A Winter Bride (9 page)

‘Where they started from. Well, don’t you go thinking you can come back here after you’re married. It’ll be up to you to make a go of it.’

Nell laughed, ‘These are old wives tale. Superstitious nonsense. This is the modern age. The age of television and the radio. We are exploring outer space. We don’t believe any of that stuff anymore.’ My God, she thought, what would Simone de Beauvoir and Satre make of all that?

As the wedding loomed nearer, Nancy had regular outbursts in the kitchen, which was the venue for all serious family discussions. ‘You’ve become a stranger to us. You’re never here. You’re not a McClusky anymore. You’re a Rutherford. You’ve gone over to them.’

Nell was sitting at the small Formica, fold-down table. Nancy bustled around washing, drying, and putting away the supper dishes. She could never complain, nag and fuss while sitting still; there had to be movement, a rhythm to her fretting.

A second outburst followed a few days later. ‘That May Rutherford went with you to pick your dress. That was my job. A mother should always help to choose her daughter’s wedding dress. I’ve been looking forward to that all my life.’

Nell said that it hadn’t been May’s idea to take her to the bridal shop. It had been Harry’s. ‘He thinks I wear strange clothes. He worried about what dress I’d wear. He thought I might come down the aisle looking like a beatnik.’

‘Cheek of him,’ said Nancy. Although she’d had the same worry.

May had turned up at the shop where Nell worked. ‘Thought it time you picked out your wedding dress,’ she’d said. Nell had been flustered by this. She knew a wedding dress was necessary but had been putting off buying one. She didn’t have the money to buy the kind of dress that would meet the Rutherford’s expectations. Recently she’d been thinking that the groom would be better turned out than the bride. But she never did know how to say no to May so she’d gone with her.

They’d gone to the bridal department of an upmarket Princes Street store. The atmosphere was hushed, almost holy. The only sounds were the whispered tones of reverential sales women and the silken rustle of frocks being pulled from displays and laid out for inspection.

May had swooned over a multi-layered confection of lace, frills and bows. But now upstairs in Nell’s wardrobe was a simple long-sleeved dress, cut low at the front with a bow at the back. She visited it daily, stroking it, holding it to her face, breathing it in. Sometimes she stood staring at it; she couldn’t believe she owned such a beautiful thing. She’d even kept the tissue paper and glossy carrier bag the dress had been wrapped in. She’d thought them too beautiful, too expensive, to part with.

Insisting that this was what she wanted wear on her wedding day was the nearest Nell had come to falling out with May. There had been glaring, tight lips and a bit of tugging to and fro of very expensive dresses. Eventually, encouraged by the assistant who’d clapped her hands in joy when she’d seen Nell emerge from the changing room in
the
dress, May had pulled her purse from her handbag and forked out the money. ‘Cash,’ she’d said. ‘Can’t be doing with banks.’ Thanks and gratitude had tumbled from Nell’s lips but May dismissed them, saying, ‘Don’t be daft.’

Two days later, when Nell was at the Rutherford’s dining table, she heard May’s rewritten version of their shopping spree. ‘Nell wanted the full meringue,’ May had said, ‘but I steered her towards this simple sophisticated frock. Knew it was the one soon as I saw it. Very Audrey Hepburn. Nell looks a treat in it.’

Nell had opened her mouth to protest at this description of their outing, but Alistair, having heard what had really happened, kicked her shin under the table. For a week, the dress-buying business festered in Nancy’s mind.

Soon after there was another kitchen outburst.

‘I’ll tell you why the Rutherfords were so worried about you not looking like a beatnik on your wedding day,’ her mother said. ‘It’s because this isn’t a wedding for them. It’s a bit of showing off.’

‘Is it?’ said Nell.

‘Of course. They sent out the invitations, not us. And look who they’ve invited: councillors, the chief of police, business clients and relatives, three hundred and six of them. And only fifteen McCluskys.’

This surprised Nell. She hadn’t realised her mother and father knew fifteen people.

The resentment went on. Nancy complained that May Rutherford had chosen the flowers for the church and the reception. She’d booked the band. She’d chosen the menu of smoked salmon, beef Wellington and crème brûlée. ‘That food’s too rich for me. I’d have been happy with a sandwich.’

The next day Nancy was incensed that May was having the viewing of the presents at her house. ‘She says her house is bigger, with more room for everybody. She’s serving sherry and canapés, and acts as if I don’t even know what a canapé is. Bloody rude.’

By this stage, Nell had stopped listening to her mother’s outpouring of rage. Instead, she tuned in to the songs in her head. As Nancy ranted, Nell let ‘Stand by Me’ rip through her mind. Ben E. King sang and she swayed slightly in time with him.

‘I feel like an outsider,’ Nancy said one evening. ‘An onlooker at my own daughter’s wedding. It’s not right. Your father and me have been shoved aside as if we don’t matter. I tell you, these Rutherfords with their fancy ways, flashing their money around are going to get found out for what they are. One day they’ll get what’s coming to them and they’ll fall flat on their faces. You’ll see.’

But Nell had moved to a new tune. Horns, bawdy-voiced backing singers and Ray Charles’ aching, rasping growls, ‘Hit the Road, Jack’, were playing in her head and she didn’t hear the warning.

Chapter Eight

The Youngest and the
Sanest

It was after the meal and the speeches at the wedding when Carol upstaged Nell. Johnny, the best man, said that Nell was the most beautiful bride he’d ever seen. ‘The bridesmaid’s pretty cool, too. But then I have to say that; she’s my old lady.’ Everyone laughed. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his pinstriped pants. ‘Alistair and Nell. Look at them. Young, in love, with a flat in the West End. The world is at their feet. They’re going to be the grooviest couple in town.’

Alistair leaned over and whispered in Nell’s ear. ‘He’s jealous.’

Looking up at Johnny, seeing a slight twist in his lips as he spoke, Nell agreed and wondered why.

Since Nell’s father was pale and nauseous at the thought of giving a speech, Harry gave one in his place. He thanked his wife for organising this wonderful party. He thanked Carol for being a marvellous bridesmaid and he thanked everyone for coming along. Then he turned to Nell and Alistair. ‘A lovely couple. You’ll be happy. Now, get busy doing what you’ve been doing in our spare room for the past few years and make some new Rutherfords to join the clan.’ Nell blushed, but not as much as her mother, who looked scandalised.

Alistair smoothed things over when he finished his speech by thanking Nancy for having such a beautiful daughter and allowing him to marry her. When Nell looked at her, Nancy was smiling. It was the first time Nell had seen her do that in months. She wished she would smile more often. It really suited her.

Sitting in her fabulous dress watching the room relax as people finished their meals, swigged brandy, lit cigars and cigarettes, it occurred to Nell that she hardly knew anybody here. The room was a blur of strange faces. They were, however, faces in full wealthy bloom. This place swaggered with money. Men opened their jackets, leaned back in their chairs and guffawed at their own jokes. Women with immovably lacquered hair leaned towards one another, smiling discreetly, and discussed their latest gadgets and holidays. People gleamed, comfortable in the knowledge they were right about everything from the political party they supported to their taste in shoes or kitchen curtains. Nell could breathe in the confidence. She wished it were infectious; she could do with some of that.

However, someone who could do with it more was her mother, who was wearing a navy-blue suit bought from a catalogue. She was paying it off by the month, and would still be paying it off this time next year. The skirt was too big and hung limply from her hips. The jacket was too small. It strained at her armpits and there was still a crease along the back from lying folded in its box. She was sitting staring ahead, raking in her mouth with her tongue for stray bits of food and thinking of something to say to the woman sitting next to her; Nancy never was very good with strangers. Nell watched as she turned and spoke. The stranger looked surprised. Nell wondered what her mother had said, and decided it was something about the price of coal. It was still a popular topic in the McClusky household. After that, her mother gave up and resumed her quiet staring ahead. Her father joined her. They gazed mournfully at the braying mass, looking confused. Her father put his hand over her mother’s, patted it. She smiled at him.

It made Nell smile. She was glad they had each other. They were mutually lonely, companions in awkwardness. Nell wanted to rush over and hug them, but she didn’t. Now that her mother knew of her secret shenanigans with Alistair in the Rutherford’s spare room, Nell was too embarrassed to look her in the eye, far less put her arms round her and hold her close. Besides, the McCluskys didn’t do such things. Spontaneous displays of affection were not their style.

So instead she turned back to Alistair and asked why Johnny was jealous.

‘My brother wanted to do what we’re doing – renting a flat in town. Except his dream was to have a bachelor pad, leather sofa, modern prints on the wall, hi-fi, huge bed to entertain the chicks. He had it all planned out. Now he’s got a mortgage, a wife and a baby. He feels he’s old enough to really enjoy being young and young enough not to be old. But he can’t do the things he wants to do: flirt with girls, sleep around a bit, fritter money on booze and clothes. He feels trapped. He and Carol fight all the time.’

‘He told you that?’ said Nell.

‘He tells me everything,’ Alistair told her. ‘Everyone in my family turns to me with their troubles.’

‘But you’re the youngest,’ said Nell.

He told her he was also the sanest.

Nell snorted.

‘No, really,’ said Alistair. ‘Haven’t you noticed that my family is ever so slightly mad?’

Nell said she hadn’t; she thought his family wonderful. She looked across at May who was deep in conversation with a man and a woman. She was decked out in pink and was gesticulating as she spoke, bursting now and then into a throaty laugh. Nell was sure they were talking about something fabulous, probably to do with making money.

Harry brought the room to order, tapping on his glass with his spoon. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, would you please repair to the lounge while the floor is cleared for dancing? First drinks are on me.’

Nell said it was a good time to slip off for a pee. She went to the room booked for her to change into her going-away outfit, and when she emerged from the loo, smoothing down her dress, Carol was sitting by the mirror, applying a fresh layer of lipstick, leaning forward, pouting and admiring herself.

‘I’m looking OK,’ Carol said. ‘You’d never know I was a mother.’

Nell agreed.

‘So,’ said Carol, ‘how are you enjoying your wedding?’

‘It’s great.’

‘Of course, you’re having the wedding I should have had,’ said Carol.

Nell looked at her in surprise. ‘But there wasn’t time to plan a big do for yours – you were pregnant.’

‘I always wanted something like this. Posh frock, church filled with flowers, red carpet, big meal, lots of people, then dancing with a band, and me the star of the show. The Rutherfords have spent a fortune on you.’

‘Christ, Carol. You got a house and all your furniture from them.’

‘I got a bungalow that I don’t like and a sofa I hate,’ said Carol. ‘My mother-in-law chose everything. I wanted this, the big wedding. I’ve always wanted a big wedding. I’m so jealous.’ She flounced out.

Nobody could flounce like Carol, Nell thought. She wondered if she practised it.

The dining room had been cleared by the time she got back. Tables and chairs were set round a huge open stretch of polished floor; the dancing was about to begin. In the corner, the Billy McGhee quartet – a piano, guitar, accordion and drums – were setting up. Nell joined Alistair at a table on the edge of the floor. ‘Brought you a drink,’ he said. ‘Dutch courage for the dance ahead.’

‘What dance?’ said Nell.

‘The first waltz. The bride and groom take to the floor first. It’s traditional.’

‘But I can’t dance,’ said Nell. Since May had arranged almost everything to do with the big day Nell hadn’t thought much about what would be expected of her. A red blotch appeared on her throat. It always turned up when she was nervous. ‘Well, I can shimmy to music. I can jive, do the twist, but only on crowded dance floors where I’m hidden by the throng.’

Alistair said he couldn’t even do that.

‘All the things we’ve done together, concerts, films, meals as well as, you know, sexual positions.’ She blushed, and looked round checking nobody was eavesdropping. ‘We never thought to dance.’

‘I just don’t like dancing,’ said Alistair. ‘Didn’t you get it at school?’

‘Yes, but I never paid attention.’ She looked away, troubled by sudden painful memories. ‘We used to get rehearsals for the school Christmas party. We had to do country dancing – eightsome reels, the gay Gordons and that. But when the teacher shouted, “Take your partners …” all the boys would swarm over for Carol. A great kicking scrum shoving and elbowing – she was the class sweetheart. When she was taken, the boys just picked anybody. But never me, I sat at the side. I never danced.’

Alistair took both her hands in his and kissed them. ‘The swine,’ he said. ‘The bastards. Give me their names and I’ll track them down, every single one of them and sort them out. A vendetta.’

‘You’d do that for me?’ asked Nell, and laughed. ‘That’s so kind. You could leap on them from above wearing a cape and swishing a sword. You could cleave a deep Z in their foreheads, like Zorro.’

‘Only, I’d do an A for Alistair or an N for you.’

‘Splendid,’ said Nell. ‘We’ll start after the honeymoon.’