Missing Christina

  After what seemed several years Lady H-H approved the invitations as if it were up to her to give the nod, but asked who was going to be the RSVP-ee and keep track of the replies, etc. Clearly she wanted to do it so she could sneak her own friends onto the guest list. Oh, I’m being unfair to the old girl, she was no worse than high-handed, dogmatic and tactless, but I knew I wasn’t the only one missing Mum, who could have managed her as well as planning the whole wedding. And, suddenly, thinking of Mum, I saw and for the first time fully understood just how unhappy Dawn was, how hopelessly well-meaning and conscious of being disliked and in the way, and I knew that Mum would have been ashamed of the lot of us. I resolved then and there to stop making up names for her, and out of that thought I heard myself saying, “Why doesn’t Dawn do that? If you’ve got time, Dawn? – I know you’re working part-time again. The invitations would say 'RSVP The Viscountess Randall, address, phone, and so on’ – you’ve got an email address, haven’t you?” Dad’s expression said that I was back in the will, and Lady H-H’s that she didn’t like being reminded that she was only a baroness and Dawn outranked her.

  Blushing, Dawn said, “Yes. Yes I have. And yes, I’d like to do it. If you give me all the guests’ names and details I can prepare a spreadsheet to keep track of who’s accepted and who’s declined, and follow up people who haven’t replied in time.”

  “Good!” Silvia said with a very friendly smile. “We’ll email you the guest list, in fact I’ll do it now.” Dawn gave her her email address, and apart from a mutter about how common it was to use email, and what would HRH think, Lady H-H shut up, and for a while all was sweetness and light. In fact I tuned out completely, letting talk of flowers for the church, food for the reception, cars, music, blah blah blah wash over me. After all, I was only the brother of the bride, and best man, all I had to do was buy a present, help give PoorMatthew some sort of buck’s night and turn up on the day with a short and witty speech.

  I tuned in again with a vengeance when Lady H-H said something about “not having the little retarded boy at the wedding.”

  Oh shit.

  Dad slammed his hand down hard on the table and I knew he was going to blow his top. Granny grabbed his arm and said, “I really would prefer it, Rhoda, if you wouldn’t refer to my grandson like that.”

  “But I only meant – I mean, I didn’t mean –”

  Dawn started to cry, and ran out of the room. Silvia started to cry. Lady H-H started to cry. Dad dithered, one arm reaching for Silvia, at the same time standing up to follow Dawn. Toby took his ear buds out and stared around. “What’s up?”

  “I want Mum!” Silvia wailed, and began to howl in great heaving sobs.

  “We all do –” Dad began, then stopped, and looked at me. They were all looking at me. Those who weren’t already crying were clearly about to start.

  I’d had it.

  “We all want her. But she’s dead. Dead.” I felt as if I were just realising it. I suppose in a way I was; it’d sunk in at last, I’d done most of my grieving. My mother was dead, and I couldn’t replace her, wasn’t going to be a substitute for her.

  “She’s dead,” I repeated. “So, Dad, you go and look after your wife. Matthew, look after Silvia; Silvia, let Matt look after you. Everyone go away for half an hour, have a drink, take a walk, whatever, I don’t care, then we’ll finish this fucking meeting and stop crying for Mum. Lady Hyde-Howard, we’ll forget what you said. A slip of the tongue. Now all fuck off for a while.”

  I don’t remember leaving the room, but when she came up to me in the garden Fleur said I’d made a very effective exit. Authoritative. “Shakespearean, even.”

  “Which particular character did you have in mind? They’re usually dead, mad, or dancing when they leave the stage.”

  “Oh, I don’t know! I’m a dressmaker, not a theatre critic. But you did that well.” She put her hand lightly on my arm. “It’s real to you now, isn’t it.”

  “About Mum? Yes.”

  “I miss her too, you know. My mum’s a pain, and Aunt Tia was always so nice to me. Remember I went on a school excursion to Spain and I discovered that ʻTia’ is Spanish for ʻaunt’, and I told her and she laughed and said just to call her Tia, she liked a pun... Anyway, your half-hour is up.”

  “My what?”

  “You told everyone to fuck off and calm down for half an hour. And they have. Although Lady H-H thinks there’s no need for such language.”

  “Oh. Right. So it’s once more into the breach.” As we turned back towards the house she said, “I think Dawn might leave your father. And I don’t know whether that’s for the best or not.”

  “Why’d you think that?”

  “Because she’s unhappy. Jon doesn’t love her. She’s out of place here. No one likes her. Today was the first time anyone’s been nice to her.”

  “I know. But I don’t think she should leave. Even if only for Orlando’s sake. He’s used to it here, now, used to being with Dad.”

  “And you love him, don’t you.”

  “Yes. Yes I do. So does Toby. Silvia, not yet. Should I say something to Dawn?”

  “Oh no, no. Nor to Jon. Let them work it out. Get this wedding over first – and then I think you should go away for a while. Have a holiday. Really get it all out of your system. Go somewhere you’ve never been, do something different. Leave your family to stew in their own juice for a while.”

  The idea rather tempted me. I didn’t know where I’d go, but a break would be nice.

  But now for the rest of this wedding shit.

  And I’m pleased to say that not only had everyone calmed down, but the whole thing was over within twenty minutes. Soon after that, they’d all gone. Even Dad had taken Dawn out to dinner, leaving Orlando to Toby, me, Gran and the nanny.

  Fourteen

  Then suddenly it was the day before Silvia’s wedding, and Dad had us all up bright and early. Despite the place being stiff with caterers, marquee-erectors and so on, the day was slave labour. Run to the cellar, cart up ten dozen bottles of champagne, put them in the ice tubs. Not enough ice. Talk to caterers. Go buy more ice. Run to the cellar for the rest of the wine. Help move those tables. Pull on that guy rope. Get out of the way. Ask Gran where the flowers are. What flowers? The flowers. Where’s Hugo? Why’s the power gone off? Where’s Silvia? Where’s Matthew? No, you fool, I said the shiraz. Move those glasses to the other table. The other other table. Tell them to get that lorry off the lawn. Where’s Orlando? Where’s the wedding cake? Move those chairs. No, back again. Well, use mine, then. What idiot let that dog loose? Where’s Toby got to?

  We were allowed a break for tea, then schlepped over to the church for a wedding rehearsal – and what’s the point of that, pray? Who hasn’t seen a wedding? – then family dinner amid deafening chat about the final arrangements for D-Day. Over coffee, Dad let me in on the fact that there was a book going on what colour Silvia’s dress would be. I said I had no idea and, curious, I asked what Mum had worn at her wedding to Dad.

  “Zandra Rhodes. Cream and yellow and apricot. She looked gorgeous. But then,” he added wistfully, “she always did. I wish… no, never mind.”

  “And, er, what did, er, Dawn wear?”

  “Er Dawn wore a pale blue dress and coat.”

  Blue didn’t suit her. “Ah,” I said, and Dad said, “Yeah,” and sighed.

  I had to stay the night with PoorMatthew at his parents’ house, lest he damn the marriage with bad luck by seeing Silvia before the wedding. We’d had PoorMatthew’s buck’s party a week ago, but he insisted on sharing a bottle of champagne with me and his brother before we went up to our infamously uncomfortable beds.

  In the night someone sat on the edge of my bed and shook my shoulder. I’d been dreaming about, well, I won’t say who, and, still dreaming, groaned and leaned up for a kiss just as the lamp went on. Matthew and I stared aghast at each other. I think he actually edged away.

  “Matt, what do you want this time of night?” The
clock showed X to IV.

  “It’s – I – do you think Silvia really loves me? What if she’s not at the church tomorrow? What if she jilts me? Perhaps I bullied her into marrying me. Perhaps she’s not really over that nasty little shit at Cambridge. She wouldn’t marry me before, so perhaps it’s just the whole thing, missing her mother, and Jon marrying that drip. What if she didn’t mean it? What if she’s not there tomorrow? What if the phone rings and it’s her calling it off? What if you’re all right in calling me PoorMatthew? What if she doesn’t really love me?”

  He babbled all this out with tears in his eyes; he’d worked himself into such a state he was trembling. I had to take this seriously, half asleep or not.

  “All right. One, she does love you. Two, she always keeps her word. Three, she really is over the nasty little shit, she told me. Four, Dad would have her in that church tomorrow at gunpoint, if necessary. Five, you didn’t bully her into anything, but it was about time you put your foot down.”

  “But I love her so much! I worship her!”

  “Don’t worship her, there’s nothing more irritating. Just love her. Don’t take any nonsense from her. Notice she agreed to marry you the moment you put your foot down? She respected that. She’s a bit like Dad, she’s a bit spoilt and a bit inclined to let other people make her decisions for her.”

  “But –”

  “Oh and six: she’d never have spent such a fortune on her dress if she didn’t mean to marry you. Nighty-night now, off to bed.”

  The Hyde-Howards lived in the grand manner, with a full staff of servants, so the day began with a housemaid opening my curtains and putting tea and thin bread-and-butter on the nightstand. It was like living in an Agatha Christie novel, except that the servants were all Lithuanian or Polish. “Her ladyship says, breakfast at nine o’clock, sir.” I could have sworn she curtseyed.

  Trotting downstairs at 8.59 I caught up with PoorMatthew, talking quietly into his mobile phone. I heard him say in the simpleton voice of the lovestruck, “Tigger loves his Kanga vewy vewy much. Does Kanga love her Tigger?”

  I suppose that made Hugo Roo. Easy, stomach. I hurried on past, pretending I hadn’t heard.

  Breakfast was also in the grand manner: hot dishes, and pots of tea and coffee on the sideboard, toast racks and bowls of butter, jam and marmalade marching down the middle of the table. As PoorMatthew and I helped ourselves to scrambled eggs he murmured, “Er, Jaques, did I really come to your room last night and talk a lot of bollocks, or did I dream it?”

  “You must’ve dreamt it. I slept like a baby.”

  Relieved, he said, “I hope not – Hugo woke up four times last night.” Hugo and his nanny had stayed here last night so Silvia could ʻget her beauty sleep’, as Lady H-H put it.

  We stretched breakfast out as long as possible, then climbed into our morning suits, put our yellow rosebuds in our buttonholes, and played snooker until it was time to wave off Lord and Lady H-H, the female of the pair looking unusually nice in a pale aqua suit. “Perhaps we should be making tracks too?” Matthew suggested.

  “Yes, let’s.”

  At the church we found the vicar in the vestry, smoking a cigarette and doing the Times crossword. She was stuck on five down, she said, and why didn’t we go and have a look at the church, Lady Randall had made it look so pretty.

  She certainly had. It was one of Gran’s best efforts – huge vases, deceptively simple, of lilies and roses, little posies on the ends of the pews, wreathes and loops of scented jasmine.

  Gradually the church began to fill with guests. Summer colours, flowery hats, women’s perfume; the grey and black of the men broken here and there with a coloured tie or waistcoat. The organist footled through some all-purpose Bach. Toby and the other usher took their seats in the pews. PoorMatthew began to look at his watch. Granny and Dawn, with Orlando trotting seriously between them, entered and walked to the front pew. Gran had forsaken her usual hydrangea chiffons for a slim coral-coloured suit and fascinator, incredibly flattering to her white hair and blue eyes. Dawn was in a bronze leaf-patterned dress and jacket and big matching chiffon hat, and for once, with expert make-up, the smart clothes and a new hairdo, she looked almost pretty. Orlando had been put into a pale grey suit with a blue and yellow tie. On the other side of the church, Hugo in a smocked silk blouse and yellow rompers sat on his nanny’s lap, diligently pulling off his white shoes and socks.

  PoorMatthew was looking at his watch again. It was 12.31, and before he could start flapping I said, “Easy, Tigger, I can hear the cars now.”

  “How did – oh, the phone call. Have you got the rings?”

  “For the fourteenth time, yes. Here they come.”

  The music changed to what it took me a moment to identify as the Bangles’ ʻEternal Flame’ (Toby and I exchanged a glance), and there in the doorway were Silvia and Dad. I saw Matthew’s eyes fill with tears, and couldn’t blame him, for I’d never seen Silvia look more beautiful a she floated towards us in a shaft of sunlight, smiling at Matthew. I’m no good at describing women’s clothes, so I’ll just say that Silvia’s wedding dress was of very pale creamy-gold chiffon or something, with some frothery at the top. Her hair was brushed straight back and held in a sparkling gold net, and she wore Mum’s diamond ear-drops and around her neck a small gold heart. For bouquet she had three lilies tied with gold ribbons. The bridesmaids’ dresses were in the same style but in a darker shade, spattered with little gold and coral flowers, and wreaths of gold leaves in their hair.

  Dad was crying. He had to mop his eyes and clear his throat before he could say “I do” when asked who giveth this woman.

  The marriage service progressed in the usual way, until a strange thing happened. I’m not psychic and I don’t believe in ghosts, but this I’ll swear to: as the vicar said, “I now pronounce you husband and wife” I felt Mum’s presence, warm, glad and loving, in the church. Silvia felt it too, for as Matthew bent to kiss her she looked past him to me for a second, her eyes wide with startlement. Toby too, and Dad – I saw them lean forward to catch each other’s eye, and across Dawn, Gran and Orlando they touched hands.

  After that odd, happy moment came all the usual stuff, the signing of the marriage certificate, the Mendelssohn Wedding March, Silvia taking Hugo from the nanny as she and Matthew made their way out, stopping for kisses and congratulations and to bow to the two HRHs. Outside, endless photos. Then, back at Williamscourt, receiving line, chat chat, canapés and champagne, people milling around finding their table places in the ballroom, cheers and clapping as the bride and groom entered. More champagne, lots of delicious food. Toasts. Speeches. The Bridal Waltz, the cutting of the cake, then the caterers were pushing tables back against the walls so we could dance. I did my duty and danced with Lucinda and Fleur, with Silvia, Gran, Dawn and Lady H-H, with the female HRH.

  Soon it really was a party. The small band Toby had hired started to increase in size, not to mention expertise – well, among the guests were the third best rock guitarist in history, and the second best drummer. It was a warm day, people were shedding coats and shoes, Silvia unhooked the train of her dress, hats were cast aside, everyone was dancing. At one point I thought Dad was leaving, but he came back clutching his bass, and I thought, Jesus, please no – then he was right into it and I’d forgotten how good he was. After about an hour I needed time out, grabbed a chair and a glass of water. Quentin came and sat beside me, clutching a bottle of champagne. He rarely drinks, but today he was letting his hair down, and was mildly tipsy, and at the talkative stage. I agreed that Silvia was a v’y byooful girl and old Jon pretty good on the, the, thingummy, and that you couldn’t beat seventies music, they were the goo’ days. But before I could escape he was talking about Mum, how she’d’a loved all this, pi’y, such a pi’y, he’d been so, so, so devoted to her. (The band was then playing “Hopelessly devoted to you”, at some moron’s request.)

  “You actually lived with her for a while, didn’t you; when she was married to
Adrian?” I asked, digging up the memory from something Dad had said.

  “Oh, you know all about that? Yes, yes I did, I was their – well, lodger, I spose, when I first came back to England. I was with them just over a year, until Adrian… well, you know about that, don’t you?”

  “How come you lived with them?”

  He sat more upright in his chair, visibly trying to sober up a bit. “Odd family, mine. Scattered all over the world. Always falling out over silly things. One aunt... well, never mind, ancient history. Always someone not on speakers with half the others. Strange lot. My parents went off to Canada for a while, m’father got a job in Alberta. I went to school there but m’father believed only England would do for varsity. But before that, Adrian and Tia came to stay with us. They’d been travelling a lot – 1971, this was – after they… Tia’d not been well.”

  “I know they’d lost a baby.”

  “Thass all right then, if you know. Stillborn, the baby, and Tia’d been very ill afterwards, and to help her get over it Adrian took her away, they went all over the world. Anyway, they were taking the train across Canada and wrote asking if they could come and see us. My parents were keen, I think they were homesick an’ glad to see anyone from home.

  “Must say I never really took to Adrian, thought he was a bit snooty – rich, you know, very rich – though he was very pleasant on that visit. But Tia was lovely. They were a glamorous pair, Tia and Adrian, and such fun in a, well, a very non-Canadian way. ʻSwinging London’ and that sort of thing. Clever, too. To me it was, oh, suddenly I had this gorgeous cousin, but older than me, and sophisticated but not ʻgrown up’ and stuffy like my parents and most of the people I knew.”

  Puzzled, I said, “But surely that wasn’t the first time you’d met them? I mean, Mum was your cousin?”

  He poured another glass of champagne and drank it off all at once. “Oh, of course we’d met them. Yes. But, as I said, odd family, mine. Not close. M’ mother couldn’t stand a lot of Dad’s family, nor he hers. And my lot – not close. Silly. Old feuds, that sort of thing. Tia was older’n me and she’d been abroad a lot. Funny thing, she was the only other one ’cept one of my aunts who was like us, like you and me I mean, you know, synthesis, sathesia, you know, colour thingie –”