The Story of Our Lives

by Helen Warner

  Geneva fixed her huge, dark, almond-shaped eyes on Sophie and gasped prettily. ‘Her hen weekend?’

  Melissa nodded. ‘Yup.’

  ‘So… you mean she’s getting married pretty soon?’

  ‘Yup.’ Melissa shrugged and threw her hands up in exasperation. ‘One month’s time…’

  ‘OK.’ Geneva was instantly businesslike, as she fixed Sophie with a long, appraising stare that made her instantly regret dressing in jeans and a T-shirt. ‘In that case, let’s get started!’

  While Geneva ushered Sophie into a changing room and ordered her to strip, Melissa instantly became like a child in a toy shop, as she danced excitedly from dress to dress, picking them up and holding them against her tiny, perfect frame.

  ‘Look at this one!’ she cried, sashaying into the changing room with a fussy, lace concoction that would have looked a million dollars on Melissa, but would have made Sophie look like a giant toilet-roll cover.

  ‘Um, I don’t think so,’ Sophie said tactfully, as she stood in her underwear, waiting for Geneva to reappear.

  ‘Melissa!’ Amy shouted from outside in the salon, where she was lounging on a chaise longue, sipping a glass of champagne. ‘We’re here to get Sophie a wedding dress, not you!’

  Melissa stuck her bottom lip out. ‘Doesn’t mean I can’t try them too, though, does it?’ She looked up at Sophie for approval.

  Sophie grimaced. ‘I’d rather you didn’t – there isn’t a dress in here that wouldn’t look better on you than it does on me.’

  ‘Oh, now, honey, that’s just where you’re wrong,’ drawled Geneva, returning to the changing room with an armful of dresses, which she hung neatly from every available hook.

  Sophie scanned the dresses she’d chosen for her. All of them were strapless. ‘I’m not sure strapless is the right look for me.’ Sophie gave Geneva a doubtful look. ‘I don’t have the arms for it.…’

  But Geneva either hadn’t heard her or was choosing to ignore her because before Sophie could object, she was manhandling her into one of the gowns. It was the first time she had ever been dressed by someone taller than her, who didn’t make her feel like a lumpy giant, and Sophie began to feel a frisson of excitement, as Geneva expertly buttoned the gown and smoothed it down over her hips with a flourish. ‘There, that’s the one,’ she said, as she stood back to admire her handiwork.

  ‘But it’s only the first one I’ve tried!’

  Geneva nodded. ‘I know. But you’ll choose this one. Here, step into these shoes,’ she ordered, slipping Sophie’s feet into some exquisitely dainty, crystal-encrusted sandals.

  ‘Can I see?’ Sophie tried to open the curtain to get to the mirror but Geneva blocked her way.

  ‘Just a minute.’ She reached out and grabbed Sophie’s long, thick hair, and twisted it deftly it into a knot on top of her head, securing it with a beautiful, diamond-encrusted clip. ‘There. Now you can look.’

  Sophie stepped once more onto the thick, pale carpet and walked out into the room where Melissa, Emily and Sophie were all reclining on separate chaises. One by one, they sat up and their mouths dropped open.

  ‘Oh, Sophie,’ Amy put her hand over her mouth, as she let out a gasp. ‘You look absolutely beautiful.’

  ‘You do…’ Emily agreed, smiling at Sophie like a proud mother. ‘Really stunning.’

  ‘What do you think, Liss?’ Sophie turned to Melissa, who was uncharacteristically quiet.

  ‘I think,’ Melissa said, standing up and raising her champagne flute towards Sophie, ‘that there isn’t one single dress in here that would look as good on me as that one does on you.’

  Sophie could feel her eyes filling with tears. She had never felt like a great beauty. She had always compared herself unfavourably with the others, feeling bigger, lumpier, uglier. But as she twirled in front of the giant, gilt mirror, for the first time in her life, she was prepared to admit that she looked almost beautiful.

  JULY 2007

  ‘The wait is over for millions of Harry Potter fans around the world, as the seventh, and final, book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is published tonight.’

  PORTSTEWART, NORTHERN IRELAND

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Sophie’s eyes flickered open, as the misty morning light began to make its way over the top of the curtains and into the room. It took her a couple of minutes to get her bearings as she tried to remember where she was. She smiled to herself as realization dawned. She was in her old bedroom in her parents’ house in Portstewart, on the north coast of Northern Ireland.

  She threw back her single duvet, thinking how thin and cheap it felt compared to the expensive duck down version she had at home, yet it was so comfortingly familiar all the same. It had been a long time since she had slept in this bed but it was almost as if her body had memorized every contour and spring in the mattress and it was the first unbroken night’s sleep she had had in years.

  She walked to the window and drew back the pale pink linen curtains that she could still remember choosing when she was fourteen and had persuaded her parents to redecorate. Immediately, her heart lifted as she looked out at the view of Portstewart Strand, stretching for miles towards the emerald-green hills beyond, like a wide, sandy version of the Yellow Brick Road beside the wild, rolling Atlantic Ocean. The sky was pale blue, smeared with lilac and orange, suggesting that it was going to be a warm, clear day. She had planned for it not to be, after the relentless rain of the past three months. But she felt thrilled that the sun would be shining on such a special day. It felt like a good omen.

  On the door of the heavy pine wardrobe hung her wedding dress, zipped carefully into a protective cover. Melissa had persuaded Geneva to let Sophie take the same one she had tried on, by promising to get Geneva an audition for the American version of the singing show she was working on. ‘Is she good?’ Sophie had asked, picturing Mark’s reaction if she was terrible.

  Melissa waved her hand dismissively. ‘Good enough. Mark will be fine, if that’s what you’re worrying about.’

  Sophie nodded. ‘If he’s not fine about her singing, he’ll certainly be fine about her appearance. She’s absolutely gorgeous – he’ll probably start dating her!’

  ‘No, he won’t!’ Melissa retorted, her dark eyes suddenly fierce.

  Sophie had looked at her curiously. ‘Why do you care?’

  ‘I don’t… it’s just…’ Melissa hesitated.

  ‘Geneva’s way too tall for Mark!’ Amy leaned forward from the back seat. ‘They’d look ridiculous together.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Melissa, giving Amy a grateful look in the rearview mirror. ‘That’s what I meant.’

  Sophie unzipped the protective cover and ran her hand over the gown inside. It was a white, silk, strapless sheath, which was very plain, but Sophie thought it was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen. There was something about the way it was cut that made it look as if it had been created especially for her body. There were no bulges, no creases and definitely no straining buttons – just a perfect silhouette.

  The children’s voices floated upstairs from the kitchen, where they were already cooking breakfast with her mum. Sophie smiled to herself. They didn’t see that much of her parents, so when they did, it made it feel like more of a treat. Her mum especially spoiled them rotten but Sophie never objected. It was exactly how grannies were supposed to be.

  She zipped up the bag as lovingly as if she was dressing a newborn baby and made her way out of the room and down the stairs. She had offered to buy her parents a new house when she first started to make serious money, but they had politely declined, saying no amount of money could buy a view as good as theirs.

  They had a point. From every large window, there were spectacular views of the beach, the sea and the craggy little islands dotted in the distance. The colours changed constantly with the colour of the sky and it was impossible to either recreate it or become bored by it.

  ‘Well, good morning, bride-
to-be!’ Her mum turned to give Sophie an excited grin, as she walked into the large, airy kitchen.

  ‘Mummy, me and Granny are making special wedding pancakes!’ Emma was perched up on the granite worktop beside the hob, patiently holding a plate out for Sophie’s mum to serve the pancakes she was cooking.

  ‘How lovely! You are such a good girl, Emma.’ Sophie planted a kiss on top of Emma’s silky blonde head.

  ‘She is,’ her mum agreed, giving Emma a proud smile. ‘She’s been soooo helpful.’ Only Sophie picked up the faint trace of sarcasm in her mum’s voice. She could well imagine just how ‘helpful’ Emma had been.

  ‘I’m helping too!’ Sophie looked over at Theo, who was sitting at the big oak table in another part of the kitchen, shovelling the last bit of a pancake into his mouth. He had a suspiciously Nutella-like moustache on his top lip.

  Sophie laughed and walked over to scoop him up, covering his face in kisses, tasting the sugar that was stuck to his skin as she did so. ‘I don’t think scoffing them counts as helping, little love,’ she told him, putting him back down on the chair and sitting on the one beside him.

  ‘So…’ Her mum put a plate of fresh pancakes in the middle of the table and sat down opposite Sophie, smiling at her with eyes that were the same as hers, with just a few more lines around the edges. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘I feel like I wonder why I didn’t do this years ago.’ Sophie helped herself to a pancake and sprinkled some sugar on it. ‘I can’t wait to marry him.’

  ‘Yes, well, better late than never, I suppose.’ Sophie’s mum looked at Emma and Theo, who were busily tucking into their pancakes either side of Sophie. ‘It’s a bit different to our day… back then, having your own children at your wedding would have been unthinkable. Now, it’s the norm.’ She gave a rueful shrug.

  ‘Amy did it the “right” way and look how that worked out.’

  Her mum nodded. ‘Aye, that was a bad old business, for sure. But that’s not typical. Georgina got married first and it worked out all right for her.’

  Sophie thought, but didn’t say, that her older sister Georgina’s marriage to Shaun was a success because they were both as boring as each other, along with their two boring sons, who had followed their parents into dull jobs in the Civil Service, to nobody’s surprise. There was absolutely nothing about Georgina’s life that she envied or wanted to emulate.

  Sophie looked at both children fondly. ‘I’m glad the kids will be there. And at least we’ve got our ready-made bridesmaids and pageboys!’

  Emma and Megan were to be the bridesmaids, while Theo and George were the pageboys. Sophie had asked Jack too but he had laughed and said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’

  As it turned out, he was too ill to travel anyway. Sophie had told Emily she understood if she couldn’t make it either, but Emily was adamant that she would be there. ‘Mum and Dad are glad to be able to look after him. They like to be needed.’

  ‘Will Daddy be here soon?’ Emma looked up at Sophie. She was such a daddy’s girl. The deep bond that she and Steve had developed when she was a baby was stronger than ever, even though she was now eight years old. There was a time when Sophie had resented it. Had felt pushed out of their little bubble. But it was hard to remember now. Now she felt only pride that they had such a close relationship.

  And Theo had definitely helped to balance the books. Just as Steve and Emma shared a special bond, so did she and Theo. He had come along just when she needed him most and she sometimes thought he had saved her sanity. Unlike her difficult first few months with Emma, she had connected with Theo instantly and could see so much of herself in him. They were like two sides of the same coin.

  ‘No, we’re meeting Daddy at the church,’ she said, smoothing the hair back on Emma’s face. ‘By tradition, the groom isn’t really supposed to see the bride before the ceremony.’

  ‘Not that there’s much tradition going on today,’ Sophie’s mum muttered.

  Sophie ignored her. ‘That’s why he stayed at the hotel with the others.’

  ‘Poor Daddy.’ Emma shook her head sadly.

  ‘Why “poor Daddy”?’ Sophie gave Emma a quizzical look. Steve, Emily, Amy and Melissa were all staying in a very swanky hotel resort a few miles outside the town. He certainly wasn’t going to be slumming it.

  ‘Because he doesn’t get to eat Granny’s pancakes, silly!’ Emma said, as both Sophie and her mum burst out laughing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Amy propped herself on her elbow and looked across at Emily, who was staring fixedly up at the ceiling from her bed, her eyes almost crazed with tiredness. ‘Are you OK, Em?’

  She wondered if Emily had slept at all. Every time Amy had woken in the night, Emily had been lying in the same, strange, fixed position, with her arms crossed over her chest. It was disturbing yet fascinating.

  ‘I’m fine.’ Emily’s voice was as robotic as her stare.

  The two of them were sharing a room. Megan and George were flying in with their male nanny, Dean, that morning, as Megan had had a school concert and had insisted she couldn’t miss the previous night.

  Dean had started working for Amy just after she moved into her new house and she now couldn’t imagine life without him. He was a thirty-year-old Kiwi, who had planned to travel the world, but had fallen in love with London and had trained as a nanny to support himself.

  Amy had booked a triple room for herself, Emily and Melissa, but Melissa had declared that she would prefer to have a room of her own, so that she could ‘get a good night’s sleep before the wedding’.

  Only Amy knew the truth. Which was that she would barely be getting any sleep, as she would be spending the night with Mark. He had also flown in for the wedding the previous night. Amy was becoming increasingly worried about Melissa. Despite her many protestations and promises that she wouldn’t, she could see that she had fallen for Mark completely.

  Amy understood why. Mark was utterly beguiling and charming – in some ways very similar to how Nick had been when she first met him, but without the psychotic tendencies. He was generous, kind and unswervingly loyal to his friends. But he was also a ruthless businessman and a confirmed commitment-phobe. She was fairly certain he wouldn’t be asking Melissa to marry him any time soon, no matter how much she willed it to happen.

  ‘The trouble is,’ she had told Melissa, ‘he regularly sees other people, while you only see him. Maybe you should find another man? Be a bit less available? See if it makes him jealous and spurs him into action.’

  Melissa had sighed. ‘But it’s not that easy, Amy. I don’t really meet that many men who aren’t gay or already married. And if I’m honest, I’m not interested in sleeping with anyone else…’

  ‘Well, you’ve certainly changed your tune,’ Amy had replied, giving Melissa a sly look. ‘And don’t forget you promised me not to fall in love with him.’

  ‘I’m not in love with him!’ Melissa spat back unconvincingly. ‘I’m just… enjoying him, that’s all.’

  But Amy knew it was a lot more than that. She loved Melissa like a sister. She wanted her to find lasting happiness and she wanted her to have kids before it was too late. But she didn’t think she’d be doing either of those things with Mark.

  ‘Shall we go down to breakfast?’ she asked Emily, climbing out of bed and walking over to the window. Outside, in one direction, manicured lawns gave way to a magnificent, lush golf course, where several golfers were already out enjoying the uncharacteristically sunny Irish weather. In the other direction, sheer white cliffs plunged into a wild, deep, blue sea.

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  Amy turned to look at Emily with a frown and padded barefoot over to her bed. She sank down onto the mattress beside her and took her rigid hand in hers. ‘Tell me what’s wrong, Emily.’

  Emily’s eyes briefly found Amy’s before sliding away again. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can.’ Amy was emphatic. ‘You have always been there for me, Em. When
I was lower than I could ever imagine being. Let me be there for you now. Let me help.’

  Tears pooled in Emily’s dark eyes. ‘I can’t,’ she repeated, her voice heavy with misery. ‘I can’t tell anyone. It’s too… awful.’

  Amy shook her head. ‘There is nothing you could possibly say that would shock me, Em. We have been through so much together and we’re still here. Still best friends.’ She gave Emily’s hand a squeeze. ‘Nothing will ever change that.’

  Emily looked at her again, as a tear spilled over her lashes and ran down the side of her face, where it dissolved into the snow-white pillowcase. ‘I wish that we could turn back time. Undo the things we’ve done.’ Her voice quavered as she spoke.

  ‘We all wish that.’ Amy gave a bitter laugh. ‘My God, the number of times I’ve wished I could go back to the day I first met Nick and walk in the other direction, so that our paths never crossed.’ She paused for a second before continuing. ‘I know you probably feel the same way about Anton…’

  Emily didn’t reply.

  ‘But what happens to us shapes who we are, Em. In a weird way I’m sort of glad about what I went through with Nick. I think I’m a better, stronger person because of it.’

  Emily blinked back the tears that were about to fall and sat up, pulling her knees to her chest and looking up at Amy. ‘I don’t think you’re a better person, Amy. You’ve always been the best person I know…’

  Amy smiled, glad that she seemed to have got through to her at last. ‘Thank you. Although that’s rubbish, obviously.’

  ‘But,’ Emily continued, ‘you’re right. You are much stronger. I feel like I’ve gone the opposite way. The worse things get, the weaker I become. I used to be so tough… Do you remember what I was like?’

  Amy nodded. ‘I do. You were unbelievably tough. Scary, sometimes, if the truth be known.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s happened to me.’ Emily bent forward again, as if a heavy weight was pressing on her shoulders.