The Bastard Takes a Wife (19 page)

“Here, fucking here,” Mel said, raising her
glass in a toast.

Patricia and my mother faced off like two
women vying for the last size eight cardigan in the David Jones
Boxing Day sale. Nobody moved. The room was so quiet I was scared
to take a sip from my glass in case I made a slurp. The DJ fiddled
with the knobs on his deck, trying to ignore the situation. Amanda
looked at her feet and shuffled.

Then behind us, I heard Kirby whisper, “We
should totally get Millie’s mum to come to the club with us. She’d,
like, pulverize that-slut-Courtney.”

*****

The next morning, Sam and I were due to meet
the rest of the gang for brunch at our favourite East Perth café,
Toast. I felt rather pleased with myself on a number of accounts.
Firstly, it was only thirteen days until I married Sam and after
the way my mother had stood up to Mrs. Brockton the previous
evening, I was somewhat consoled that everything would indeed be
alright from now on. Knowing that someone was in my corner relieved
a great deal of pressure. Secondly, my face was almost back to
normal. Apart from a couple of red blotches that I’d hidden beneath
foundation, the swelling had gone and I looked like me. And lastly,
I’d had the best Hen’s night in history that had ended with the
girls and I doing laps of King’s Park in the limmo ~ the
culmination of which being the stripper giving my mother and Adele
lap dances for free. My mother hadn’t batted an eyelid at his
silver spangled g-string. She was cool as a cucumber and seemingly
experienced in male stripper etiquette but Adele, on the other
hand, had gone a little pink and declared the whole event in very
poor taste. She didn’t know that I’d seen her winking at him and
surreptitiously shoving fifty-dollar notes into his excuse for
underwear. Not that I could blame her. He was rather hot.

When I got to Toast, the place was full. It
was always like that on a Sunday. If you weren’t an early riser you
had to wait for hours for a table. After telling the girl how many
I required seating for, I took my rubber duck marker and stood
rather conspicuously with the other people who hadn’t bothered to
get out of bed before nine or reserve a table.

That was when I saw Sam. He was strolling
along the dock with Rambo and Johnny. They had a sort of swagger
up, the kind they got after a particularly good pilfering raid on a
road trip ~ the kind that usually manifested itself in stolen bears
and statues. God help me, what had they done last night?

As they drew closer, I noticed that Sam’s arm
was bandaged on the elbow. Not only that, he appeared to have a
rather nasty blue tinge to the socket of his left eye. So did
Johnny. Rambo was the only one, it seemed, whose face had escaped
unscathed.

The boys approached me, all smiles.

“Hey,
Jabba the Hut
,” Johnny said.
“Sam told us about your face incident. How’re you feeling?”

“What happened?” I didn’t know which of them
to glare at first. My face was the least of my worries.

Sam let out an easy chuckle. He reached
across and placed his lips on my mouth. “It’s nothing. We had a bit
of an altercation with a fence, that’s all.”

“And the fence had arms, I take it? So it
could throw a few swings at your face?” Honestly, I couldn’t trust
this lot to go anywhere unaccompanied. I’d given Sam specific
instructions to stay out of trouble and this was what I was greeted
with.

“Did you forget that we’re meant to be having
an extensive wedding album shot in thirteen days? Or are black eyes
the new black?”

“It’s fine, Mill’, the bruising will be gone
by the wedding. Chill.”

I hoped so.

At that moment, my mobile rang. I was tempted
to let it go to message bank so I could get to the bottom of this
debacle but seeing Mum’s name come up on the screen, I felt I had
to take it. She had been my saviour after all.

“Mum.”

“Hello, darling. Are you alone?”

Why would she ask that? “Um, no. I’m at Toast
with Sam and the boys. Is there something wrong?”

An ominous silence filled the other end of
the line and I knew this was bad. And also that it had something to
do with the fact that the boys had black eyes. I prayed they hadn’t
been arrested or something.

“Your father has a black eye.”

Oh my God. I glowered at Sam. What had he
been doing last night?

“Look, I know I stood up for you against that
Patricia woman last evening but I think you should reconsider this
wedding. It’s not too late.”

“What?”

“It appears that Sam may have a bit of a dark
side. He punched your father in the nose. I don’t know why and I
don’t want to know but those boys are animals and for your own
safety you should get out while you can.” Her tone was clipped.
Clearly this wasn’t a radio prank call.

“Can I call you back, Mum? They’re all here.
I’d like to get to the bottom of this if I could.” Surely, Sam
wasn’t some sort of thug? He’d never punched anyone before. If
anything he was more the type to sort people out with a few choice
words. But the evidence spoke for itself. His eye was swollen and
blue.

I slid my phone into my pocket. Then I gave
him a cold calculated stare designed to elicit truth. “So. You
punched my dad. Care to explain that,
Rocky
?”

As it turned out ~ and I knew it would ~ the
whole thing had been a misunderstanding. Towards the end of a
rather successful evening, Josh ~ who had somehow become Sam’s new
best friend while I’d been out shopping ~ had decided to leave the
beer garden at the Brisbane Hotel by climbing over the wall and
being the fool that he is, had got attached to the top of the fence
by his pants. At this point in time, a bouncer spotted him and,
thinking Josh was trying to get into the establishment without
paying the cover, yanked him from the wall and began to punch him,
as only bouncers do. What occurred then was an all in brawl where
Sam went to the rescue and took a swing at the bouncer, just as my
father decided to get involved too. The bouncer ducked, the punch
hit my father and after a few more clever shots were placed, the
men ran laughing into waiting taxis outside. It was too ridiculous
for words. Even Brian was sporting some type of war wound,
apparently. Adele would have a fit. The lot of them thought it was
a huge joke. Boys will be boys and all that.

“That’s what happened,” Sam grinned. “You
should have seen your dad get in there. He was on fire. Bit like
Danny Green.”

“He punched the bouncer?”

“Yeah. And the Manager too, I think. But it
was self-defense. We wanted to leave and they wouldn’t let us.”

“Okay.” I pulled my phone back out of my
pocket and dialled Mum. “Is Dad there?”

“Yes, but you should see his eye Millie. He
won’t be able to go to work on tomorrow. And we have that black tie
dinner on tomorrow evening. I’ll have to get the Estee Lauder woman
to come and do a make over on him or people will think he’s a
thug.”

I smiled into the phone. “Ask him what
happened, Mum. I think you might be surprised. Apparently Dad was
being a bit of a lad.”

“Millie! Your father is a well-respected
businessman. He has a reputation.”

“Go on, ask him what happened.”

I heard the muffled sounds of talking as Mum
put her hand over the receiver. After a minute, she was back on the
line.

“It seems I must have been mistaken. And your
father is laughing about it.
Laughing
.”

“I told you.”

“Well, it makes no difference. I still blame
Sam. If it hadn’t been for his shenanigans none of this would have
happened. I mean, your father’s sixty. It’s disgusting.”

Apparently, it didn’t matter how long in the
tooth you were when it came to mateship.

“And what’s this about stitches in Sam’s
arm?” Mum continued. I could hear she was becoming stressed.

“It’s nothing Mum, just a cut.”

“
Hmm
. It had better not ruin the
wedding photos.”

“It won’t. It’ll be under his shirt where
nobody can see. Nothing will ruin the wedding photos.”

Saturday morning. One hundred and seventy
five hours until the wedding. The day of my final dress fitting. I
woke early and lay for a minute staring at the ceiling and then out
the window, thinking of the nice things that were going to happen
that day. First, Mum, Adele and I were going to collect the shoes
and then we were off to see the finished cake. Angus had the table
centrepieces organised, so we had to view them too, along with the
wedding favours for the guests. God knows, what Angus and Patricia
had contrived there. I didn’t care anymore as long as they both
shut up and let me be.

By nine-thirty am, I was in the car with
Adele and Paige on the way to the city. We found a park easily
enough; Perth people don’t tend to shop before eleven on the
weekends, so it was an easy walk the two blocks to collect my satin
pumps and the jewellery I’d chosen for the day to complement the
necklace Adele was lending me. Then it was on to Mode For
Brides.

“Will my tiara be as pretty as your earrings,
Millie?” Paige asked, as we pushed open the large glass doors and
went inside.

“Prettier, I think.”

Paige preened. To be prettier than the bride
was a coup, even at seven.

“Can you take a photo of me on your phone, so
I can send it to Jennifer?”

“Sure.”

We sat down on the white chaise lounge. A
tray of champagne magically appeared and everyone took one.
Everyone but me and Paige.

“Not having a celebratory drink?” Adele
asked.

“It’s a bit early for me.” I took the
proffered flute of orange juice instead.

Paige was first to model her dress. Her
version of the adult bridesmaid dress, still in black, fitted
perfectly and she swung around in circles making the full skirt
rise and the petticoats show. She looked like a mini Audrey
Hepburn.

“Can I put the tiara on now?” she asked.

The skinny attendant turned to a chair, where
a glossy white box sat waiting. Returning to Paige, she lifted the
lid revealing the princess tiara.

Paige began to shake. Her large blue eyes
welled up with excited tears. “Oh… oh… it’s, like, so freakin’
awesome,” she whispered, reverently lifting it from the satin lined
box as if she’d just been handed the keys to Justin Bieber’s house.
She walked over to where Adele sat on the couch. “Can you put it
on, Mummy.
Pleeeease
?”

With a tender smile, Adele placed the tiara
on Paige’s head. “We’ll need to pin it on the day,” she said, “but
you look beautiful.”

Paige ran to the mirror. She twirled and
preened. “This is the best day of my entire life. If only I could
get to meet One Direction, my life would be complete.”

“One Direction?” Adele whispered to me.

“They’re the latest thing.”

“What happened to Justin Bieber?”

“I think he grew up.”

From over at the full length mirror, where
Paige was now standing complete with heels so that the seamstress
could check the length of her gown, she called out. “I can hear
you, you know. I may be only seven but I have extremely good
hearing.”

“And on that note, I think it’s time for you
to put on your gown, Miss McIntyre,” the shop assistant said.

I left my wallet and phone on the seat next
to Mum and followed the girl to the changing room. From behind she
looked even skinnier than on my previous visit, like a ruler with
legs.

“Did you bring the underwear you intend to
wear next week?” she asked.

I indicated the plastic shopping bag at my
side.

“Good. I’ll leave you to pop those on while I
go and get the dress. You’re going to love the dress.”

Too nervous to reply, I nodded and watched as
she pulled the curtain across. I hoped I did love it. It was too
late to change my mind.

I opened up the bag and took the lingerie
out. The white knickers and corset set were very wedding-ish and
not something I’d wear every day of the week but as I wrapped the
top around me and began to hook the thirty hooks, I pondered that I
didn’t have to worry about that. I wasn’t going to be getting
married every day of the week, now was I? A once in a lifetime
event called for once in a lifetime undies. I did up the last hook,
slid the fastenings to the back, adjusted my boobs and turned to
admire myself in the mirror.

Well.

There was an awful lot of lace and
see-through in that corset. Way more than I remembered. But it was
pretty and sort of sexy. I hoped Sam would appreciate the effort
I’d gone to because I wouldn’t be trussing myself up like this when
we got back to Lombok. Then I took a second glance. I tilted my
head this way and that. The bra cups had a lot of push-up
happening. So much so, that my boobs were spilling out. I gave the
corset a yank and inspected myself again. I tucked here and there
and turned to the side. Surely, I hadn’t bought the wrong size? I
fiddled around the base of the corset, looking for the tag. Nup.
10B. That was me. And it had fitted well before, so what was the
deal? It wasn’t like the corset itself was overly tight but the bra
cups were way too small.

The sound of the curtain being slid along the
rail diverted my attention and I hastily pulled to corset back into
place.

“Ready?” The seamstress asked.

“Yes.” This was it. I was about to put on my
finished wedding dress for the first time.

“Right. I’m just going to spread this clean
sheet out on the floor and then I’ll put the dress on it. All you
have to do is step into the middle and stand with your arms out to
the side. Then, I’ll call the bridesmaids in so I can show them how
to do the lacing and buttons up the spine. The gown won’t sit
correctly if it’s laced wrong.” She bustled around for a moment,
spreading the sheet on the floor, unzipping the garment bag and
positioning the dress. Then she turned back to me. “Right. Let’s
get this beauty on.”