The Vintage Summer Wedding (12 page)

‘Looking for Seb. ’

‘Why, have you had a row?’

‘Oh god! No.’

He took his glasses off and folded them into his top pocket. ‘I like Seb. ’

‘So do I.’

‘He’s gentle, kind. I like him. Don’t mess it up.’

‘Why would I?’

‘I know you.’

‘Clearly you don’t,’ she snapped.

Her dad leant back, folded his arms across his chest and laughed, ‘Always the same. Always quick with an answer. You are allowed to relax, Anna.’

‘How am I meant to relax when the first thing you say to me is not to fuck up my relationship.’

‘Don’t swear, you sound like your mother. And calm down. Relax.’

‘I am relaxed.’

‘You’re not, you look ready to bolt. Sit back. Go on, sit back, lean against the wall. Slump. That’s more like it!’ He snorted a laugh as she curled herself back awkwardly and tried to suppress her own smirk. ‘Now, what do you want to drink?’

‘Urgh, nothing from here.’ She glanced over at the bar. ‘It all tastes like cat’s pee.’

Her dad ignored her and called over to the blonde behind the bar. ‘Babs…’

‘What can I do for you, my lovely?’ Barbara leant over the edge of the bar, wafting a cloud of Rive Gauche their way.

‘A Guinness and she’ll have a dry white wine,’ he said, gesturing to Anna. ‘And, Babs, the good stuff, not the old crap you’ve got behind the bar.’

Barbara raised a brow, clearly dubious about wasting the good stuff on Anna, but her dad winked and handed Barbara three crisp fivers saying, ‘And have one for yourself while you’re there.’ Which seemed to soften her.

When it arrived, the wine was sharp and crisp, a New Zealand Sauvignon that tasted like liquid gold. ‘Very nice.’ Anna said after one sip.

Her dad looked up over the rim of his Guinness and grinned. ‘You see, honey, you’ve just got to know how to ask.’

‘Or to be an old alcoholic regular,’ she said, a brow raised.

‘Never have been good with people, have you? Never seen the subtleties.’

Anna made a face and went back to her wine.

‘But it’s there.’ Her dad carried on. ‘I’ve always known it is.’

‘What?’ she asked.

He leant forward as if whispering a secret. ‘Your soft side. The bit you got from me.’

‘Oh shut up.’ Anna rolled her eyes and crossed her legs to the side so she could survey the pub rather than have direct eye contact with her dad.

‘You mark my words, it’s there.’ He did a little laugh and then his phone beeped a text that distracted him for a moment. While reading it, he said at the same time, ‘Go easy on those kids. That little group. I saw them perform last year in the square. They made your granny laugh, god rest her soul.’

‘I’m not doing it any more, so it doesn’t matter.’

Her dad wasn’t listening. ‘She always liked watching you dance when you were a kid. Wasn’t such a fan of all that pressure, mind you. She’d pull me aside and say,
Patrick you be careful, Mona is going to ruin that kid
.’

Anna swallowed and tried not to listen. There weren’t many people that she remembered adoring, but her granny was up there at the top of the sparse list. They’d make Eccles Cakes together when her mum needed a break or her parents were rowing and she’d be marched up the road and deposited at the yellow front door of her granny’s house with its curling paint and knocker shaped like a lion’s head. Anna would stand on a stool and squash the fruit into the rounds of pastry with her little hands while her granny would pinch them shut and she’d watch as she scored the tops. They’d eat them piping hot and burn their chins when the fruit rolled out, while her granny watched
Neighbours
and Anna would curl up next to her and just smell the warmth and the safety. And when Anna said things like,
‘I’m going to be a prima ballerina when I grow up. Just like Mum.’
her granny would pause and say, ‘
You know I always like watching the corps de ballet. Like seeing them move in unison.
’

‘Do we have to talk about this now?’ Anna put her wine down on a frayed coaster. ‘I haven’t seen you for six months and you’re straight in with this.’

‘And I’d say, no, it’s OK, she’s OK. She loves it.’ Her dad went on. ‘And she’d say, she loves the
idea
of it. Very perceptive, your grandma. You should have seen her more before she died.’

Anna found she suddenly couldn’t get air in further than her breastbone so had to look to the ceiling to try and take a breath. She felt her dad watching her, felt like her emotions were under scrutiny, so she glanced back his way and said, ‘Mum says she’ll pay for the wedding only if you don’t come.’

She fired the words at him like arrows. Ping, ping, ping, bullseye. You have won this round, Anna, congratulations. Your prize is the fleeting look of devastation in your father’s eye.

‘Well, well,’ he said after a second to compose himself and another sip of his drink. He coughed. ‘She never fails to surprise me. She’s a wily old cow, my god.’ He ran a hand over his mouth, rasping over a couple of days’-worth of white stubble. Then he held both hands up as if in surrender. ‘And I certainly don’t have the cash to match that offer. What are you going to do?’

Anna hadn’t expected to feel quite so dreadful. She suddenly wished the words were on a fishing line and she could just reel them back in. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t decided.’

He nodded. ‘You should do what you can to get the best. She can give you the best.’ He smiled softly and took another sip. ‘And you always have liked the best.’

Anna twirled the stem of her glass around in her fingers. ‘It’s not getting the best, Dad, it’s getting something. There’s no other way.’ An image of Nettleton village hall did a little dance in front of her eyes.

Her dad paused, then leant forward and said, ‘There’s always another way, sweetheart.’

Anna glanced away, her cheeks flushing pink and, just as she did, she saw Hermione Somers-Brown strut into the pub.

‘Hermione?’ she said, shocked.

Now Hermione
was
someone for whom the whole pub paused. Paused to drink in the skin-tight snakeskin trousers, the fluorescent-yellow silk vest, the loops of Chanel pearls and the beautiful, caramel blonde hair piled into a candyfloss blob on top of her head.

A model-like pout on her lips, Hermione sashayed through the onlookers, one red wedge mule in front of the other.

‘What are you doing here?’ Anna asked, a feeling not unlike relief that her friend had realised how in need she was and travelled from London to the sticks to see her.

‘She, darling, is here for me,’ she heard her dad whisper across the table.

‘You’re what?’ Anna looked between them, at the slightly guilty quirk of Hermione’s lips and the absolute smug delight on her father’s face. ‘Urgh, no way?’ Anna sneered.

‘Yes way, my sweet.’ Her dad laughed and then, giving Hermione a quick peck on the cheek, disappeared to the loo while Anna just stared at her friend, horrified.

‘Er, hello! What the hell are you doing?’

Hermione flicked a strand of hair out of her face and shrugged, ‘He was on Tinder.’

‘So? So what? Are you dating?’

Hermione thought about the question for a second and then drawled, ‘I wouldn’t call it dating as such.’ Then she smirked the corner of one slicked-red lip. ‘How’s Luke?’

‘He’s shit. Don’t change the subject.’ Anna glanced over her shoulder to see her dad coming out of the bathroom. ‘What is it, then?’ she hissed.

‘It’s just—’ Hermione paused, smoothed down her acid-yellow top, ‘sex.’

‘Oh Jesus Christ. You booty-call my dad?’

‘If you want to put it like that?’ Hermione snorted a laugh. ‘Yeah, I suppose that’s pretty much hit the nail on the head.’

‘Ready, my darling?’ Anna’s dad appeared next to them, his hair slicked back with water from the tap, his black shirt unbuttoned to his chest like some movie mogul, white chest hair poking out, cream chinos that Anna hadn’t noticed before and were unusually smart for her father, but still wearing his black flip-flops.

‘Always. I’ll call you tomorrow, Anna,’ she said, blowing her a kiss.

‘Don’t bother, I’ve lost my phone.’ Anna slouched back in her seat sulkily.

‘Well, let’s lunch maybe later in the week. Ta-ta.’ Hermione was already sashaying back out of the pub, as if the air was so distasteful she could only stand a short burst.

‘Bye, honey.’ Her dad gave her a quick peck on the cheek and said, ‘Don’t forget what I said about Seb. Whatever’s happened, don’t be too proud to apologise.’

Chapter Ten

Seb never came home that night. Anna lay on top of the sheet, staring across at the whirring fan, listening to the old bed creaking as she turned over, restless, and then the silence of the night change to the sound of birds waking in the fields as the pitch black softened with the faded light of early morning.

She wondered, if she did accept her mum’s money, who would give her away. She cringed at the idea of Seb’s dad Roger, or her mum’s thirty-year-old gigolo, Eduardo. But why pick another father when she had one of her own to strut proudly down the aisle with her?

Would he be proud? She’d always thought it was her place not to be proud of him, to look down at his bad behaviour and choices, but what had she ever done to make him proud?

Anna rolled over, pulled the sheet up over her ears.

What had she ever done to make him proud? He’d come to her shows dressed in an old Barbour, tatty trousers, holey woolly jumper and cravat and she’d pretended that she didn’t know him. He had come whether she was The Swan Queen or not, and at the time she had thought that that made him weak ‒ the fact that he would come and see her just for her.

She had no problem introducing her mother to the school director, dressed in her fur coat and clutching her Chanel, but she’d gloss over the subject when it came to her shabby old dad. And her granny…

She buried her head in the pillow.

Oh god, she remembered watching him wheel her out after Anna’d lied and said that the champagne reception was for sponsors only. She’d made them all sit in a tiny Jewish cafe round the corner and eat salt beef sandwiches and drink lemon tea while her granny said what a shame it was that they weren’t allowed the bubbles. She wished now that she’d visited the old people’s home where she’d spent her last couple of years and showered her with magnums of champagne. But, actually, she couldn’t remember if she’d been more than once to see her. She’d told herself that the sight of all the old people in the grey room eating apple puree with a ninety-inch TV blaring in the background was all too much but, really, Anna had spent all that time wrapped up in herself.

As she listened to the birds outside and the odd car driving past, the heat lying heavy on her body like a blanket, she remembered her father looking round the ornate decoration of The Waldegrave, raising a brow at the Moroccan-tiled spa pool, the trays of espresso martinis lined up on the edge of the sunken bar, and the doormen in red jackets and top hats. How he had made some comment about it all being too grand for him, how he would have to wait outside and chat with the staff, and she had ushered him out before the wedding planner could have heard.

Anna stared up at the crack in the ceiling and prayed for sleep, she felt like Scrooge at the mercy of the ghosts, when would the nightmare memories end?

Crossing the square to the shop the next morning, the air was like soup. Thick and gloopy and moving through it was like groping through hot fog. Anna was exhausted, there were big dark smudges under her eyes that were too much even for Touche Éclat, and she felt like she lacked the energy to push her way through the insidious heat that crept into her lungs and forced short, choppy breaths like being in a sauna.

She almost didn’t see Jackie jogging past her, headphones in her ears, nose in the air, seemingly deliberately determined to ignore Anna.

But Anna was still suffering from the haunting nightmares of the previous night and the idea of Razzmatazz making her granny laugh. ‘Wait!’ she called.

Jackie either didn’t hear, or pretended to ignore her.

‘Wait, Jackie.’ Anna called again, taking a couple of quick steps forward, her hand outstretched, and this time Jackie did slow and turn, jogging on the spot while pulling one earphone out.

‘What?’ Jackie snapped. ‘I’ve already heard that you’ve dumped them. I can’t talk to you about it,’ she said, then paused and took a step closer to Anna. ‘Do you realise how much they’ve done on their own? They put that group together. They practice because they want to. They meet because they want to. There are no groups here because there’s no one to bloody teach them and no one to drive them all to bloody London so they can go to fancy ballet schools—’

‘I was just going to say that I’ll do it,’ Anna said, cutting her off. ‘I’ll do another rehearsal.’

‘Too late. We don’t want you.’ Jackie shrugged. ‘You’ve missed your chance.’

‘Oh. Right. OK.’ Anna pulled her bag up on her shoulder, feeling a strange sense of disappointment. Surely this rejection should have been a relief, she’d tried to make amends but hadn’t been needed. Woo-hoo, she was off the hook. But how would she let people know? That woman in the pub, for example, who thought her so dreadful, how would she tell her that she’d tried. Or her dead granny, who might have been watching from above at that precise moment.

Anna shook her head, her dead granny watching over her? Really. Don’t start getting sentimental, Anna, she chastised herself. The tiredness and the soupy heat were clearly affecting her. Backing away from Jackie, who had started jogging on the spot, she reminded herself that this was a good thing. Woo-hoo.

‘Just kidding,’ shouted Jackie. ‘There’s a rehearsal tomorrow. Don’t be such a bitch to them this time.’ Then she snorted a laugh to herself and, putting her earphone back in, trotted off in her purple Lycra, disappearing into the mist.

Anna was left momentarily taken aback, alone in a pea soup of hot fog. Fuck it, she thought, her granny had better damn well be watching because otherwise she was teaching this bunch of misfits for no reason other than a bit of Nettleton-inspired guilt. That was where sentimentality got her.