A Merry Mistletoe Wedding (28 page)

‘That sounds about right but how can you be sure?' Anna asked.

‘Years in showbiz. I can tell when a costume will work on an actor. And when it doesn't, they get the role all wrong.
Flapper
,' she suddenly said. ‘But not a hundred per cent because that would be just fancy dress.'

‘Flapper? Like a twenties type of dress, do you think?' Anna said, looking Thea up and down. ‘That could be pretty.'

‘I don't mean the full swirling pearls and headband kind of thing,' Charlotte said. ‘Just the basic shape. I've got an idea … Shove over,' she said to Anna, taking over the iPad. ‘Let me just look, though I could' – she glanced at the fridge – ‘use a bit of lubrication to help me think.'

‘White or red?' Thea asked.

‘I think white today please, seeing as we're talking weddings.'

Thea poured her a large glass and came and sat beside her. Beneath the table, the dog woofed gently in his sleep. Thea looked down at him and saw Charlotte had taken her shoes off and was resting her feet on his body. He didn't seem to mind.

‘Please may I look?' Thea said, seeing Charlotte checking through one website. ‘Maybe something will leap out at me, so to speak.'

It felt as if she didn't choose the dress, more that it chose her. There were many that were black or white, drop-waisted, embroidered, some way too sparkly and others with a mass of fringing but suddenly there was ‘the one'. Not at all garish, a colour between a deep cream and the shade of the lightest Scottish sandy hair, not far from Benji's apricot shade; a simple couple of layers of tulle with the top one swirled with embroidered beads. The hemline was pointy, just above mid-calf length. ‘That's it,' Thea said, pointing to it. ‘It's perfect. I'll need something on top of it because it's sleeveless, maybe a little jacket, but I
love
the dress.'

She looked at Anna, whose eyes had suddenly filled with tears. ‘Oh, Mum, don't go all soppy on me, please! I probably can't afford this anyway, it's just a thought.'

‘It will look so pretty. Just wonderful, and you mustn't worry about the cost,' Anna said, sniffling into a tissue.

‘Oh, you can afford it,' Charlotte insisted. ‘I picked this company on purpose. They make theatre costumes and look – here are the prices. They did a load for the last
Great Gatsby
film. There's a branch in Soho. See? Sorted. Shall we go and get it?'

‘What, now?'

‘Why not now?' Charlotte said. ‘When better?'

‘Go on,' Anna said. ‘I'll take care of the dog. I'll even give him a walk. You two go.'

‘Right. I'll give Ronnie a call – he should be there till later today. If he's got your size I'll get him to keep it for us. And if he hasn't, then he can either order one in or we'll start all over again.' Charlotte was already picking out the number on her phone, squinting at the website.

Only an hour later, Charlotte and Thea were coming down the stairs of the tiny shop behind Carnaby Street, Thea holding tight to the bag containing the box with her wedding dress in it. It was perfect, just glorious, and if everything went to pieces between now and Christmas Day she'd bloody well set fire to it rather than return it and let anyone else have it.

‘Don't tell your sister it was me who went with you,' Charlotte said. ‘She'll wish it had been her.'

‘She doesn't want to come to Cornwall, why would she want to buy the dress with me?'

‘Oh, she'll be there on the day.'

‘She's ordered a Christmas tree, a fancy bronze turkey and she's insisting they'll all be at home,' Thea told her. ‘I don't see anything in there that says she'll come to the wedding. I wish she would but short of cancelling it, I don't know what more I can do. She associates that place with being trapped and scared and out of control. Nothing can persuade her it won't happen again.'

Charlotte smiled as they jostled their way through the pre-Christmas Saturday crowd on to Regent Street. ‘Don't you worry about it. I think we all know deep down that she doesn't want
not
to be there. She's just still a bit baby-demented at the moment. You wait.'

It was a lucky chain-store moment, the sort that doesn't ever happen when you're looking for something specific. Top Shop, H&M, Zara: all of them have their affordable gems and one of them was in a window on a dummy. Strangely, one of its hands seemed to be in a beckoning position, calling to Thea.

‘I like that …' Thea said, coming to a sudden stop and causing three women behind to crash into her, almost knocking her down.

‘Oh gosh yes, I like it too,' Charlotte said. ‘Come on.'

The jacket was fluffy fake fur, sleeves at what was called bracelet length but which went all the way down to Thea's wrists and the perfect shade of gingery cream to go with the dress. There was a queue for the changing room but Charlotte wasn't having that. Hollering ‘Bride on a mission coming through!' she pulled Thea to the head of it and the gatekeeper girl showed her straight to the next free changing room.

‘Come on, put the lot on. And now I'm glad it's only me and not your family,' Charlotte said. ‘Because they should be the ones being stunned by the surprise of what you're wearing and if they'd seen all this already the impact wouldn't be quite there.'

Thea changed into the dress then put the jacket on top. It was warm and snuggly and would be just right for a beachfront breakfast.

‘Shoes?' she asked Charlotte.

‘Boots. Long foxy boots, chunky heel, not too high,' she said, ‘but for now, I'm knackered. Ah, and just one more thing,' she said as they walked through the shop. ‘Look at this …' They were crossing the children's department which gleamed and glittered with Christmassy frocks for little girls. She pulled a cream dress from a rack. It had subtle sequin beading in the same colour as Thea's dress. ‘I knew something would come to me,' she said, tapping the side of her skull. ‘The thing to do is ask Milly to be your bridesmaid. A sly trick, I know, because what kind of parent would tell a child no she can't? But I'm pretty damn sure it'll work.'

‘Hmm. Not sure about that. I think it would just infuriate Emily and make her even more determined. She'd say I was undermining her.'

‘That's a point.' Charlotte was silent for a rare moment. ‘OK, how about this then: ask Sam.'

‘To be a bridesmaid? I'm not sure he'd look that good in drag.'

‘No, you daft tart, ask him about Milly. Then he can sort out Emily. Somehow.'

As Thea paid for the little dress and the jacket, she hugged Charlotte. ‘I don't think it's so much the mistletoe that's magic, you know, I think it just might be you.'

It was a long way from ideal, having the dog in residence, even for a few days. Benji was a quiet, patient sort, as so many really big dogs often are, but once he was out of the house he did enjoy a lot of exercise. Thea took him out twice a day, mostly in the dark, and spent many a nervy hour walking him across the green where the drunks lurked on benches even in the November cold, and sometimes through the park, which was closed to traffic at dusk and left to the shuffling deer and the dog-walkers and anyone else who liked to roam in the blackness.

Robbie and June Over-the-Road saw her coming back on the Tuesday night and Robbie grinned at her. ‘We could walk them together. You and me in the park in the dark.' He leaned towards her, close enough for her to be repelled by the lingering smell of well-boiled cabbage. June tutted.

‘He's going back to his owner in a couple of hours, Robbie,' Thea told him. ‘He's not mine.'

‘Oh, we know whose he is. He belongs to that nice young man that's moved out. Lovely manners,' June said. ‘You could have done a lot worse than hang on to him.'

Thea was in no doubt that in June's eyes she'd failed to keep a seriously good catch. ‘I'm about to do a lot better. I'm getting married on Christmas Day,' she told them.

‘To that one with the hair?' June said, her mouth hanging open in horror. ‘Oh, Thea! I hope you know what you're doing.' She shook her head. ‘You young people. And Christmas Day! I didn't think you could. Isn't there enough going on at Christmas without the complication of a wedding? Which church will it be? And will there be carols?'

‘It's not in a church and it'll be down in Cornwall, not round here. We're having the ceremony at a friend's house and yes, you can get married any day of the year if you can find someone who'll take it on.' Thea sensed she was disappointing her neighbours on all fronts here. ‘We're having a simple low-key thing, with family and a barbecued breakfast on the beach.'

‘Oh, my.' June was practically fanning her face with her hand at this. ‘A beach! In December! Now that's not what I call a wedding party. What does your mother think? All mothers have big plans for their daughters' weddings – she'll have wanted you in a proper church and a sit-down do.'

‘You don't know my mother,' Thea said, just managing to keep her smile going. What was it with some people? But then she remembered that June and Robbie had got married in the 1950s when all was still a bit austere and any chance for a proper bit of showing off was hugely welcomed. If she and Sean had half as many years together as these two she'd feel they'd done very well.

‘Anyway, Rich is coming to pick up the dog soon so I'd better get back,' she told them. ‘Your deer look very festive,' she added, indicating the lit-up stags in their front garden. Robbie had adjusted the lights but one of them had only one functioning eye and looked as if it was winking. She felt horribly insincere but wanted to be kind to make up for the inner anger that they didn't even know she was feeling. How stupidly English that was, she thought as she led Benji to the front door, but they were kind and sweet neighbours and she'd miss them when – God willing she soon found a job – she moved to Cornwall.

Rich was bang on time as always. She remembered he'd had a thing about punctuality. He was never late for anything (he'd consider that not so much bad manners as a failure on his part) but also he'd never arrive a second too soon, sometimes insisting on waiting in the car if they were a few minutes early to see a film or for a table he'd booked. ‘We'll only have to hang about,' he'd say if she suggested going in, never acknowledging that it made little difference: early was early, it didn't much matter where they spent the extra minutes. But hanging about in the car was fine by him as he was in charge of it; he preferred that to being at the whim of a waiter who might suggest the bar for a drink first or sitting in the cinema with the lights on, simply relaxing.

This time it really would have been rude not to invite him in. Thea opened the door and Benji woofed at Rich and bounced around a bit. Rich made the dog sit down, for fear of contact with the mud that was still wet on his fur from the walk.

‘Sorry, should have mopped him down,' Thea said as Rich kept his distance. Benji looked a bit hurt, she thought, and well he might, but he must be used to Rich being so damn fastidious by now.

‘Er … is that what you're wearing?' Rich said to her, indicating her jeans and big blue jumper and her Ugg boots.

‘Sorry? Well, yes of course it is, what do you mean?' Thea looked down at herself, wondering if she'd accidentally put on something weird and hadn't noticed. She had got changed in a bit of a hurry after school.

‘For dinner?' he said, following her into the sitting room.

‘What dinner? I was only going to have some pasta and whatever I can find in the fridge,' she told him.

‘But I'm taking you out!' he said. ‘Didn't you see the message?'

‘Er … no, I didn't. Sorry.' She picked up her phone and saw a text from him:
Dinner at Olivier's, as a thank you. 8 pm
.

He looked at his watch. ‘Hurry up, sweetie, we don't want to be late.'

‘But I haven't said I'll go. And you thanked me already, with the lilies, which was very kind of you.'

‘Oh, but they were just flowers. I thought dinner, then we can chat.'

It was only when she was in his car and wearing a snug old green velvet dress, make-up and rather uncomfortable shoes that Thea remembered how persuasive Rich could be. She didn't particularly want to be here, doing this, and yet he'd convinced her, saying that she had to eat anyway, and they wouldn't be out late, that the restaurant wasn't far and wasn't it a lonely old life for the single in London? So she'd ended up caving in.

And it was good to be out, to be wined and dined and treated like someone special. It wasn't that Sean didn't do that – on the contrary, she always felt special with him – but the two of them didn't tend to blow the budget in places that had proper linen napkins and a wine waiter flaunting the bunch-of-grapes badge of a qualified sommelier.

They talked (or rather Rich did) about his job, about the poodles that his sister was still showing and breeding, about the flat he was now about to move into. It was only when they got to the coffee stage that she realized he hadn't asked a single thing about her. She didn't much mind: it had been a busy day at school, still endlessly rehearsing the nativity play and dealing with over-excited children geeing themselves up for Christmas. Only that afternoon she'd had to deal with the calamity of the oldest child in the class (all of seven years old) grandly informing the youngest few that Santa didn't exist and causing near-hysterics to most of the rest. So she didn't mind zoning out a bit while Rich went on and on about his own life.

‘I've missed you, Thea.' She jolted back from thinking about how many sets of angel wings she'd need for the play as Rich put his hand over hers on the table.

‘What are you doing?' she asked, wriggling her hand out from under his.