Now it is my turn to gasp. The dress is daringly cut right down to the small of her back, from where it unexpectedly takes a romantic turn and becomes the beginnings of a rose bustle. All the layers are petals of the most delicately conceived and dramatically executed rose I have ever encountered. The ends of some of the petals are frayed to give the impression of lustrous softness. The flowing layers finally sweep down to form the chapel train of the dress. The dress is risqué and perfect.
Jaws will hit the floor.
The two fitters lift the train off the floor and Lana goes to stand on the raised platform. ‘There is a silver sixpence sewed into the netting of the dress,’ Lana tells us.
Rosie beams with satisfaction. ‘Doesn’t she look gorgeous?’
‘It’s a show stopper, the best dress you will ever wear,’ Billie declares.
‘It’s the most dazzling thing I’ve ever seen,’ I say in agreement.
‘Do you think the back is too low?’ Lana asks, turning slightly to survey the long expanse of her naked back.
‘Absolutely not,’ I tell her firmly.
‘It’s going to give Blake one hell of a hard-on in the church,’ Billie deadpans.
Lana breaks into an excited giggle, and it is so infectious that both Billie and I join in like giddy teenagers. She looks so happy. And for the first time in my life I don’t begrudge her this happiness. Perhaps because I am part of it. This memory will remain bottled and fizzing in my mind.
We are still standing around in the warm glow of old friendships, when Rosie’s assistant brings the bridesmaids’ dresses out from a metal rack. Mine is a floor-length silk and organza number with a mermaid silhouette, sweetheart neckline and in the color I love most: the softest pink you could imagine. Rosie calls it blush. While Rosie and her assistant fuss and flap needlessly around Lana’s totally perfect dress we try on our dresses and slip into shoes that have been fashioned from the same material as our dresses.
We come out from behind the curtain and Lana claps her hands with delight. I look into the mirror and have to agree. Both dresses are divinely beautiful with crystal scatters over the bodice and chest. The effect of the blush organza swirling around our silk clad feet is almost cloud-like. In the three-way mirror the layers of organza and Swarovski crystal unify our look and we complement Lana perfectly.
This is the first time I can compare what I look like beside Lana. I have always imagined that I am much bigger than her, especially during that time when she lost a lot of weight and was very much thinner, but it looks like we are both about the same size now. It is even possible that I might be, by a whisper, the thinner one. I am elated by my discovery.
‘Are the two men outside bodyguards?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ Lana admits awkwardly. ‘But they are mostly for Sorab.’
And yet a look passes between her and Billie.
There are secrets here. Smoothly I step backwards so I am no longer reflected in the mirrors. There is only Lana and Billie. I have become invisible.
‘Has she tried to make contact again?’ Billie asks.
‘No, but last week I saw her across the road. She simply stood and stared at me.’ Lana shudders with the memory.
‘Did you tell Blake?’
‘No. What could I say? She didn’t do me any harm. And I don’t think she will.’
‘How many times do I have to tell you? Stop judging everybody by your standards. Just because you wouldn’t do something doesn’t mean someone else won’t. She is going to try to harm you. You must tell Blake.’
‘I don’t know, Bill. He has a very high opinion of her. They’ve been friends since they were children, and he’ll only think I am being petty and jealous.’
‘Look, if you don’t tell him I will.’
‘All right, all right, I will.’
‘Who is she?’ I ask softly.
Both girls look at me. They had forgotten I was there.
‘Victoria, Blake’s ex,’ says Lana guardedly.
‘Blake’s crazy ex. She’s like Cleopatra and the serpent all rolled into one,’ Billie supplies generously, but her voice is vicious.
Six
Billie kisses the sleeping child, Lana and then me, in that order, and slips into a black cab. The chauffeur helps put Sorab into the baby seat strapped in the front and Lana and I climb into the back of the car. The trip to her place is less uncomfortable than I thought it might be as Lana first gets a phone call from Blake. I know because her voice softens and a small smile curves her lips. I turn my head to look out of the window and pretend not to listen.
‘Hi, darling. Yeah, we’re done… Nope, no more fittings… It’s absolutely beautiful… We’re on our way home now. I forgot to bring Julie’s present so I’m taking her back with me… Yeah… He’s asleep… Good as gold. As usual.’ He says something that makes her laugh. She is silent while she listens and then she giggles and says, ‘Mmnnn…that sounds right up my street. Honestly can’t wait.’ She makes a kissing sound and ends the call.
I turn my head, a polite smile plastered on my face, and her phone rings again. ‘Oh dear. Do you mind if I take this? It’s the wedding organizer.’
‘Not at all. Go ahead.’
Since her replies are mostly monosyllabic sounds of agreement I lose interest and stare out of the window. I wonder what her home will be like. By the time Lana ends her call we are already driving up to her apartment block. Not a whiff of low rent despair here. And, oh my, she lives right opposite a park too. We get out of the car and enter the building. It’s all very posh and new-money flash inside. Lana waves to the Asian man sitting at the reception desk and he literally splits his face in two while executing an almighty grin.
We get into the lift, and in the confined space I find my first awkward moment. I turn quickly towards the baby. He is fast asleep in his pushchair. In sleep he looks angelic. I look up and Lana is looking at me.
‘We’re nearly there,’ she says without the least trace of awkwardness.
I clear my throat, flash a smile, and turn to stare at the gleaming doors.
Lana drops her card key into a slot and we are standing in the kind of apartment I have only seen in magazines. I cannot help it. I draw a quick breath of surprise.
‘I forget sometimes how beautiful it is,’ Lana says, as she moves towards a long gray box that had been placed on a table near a large gilded mirror. I watch her in the mirror pull the red ribbons off it and lift the lid. I peek inside. My favorite. Long-stemmed yellow roses in a deep box. She reaches for the envelope inside and pulling out the card reads, and smiles, a secret smile.
‘From Blake?’
‘Yes.’ There is happiness in her voice. ‘I’ll give you a tour after I put him into bed.’ She bends to pick the child up.
‘Do you need help?’
She lifts the sleeping child in her arms. ‘No, I can manage. I am actually dreading the day I will no longer be able to carry him.’
Silently, I follow her into the boy’s bedroom. The trompe l’oeil on the walls gives the illusion we are floating in a blue sky filled with fluffy white clouds. There is a white cot, a playpen and enough toys to fill a toyshop in the room. I stand back and watch her gently place the boy in the cot, take his shoes off, and smooth the hair away from his forehead. She turns to me.
‘Want that tour now?’
I nod.
So she takes me from room to room while I gawp and gape and struggle to still that snake of envy twisting and hissing in my heart. We used to be schoolmates. We used to live on a council estate. We were both grindingly poor. Yet, here she is living the perfect life. She has everything anyone could ever dream of having. She has made it and I have not.
‘We won’t be living here after the wedding. I’d like Sorab to have a garden to play in so we’ll be moving to a house in Kensington Palace Gardens.’
Yeah right, billionaire’s row.
The thoughts die in my brain as Lana opens the master bedroom. Wow! Just wow! My eyes mov
e to the bed. Three of my beds could fit into that massive thing. I have the irrational urge to go lie on the beautifully made luxurious sheets with its profusion of pillows.
‘Come on,’ Lana says. ‘Your gift is in here.’
She opens a door and we are in a walk-in closet. She opens a cupboard and we are staring at a whole collection of to-die-for designer handbags. My dazed eyes fall on a Rene Lautrec bag. I have read about these bags in magazines and seen a picture of Madonna carrying one. Each one is handmade using the center cut from the belly of a grade-one, farm-raised American alligator, crocodile, stingray or South African ostrich. I never thought I would see one. As if in a trance I go to touch it.
‘Blake gave that to me on Valentine’s day.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ I whisper, thinking of the rude card with pop up penis the van driver from the shop next door slipped through the letterbox of the florist shop where I worked.
‘Yes, but I so hope you will think this is too…’ She pulls out a box from the top shelf and holds it out to me.
I look at the box. It has Dior stamped on it. I am frozen. She bought me a Dior. A real Dior. I lift my eyes to her face. She is looking at me expectantly, a smile on her face.
‘Go on,’ she urges and moves it closer toward me.
I take the box, lift the lid, and take the bag out of its protective cover. If this is a dream I don’t want to wake up. I hold it up. This year’s collection. I have seen a photo of it being modeled on a Paris catwalk in last month’s Marie Claire. I take my stupefied gaze away from the bag and fix it on Lana’s face. She is looking at me with bright eyes and suddenly an image flashes into my mind.
I am twelve years old and running as fast as my fat body will allow me to. My brother’s oversized oilskin coat is flapping behind me. I am panting, my breath is catching in my throat and my lungs burn as if on fire. Behind me are the shouts of boys. The yobs. The bullies. They are throwing stones at me.
‘Yah, get her,’ they shout.
One hits the back of my head and my foot catches on something on the ground. I pitch forward, the weight of my body pushing me through the air with frightening momentum. I land sprawled, face inches away from the ground.
I feel the tears stinging my eyes. I won’t cry. I won’t cry. I will stand up and face them. My knees are scraped raw and the palms of my hands are bleeding. Hyperventilating wildly, I roll over and sit up before I am surrounded by the jeering bullies. Desperately, I try to catch my breath. I can beat them. I wish then for a fierce dog, a pit bull that will grab their growing willies and bite them clean off. But I have no fierce dog. I reflect on my situation. The stones are only pebbles. It is not the stones, only the intent that hurts. I look up at them. I won’t stand up to them today. I’ll do whatever they want me to and they will let me go.
‘It’s a fat gorilla escaped from the zoo,’ one of them says cruelly.
And then Lana is breaking through the circle like an avenging angel.
‘Leave her alone,’ she shouts, staring down boys that are twice her size.
‘It’s just a joke,’ Jason, the leader of the gang, says.
‘Look at her. She’s bleeding,’ Lana states angrily.
‘She’s so fat she tripped and fell on her own,’ one of the boys says cheerfully, and they all laugh as if it is the funniest thing they have heard in years.
‘Come on, guys,’ Jason says, and they go away.
‘Are you all right?’ Lana asks, holding her hand out to me.
Ignoring her hand I heave myself up and without thanking her I run away. One day I will be thinner than you.
‘If you don’t like it, we can exchange it for something else,’ says Lana from far away. She seems disappointed. She thinks I don’t like her gift.
I smile suddenly, happily. ‘No, I love it. I’ve never been given anything so beautiful in all my life.’
She flashes a relieved smile. ‘Thank God. I think it’s beautiful, but I wasn’t sure if we have the same taste.’
We smile at each other.
‘I was wondering if you would like to have a makeover. Have Bruce Lenhart restyle your hair? And let a really great make-up artist do your face?’ For a split second her eyes slide down to my mouth. Then she is smiling again. Briefly I entertain the idea that my lipstick is smudged, but I know it is not. There is something wrong with my mouth. I become convinced it is an insult. She can keep her fucking makeover.
I start shaking my head. ‘Please, Julie. It’ll be fun. I looked so much better when they finished with me.’
But I like the way I look. I work very hard to maintain this ‘look’.
‘Even Billie has agreed.’
Bruce Lenhart? The idea is tempting. Celebrities go to him. It costs hundreds of pounds just for a simple haircut.
‘But what if I go to him and he does something that I can’t afford to keep up?’
‘We’ll tell him that he has to give you a style that can be maintained by you, hmnnn, what say you?’
Bruce Lenhart? Who was I kidding? Of course I want him to style my hair. ‘All right.’
‘Good.’ She grins. ‘Come on, let’s go have some tea and we’ll sort a date out for next week.’
We move into her kitchen. Vast. It reminds me of the yellow kitchen from that famous kitchen designer, I forget his name, that I keep seeing in all the mags. But unlike Billie’s kitchen it is obvious that it is well used. I pop myself on a high stool facing the island while she fills the kettle with water. Her phone rings. She looks at it and appears surprised.
‘Sorry, I have to take this,’ she tells me and answers it. ‘Brian… What?... No… That’s OK… Let him come up.’ She ends the call and slowly puts the phone on the counter. The kettle has boiled. The blue light has gone off.
‘My father is downstairs,’ she says. Her voice is soft, her eyes are pained. ‘I won’t be long with him, will you wait for me here in Sorab’s room?’
‘Of course,’ I say, and slide off the stool.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine.’ She appears distracted. The phone rings again. She looks at it and picks it up eagerly.
‘It’s OK,’ she says into the phone. ‘No, please don’t come, my darling. I’m fine… Really. It will be fine… I promise… I love you too…so, so much… I’ll see you later tonight.’
The doorbell rings. She jumps. We look at each other. There is an odd expression of pain and longing in her eyes, which suddenly makes her seem a child again. I hate her. Why then do I want to hold her and comfort her? I take a step in her direction. She shakes her head and disappears in the direction of the front door. I stand for a minute in the kitchen, follow her down the corridor and enter Sorab’s room. I stand at the door uncertainly. The boy is sleeping soundly. If I leave the door a quarter of an inch ajar I can see nothing, but I can hear everything.
‘Hello, Dad.’ Her voice is distant and strange. So different from what it has been all afternoon.
I don’t recognize her father’s voice. It has been so long. ‘Look at you all grown up. You’re so beautiful. Just like your mother.’
‘Mum died last year.’ Her voice is flat.
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Lana.’
‘Why are you here, Dad?’
‘I read about your wedding in the paper.’
‘Oh.’
‘I believe I even have a grandson.’
‘He’s asleep.’
‘We won’t disturb him then.’
‘Do you have other grandchildren?’
‘Yes. Two.’
‘That’s nice. I suppose they get to see you all the time.’
There is a slight pause.
‘Yes,’ her father confesses softly. ‘But I’m here now. Sorab—that’s the little one’s name, isn’t it—will get to see his grandfather just as much.’
Lana says nothing.
‘I’d like to give my daughter away at her wedding.’
‘You can’t. Billie’s dad i
s giving me away.’
‘That’s a shame. That should be my privilege.’
‘Dad, did you ever think what would happen to me if Mum had died after you left?’
He doesn’t squirm, I’ll give him that. Even though I cannot see his face the words that come out of him are smooth and well-oiled. ‘If your mother had died then Social Services would have contacted me, and you would have come to live with me.’
‘How would Social Services have contacted you, Dad? Did you leave a contact number with anyone?’
‘Let bygones be bygones, Lana. I’m here now.’
‘They would have taken me into care, Dad. Do you know what happens to kids in care? They get shunted around and abused! You simply didn’t care either way, did you? You just went on and started a brand new family. Not once did you try to contact me. I am nothing to you.’
‘I’m here now.’
‘Why are you really here, Dad?’
‘Look, I took care of you for years. That counts for something. We are blood.’
‘How much, Dad?’ Her voice is cold.
‘I don’t want your money.’
‘Dad, you will never have a relationship with me. Your best bet is to name your price now or be forever silent.’
‘All right. A hundred thousand.’
My eyes widen with shock, but Lana’s answer is immediate. ‘Done. I will have it transferred into your account by tomorrow.’
‘Now that I think about it, you are rich beyond anything I can ever imagine. Can you make it two hundred thousand?’
Lana must have nodded because he thanks her.
‘Goodbye, Dad.’
‘I won’t say goodbye to my own flesh and blood. You’ll see me around, girl.’
I hear the door close and quickly come out. Lana is walking towards me. When we are about five feet apart she stops. Her shoulders are hunched, her face pale, but she is trying to be brave.
‘What did he want?’ I ask.
‘What do you think?’
I say nothing.
‘Come on, let’s have some tea,’ she says, but her mood is changed irreparably. She pours out the water that is already in the kettle into the sink and refills it. The kitchen is full of that noise. Suddenly she stops and puts the kettle down. Takes a deep breath.
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