‘I need to get back to work,’ Ben said, making a move to leave. He hadn’t left Emma’s side since the news had broken but he had adopted the role of silent partner. He had been as brave as Emma had expected he would be, taking care of her and her mum, but after his initial questions, he could find nothing else to say.
‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ Louise told him. ‘I’ve already arranged cover. You’re family now and we need you here with us.’ When Ben tried to refuse, Louise interrupted him again. ‘Besides, the state you’re in, you’ll probably burn the place down.’
‘In that case, I’ll go sort out the music,’ Ben insisted.
When Louise looked like she was going to object again, Emma raised her hand. ‘Let him go,’ she told her, and when he left, her heart went with him. ‘Let him do what he has to.’
It was Meg’s reaction that surprised Emma the most. She may not have argued with the prognosis but she wasn’t about to stop being her daughter’s advocate and Emma knew it was going to test her strength to the limits. Her mum was prepared to discuss the practicalities of arranging palliative care and didn’t even dismiss the suggestion of finding a hospice. Not that they had discussed it in detail, the news was still sinking in for all of them.
‘You still want to go ahead with the wedding, don’t you?’ Meg asked.
Emma was about to reply that of course she did – preparations were underway and they had already posted their marriage notice at the register office – but then she stopped herself. She looked towards the kitchen door and noticed the continued absence of music. ‘I need to speak to Ben first,’ she said and with a knot of fear twisting at her insides, she went in search of him.
Ben wasn’t in the kitchen, so Emma moved on, past the inanimate music system and headed towards the small corridor that led upstairs. Ben was sitting on the stairs, his shoulders hunched and his hands over his head, covering his ears as if the music he hadn’t switched on was deafening. He was visibly shaking.
For a moment, Emma stood still, not sure if she should run up and wrap him in her arms or back slowly away without him ever knowing that she had been there to bear witness to his private torment. She did neither. She sat down gently beside him and waited for him to decide if he wanted her to see him.
Ben didn’t look up as he reached for her hand and when she gave it to him, he wrapped his fingers around hers and reverently brought her hand to his chest. His tears fell like raindrops onto her hand and she imagined the tears following the creases of his skin, following wrinkles that were yet to reveal themselves. She felt a shiver of familiarity course through her body but her heart was beating too fast to let the image of an older, rain-drenched Ben to take form.
Ben took a deep breath and held it, trying to compose himself before he spoke. ‘What if your mum was right all along?’ he began, his voice sounding hoarse as if the scream he had been holding back for the last few hours had already torn his vocal chords to shreds. ‘What if there is a better doctor out there who can help you?’
‘I already have the best doctor, one who told me the truth and didn’t pull any punches.’
‘But I haven’t had long enough with you yet, not nearly enough,’ he said, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.
‘I can’t make myself better, Ben, and neither can you,’ Emma said softly. ‘It will have to be enough to know that I wrote myself better.’
Ben snapped his head towards her. His eyes were as red and pained as she had feared but they were also angry. ‘I don’t care about the book,’ he said. ‘It’s not real. I don’t care about anything but you.’
Emma raised an eyebrow and when she felt the spark of anger she went with it, it was an emotion she preferred, far better than the abject despair she had been facing. ‘Don’t care?’ she repeated. ‘Well, you damn well better care.’ She let her words sink in before she continued. ‘If you don’t care about the book then there’s no point in trying to bring any more of it to life. We might as well call off the wedding.’
‘We will not,’ Ben replied, his own anger filling his deflated body and forcing him to raise his shoulders.
‘And I might as well throw the book in the bin,’ Emma goaded.
‘You can’t. You put your heart and soul into that book. I won’t let you destroy it.’
Emma stared at Ben’s face and the trail of tears that slashed like scars across his cheeks. She wiped them away. ‘No more tears,’ she told him. ‘Not while I’m still here. When I’m gone, you can howl at the moon, rip the stars out of the sky and stamp on them if you want to, but while I’m alive, no more tears.’ Her words quaked over trembling lips, a mere fraction of the tremors that were coursing through her body but she would not let her own tears fall.
Ben tried to smile. It didn’t quite reach his eyes but it was a brave attempt. ‘I’ll try,’ he said.
‘Trying isn’t good enough,’ Emma pointed out. ‘We’re getting married and then we’re going to live happily ever after. Then, when I can’t be with you and when your tears are finally spent, there will be happy times to remember and there will be our story to remind you how I lived my dreams.’
Ben stared at Emma, his eyes narrowing as he tried to unravel her inscrutable expression. ‘Your Mr Spelling would be proud of you. You don’t pull any punches either.’
Emma felt herself relax as he smiled, more easily this time. She wrinkled her nose and smiled back and the weight of the world on their shoulders lessened by a fraction. ‘That’s why you love me,’ she said.
‘That’s one of the reasons,’ he corrected before leaning in and kissing her.
‘Egypt?’ the young woman offered tentatively.
‘Been there too.’ I sighed, leafing through yet another brochure.
The poor girl did her best to maintain a semblance of enthusiasm. We had been in the travel agents for an hour and it hadn’t taken our advisor long to realize that we had been to more places than even she had heard of. We were semi-retired and had taken what was meant to be only a year out to travel the world but every time we thought we’d had our last adventure we managed to find one last amazing place we simply had to visit. Now, after three years, we really had done it all and I didn’t like the idea that this might be it.
‘How about we go home?’ Ben said. His voice was raspy, too much laughter and fine dining over the years. He stood up and I suspected he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
I lifted my hand towards him in submission and he pulled me to my feet.
‘But …’ I said and then stalled. Could there really be no more buts?
‘Life isn’t about seeing the world, it’s about experiencing it,’ he said, ushering me to the door. ‘We have grandchildren now and maybe it’s time we thought about spending more time with them.’
We had almost made it to the door when I stopped in my tracks. ‘Yes, you’re right. There are plenty of experiences we haven’t tried yet,’ I told him. ‘Riding camels across the Sahara or deep-sea diving in Fiji, skydiving in the Himalayas …’
‘Emma …’ Ben warned.
‘OK, maybe not skydiving. That might be pushing it at our age, but how about hot-air ballooning across the Serengeti?’
Ben laughed as if I had gone mad but the travel agent had pricked her ears and was busily gathering some new brochures for me. He stopped laughing when he saw that I was serious. I wasn’t giving up, not yet. I was going to squeeze every last drop out of my life. I hugged him. ‘If it makes you feel better, then we can always take the grandkids to Florida. I’d like to see you face the Tower of Terror.’
‘There really is no stopping you, is there?’
‘That’s why you love me,’ I replied, returning to my seat in front of the salivating travel agent who was about to work even harder for her commission.
‘That’s one of the reasons,’ he said, taking the seat next to me and showing the first signs of enthusiasm as we started to trawl through our options. That was one of the reasons I loved him.
Em
ma had to agree that St Luke’s wasn’t an obvious venue for a wedding. By rights it shouldn’t have survived the bomb that fell on it during the Blitz or the ensuing fire that swept through the entire church from the altar at one end to the tower at the other. But whilst the roof and everything inside the church had been destroyed completely, the yellow stone edifice had survived unscathed. The tall square bell tower was missing its bell, the ornate windows were bereft of their stained glass, but somehow each and every one of the Gothic pinnacles that adorned the edges of the absent roof stood proud and impossibly intact. It was a survivor and that was what had appealed to Emma.
The church was no longer a place of worship but it was still being used regularly for a variety of creative arts events and there had been some intense negotiating by the Wedding Planners to secure the venue. Emma had to be at the church at nine but her six o’clock alarm call was nothing compared to the early call some of the volunteers had. They’d been working around the clock to get everything ready.
‘Someone must be looking down on you,’ Meg told Emma as she watched benign, fluffy clouds ambling across a sky that had been molten red at sunrise. They were standing on the balcony of the apartment and everything around them glistened with spent raindrops. The air was fresh and the first day of spring looked like it was going to be a bright one.
Emma had been made up to within an inch of her life. Her hair had thinned and there were two significant bald patches where the radiotherapy had done its worst, but thanks to the creative use of a tiara and accessories, she was given a hairstyle befitting any bride. Her grey pallor and the dark shadows under her eyes had been hidden beneath carefully applied makeup that looked fresh and natural. Gina had succeeded where her doctors had failed.
‘Enough fresh air,’ Gina said, pulling Emma back into the apartment. ‘It’s time for the dress.’
‘I feel sick,’ Emma moaned as they re-entered the apartment, which felt very warm, as did she.
‘You can’t throw up now,’ Gina cried, her eyes wide with alarm. ‘Meg, do something.’
‘Let’s get you back outside,’ Meg said, leading Emma carefully back through the patio door. She tipped up a chair with a large puddle in the middle of it and was wiping the seat with a tissue as she spoke. ‘Ally, get her some water. Louise, get her anti-sickness tablets. Emma, sit down here.’ Her instructions came out as fast as bullets and Emma, like everyone else, followed her orders without question, sitting down heavily on the damp chair.
‘It’s probably just nerves,’ Emma told her mum.
Meg took a deep breath and calmed herself so her next words would be free from the anxiety building around her. ‘Of course it is. We’ll just have to take things a little more slowly. It’s traditional for the bride to be late.’
When they arrived at the church, Emma was no less nervous but the drugs had banished the nausea. She hadn’t been sick and her makeup had remained intact. As she stepped out of the car, she felt like she was stepping into another reality, leaving behind the Emma who felt tired and frail, the Emma who was dying. The young woman who stepped out of the car was radiant and as Gina and Ally adjusted the fall of her ivory silk dress and carefully arranged the veil over her face, Meg and Louise looked on with tears in their eyes.
It didn’t register with Emma that the car was only a taxi cab. The driver, a bistro regular, had dressed his car with silk ribbons and flowers for the occasion and Emma couldn’t have been happier if she had stepped out of the classiest limousine. Nor did she care that her dress had been acquired from a charity shop. It had been pulled apart and completely transformed by Gina to the extent that it was, in Emma’s eyes, fit for a princess. The bridal bouquet was a spray of spring flowers and roses, provided by Iris and Jean, no questions asked. As far as Emma was concerned, the illusion was complete.
Meg looked anxiously at the steps that led up to the entrance to the church but before she could ask, Emma had her answer. ‘I’ll be fine, Mum,’ she said. ‘Let’s not keep them waiting.’
Emma could hear the swish of silk as she glided up the stone steps and when she reached the top, the sound of church bells filled the air, coming not from St Luke’s but the nearby cathedral, which was lending its voice to the occasion. As Emma reached the entrance, a figure stepped out of the shadows. Through her veil, Emma didn’t recognize him at first, or perhaps didn’t trust her own eyes.
‘I know you’re not exactly mine to give away,’ he began, ‘but I had to be here. Tell me to go if you want.’
Emma didn’t answer her father but turned towards her mum who was following close behind. ‘It’s alright, I knew John would be here,’ Meg said, although she avoided looking at her ex-husband. ‘It’s your day, Emma. It’s your decision.’
John Patterson had played no part in the wedding day of her imaginings. This isn’t a dream, she told herself. This is really happening.
Emma didn’t say yes or no, instead she reached out her hand for her dad to take and the look of relief on his face was clear to see. ‘Thanks, Emma. I don’t know how I would have broken it to these two if we had to leave before the big event.’
Emma looked on as a tiny, cherub-like face appeared from behind him, closely followed by another. Olivia and Amy had little rosebuds in their hair to match Emma’s bouquet and pretty satin dresses in the exact same shade of navy blue as her other bridesmaids.
‘Rose!’ cried Emma.
‘No, I’m Olivia,’ corrected the little girl with a giggle.
‘Yes, silly me,’ she agreed, ignoring the looks of concern from everyone around her.
‘We’ve got flowers,’ explained Olivia, holding up a small basket full of petals, ‘and we’re going to throw them on the floor.’
‘And then you can squish them,’ added Amy in excitement.
‘Oh, they’re too beautiful to squish. I’m going to have to tiptoe through them.’
Olivia thought about it for a while. ‘You could always use your angel wings and fly over them.’
‘Maybe not today,’ Emma said. ‘I haven’t quite worked out how to fly yet.’
Before the girls could interrogate her further, Meg and John started to usher everyone into the church, managing to synchronize their actions without speaking to each other or even acknowledging what the other was doing.
Before Meg disappeared into the church she glanced back, a smile trembling on her lips. Soon after, the bells stopped ringing and beautiful music filled the air. The flower girls began the procession into the church and Emma prepared for her own entrance.
‘Shall we?’ John asked, giving Emma’s arm a quick squeeze.
When Emma entered the inner ruins of the church, she was grateful for her father’s arm. They stepped into a world of enchantment where the ethereal sound of violins echoed off the high walls with their Gothic peaks. Swathes of cream voile had been draped from high, falling in front of the windows and billowing softly in the breeze. The bare stonework, the charred timbers and the weeds growing from lofty crevices bore witness to the church’s resilience and added to its charm. The makeshift aisle that led to the altar was dappled with sunlight that fought through the bubbling clouds high above them. The altar itself, with its curved walls and intricate windows, appeared to have kept the majority of the sunbeams for itself. Flickers of light glinted from tiny shards of stained glass that had remained attached to the windows with colourful determination.
The intimate gathering of family and friends stood to attention as Emma made her way down the aisle. With no pews to sit on, they would have to remain standing throughout the ceremony. Emma didn’t look at their faces or note the tears being shed; she was looking at one person and one person only.
She hadn’t seen Ben since they had stolen themselves away to the register office the day before to make their union official in the eyes of the law. That particular ceremony had been perfunctory with only Iris and Jean in attendance as witnesses. Emma hadn’t wanted her family there. This was her real wedding, this was wh
ere the magic and the memories would be made and as Ben turned to look at her and smile, Emma’s heart beat a little faster. It was the first time she had seen him in a suit. He looked impossibly handsome as he pulled back his shoulders and stared directly at her, strong and resolute. She fought an overwhelming desire to rush straight into his arms.
Ben stepped forward to claim his bride and gave her dad a wink. He lifted the veil from Emma’s face. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he whispered.
Having reached the safety of Ben’s side, Emma took in more of her surroundings. Delicate sprays of flowers decorated the altar and the sweet scent of the blooms drifted towards her. Candles flickered in a breeze strong enough to snuff them out but the candles simply burned brighter in defiance. To one side of the altar, a quartet of musicians stood to attention, their music having reached a heart-stopping climax as Ben took her hand. She glanced past his shoulder and Steven gave her an encouraging smile.
Without the music, Emma could hear the distant hum of traffic outside and the frantic cry of seagulls above, reminding her that they hadn’t been magically transported to a dreamscape. There was the occasional sniffle from the congregation and she didn’t need to look around to know that the person who had just blown her nose was Jean, not when she had also heard Iris telling her to shush. The distinguished-looking gentleman standing in front of her drew her attention back to the altar. There was something familiar about him but the dog-collar had distracted her. She had seen him at the bistro where he had worn less formal garb. She was staring into the benevolent face of Iris’s new beau.
Ben and Emma had written their own vows and their words focused on the here and now, about their love for each other and their completeness. There was no talk of ‘till death us do part’, only of a love that was undying and of the memories they were now sharing, which would bring them eternal joy.
Emma’s voice was clear and strong as it echoed around the church. It was Ben’s voice that shook and his hand trembled as he placed the wedding band on her finger. Her eyes were drawn in awe to the ring that symbolised their union and if there was ever a moment in her life when she felt truly complete, it was when the chaplain pronounced them husband and wife. A shiver of excitement coursed through her body and was electrified as her husband kissed her.
Another Way to Fall Page 28