by Adale Geras
When Zannah had first announced her wedding plans to Em, she was taken aback by her sister’s reaction. Emily knew her better than almost anyone, and yet even she didn’t properly understand. Okay, she agreed that it was up to Zannah to decide what kind of ceremony she wanted, what kind of reception but, in her opinion, the whole thing was a waste of time, money and effort. Zannah found it embarrassing to explain, even to her sister, her reasons for wanting things to be done in this way.
She was behaving superstitiously. This wedding had to be as different as was humanly possible from her wedding with Cal. She wanted, even after several years, no reminders whatsoever of that day, when she’d thought she was embarking on a life of total happiness and love. The reasoning went: if I do everything differently when it comes to the wedding, then the outcome, the marriage, will be different too. She still remembered the immediate aftermath of her separation from Cal and how ill she’d been. That was what it had been: an illness.
On the morning after that night – the night she pushed out of her mind with something like a physical effort whenever it happened to float into it – she’d packed up Isis’s things and a few clothes in a kind of daze and fled to her parents’ house, like a wounded child. Isis was handed over to Ma and Pa and she lay in bed, weeping, sleeping, weeping again and feeling as though her misery was a stone she’d swallowed and couldn’t expel from her body.
Ma used to bring Isis in to see her, and when that happened, Zannah sat up in bed and tried to cuddle her and talk to her, but she was so much like Cal that she always burst into tears again and buried herself in her pillows. I’m a useless mother too, she told herself. I can’t look after my own child. I’m nothing.
Zannah realized now, after a few years had elapsed, that she’d had a breakdown. Not a major collapse, but still something that had taken some time to recover from. Gradually, slowly, she came back to herself. She and Isis stayed with Ma and Pa and Em for six weeks before she had felt strong enough to go back to the flat. Em came with her, which helped. It was lucky that she was about to start her job and needed a place to stay. But even with Em’s company, the first few months were hard … harder than anything Zannah had ever done, but she had done it. Until a couple of years ago, she had still cried herself to sleep sometimes, especially after a day when Cal had come round to see Isis. Those were difficult to begin with. He’d occasionally ask her to forgive him and although in those days, when the parting was still raw and sore, she had sort of longed to agree, to get everything back to the way it had been, something inside her recoiled from the still-vivid images of her husband with another woman.
She was sitting in the staff-room at St Botolph’s, with the notebook open on her lap. Why on earth, she asked herself, am I harking back to those terrible days? It’s all over now. I’m happy. I’ve found Adrian and I love him and he loves me and we’re going to be together. And the manner of our getting together will be spectacular and quite different from what I had with Cal … what happened before.
The staff-room was, according to Zannah and her friends, the ugliest room in the whole of London, with its porridge-coloured chairs, its sludge-beige walls and the mess of books, newspapers, leaflets, games equipment, lunch boxes, cardigans and spare pairs of shoes pushed into the corners. You grew used to it after the first few months and eventually stopped seeing what was around you. There wasn’t time for contemplation in the whirlwind of school life, and even Zannah had stopped moaning about it. There was nothing to be done. Money was always needed somewhere else, which was fair enough.
‘Problem?’ said Louise. She was tall and skinny with round, John Lennon-type glasses and wore her long, fair hair twisted up and pinned to her head with a changing assortment of hair ornaments. She seemed unconscious of what she was wearing but always somehow managed to look both casual and elegant, in clothes that didn’t shout at you but which you could be sure were expensive. You could lay bets that her black cardigan, slung over the back of a chair like a discarded rag, would be Agnès B or even Nicole Farhi. Her mother was French, which Zannah reckoned explained her particular style. Louise threw herself into the chair next to Zannah’s and said, ‘You’re frowning on a Friday afternoon near the end of term. Surely some mistake.’
‘She’s busy, Lou,’ said Claire, biting into a biscuit. She was Gemma’s mother and Isis and Gemma were best friends. Zannah was grateful that her daughter had chosen to be buddies with someone whose mum she liked so much. She still hadn’t made up her mind about the bridesmaids issue and in spite of Isis’s constant nagging, she’d managed to fob off her daughter so far, declaring that such an important decision had to wait till other things were established, which wasn’t quite true but seemed to satisfy Isis. She’d have to make up her mind eventually, but had persuaded Isis that it would be fun to discuss the matter at length over the summer holidays.
Claire was in a constant struggle with her weight which, in her words, ‘the weight seems to be winning’. She was a good cook and quite unable to resist what came out of her oven. She often brought cakes and biscuits into the staffroom ‘to undermine other people’s ridiculous diets and bring them up to my size’. Her curly brown hair and light-up-the-room smile made her face almost beautiful, but she would never, she said, ‘be any competition for Jennifer Aniston’. Now she said to Louise, ‘Can’t you see? She’s in wedding mode. We’re not going to get any sense out of her. Spit it out, Zannah. What’s the problem? It’s true. You don’t look like a sunny bride-to-be.’
‘Sunny’s the last thing I am.’ Zannah closed the notebook and put it back into her handbag. I’m having mother-in-law problems and I’m not even married.’
‘Isn’t she being very low-key and staying conveniently in Guildford?’
‘She talks to me on the phone. She even emails me. Photos of floral arrangements, that sort of thing. I don’t know … I’ll have to go and meet her one of these days and just tell her … ’
‘Is this still about the venue? I thought you’d decided all that.’
‘I’ve decided what I don’t want. Well, almost. But Maureen has other ideas. She’s keen on Kew. Can you believe it? Or a castle somewhere. You remember that ghastly lunch I told you about when she brought out these ideas and sat back waiting for me to say, “Oh how lovely” and I didn’t. I could see her becoming more and more frozen. And I tried. I kept telling her that it was up to me in the end, my wedding etcetera but that didn’t go down too well. “Adrian is my son and it’s his wedding as well” … She sounded quite waspish. It doesn’t take much to make her sound waspish, actually. She’s been bombarding me ever since with ideas I hate. It’s awful.’
‘I’ve learned from experience,’ said Claire, ‘that mas-in-law are like kids. You have to start as you mean to go on. I laid down the law on the very first day. Things were going to be done my way or not at all. She could behave in my house or stay away. It was her choice.’
‘You’re unusual, Claire,’ Louise pointed out. ‘You get on well with your mother-in-law. Most people aren’t so lucky. Think of all the jokes. There’s got to be a reason for them.’
Zannah said, ‘I got on well with my first mother-in-law. Cal’s mum is a sweetie. Isis loves going down to visit her, so I’m still in touch.’
‘And I get on well with mine,’ said Claire, ‘because she knows I’d have nothing to do with her if she started any trouble. It’s a fact that not only can you never change the man you’re about to marry, you also aren’t going to be able to alter his mum, or his relationship with her. I suppose I was in luck when I found Ian, and part of that luck was him having a nice mum. Lot nicer than mine, as a matter of fact.’ Claire pulled a pile of exercise books out of her enormous holdall. Almost all of them had bent-over covers and spoke eloquently of the abysmal state in which Claire kept her possessions. ‘Got to mark these before registration. Four B are eager to know what I think of their compositions about being a Victorian child. See you.’ She went to sit at the table where the staff marked their
work during school time.
Louise said, ‘You don’t have to listen to anyone, Zannah. If you don’t want to have your reception in a castle, you don’t have to. What about your mother? Can’t you get her on your side?’
‘Oh, she’s on my side.’ Zannah frowned. ‘It’s just that she lives so far away. And she seems … I don’t know. I’m a bit worried about her, actually. She isn’t herself. She’s fifty-two … it could be the menopause, couldn’t it? Does that make you not yourself?’
Louise nodded. ‘My mum went completely bonkers. You ought to talk to yours about it, though. If she’s having problems, wouldn’t she want you to know?’
‘I don’t know if it’s problems, exactly,’ said Zannah. ‘She was with us last night and she was just … well, as though the stuffing had been knocked out of her. She’d been to see her editor and she’s normally really excited and chatty after one of those visits but this time, she was staring into space for most of supper and could hardly even summon up the energy to read a story to Isis. That’s very unusual. She’s so good with her – they get on brilliantly. I asked her if Mal, her editor, had said anything, but she said no. Actually, she said, “No, it’s not that at all,” and when I asked her what it was, she clammed up.’
‘Perhaps she and your dad have had a row? Could it be that?’
‘I’m not sure, to be honest. I ought to ask her when we’re alone, I suppose. She’s very … well, shy of talking about herself. Or maybe Em and I have always bent her ear so much with our problems that we’re not used to asking her how she feels. I will, though. You’re quite right. I have to speak to Ma and I have to point out to Maureen that it’s my wedding. Sorry, make that our wedding. I will.’
‘Invite her to lunch or something,’ said Claire, turning round to face the others, unable to concentrate properly on her work. ‘On your territory. Invite your mum and your great-aunt too. Then, with Emily, that’ll make four against one. Good numbers. Dazzle her with your cooking. Fill her with comforting pasta and let her have it. And get Adrian on side beforehand. Lots of lovely sex usually persuades a man to agree to most things.’
Zannah laughed. ‘I’ll try it. Have to wait till the holidays now, but that’s next week. I’m in the middle of making my guest-list and I haven’t even sorted the church.’ She sighed and opened her wedding notebook again, at the page headed: Churches.
This issue was causing Zannah some anxiety. She wasn’t religious, but she had been christened and felt that a register office wedding, like the ceremony she had gone through when she married Cal, wasn’t quite a hundred per cent proper wedding. She knew this was complete nonsense, even without Em pointing out that if it was good enough for the Prince of Wales, it ought to be good enough for her. The theological ins and outs of a divorced person marrying in church didn’t concern her. Because her first wedding had been a civil one, there was no problem. She wanted a nice vicar and a reasonable-looking building. Perhaps, Zannah thought, I’ll ask Edie. She’s a regular churchgoer. Zannah wrote the words Ask Edie under Churches in her elegant italic hand and felt better immediately. She let her mind stray to the matter of music. That was one of the best things about being married in church. You might have a real organist playing for you as you walked up to the altar and out of the church at the end. Under Ask Edie she wrote: Not Mendelssohn’s Wedding March.
*
Six weeks. Gray thought of the days and days since he’d kissed Lydia … Joss … goodbye and that the people who put out all the crap about the healing power of time didn’t know what they were talking about. He was lying in bed with a book propped open against his knees, pretending to read so that he did not have to engage fully with Maureen.
She was at the dressing-table, going through the ritual that she went through every night. It was taking, Gray registered, a hell of a long time. It probably always had done, but he’d never really noticed much till recently. For the last couple of years, this had been his best, his favourite time: a short period of privacy in which he wrote a goodnight email to Lydia. He’d agreed with Maureen that it was convenient for him to deal with ‘all that email nonsense’ while she was going through what she called her ‘routine’. He watched her, smoothing cream into her face, wiping it off with cotton wool, taking more cotton wool and wiping some clear liquid carefully over cheeks, chin, forehead and neck, then brushing her long hair for what seemed like many more strokes than the prescribed hundred and finally massaging a different cream from a different jar into her hands and arms. Gray felt a grudging admiration for the way she managed to do all that and still keep talking. Lately, some lines by Michael Drayton which Lydia had loved, and had once described as both economical and moving, had kept running through his head like a tune he couldn’t stop humming:
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows
And when we meet at any time again
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Gray didn’t know if he was capable of not showing any love when they met again. And they’d have to meet, at the wedding if not before. He sighed and tuned in to what Maureen was saying merely as a way of blocking out those lines, of escaping the yawning loss he still felt every night when work wasn’t there to distract him from his feelings.
‘I sometimes wonder, you know, if it’s the money thing,’ Maureen said. ‘It costs about twelve thousand to have a reception at Kew and I’m not altogether sure of the Gratrixes’ financial situation. Maybe we ought to offer to help, Graham. What d’you think? Would they be offended?’
‘They might, I suppose,’ he muttered. ‘Though I don’t expect they’re rich, are they? Academics aren’t usually.’
‘But that house! Charlotte Parrish’s house is quite grand, really. According to Adrian, it was an inheritance from her second husband. There might not be any spare for grand receptions. I don’t mind helping out, do you? It’s surely too old-fashioned for words for the bride’s family to do everything. And I get the impression … now don’t get me wrong, I think Zannah’s a lovely young woman, but I do get the impression that she likes her own way.’
Maureen pronounced this last judgement as though she didn’t devote every second of her time to making sure everyone danced to her tune. Gray had known since he married her that life would be much easier all round if he minimized the number of fights they had, and because Maureen had good judgement where domestic life was concerned, their marriage had been harmonious, for the most part. Now she’d turned to him and was asking his opinion.
‘What do you think I ought to do?’
Gray was flummoxed for a moment. Then he recovered and said, ‘Perhaps we could offer to pay for the catering, or something. That would be acceptable, wouldn’t it? Worth trying, in any case.’
‘You’re so clever, Graham. Honestly, I do wish you didn’t have to work so hard and could be more involved in this wedding. You’ve obviously got a talent for being diplomatic and that’s so important. I’ll suggest it to Zannah when I speak to her next. She wasn’t as co-operative as she might have been last time we met. She’s invited me to her flat, did I tell you? You, too, if you’re free. Joss is coming, and so is Mrs Parrish. Like a summit conference. Next Saturday, a week tomorrow. We really do have to arrange the venue. Time is marching on.’
And it stops for no man, thought Gray. He said, ‘No, you go on your own, Maureen. It’ll be easier without men, I’m sure.’
‘You’re probably right.’ She slipped into bed beside him and the fragrance of her liberally applied body lotion (Oscar de la Renta, which he’d been buying her at Christmas for years) wafted over to him. Her nightdress was pale blue satin and her breasts, still full and creamy, showed above the lace trimming. Any other man, he reflected, would thank his lucky stars to have such a wife beside him. He knew that if he turned to her, took her in his arms, she would respond, but he couldn’t muster the energy. In the past, thinking about Lydia was enough to give him an erection, but since they�
�d parted six weeks ago (‘Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part.’ That bloody poem again!) he was too unhappy even to feel desire.
Maureen leaned over and kissed him. She’d clearly been aiming for his mouth but hadn’t quite made it, which didn’t seem to worry her.
‘Night, darling,’ she said. ‘I’ll think about your idea. I like it, but I just hope Zannah won’t object.’
She turned out the light on her side of the bed and lay back on the pillows. Canapés and table decorations would fill her dreams, Gray knew. As for me, he thought, as he turned off his own bedside light, I hope I’m exhausted enough to fall asleep at once. Lately, this had been hard work and there were often nights when what he saw as he closed his eyes was Lydia’s face. Lydia’s smile. Now he had to imagine her sitting at the same table as Maureen in a few days. How would she feel about that? He imagined her brow furrowing with anxiety, her beautiful mouth tightening with the tension. God, her mouth. He could taste it. He closed his eyes. He had never felt less sleepy in his life. How long, he wondered, is this torture going to go on?
*
Emily opened the door to the flat as quietly as she could. Zannah was with Adrian and wouldn’t be back tonight and Cal had been babysitting for Isis, as he often did. Whenever he stayed over, he slept in the lounge on the sofa, which pulled out into a fairly reasonable bed. Emily fully expected to find the room in almost complete darkness, with only the landing light to guide her upstairs to her bedroom, but as soon as she put her head round the door, she saw that the sofa was still in sofa mode and Cal was stretched out on it, reading a novel with the kind of moody, blue, dramatically lit cover that shouted ‘non-cosy thriller’ right across the room.