you've finished it, you'll wish you hadn't'
Company
This one is for Jenny Geras and Ben Jones
Many people have helped me in the writing of this novel, either by sending me their notions of an ideal wedding, or in various other ways. I'd like to thank every one of them. In alphabetical order, then: Marianne Adey, Annie Ashworth, Rachel Benson, Caroline Bentley-Davies, Bespoke Events, Victoria Blashford-Snell, Sue Bush, Laura Cecil, Rebecca Cooper, Jo Dawson, Dianne Drymoussis, Susan Hill, Alice Hudson, Nicolette Jones, Morag Joss, Roger Judd, Joan Keating (and her children), Sara McDonald, Sarah Margolis, Katharine Martin, Sophie Masson, Geraldine McCaughrean, Gus Mills, Claire Morris, Sue Neale, Linda Newbery (and Hamish), Claire O'Grady, Janet Parr, Bella Pearson, Margaret Powling, Sally Prue, Edward Russell-Walling, Jessica Ruston, Linda Sargent (and Mister), Phiiippa Shepherd, Alison Stanley, Hazel Townson, Jean Ure, Gill Vickery, Anne Weale and Tara Wood.
Very special thanks to Kate Merrigan for bringing the wedding dress and the bridesmaids' dresses so beautifully to life in her sketches.
Anyone who's been on an Arvon Course will recognize Fairford Hall, but it is a fictional recreation of one of the Arvon Foundation's centres and not the real thing. Some people may also know the original of the Shipwreck Café, which is not in Dorset.
Jane Wood, Emma Dunford and Jane Gregory were a great support throughout. Finally, many thanks as always to Norm Geras, and to Sophie Hannah who read every page before anyone else and whose excellent advice I have, as usual, relied on.
AY
/J
UNE
Saturday
âParents of the bride meet parents of the groom. It's a ritual that goes on in every society and has done for centuries.'
âWe're not first-year archaeology students, Pa,' said Zannah from the back seat of the car. âYou're in professor mode and you shouldn't be. Just be normal.'
Bob Gratrix smiled. âWhat if professor mode
is
normal? What then? No, I'm only joking, Zannah. I'll behave, I promise.'
Joss considered her husband's profile. After thirty-one years of marriage, it was easy not to look properly at a person who had become completely familiar. One flesh ⦠that was what they said and it was almost true. Joss didn't feel as though she was fifty-two, and wondered how different she was now from the woman she used to be, years ago. It was hard to tell, when it came to judging yourself. Bob, with his sharp nose, thick, white hair and skin that had, after years of exposure to the sun, turned rather dry and leathery, was still reasonably good-looking. Perhaps it was his cheerful manner, too, which made him seem younger than fifty-six. So why, Joss wondered, do I feel so ⦠so
unmoved
by him? He could be pompous at times ⦠all that stuff about rituals in every society, but she loved him. I must do, she reasoned, or I wouldn't have stayed married to him for so long. She refused to admit the possibility
that remaining with Bob was tantamount to a kind of inertia; a lack of courage.
It was true that Gray had never, while they'd been writing to one another, suggested that she might leave her husband to come and live with him. He'd never said:
I can't bear to spend a single day without you. Leave your whole life and start again with me
. Not once. Would she have left Bob, with a bit of encouragement? Probably not. Her life was too settled, too comfortable, too much bound up with her daughters and her grandchild. Joss was not, and never had been, a rocker of boats. Perhaps, she told herself, I don't quite believe in Gray, but I mustn't think about him today, and I won't. Because he was in her thoughts most of the time, putting Gray aside and out of her mind could be almost pleasurable: like denying yourself a piece of chocolate when you were longing for one. I'll leave that till later. Today is Zannah's day.
Charlotte, Joss's aunt, was hosting the engagement party at her house in Clapham because Adrian's parents could get to it easily from Guildford, and she and Bob were always happy to come down and visit Zannah and Emily and Zannah's eight-year-old daughter, Isis. Everybody, she knew, regarded a trip up north as a âtrek'. That was how they put it:
a trek up north
, as though the Gratrixes lived in an igloo in the middle of a snowfield and not a spacious Edwardian semi outside Altrincham, on a suburban street that was proud of its fine trees. Also (and this was more important even than the location of her house), Charlotte was on Zannah's side where wedding arrangements were concerned and eager to be involved in every phase of the planning. This was not quite true of Joss herself. Her feelings about the forthcoming bridal palaver ⦠perhaps campaign might be a better word ⦠were mixed, to say the least, but the one thing you did need for a proper family wedding was family â a grandma for instance. Joss felt a little
guilty that she hadn't managed to provide one for her daughters, but, she reasoned, it isn't my fault my parents died so young. Bob was no better. His parents had been buried within months of one another just before Zannah was born. Charlotte, although technically a great-aunt, was, according to Zannah and Emily, better than any grandmother. She always knew how to provide precisely the right mixture of adoration and supervision, just as she had done when Joss was a girl.
Isis was filling the car with her chatter, telling her grandfather more than he could possibly take in.
âI'm going to be a bridesmaid, Grandpa,' she said. âI'm going to have a pink dress with bows on and the skirt'll stick out really far and I'll twirl in it.'
âYou don't know what colour your dress'll be, Icicle!' Zannah said. âI haven't even picked a colour scheme yet.'
âYou sound like one of those glossy bridal mags.' Joss turned round to smile at her daughter.
âDon't start on me, Ma,' Zannah sighed. âI get the anti-big-wedding propaganda constantly from Em. I try not to listen. I'm the one getting married and this time, it'll be just the way I decide to have it. I've been dreaming about it since I was Icepop's age.'
â
Icepop. Icicle
. You shouldn't let them call you such things, Isis,' Bob snorted in disgust.
âI know,' said Isis. âI'm named for an Egyptian goddess.'
âQuite right,' said Bob. â
Icepop
indeed.'
Joss looked out of the car window and marvelled at how little her daughters had changed since childhood. She could still remember a colleague of Bob's from the university asking the girls what they wanted to be when they grew up. Emily was about seven and Zannah eleven.
âAn archaeologist like Pa,' Em answered immediately.
Zannah took a few moments to think. Then she smiled and said, âWhen I grow up, I'm going to be a bride.'
âBut that's not ⦠' Bob had started to say, and Joss remembered shushing him.
Leave her alone, Bob. Not now
.
âWe're nearly there,' said Zannah. âCome out of your daydream, Ma. You're about to meet my in-laws-to-be, but they're mine, not yours, so there's nothing for you to be nervous about.'
âI'm not nervous.'
âYou look a bit pale, though.'
âDo I? Well, I can't help that. It's not nerves, honestly.'
Because of the way Zannah's marriage to Cal Ford had ended, and because of the agonies her daughter had gone through when it had, Joss didn't feel she could confess her misgivings; the pangs of regret she was feeling now. When Cal and Zannah had married, in a register office, with almost no one there and no pomp or ceremony whatsoever, she and Bob hadn't minded a bit. Cal was ⦠still is ⦠a darling, Joss thought, and no one else, not even the handsome and thoroughly eligible Adrian, could change her opinion of him. Zannah still saw him often because he shared custody of Isis, but that wasn't the same. Joss had always secretly felt she had a son while Zannah had been married to Cal. Perhaps she'd grow to feel more maternal towards Adrian Whittaker when she knew him better. He and Zannah had been together for a mere six months and Joss had only met him twice before today and never really spoken to him properly. She also wondered what the chances were of her getting on as well with the Ashtons as she did with Cal's mother, even now after the divorce. They still exchanged Christmas cards and Joss never thought of her without wishing that they were still connected. There was also the matter of Adrian's relationship with Isis.
Joss made a mental note to question Zannah carefully about that, and to watch out today to see how they got on with one another.
