Gypsy Wedding (3 page)

‘Daddy,’ said Vicky.

‘Yes, my angel.’ The sunshine and the chilled lager had made her dad mellow and content with his lot.

‘Are you still all right to give me a lift into school tomorrow?’

Johnnie gave his daughter a quizzical look and then he remembered. ‘Oh yes. It’s your results day, isn’t it? What time have you got to be there?’

‘Any time after nine. It
is
okay, isn’t it?’

‘No bother.’

‘Just think,’ said Mary-Rose, shaking her head. ‘One of our kids with GCSEs.’

The tone of her voice made Vicky smile; pride and bewilderment in equal measure. ‘I haven’t got them yet. For all we know I might have failed everything.’

‘You won’t,’ said her mother with a smile. ‘But I still can’t work out why for the life of me you bothered with them. None of your cousins has got a qualification to their name. In fact, I don’t think most of them can even read. And what does it matter – all this book learning? Will it make you a better wife or mother? To be sure it won’t.’

Shania emerged back in her bikini and gave her nearly finished dress back to her sister.

‘I can’t see why on earth you think staying on at school is going to do you any good. I’m glad I left last year,’ she announced. ‘What’s the use of book learning when I’m keeping a house? In fact, if you hurried up and tied the knot with Liam, I could think about marrying too.’

‘Well, you can’t,’ said her mother firmly. ‘Not just yet. I want Vicky settled before we think about you.’

‘You can’t stop me getting engaged,’ said Shania, defiantly. ‘If the right boy asks me I shall say yes as soon as blinking. And if Vicky doesn’t get a move on I don’t care if it wouldn’t look right; I’ll get married before her.’

‘That’s enough,’ barked her father, who didn’t like to hear his family bickering. ‘Vicky will marry next year and you can be wed the year after and that’s an end to it.’

‘Next
year
,’ said Vicky, appalled. ‘But … but …’

‘But nothing.’

‘But I’ve got plans,’ she muttered.

‘Plans? What plans?’

‘Plans like what Mrs Truman suggested,’ she admitted slowly.

‘You mean that nonsense about going to college,’ said her father.

‘It’s not nonsense.’

‘Yes it is. College is no place for our kind. It’s just a waste of time.’

‘But it wouldn’t be,’ pleaded Vicky. ‘I’d learn a real skill, a useful skill.’

Johnnie narrowed his eyes. ‘I’m not going to discuss this, Vicky. You won’t need no dressmaking qualification when you’re married to Liam. Jesus, can’t you already make lovely dresses? What could college teach you that you don’t already know? It would just be a waste of time. Time that would be better spent planning your big day and, once that is out of the way, starting a family.’

Vicky felt her eyes filling with tears. Dad didn’t understand. She could make dresses just fine but she always had to buy paper patterns for the designs and finding anything that was suitable was almost impossible. If she went to college she’d learn to pattern cut and how to design her own garments. Ever since she’d been tiny she’d been dressing her Barbie dolls in her own creations and more than anything she wanted to learn how to do it properly. Professionally.

She knew full well that she wouldn’t be allowed to do it as a
job
once she was married. It would bring disgrace to Liam if she earned money. Earning money would be his role, just as her role would be that of wife and mother, but she could make outfits for her friends and family. She’d help people choose the fabric and then she’d make it up. There couldn’t be anything wrong in that, providing she didn’t ask for more than the money to cover the costs. Just like Shania could think of nothing but keeping house and having babies, Vicky’s head was filled with ideas for lovely dresses and outfits. It was her passion. But her dad refused to listen to any of her ideas. As far as he was concerned she was out of order.

Rather than cry in front of her mother and upset her too, Vicky put down her sewing and took off. She wandered aimlessly down the main road that led through the centre of the park. It was so
unfair
. And her dad didn’t get it. It wasn’t as if she wanted to do anything
wrong
. It was only dressmaking, when all was said and done.

Walking and the warm sunshine calmed her slowly and she let her feet carry her to Liam’s shed. Well, it was his dad’s shed really, but it would be Liam’s one day. As she approached it the pine-scented tang of wood shavings drifted on the slight breeze accompanied by the rhythmic rasp of the sound of sawing. She leaned against the doorjamb and watched her fiancé working. He’d stopped sawing and was holding up the piece of wood he was working on, caressing the grain with his long, tanned fingers, almost as if he were playing an instrument. Her annoyance and frustration with her family was swept aside by a big surge of love for her fiancé. Her Liam really was one of the best.
I am so lucky
, she told herself,
to have him
.

‘So what’s that going to be?’ she said softly.

Liam jumped and put the wood down, almost guiltily. ‘And what are you doing creeping up on me like that?’ But his words held no anger and his smile was one of pure pleasure at seeing her.

Vicky ignored the question and moved across the floor of the shed to his workbench. ‘What are you making?’

‘Never you mind.’

‘It’s nice wood. Pretty colour.’

‘It’s cherry.’

‘That sounds lovely.’

‘It is. It’s a grand wood. One of the best.’ Liam picked up the plank and took it over to the side of the shed where he put it with some similar timbers. Vicky, used to seeing the component pieces of a garment laid out before she put them together, could see that Liam was working in the same methodical way. He obviously had a commission to make something more complex than a simple cupboard.

‘You nervous?’ he said, returning to her side.

‘Nervous?’ Vicky shook her head. What was Liam on about? ‘Why should I be nervous?’

‘Big day tomorrow – your results.’

Vicky’s feelings of frustration barrelled back. ‘Oh, them,’ she snorted. ‘Yeah, well, it’s not going to matter now whether I pass or fail …’ She shrugged.

‘Of course it matters. And it matters to me. I want to be able to boast I’ve got the cleverest wife in all the world.’

‘Liam, a few GCSEs doesn’t make me a brainbox.’

‘It does to me. Anyway, why don’t your results matter all of a sudden? That wasn’t what you thought when you were working for them.’

‘Daddy says I can’t go to college. He says I’ve got to get married.’

Liam frowned. ‘But …’ Now he was confused. ‘But you still
do
want to get married, don’t you?’

‘Oh Liam, of course I do. It’s just … it’s just …’

‘You want everything,’ he finished for her.

She nodded. ‘Is that so wrong?’

‘Darlin’ girl, as far as I am concerned you can have whatever you want. If I can make it or buy it for you, it’s yours.’

But
, thought Vicky sadly,
going to college doesn’t fall into either of those categories
.

Liam went over to the corner of the shed where there was a fridge and a sink and where the kettle lived. He picked it up and waved it at her. ‘Tea?’

She nodded. ‘Let me,’ she said, moving over to join him. She took the mugs off the shelf and a pint of milk from the little fridge and busied herself, filling the kettle from the tap.

‘What if …’ said Liam. He paused, clearly thinking through what he was about to suggest.

‘Yes?’

‘What if,’ he said slowly, ‘you told your father that you need to go to college to make sure the bridesmaids’ dresses are perfect? I mean, I’m right that he’s only said he’s unhappy with you going to college. He hasn’t said you can’t make those dresses, has he? He’s still okay about that, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Couldn’t you tell him you need the sort of machines they’ll have at college to work with. I mean,’ Liam gestured around him, ‘Dad and I need all sorts of special tools to do what we do. People think chippies just need a hammer and a saw but to do a proper job you need all sorts. You’ve only got a sewing machine.’ He laughed and added, ‘Not that I know anything about dressmaking, but isn’t your machine a bit basic for the sort of dresses you girls like at your weddings? I need all sorts for the different jobs I do. Isn’t that the same for you?’

Vicky nodded. At school in the textiles department she had a whole range of machines from overlockers to ones that did computer-aided embroidery. The one she had in the trailer was really old-fashioned and just stitched in a straight line. It didn’t even zigzag. Anything fiddly she had to finish by hand, which took time.

And,’ he added, ‘if I told your dad that I don’t mind you going if it means making you happy, means you can make those dresses you’ve set your heart on … well, it can’t do any harm, can it?’

‘You’d talk to my dad? Really?’

‘I’ll talk to him, but that’s no guarantee he’ll change his mind.’

‘No, but …’ But it was a ray of hope.

Johnnie O’Rourke sat by the barbecue checking on the meat he was cooking. The girls were in the trailer getting the rest of the food ready. On the next plot their neighbour, Jimmy Connelly, Liam’s father, was doing the same and the men chatted across the space as they sipped their beers and turned the meat. Liam, fresh from the shower block, came across to join them, pulling on a clean shirt as he walked towards them.

‘Hello, Uncle Johnnie,’ he called.

The O’Rourkes and the Connellys weren’t related by blood, but it almost felt as if they were, having been neighbours since before Liam had been born.

‘Evening, Liam. Would you like a beer?’

‘You’re all right, I’m good, thanks. But I’d like a word.’

‘A word, eh? Would it be about the wedding? When are you going to get my daughter to set a date? Neither of you is getting any younger and Mary-Rose is desperate for grandchildren.’

‘My ma’s the same, to be sure. In fact it’s funny you should mention it as me and Vicky were talking about the subject only this afternoon. Which is why we need to talk.’

‘Praise be,’ said Johnnie with feeling. ‘So she’s scrapped that stupid notion of going to college, then.’

‘Well, not exactly.’

Johnnie stopped attending to the steaks on the barbecue and turned to look at his future son-in-law. ‘Not
exactly
? How does that work?’

‘You know she’s set her heart on making her bridesmaids’ dresses.’

‘Yes.’ Johnnie said slowly, narrowing his eyes.

‘And you agreed that she could do it.’

‘Yes.’ Johnnie was sounding increasingly wary.

‘Well, Vicky’s worried about it.’

‘Then I’ll pay for her to have them made.’

‘I know you would, and so does she, but she wants to do it herself. You know what women are like when they get a notion in their heads.’

Johnnie did, only too well. Mary-Rose was always getting ideas for things to do to the trailer – ‘improvements’ – as if it wasn’t perfect already. And she was never happy until he’d forked out for her latest whim. However, in Johnnie’s world, he found that most problems could be solved by throwing a bit of money at them. ‘So, either she can make these fecking dresses or she can’t. If she can’t, I’ll pay, if she can, what’s the problem?’

‘The problem is she
can
make them, but she’ll need specialist machines.’

‘Then I’ll buy the fecking machines.’ Johnnie was beginning to get irritated.

‘I don’t think it’s as simple as that. She’ll need to be taught how to use them.’

Johnnie gave Liam a long stare. ‘So what you’re trying to tell me is that she’s convinced you that she ought to go to college just so as she can make some dresses that by rights I should be paying a proper dressmaker to make.’

‘Well … yes, that’s the size of it. But it’d make her so happy to do it herself. And you did say she could.’ Liam leaned forwards and looked earnestly at Johnnie. ‘And isn’t her happiness what we both want for her? It’d only be until June, then we’d get married, promise. She’d be happy, the wedding won’t be delayed more than a few months …’ Liam shrugged. ‘So, Uncle Johnnie, what do you say?’

‘To be sure I want her happiness too but I worry about this college business. School is one thing but college?’ Johnnie sighed. ‘At school there were kids from here with her. Safety in numbers and all that, but she’ll be alone at college. I don’t like that idea at all.’

‘But Vicky always said that no one really realised that she’s a traveller, especially when she stayed on to take her GCSEs. She said she was very careful to keep a low profile.’

‘I don’t know.’ A big frown creased Johnnie’s forehead.

‘In fact, I reckon she’d be safer. Let’s face it,’ said Liam. ‘No kid from here has ever gone to college. It’s the last place they’d expect a traveller to show up.’ He could see Johnnie was wavering and decided to try to press home his advantage. ‘And you could take her in the car each morning and pick her up in the afternoon.’