by Adale Geras
‘Yes, well … The dress’ll be beautiful. And Zannah … I can’t pretend I don’t miss her.’
‘But not Isis.’
‘No, not Isis. Not really.’
‘And not that old jailbird, Charlotte.’
‘I liked Charlotte,’ Adrian objected. ‘She was always very nice to me.’
‘Ah, that’s just a front. When push comes to shove, I don’t think you can trust someone who’s been in jail, can you? I always felt I never knew where I was with her. Never knew what she was thinking.’
‘Well, there’s no point dwelling on that now. I’m getting used to the idea.’
‘Tomorrow early we’ll be off to the sun, darling. There’ll be crowds of pretty young girls everywhere you look, I’m quite sure.’
‘Hope you’re right, Mum. But don’t worry about me. To quote the Kaiser Chiefs, “Every day I love her less and less”.’
‘Are they a pop group? I’ve never heard of them.’
‘Never mind … They’re not your sort of thing, really. But you see what I’m saying? I’ll live.’
‘Have another cup of coffee, darling. Then we’ll go and look round Harvey Nicks. I could do with another swimsuit for when the one I have is drying. And perhaps another cover-up. I don’t want to catch the sun. Not with my colouring.’
*
Zannah wasn’t going to be late for her wedding. They’d all walked to the church together, in the warm May sunshine, and when they reached the porch, she and Bob had simply stood aside till everyone else had found their places. Joss was relieved that because he was giving Zannah away he would only sit beside her for part of the service. She’d greeted Cal’s mother and some of his friends. Granny Ford – it was hard to remember to call her Grace – hugged her and promised that they’d get together for a proper chat after the ceremony and wasn’t this a turn-up for the books and she was so pleased that they were going to be properly related all over again.
Joss walked down to the front pew and picked up the printed order of service. She was pleased with how it looked: an elegant font, quite good paper. Fortunately, she’d been able to get in touch with the printer in time to change the name of the bridegroom. She glanced at Cal, looking quite unlike himself in morning dress, but handsomer than she’d ever seen him. Standing next to Mattie, his fair-haired, bouncy-looking best man, he was clearly not a bit nervous in these surroundings, but completely relaxed and smiley. He grinned at her, for instance, as she sat waiting for the service to begin, and Joss smiled back.
The church had been transformed. Near the door where the bride would appear stood two small ornamental bay trees, with cream ribbons tied in bows scattered among their branches, and Joss smiled. How prettily Maya had adapted the trees-in-church idea which Maureen had admired when Prince Charles had married Camilla! The end of each pew was decorated with roses and trailing foliage and the lectern, too, had flowers twined round it. Roses, lisianthus, peonies and ivy spilled out of two enormous vases on either side of the altar. The organist was playing Bach … a toccata … and the music filled the vaulted roof and Joss felt its glorious vibrations passing through her body. She glanced behind her and saw a kaleidoscope of smiling faces and hands raised in greeting and nodding heads and hats heavy with flowers and banded with ribbons and dresses in pastel colours and the grey and navy and black of the men’s suits. The Bach piece had ended. Joss heard the drawn-in breath of nearly seventy people as Zannah’s entry music, Jeremiah Clarke’s Voluntary, swelled and soared in the church, and looked towards the huge doors, like everyone else. She had to turn back quickly, opening her tiny handbag to find a tissue because the impulse to weep – which she’d always thought was ridiculous … why weep at a happy event? – was nearly irresistible. It’s her beauty, Joss thought, the beauty of this woman, my daughter. The congregation, you could hear them, were sighing with amazement at the dress, but for Joss, this Zannah was like a palimpsest: she could see all the other Zannahs there behind her, or perhaps through her … the baby taking her very first steps and falling head first into a bed of tulips; the schoolgirl with her skirt turned up at the waistband so that far too much leg was on display. Joss had shouted at her then, and her anger had had no effect whatsoever. She remembered, too, the young bride in the register office when she married Cal the first time: up-to-date, fashionable, and wearing, in Joss’s opinion, far too much blusher. All those Zannahs had become this one: poised, elegant, and looking as though she wanted to be here and nowhere else. About to marry this man and no one else. Knowing her mind and knowing this was going to be for ever. Joss touched a tissue to the corner of each eye. That’s what’s making me cry, she thought. Her hope. Her belief. Her faith that her dreams are about to come true.
*
‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the presence of God and of this congregation to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is an honourable estate.’
The Rev. Geoff has a gorgeous voice, Emily thought, and now that he was doing his intoning bit, she could see why Zannah liked the traditional words. In a minute, they’d be at the ‘for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health and till death us do part’ bit which was the highlight of the service.
Emily felt quite surprised by how much she was enjoying things. Pat was amazing. Everyone she’d had a hand in making-up looked fabulous. Even Charlotte hadn’t been able to resist and the result knocked at least ten years off her age. Some of the hats in the audience – oops, congregation – were ridiculous. Why didn’t people think? Several women, wives of some of Pa’s colleagues who should have known better, were in headgear that wouldn’t have been out of place at Ascot but which prevented anyone sitting behind them seeing a thing.
Cal’s face, when he saw Zannah walking up the aisle, was something Emily would always remember. Gobsmacked would have been the word, but that was too crude. He was gobsmacked but in a sort of awed, church-suitable way. He gazed at Zannah and smiled. Emily could see how much he loved her. His eyes were shining with it. You felt you could almost put out a hand and feel its warmth. Zannah smiled demurely back, but Emily could tell that she was controlling herself. For two pins, she knew, her sister would have grinned as widely and enthusiastically as the groom.
‘Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?’
That was Pa’s cue. He stepped forward and sort of handed Zannah over to stand next to Cal, and he himself went to sit next to Ma. What a load of nonsense, this giving-away of someone. No one belonged to anyone else, but if you went with the antique gorgeous words, you had to go along at least a bit with what they said. Even if you didn’t believe it. What about ‘till death us do part’, for example? That might have made some sense when you didn’t live much beyond forty and then only if you were very, very healthy. Nowadays, when you could reckon to live for more than eighty years, was it fair to ask someone never to shag anyone else ever? Emily didn’t know what she thought about that, but Zannah seemed happy to sign up for this life-sentence. She realized, with something of a pang, that she’d never again be able to fantasize about Cal falling in love with her one day. He was obviously fine with the idea of a lifetime with Zannah.
Ma was pale. Why, Emily wondered, watching her pretend to sing ‘Love Divine All Loves Excelling’? Even though it was one of her favourite hymns, she wasn’t making much of a noise. She could even have been lip-synching to the tune everyone else was belting out. Edie’s choral society pals made a difference. They were obviously enjoying every minute. Ma’s face, even with Pat’s efforts, was drawn and pale. She seemed exhausted. Isis and Gemma, whose entrance behind Zannah was accompanied by a collective ‘Aaah!’ were behaving like little angels, sitting quite still with their flowers on their laps. Isis was also holding Zannah’s bouquet and her task was to hand it back to her in time to go back down the aisle. You could see that this responsibility was on her mind. She kept casting her eyes down to check that the arrangement hadn’t fallen to bits while she wasn’t looking.<
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*
When the Rev. Geoff finished speaking, Cal bent forward. Before he kissed Zannah, he whispered in her ear, ‘God, Zannah, I love you so much. But I feel like a complete prat. Can I change into jeans when we get back to the house?’
His lips touched hers briefly and she could hear Isis, somewhere off to her left, having a fit of the giggles suppressed by Ma.
‘Don’t be silly. You look great.’ And he did. He was just as handsome now as he had been ten years ago, and she loved him even more now than she had then.
‘And you’re the most beautiful, my darling. The most, most beautiful.’
After signing the register, they turned to walk down the aisle. Zannah smiled, and went on smiling as they passed everyone waving to them from the pews. The doors stood open. She closed her eyes briefly, fixing the moment in her mind: she and Cal, together again, her hand on his sleeve, the bay trees looking glorious, the organ filling every corner of the space with music that lifted the heart, and a wide band of sunlight spread like a gold carpet over the flagstones; sunlight which was there for her and Cal to walk in all the way home. As they stepped out of the doorway, Isis and Gemma threw a shower of confetti over them. They’d walked out of the church ahead of the bridal couple and had been waiting to ambush them. Zannah laughed as she brushed a thousand pink and white rose petals off her shoulders.
*
That young photographer was charming, Charlotte decided. She, for one, was much relieved that he’d chosen to do away with stiff formations of assorted relatives standing in the church porch. She, Edie and Val watched as he slipped between the knots of people waiting on the grass in front of the church for the wedding party to move towards the house.
‘She looks,’ Edie said, ‘perfectly lovely, doesn’t she?’ Charlotte and Val nodded and Charlotte glanced to where Bob and Joss were standing together. It looked to her as though they were involved in a conversation that might easily turn into a quarrel. Joss was frowning. Charlotte managed to catch Isis as she ran about among the guests.
‘Isis, I think you should go over and see if your grandfather is ready to set off for the house. We ought to get there before the other guests. Will you do that?’
Isis nodded and went off happily towards Bob. When she grabbed his hand, he smiled at her and they walked off together.
*
Isis thought she’d never seen anything half as beautiful as the wedding cake. She and Gemma had come up to the house with Charlotte and Grandpa, Edie and Val. Brian, who was the main person in charge of the food, gave them his special permission to go into the marquee before anyone else and have a look at the cake.
‘Don’t touch it, though, girls, will you?’
They shook their heads. There were ladies in black dresses with white aprons getting ready to take trays of drinks round to everyone while they milled about on the lawn.
Lots of food was already spread out on the long white table. There were two enormous whole pinkish fish, decorated with lemon slices like scales and surrounded with little flowers made of radishes. Glass bowls full of salad and baskets of rolls were on the table too and Isis felt hungry. It was ages since the bowl of cereal she’d had at breakfast. As well as the cold food, there would be lots of hot things but they’d only come out when everyone was there, ready to eat.
The cake was like three huge squares, one on top of another. The icing was so white that it made your eyes feel funny, like when you stared at snow. On the very top, there was a little pile of rosebuds that looked as though someone had dropped them on to the cake by accident, because some had fallen off and were sort of scattered round the other layers. They were exactly the same dark red rosebuds that she and Gemma had in their posies. Charlotte had taken those away to put in some water, in the larder, so that they stayed fresh. It was a shame, Isis thought, that they were going to spoil the cake by cutting it.
‘Hello,’ said Alex. ‘I’m just going to take a picture … Isn’t this cake grand? Why don’t you two stand next to it, and pretend to pinch one of the roses off the top.’
‘Did Brian say you could come in here?’ Isis asked. ‘He said no one but us was allowed to look before the guests arrived.’
‘Oh, I’m allowed,’ said Alex. ‘I’ve got a free pass to go everywhere today.’
He took a few more pictures and wandered off to find something else to point his camera at: someone polishing a glass. A waitress chatting to Brian.
*
The speeches were over and no one had said or done anything embarrassing. Charlotte felt relieved. Cal had been charming about cutting the cake, and even though he was out of his natural element, he had dealt well with being in the limelight. Most of the guests had moved out on to the lawn with their drinks and the catering staff were circulating among them with more wine. The food had been delicious and she wished, briefly, that Maureen had been here to taste it. Surely even she would have approved of the wild mushroom and smoked mozzarella tart, the chargrilled butterflied leg of lamb with salsa verde, the wonderful oriental duck-breast salad and the cinnamon pavlova with berries and ginger cream. Here in the marquee, the staff had already cleared away most of the detritus, and a few people were still sitting at the tables, eating wedding cake and drinking coffee.
She went out to look for Joss and Bob and at first couldn’t see them anywhere. Then she spotted them standing together near the hawthorn bushes. She frowned. They had their backs to her, and a stiffness about the way Joss was standing convinced Charlotte that they weren’t exchanging happy wedding chit-chat.
*
‘I thought we’d agreed,’ Bob said. ‘You promised you’d wait till after the wedding.’
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ said Joss.
‘I can see that. Very well, then, spit it out. I think I know what you’re going to say.’
‘I want a divorce, Bob. I’m sorry. Really. I can’t go on like this. It’s not fair on you, for one thing.’
‘Oh, you’re worrying about me. How touching! Well, I can’t say I’m all that keen to stay married to you, so you might say it’s all worked out for the best.’ He didn’t sound as though he believed what he was saying. There was a note of bitterness in his voice that she’d never heard before, but then, the circumstances were out of the ordinary. I can’t, she thought, expect him to sound pleased.
‘I shall consult a lawyer,’ she said. ‘That’s what you’re supposed to do, isn’t it?’
‘Not my business really. I’ll be in Egypt in any case. Just get on with it, and leave me in peace.’
‘But, Bob … ’ Now that she’d spoken, Joss was over-whelmed by the enormity of what she’d done. Was this it? Really? ‘We’ll see one another, won’t we? At family birthdays and so forth … ’
‘Not going to bother about things like that now, frankly. I shan’t forgive you for fucking up my day, though. You could have waited. As we agreed.’
‘And if I’d waited it would have fucked up my day!’ Joss noticed that her voice was dangerously wobbly and took a deep breath to steady herself. ‘If I’d waited, I’d have been sitting here for six weeks while you swanned off to Luxor. I’m not prepared to do that, Bob. I’m going to take care of myself from now on. I have to do this. I hope one day you’ll be able to see that I really had no choice.’
Joss waited to see whether he would say anything. Would he plead with her to stay with him? He might point out that she did have a choice: she could give up Gray for ever and stay with him till they were ancient. She could stay with him till the very end of her life. He said nothing. As Joss was racking her brain for a formula that would take her away from this place, from this situation in a graceful way, he turned suddenly and strode off briskly towards a group of his colleagues who were standing near the rose-trellis laughing at something. She watched him get straight in there with a remark that made them all chortle even more enthusiastically and she thought, okay. He’s going to pretend he doesn’t give a damn. Fine. So will I. She felt as she imagined a
baby would feel, if it emerged into the world already grown: excited, overwhelmed by possibilities and nearly paralysed with terror of what might happen next. She also felt very light and detached, as though suddenly she’d floated free of her own life, and was drifting over the physical world that had defined her for years. She squared her shoulders and made her way into the house.
*
Emily and Zannah were up in the bedroom. The wedding dress was hanging up on the back of the door, already hidden in its muslin shroud. Zannah had just stepped into a chiffony floral skirt and top of supreme prettiness and now looked a bit like someone in a Botticelli painting.
‘I didn’t think you were going to have a honeymoon,’ Emily said. ‘Are you? I thought Cal had to be at work on Monday.’
Zannah giggled. ‘Apparently the hotel was so fabulous that he’s booked us a couple of nights there. Isis is going to Gemma’s till Monday. We’ll do some of the things people never do when they live in London. I’m not going to use my London Eye voucher, though, because I’ve promised to take Isis and Gemma on that. Someone’s knocking, Em … Who on earth can it be?’
‘Probably Isis,’ Emily said. ‘Shall I let her in?’
Zannah nodded and Emily opened the door.
‘It’s me,’ said Joss. ‘Do you mind if I join you?’
‘Yes, do come in, Ma. She’s got something to say to you, Em,’ said Zannah, over her shoulder from where she was sitting at the dressing-table.