Made in Heaven

by Adale Geras

  ‘Thanks, Val. I’m so grateful to all of you,’ said Zannah.

  ‘Mummy and I can do the decorations,’ said Isis. ‘For the marquee. We’re good at decorating things.’

  ‘I’m sure you are, dear,’ said Charlotte. ‘It’ll look wonderful.’ She turned to Zannah and added, ‘I want this to be my present to you and Adrian. The house and garden. And I insist on paying for the hire of the marquee.’

  Zannah went to kiss her. ‘I’m speechless,’ she said, wiping away a tear. ‘Oh, God, I’m crying, Charlotte. You’re so good to me.’

  ‘It’s my great pleasure.’ Charlotte hugged her tight. ‘I love you, Zannah. Your wedding day must be exactly as you want it to be. Be happy.’

  ‘I am happy. I can’t wait to tell Adrian. And Ma, on Saturday when she comes to lunch. And Maureen. I’m sure she’ll love the idea once she hears about it.’

  Charlotte wasn’t convinced of that, but she said nothing. Let Zannah have a few days of pleasurable anticipation.

  ‘Edie,’ Zannah said, ‘I meant to ask you before, but it went out of my head. What should I do about arranging a church? I’m useless when it comes to churches, I’m afraid. Would you help me?’

  Edie put her knitting down on her lap and said, ‘If you’re not in a hurry, I can take you with me to midweek evensong round the corner at St James’s. You must have passed it a thousand times on your way here. I often go midweek. It’s a very nice service.’

  Zannah blushed. ‘I feel so guilty. I have noticed the church, you’re right, but without seeing it, really. Can you introduce me to the vicar? Or whoever it is who agrees to marry people. Honestly, I am sorry for being so ignorant, Edie.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Edie. ‘Better late than never.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I’ll go upstairs and get ready. We’ll leave in twenty minutes.’

  ‘I’m very grateful,’ Zannah said. ‘I hope I’m properly dressed for church.’

  ‘You look lovely,’ Edie said. She picked up a flowered bag from the flagstones, thrust her knitting into it, stood up and made her way into the house.

  *

  Even though she only went into them at Christmas and Easter, Zannah had an idealised notion of churches and strong opinions about what she liked when it came to ecclesiastical architecture. She hadn’t given proper attention to St James’s, that was true, but she adored visiting cathedrals and abbeys as a tourist if not as a believer. She liked church decor – ornate altar screens, statuary, carved wooden pews and especially stained-glass windows. Colouring glass and using it to make pictures was, she reckoned, one of the best ideas any artist had ever had. She often wondered who’d first thought of doing such a brilliant thing. As she and Edie walked sedately along the pavement and round the corner (the church really was very close to Charlotte’s house) she found herself wishing most fervently that it might be suitable. How convenient for the guests to be able to walk from the service to the reception!

  St James’s occupied a large corner plot, and the grounds were extensive. Zannah noticed the trees first: chestnuts and plane trees and a lot of lawn going up to the church porch. A traditional shape, vaguely Victorian Gothic, greyish brick, and best of all, a spire. There’s something about a spire, Zannah thought, that’s just that little bit more churchy and elegant than a squarish tower. This church even had a few rather undersized flying buttresses.

  Inside, there was a vaulted roof, and glorious stained glass everywhere. The whole building was beautifully light and airy and the evening sun was shining in through the west window, making coloured patterns on the floor. The music coming from the organ loft filled the space and Zannah listened to it with growing elation. It would be marvellous. It would be splendid. She imagined the flowers that she’d make sure were banked there, and there, and perhaps she would copy the Prince of Wales and put a tree or two on either side of the big wooden doors. The vicar … Edie had said she’d introduce Zannah to him at the end of the service … had a pleasant voice and looked nice, too, like everyone’s idea of an elderly uncle. She wished Adrian were there. He would love it. He was bound to. She could honestly tell him the church was exactly what she’d dreamed about.

  She took out the embroidered kneeler and sank down with her head in her hands. Thank you, God, she said silently, feeling as though she’d been neglecting some distant and elderly relative. I’m so grateful to you for making this church absolutely perfect. When she met the vicar, she’d fix up an appointment for herself and Adrian to go and see him. They needed to talk about the date (surely ten months was enough to ensure this was still free?) and to find out what else needed to be arranged. The music? She was almost sure Pa would want a decent choir. Was there a local choral society who might perform for a small fee? And what about the form of service? Although she was not a believer, Zannah had strong views about the traditional marriage service. The old-fashioned language was so much more … What was the right word? Serious … elegant. So much more dignified. The words had substance and meaning. They had centuries of tradition behind them. They had weight.

  Saturday

  So far, so gut-twistingly ghastly. Joss was in the kitchen of Zannah’s flat, getting the coffee ready to take in to the others who were still sitting round the table. She’d volunteered to do this, needing an escape from the unending awfulness that sitting opposite Maureen Ashton had turned out to be. She’d hoped that Isis might be there to distract her a little, but Zannah had arranged an outing for her with Cal, ‘so that we can discuss everything we have to’.

  She couldn’t imagine why she was surprised by how painful this lunch had been. When Zannah rang up to ask her to come to London, she’d known two things. The first was that she couldn’t get out of it. She’d made a quick trip down on the weekend after the bombings to check for herself that they were all right, but that had been a proper visit and this was almost like business. Joss hadn’t had much to do with the wedding preparations until now and what excuse could she possibly give her beloved daughter for leaving herself out of them? There was none. She was going to be involved in everything and that was that.

  The second thing was that playing a full part would be almost unbearably difficult. The fact that for the next ten months she would have to be in contact with Gray’s wife was torment of the sort you found only in fairytales, where mermaids had to walk on knives and princesses were required to pass through fire and flames to prove their love. I have to do it, Joss told herself. It’s lucky that I’m getting better at suffering. Maybe I’m even getting used to it.

  She piled the chocolates she had made into small cut-glass dishes. They were her contribution to the lunch party. The girls had a modern approach to entertaining. Emily was a good cook, but her style was what Joss privately called Advanced Student. Meals in the flat were of the moussaka/pasta with a terrific sauce/frittata with a gorgeous salad variety. She hadn’t thought that impressing Maureen was part of the plan, but it was clear from the menu today – smoked salmon, a very good lasagne, expensive wine and Charlotte’s home-made raspberry Pavlova, carried in a gigantic Tupperware container on her lap in the taxi that had brought her to the flat – that some sort of statement was being made. Would her hand-made chocolates let the side down or earn Zannah a few extra Brownie points? Joss sighed. She’d have to go back to the table soon, and take part in the conversation. So far they hadn’t touched on the matter of the venue, which was what they had come to discuss.

  Joss looked out of the kitchen window as she waited for the water to boil. Over the past six weeks, she’d become almost used to the daily misery that fell over her like a thick, grey cloak the moment she got out of bed in the morning. She could feel its weight as she went through the mundane actions of her daily life. Every night, as she lay back against her pillows, she mentally laid it aside, and sometimes she thought that she could even see it: a muffling, foggy dark shadow that hung in the corner of the bedroom she shared with a husband in whom she couldn’t confide. At the beginning, in the days after her
last meeting with Gray in the British Library, she’d had difficulty in falling asleep and the warmth of Bob’s body in the bed, snoring away unheedingly beside her, was something of a comfort. It was like having a familiar pet, she thought, and then she was consumed with guilt. Bob, her husband for so many years, the father of her children, who’d never done her any harm and who, she was sure, loved her in his own way: surely he should be more to her than just a teddy-bear of a man to cuddle in bed when she felt unhappy? He ought to be, she’d concluded, staring into the darkness, but he isn’t.

  Gray has my heart now. My true love hath my heart and I have his. She loved the Elizabethan poets. Some of her favourite lines, lines to which she’d introduced Gray, came back to her. Since there’s no help/Come let us kiss and part. How matter-of-fact Michael Drayton managed to be about it. He didn’t say a word about the physical consequences of the parting, one of which was a longing so sharp that sometimes it felt to her like stomach-ache. The nights when Bob rolled towards her, indicating with unspoken but well-known signals that had grown up over years, that he wanted to make love, were few and far between now. For the most part, he came to bed so late that he was asleep before his head touched the pillow, but occasionally, she had to close her eyes and repeat the movements that had become like a dance she knew by heart. Sometimes she was able to float out of her body. She’d grown used to distancing herself from the entire process without Bob being aware of what was going on. Just occasionally, though, she surprised him with her passion and those were the nights when, usually after she’d had a glass or two of wine, she managed to conjure up such a powerful fantasy image of Gray that a tremulous orgasm gathered her up and rippled through her, leaving her shaken and ashamed at the same time. After what felt to her like earthquakes taking place in her body, she would go to the bathroom and sit on the edge of the bath, shaking. In the bedroom, Bob’s snores were like a counterpoint to her own restlessness.

  She’d gone through it all. At first she’d felt sick and hadn’t been able to eat. Then she found it difficult to breathe. There was constant sleeplessness and occasionally, the sudden onset of tears. Even Bob, usually too involved in his own work to pick up on her moods, had noticed that something was wrong. He’d seemed slightly more aware – or wary – of her since the engagement lunch. At breakfast one day, he’d asked, ‘You okay, darling? You look tired.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Joss had answered hastily, smiling as brightly as she could. ‘Just didn’t get a very good night’s sleep, that’s all.’

  ‘Why don’t you phone in and tell them you’re ill? They can manage in the library without you, can’t they?’

  ‘No, really, I’m okay.’ She resolved to apply a little more Touche Eclat under her eyes, and helped herself to another piece of toast. The library might be able to manage without her, but she’d have lost her reason if there hadn’t been work to run away to. Every morning, she couldn’t wait to get into her car and drive away from the house, which seemed to be the place where her unhappiness had taken up residence.

  How would she have survived without her poetry? Writing anchored her to the physical world. Even in her desperate state, she saw things that made her want to reach for a pen. Lines and phrases came into her mind. She was so accustomed to putting the words on to the paper, then transferring them on to her silver laptop, that even the loss of Gray couldn’t stop her. Indeed, since they no longer communicated, her wildly fluctuating emotions, her desires, her sorrow, her jealousy and her anger went into the poems. She knew they were good, perhaps her best work, but she had no intention of publishing them. They were far too raw and personal and she was terrified of anyone seeing them. Except Gray. She longed to send him the whole lot at once. Part of her wanted him to know the damage he’d done. One of the things she missed most was Gray’s careful attention to what she wrote. One poem of hers had gone backwards and forwards between them by email for about a month. He found things to say about almost every word. ‘Why do you take such trouble with my work?’ she’d asked him one night. They often conversed on email after midnight. His reply was: Because if it’s so good. You can ignore what I say, you know. She’d emailed back: Would never do that. You’re usually right. His answering message arrived in her inbox at once: Naturally. Sharp of you to spot that.

  Now, Mal, her editor was both kind and a fan of her work and he gave her wonderful feedback but it wasn’t the same. How could it be? Fleetingly, she wondered whether Gray, too, was pouring his heart out on to paper. She found herself looking at the contents pages of poetry magazines with a greater interest than usual.

  Her mobile phone was ringing. It was in her handbag on one of the kitchen chairs, and she took it out and looked to see who was calling.

  ‘Mal? Hello … I’m at my daughter’s. It’s a lunch party. Why are you ringing on a Saturday? Is anything wrong?’

  She listened to what he was saying and felt a little faint. ‘You’re pulling my leg, Mal. I didn’t even know you’d submitted it. Is it true?’

  When the call was over, she put the phone back into her bag and took a deep breath. Her first poetry collection, The Shipwreck Café, which hadn’t even been published yet, was on the Madrigal Poetry Prize shortlist. The prize was two thousand pounds and a great deal of glory. She leaned against the sink and felt a stab of true happiness, followed swiftly by the need to speak to Gray, to tell him. He’d be so pleased … how wonderful it would have been to hear him telling her how clever she was, how well-deserved the prize would be if she won!

  The kettle had boiled and Joss waited for a moment before pouring water into the cafetière.

  ‘God, Ma, I thought you were growing the beans yourself!’ Zannah said, as she went back to the others.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I was taking a call from Mal. That’s my editor,’ she explained to Maureen. ‘I’ve got some good news.’

  ‘What is it?’ Emily leaned forward.

  ‘I’m on the shortlist for an award. Have you heard of the Madrigal Prize?’

  The girls knew about it. Maureen did not. Joss explained, and everyone clapped and cheered.

  ‘That’s fantastic, Ma!’ Emily said, and stood up to walk round the table and hug her mother. Zannah, who was sitting next to her, had already kissed her and flung her arms round her neck.

  Joss felt a mixture of pleasure and embarrassment and tried to make light of it, even though she had tears in her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I thought Gwyneth Paltrow was silly for crying at the Oscars but I sort of know how she must have felt and I haven’t even won anything. My mascara will be all over my cheeks!’

  ‘You look fine, Ma. Let’s drink a toast to you in coffee,’ Zannah said.

  Joss wiped her eyes carefully with a hankie. She’d taken a great deal of trouble with her make-up today. It was a matter of pride. She’d chosen her clothes with care too: her best linen skirt and a shirt in the kind of pink that gave her skin a glow that could just about pass as youth in a good light. Maureen was wearing a trouser suit, clearly expensive but the colour, a kind of putty-beige, did nothing for her blonde hair, in Joss’s opinion. Still, she thought, as she passed round the coffee cups, you can’t deny the beauty of her jewellery. She glanced at the triple string of pearls and imagined Gray fastening them round Maureen’s neck; imagined his breath on her face and felt quite ill. There was a movement in the region of her heart. How astonishing, she thought. My heart sank. It’s literally true. I felt it sinking.

  ‘Did you really make these chocolates, Joss?’ Maureen was smiling at her. ‘They’re quite scrumptious! Imagine being able to write poetry and make lovely chocolates. You are clever! You must send me the recipe. You’ve got my email address, haven’t you?’

  Joss shook her head.

  ‘I’ll give it to you. We’re going to have to communicate about so many things over the next few months, aren’t we? I resisted computers for ages, but I’m a convert now. I do everything I can on the Internet. It’s been a boon in the hunt for venues too. Bu
t perhaps … ’ She paused. ‘Zannah, I don’t mean to dominate the proceedings, but perhaps before we go on to talk about venues we ought to sort out what each of us is doing. Towards the wedding,’ she explained, looking round the table.

  ‘You’re right, Maureen.’ Zannah took out her wedding notebook, and Joss wondered whether a love of stationery got passed down in the genes. She, too, adored pretty paper, fancy pens and notebooks. ‘I did mean to talk about that. Ma, could I ask you to do the stationery?’

  ‘I was just thinking about it as a matter of fact,’ Joss said. ‘And, yes, I’ll order the invitations. Will you leave me to work out the wording?’

  ‘With consultation, of course,’ Maureen put in. ‘What sort of invitations were you thinking of, Zannah?’

  ‘Engraved. Plain. Black on cream. Beautiful font. I’ll leave it to my mother. She’s good at things like that.’

  ‘I’m very relieved you agree about engraving,’ said Maureen. ‘Some modern brides go in for all sorts of things – pink, decorated with spangles and roses and goodness knows what. Silver wedding bells!’

  Skull and crossbones, thought Joss. Hammer and sickle. For a fleeting second she allowed herself to think of Maureen’s reaction to those images on the invitations. Picked out in silver, of course. She suppressed a giggle. ‘Dad’s champing at the bit, waiting to be let loose on the music, Zannah. Is that okay? He’s been making a tape, I think, of possible pieces.’

  ‘Great. I trust him when it comes to music. He knows everything.’

  Emily undertook to be in charge of the hen night. Zannah looked rather alarmed.

  ‘I’m not going on a drunken pub-crawl round the West End,’ she said.

  ‘Relax,’ said Emily. ‘I’ve got it all sorted. You’ll love it, I promise. I’m not saying a word about it though. It’s strictly secret.’