Someone Like You (45 page)

Andrea, Charlie and Wilson were incredibly friendly, and all did their best to make Leonie, Danny, Mel and Abby feel at home. Clever, warm people, they were good company and made Leonie relax. The guests were plied With food and drink and everyone made a big effort to include them in the conversation. Only Lydia, Fliss’s mother, was aloof. It was most disconcerting, but every time Leonie looked up, she found Lydia watching her.

Probably wondering how her future son-in-law ever married me, Leonie thought grimly. She couldn’t warm to the ex-Mrs Berkeley, even when Lydia insisted that Leonie sit beside her at the dinner table so they could talk.

Leonie suspected the only thing Lydia wanted to talk about was how much alimony Ray was paying her, so she could ascertain whether her beloved Fliss was getting her fair share. Not that Fliss appeared to need any money.

Between her wealthy parents and her job, she obviously didn’t go short.

During the first course, Lydia questioned with the subtlety of a NASA probe. But with the entertaining Charlie on her right, Leonie managed to enjoy the meal.

Charlie kept the conversation going with stories about his ranch and life in the Panhandle. .

‘You should visit us there.’ he told her. ‘You’d love it, particularly as you’re not partial to skiing. Texas is hot, believe me.’

Once he discovered that she worked as a veterinary nurse, they were friends for life. Charlie had dabbled in every type of farming, from dairy to horses. Now, he had what he described as a small herd of cows and a few horses.

Andrea laughed and told Leonie that her husband’s notion of a ‘small herd’ meant six thousand head of cattle.

‘Ours is mainly a small-animal practice,’ Leonie explained when Charlie began getting into the intricacies of modern breeding techniques and embryo transplantation.

‘I haven’t seen a cow for a long time. We handle a lot of dogs, cats and hamsters, with the odd lizard thrown in for good measure. Oh yes, one client breeds African Greys. They’re parrots,’ she added, ‘so we care for them too. They’re lovely, so affectionate. There’s nothing quite as sweet as a parrot nuzzling up to you and gently grooming your hair.’

Even the uptight Lydia relaxed after a few glasses of wine and unbent enough to chatter idly with Leonie about the wedding.

Leonie kindly listened to fifteen minutes of minutiae about placements, the difficulty of getting caterers who could do a really exquisite lobster thermidor, and how Fliss had always said she wanted a Calvin Klein wedding gown.

Leonie felt that if she said, ‘Oh really?’ one more time, she’d choke on the words. To vary her responses, she tried asking about the actual gown. ‘Is it Calvin Klein? What’s it like?’

Lydia looked as shocked as if Leonie had suggested a gang-bang with the staff on the snow-covered terrace. ‘I can’t talk about it with Ray here,’ she whispered. ‘It’s unlucky. I’ll show it to you now, shall I?’

Leaving Leonie no time to say that, actually, she could live quite happily without seeing her ex-husband’s fiancee’s wedding dress in advance, Lydia had loudly announced that coffee would be served in the library.

There was a library too? Leonie sighed. Arid this was only the holiday home. God alone knew what sort of mausoleum Fliss’s actual childhood home had been. Palace sized, no doubt. No wonder she was so slim - all that running between rooms would keep you fit.

‘Fliss,’ whispered Lydia, ‘I’m going to show Leonie your dress.’

‘What a wonderful idea,’ cried Fliss.

The female members of the party set off en masse to see the dress, leaving the men alone with the coffee. Mel and Abby, who’d both been allowed a glass .of wine with dinner, were giggly and linked hands conspiratorially with Fliss as they all marched through a long corridor to the bedroom where the gown was displayed on a dressmaker’s dummy. Everyone was suitably silent with approval at the sight of the dress.

It was very Calvin: an oyster silk, bias-cut sheath with a gently draped neckline. Leonie could just imagine Fliss wearing it, looking gloriously sophisticated and giving the young supermodels a run for their money.

‘Oooh,’ sighed Mel in designer delight. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘Gorgeous,’ said Abby.

‘Do you like it, girls?’ asked Fliss anxiously, as if their opinion was the most important of all.

‘Of course,’ they chorused and hugged her.

Leonie felt a lump in her throat at the touching tableau.

Fliss was wiping her eyes with the emotion of it all, while the twins kissed her and told her she’d look stunning in the dress.

Andrea gave Leonie a comforting smile. ‘I’m sure it’s hard to see your ex getting married again,’ she whispered, giving Leonie’s arm a squeeze.

‘Not at all,’ protested Leonie honestly. What was killing her was seeing Mel and Abby so utterly in love with their soon-to-be stepmother. That was what hurt, not the idea of Ray and Fliss walking down the aisle looking like an advert for forty-something love.

‘Beautiful,’ Lydia said proudly, looking at both the dress and her beloved daughter.

‘Beautiful,’ echoed Leonie, smiling so hard she thought her foundation would crack.

Everyone was being so kind to her, so warm and welcoming, yet she felt like the spectre at the feast. How could the children not want to be part of this gilded, privileged family when the alternative was their boring old life back in Wicklow?

‘Would you look at that. Isn’t it beautiful?’ said the girl sitting next to Leonie on the little gilt chair in the Berkeley sitting room which had been transformed into a chapel of lurve in honour of Fliss and Ray’s nuptials. Pale orchids drooped in the almost tropical heat of the room and subtle saffron-coloured ribbons were trailed around them, creating a display that was both elegant and beautiful.

‘Yes, it’s beautiful,’ said Leonie dutifully. Her bum hurt from half an hour on the chair, which was not built for anyone with the vaguest hint of arthritis. Since she and the children had arrived half an hour previously, people had been murmuring, ‘Isn’t it beautiful!’ to her constantly. It was all bloody beautiful, from the morning-suited men right down to the posies of orchids clinging to every conceivable spot. The string quartet were beautiful; the pre ceremony glass of pink champagne had been beautiful; and Fliss’s sister, Mona, a raver in approximately one metre of cream leather who clearly wasn’t having any truck with being a-bridesmaid in yards of frills, was also beautiful if a little underdressed. Leonie was fed up to the back teeth with the whole beautiful thing.

‘Mum,’ breathed Mel, sliding into her place beside Leonie, ‘she’s coming and she looks …’

‘Don’t tell me,’ said Leonie between gritted teeth: ‘… beautiful.’

Mel was overawed. Her mother could recognize the signs. For the past three days, Mel hadn’t stopped talking about the Berkeleys’ house, all the lovely things they had and how nice it must be to live here. Ray had taken them skiing,’ on a sleigh ride, to dinner in a quirky steak restaurant and ice skating. Leonie wondered if Mel would ever again adapt to life in a small cottage in Greystones.

At home, the house needed painting, the tiles in the bathroom were slowly disconnecting from the wall, the library consisted of the bookcases in the sitting room, and the only time they ever used linen napkins at dinner was when Claire came round and gave them out because she hated using kitchen roll.

‘Don’t forget, Mel, this is lovely but it is a different world to ours,’ Leonie couldn’t help saying. ‘It’s Fliss’s parents who have all this money. Neither Dad nor I do, so our life isn’t like this.’

‘I’m not stupid, Mum.’ Mel looked scathing. ‘It’s nice to enjoy it. Can’t you let me do that without trying to ruin everything!’

Which was why Leonie’s eyes were filled with tears when Fliss walked slowly and gracefully down the aisle to meet Ray. Through the tears, Leonie saw that Fliss did indeed look stunning in her Calvin Klein dress: a tall, slim vision in cream with a small bouquet of creamy orchids in her hands.

Andrea, who was on the other side of the aisle, shot Leonie a sweet, poor-you look. Leonie wanted to scream out loud that she didn’t give a flying fuck who Ray married but she’d had it up to her tonsils with the Berkeley family’s obvious wealth, which was being shoved down their throats.

After the ceremony, Mel shot off, leaving her mother, Abby and Danny in their seats, wondering what to do next.

They weren’t left wondering long. The two hundred guests were ushered into the dining room. Double doors which opened into a huge conservatory had been taken off, making one huge ballroom-sized room. The conservatory faced an expanse of snow-covered mountain, so the vista from the room was magnificent. So too was the huge table laden with an extravagant buffet, and at its centre an ice sculpture of two swans beside a huge bowl of oysters.

There was lobster, salmon, what looked like a side of beef, and more Parma ham than you’d find in Italy, not to mention every sort of salad on earth and the more unusual varieties of lettuce. Tuxedoed waiters flew about noiselessly, bearing champagne, mineral water and gold-edged plates for the buffet. It wasn’t long before the party began in earnest, with lots of laughing, joke-telling and even a moment of madness when a sprightly octogenarian dragged Mona up to dance while the entire wedding party clapped on the sidelines.

Lydia couldn’t resist sidling up to Leonie and boasting about everything. ‘The ice sculpture had to be flown in from LA,’ she said smugly. ‘It’s keeping the oysters cold.’

With great effort, Leonie resisted the temptation to say they didn’t need an ice sculpture to do that: stick the oysters beside Lydia herself and they’d remain suitably frosty.

Instead, she nodded gravely and said she was always nervous ?of serving shellfish at parties because of the salmonella risk.

It was worth it to see Lydia’s eyes widen with horror as she rushed off to the kitchen, no doubt to harangue the poor caterers to make sure nobody died in a hail of food poisoning.

‘Great, isn’t it, Mum?’ said Danny, arriving with a plate already piled high with food. He had a glass of beer too.

‘Dad got it for me,’ he said, taking a slug of beer. ‘He knows I’m not into wine. You all right, Mum?’ he asked.

‘You’re a bit quiet. Mel driving you mad, huh?’

Leonie felt herself tear up again. This was ridiculous. She was developing incontinent eyes. It was just that having Danny being unusually intuitive was so sweet. It was normally Abby who understood exactly how her mother was feeling. These last few days, however, Abby had been super glued to Fliss’s side, chatting and smiling up at her, apparently happier with her new stepmother than with her real mother.

‘I’m fine,’ Leonie said briskly. ‘I keep having visions of the place at home and comparing it to this place. I’ll never be able to eat off our fifty-pence-in-the-sale plates ever again after eating off these gold ones.’

Danny snorted. ‘This is all show, Mum,’ he said dismissively.

‘It’s Fliss’s mother’s idea. She’s a real showoff and she’s full of crap. Everyone else is nice,’ he added, ‘but she’s the one who wants this big party. Dad told me that he and Fliss wanted a small wedding but she begged to have this funfair.’

Leonie felt a momentary twinge of pity for Lydia. Having an ostentatious wedding for her daughter was obviously her way of dealing with a life of boredom.

By nightfall, Leonie was bored herself. She’d talked to endless kind couples and had eaten far too much, but even the wonderful food and vintage champagne couldn’t make up for the ache she got in her heart when she saw Mel and Abby fussing around their new stepmother so delightedly.

Or compensate for how out of it she felt as the only unaccompanied woman there.

Every time Leonie looked in their direction, Fliss was laughing and giggling with the twins. The newlyweds circulated graciously as a couple with their ready-made family tagging along behind them. And it was Abby, once her mother’s stalwart, who appeared happiest with Fliss. Her face was animated as she laughed at Fliss, who patted her arm and fixed Abby’s hair with the affectionate gestures of one who had done this often. Mel hung on her father’s arm, seemingly delighted to be part of this laughing, gorgeous group. She was so pretty: her cheeks were flushed a pale rosy pink and her dark hair swung silkily around her heart-shaped face. Fliss had lent the twins some expensive make-up and they’d had a ball that morning doing themselves up in the bathroom. Watching them all together, Leonie couldn’t help but feel a pang of fear deep inside.

Fliss obviously loved the twins and would be a fabulous mother to her own kids. But what if she became so close to Mel and Abby that she took them over as hers? What if the twins decided they preferred this wonderful American lifestyle to their own simple life with her in Ireland? What would Leonie do then?

Kirsten and Patrick’s New Year’s Day party was going brilliantly. Even bad-tempered Great-Aunt Petra, had she been asked, would have had to admit that they knew how to throw one hell of a do. But because Kirsten hated Petra, no invitation had been issued to her.

‘I’m not having that old cow at our party,’ she’d told Emma forcefully. ‘Let her sit at home and mix up eye of newt and wing of bat in her cauldron, the old witch.’

Emma wished she was as forceful when it came to keeping Petra off her invitation list.

At least a hundred and fifty people were crammed into their large modern Castleknock home, stuffing their faces with the oriental food Kirsten had insisted on. The wine was flowing and if some of Patrick’s fellow brokers were growing a bit rowdy in one corner, it all added to the general air of merriment which was helped along by a CD playing kitschy Christmas tunes at full belt.

Kirsten sailed around the house in a gold Karen Millen crochet dress, flitting from conservatory to dining room to kitchen, chatting with guests and draining vodka after vodka. She’d left Emma in a corner of the dining room with AnneMarie and Jimmy, both of whom were looking unimpressed at the plateful of dim sum they’d been given. Pete had gone off to get a refill of wine for himself and Jimmy. In his absence, there was silence in their little group, a direct contrast to the loud, excited chatter going on all around them as Kirsten and Patrick’s pals exchanged Christmas horror stories and groaned about the thought of going back to work after such a long holiday.