A Merry Mistletoe Wedding (32 page)

‘Right. Well, don't say I didn't try. Merry fucking Christmas to you.' Before she could take another breath Sam had gone. He slammed the door hard and before she could open it again she heard the car start up and the brakes squeal as he raced away from the roadside.

She must have sat on the sofa, leaning forward, listening, for close to an hour before she realized he was not coming back. The fact sank in, horribly, keenly and painfully as the last of the hymns from the service was begun. She caught the words, ‘Hark! The herald angels sing' sung with full, glorious voices. She and Ned were on their own. She got up and switched off the radio and then the Christmas tree lights, feeling they were a kind of insult to her mood.

Emily was wrong but so was Sam. If he'd given her another ten minutes after the children and luggage were loaded, just to think it through, she might have been with him now. It was the immediacy of it that she couldn't cope with. A piece of conscience told her that wasn't entirely true. She'd had months to get her head round the idea of going to Thea's Cornish wedding but she'd stubbornly refused to consider it. This was the price.

And yet … Frantically she went on the internet and tried to buy a rail ticket. She could surely just make it if she left now. A train, then a taxi from Redruth. But on Christmas Eve there were no tickets to be had without reservations and no reservations still available.

She called a couple of car-hire companies but there was no joy there either. Even at Heathrow none were available and most of the offices had a jolly ‘Closed for Christmas' message on their phones, wishing everyone compliments of the season but nothing to drive.

Eventually Emily gave up. It was past 6 p.m. and she sat on the sofa clutching Ned and sobbed her heart out for the loss of her Christmas, her family and the chance to be at her much-loved sister's wedding.

She had wept herself almost to sleep when the doorbell rang. Wearily she went to answer it, expecting lazy carol singers who hadn't even bothered to sing.

It was Charlotte. Her green Mini was parked by the gate and the passenger door was open.

‘You,' Charlotte said, pulling Emily's arm and pointing towards the car. ‘Get in.'

This time last year, Thea thought as she looked out of the window, all was white and snowy-stark out there in the garden and towards the beach. It had been so cold and there'd been so much deep snow that she and Sean had made a snow cat just above the sand and it had lasted till after Boxing Day when a thaw set in. Now it wasn't even frosty and without the false light that the snow gave, she could see only the outlines of the dunes and the shimmer of the sea beneath the moon. On the side of the first dune, just sheltered by the rise of the sand, she could see the top of the stunning Moroccan shelter that Sean had borrowed for the wedding breakfast. She'd watched it being put up the previous afternoon. It was lavishly embroidered with bright pinks and yellows, hung with bells and tassels, and today would be filled with the seats and fat, buttoned cushions that were waiting in the hallway in the manor across the path from the stables. The barbecue was already up too, waiting for Paul to cook the simple wedding breakfast (or more accurately, brunch) of sausage and onion and tomato rolls.

‘It's hardly a steak dinner,' Sean's mother Susan had sniffed the evening before over supper. ‘Didn't you want a nice sit-down do somewhere warm?'

‘There'll be a “nice sit-down do” later in the afternoon. Proper Christmas dinner,' Sean had explained. ‘We just wanted something different and fun.'

‘It's different all right,' Susan had said. ‘But then you always were a funny one.'

The one flaw in the perfect scene, Thea thought now as she went to let Benji out for a pee, was the lack of Emily.

‘So what's up with this missing sister of yours then? Have you had a falling-out?' This had been another of Susan's blunt questions.

‘I apologize for Mum,' Sean's sister Patti had said. ‘She's not one to keep schtum. It's a northern thing.'

‘A bit like me then,' Rosie told her.

Jimi nodded. ‘Yep. Can't argue with that.'

‘Is she a right mardy sort?' Susan went on. Sean winced.

‘Not at all,' Anna said. ‘It's just … a thing. To do with being snowed in last year. And other stuff. Also, she's just had a baby.'

Susan looked out of the window into the moonlit night. ‘Well, she'd have to whistle for snow this year, I reckon. There's not even a frost out there. You could die of damp in this county, but not snow.'

Any hope that Thea had had that Emily would change her mind at the last minute vanished when Sam had arrived, halfway through the evening, carrying in both half-asleep children at the same time. Delightful as it had been to see them, she'd been almost floored by the disappointment of Emily not being with them. How could she do that? Simply not come with them? Anna and Thea and Patti helped bring in their luggage and then stacked their presents under the tree. Sam let the children hang their stockings up, even though they barely had any interest in anything but sleep by this point, and then he went off to bed, looking absolutely exhausted. What kind of massive row must there have been for Sam to storm out and take the children away over Christmas like this? And would it ever be reparable?

My wedding day, Thea thought now. She even whispered it out loud to make it even more real.

She reached across and switched on the bedside light. Her beautiful apricot dress hung from the wardrobe door along with the little jacket that went so perfectly. The cream charity shop boots were fun – slightly chunky lace-ups which would give a hint of punk and tone down the ‘bridiness' of the rest of the outfit. She'd never been too much of a girly sort and would have felt too unlike herself in over-feminine footwear. She'd taken the original laces out of the boots and replaced them with long strips of narrow salmon lace that matched the dress. Charlotte's brilliant idea, as so many things were. She'd heard her come in the night before, very late, and go straight to her room. The very least she deserved, given that she and Emily and the children had almost (thank goodness, not quite, in the end) cost her her job, was a cup of tea in bed. Thea would give her more time to sleep and then take one to her before she started to get ready.

Thea went and ran the bath, pouring her favourite Clarins gel into it. As she lay among the suds she ran her hands over her flat stomach. Would she and Sean have children? She very much hoped so and it was what he wanted too. With luck, another pregnancy wouldn't end so sadly as her last one had. She made a little cross on her skin for luck, sploshed about for a few more minutes and then climbed out of the water and put on her dressing gown and the sheepskin slippers that Katinka had so admired.

Charlotte was already in the kitchen, sipping tea. Thea, now in her old trackie bottoms and a jumper and Uggs, gave her a hug. ‘Oh, Charlotte, I'm
so
glad you could make it,' she said. ‘You got here really late and now you have to be up early just for this. I'm sorry now it's such an early wedding. Poor Sam didn't get here till halfway through the evening so the children will be all fractious and cross. And their mother …' Thea gulped, feeling tears weren't far away.

‘They'll be fine,' Charlotte reassured her. ‘At least till the middle of the afternoon and by then it won't matter if they fall asleep. And hey, I can smell toast from across the way. Shall we go and join the others for some? You definitely can't get married on an empty stomach. You'd faint.'

‘OK, I'll give it a go but I'm too nervous to eat much.'

‘Much wouldn't be good either. Just a teeny bit. Come on, let's get going. You don't want to be rushing the prep.'

Across the path in the manor hallway, Thea was met by a whirling Milly. ‘Father Christmas has been! And I can be a
bridesmaid
! And it's
today
!'

‘It is!' Thea said, hugging her, rather surprised that there wasn't even a hint of sadness at the lack of her mother; perhaps children really did simply live for the moment.

‘Come into the kitchen,' Charlotte said. ‘There's a bit more than just toast.'

Curious, Thea followed her in. At first, she didn't quite understand where the baby in the bouncy chair had come from, but then she saw Sam move away from the stove …

‘Emily!' Thea rushed to hug her sister. ‘Oh, Em, I'm so glad!'

Emily's eyes filled with tears. ‘Thea, I've been so vile.'

‘You have,' Rosie chipped in, looking up from stitching narcissi and ivy leaves on to a cream Alice band.

‘It's OK, it's OK. I'm just so
so
glad you're here.' Both of them were crying now and laughing at the same time.

‘Thank Charlotte,' Emily said. ‘She came and dragged me.'

‘Oh, I didn't have to drag you,' Charlotte said kindly. ‘You were almost at the point of setting off to hitchhike. Now, where's that toast? I'm starving and the bride needs something to nibble.'

‘Ooh-er …' said Patti. ‘I can't listen to such smut, girls, not when you're talking about my brother.'

‘You daft mucky-minded bat,' her mother said. ‘She only means toast.'

There was only one disaster: Rosie's navy velvet hat with pink trim was the same as Susan's. Neither seemed to mind and before the ceremony began they had a very happy chat extolling the great qualities of John Lewis.

Emily and Anna waited in the Pentreath drawing room with Thea, checking over last-minute details. ‘Hang on, the headdress has gone sideways,' Emily said. ‘It smells divine,' she added, sniffing at it as she pulled it straight and fluffed up Thea's newly streaked blond, golden and hazelnut-coloured hair. As well as Thea's headgear – just a simple band of narcissi and leaves – Rosie had made another one for Milly, who was taking her bridesmaid duties seriously and being still and calm, carefully holding her little bunch of narcissi, ivy and ribbons. Thea's bouquet was the same, but with a clump of mistletoe added.

‘You look fabulous, darling,' Anna told Thea. ‘Good luck, for everything and for ever,' she said, blowing her a kiss as she went to take her place.

Thea, now ready to go into the orangery beside her father, watched with delight as Elmo took to the piano stool and began to play a beautiful lilting arrangement of ‘The Holly and the Ivy' while she and Mike walked through the little gathering to where Sean, gorgeous in chestnut velvet and a cream silk shirt, waited for her.

I'm not going to cry, she thought. I'm not, I'm not. But oh, it was hard not to. Sean reached out and took her hand.

‘My beautiful Thea,' he said.

‘Well, at least they can't call you the maiden aunt any more,' Sean said to Thea as they sipped champagne on the dunes. There was a fire blazing as well as the barbecue going and everyone was drinking champagne, eating the sausage rolls and admiring the gorgeous day. The sky was the kind of vivid blue that people don't really believe can be real and the sun was as warm as an early spring day.

‘I just wanted to ask you something,' Sarah said, coming up to Thea, ‘though this probably isn't something you want to think about today. It's just that the teacher in charge of the Meadow School's older group is leaving to go and live in Somerset. I just wondered if you might fancy the job. I mean … I could advertise but …'

‘Oh heavens, yes! I'd love it! I've already given notice at my present school and I can't honestly think of anything I'd like better. It's all coming together: this, and Mum and Dad buying the Marazion house. I'm so darn happy!'

‘Let me kiss the bride,' Charlotte interrupted, wielding a full glass of champagne. She hugged Thea and said, ‘You scrub up gorgeous, you do.'

‘Oh, Charlotte, you are so brilliant. I've got so much to thank you for. This dress, Emily being here—'

‘Ha, Sam set that up. He was never just going to leave her there. He knew she needed to be shocked into coming. I was always his back-up plan – that, and the fact he's taking her to see a house in Wiltshire that she's been talking about possibly buying. All I had to do was knock on the door and pick up the pieces of her.'

‘Well, whatever you did, you are a complete fairy godmother.'

‘Not sure about the “mother” bit of that, but I must tell you, I'm currently dating a vicar and it looks like being a goer, this one. A proper keeper. It's all indirectly from coming here last year and meeting you lot and that Alec.'

‘So there's the mistletoe to thank, then,' Sean said. ‘On which …'

‘Ah yes, I want to show you something,' Thea said, leading him a little way from the party.

‘So do I,' he said. ‘Take the ring off.'

‘Is that allowed? I've only just put it on. But I want you to take yours off too.'

‘Er … OK … why?'

‘Look inside it.'

‘No,
you
look inside yours.'

Laughing, they took their wedding rings off and looked at the inside of the bands.

‘Oh, wow, how did you know I'd do the same?' Sean said, staring at his.

‘I didn't! How did you know
I
would?'

‘I didn't either.'

Inside Thea's ring was the date engraved and a little mistletoe leaf and berries. And inside Sean's was almost exactly the same.

‘I think that calls for a toast,' he said, taking her hand and leading her back to the party.

‘Everyone?' he called. ‘Would you all please raise your glasses to … the magic of mistletoe.'

‘To the mistletoe!' came the chorus.

‘And now,' Sean said, looking down the beach to where black-clad people were assembling at the water's edge, ‘it's Christmas Day and one half of this
very
happy couple has something traditional and important to do that is done on this day every year without fail.'