Two Fridays in April (27 page)

‘Might liven things up a bit,’ Kevin says, and Judy shushes him as she adds sausages to the plate that used to be Charlotte’s.

The door opens again and Theo enters. Una has never seen him in a suit: it makes him look older. Like his father’s, his hair has been recently cut, and the lower half of his face is smooth and pink.

‘Ah, you look so handsome, son,’ Judy says, spreading her arms. ‘Come here and give your old mother a hug.’

He bends and embraces her briefly – ‘Mind my suit, Ma’ – before plucking a sausage straight from the pan and eating it with his hands, leaning against the windowsill. He meets Una’s eyes briefly and gives her what looks like a rather strained smile. She smiles back as she gets to her feet.

‘I’d better get changed,’ she says.

‘Your things are in Charlotte’s old room,’ Judy tells her. ‘First left, across from the bathroom.’

The dress Una brought over on her last visit is one she found in a charity shop – not Mo’s – a couple of weeks after being invited to the wedding. It’s the rich bright green of new grass, a wraparound dress that falls to just above her knees, and it’s silk. She’s never owned anything made of silk before. It slithers like liquid over her skin, and it cost eight euro.

She found the shoes on sale, twenty euro, down from seventy-five because of a little nick on one of the heels that you can hardly see. They’re cream patent with pointed toes and a thin ankle strap, and narrow heels that are four inches high, far higher than anything she’s owned before. She’s not sure if they go with the dress: she had nobody to ask.

She’s been wearing them in her bedroom in the evenings, trying to get used to walking in them. She thinks them wonderfully elegant, loves how much longer her legs look in them – but she wonders how her feet will feel several hours from now.

Her jewellery for today is the little gold five-pointed star on a delicate neck chain that Dad gave her on her twelfth birthday, a couple of months before he crashed into Daphne’s car door. There’s a tiny diamond set into one of the points, invisible until
the light catches it. She wears it every day, hidden under her school uniform during the week.

Upstairs she slips first into the bathroom and examines the red mark on her chin, about the size of a thumbnail. She runs water on the grazed palm she’s managed to keep hidden from them, and pats it dry. She hunts in the small press above the sink and finds a tub of Sudocrem, and rubs some in.

She stands on the tiny landing, listening to laughter coming from Charlotte’s bedroom. She’s never been in it before. She taps lightly on the door and pushes it open.

The room is small, like the others in the house. The air is thick with hairspray. Charlotte sits at the dressing table while Florrie brushes something onto her face. Florrie isn’t a make-up artist, she’s Brian’s sister. Una has met her just once before.

‘Come in,’ Charlotte says, meeting her eye in the mirror. ‘Your stuff is on the bed. Florrie, pour her a drink there. It’s just Prosecco,’ she tells Una, ‘very light.’

‘Thanks.’

Una takes a sip. It’s warm and a bit flowery, and not as tasty as West Coast Cooler. The bag with her stuff sits on the single bed. She places her glass on the windowsill and opens the bag, and lifts out the dress.

‘Here, Florrie,’ Charlotte says, watching Una in the mirror, ‘wouldn’t you kill for hair like that?’

Florrie, stroking on eyeliner, doesn’t look up. ‘Yeah, it’s divine. Is it hard to manage?’

Una removes her sweatshirt and pulls off the top Daphne gave her earlier, wishing she had a fancier bra. ‘Not really – I just comb it with my fingers.’

‘Divine.’

A small silence. Una gets into the dress and ties the sash, feeling the others watching.

‘Oh, that’s lovely on you,’ Florrie says, glancing up. ‘Fabulous colour.’

‘Thanks.’

She shrugs off her shoes, shimmies out of her jeans, takes tights from the bag and eases them on. The small cream clutch that Charlotte is lending her for the day sits on the bed: she transfers her wallet and lip balm into it.

‘Here,’ Charlotte says, ‘what about Ursula Foley saying that to Marie last night? Jesus, I didn’t know where to look.’

‘I know: cow. Poor Marie was gutted – it’s not as if she hasn’t been trying to lose the weight. Look up … now look down. Course if she gave up the pints it’d help.’

Una steps into the shoes, takes another sip from her glass. It’s actually not that bad. She folds the clothes she took off and stows them in the bag. She stands by the bed, not sure whether to stay or leave.

‘So, you and Theo,’ Florrie says then, glancing back at Una, mascara wand in her hand.

Una feels her face getting hot. ‘No,’ she says, ‘we’re just friends.’ She takes too big a gulp of Prosecco so it goes down the wrong way. She catches the look the other two exchange in the mirror as she coughs and splutters.

‘Don’t mind her,’ Charlotte says. ‘She’s only teasing.’

‘I am – don’t mind me.’

But she knows they’re wondering all the same.

Two glasses of Prosecco later, there’s a mild pleasant buzzing in Una’s head. Florrie hid the mark on her chin with concealer and patted a little powder on her face –
That’s all your skin needs, it’s so clear
. She applied eye liner and mascara, and lipstick that’s darker than Una would have chosen – she rarely wears any lipstick – but she thinks she likes it.

When Judy saw the end result, she was predictably enthusiastic.
You could be a model
, she insisted, which made Una laugh. Kevin, dressed in his suit finally, told her she looked smashing, and Theo, busy pinning on his carnation, didn’t say anything at all.

Judy wears a powder blue jacket and skirt, with a little cream feathery hat perched to one side on her head.
Got the suit on sale in the autumn
, she told Una.
The hat isn’t a bit much, is it? It’s a loan from a neighbour’s daughter. I’m not mutton dressed as lamb, am I? I don’t want to make a show of myself as mother of the bride
.

The bride better not get a divorce
, Kevin remarked.
We can just about afford one wedding
. Judy told him to shush, weren’t Charlotte and Brian paying for most of it?

A navy wool wrap has been found for Una, who hadn’t thought about an outer layer –
Charlotte
, Judy said,
that lovely shawl thing you got me last Christmas will be perfect over her dress
. Una isn’t altogether sure the colours go together, but the wrap is beautifully warm so she says nothing.

They’re assembled in the kitchen now, preparations done. Kevin and Theo wear ties in the deep purple shade of Gaby’s dress beneath their pale grey suits. ‘Don’t they look gorgeous?’ Judy asks, and Una says, yes, they do, wondering why Theo seems to be avoiding eye contact with her today. Maybe he’s
nervous – although as far as she knows he has no particular role to play. He’s not the best man, he doesn’t have to make a speech. Could he be annoyed with her over something?

The beep of a car horn is heard out the back. ‘That’ll be Donie,’ Judy says, practically leaping to her feet. ‘Come on, you two. Now, Kevin, you leave here on the dot of five to twelve, not a
minute
later, you hear? I don’t want poor Brian waiting any longer than a quarter of an hour – he’ll be nervous enough. You hear me now?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘And take your time going down the street. I promised everyone you would; they’re going to be out waiting.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Stop
saying
that. And fix your tie, it’s gone all crooked again. Charlotte, make sure to check it before he walks you up the aisle. Have I tissues? Who took the tissues I left on the ironing board? And Kevin, don’t go without feeding Dolly – it’ll be all hours before we get home. Oh, and someone come out and hold her now, so she won’t jump up on us.’

‘I can do that,’ Theo says – but his father goes ahead of them, and Dolly is corralled while the three of them cross the yard and get into the waiting car. ‘You go in front,’ Judy tells Theo. ‘Una, we’ll sit in the back like ladies. God, I shouldn’t have eaten those sausages – my stomach is turning somersaults. I’m feeling very jittery, I don’t mind telling you.’

Donie turns out to be a friend of Brian’s, living on the outskirts of the city. As he drives them to the church, Una notices him glancing at her a few times in the rear-view mirror. Wondering who she is, no doubt: all Judy gave him was her
name. Trying to figure out how she’s connected with the family – or maybe he assumes she’s Theo’s date, like everyone else seems to be doing.

She turns her face away when they drive past the charity shop, just in case. Not that Mo would be likely to recognise her – her sight isn’t that great – but she isn’t about to take any chances. She glances at her watch: a quarter to twelve. She hasn’t thought of the anniversary since she reached the house more than an hour ago. She feels under the wrap and finds the little gold star. She holds on to it and keeps her smile in place.

It’s the first wedding she’s been to since Dad married Daphne. Una was thirteen and trying to be happy for him, trying not to resent Daphne for coming between them. Because she
had
come between them, whatever Dad said.

You’ll always be my number one lady
, he’d told her, right after he’d broken the news of their engagement – but that wasn’t really true, not any more. He loved her still, of course he did, but he had Daphne now, and Daphne had made him laugh again. And Una
did
like her, she couldn’t say she didn’t: she just wished she’d married someone else, and left her and Dad alone.

But if Dad hadn’t married Daphne, what would have happened to Una after his death? She’d have had to move in with Mo, probably. Mum’s parents wouldn’t have wanted her, she’s sure of that. They live in England – they’re English, like Mum was – and send cards to Una with ten-pound notes in them at birthdays and Christmas. There’s probably one waiting at home for her today.
Best wishes
, the cards always say, and their
two names below in the same handwriting, and nothing else.

The only time they met her, the single time in her whole life that they met her, was at Mum’s funeral, and they didn’t exactly act like grandparents then. She doesn’t remember much about them: she was only six, and missing Mum like anything. As far as she recalls, they were both tall – but then, everyone is tall when you’re six. They were both dressed, she thinks, in black trouser suits, but that could be wrong too.

Una
, the woman – her grandmother – said, when Finn introduced them, and she looked like the word tasted bitter. They examined Una without smiles, hardly spoke to her throughout the day, or to anyone.

She wonders what they did with the photos of her that Mum used to send them, if they kept them or threw them into the bin. She wonders why you would blame a child for something they hadn’t done.

No, they wouldn’t have wanted her when Dad died.

The church is chilly. She gathers Judy’s wrap more tightly around her as she sneaks a look at the other guests. Not a very big crowd, about fifty, she reckons, mostly couples who look around Charlotte’s age, some older people she assumes are family. A few small children, fidgety in shiny dresses and miniature suits, a couple of bored-looking boys of ten or eleven.

Judy’s sister Miriam sits next to Una, in a tight red dress that sparkles when she moves, and a streak of matching lipstick on one of her front teeth.
So you’re Una
, she said, when they were introduced, her gaze travelling unhurriedly from Una’s face all the way to her shoes. Her husband Robbie, in pointed shoes and
with hair that seemed a bit too black, looked straight at Una’s chest as he shook her hand. She’s glad he’s sitting on Miriam’s far side.

Charlotte and Brian stand before the altar as the priest – a family member too, she’s forgotten whose – binds them together for better or for worse. In the seat directly ahead of Una, Judy blows her nose loudly, and Una watches the back of Theo’s head and wonders again if she’s done something to annoy him.

Normally they get on fine. They’re hardly ever alone; Judy is pretty much always in the kitchen when Una visits, and Kevin is rarely far away – but she and Theo seemed to have settled into an easy familiarity. Up to today she would have said he was the closest thing she has to a brother. Now she’s not so sure.