Gypsy Wedding (11 page)

‘Can I ask a question?’ Kelly’s voice drifted over the screen.

‘Depends on the question.’

‘Just why can’t you go out and have a good time?’ Kelly emerged back in her street clothes and handed over the bodice.

Vicky sighed. ‘I can. I do.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m allowed out as long as I go with friends, other travellers. It’s just …’ Her brow furrowed as she tried to find the words to explain to Kelly what the restrictions on her were all about. ‘In my world, Kel, a girl’s reputation is everything, so it’s dead important that no one can ever say that you might have done something wrong, like being alone with a boy. Because if you were alone, you might get up to anything – or even if you didn’t, people might say that you did.’

‘Like saying you’d had sex?’

Vicky nodded. ‘So if you always have your mates or your mother with you, you’re safe. No one can say anything bad about you.’

‘But I’m not a good-enough mate, am I? People in your world wouldn’t take my word for it if I said I’d look after you and make sure you didn’t get into trouble.’

Vicky nodded. ‘That’s about it.’

‘That’s harsh. I mean I don’t lie or nothing, do I? Why wouldn’t they trust me?’

It was hard being honest, but she owed it to Kel to tell her the truth about her world. ‘It’s because you’re not one of us.’

‘But they trust me enough to let me be a bridesmaid at your wedding.’

Vicky remained silent.

‘You have told your folks, haven’t you?’ said Kelly, her eyes narrowing.

Vicky shook her head. ‘But they’ll be okay with it.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Kelly looked even more sceptical. ‘And what if they’re not?’

‘I’ll talk them round.’

‘Like you could talk them round into being allowed to come out with me?’

‘That’s different, Kel, and you know it.’

Kelly shook her head. ‘It’s not. This is all about you being right under the thumb.’

‘I am not.’

Kelly raised an eyebrow.

‘It’s about being looked after,’ said Vicky. ‘It’s because they care.’

‘And you’re saying my parents don’t.’

‘No. No – it’s just … different.’

‘It certainly is,’ said Kelly. She glanced at her watch. ‘Look, I hear what you’re saying and I know your life and mine are miles apart so let’s not fall out.’ She gave her friend a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. ‘I just think it’s a crying shame that you’re about to get married and you’ve never really lived.’ She shrugged. ‘But if you’re happy about it …’ she shrugged again. ‘Why don’t you ask if you can come round mine one evening? Your dad could drop you off and pick you up. Tell him that I won’t let you get into any mischief – Scout’s honour. What about it?’ She smiled at Vicky. ‘My parents are nice – they’re not pissheads or druggies. They’re not going to let us have an orgy or anything. What do you say?’

Vicky still looked uncertain. She really fancied going over to Kelly’s; it would be fun and why not? What would be so wrong with two school friends hanging out together, except that she had this awful feeling, deep down, that even asking wasn’t going to go down well with her father.

‘Why don’t you just ask?’ insisted Kelly.

Vicky shrugged. ‘I suppose. Asking can’t do no harm, can it?’ As the words came out of her mouth, she knew she sounded more confident than she felt.

‘Good, make sure you do. If your folks say yes we can fix a date another time. Now I’ve got a lesson to get to.’ She left and Vicky stared after her, wondering if she might be allowed the freedom to spend an evening with a girlfriend on the other side of town. Was it so much to ask? It was hardly an outrageous request but what were the chances of her parents agreeing?

Disconsolately she fingered the bodice. Like she’d said to Kelly, her world and Kelly’s world were so very different. She could sew like a professional, she had talent and she had her whole life in front of her, so what was to stop her from making something of herself?

Vicky sat down on one of the chairs in the classroom and tried to put her thoughts in order. Could she really make a living from sewing or was that just a pipe dream? If she had any chance of finding out, she’d have to move off the site. No way could a traveller girl have a career. If she didn’t move off, she’d be run off. And if she moved off the site would she ever be accepted in the non-traveller world? The site meant safety and tradition – and marriage to Liam. Striking out on her own would mean uncertainty and loneliness. But it might also mean a whole mass of possibilities.

Oh God, she was at an awfully big crossroads and she didn’t have a clue as to which way she should go.

‘What,’ yelled her dad, ‘don’t you get about
no
?’

‘But I’d only be at Kelly’s. She only lives across town. You could take me there and back,’ Vicky pleaded.

‘No. For a start anyone else might be there.’

‘Who? Her parents? Yes, very likely.’

‘Don’t get cheeky with me, my girl, you know very well what I mean.’

‘But there won’t be. It’s just going to be me and Kel. We’re just going to chat, maybe watch a DVD—’

‘—get pissed, smoke.’

‘No! As if I would.’

‘Then what’s wrong with staying here? You can talk to this Kelly girl on the phone. You see her at college all week.’ Johnnie turned away, exasperated.

‘Your dad says no,’ said Mary-Rose. ‘Leave it at that.’

Vicky felt like crying. Was her request so unreasonable? She was seventeen: old enough to be wed, old enough to have a baby but evidently not old enough to be trusted. Kelly had been allowed to walk to school on her own since she was eleven but Vicky still wasn’t allowed to go anywhere off the site without a gaggle of friends or relations around her. Was she so untrustworthy? Apparently so.

Vicky flounced outside and walked to the edge of the site to where she could look over the countryside. The view calmed her. She climbed onto a gate that led into an adjoining field and felt her bout of sulkiness ebb away. She wasn’t untrustworthy and her dad didn’t think that, not at all. The barriers and boundaries were there to protect her because her parents loved her and just wanted to keep her safe.
The trouble is
, thought Vicky, feeling hugely disloyal,
that sometimes I wish they just cared for me a little bit less
.

It was one of those perfect late autumnal days. The early morning chill had given way to clear blue sky and in sheltered spots the sunshine was warm. Russet leaves were clinging to the trees, waiting for November gales to tear them off. The long grass in the meadow beyond the trailer park had turned brown and yellow and the countryside beyond the main road looked tired, but the late afternoon sun gilded the windows of some cottages in the half-distance making bursts of fire that glinted and shimmered.

Vicky sat outside the family trailer hand-stitching gold braid around Kelly’s bodice. It was the last job to do on it and then she could start on finishing off the other six. She was well on course with her self-imposed workload, although she hadn’t yet given any proper thought to her wedding dress itself. She secured the needle and laid the bodice in her lap. She really needed to start on that, mapping out some ideas for the dressmaker at the very least. Her mother was getting anxious and was nagging her, reminding her constantly about clocks ticking.

‘We’ve got to get this wedding off the ground,’ her mother had said over breakfast. ‘If you don’t pull your finger out, I’ll go to the dressmaker and order something,
anything
, so I will.’ Mary-Rose had stood at the table, her hand on her hip and had dared Vicky to contradict her.

‘I know, Mammy, but it’s only the one dress. A professional dressmaker will be able to run something up in a few weeks.’

‘And organising the fittings? Are you going to take time off your precious college course, or are we going to have to fit them in at weekends? And as for your bottom drawer …’ she shook her head in exasperation.

‘Oh, Mammy, I won’t have to get that much. It’ll only be me and Liam for a while.’

‘But once the babies start to arrive you won’t get the chance to get out often.’

‘So we’ll go to that big Sunday market. We could go tomorrow if this weather holds.’

Mary-Rose nodded, pleased that her daughter seemed to be talking sense at last. ‘I think that’d be for the best.’

Placated, Mammy had gone off to put the family wash on in the laundry block, leaving Vicky to start cleaning the trailer and to think about what her mother had said.

All day she mulled over the conversation. Deep down she knew her mother was right, that she really did need to make a start with planning her wedding properly, but even deeper down Vicky knew that she was stalling for time. The longer she left everything the better her chances of getting at least one year of her course completed. She longed to get both years under her belt but even she realised that was going to be impossible. If she dragged her feet just a little she could hold out till June, maybe even July, but that was the absolute best she could hope for.

These thoughts had filled her head as she’d cleaned the family home and now as she sewed the bodice of Kelly’s dress. It was time, she realised, to start making a mental list of things she ought to buy at the Sunday market. She turned her thoughts to that.

‘Hiya, babe.’ It was Liam.

Vicky looked up and smiled, genuinely pleased to see him. Her heart gave a little skip of pleasure.

‘Slacking?’ he asked.

Vicky looked at her sewing, which had been ignored for some time now as it lay untouched in her lap. ‘Enjoying the sunshine and thinking about my bottom drawer. What have you been up to today?’

‘This and that.’

‘Mammy and I are going to the big market tomorrow – the one on that disused airfield. I need to start getting stuff together for our own home. Do you want to come along with us?’

‘You and your mammy don’t want me there, do you?’

‘Why not? Don’t you want to keep a check on what I might choose?’

‘You’ll choose lovely things, I just know it. Here.’ He hauled out a big bundle of notes from his pocket and pulled off a fat wodge from the roll. ‘Buy something nice.’

‘Liam, I can’t take all this,’ Vicky said, surprised at his generosity.

‘Why not? Just don’t get mugged.’

The next morning dawned like the day before: a hint of frost on the ground and a sky of robin’s egg blue while on the eastern horizon the rising sun had tinged it with shades of gold, apricot and peach. After breakfast had been cleared away Vicky got herself ready to go out with her mum.

‘You ready yet?’ she called through to her mother’s bedroom next door.

‘Not quite, but there’s no hurry. Shania’s got to get the baby ready yet and then we’re waiting on Mikey and his mum. And I think his sisters are coming along too.’

Vicky put her hairbrush down and went into her mother’s room.

‘So how many of us are going to the market?’

‘I don’t know, love. A few. Why not? It’s a lovely day, we’ve all got things to get. I thought we could make a big party of it and spend the day there. Shania wants to start looking for things for her bottom drawer too. You’re not the only one engaged now, remember.’

Vicky leaned against the door. So not only was her mother giving her a big fat reminder that Shania couldn’t wait to be wed – as if anyone could forget – but her jaunt out with her mother had turned into a great big traveller day out. Which wasn’t what she’d been looking forward to.

It seemed to take for ever to get the whole party organised. It wasn’t just a question of rounding up the various participants it was also a question of organising the transport, getting the toddlers sorted, the buggies and prams found and shoved into car boots or the backs of vans. It was nearing eleven o’clock before the caravan of cars and vans finally set off from the site and on the twenty-mile journey to the Sunday market.

By the time they arrived Vicky was out of sorts. If it had just been her and her mother they’d have been there hours ago but now all the best bargains would have gone, there were bound to be further delays on the way home because half of the families would want to stop and eat and besides she’d been looking forward to having some time with her mammy alone, and now she was going to be sharing it with Shania and Kylie and half a dozen cousins.

She climbed out of the car and shrugged into her coat. The sun was warm but there was a chill breeze that gave an edge to the temperature. It took some minutes for the buggies and prams to be extricated and the babies strapped in, and all the while Vicky’s temper was getting shorter and shorter. By the time they began to cross the bumpy grass of the car park to the entrance she was heartily fed up by the whole proceedings.

‘And what’s up with you?’ asked Mary-Rose.

‘Nothing,’ scowled Vicky.

‘It looks like it. You know, sometimes, my girl, I just can’t make you out. You’ve been given a heap of money by your lovely man to shop with, the weather is perfect, you’re surrounded by friends … I just don’t know why you can’t count your blessings like any other normal girl.’

‘Oh, Mammy, I do count my blessings.’