Weird Sister (9 page)

Jenny couldn’t stop herself, she stepped up to the dress and fingered the fabric, so fine it felt as though it might crumble. She bent closer and realized she could smell Agnes’s perfume on the dress.

‘Jenny?’

She grabbed her bag of brand-new potions and went across the hall.

‘Okay,’ said Agnes, ‘get started. Remember how I told you to do it?’

Jenny nodded, lining up the cosmetics in a perfect row, as though embarking on ritual magic.

‘I’ll be back in a couple of minutes to see how you are doing.’

Jenny went through the routine. She had spent three days rehearsing and was able to use the eye-lash curler with a modest amount of success. When she finished – she thought perhaps the make-up was a little heavy, but this was a special occasion – she went back to the bedroom.

Agnes was standing beside the bed. She was wearing Jenny’s outfit. The dress and coat looked wonderful, Agnes had angles and curves and points in all the right places. The girl crumbled inwardly. ‘I couldn’t help it,’ Agnes said, and Jenny thought for a moment she heard cruelty in her voice. ‘I just wanted to see what it looked like. We’re the same size.’

‘It looks great,’ Jenny replied, thinking it will never look like that on me. I don’t know why we bothered to buy it. I might as well wear my jeans.

Agnes was already taking the outfit off. She laid it out on the bed for Jenny. The dress looked flat and uninteresting without her body animating it.

‘Okay,’ said Agnes, ‘not long now.’

Jim Drury was knocking on the door. ‘Hurry up ladies,’ he said, ‘we don’t want to be late.’

In the church the music starts. Elizabeth is holding Andrew and he is wriggling with excitement. ‘Look at Agnes,’ he says, ‘look Lizzie.’ Elizabeth glances at Agnes but she can’t keep her eyes off Robert. She thinks he is incredibly handsome in his hired morning suit, his hair black and shiny. ‘Look at your uncle,’ she whispers, ‘look at him.’ Next to Robert stands Graeme, best man since Elizabeth declined the invitation so unceremoniously. She wonders what it would be like to be standing there now, a member of the wedding party. She feels a spike of regret. Graeme looks handsome too, Elizabeth thinks, he has his hair slicked back like Robert’s and the shadow of anger his face usually shelters has lifted. The two men look uncannily alike.

Elizabeth has a soundtrack playing in her head, quite separate from the music coming from the church organ. Marlene and Geoff had teased her at dinner last night, Marlene kept singing that old soul song over and over again, ‘It should have been me’. Now that melody, those words, runs over and over in Elizabeth’s head, it is driving her mad. There is no point in thinking it should have been me, it isn’t me, it’s Agnes and – doesn’t she look lovely.

Agnes and Jim move down the aisle as though on well-oiled wheels. People shiver at the beauty and delicacy. As he watches her come toward him Robert can hardly contain his emotion; he bites his lip and glances upward, begging for control. Even the vicar is struck by the unusual atmosphere; it’s so cold that for a moment he thinks the bride’s dress is icy, that she has frost dusting her flowers, her lips. Agnes is staring right at him and the vicar finds her gaze unnerving. She stands in front of him, a little too close, and when she blinks the vicar sees her green irises eclipsed by black, as though the pupil has swallowed the colour. He thinks, ‘She hates me, why does she hate me?’ He blinks once himself, and looks again. It is gone. Her eyes are green. She is the loveliest bride he has ever seen. For a moment he is lost for words, then he embarks on the reassuring and familiar ceremony.

It is over quickly. When Robert kisses his bride the entire congregation feels warmed by their embrace. There is a new Throckmorton in Warboys. Agnes Samuel has found her place. She is here to stay. Robert tightens his grip on her waist.

After the ceremony, the bride and groom lead the congregation on foot through the village in a festive parade. It is the last day of October and the late afternoon sun is fading. Leaves are fast falling, the bare skeletons of the trees showing through. At the Throckmorton house there are fairy lights hanging in the overgrown hedgerows, looping over the heavy branches of the old trees. Inside the entrance hall the fire blazes and they have opened up the big rooms on either side of the house, the Elizabethan ballroom which has not been used in many years and the family sitting room with the double doors that open onto the garden. Each room has an open fire in the grate and outside the sitting room overhead blow-heaters warm the air beneath a white canopy. Around the edge of the lawn, at the base of the massive hedge, wax torches are burning, throwing flickering light over the grass.

Robert has hired Jenny’s friend Lolly Senior and three other local teenagers to act as waiters; at the entrance they take coats and hats and give each guest a glass of champagne. Jenny, Graeme, Karen and the little boys are amazed by the transformation of the house; it looks warm and grand and welcoming. As Graeme wheels Martin into the sitting room Agnes bends to kiss him. ‘See?’ she exclaims, ‘he is smiling.’ When they look they see his usual blank, clear face but the idea of their father’s smile makes them feel happy. They view afresh the ballroom, dripping carved plaster, and the garden with its neglected topiary.

Drink flows, as it always does on such occasions, and with it flows conversation. Round and round, round and round, look at Agnes, isn’t she beautiful, aren’t they going to be happy? People find themselves in awe of the wedding party, it is a dream wedding. Those who are married can’t help but wonder why their own weddings hadn’t been like this. Single people pledge that their weddings will be just the same. It is perfect, it is entirely perfect, the bride and groom like the perfect couple in a photograph.

Jenny has never drunk champagne before, she spills a bit on the lapel of her silk coat, but that doesn’t matter, nothing matters, she is having a wonderful time, she has forgotten her earlier worries, her vision of Agnes in the green dress. She stands in front of the elaborately layered wedding cake. A little piece of white icing has broken off near the bottom, she licks her finger, picks up it and puts it in her mouth. As it melts on her tongue she peers at the figurines. Robert and Agnes are there on top of the cake. They are tiny, but it is them, holding hands. Agnes is smiling, Jenny can see her green eyes shining. But Robert looks sad, and there is a small tear, a miniature drop tear, rolling down his face. Jenny shakes her head and spins around on the tips of her new shoes once, twice, three times, watching her coat flare out around her knees. When she looks at the figurines again, she knows they will be plastic. Her friend Lolly fetches her another glass of champagne. She has lost her hat with its feather.

At the party Elizabeth sticks close by Marlene and Geoff. Geoff is the kind of man who looks ill-at-ease in a suit, despite the fact that he wears one every day. He squires the two women around and makes sure that their drinks are replenished. Apart from Robert, Marlene is the nearest approximation to a friend that Elizabeth has in Warboys; those she thinks of as her real friends are in London, work colleagues, people she studied with at university. Unlike a lot of the Warboys women with whom Elizabeth grew up, Marlene works; she is the village lawyer. She is German and although she has lived in England for more than a decade, she observes people here with a foreigner’s acumen. She always says she is lucky her name is Marlene, people think of her as the glamorous German instead of a Wagnerian Nazi. In the months since Elizabeth came back to Warboys the two women have grown closer.

Elizabeth has not spoken with Marlene about how she feels about Robert, but Marlene knows. Most people in Warboys thought that Robert and Elizabeth would end up together, certainly when they were young, and again once Elizabeth returned to the village. So despite the teasing of the previous evening, when Marlene suggested that Elizabeth should stand up and object when it came to that part of the wedding ceremony, Marlene knows that today is a difficult day for her friend. Outwardly, Elizabeth is doing well. She has made an effort and she looks fine, if a little manly, in a navy trouser suit, shiny patent leather shoes. She has even managed to beat her disobedient hair into submission; Elizabeth has the kind of short hair that looks great the day it is cut and, Marlene muses, somehow backward, wrong way up, the rest of the time. Marlene surveys the sitting room, the garden. If only there was a man for Elizabeth at this party, a single man whom none of them have ever met before. But of course this is Warboys, these are the Throckmortons, and there isn’t. Robert was always the single man. So Marlene gets Geoff’s attention; he takes his cue and attempts to entertain Elizabeth with stories about houses he has sold recently. As well as being captain of the cricket team, Geoff is an estate agent. He sends his clients to Marlene for conveyancing.

The party is bubbling. In a corner of the sitting room there is a long table heaped with presents, subject of intense scrutiny by the children present. The little girls are excited to be there – no one loves weddings more than little girls – and they are thrilled when Agnes stops near them. She looks like a fairy-tale princess and as she bends low to speak to them they are struck dumb with awe and shyness. Agnes makes her way around the party slowly. She stops and speaks for a moment with every person there. The adults stand around waiting for her to reach them. She flirts with the men and charms the women and, once she has moved on, they spring forward, renewed, into the mêlée of the party. It’s as though she sprinkles them with good-time powder.

Karen’s parents, Deirdre and Paul, have driven down from Leicester for the wedding. Karen shepherds them around; she is glad to see them. Her parents are both retired now and, in retirement, they have more in common with their daughter. Her mother has never understood why Karen doesn’t work.

‘Won’t he let you work?’ They are watching Agnes’s progress around the room.

‘Who?’

Her mother is annoyed. ‘Graeme, of course.’

‘It’s down to me.’

‘But you’ve been out of the labour market for so long now –’

Karen laughs. ‘I was never in the labour market.’

Graeme arrives with a fresh glass of champagne for his mother-in-law. ‘So Deirdre,’ he says, ‘you’re looking gorgeous.’

‘Thank you,’ she says, ‘and so are you.’

Karen listens patiently. Graeme leaves.

Deirdre looks at Karen appraisingly. ‘You look nice.’

Karen can tell she doesn’t mean it.

‘But you’re such a clever girl . . .’ her mother continues.

Karen sighs, looks around for the baby Francis who has his head squeezed between his Uncle Robert’s legs.

‘Look at John –’ says Deirdre; Karen’s brother John is a GP in Edinburgh.

‘I’m not John,’ Karen is calm, cheerful even. She understands her mother needs to say these things. Her parents were both schoolteachers, they both took jobs as Headmasters when they moved back to Leicester. They can’t comprehend Karen’s lack of ambition, her mother finds it especially difficult.

‘Admit it Mum,’ says Karen.

‘What?’

‘You think it’s backward not to work, don’t you?’

‘I never said that –’

‘You hated being at home with John and I, didn’t you?’ Karen turns to her mother with a big smile. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she says. ‘It’s all right.’ She starts to laugh.

‘Why are you laughing?’

‘I don’t know. The fact is I hated working. I hated school too. I only ever wanted to marry Graeme and play house.’

Deirdre can’t resist her daughter, she laughs too. ‘That’s so weird,’ she says, ‘that’s so peculiar.’

They’ve had this conversation so many times it’s almost a recitation, a dramatic dialogue for two. Deirdre knows Karen is happy; Karen thinks, she knows I’m happy. She watches Agnes. And then it occurs to her for the first time – I am happy: am I?

Elizabeth is avoiding Robert, so far she has managed nicely. He catches up with her outside the kitchen. He can’t contain his happiness.

‘We’re not going away on a honeymoon,’ he says breathlessly.

‘No?’ says Elizabeth, trying to contain her twin impulses – to stalk away in silence, to scream out her fury. Up till now she hadn’t felt fury. It must be the champagne.

‘Agnes says that being here is enough of a honeymoon for her. Isn’t that wonderful?’

‘I myself,’ says Elizabeth quickly, ‘would prefer the Caribbean.’

Robert’s face falls. ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Is that so?’

Elizabeth moves away.

Graeme and his sister Jenny play with the little boys Andrew and Francis out in the garden. Without regard for the fate of his hired suit, Graeme puts his cane to the side and sits on the cold, damp grass and lets the boys climb all over him while Jenny tickles them and makes them scream. People stand around watching and more than one woman remarks that the thing about Graeme Throckmorton is that he is a very good father, as if they believe that somehow makes up for everything else. Karen picks up Francis and takes Andrew by the hand and says to whomever is listening, ‘It might be silly of me, but I’m going to attempt to get them into bed.’

After the boys are gone Graeme and Jenny go inside and sit together for a while. Jenny has had a bit too much to drink. She lays her head on her brother’s shoulder.

‘You look nice,’ Graeme says after a while.

‘Agnes bought it for me,’ she says smiling. They are both watching Agnes on the other side of the room. ‘She’s beautiful,’ Jenny adds.

‘Uh-huh,’ says Graeme, nodding.

‘Do you wish it was you marrying her?’

Graeme turns abruptly and looks at Jenny, forcing her to sit up. ‘What?’

‘Well, it’s just . . .’

Graeme turns away. ‘What a stupid thing to say,’

I’m sorry – I –’

‘Shut up.’ Graeme leans back in the seat again.

‘Okay.’ Jenny rests her head back on his shoulder. They both go back to watching Agnes.

There are unseen children present, children no one notices, except perhaps Agnes. Robert was wrong when he said there was no Hallowe’en in Warboys; there are goblins and witches and ghosts and devils and they flit in and out of the trees.