by Lindsey Kelk
Reluctantly, I unlocked the door and let it open, just a little. In the crack between the door and the wall, I saw his downturned smile, his brown eyes, his dark hair.
‘Ros,’ he said. ‘Will you please come out the toilet?’
‘I can’t,’ I explained. ‘I can’t keep my dress up.’
‘I’ve heard a lot of excuses in my time,’ John replied. ‘But that’s a good one.’
‘I’m serious!’ Emerging from the stall, I turned my back to show him the strange straps of my dress. ‘The bodice won’t stay up.’
‘That’s because you haven’t fastened it.’ John waved his hands in the air between us like he was casting a spell. ‘Those straps are supposed to wrap up and around, aren’t they?’
I grasped one end with my left hand, keeping my boobs firmly inside the front of my dress with the right. ‘Are they?’
‘I hate to be the one to tell you but you’re a rubbish girl,’ he said, taking the end of each sash in his hands. ‘Turn around.’
Biting down on my lower lip, I turned my back to him and felt him reach around my waist for the long swathes of lilac fabric. He cinched them tightly around my middle before winding the fabric up around my chest then tying a neat bow behind my neck.
‘How did you know how to do that?’ I asked, marvelling at his handiwork in the mirror.
‘I’ve put more women back into more complicated clothing than I care to remember,’ he replied as I put my dress through the shimmy test. ‘You pick up a wide array of skills when you work in bars for your entire adult life. Which reminds me, who do I need to speak to about outlawing jumpsuits?’
‘Not me,’ I replied. ‘You only need wear one to a festival once and you’ll never put yourself through it again as long as you live.’
‘You look beautiful,’ John said, straightening out the bow at the nape of my neck. I looked into the mirror and saw the pair of us staring back. Me in my lavender gown, John in a beautiful charcoal-grey jacket over his white shirt, grey tie and jeans, his hands resting on my shoulders.
And when he smiled, my stomach flipped.
‘We’ve really got to stop meeting like this,’ he said, his body warm against mine.
‘Thank you for dressing me,’ I replied. I wasn’t ready to move just yet. ‘And for everything else. You saved the day again.’
‘Least I could do,’ he said, removing his hands and digging them deep into his pockets, leaving my shoulders bare and cold. I felt myself sway backwards as he moved away and had to steady myself with one hand on the wall.
‘And thank you for coming yesterday,’ I said, folding my arms around myself as John slouched back against a rose-gold-painted radiator. ‘You really didn’t have to. I think it might have been better if no one had been there.’
‘I figured I owed you one after the way I acted at the baby shower,’ he replied with an apologetic smile. ‘And besides, Sumi said you’d introduce me to Snazzlechuff. I’m guessing that’s not on the cards now, is it? Unless I can crash your date.’
‘Please do,’ I groaned. ‘He’s already texting me. How do you let a fourteen-year-old down gently?’
John looked down at the floor, his black hair falling in front of his face. ‘The same way you let everyone else down,’ he said. ‘Tell him you’ve already got a boyfriend.’
‘But I haven’t,’ I said, noticing how hard I was breathing against the tight bodice of my dress. ‘Me and Patrick, it’s over.’
He looked up, his eyes wide and his face open. The downturned smile he always seemed to be fighting against slowly broadened.
‘Really?’
‘Really,’ I confirmed. ‘Turns out we both wanted different things.’
‘And what is it that you wanted?’ John asked, all hope and anticipation.
‘I’m still working that out,’ I replied, looking up to the pink-painted ceiling, arms securely wrapped around myself. ‘I think it might take a while.’
‘Oh,’ he replied with an understanding but clearly disappointed nod, keeping his chin to his chest. ‘I get it.’
I couldn’t not smile. Once you knew how to read them his feelings were always right there on his face, he wouldn’t know how to hide them if he tried. I had got too used to trying to read between the lines, translate signs and search for things that weren’t really there. I’d forgotten what honest attraction looked like.
‘I think it might be time for me to make some bold moves,’ I said, reaching out and adjusting his tie. ‘Make some big changes. I’ve been trying to bring back the past, and that hasn’t worked out so well.’
John lifted his head in surprise. ‘Speaking as someone who has been doing all kinds of bold, some might say crazy, things lately, I approve of your plan,’ he said.
‘What kind of bold, crazy things?’ I asked, tilting my head back as he closed the space between us.
‘Oh, you know.’ He stopped right in front of me and I let go of his tie. ‘Roller skating, going to baby showers, throwing last-minute weddings and birthday dinners, dancing with strange girls at dark discos. That sort of thing.’
‘Sounds to me like you’ve lost it,’ I whispered.
‘I feel like I have,’ John agreed in his deep, low voice. His eyes were big and round and dark. ‘Because I can’t stop thinking about you. Ever since we met, I just can’t stop thinking about you. What you might be doing, where you might be doing it, wondering what I can do to spend more time with you.’
I didn’t know how to answer. No one had ever said anything like that to me before.
‘I’m sorry for the way I acted last weekend,’ he said, his words heavy with honest regret. ‘It was wrong and there’s no excuse.’
I felt myself slip into that other state, my eyes half closed, my lips tingling and everything around us warm and fuzzy and insignificant as something pulled us closer and closer together.
‘I was frustrated but I shouldn’t have been so aggro.’ He was so close that I could feel his breath on my skin. ‘And I definitely shouldn’t have kissed you like that.’
Our hands found each other, my left palm meeting his right, skin grazing against skin, with the lightest touch.
‘You’re right,’ I said as I lifted my face to look at him. ‘You should have waited.’
‘Waited for what?’
‘For this,’ I told him, pushing up onto my tiptoes, lifting my lips to meet his.
‘There you are!’
The door to the ladies slammed against the wall right before our lips could touch, my sister marching in with her bridesmaid’s dress over her arm, completely oblivious to whatever she might be interrupting.
‘How am I supposed to get this dress on?’ she demanded. ‘I’m literally a genius and I cannot work it out.’
John stepped backwards out of my arms, his eyebrows knitting together with regret at a moment lost. ‘I’ll be upstairs,’ he said, lingering in the doorway for a moment. ‘If you need me.’
I nodded and watched him leave, dizzy with denial.
‘Who’s that?’ Jo asked, stripping off before the door was even halfway closed.
‘That’s John,’ I replied. ‘He’s my friend.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The wedding was perfect.
No one got lost on their way to the new venue, we managed to dress Jo on time and my nan hadn’t offended a single soul in the entire seventeen minutes she’d been in the room.
‘I can’t believe you forced me into such a toxic heteronormative gender role,’ Jo grumbled as we made our way down the makeshift aisle between two groups of chairs. We really should have been clearer about the dress code, I realized, as I spotted two of Dad’s friends in actual tuxedos, Aaron from the garden centre in his shorts and flip-flops and Mum’s friend from yoga, whose name I’d forgotten, in a fascinator so fascinating three rows of people behind her could see absolutely nothing.
‘I know, I’m such a bitch,’ I replied sweetly, nodding at Ruby and Bill from next-door-but-one. ‘I�
��m forcing you to be an agent of the patriarchy, you’re doing one nice thing to make Mum and Dad happy. It won’t kill you.’
‘It’s a system of oppression,’ she muttered while doling out doe-eyed smiles to Janet from the garden centre. ‘You know, in ancient times, if the bride didn’t go through with the wedding, one of the bridesmaids would be forced to marry the groom.’
‘I don’t think anyone here is going to make you marry your dad,’ I assured her. ‘Anyway, where’s Wilf?’
‘Eurgh, Wilf? Over,’ Jo pouted. ‘I’m in a throuple now. With a couple who are researching biomedical engineering at Magdalen.’
Winking at Dad in his new suit, we took our seats beside our nan in the front row.
‘That’s a terrible colour on both of you,’ she grumbled. ‘Washes you right out.’
‘Nice to see you too, Nan,’ I said, patting her hand, too happy to care. ‘Jo was just telling me she’s going out with a man and a woman at the same time. Why don’t you two talk about that for a bit?’
Sumi and Jemima and Adrian and Eva sat behind us, all glowing with happiness. It felt good, I thought, to see so many cheerful faces in one room. And also my sister and my nan. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d all been together, if ever.
A terrible instrumental version of Mum’s favourite Elton John song began pouring through the speakers and everyone turned at once.
Gwen Reynolds was beautiful. Her dark hair was curled and pulled back, her clear skin shining and the gorgeous wedding gown we’d chosen together moved with her as she walked, floating lightly behind her. I felt myself tearing up as she came closer, trying to recall if I’d ever seen either of my parents look like this before. It was wonderful, I realized, that they could make each other this happy. I couldn’t imagine how it must feel to have someone like that in your life, someone who actually wanted to be there, who could make you smile the way my parents were smiling at each other in that moment, even after forty years. And at the back of the room, standing off to the side, out of the way, I saw John, watching me watch my mum.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us today.’
Dad’s best friend, Peter Mapplethorpe, stood in front of my parents, a solemn look on his face and a well-worn paperback open in his hands.
‘He does know this is just a vow renewal, doesn’t he?’ I asked, trying to get a better look. ‘Why has he got a bible?’
‘It’s The Da Vinci Code,’ Jo replied, twisting her head to one side. ‘What a knob.’
‘We are gathered here today to celebrate the love between our friends, Gwen and Alan,’ Peter Mapplethorpe said, imbuing his speech with great reverence as he clutched the sacred words of Dan Brown. ‘But before I begin, if anyone here has any reason to object, speak now or forever hold your peace.’
An easy chuckle rippled through the crowd.
Then Nan stood up and everyone flinched.
‘I’ve got something to say,’ she announced. ‘This is utter nonsense and I can’t believe you’ve dragged me into this filthy city to witness it.’
I looked at Mum and Dad, panic in my heart, but they simply shrugged at each other and seemed to silently agree it could have been much worse.
‘That it?’ Jo asked, eyebrows drawn together, eternally unimpressed. ‘Anything else?’
‘I’ll not hear from you, you harlot,’ Nan sniffed. ‘In my day, you’d have been strung up for your behaviour.’
I looked down at the order of service in my lap and noticed a late addition that hadn’t been on Mum’s original design. It was a line from an Emily Dickinson poem, one she quoted so often, I knew it by heart and had once put in a love letter to Patrick.
Forever – is composed of Nows –
I gave an involuntary sniff, my eyes welling up for just a moment. He used to use that letter as a bookmark, I remembered quietly, my heart softening against my will. Whatever book he was reading, my note was always tucked away inside although I’d never known if it was because it meant something to him or it was just convenient.
‘I’ll start again,’ Mr Mapplethorpe said as I wiped away a confusing tear and tried to feel happy again. ‘Do you, Alan, take Gwen to, um, still be your wife?’
‘I do,’ Dad confirmed, beaming at his wife.
‘And do you, Gwen, take Alan to still be your husband?’
Another sob caught in the back of my throat as my parents beamed at one another. Before my mum could open her mouth to answer, three different mobile phones chirped into life, competing for attention with their different ringtones.
‘Oh my god,’ Jo groaned, rolling her eyes so hard I assumed she could see the inside of her skull.
‘Sorry,’ I called out, fiddling with my tiny handbag and searching for the offending phone as Sumi and Adrian did the same. ‘I thought I’d turned it off.’
‘It’s Lucy!’ Sumi squealed, waving her screen in my face. ‘She’s had the baby!’
‘It’s a girl!’ Adrian added. ‘Or at least it says it is. Looks like a hairless cat.’
A picture of a very sweaty but very happy-looking Lucy shone out from Sumi’s phone, a tiny scrunched-up version of a human wrapped in a white swaddling cloth tucked into her arms.
‘Should I start this again or shall we not bother?’ Peter Mapplethorpe asked, rather upset at being interrupted for the second time. We all put away our phones and turned to the front of the room, guilty smiles on our happy faces.
‘Yes, please do,’ Mum said, taking Dad’s hand in hers. ‘We’re not going anywhere.’
‘No rush,’ Dad agreed with a nod, beaming at his wife. ‘It’s only been forty years. I’ve got my fingers crossed for another forty.’
After the vows were said, music struck up as everyone began to cheer and I turned in my seat to look at my friends, and to avoid the intensely passionate kiss my parents were sharing in full view of everyone.
‘I can’t believe you pulled it off,’ Sumi said, resting her chin on my shoulder as my uncle Kevin led Nan off into a corner to pass judgement on everyone quietly and by herself. ‘Well bloody done, you.’
‘Well bloody done us,’ I corrected, leaning my head against hers. ‘There’s no way I would have managed all this by myself.’
‘Have you spoken to John?’
‘Yes, Sumi,’ I replied.
‘And what did you say?’
‘Shut up, Sumi.’
‘Someone should say something,’ said Adrian, craning his neck to get a better look around the room as people rose out of their seats and then sat back down. ‘No one seems to know exactly what they should be doing.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Jo said, standing immediately. ‘I’ll make a speech.’
‘You stay where you are,’ I ordered, pushing her back down into her seat. The last thing people wanted to hear was how what we perceived as love was nothing but a chemical reaction and the statistical probability of divorce after the age of sixty. ‘I’ll do it.’
Edging my way down the row of chairs, I hopped up onto the stage where Mum and Dad were still lost in a world of their own.
‘I’m going to say something,’ I said, picking up the microphone and switching it on. ‘Let people know what’s going on now, if that’s all right?’
‘Oh, love,’ Mum pressed her hands to her heart. ‘That would be wonderful.’
Dad took the microphone out of my hand and banged it against the palm of his hand, silencing the room with a screech of feedback and warming up a few migraines.
‘Everybody,’ he said, speaking far too loudly into the mic. ‘Our eldest daughter, Rosalind, would like to make a speech so, yes, let’s let her do that.’
‘Not a speech,’ I said quickly. ‘I was just going to tell them what the plan was for the afternoon.’
‘Well, you’re doing a speech now,’ Mum said as she stepped down off the stage and took my seat in the front row. ‘Let’s hear it.’
Dad handed me the microphone as everyone began to applaud and, for the second ti
me in two days, I found myself on stage in front of a group of people with no idea what I was going to say.
‘Erm. I recently read a book called Starting Over,’ I began, trying to keep my eyes on the back of the room, away from my friends, my sister and John. ‘It was very interesting, all about how we shouldn’t stay so attached to our past that we can’t move on with our future. You know, I think we all do that a bit these days, don’t we? It used to just be our grandparents but now it’s everyone, talking about how brilliant things used to be back in the day when people weren’t so angry all the time and we didn’t fall out with the neighbours over who they voted for and before Facebook ruined everybody’s life.’
‘Where’s she going with this?’ I heard Adrian not-quite whisper to Sumi who didn’t seem to have an answer and looked as though she was holding her breath.
‘The thing the book tried to say is that nostalgia can be toxic,’ I went on, sure I had a point. ‘It can poison us if we let it, it stops us from finding joy in our present. We’re so in love with our idea of our past, we can’t trust that there are good things waiting for us in the future. And we have to move on. We have to make bold steps and believe in ourselves and in each other. And that’s why I think it’s so amazing that my mum and dad didn’t just want to celebrate all the time they’ve spent together, they wanted to look to the future as well. Today is just as much about celebrating what’s to come as it is toasting to the forty years they’ve been married.’
‘Thank fuck for that,’ Sumi said on an exhale.
‘I’d like to make a toast to all the wonderful things we’ve already experienced together,’ I said, reaching out as Adrian stretched up to hand me a glass of champagne. ‘And to all the amazing things that are still to come.’
Everyone raised their glasses and made happy noises, toasting Mum and Dad with smiles on their faces. I couldn’t help smiling too.
‘Oh and also, we’re doing appetizers now and then food so please get out the way while we rearrange the tables and don’t fill up on snacks,’ I added before turning off the mic and climbing down from the stage.
‘Smashed it,’ Sumi declared, clinking her glass against mine. ‘Ten out of ten.’