A Merry Mistletoe Wedding (20 page)

‘I was right though, you did look a fright.' Charlotte got up and switched on the kettle. ‘And you don't look a lot better now, to be honest. Your skin's all sallow from lack of fresh air. But hey, if you're not going anywhere, then who's looking at you?'

Emily laughed and quite surprised herself. It was a sound she hadn't heard for a while. ‘You don't have any kind of filter, do you, Charlotte? You think it, you come right out with it. Nothing in between. I don't know whether to hate you for it or admire you.'

‘Go for admire,' Charlotte told her, searching in the cupboard for biscuits, ‘because when I like something I always say so; I don't hold back on the love.' She pulled out a pack of organic plain oaty biscuits and made a face. ‘Is this all you've got? Biscuits are for
pleasure
, not worthiness. Dear Lord.' She shook her head and sat down again, wafting a mixture of old perfume, ordinary soap and something of her own body at the same time. Emily quite liked it but found it disturbing. It was almost as if she was scenting Charlotte's physical core, perhaps even a powerful hint of libido. She'd bet it drove men crazy and was glad Sam was out at the park with the children. Poor Sam had been deprived of sex for months. Emily couldn't seem to get round to it and realized that now she had Ned to cuddle in bed at night, she'd completely lost any urge to do more than feed him and sleep as much as she could. Sam hadn't complained once. Was he just a saint or should she worry about that? Even if she did, at the moment there wasn't anything she was prepared to do to change things. The thought was too exhausting.

‘Come on,' Charlotte said as soon as she'd had a few sips of her tea and pulled a face after dunking a biscuit. ‘Get your coat. We're going shopping.'

Emily held on to the table edges. ‘I can't,' she muttered, ‘I can't. And just now you said you wouldn't make me.'

Charlotte laughed. ‘Oh yes you can. And this time you won't be on your own, I'll be with you. We're only going to your posh supermarket, nowhere scary, and I won't leave you for a second, I promise. But your cupboards and your fridge are shockingly low on supplies and, well, suppose there's a sudden uprising? A riot or a … I don't know, a massive Noah-style flood? What will you do without enough teabags and milk and biscuits?
Real
biscuits, not these horrible things. They won't comfort you when your feet are soaking and the crazed rampage hurtle up the streets protesting about lack of chocolate digestives.'

Emily laughed again. ‘Charlotte, you are mad, you realize that? But … OK. If you promise not to vanish up the washing powder aisle while I'm looking at teabags, then maybe we could go. I don't think Sam's bought anything for supper yet.' She flicked quickly through the mail and took the stiff envelope to the drawer where the tea towels were and slid it inside.

‘So you can surprise him,' Charlotte said. ‘He'll like that. They do.' She crammed her hat back on her head and picked up her bag. ‘Get your coat and the car seat and we'll load that baby in.'

It took a while. Charlotte had got hot and steamy in her coat and hat before Emily had manoeuvred Ned into his little panda suit, brushed her hair and got herself into a coat, scarf and gloves. She took the car seat with Ned strapped into it and the blanket Charlotte had knitted and hesitated by the front door.

Charlotte shoved her way past and opened the door and Emily shrank back from the blast of cold air.

‘It smells of smoke,' she complained, putting a hand over Ned's sleeping face.

‘Always does in November. Bonfire night later this week, don't forget.'

Emily had forgotten. The weeks had turned into one long blur of baby-care, of feeding and fretting and being out of control of her life. She had been putting it down to missing the routine and order of her work life. When she went back to that, all would be well again. It really would. It wasn't as if there was anything wrong with her. Not at all.

Charlotte's car smelled of her but more strongly and with a mild overlay of cigarettes. Again, as she strapped Ned into place, Emily wondered if this was such a good idea, if breathing in this air would be good for him or give him … oh, she didn't know, a taste for weird scents? Too much exposure to an unfresh world? If she could keep him snuggled to her till he was twenty-one she probably would. Of course even she knew she was in danger of being smotheringly over-protective. But those boys at the mall had taken more than the buggy. They'd taken all her sense of having a safe place in the world.

‘So come on, big or medium trolley?' Once they arrived, Charlotte wasn't having any dithering. ‘Let's make it a big one and I'll get all my stuff too while I'm here. I don't often get to park in the parent-and-child section so I'll make the most of it.'

With Ned safely in his sling and bouncing gently against her breasts, Emily allowed Charlotte to walk her slowly round Waitrose. She felt strongly as if she were a member of the party of elderly ladies she sometimes saw in the big Marks and Spencer, having a day out from the local care home with assistants guiding them through their choices, sorting their money and credit cards, tenderly suggesting that a pack of three Brazilian-cut knickers probably wasn't what they'd meant to choose. She breathed evenly and calmly and kept her eyes focused only straight ahead or on the products she wanted, but even so, a certain unusual feature of the decor still got through her mental screen.

‘Oh God, it's everywhere,' she exclaimed as she tried to find some plain white napkins. There was nothing but scarlet and green packs of paper tablecloths, napkins with stars and mistletoe and holly amid all sorts of seasonally themed tableware. ‘Christmas. Isn't it ages away? Where did it creep up from?'

‘It's been creeping up since August, love,' Charlotte said, reaching for a bumper pack of mince pies. ‘You've been a bit … distracted, that's all. Now, if you've got everything, let's go back to yours and road-test these pies. I'm starving.'

‘I must get home and make lists,' Emily said. ‘I haven't done anything for Christmas. Nothing. I'm supposed to be the one who does this stuff. I want to be calm and everything to be nice.'

Charlotte took over wheeling the trolley as Emily was heading too fast towards the door and looked likely to forget about the checkout. ‘It's OK, Em, just slow down. See, nice and calm. And as for somewhere nice and calm for Christmas, I think I know just the place. And all you'll need for that is a little something from the doctor and a lovely new dress. Trust me.'

‘Can I? Really trust you?' Emily looked in the trolley and saw Charlotte's bags containing chocolate, ready-meals, biscuits and gin, but alongside was everything Emily had hastily scrawled on a list in the car on the way, neatly packed. There were ingredients for entire meals, plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, treats for the children, nappies for Ned, wine for Sam. She didn't really remember how it had all got in the trolley. So if she wasn't the one who'd sorted it, then yes, she thought, perhaps she could trust Charlotte.

It was now going to be lunch for six of them as Thea saw Paul and Sarah visiting the renting guests at Cove Manor during the morning and invited them along too.

‘Ooh – yes please! I met your parents briefly last Christmas when you were staying here in all that snow and it would be great to see them again. We can do wedding-chat,' Sarah said.

But when they all arrived at Porthleven harbour, Thea was shocked to see Mike on crutches. After briefly reintroducing Paul and Sarah to her parents, she asked, ‘Bloody hell, Dad, what have you done? Did you—'

‘Don't say “have a fall”, whatever you do,' Anna warned her in a loud whisper.

‘I wasn't going to – I know what he'd say,' Thea whispered back.

‘When you've kindly stopped discussing me … I tripped on a step that wasn't where a step should be. An American would probably sue.'

‘It was a perfectly normal doorstep in a shop doorway. I don't know where else steps should be,' Anna said, rolling her eyes.

‘Anyway, it's only a sprain and it's not broken,' Mike said to Thea as he hobbled awkwardly on the crutches for the few steps from the car park to the restaurant. ‘We went to a very friendly A & E department where one of the nurses asked if I was Willie Nelson. I was sorry to disappoint her but I did take a bit of offence. I mean, OK, the guy's a genius and I admire him to bits but he's got a good few years on me.'

‘This from a man who is always saying age is just a number,' Anna said. ‘Vanity will out.'

‘A sprain is almost as bad as a break though, isn't it?' Thea said as their party was shown to a table by a huge window overlooking the harbour. The tide was starting to come in and boats lounged on their sides on the mud, stirring as the water shifted them and reminding her of tired old seals flopped on a beach. ‘And just as painful. I remember doing mine in netball at school. It hurt so much I was nearly sick.'

‘You playing netball, in one of those teeny pleated skirts – now that I'd love to see,' Sean murmured in her ear, rubbing a hand against her bum. She gave him a hard nudge in the ribs and laughed.

‘Yes, but not for as long,' Mike told her. ‘And it doesn't involve pins and surgery or weeks in plaster. I can almost put my foot down already but I'd rather not. It should be fine in a few days.'

‘You're not as—'

‘Do
not
say “as young as you used to be”, Thea. I expect better from you.'

‘No, I wouldn't say that but—'

‘But nothing. Really. End of, as Elmo would say,' he told her. ‘Shall we order drinks? The one upside to being totally lame is that Anna now has to do all the driving. I fancy drinking a lot of something white, dry and disgracefully expensive.'

‘Steady,' Anna said. ‘We don't need to go mad.'

‘Well, we're celebrating,' Mike argued, ‘so let's have something deliciously fizzy to start with.'

‘You can't start celebrating a wedding too early,' Sarah said. ‘I can't tell you how thrilled we are that our first wedding at the hall is going to be Sean and Thea's. I'm so looking forward to it.'

‘Ah yes, the wedding, that as well. Actually, mostly that. Definitely,' Mike said as the champagne arrived. The waiter poured it and Anna raised her glass.

‘To Sean and Thea,' she said. ‘And may it all go as smoothly as these things can. No snow, no storms and tempests and no—'

‘Cold feet,' Mike finished for her. There was a silence. ‘What? What did I say? I was only joking.'

‘Not
that
funny,' Anna said, glaring at him.

‘No really, it is,' Thea said, laughing. ‘After all, why
not
say it?'

‘Any cold feet won't be mine,' Sean said. ‘Though I'll feel safer once Thea's excitedly trying not to tell me about the dress she's going to wear. There's last minute and there's panic stations. We haven't organized a single thing. But then we can't think of anything that really needs doing apart from making sure we've got enough sausages and buns for the breakfast. And drink, of course, but I'm ordering that through the Cove Manor suppliers.'

‘I might not even wear a dress,' she teased.

‘Even better,' he said, grinning at her.

‘Bad man. I mean I might wear trousers, idiot!'

‘Children, children!' Anna said. ‘Seriously, Thea, do you really still have no idea what you're going to wear?'

‘Sort of. I've got a favourite shop in mind. That's all I'm saying, apart from of course it won't be trousers. Oh, and I don't look good in white, especially in the middle of winter, so that's out too.'

‘You'll need to take someone with you. Don't trust the shop assistants, they'll just want you to get the most expensive thing and then add a zillion hideous trimmings,' Sarah said. ‘I nearly ended up with something strapless, gold-sequinned and with a twelve-foot train. I'd have looked like a drag queen having an off day.'

‘Oh, don't!' Thea said. ‘Maybe I'll just turn up in jeans and an old jumper. Strapless needs a woman who's a bit more … er, woman-shaped than me and I'd be scared of it falling down. Plus it won't be the weather for it.'

‘Also, it's rather tarty,' Paul said. ‘If you don't mind me saying. And although I think there's an enormous amount to be said for a bit of the tarty on a bride, it doesn't look good with goosebumps. You'd freeze when you're doing photos outside.'

‘How are you getting there? I suppose posh cars are out of the question on Christmas Day,' Anna said.

‘Ugh, no, definitely not the Rolls-Royce option,' Thea said. ‘I assume we'll just go in Sean's Land Rover. If he cleans it up a bit. Whatever I wear, I don't want mud all over it.'

‘And flowers?'

‘Ah. Not really a lot about at Christmas, is there? I hadn't really considered a bridal bouquet,' Thea said. ‘Evergreens?'

Anna frowned. ‘Well, I suppose flowers are not compulsory but it's quite nice to have something to do with your hands.'

‘There'll be Christmas roses out – hellebores – but they tend to droop when picked,' Sarah said. ‘But better yet, how about narcissi? I've got a friend with a flower farm on the Isles of Scilly. They're sending out hundreds of boxes of them every day by Christmas.'

‘That sounds lovely,' Paul said, ‘and we could get loads of them to mix in with the evergreens in the orangery. It would be very easy.'

Thea felt uncomfortable, having them all discuss the day. She still felt as if it was all a bit unreal. Too much detailed planning, she thought, and it might still all vanish into nothing like last time. She'd cross her fingers if it didn't make it impossible to carry on eating. She concentrated on her sea bass instead, letting them all talk around her.