The Name I Call Myself (35 page)

Sam had been instrumental in my decision to marry Perry. The reason I would take my fondness and determine to coax it into something I could call love. However, the loss of Sam had only strengthened my need to be Perry's wife.

I took the extra invitation, the one sealed in a plain brown envelope, and tore it up.

Somewhere, underneath all the grey, I knew getting married was a really stupid, selfish idea.

Grief had made me stupid.

With my bridesmaids on hand, I took the morning of my wedding one step at a time. Eat breakfast. Shower. Sit for two hours while Rowan tries to work her magic on my overgrown bob and Kim vainly attempts to conceal the toll the past few weeks have taken on my face. Conjure up a smile for the photographer. Do not think. About him, or
him
. Get dressed. Get in the car. Get out of the car. Smooth the skirts of what is quite possibly the most beautiful dress in the universe. Lift up my head, throw back my shoulders, breathe out the bad, suck in the good. Take one step forwards, and another, and another.

Halfway down the aisle it hit me.

I had planned to have Handel's “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” playing as I entered the church. Something innocuous and safe. But the notes had changed, evolved into something entirely different. And as I reached the back rows, the unmistakeable sound of thirteen women singing in perfect harmony broke out from the side of the room. Glancing across I saw them, lined up in blue summer dresses along the wall. Rosa gave me a grin and a thumbs up. Melody winked. April broke all the performance rules by wiping her hands across her face.

Flicking my eyes forwards I saw Catherine and Natasha beaming at me from the front of the chapel. I felt the strength and the solidarity of Marilyn's arm as it gripped mine, refusing to let me
take this walk alone. Pete called out “Mummy ah Fai!” and clapped his pudgy hands together.

As the love bombarded me, I had to stop. My fingers sought for something more to steady me, clutching on to the back of the chair to my right. The person sat behind there placed a warm, rough hand beneath my elbow to support me.

These were my family. My sisters. My friends. I was not alone. Since I had stepped into the Grace Choir rehearsal eleven months earlier. Before then, even – since that first afternoon eating cake and giggling in the Cottage of Chaos – I had never been alone.

What on earth was I doing marrying a man I wasn't in love with to try to fix a problem that didn't exist?

How could I do that to him?

What had I been thinking?

“Are you okay?” A deep voice, with a gentle Northern accent, jolted me out of my whirling thoughts.

I turned to see Dylan gazing up at me. “Faith?”

“Your hair's grown back.”

The corners of his mouth curled up, ever so slightly. It didn't hide the sadness in his eyes. We looked at each other for a long time.

“Perry's waiting for you…” Dylan left the sentence hanging, dropping his hand. I broke his gaze, sure something else lay behind the sadness.

I nodded, and continued what must have been the longest walk of my life.

Men are supposed to smile as their wife-to-be walks down the aisle, I think. Or maybe cry. Perry watched me as I stepped up to join him and let out a long sigh. Frowning, he took hold of my hand.

“Perry, I'm so sorry, but we need to talk –”

“I know,” he cut me off, nodding curtly. “Give me one minute.”

And then he stomped down the aisle, yanked Dylan to his feet by the scruff of his shirt, and smashed his fist into his face.

“Hooten tooten!” Marilyn whistled, as the room went deathly still. “I guess this means the wedding's off.”

Three months later, I decided one of the absolute best sounds in the entire world is the rustle of an audience from behind a stage curtain. Throw in the murmur of anticipation and the squeaks and hoots of the orchestra tuning up and you cannot beat it.

The Grace Community Choir waited on the left half of the stage, in tiered seating allowing us to perch above our competitors sat on the front three rows below. Two more choirs took up the middle section, and the final two filled up the right hand side. Melody, sitting next to me, slipped her cool hand into mine.

“Peace, woman,” she whispered out of the side of her mouth. “You're setting my nerves all a-twitter.”

“I'm sorry. I'm so anxious. Look!” I pointed my chin at my chest. “You can see my heart thumping through my dress! How much longer?”

She elbowed Rosa on her other side. “Rosa! How much longer?”

Rosa shrugged, before twisting round to April behind her in the soprano seats. “April! What's the time?”

But before April could answer, a hush fell over the one thousand strong crowd as the curtain began to open in the Derry Millennium Forum.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” the evening's host announced. “Welcome to the Community Choir Sing-Off national finals!”

We were fifth to perform. A good slot, according to Hester, as it left you fresh in the judges' minds. An excruciating slot, according
to the rest of the choir members, as it meant sitting and listening to four of the best community choirs in the kingdom smash it, rock it out, and bring the house down.

We had a twenty-minute interval before going on. This resulted in a sudden panic when, as we lined up in preparation to take our place centre stage, we realized Janice was missing.

“She's in the loo again,” Millie declared. “I told her not to eat that packet of fig rolls. ‘It can only mean bad news,' I said. But, oh no, what do I know? ‘Sound as a pound, Mille,' she said. ‘Solid as a rock,' she said, ‘intestines of steel', apparently. Well, I said –”

“Enough!” Hester glowered down the line. “Can somebody please go and see what's happening? Rowan. You're at the back. Go.”

Rowan curled her lip up. “Urgh. No chance.”

A toot of steam escaped from Hester's ears.

“Fine!” Rowan sprinted off, as easily as she could in a slinky red dress and six-inch heels, calling back, “I'm an Internet sensation, you know. Internet sensations aren't supposed to sort out old ladies stuck on toilets with fig roll issues.”

Rosa shook her head. “Oh my goodness. Since she went virus that girl getting too big a head. By the time that tour finished she'll be going Robbie Williams.”

“Eh?” April wrinkled her nose.

“Like Zayn from One Direction.” I helped her out with a twenty-first-century example of a band member leaving to pursue a solo career.

Kim shuffled in front of me. “Actually, if we're waiting for Janice, I think I might pop to the loo…”

Hester zoned in her laser beam glare.

“I can't help it, Hest! I'm dead nervous!”

“No one else is leaving this line.”

We muttered and wriggled for a few seconds as we waited, adjusting dress straps and tucking stray curls of hair back into place. A ripple of applause welcomed the host back on stage to announce our appearance, and we froze, all eyes on Hester.

“She's not gonna make it,” Rowan huffed as she clacked back into the wings. “Said it's like Mount Vesu–”

“Stop!” Mags begged. “I'm feeling sick enough as it is.”

“Well. Anyway, she isn't leaving that bathroom anytime soon.”

A larger round of applause, and one of the stage crew beckoned Hester forwards.

“What are we going to do?” Leona gaped. “We might get away without her voice, but we've got to have an even number or the moves won't work.”

“Someone else could drop out,” April said, wincing as the rest of the choir launched optical daggers at her.

Hester closed her eyes momentarily, sucked in a deep breath, and held up one finger to indicate she needed a minute.

Whipping out her phone, she jabbed at the screen. “How fast can you get here?” she barked down the line. “Make it two and you're on.”

Baffled, we exchanged glances while Hester marched over to the crew member and muttered briefly at him. He stepped forwards and signalled to the host that there had been a slight delay.

The door behind us slammed open, and Marilyn burst through. “Ta daa!” she yelled in a sort-of backstage whisper. “Look, girls, I knew wearing red was a portent!” Spinning around to show us her dress, her smile nearly split her face in two.

“I can't believe it!” She dashed up and down the line. “Where do I go? Here? Hester, you are awesome. I knew you'd let me sing in the end. I prayed for it and everything. Hooten tooten! This is one of the best days of my life!”

Hester coughed, a look of panic flitting across her face. We needed Marilyn's moves, not her toneless voice. Polly reached out and pulled her into the line. “Yes, well,” she said, pointedly. “You've been one of our best members, Marilyn. Truly embraced the spirit of the choir.
Grace
– that's what it's all about, isn't it, Hester?”

Hester blinked a couple of times. “Yes,” she said, her voice squeaking on the word. “Grace. Right. Let's go.” As Marilyn skipped
past she leaned forwards and said, “You can sing, as long as you keep it quiet.”

Marilyn smacked Hester on the backside without pausing. “Don't worry, Hest. I'll make you proud.”

Hester shook her head as she took her place at the back of the line. “You always do.”

We ended up coming in third, according to the judges. First, according to the unofficial vote of the Grace Choir and its equally unofficial fan club. First, if you rate our position on how much fun we had, how far we had come, how much passion we threw into it, and how many bows we took before the host herded us offstage.

The fun continued in the hotel lounge afterwards. My, those Grace women knew how to party. Throw in the actual winners, a group of ex-factory workers from Glasgow, staying in the same hotel, and the fact that the Irish need no excuse to party, and it looked as though we would be singing and dancing well into the night.

After all those years of organizing other people's special occasions, watching them go wild on the dance floor from behind the bar, I lingered on the fringes, not quite sure how to join in without Perry to hold on to.

“Come on, Faith!” Rosa wove through the other people currently jiving to some sixties classic and stopped in front of me, hands on hips as her chest heaved from exertion. “Come and dance!”

I scuffed my fancy shoe against the edge of the carpet. “Maybe later on.”

“What? You don't like dancing?” She shimmied in place for a couple of beats.

I shrugged. “I'm not used to this type of music. The kind of parties I've been to were a bit more… sedate.”

“Phooey. Even babies know how to dance. Come on, strut that funky stuff!”

She grabbed my hands and yanked me into the middle of the dance floor, where I stood swaying self-consciously to the music.

“Nah-ah!” Rosa shook her head. “Not like that. Copy me.” She did a few shimmies, and I tried to follow along, stumbling into one of the factory workers behind me.

“Okay. No. That's not working. Try this.” She stopped bopping and stepped right in front of me. “Close your eyes. Do it! Close them!”

I closed my eyes.

“Now, listen. Feel the beat. Start to move your body. Don't worry what it looks like. Pretend you are in your living room at home alone.”

I tried, sort of. I didn't dance in my living room at home. And I had rarely had any time there alone since Polly and Esme had moved in, giving Marilyn and James space while I waited for Sam's flat to sell so I could afford to move somewhere else.

I suffered until the song finished and made my excuses, finding a comfy sofa in the corner to sink into while recovering my dignity. A minute or two later Marilyn came and plopped herself down on the seat next to me. Wiping the sweat from her brow with a napkin, she took a large gulp of the glass of water in her hand.

“I thought I might find you sat on your own in the corner.”

“I'm soaking up the ambiance. Savouring the moment.”

“It was awesome, wasn't it?”

I smiled. “It was. Are the twins in bed?”

“Yeah. James took them up. He's making the most of some time with them before starting his new job.”

“Is he looking forward to it?”

“
I'm
looking forward to it. It's been great having him around these past few months, but I'll be happy to have him out of the house during the day so we can get back to some sort of routine. The place is a tip since he got back. Having said that,” she nudged me, “I still haven't got used to waking up every morning and finding the love of my life there next to me. Let alone him coming home to me every night. A good man is hard to find. We need to keep 'em close once we do.”

I gave her a sidelong glance, but she ignored me, taking another drink. We sat there watching the dancers for a while. I thought about good men. One good man.

“Are you missing him tonight?”

I somehow managed to choke on my own breath.

Marilyn kept her eyes on the dancers in front of us.

I shrugged, ready to brush her off with a bland reply. Then she lay her head gently on my shoulder and my heart cracked open.

“Yes. I'm missing him. I keep expecting to see him being chatted up by Millie, or laughing on the dance floor.”

“It'll take a long time to get used to him not being around.”

I sighed. “I feel like I should be over it by now.”

Marilyn sat back up again, and turned towards me. “What? That's ridiculous. You'll learn to live with it, but you'll never be over it. You'll always miss him. Why are you always so hard on yourself?”

I frowned. “How long should it take to get over a minor broken heart? It wasn't like we'd known each other that long. Compared to losing Sam…”

She screwed up her face in apology. “Oh, I'm sorry. I was talking about Sam. I thought you were missing Sam, and that's why you were looking so sad. Sorry. I should have realized you meant Perry.”

My eyes widened in surprise. Marilyn peered at me.

“Wait. You didn't mean Perry. You weren't sat here thinking about Perry. So who were…? Dylan!” She gasped. “You were sat here in the corner like a loser, dreaming about Dylan! Pining for him! Perry was right – you're in love with Dylan!”

“Shhh!” I hissed. “Keep your voice down. Dylan was a good friend, and part of the choir. It's only natural I'd be thinking about him for
a couple of seconds
tonight.”

A sly grin broke out across her face. “Have you spoken to him since the wedding?”

I shook my head. “You know I haven't. He's been on sabbatical. And I hardly think he wants to see me, given how I treated him
after Sam went missing. And then the next time I saw him he got punched in the face.”

“Of course he wants to see you. He luuurves you. I think what he did after Sam went missing, despite the awful stuff you said to him, proves that.”

“He went on holiday. What does that prove apart from that he wanted to get away from me?”

Marilyn gaped at me. “You don't know.”

“Don't know what?”

“I can't believe nobody told you.”

“Nobody told me what?” I pushed her gently, but hard enough to convey my irritation.

“He didn't go on holiday.”

“What?”

“Faith.” Marilyn took hold of my hand, deadly serious now. “He went to find Sam.”

Those words were like a bomb going off in my head. In the smoking aftermath, I couldn't speak. Couldn't think. My head filled with white noise. Marilyn appeared to be watching me, her forehead creased, from the other end of a tunnel.

“He spent all those days looking, trawling through the worst sorts of places. Using all his contacts in the homeless shelters and the rehab centres to try to find someone who knew anything.”

She gave me time to let this sink in.

“I can't believe this. I can't believe I didn't know. Why didn't he tell me? Why didn't he take me with him?”

“He told Perry. He actually asked him for help. Perry told him you didn't want to know where Sam was. You couldn't cope with it.”

I might feel angry about that later. Right then I was too overwhelmed about Dylan.

As the shock sank in, my throat closed up, my eyes burning. “Did he…?”

Marilyn nodded. “He found him in a squat in Nottingham. Near the Ice Arena.”

On that sofa in Northern Ireland, as my friends danced the Macarena around me, I felt as though I lost my brother all over again. The pain crushing me almost double, I fumbled for my bag on the floor.

Marilyn reached down and picked it up. “What do you need?”

“My phone. I need to speak to him. I need him to tell me everything. And I have to apologize. And thank him. How can I thank him? He really went to find Sam?” My tears were streaming onto my lap now, as sobs prevented me from saying anything more. Instead of handing me my phone, Marilyn put my bag to one side and simply hugged me, holding on tight until I began to steady my breathing again, and managed to stop making ugly hitching noises.

Patting me on the back a few times, she drew away. “Okay?”

I closed my eyes, took another deep breath. “Nearly.”

“Right, now don't freak out when I tell you what I'm about to say.”

I released a shaky laugh. “Well, that's making me freak out already.”

“Nobody said anything because they don't know how you feel about it, and we know you've had a really awful time, but –”

Her phone rang. She paused to read the screen. “James. I'd better answer. Don't go anywhere!”