The Honey Queen (37 page)

‘We’ve been going through something as well,’ Laura said, in a tone the like of which Meredith had never heard her use. ‘Have you any idea what you’ve done to us, Meredith?’ Laura went on. ‘You’ve bankrupted us. I didn’t want to say anything, we didn’t want to say anything to you until we knew, but our lawyer has been on to the police and all they’ll tell us is that the money is gone. The investments were fake. We have no money in a shopping centre in Bulgaria or a hotel complex in Dubai. We have no pension. We have nothing. Sally-Anne and Keith have run off with every last penny. And I find it quite impossible to believe, Meredith, that you could not have known about this.’

Meredith was silent. The silence of utter shock.

‘Laura,’ she said finally, ‘how can you think that? You know me so well, I would never have told you to invest your money if I thought they were swindling us. I’ve lost everything too. My lawyer says I might lose my flat, my car, everything. I’ll have nothing.’

‘You worked with them every day for what? Six years, seven years? And you say you knew
nothing
. How could you get your close friends to invest with these people, how could you not have seen what they were? I never liked Sally-Anne, never, but I trusted you, Meredith. I
trusted
you, and that’s why Con and I invested our money with her. Because of you.’

‘Oh, Laura,’ said Meredith, and she began to weep. ‘I’ll do everything I can to sort it out.’

‘There’s absolutely nothing you can do to sort it out. All the money from the good years, the money that we invested for our future, for Iona’s future, it’s all gone. We’re going to have to sell the house. We’ll have to buy something smaller, and Con and I will have to get regular jobs because artists like us are luxury items in a recession. People don’t have money for art. Until now we were just about getting by, but we knew we had the investments, they were our nest egg, our safety blanket. Thanks to you, now we have nothing.’

‘But you can’t blame me,’ said Meredith. ‘I didn’t know it was all a con.’

‘I do blame you,’ Laura said. ‘I blame you because I believed in you and you clearly didn’t have the judgement to see what sort of woman she was. Oh, I blame you all right.’ Then she hung up.

Meredith had sat numbly looking out the bedroom window, the phone still resting in her hand. She’d never felt so lonely or so stupid in her whole life. She hadn’t thought that Laura and Con would turn against her. But why shouldn’t they? They had lost everything because they’d put their faith in her. And she had been too naive, too blinkered to see Sally-Anne for what she really was. She’d been blinded by Sally-Anne’s accent and her access to all the coolest places and all her rich, posh friends.

Opal sat in the church with her hand held firmly in Ned’s big one. His fingers were calloused from working both in the garden and on the allotment, but to Opal, their touch was as comforting as if they were curled up together on the couch, watching telly. After meeting that lovely Lillie in Bobbi’s salon, Opal had decided that Miranda’s insults were not going to get to her today.

Miranda was an unhappy person – Lillie had been right. Today, Miranda should be joyful that her dear daughter was marrying the man of her dreams. Instead, she faced the world like a high-speed Jekyll and Hyde, smiling at people she liked one minute and glaring ferociously at those she didn’t approve of the next.

She’d already attempted one put-down, the minute she set eyes on Opal in her wedding outfit. Hissing, ‘No hat, Opal!’ in scandalized tones, as if Opal had arrived dressed in black studded leather on the back of a Harley Davidson.

Knowing that Freya was beside her, poised like a Rottweiler ready to leap into action, Opal merely smiled, patted her roses and said: ‘Flowers are so feminine, I think. I love roses and I’m so happy today, Miranda.’

And with both Freya and Miranda gaping at her in astonishment, for entirely different reasons, Opal had taken her niece’s arm and walked happily into the church, stopping to admire all the blush pink and cream roses at the end of every second pew.

Now she looked at Brian and David standing at the front, with Liz coming down the aisle, a vision in cream lace and tulle. The back of the dress was so pretty, lots of tiny buttons. Wedding dresses needed lovely backs because most people saw the back of the bride first in the church.

Ned squeezed her hand and Opal squeezed back. It was going to be a perfect day. No matter what Miranda said or did, it would be just perfect.

At the reception, Miranda looked around her with pleasure. It was all going so wonderfully. The golf club was a prestigious venue and showed people – well, people like her new son-in-law’s family – how things should be done. At the Rathlin Golf Club, it was full silver service all the way. Crisp white linen napkins perfectly set off the glorious towers of tumbling white flowers on each of the tables. Elizabeth had been worried that people wouldn’t be able to see each other across the round tables, but Miranda had won the day on that point.

‘Darling, since your father and I are paying for it, at least let us have some say in what happens on the day,’ Miranda had sniffed.

She was sure that Elizabeth hadn’t been so wilful or determined to have her way before getting involved with Brian Byrne. The Byrnes were the main fly in the ointment, no doubt about it. Opal, Brian’s dreadful mother, wasn’t even wearing a hat. All Miranda’s friends had mentioned it, generally when they were complimenting her on her spectacular Stephen Jones creation. ‘I got it in London, obviously,’ Miranda had told them. ‘There’s nothing in Ireland really. One has to go to London.’

But Opal … Honestly, what sort of a name was Opal? So common, so nineteen fifties lower class, as were all those silly names like Pearl and Daisy. Opal had made do with some violet flowers in her hair – far too simple for a society wedding.

At that moment Miranda spotted Noel coming back from the bar with a pint of Guinness. Her lips tightened. She’d told him not to drink Guinness tonight. Let the Byrnes and their lower-class relations drink stuff out of pint glasses; nobody from
their
side should be seen dead doing it.

Gloria Devine glided past, head to toe in Louise Kennedy. Miranda loved Louise Kennedy and had toyed with the idea of wearing something from her crystal beaded line to the wedding, but then one of the other guests might have turned up in the same thing, which was why she’d gone to London. Miranda had wanted her dress to be totally different.

‘You’ve outdone yourself, Miranda,’ Gloria said. She was a dear friend from tennis. They hadn’t seen each other much over the last two years, but still, Miranda had insisted that she be invited.

‘Mum, you never see the Devines any more, you know that,’ Elizabeth had said crossly when they were doing the lists. ‘Besides, we’ve got way too many guests as it is from our side of the family. Brian hasn’t invited half so many people.’

‘It’s not my fault if the Byrnes have no friends,’ Miranda had snapped. She’d regretted it immediately; there was no point in falling out with her daughter over the wedding plans. It was enough that she had managed to get the wedding and the reception where she’d wanted and not somewhere like that horrible low-class hotel near Redstone.

Never mind, Miranda comforted herself, if Elizabeth ever married again, then they’d really do it in style. She knew that her mother, long dead, would have been horrified at such sentiments, but her mother had been a good Catholic in an era when it made sense to be doctrinaire. These days, everyone could get a divorce. And if Elizabeth divorced Brian, she might marry up the next time.

A woman in a blue suit with an alarming tan waved at her. She looked vaguely familiar. Who on earth was she? Ah, that’s it, one of Opal’s awful friends.

‘Lovely wedding, Miranda,’ said Molly loudly, ‘although I’m not sure about the hat, love. I think you can take it off inside. Unless you’re trying to get Sky Television on it?’

For once Miranda couldn’t think of a thing to say.

‘I love you,’ said Brian on the dance floor that evening as he stared down into his new wife’s hazel eyes.

‘I love you more,’ she replied, beaming up at him.

It had all gone so marvellously and somehow her mother hadn’t been outrageously rude to the Byrne family, which had been Liz’s main fear. She thought back to the many wonderful moments: the soloist’s haunting rendition of
Pie Jesu
; the sun coming out from behind a cloud as they’d left the church, dusting every tree and leaf and Liz herself with golden light; the perfectly judged speeches, particularly David’s best man speech, which was positively the nicest she’d ever heard.

‘I can’t believe my mother behaved herself,’ Liz murmured, leaning against Brian’s shoulder and thinking how nice it was to be dancing finally as husband and wife. When people said marriage didn’t matter and it was only a piece of paper, they were
wrong.

Liz felt entirely different from the way she had that morning. She’d gone into the church a girl, and had come out a woman. Totally different.

‘Your mum’s great,’ lied Brian, who treated Miranda with the careful attention of a zookeeper feeding a new and highly dangerous rhino. ‘I think everyone’s enjoying themselves too.’

‘Yes,’ said Liz happily. ‘Weird to think that it’s nearly over, isn’t it?’

Brian held her closer. ‘It’s only beginning, love,’ he said, and they began to try waltzing, because they’d had all those lessons and it seemed a shame to waste them.

A few yards away, Miranda was dancing with Brian’s father. Ned was a remarkably good dancer, she thought in surprise, as he whirled her expertly round the floor.

It reminded her of dancing with an early boyfriend, someone who’d dumped her because he said she was a ‘stuck-up cow’. Miranda had never forgotten it. Even after forty years, it still stung.

‘This is lovely,’ she said happily to Ned, who held her further away from him and looked at her coolly.

‘Really?’ he said. ‘I thought you couldn’t wait to be rid of all us annoying Byrnes so you and your friends could celebrate in style.’

Miranda flushed.

She
had
said that to a few of her pals, suggesting they should get a couple of bottles of champers to themselves later when the rough dancing was over and the Byrnes and their people were propping up the bar.

‘Oh, I didn’t mean it like that—’ she began.

‘I know exactly how you meant it, Miranda,’ said Ned, in that firm tone, a tone she wouldn’t have thought him capable of. ‘I didn’t appreciate hearing it at our son’s wedding. For a start, your Liz is part of the Byrne family now. Secondly, if Opal had heard you, she’d have been devastated. I’ve seen the way you’ve tried to put my wife down over this wedding and I’ve had enough. I’m only dancing with you now because it’s protocol and I don’t want to upset Brian or Liz, but you better change your tune, Miranda, or I won’t have you in my house. I’ll tell Liz what you said too, and see what she thinks about it all.’

‘Please don’t,’ begged Miranda, blushing now.

‘You think you’ve got lovely manners, don’t you, Miranda? Well, you don’t have any decency in you.’

With that, Ned simply dropped his arms from hers and walked away, leaving Miranda standing on the dance floor.

He was angry he’d had to say such things because it went against his nature, but Miranda had done her damnedest to ruin Opal’s day out and his wife had been through enough lately. She wouldn’t suffer Miranda’s rudeness if he could help it.

Flustered, Miranda looked around for her husband, Noel, but he wasn’t dancing with Opal, as he was supposed to be doing. Instead, he was at the bar with a couple of Ned’s cronies, with whom he seemed to be getting along famously, judging by their raucous laughter.

Brian whirled past, dancing with his mother. ‘Noel wasn’t up for a dance with my mother, Miranda,’ he called, loudly enough for everyone to hear, ‘but I’ll take care of it. I love dancing with my mother,’ he added, smiling fondly down at Opal.

‘What did you say to Ned?’ demanded Elizabeth, dancing past with David. ‘He looked very upset. If you said—’

Miranda couldn’t bear it any more. She rushed off to her hotel room. None of it had worked out the way she’d planned. Even Elizabeth was turning on her and Noel had let her down by not doing his duty and dancing with Opal. Plus, everyone had noticed, including all the friends she’d wanted to impress. The Byrnes were the ones acting with dignity while Noel was getting plastered at the bar and she was in danger of her daughter hearing the awful things she’d said about her new family. Miranda began to cry as she went to the lifts. She’d done her best, hadn’t she? Or had she?

Half an hour later, she had repaired her make-up and was about to leave the room when there was a knock at the door.

She opened it to find Elizabeth standing there, beautiful in her wedding gown.

‘What happened?’ she demanded in a hard voice. ‘I saw you speaking to Ned and I saw the way he just left you in the middle of the dance floor. You said something horrible to him, didn’t you?’

Miranda considered a lie but then Elizabeth might find out about it.

‘He was upset because he overheard me saying something—’

‘What did you say?’

Miranda sank on to the bed. ‘That we’d get some champers later when the Byrnes were all propping up the bar,’ she said weakly.

Elizabeth’s face was rigid with rage as she stared at her mother. ‘How could you?’ she said. ‘I am now a Byrne and they’re good, decent people who’ve welcomed me into their family with such kindness. The only welcome you’ve given Brian was to say he didn’t have a bad accent and that he was better than the rest of them. You’re spiteful and nasty, and I don’t know if I can forgive you for behaving this way on my wedding day.’

‘Oh, sweetie, now don’t be like that. I was only saying what people are thinking, after all. You and Brian
do
come from very different backgrounds. Redstone might be a bit more upmarket than it used to be, but still, it’s got that council house taint to it, and our people—’

She never got to finish the sentence.