White Wedding (12 page)

Emily was a substantially sized open-plan snug-as-a-bug cottage, with oak panelling on the walls, an inglenook fireplace and a darling bedroom upstairs with white-painted eaves. Next door,
Charlotte was a tiny doll’s house of a place. And next to that was Anne, an old stable that her dad had always meant to convert, but never had. Some moody, rainy moors were just what she
needed. Total bitter isolation.

Damn, she suddenly realized that she’d left the wine on the worktop in the kitchen. She squealed up beside a shop called I Guess That’s Why They Call it the Booze and ignored all the
sideways looks she received as an angry bride buying two bottles of Koonunga Hill on a £9 special deal.

The light was falling early when she arrived at Bronte Cottages. Grumpy, dark clouds were gathering in the skies. She twisted the car up the hill and parked, then slid the key into Emily’s
slatted wooden door. She planned to throw herself on to the big squashy sofa there and crack open one of the bottles of red wine. She wouldn’t even care if it spilled over the cheap frock
because before she went to bed that night she intended to rip it off and incinerate it in the wood-burning stove. She grabbed her suitcase in one hand and expertly carried the two bottles of wine
by their necks in the other.

The cottage felt incredibly warm when she entered, which was strange because it was so old that it took a few hours to lose the chill after it had been standing empty for longer than a day .
More unusually, the kitchen light was on. And whoever had been here last hadn’t done a good job of tidying up because there were newspapers spread on the table.

She put the bottles of wine down and gathered up the papers. As she glanced at the front page she saw it had a picture of the prime minister getting an egg thrown at his back. Hang on, she
thought. That happened yesterday.

She checked the date on the newspaper. She barely had time to absorb that it really was today’s paper when a boom of a man’s voice behind her made her jump.

‘Who the bloody hell are you?’

She turned to see a tall bare-chested man with wet darkest-brown hair and a towel wrapped round his waist. Had she not been in a man-hating mood her pupils would have dilated and danced all over
that chest. As it was, she just saw a man. A bastard with a penis.

‘Who the bloody hell are you?’ the bride threw back.

The man scratched his head. ‘Am I dreaming this? Are you real? Or am I the victim of some voodoo spell?’

‘If you don’t get out of this cottage in five minutes, I’ll ring the police. They don’t take kindly to squatters in this neck of the woods,’ said Bel
indignantly.

‘I’m not a squatter. I’ve rented this cottage. So I’ll be obliged if you carried on your fancy-dress party in another house.’

‘You’re renting it? From whom?’ cried Bel. Could this day get any worse? ‘For how long?’

‘Just hang on a moment,’ said the man, dripping water all over the wooden floorboards. ‘I don’t have to answer questions from you. And how did you get in,
anyway?’

‘And I don’t have to answer questions from you,’ snarled Bel, grabbing her bottles of wine and clutching them to her chest.

‘No, all you have to do is turn round and go out of the door before I ring the police to come and take you to a nice cosy cell.’ He took a step forwards and Bel took one
backwards.

‘Don’t you dare lay a finger on me,’ she warned. ‘This is my family’s cottage and you are trespassing.’

‘I’ve told you,’ the man’s eyes narrowed in anger. ‘I am renting this from a friend of a friend.’

‘Called?’

‘Trevor Candy, if you must know. And I’m renting it for as long as I want – it’s an open agreement. Satisfied?’

‘Oh,’ said Bel. She didn’t know her dad ever rented out the cottage. As far as she knew, it had been standing empty for over a year, which is why it seemed the perfect place to
escape to.

‘Oh indeed.’ The man had his arms crossed now and was tapping his foot, waiting for her to go.

‘Well, I’m sorry for interrupting you.’ Bel sounded anything but sorry. Her mouth might have said ‘sorry’ but the tone said ‘bollocks to you’.

He nodded as if accepting the apology that both of them knew wasn’t an apology at all.

‘I’ll go, then, Mr . . .’ She left a space for him to supply his name. He didn’t. When she looked at his eyes they were travelling up and down her wedding dress as if
trying to work out what her story was.

‘Yes, it’s a wedding dress,’ snapped Bel. ‘A real one, not a fancy dress one. Okay?’ She turned on her heel and, carrying wine bottles and suitcase, had to struggle
alone with the front door because he didn’t come to her assistance.

Shit and double shit. That wasn’t in the plan at all. She could stay in tiny, freezing, uncomfortable Charlotte or – better still – get a hotel for the night and assess the
situation again in the morning. Then she noticed the front passenger tyre on her car. Flat. Treble shit. She’d thought she could ‘feel the road’ for the last few miles. Well,
wasn’t that just the bloody icing on the cake? She thought disasters like this happened only in rubbish ‘B’ horror films.

‘What next?’ she screamed at the sky. ‘What bloody buggering bastard next?’

There was a grumble above and a big spot of rain landed slap bang in her eye. A rainstorm had broken. That’s what was next. Seconds later the heavens opened.

There was nothing for it but to take the second key and open up Charlotte. Bel scurried towards it as a spear of lightning shot through the sky. Charlotte was totally freezing when she opened
the door. She could feel the cold air rush past her to go outside to warm up. At least it was clean – because her dad employed a woman in the nearby village to come in every so often and keep
on top of the dust. Not that there was that much to clean in Charlotte.

The ground floor of the cottage consisted of one room only. There was a two-seater battered leather sofa and an extendable coffee table – which doubled up as a dining table – in the
front half; a small run of cupboards and worktop, a two-ring hob and a tiny round sink constituted a kitchen at the back. There was a store cupboard under the stairs, which rose to a bedroom big
enough for a single bed, a wardrobe and a bedside table, and a bathroom so compact that even an estate agent would have trouble describing it as anything other than a shoebox. This was bijou living
to an nth degree, although apparently it once housed a family of eight. They must have had to sit on each other constantly, thought Bel. And they certainly wouldn’t have been able to do any
hokey-cokeys at Christmas.

The trouble was that all the sheets and towels, pillows, quilts and pans were in Emily – stuff that she hadn’t brought with her because she hadn’t even considered she’d
be staying in this mouse hole. And there wasn’t even a damned television in Charlotte either, only a small radio next to a kettle so old it boiled in Latin.

As she stepped over the threshold, she heard a tear. The bottom of her dress had caught on a splinter on the door. It appeared the dress-tearing ritual had begun itself.

‘Well,’ said Stuart, and he said all that needed to be said in that one word. His eyebrows were stuck up in the ceiling fans. They had good company because a lot of
others were lodged up there too.

There was a variety of activity going on. Richard had made a hasty exit with the seedy Liam, and a tearful Shaden was led out sandwiched protectively between her mother and father.
Vanoushka’s free arm was primed in position to give a Bruce Lee chop to move anyone out of the way who invaded their personal space. Richard’s enormous-hatted mother had a ‘told
you so’ smirk on her face as she conversed animatedly with her sandy-moustached husband.

Trevor seemed in shock and wet-eyed. He walked back into the reception with Faye trotting at his side.

‘Erm, ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know what to say,’ he said, his voice trembling. ‘I think I can safely say that the celebrations are at an end. Er . . .’ He
looked round him at the sea of faces and froze. Faye stepped forward and took over.

‘Please, everyone, feel free to stay and collect yourself, and if you want a cup of tea or a brandy or anything, please order it at the bar and we will pay for it, of course. Trevor and I
are so sorry you’ve been inconvenienced. We can’t say any more than that at the present time. Thank you for coming and please bear with us.’

‘It’s gone straight through to Bel’s voicemail,’ said Violet, clicking off her phone.

‘Did you expect anything else?’ said Max.

‘No, but I thought I’d give it a go.’

‘Do you want to drive over to her flat?’ asked Stuart.

‘She won’t be there,’ said Max. ‘Bel has obviously had all this arranged for a long time. I expect that’s why she didn’t wear her mother’s
dress.’

‘Or spend money on a photographer and flowers. Poor Bel,’ sighed Violet.

The betrayal must have crippled her. And to find out that Shaden had had an abortion too, casually flushing away something that Bel would never have. Not to mention the disrespect that Richard
had shown her by not using protection while having sex with Shaden. And fancy allowing lovely Bel to be referred to merely as ‘the B-word’. On so many fronts he had crushed the woman he
purported to love. Violet despaired of how cruel people could be to each other. She knew only too well that feeling of utter desolation. The last boyfriend she had before Glyn had dragged her heart
through the mud and stamped on it. She wished Bel had felt able to confide in her. Then again, Violet knew that some things were just too painful to share with anyone; they were burdens to be
carried alone.

‘I’m glad we’re having a less complicated wedding,’ said Stuart.

Max bit down on her lip. Bel hadn’t really done Max’s cause any favours here. Not that Max could blame her for that.

‘Well, it hasn’t exactly been a typical church wedding,’ snapped Max, becoming a little shiny-eyed with frustration. ‘Everything was lovely until . . . until . .
.’

‘Until the bride revealed her husband was shagging her cousin?’ Stuart supplied, pulling at his shirt collar. These designer clothes that Max bought him always seemed on the tight
side. They didn’t fit his body shape half as well as a shirt he would have picked from the rail in Burtons. He figured it would be okay now to loosen his tie and the top button.

‘So what do we do now?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Violet. ‘Go home. I feel so helpless. I want to do something, but I don’t know what.’

‘I notice the groom ran off as if his arse was on fire,’ tutted Max.

‘Be fair, Max. He probably went to see if he could find Belinda,’ said Stuart.

‘Convenient way to exit quickly, I suppose. Under the guise of concern,’ put in Violet. Poor, poor Bel. She hoped she didn’t leave it too long to get in contact.

‘I just want to get hold of that bloody Shaden and kick her teeth in,’ growled Max. ‘What a complete cow. Her own cousin too.’

It must be the worst feeling in the world to find out how little you know about someone you loved and trusted; to realize that you didn’t really know them that well, after all.

Violet drove Max and Stuart home. They lived out in a hamlet off the Manchester Road, with views of the moody Pennines.

Stuart hated living out here in the sticks. He was a town-boy, always had been. He loathed living on such a new poncy estate miles from his mates and his parents. It didn’t matter to him
that they had his and hers nice cars to drive anywhere they wanted with ease and comfort. He would rather have lived closer to town and caught the bus to where he needed to go.

‘You have such a lovely house,’ sighed Violet, pulling up beside it. She would have loved a house like that. Even though, as Bel had just proved, money did not necessarily make you
happy.

‘Well, when you make your millions from Carousel, you’ll be able to buy one that makes mine look like a shoebox,’ said Max, giving Violet a kiss on the cheek.

‘Drive carefully,’ Stuart warned, leaning over to kiss her also. ‘You get some right nutters on that top road.’

He liked Violet on sight. Fancied her a teeny bit too, if he was honest. She was fragile and vulnerable and she appealed to the macho protective part inside him that Max had rendered redundant
because she never needed to be protected from anything; she was Boudicca incarnate. Capable of fighting all her own battles with no need to call on the testosterone-filled for aid.

Max opened the door and picked up the single piece of mail. An official white envelope. She slit it open with her fingernail, read it and then promptly burst into tears.

‘They’ve got to do essential maintenance work on the town hall for a month,’ she said. ‘Our wedding’s been moved to the building on Fieldgate. That’s all I
bloody need.’

It was the cherry on the sad day’s cake. The town hall had a beautiful facade with the high clock tower and the run of stone steps rising between beautifully kept flower beds. As civil
weddings go, it was a lovely place to have one, but the horrible Fieldgate building looked like an old loony bin. ‘What a horrible day,’ she sobbed.

Stuart stepped towards her and gathered her into his arms. Max wasn’t easily moved to tears and a big part of him was pleased that he was needed to comfort her.

‘Look—’ oh God he couldn’t believe he was about to say this, but he was softened by her sudden and rare vulnerability – ‘if we can find a church that’s
free and will have us at such short notice, we’ll book it. Will that make you feel better?’ He didn’t fancy getting married in Fieldgate either. It was once an old hospital where
he’d had his tonsils out when he was six. A totally depressing place that he couldn’t think of without evoking the smell of strong chemicals and an underlying hint of wee. It
didn’t have the best memories for him.

Max brightened instantly as if a big cloud had been booted out of the way.

‘I’m warning you, Max. That’s as big as this wedding gets. Just us, parents and Luke. Nothing’s changed but the venue.’

‘Can Violet and Bel come too?’ asked Max, dabbing her eyes. She had quickly cottoned on to the fact that if she sniffed pathetically, Stuart lowered his guard.