She wheeled at the unmistakable sound of a foot on the stairs. Kate crossed to the door. ‘Who’s there?’ she called, certain now that she was not alone. Charlie had taken Song to the restaurant, to double check the seating plan and place a disposable camera at each place setting.
‘Only us!’ yelled Charlie from the foot of the stairs. Kate heard his keys land in the china bowl where he always threw them when he came home.
‘You were quick!’
‘No I wasn’t.’ Charlie sounded bemused. ‘Get your skates on, woman.’ His feet thumped on the stairs. ‘We can’t be late for our own wedding and the traffic’s bumper to bumper.’ He popped his head around the bedroom door, Song in his arms.
Oh no, his wedding haircut is too radical, thought Kate.
‘You’re still in your underwear!’ said Charlie, dismayed. ‘Get dressed, quick, while I wrestle this tiny woman into her new frock.’
Refusing to buy a new suit, Charlie had declared he wanted to get married as himself ‘this time around’. Flashbacks to his top hat still woke him in the middle of the night, he said.
The couple had compromised; Charlie was going as a version of himself, wearing his old faithful pinstripe jacket from Oxfam over a crisp new white shirt, chosen by Kate. Biased, she would have thought him gorgeous if Charlie turned up at the registry office in his dressing gown.
Not many brides could get ready for their Big Day in twenty minutes, but Charlie was unimpressed by Kate’s haste. As she clattered down the stairs in new shoes, bouquet in hand, she heard the frustrated honk of their car horn. Despite this, Kate lingered in the hall for a moment, taking her leave of the framed photo hanging by the door.
‘See you later, Dad,’ she said, and kissed his image, wishing, with a fervour that shook her entire body, that he could be there to give her away.
Diving into the car like a bank robber making a getaway, Kate buckled up her seat belt, twisting round to establish that Song was secure.
‘What the hell,’ said Charlie, ‘are you wearing?’
‘Last minute change of plan,’ said Kate. ‘You know you had to whizz out and buy a replacement cake because Song found the original one and ate half of it?’
‘Ye-es.’ Charlie sounded as if he knew what was coming.
‘Well, the cake made a reappearance. Song staggered into our bedroom and threw up all over my dress.’ Kate was brisk. ‘Drive, man, drive! Are you sure we have time, Charlie, to stop on the way?’
‘We’ll make time.’ He smiled across at her as they pulled away from the kerb, both of them knowing that was the only possible answer.
When they reached the long low building set back in bland gardens, Kate pointed out a parking space. ‘Here, Charlie.’ All three of them left the car at a trot; Kate thought wryly of bridal magazines advocating a serene atmosphere on the Big Day.
The family of three raced through beige corridors, Kate scooping up Song when her little legs flagged. The room they sought was a long glass extension at the back, bright and stiflingly warm.
Aunty Marjorie sat in a high backed armchair, eating toffees and glaring suspiciously at her visitors.
‘She recognises you,’ said Uncle Hugh. ‘I can tell.’ His wife had her good days and her bad days; to Kate this looked like one of the latter. She saw nothing of her aunt in the woman’s gaze, as if the lights had gone out in a much loved house.
They sat for a while, making conversation, until the implacable clock couldn’t be ignored any longer.
‘You’re sure you won’t come to the wedding?’ Kate embraced Uncle Hugh and held on for longer than necessary. She’d heard her mother tut that he spent too much time at the care home, but he would shrug and say, What else would I do with myself?
‘Quite sure, love. We’ll think of you at three o’clock.’
Song refused, point blank, to kiss the stony faced woman; Kate realised that her daughter would remember only this Marjorie and not the bubbly, snobby, kind and sarcastic aunt who’d been a stalwart of Kate’s life. ‘Goodbye, Aunty.’ She bent and embraced her. ‘This is for you.’ Kate pulled a peony from her bouquet and popped it into a glass of water.
‘Right,’ said Charlie, as they retraced their steps through the institution. ‘Let’s get married!’
The room was functional and without charm, but it exploded with emotion as Kate and Charlie bounced in, Song between them, holding hands and beaming.
Things Can Only Get Better blared from a terrible sound system as Kate, Charlie and Song walked up the abbreviated, cheaply carpeted ‘aisle’ between rows of utilitarian chairs. The assembled family and friends sang the chorus, none of them knowing it was the song that reminded Kate and Charlie of the night they gifted their virginity to one another.
The short journey to the registrar was time travelling for Kate. All – almost all – the important players of her life were there.
At the very back Julian was no doubt already plotting his escape. Kate had been gratified by his ‘yes’ when she’d tracked him down; it felt mature and oh-so-modern to have her first husband at her second wedding. Julian caught her eye and smiled, still a golden boy, although these days he was a bald golden boy. Beside him his wife, a petite Japanese lady half his height and age, gave Kate a frosty once-over.
Newlywed Angus stood in the next row of seats, his hair tamed, his attire conservative, and his arm around his new wife. Anna, leaning on her hubby, surreptitiously checked her phone. Already estranged from Charlie by the time of the infamous book launch, she’d been philosophical when he chased after Kate. She’d turned around and there was Angus; mutual consolation had turned to love, or something very like it. They’re both too thin, thought Kate, pulling in her tummy as she passed. Mr and Mrs Walker-Smith looked like x-rays of themselves.
Holding hands in matching dresses, Mum and Mary dabbed their streaming eyes as Kate passed them. Mum nodded a blessing.
Don’t cry, mouthed Kate. You’ll start me off!
Becca wasn’t crying. She looked too stunned to cry, horrified by the striped chain-store sundress Kate had yanked from the wardrobe. Long forgiven for her meddling at the book launch – Becca’s chess playing had ultimately made her hapless pawns happy – she’d helped Kate choose the lace wedding dress and looked incensed by the last minute substitution. Beside her, Leon wept unashamedly as he jiggled one-month-old Clinton, a child the colour of coffee, who had his father’s flair for happiness and his mother’s way with a well-timed tantrum.
‘Flo!’ squeaked Song, spotting her favourite person.
Flo’s wave was a jerky gesture. The thirteen year old was nervous about her ring bearing duties. Pink with selfconsciousness, Flo would much rather be reading. Kate blew her a kiss, just for being Flo.
As they reached the registrar, a small, beaming woman in a suit, Kate went. Tears claimed her, spoiling her hastily done make-up, clouding her vision.
Aww! said the room.
Fumbling in his pockets, Charlie found a tissue and handed it to her, as the registrar waited patiently for the bride to compose herself.
‘Don’t cry, Mummy,’ said Song, tugging on her hand. ‘Everything’s OK.’
‘I know, sweetheart,’ said Kate. ‘Everything is much much better than OK.’
Later, much much later, after the three course meal in their favourite bistro and the sentimental, disrespectful speeches, and Song eating so much of the replacement wedding cake that she vomited over her mother’s replacement wedding dress, Kate and Charlie were back on their own sofa.
Lying facing each other, feet companionably muddled, their shoes were off, the lamps were low, and Song was sound asleep in the new toddler bed she was so proud of.
‘That was quite a day,’ said Kate, head back, remembering. ‘Much better than any fortieth party.’ Her birthday had been lost in the mix.
‘The best and the last wedding ever,’ said Charlie. ‘Agreed?’
‘Agreed. I couldn’t face all that admin again.’ Kate saw Charlie’s
lip wobble in a comedy way. ‘Plus I married the man of my dreams. Should I have said that first?’
‘Ideally, yes. Sorry about the dress, love. You handled it magnificently. My first wife,’ Charlie enjoyed saying that; he said it again. ‘My first wife would have cancelled the entire wedding.’
‘You mean sorry about the dresses. Plural.’ Kate looked down at the brittle blot on her sundress. ‘Good old Song, managing to ruin them both. I didn’t care a bit. The lace dress is gorgeous but this comfy old thing is more me. Like that ten quid jacket is you. The real Kate married the real Charlie today,’ she said. ‘Spattered with their daughter’s vomit.’ Kate prodded Charlie’s chest lovingly with her big toe. She had goose bumps, as she did every time she recalled that morning, six months into their proper, at-long-last relationship, when Charlie had woken her with a cup of tea and an urgent, I want to adopt Song. ‘So, groomboy, are you going to carry me up the stairs and ravish me, as just-marrieds are contractually obliged to do?’
‘With my back? You know I can’t lift heavy loads.’
Kate prodded him again, not so lovingly this time. ‘Oi!’
‘Ow!’ Charlie took her foot in his hands and rubbed it the way she loved. ‘You’re forgetting my deadline, Mrs Garland.’
‘Ah. Yes.’
The sequel to BLOKE was overdue. Charlie was working around the clock in his study, rising before Kate and joining her in bed long after she’d fallen asleep.
‘So,’ she said, ‘it’s another all-night session at the laptop for Mr Minelli?’
‘Afraid so. We have the rest of our lives to ravish one another.’
‘True.’ Kate thought of Uncle Hugh, sitting beside Aunty Marjorie in a room that smelled of canteen food. She thought of her dad, his lovely face frozen in time and framed in her hallway.
The rest of our lives.
The phrase didn’t oppress or constrict Kate. Just the opposite. It signified freedom, an adventure constantly unfurling.
Clumsily, kneeing him in his tender parts, Kate clambered over her new husband. My first real husband. Lying against him, her head on his chest, she savoured him. Charlie was an endless luxury, a well of contentment that never ran dry.
‘This is nice,’ murmured Charlie, once he’d recovered from her knee. ‘This so nearly didn’t happen. Imagine that. Imagine we hadn’t finally got it together.’
‘I don’t want to.’ Kate had lived that very scenario for long enough.
‘I don’t want to work tonight.’ Charlie wriggled until he was in a position to kiss Kate on the lips. ‘I want to take my wife upstairs.’
They stood, clinging to each other, two middle-aged folk in their untidy, ordinary, perfect sitting room. Charlie whispered into Kate’s hair. ‘Hear my soul speak.’
They recited the next couplet in unison.
‘The very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly to your service.’
‘Come on, Kate.’ Charlie switched off the lamp and led her out of the room, his eyes on hers. ‘The party’s over.’
You’re wrong, thought Kate. The party’s just begun.
Acknowledgements
Every book needs a champion and the people who helped me believe in this one were Sara-Jade Virtue, Jo Dickinson and Ditta Friedrich. Thank you all.
And thank you, Clare Hey, for being both picky and charming as you edited the manuscript. That’s a hard act to pull off, but you do it with aplomb.
It’s traditional to thank your other half and your children at this juncture and I don’t intend to break with tradition. The reason authors thank their families is that they’re the poor sods who have to put up with us as we career towards our deadlines. So thank you, Matthew and Niamh, for the love and the understanding and the eating of burned fish fingers without comment.
These Days of Ours Page 29