Two Weddings and a Baby (32 page)

‘No.’ Tamsyn shook her head. ‘This is not happening. I haven’t made all of these dresses for no one to wear them. Ruan doesn’t want this. He wants to marry Alex, he loves her. He’s just being stupid. And I’m not having it. Because, quite frankly, I’ve had enough of stupid men to last me a lifetime.’ At this, she couldn’t help but cast a pointed look at Jed. ‘I’ll go and find Ruan. I’ll bring him to the church. Anyone tells Alex, and they’ll have me to deal with, got it?’

‘Oooh, big sis is on the rampage,
yes
!’ Cordelia punched the air.

‘But you need to put a dress on too,’ Laura exclaimed. ‘Alex will wonder where you are.’

‘Take my dress to the church and leave it in the vestry. I’ll put it on when I get back.’ Tamsyn looked down at the Converse trainers she was wearing. ‘And some shoes, lip gloss, eyeliner, tweezers and a hair brush. Actually, strike the hairbrush; it just looks worse if I brush it. It will be fine. I’m on the case.’

And Tamsyn had to admit that the mud she splattered all over Jed, as she spun the Volvo’s wheels pulling away at speed, did give her a very small amount of pleasure.

It didn’t take long to find him. There was an outcrop of rock that burst up from the ground not far into the woods behind Poldore. It was where they had always gone as teenagers – to talk, build campfires, listen to music and make out. It was where Ruan and Merryn had spent a lot of time alone together, and where, etched into the rock somewhere under the mould and the caked mud, there was a heart with their initials in it. The ground was still soft, and wet underfoot, her feet squelching in the canvas Converse, her toes already filled with ooze.

Ruan was standing with his back to her, his hand resting on the rock, his head bowed.

‘Your trouble was, you always tended towards the melodramatic,’ Tamsyn said, crossing her arms. ‘You’re getting married in about half an hour. What the hell are you doing?’

At least Ruan was dressed for the church in a brand-new suit that he had chosen himself, a white shirt, open at the neck, and a waistcoat of blue silk that Tamsyn had run up for him from offcuts of his bride’s dress. He’d also had the foresight to pull on a pair of Wellingtons, which the legs of his trousers were neatly tucked into, and that gave Tamsyn hope. If he was trying to keep his wedding suit mud-free, then surely he planned to turn up, at least.

‘Am I doing the right thing, Tamsyn?’ he asked her. ‘I need to know.’

‘Are you crazy?’ Tamsyn said. ‘Of course you are. You love Alex, she loves you. I have never known two people more right for each other. It’s a no-brainer; of course you are doing the right thing. Now come on, I’ve spent the last few days looking like crap, twenty-four hours a day, I feel like my heart’s been trampled by a troupe of country dancers, so all I ask is that you get me to the church in time to put mascara on.’

‘I loved Merryn,’ Ruan said, looking around him as if he might see her there, laughing amongst the trees. ‘I loved her and I hurt her. I tried to change her, to make her into someone she wasn’t. If I hadn’t loved her, or tried to keep on loving her, if I’d been brave enough to let her go, I might not have driven her away. What if I do the same thing to Alex?’

Tamsyn closed her eyes. This was her fault. It was all her fault that he was standing here, pacing up and down, instead of greeting his guests as he waited for the bride. She should have told him sooner; she should have told him years ago. No matter how much he might hate her for it, she had to tell him now.

‘It’s not your fault,’ Tamsyn said. ‘It’s not your fault that Merryn died that day. It’s mine.’

Ruan shook his head. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I never thought that Merry should stay in Poldore and marry you. I never believed she would be happy, or you, for that matter. You were always so different, and yet neither of you saw it. But I did; I knew you both. Better than you knew each other. I didn’t say anything to her, not until she called me one day. I was working for that department store, remember? She told me she wasn’t sure if she could stay in Poldore with you, she wasn’t sure if she loved you enough. She said everybody expected you to get married, wanted it. Everybody but her.’

‘How does that make it your fault?’ Ruan asked her.

‘Because I talked her into leaving you,’ Tamsyn said simply. ‘I gave her a place to stay, found her a job, and told her the best possible thing she could do for you and for her would be to leave. I spoke to her the morning before you had your row. And even then she was in two minds about what we had planned; maybe she should wait a few weeks, maybe her feelings could change, if she only tried harder. She almost called the whole thing off. I talked her into going through with it. I talked her into that argument with you, and I might as well have talked her into that boat.’ Tamsyn took a step closer to her brother. ‘Ruan, she was always going to leave you, sooner or later, but it didn’t have to be that day. It was only that day because of me.’

‘You told me, you told everyone that it was
my
fault, that I as good as killed her,’ Ruan said. ‘It was bad enough that I felt that way myself, but when you said it, then it was real. Why would you say that?’

‘Because I was angry, hurt, guilty, stupid, messed up.’ Tamsyn shook her head. ‘I tried to blame you because I blamed myself so much. I meant to put it right, but the days went by, the weeks, the years. I’m sorry, Ruan. I’m so sorry. I was going to tell you after the wedding; I sort of thought that running up five dresses in a day and a half for your bride might soften you up a bit … Be angry at me, hate me, don’t speak to me for five more years, I can take that. I can take rejection, I’ve had a lot of practice. But please, I am begging you: don’t mess up your future with this wonderful woman. I know that you two are meant to be together, and even if you hate me, you know I am right.’

The slightest of breezes snaked through the trees above their heads, and he watched her for the longest time, and Tamsyn waited, feeling each second fall away with agonising speed.

‘You’d better drive,’ he said, fishing a carrier bag from behind a rock. ‘I’ve got to change my shoes.’

‘And we’re OK?’ Tamsyn asked him, as they trotted back to the car.

‘Get me to the church on time, Tam, so that Alex never knows that I was this stupid. Do that and we’re even, because, well, I’ve missed you. And now you’ve admitted you were in the wrong, I don’t see any reason to miss you again.’

‘Spoken like a true Thorne,’ Tamsyn said, slotting the key into the ignition. ‘Now, pray that this damn thing starts.’

Tamsyn was shimmying into her bridesmaid’s dress and struggling with the zip at the back, when she heard a polite cough behind her. It was Jed in his full vicar’s uniform – cassock and everything.

‘You really are a vicar, aren’t you?’ Tamsyn said. ‘It’s not an optical illusion, is it?’

‘I really am. Do you need a hand? Everyone is out there; Alex is seconds away.’

‘Would you mind?’ She gestured at the strip of bare flesh that showed between the panels of the dress. Turning back to look at the old stone wall, Tamsyn closed her eyes as she felt Jed standing behind her, felt the pull of the zip fastening shut.

‘That’s you sorted,’ Jed said. He sounded a little hoarse. ‘You’d better run round the side and meet the bride.’

‘Good luck,’ Tamsyn said, turning to catch his eye before he left.

‘And you,’ he nodded. ‘And you.’

And then it was time for a wedding.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ Lucy demanded, looking lovely in the deep sea-blue, knee-length dress Tamsyn had designed for her, its hem sparkling with beads that were just a shade lighter than the dress.

‘Snogging the vicar, I reckon,’ Cordelia said.

‘Well that’s where you would be very, very wrong. The vicar is not interested in me, not in the slightest,’ Tamsyn said, ‘and that is fine by me, as it happens.’

‘You haven’t straightened your hair!’ Keira said, aghast. ‘It’s all wild and curly and lovely, and crazy. And a bit tangled at the back, a bit like you’ve been snogging a vicar.’

‘I have not been snogging,’ Tamsyn repeated. ‘I have been up for two days in a row, saving the day on an hourly basis, and something had to give.’

‘Well, in any case,’ Alex said, her smile radiant, as she hooked her arm through that of her proud-looking and straight-backed father, who seemed to be doing his best not to shed a tear. ‘It’s time to do this thing. Let’s go and get married.’

‘How are you feeling?’ Tamsyn whispered as they waited in the porch for the music to start.

‘Nervous as hell,’ Alex breathed.

‘Well, there is one more person, waiting in the church for you, who might calm your nerves a bit,’ Tamsyn said. ‘I sorted you a page boy.’

‘Oh.’ Alex carefully maintained a smile, although her voice faltered. ‘One of the twins?’

‘Or should I say, a page
B-U-O-Y
?’ Tamsyn grinned, as Alex’s friend Marcus pulled open the door to reveal that Buoy was sitting, waiting patiently for his human, wearing a blue satin bow around his neck, with remarkable good grace for a dog who considered soap to be a serious violation of his dog rights.

‘Oh
Buoy
!’ Alex bent to hug him. ‘You look amazing.’

He rolled his one eye at her, thumping his tail on the tiles, and somehow Tamsyn knew that Alex was the only human that Buoy would go through such a horror for, and that right after the ceremony he was certainly going to chew the stupid bow to a pulp.

The organ had been quite badly water-damaged, but they needn’t have worried as Brian Rogers led a full rock band in the choir stalls, striking up the bridal march as Alex and her father began to walk down the aisle. Tamsyn didn’t need to see the bride’s face to know how delighted she would be with the interior of the church, because she herself was completely enchanted, gasping in wonder as she looked around. Keira had indeed brought the Cornish countryside into the church, making bowers of broken branches, still heavily laden with blossom, and garlanded it with cowslips, buttercups and daisies. At the end of each pew there were posies of pansies and daffodils. Keira hadn’t even tried for a colour scheme; instead she’d simply filled the church with all the colours of a meadow in full bloom, and the ancient place of worship, with its broken door and shattered window, was filled with the scent and warmth of a summer day, with even the occasional butterfly flitting from pew to pew.

Tamsyn watched as her brother’s eyes met Alex’s, and saw the slow, certain smile spread over his face, which she just knew was returned by his bride. As Alex reached him, he took her hand and pressed it to his lips, as he looked into her eyes.

Tamsyn took her place to the side of the aisle next to her sisters and Lucy, and looked at the smiling faces of the congregation, who had all turned out to support their friends despite everything they had been dealing with themselves, and the strangest thing happened: she fell in love in that very moment. Not with a person, or even the wedding, but with the place that had proved to her something she was never really certain she believed until now.

People were good. People were good, and kind, and brave. People wanted the best not just for themselves but for each other, and that was what defined them, what made them human. And somehow, although out in the wider world, where often those basic truths had been forgotten or pushed aside, here they still mattered. And that was enough for Tamsyn to realise that regardless of what had happened between her and Jed, being here, starting her life here again, was exactly the right thing for her to do. Here she could be the person that she wanted to be, she could be herself.

It was impossible not to let one or two tears fall, as Jed conducted the service with such sweetness and sincerity that did nothing at all to help Tamsyn curb the feelings she had for him. And when she saw the tears of joy in Ruan’s eyes as he made his vows, she actually had to grab a tissue from Gloria sitting in the front row and blow her nose, loudly enough for her mother to give her that ‘only you, Tamsyn Thorne’ look.

When Cordelia sang, unaccompanied, her own version of ‘Amazed’, the whole church was charged with an upswell of emotion that was almost palpable, and Tamsyn thought it quite likely that soon the whole of Poldore would be weeping uncontrollably. That was until Buoy lifted his head and decided to join in with a heartfelt howl, turning any threat of tears into gales of fond laughter. With delightful good grace, Cordelia stepped down from where she had been singing and crouched next to Buoy, winding her arms around his neck, as nose to nose they howled the last chorus together in a curious sort of harmony that seemed to work, despite itself.

Finally, when Jed declared that Ruan and Alex were man and wife, everyone stood up, cheered and applauded, and Tamsyn laughed and hugged her sisters, which was when Brian and his supergroup struck up once again, playing the bride and groom back down the aisle with a cover of ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, because Queen were Ruan’s favourite band.

The congregation poured out into the small churchyard, and then onto the street, and there were colours and confetti everywhere, the air fully charged with joy as photos were snapped under a sky that was as warm and benevolent as it had ever been. Tamsyn stood on the church step, a sanguine, bow-less Buoy at her side, content to watch the happiness unfurl around her. Jed had been right: everyone wanted to be happy, to push their cares and worries to one side and have a reason to celebrate, and this was the best reason that she could think of. Jed was annoyingly right about a lot of things, which meant she supposed that she had to believe him when he said that he wasn’t right for her, even if looking at him made her feel so differently.

‘Tamsyn, come on!’ Cordelia bellowed at her from a little further up the hill. ‘It’s reception time! No baby to take care of, no dresses to make,
finally
we can get properly ratted!’

‘I’m coming!’ Tamsyn called back, hesitating for a second or two longer before making her way down the path. The old cedar that had failed to withstand the storm had been taken away by tree surgeons the day before, and until now Tamsyn hadn’t had a chance to discover what had become of Merryn’s gravestone. She was relieved to see that it was still there, standing proud, washed clean by someone, shining in its newly sunny spot.