‘I don’t know,’ said Trevor. ‘The only contact we’ve had with the B-Ps was that quick phone call last night from Vanoushka, crying her eyes out. I must say, I haven’t missed their visits.’ Trevor smiled at his daughter. ‘And I know Faye hasn’t been overly distressed that Vanoushka hasn’t bored her with tales of Martin’s unsavoury habits.’
‘I’ve been thinking about asking Shaden for her side of the story.’
‘Which she would invariably twist until you felt savaged. It wouldn’t be the best of ideas, darling. She’s always been so incredibly jealous of you. She would relish the opportunity of hurting you with detail and you still would not be assured that she was telling you the truth.’
Bel nodded slowly. He was right of course. Bad idea, then. She was full of them.
She took the coffee which her dad handed over and launched straight in with the reason she was here.
‘I’ve been seeing Richard again, Dad.’
Bel watched her father’s spine stiffen. ‘Oh,’ he said, trying to keep the judgemental tone out of his voice. ‘How did that come about?’
‘I agreed to meet him to find out where we go from here. I couldn’t just walk away entirely seeing as I went through with the marriage.’
‘I see,’ Trevor nodded. He didn’t look very happy, but he wasn’t the sort of man who imposed his own will on others.
‘I’ve been out to dinner with him every Wednesday for three weeks, that’s all. To talk.’
‘And what have you decided?’ asked Trevor.
‘I don’t know,’ said Bel, feeling very close to tears. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You’re from Yorkshire. And you know what they say in Yorkshire: if you don’t know what to do . . .’
He left the sentence hanging for Bel to finish. ‘Do nowt,’ she smiled.
Trevor extended his arm and Bel went to him. His big arm closed round her and she felt safe and warm and ever so young again.
‘Promise me you’ll take your time,’ he said. ‘Don’t let anyone or anything rush you.’
‘I promise, Dad.’
They moved into the lounge and Bel drank her coffee. She didn’t come round to the house often enough. There was such a lovely calm atmosphere here. Faye really did know how to make a house a home.
‘Remember that I’m always here for you,’ said Trevor at the door when Bel was ready to go home to her empty, lonely apartment. He kissed her on the head, tenderly, a loving Dad kiss. ‘And so is Faye. Let her in, love. It isn’t too late.’
Chapter 70
Five days before his wedding, Stuart was on his way home after picking up the hired suits. He was wondering if it was normal for someone to feel so numb about his forthcoming nuptials. Luckily he had never been a whooping, excitable sort of guy, so Max was blissfully unaware that he felt the way he did. Anyway, she was whooping enough for both of them.
He called in at the Lamp to pay the balance for the reception. Even the landlady was more excited than he was, wittering on about getting some pink serviettes or something. He wasn’t really listening. He hoped he was just suffering the pre-wedding nerves that everyone seemed to be going on about. His mum certainly cited them as the cause of him not jumping around the room with excitement on seeing the single-layer white wedding cake with the pink sugar-rose detail that she had made. And Luke was blaming pre-wedding nerves as the reason why Stuart looked so bloody miserable when they went for their final suit fitting last week.
Then he saw her. As he was about to drive past Pogley Top post office, he recognized the pony-tailed figure of Jenny Thompson in her beige coat, carrying her bucket of cleaning stuff. Suddenly his indifferent state was gone and his heart was in overdrive. He braked sharply, fiercely twisting the wheel, and took a left turn like Nigel Mansell so that he could pull up beside her.
He launched himself out of his seat.
‘Jenny,’ he said. God, it was so good to see her.
‘Stuart, hello there. How are you?’ Her smile spread across her lips and he felt its warm impact somewhere in his chest.
His legs were shaking as he walked round the front of the car. They seemed to be on automatic pilot; he didn’t feel as if he was in control of himself.
‘You look lovely,’ he said.
Jenny laughed. ‘Oh yeah, course I do. Old coat and—’
She was silenced by his kiss because his hands grabbed her arms and pulled her towards him and his mouth covered her own and it was wonderful. All the emotion that he didn’t think he had rose up like a hot geyser inside him. Then he felt Jenny drop her bucket and shift position and her fingers thread themselves in his hair.
Their lips drew apart but their foreheads stayed touching.
‘Oh God,’ sighed Jenny. ‘We shouldn’t have done that.’
‘No,’ said Stuart softly. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing. But whatever it is, it feels so right. Oh Jenny, I can’t get you out of my mind.’
‘It’ll be pre-wedding ner—’
‘Don’t say it,’ said Stuart, pressing his finger against her soft pink mouth. ‘It’s not.’
Jenny moved gently but firmly away from him.
‘Thank you for the kiss,’ she smiled. ‘I’ve wondered for years what it would be like to kiss you.’
‘Have you?’ said Stuart, as something akin to joy swished through him.
She touched his face with her small chilly hand.
‘And now you have to go home and forget it happened.’
‘Jen, I’m not sure I can.’ He felt alive and empowered.
‘Go home, Stuart,’ Jenny bent to pick up her bucket. ‘And be happy with Max. She seems really nice and I’m sure you’ll have everything you want in life with her.’
And she smiled at him, her big Jenny smile, and her eyes were glistening with the first hint of tears. He watched her walk away and felt the first jab of a migraine in his head.
Chapter 71
Stuart’s stag night was a conservative affair to say the least, much to Luke’s disgust. The two of them in the Miners Arms drinking slow pints and eating cheese and onion crisps.
‘I can’t believe there are approximately forty hours to your big day and I’m not in the middle of some nightclub with a busload of mates who are planning which lamp post to strap you to,’ humphed Luke.
‘I told you I didn’t want any fuss, and I meant it,’ snapped Stuart. ‘That includes the stag night.’
Luke held up his hands in surrender. ‘Yep.’
‘Soz,’ said Stuart.
‘Pre-wedding nerves,’ diagnosed Luke.
‘Oh don’t you start,’ said Stuart. ‘It’s not pre-wedding nerves. It’s don’t-want-to-get-fucking-married nerves.’
The words landed like a twenty-stone boulder in a sinkful of water.
‘You’d better start talking,’ said Luke, picking up their empty glasses. ‘I’ll get us another pint in.’
Max jumped down from the bar table to raucous applause. She was dressed in a white veil, L-plates and was wearing a T-shirt saying: ‘On Saturday, I’m going to be a big fat gypsy bride’. The others were wearing ‘We’re with the gypsy bride’ T-shirts.
‘You’re too pale for one of those gypsy brides, love,’ said a man propping up the bar.
‘Ah, but wait,’ said a tipsy Max. ‘The woman you will see tomorrow night will be a very different animal. I am being speyed to within an inch of my life.’
‘She means sprayed,’ corrected Violet, who was staying sober and on looking-after-Max duty. Max had given her strict instructions not to let her get too blasted as she had a lot to organize the next day. And Violet didn’t trust herself to get drunk at the moment. She didn’t know what alcohol might release in her, although what she most wanted in the world was to get horribly and totally smashed out of her skull and experience total oblivion.
‘Here, have some lemonade.’ Violet shoved a glass of pop into Max’s hand.
‘What the—’
‘At your instructions,’ Violet
held up a warning finger. ‘You have a lot of gypsy prep to do tomorrow.’
‘I love Stuart so much,’ said Max. ‘I can’t wait to see his face when I gush down the aisle.’
‘Neither can I,’ said Bel, reappearing from the toilet. ‘I’m going to make sure my camcorder is fully trained on his face for the moment when you appear. It’s got to be worth two hundred and fifty quid from You’ve Been Framed.’
‘We haven’t had sex for ages, though,’ Max attempted to whisper and failed, causing a group of overhearing lads to break into a chorus of ‘aws’.
Max’s cousin Alison was now climbing on to the table. She was a huge girl with a bosom that made Max’s look like a pair of goosebumps. Someone handed her a karaoke mike.
‘I’m singing this for our Max, who I love,’ slurred Alison, ‘because she and her fella can’t live without each other.’
The familiar introduction started and Violet shuddered as the haunting opening bars of ‘Without You’ by Harry Nilsson started up.
‘Oh I love this,’ said Max, slumping to a chair. ‘One of the greatest love songs of all time. Dennis Nilsen.’
‘Appropriate, as it’s currently being murdered by your Alison,’ added Bel, looking at Violet’s face. ‘What’s up, V?’
‘I hate this song,’ Violet replied. It reminds me of that night . . .
‘Is Alison coming to the wedding,’ asked Bel.
‘Yep. All my family are coming. And all Stuart’s family. Not that he knows that yet.’
‘Well, he soon will,’ said Bel. She looked at her watch. ‘You wanted to be home by midnight and it’s five to. Say your goodbyes, Cinderella. Before you turn into a pumpkin.’
‘I kissed Jenny Thompson,’ Stuart confessed after taking a long sip from his pint.
‘You what?’
‘You heard.’
‘When?’
‘Monday.’
‘Monday just gone?’
‘The very same.’
‘What the fuck did you do that for?’ Luke knocked on Stuart’s head. ‘Hello, hello, Luke calling brain.’
Stuart didn’t even flinch. He carried on staring down into his beer. ‘I think I’m in love with her, Luke.’
‘You’re getting married to Max this Saturday,’ Luke said through gritted teeth.
‘I know. It’s a mess,’ replied Stuart, lifting and dropping his shoulders. He felt the weight of the world on them. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Luke with a humourless laugh. ‘I wait thirty-odd years for you to have a drama, but you don’t half make up for lost time when you do eventually have one, mate.’
‘Tell me about it.’ He looked up at Luke and his friend saw the dull despair in his eyes. ‘What do I do?’
‘You can’t hurt Max,’ said Luke. ‘You have to go ahead with the wedding. You just can’t hurt her. She loves you.’
‘I’m not sure I love her any more, though,’ said Stuart, his voice barely above a whisper.
‘Stay the night with us,’ begged Max. She spread her arm across Bel’s large apartment. ‘It’ll be like a girly sleepover and Bel’s got loads of room here.’
‘I can’t,’ said Violet. ‘Glyn’ll have a panic attack if he’s left alone.’
‘Do you know, I haven’t said this to you before,’ said Max, her tongue totally loosened by fizz now, ‘but I am not liking the sound of your life to come.’ She wagged her finger at Violet.
‘Max, shut it,’ said Bel, pushing her towards the sofa.
‘I mean it,’ said Max. ‘You’re like a caged animal, V. You go out to work all day and he dusts. I bet there’s nothing up with him at all. How come he can’t take you anywhere because he’s scared of the outside and yet you’re going off to a caravan for your honeymoon?’
‘Ignore her,’ said Bel. But, really, she didn’t want Violet to ignore Max. Pissed as she was, Max was talking sense.
Right on cue, Violet’s phone rang.
‘See? How many times has he rung you tonight? Fourteen, I bet.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ said Violet. Though he had. This, by coincidence, was his fourteenth call.
‘Well, you’re going to miss a great night with me and Bel in her lovely apartment,’ said Max. ‘Don’t be late in the morning. I need you.’
Violet kissed her on the cheek and then she kissed Bel. Violet was crying by the time she reached her car.
Stuart pushed open the door to the empty house and saw his wedding suit hanging up. The hours were ticking down fast to his wedding – the wedding he had been looking forward to only five weeks ago – and now he didn’t want it to happen. How could his whole life have been turned upside down so quickly and so chaotically? He wouldn’t see Max now until they were at the church. She was staying at Bel’s flat tonight and tomorrow he was staying at Luke’s house. Tonight was the last night he would sleep in their bed as a single man. If the wedding went ahead.
Oh God.
He went to the fridge and took out a bottle of cider. They had a fancy bottle opener attached to the wall, which Stuart found awkward to use. It was as if the thing had a vendetta against him, refusing to work for him. True to form, it wouldn’t prise off the lid and Stuart launched the bottle across the room, where it splattered against the white-tiled wall.
He stood, hands on his hips, and looked at the liquid trail down the wall then thought he’d better clear it up. He searched around for the long-handled brush and couldn’t see it. It wasn’t in the lounge either. Then he remembered Max taking it into the study to scoop up some pencil shavings. Sure enough, it was there, standing by her desk.
There was a framed picture of them both by her computer. Probably the first photo they had ever had taken together. He picked it up and looked closely at it. He was as skinny as a rake then with rocker-long blond hair. Max just looked the same as she did now, big red lips, big brown eyes, masses of hair. They enjoyed simple things like going for walks and buying a bag of chips en route, the cinema on Monday nights when it was cheap, swimming in the baths. They’d had the photo taken at a fair. He hadn’t had a lot of money with him and it had soon run out, but Max had loads because she’d just been paid her Saturday-job money with some overtime. She’d treated him to rides and hot dogs and Coca-Cola. And so formed a pattern: Max, generous to a fault, taking the providing role; he pushed to be the one content with that. He propped the photo back on the desk and accidentally kicked over the dustpan in the process. As he bent to retrieve it, he noticed the pink box file stuffed under the desk. Max’s handwriting in a red Sharpie was across the front: My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. He might have stolen a look inside had there not been a lock on it.
Stuart took the dustpan and brush into the kitchen and cleared up the mess. Then he went to bed and tried not to think about Jenny Thompson snuggling into his back.
Chapter 72
After a bacon and egg butty, Max was sufficiently revived enough to commence the final preparations for her wedding. Freya was bringing the dress over that afternoon, when Stuart had left to stay with Luke. The cake, however, was being assembled at ten o’clock at Higher Hoppleton Hall – their first port of call after the San Maurice tanning in Bel’s bathroom.
‘Are you having white bits?’ asked Bel, shaking up the first can of the new medium/dark San Maurice spray tan. ‘Or do I have to endure the sight of your bare arse?’
‘I’m keeping my knickers on, yes,’ said Max, taking her T-shirt nightie over her head. Her breasts had held up quite well considering they were so big. But she still lifted each one up so Bel could spray underneath The nice thing about this product was that only a twenty-minute wait was needed between coats. The first spraying gave Max a lovely subtle glow, but Max didn’t want subtle today. She managed to pressurize Bel into giving her a second coat, but after that Bel put a stop to operations.
‘Max, that’s enough,’ begged Bel. ‘You’ll look like a chuffing wotsit if I do any more.’
‘Spoilsport,’ said Max, pull
ing down the side of her knickers and seeing, from a white bit, that maybe Bel was right after all. The difference between the two skin tones was pronounced.
Max answered the door when Violet arrived, and Violet jumped back in shock.
‘Blimey, I thought you were Sinitta,’ she laughed.
‘Ha, bloody, ha,’ Max did a comic snarl. ‘Right, now you’re here, let’s go and sort out my cake.’
When they arrived at Higher Hoppleton Hall, Shelley’s Shellybrations van was already there. There was a Luton van as well, as Shelley couldn’t fit it all in one vehicle.
‘Who the frig is going to eat all this?’ asked Bel, in a state of total disbelief as she watched a procession of people bringing in huge cake pieces and assembling them into one giant edible 3D jigsaw puzzle. The pink palace cake filled a seven-foot-long, five-foot-wide table. It had taken Shelley over an hour and a half already to assemble and deftly cover up cracks in the icing and disguise joins with yet more icing. Meanwhile one of her assistants was busy sticking flags in the turrets. Each one had a coat of arms on it and the initials M & S. (It was either that or S & M.) Then Shelley began to position the guests made out of icing. A dark-haired bride in a huge white dress carrying pink flowers stood with a brown-haired groom on the drawbridge. Behind her were two bridesmaids in frilly pink dresses.
‘Who’s this meant to be?’ asked Violet, pointing to a very tall grey-haired icing figure in a pink suit.
‘It’s my mum,’ said Max. ‘I gave Shelley some photos so she could make as accurate a model as possible.’
‘I’m surprised you haven’t got Stuart throwing himself into the moat,’ said Bel.
‘Oh bugger off,’ laughed Max.
‘Was Glyn okay when you got in last night?’ Bel asked Violet when the cake duty was over and they were driving off to Nail Diamond.
‘Fine,’ said Violet, excusing him. ‘Well . . . he was having a bit of a bad night.’
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