Made in Heaven (3 page)

‘Okay, everyone,' Adrian said. ‘I'll ask you all to drink a toast to Suzannah, who has made me the happiest man in the whole world by agreeing to marry me.'

Cliché watch, Emily thought. Let's count ‘em. She knew she was being unkind. If you couldn't use clichés on an occasion like this, when could you? Everyone did it, so why should Adrian be any different?

‘It's a shame Doc's not here yet, but I'm sure he'll be along as soon as he can and, meanwhile, I know everyone's getting hungrier and hungrier, so I'd just like to say, Zannah and I are going to be married and we've
all been invited by Mrs Parrish … sorry, Charlotte' (with a graceful nod and smile at her), ‘to celebrate the occasion. I did try to persuade my lovely bride to accept a diamond or two but she wasn't having that. She's more determined than she looks, which you all know, of course, and this is what she chose.'

He took Zannah's hand in his, and slid a ring on to her finger. Emily had seen it but everyone sighed to indicate how lovely they thought it was, and how well it suited her. It was a large antique ruby in a simple gold setting: square and plain and just right with Zannah's colouring. She held out her hand and turned it so that the stone caught the sunlight and Isis, Emily noticed, was struck into uncharacteristic silence, her eyes wide at the sight of such splendour.

‘We've agreed on a date,' Adrian went on, ‘and I hope it suits everyone. The first Saturday of the May half-term, next year. In other words, a year from today. It'll be May the twenty-seventh and Zannah will have a week away from school to go off with me on a short honeymoon. I'm not saying a word about where that's going to be, but plans are afoot.'

Everyone laughed. They raised their glasses and drank to what Emily was afraid would be known, from this day forward, as
the happy couple
.

‘Zannah and Adrian!' everyone said and Emily joined in the toast, smiling with the others. ‘Congratulations!'

*

‘Look, Mum,' said Isis. ‘I put those bits of parsley round the mousse. Those ones.'

‘Lovely, darling,' said Zannah.

‘And the strawberries. I helped put the strawberries on top of the lemon tart. That's fiddly work, Charlotte says. You'll see when it's time for pudding.'

‘I'm sure they'll look terrific, sweetheart,' said Adrian, leaning across Zannah slightly and smiling, then starting to speak to Zannah before Isis could come back
with another remark. She made a face and turned her attention to the food on the plate in front of her, which was much nicer than school food and nicer than Mum's food too, though Isis decided not to say so because she didn't want to hurt Mum's feelings. They'd had green soup first, with cream swirled into it. Charlotte said it was made out of watercress. There were big plates covered with slices of ham and chicken decorated with green leafy bits that weren't parsley, and the salmon mousse, which was what Isis liked best. In the kitchen, waiting to be brought in, were two huge round tarts in enormous glass dishes. One was apple and the other was the lemon one Isis had helped to decorate. The knives and forks were heavy to hold, but they were silver and probably the sort of things you'd have on your table if you were a princess.

Adrian and Mum had their heads very close together. Mum was blushing. She loved Adrian. Isis remembered how upset she'd been when Mum first told her this.

‘But you loved Dad once,' she'd pointed out. ‘Maybe you could love him again, if you really tried.'

‘It doesn't work like that, Isis,' Mum said. She sounded sad. ‘You can't help falling in love with someone. Adrian and I love one another. And we love you too, of course.'

‘Adrian doesn't. He's not my dad. How can he love me?'

‘He loves you because you're my daughter and he loves me. After we're married, we'll be a family.'

‘What about Dad?' A sudden terror seized Isis.

‘He'll always be your dad. He'll always love you best in the world. That won't change. And you'll still see him a lot, just as you do now.'

‘And will Granny Ford still be my granny, even though you and Dad aren't together?'

‘Of course she will. Dad'll take you to see her, don't worry.'

Isis felt a little better after that, and remembered those words whenever Adrian annoyed her, which he did sometimes, even though mostly he was nice to her and brought her small presents practically every time he came to the flat. She'd noticed that when they were alone together, he didn't speak to her. Not properly. He just made a remark about something he thought she might be interested in, but he never waited to see what she said back and he never went on with the conversation for longer than he could help. He found things to do: reading the paper till Mum was ready to go out with him, or turning on the TV and watching something boring like sport. Isis didn't know if he did this because he was dying to see what was in the paper, or because he didn't want to talk to her for any longer than he had to. As soon as Mum came into the room, he changed and became all smiley and friendly. He even told her how pretty she was looking sometimes.

The main good thing about Adrian was that he wanted the wedding to be a real, proper wedding with flowers and lovely dresses and best of all, a bridesmaid. That was what Isis was going to be and she was so excited by the idea that she'd long ago stopped worrying about whether she really liked Adrian or not. When Mum or Grandma asked her how she and Adrian were getting on, Isis always said that everything was fine. Which it mostly was.

All the grown-ups were talking: Em to Grandpa, Grandma to Adrian's mother, who'd asked to be called Auntie Maureen, which was stupid, because she wasn't an auntie, and also to Charlotte (who was Grandma's auntie but liked to be called Charlotte) and Mum to Adrian. Adrian's dad was late. Isis didn't know his name but supposed he'd be Uncle Something. She picked up the heavy silver fork and began to eat the salmon mousse which was delicious and a really mega-cool
colour. Perhaps, she thought, I could have a salmon-mousse-pink bridesmaid's dress.

*

Zannah glanced round the table and recognized what she was feeling as happiness. She closed her eyes briefly, wanting to hold the moment in her mind; wanting to be able to bring it back and remember it over and over again. Darling Isis, Ma and Pa, Charlotte, Em, even Maureen … they all seemed absorbed in harmonious and delightful conversations. They'd have to get down to business later on; after coffee perhaps. This lunch was not just to get the two families together, but also to start a discussion about the venue for the wedding. Everyone agreed that this was the most important decision of all, and Zannah was determined that every arrangement should be made in an unhurried and unflustered state, where options could be rationally debated. She'd heard enough stories about families practically coming to blows over wedding plans and she was determined to avoid unpleasantness. Everyone, she was sure, would go out of their way to be helpful, but Em's reaction when she'd told her this had dismayed her.

‘What you mean is,' she had said, ‘you're sure that everyone will roll over and do exactly what you want them to do. You don't see how they could fail to agree with you. I reckon you might get a rude shock.'

‘I do not mean that!' Zannah had retorted, but now, thinking it over, she could see there was something in what Em said. She
had
made up her mind about certain things and anyone wanting to change it was going to have their work cut out.

I won't worry about that now, she told herself. The food is perfect, the house is beautiful. And Adrian. Thinking about him made Zannah feel faint. She remembered him beside her in bed last night and felt heat rising to her face. Sometimes, when a darker mood came over her, a tiny voice whispered in her ear saying,
The sex is so good, Zannah. Are you sure you're not being overwhelmed by it? Have you lost your critical faculties in a tide of lust?
The answers, of course, were always the same: no, and no.

Adrian Whittaker was handsome, clever, and he worked for an investment bank in the City at a job he enjoyed. He was, he told her from time to time, ‘doing rather well considering I'm only thirty-one'.

Zannah thought he earned a ridiculous amount of money. ‘It's not fair,' she'd told Adrian, early in their relationship. Teachers work far harder than bankers, plus we're dealing with kids, real people, all day long. You do nothing but stare at a computer and move notional sums of money around. You go out for a boozy lunch most days. I should be the one with a silly salary.'

‘When we're married, darling,' Adrian answered, ‘what's mine will be yours. You can leave your school and become a lady of leisure.'

The offer, Zannah was sure, was kindly meant but at once she felt a prickle of resentment. ‘I'll do no such thing,' she said. ‘I love my job. I love being a teacher and I'd be a useless lady of leisure.'

‘You could paint. You're always saying you wish you had time for that.'

That was true, Zannah reflected. She'd married Cal even before she graduated from St Martin's School of Art, and had then become pregnant with Isis before she'd had a chance to try being an artist. She was pretty sure she didn't have the talent to make it, but it would be good, she sometimes thought, to have the luxury of trying. Still, as things turned out, she found she
did
have a talent for teaching, and a genuine liking for the children in her care. What she'd said to Adrian was no more than the truth. Her college friends were in advertising and PR, and some were even teaching art, just like her. There wasn't, as far as she knew, a single full-time artist among them. Only the Tracey Emins of
the world actually made a living from Art, which, when she thought of it in this context, always had a capital letter.

Now, she looked at Adrian's dark, soft hair and his beautiful blue eyes and remembered how that conversation had come to an end: with him pulling her into his arms and with her forgetting everything, as she always did when she was near him. I'm useless, she thought. However high-minded and principled I'm being, I become soft and giddy when he touches me. I wish we could go upstairs right now. I wish we were both naked. She took a deep breath and pulled herself together. This is not the time. This is my engagement party. I'm going to have the best wedding anyone's ever had. I'm happy. I wish this moment could last.

*

The royal wedding had been thoroughly discussed, and Camilla's dress at the Blessing pronounced both elegant and flattering.

‘And a gorgeous colour,' Maureen added, ‘though I wonder whether it-wasn't perhaps a little tactless of the Queen to dress in cream, when she must have known, mustn't she, what her new daughter-in-law was going to wear to the register office? And,' she went on, ‘didn't you just adore those blossoming trees in St. George's Chapel? If you two got married in the spring, Zannah, you could copy that idea, couldn't you? I thought it looked wonderful.'

‘We've set the date, Mum,' said Adrian, smiling at his mother. ‘Too late for blossom! You'll have to have some other bright idea. I'm sure you'll come up with something.'

Charlotte caught the look that Zannah sent in her fiancé's direction and smiled to herself. Adrian was tucking in to his food and missed it entirely but she'd have bet good money on her great-niece putting him straight as soon as she could. Zannah wasn't someone who'd
allow Maureen to decide on the floral arrangements for the wedding, wherever it took place. We haven't even begun to discuss the venue, Charlotte was thinking, when the doorbell rang.

‘That must be my husband,' Maureen announced. ‘Better late than never!'

She'd had a couple of glasses of wine and was smiling a great deal, Charlotte noticed.

‘I'll go,' she said. She pushed back her chair, and put her napkin near the plate that now held no more than a few crumbs of pastry from the really rather good
tarte au citron
. She hurried across the hall to the front door and opened it. Standing on the doorstep was a tall, thin man with wavy, browny-grey hair flopping over his forehead and a smile that, with the hair and his horn-rimmed glasses, made him look boyish.

‘I'm so sorry. I'm Graham Ashton. I expect you've all finished lunch ages ago. My apologies.'

He took the glasses off and put them away and Charlotte saw that his brown eyes were flecked with green.

‘Do come in, Dr Ashton. It's quite all right, really. We've kept you some food, of course. I'm Charlotte Parrish, Suzannah's great-aunt.'

‘It's good to meet you.'

Charlotte said, ‘We're all in here,' and smiled over her shoulder at him as she led him into the dining room.

‘Darling, at last,' said Maureen, wiggling her fingers in her husband's direction, sketching out a sort of wave and at the same time calling him to her side. ‘Where on earth have you been? This is my husband, everyone, Graham Ashton.'

Bob, whose chair was nearest to the door, rose to his feet and extended a hand.

‘Very glad to meet you. Do come and sit down. We've left room, and I'm sure there's some food. You know Zannah, of course, and this is my wife, Jocelyn. Joss.'

Charlotte saw what happened next, and yet, later on, when she told Edie and Val about it, and then lay in bed going over the events of the day, she was at a loss to understand the way one thing led to another. Joss's face: that was what she noticed first. She'd turned quite white, and both her hands were up in front of her mouth. She stood up and muttered something.
I must go. I can't
. Charlotte hadn't quite caught the words.

‘Joss?' That was Bob.

‘Ma? What's the matter? What's wrong?' Zannah and Em, getting up and moving towards their mother.

Isis sat quite still and stared. Maureen clutched Adrian's sleeve. Graham Ashton remained near the door as though he was never going to move again. He, too, was staring as though he'd seen a ghost. Joss got up from her chair. The French window was open behind her and she ran out on to the terrace and sat down on the top step of the flight leading down to the lawn. Bob moved quickly to follow her, indicating to Zannah and Em that he was in charge; had the situation under control.