And it’s exactly like you said. Dev knowing about it all—and more to the point, understanding about it all—has taken more weight off me than I could possibly imagine.
So guess what—deep breath and a drumroll, please … I’m going to marry him! He’s asked me, all over again—asked the real Polly, not the “perfect” Polly he thought he was getting, but the real Polly that he still, apparently, adores—and I’ve never said yes to anything faster in my life.
I have about a million calls to make now—I’ve called Bella already, but I still have to tell Grace, and our parents … oh, and a hundred and thirty disgruntled wedding guests, I suppose—so I’d better stop this email now. But I just wanted to say thank you, Julia, for everything. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.
P x
From:
[email protected]
To:
[email protected]
Date:
December 30, 2011
Subject:
Here comes the bride …
Julia,
It’s madness here. Complete and utter madness. Though not, thank God, the kind of madness you’re used to dealing with on a day-to-day basis. Just wedding madness. Nothing more harmful than that. (Though if you do ever think of transferring your practice to England, my mother might be a prime target for your psychotherapeutic services. While we’re on the subject of proper madness, I mean.)
I really wish you were in England, though, just for tomorrow. Because I’d love you to see the end result of all your hard work, and the fact that you never wrote me off. Still, I understand that you couldn’t fly over at such short notice. And I suppose it would have been difficult for you to blend in. “Lovely to meet you, Cousin Vicky, aren’t you the one Polly told me about in one of our early counseling sessions together, the one who told Polly that snogging other peoples’ boyfriends was OK as long as you didn’t get caught? Oooh, yes, I’d love a smoked salmon canapé, thank you!”
Like this wedding needs any more drama, after everything it’s already been through!
Anyway, I just thought I’d drop you a quick line, even though I’ve been expressly instructed by my sister that I need to get an early night. But I’ll be away on honeymoon after this, and then I’ve got to move all my worldly goods into the Wimbledon house, so it might be a few weeks before we can get back to our phone sessions. And I’m wondering, actually, if I might not need quite so many sessions as before. Now that I can talk to Dev, and tell him my fears about everything you and I have discussed, ad nauseam, for the past few months, it doesn’t feel like I’m cracking up anymore. Like I told you in my last email, he was so understanding about everything I told him. He understands why I was panicking about settling down to a blissfully happy marriage, and lots and lots of beautiful children, when the two people I care about most in the world (apart from Dev, that is) don’t get to have those things.
But this is the weirdest thing, Julia: after all this time worrying, and stressing, and beating myself up, it looks like Grace and Bella are going to get those things after all. The blissful relationship, in Grace’s case, now that she’s finally free of Cheaty Charlie and looking absurdly happy with the gorgeous guy that (not blowing my own trumpet or anything) I urged her, weeks ago, to take as her lover.
And in Bella’s case (please, please God) maybe the beautiful children.
I mean, she hasn’t really spoken to me about it much, but her annoying boyfriend Jamie is definitely off the scene—he’s not coming to the wedding, and when I asked Bella why, she just kind of shrugged and said that they weren’t seeing each other anymore, and that even if they were, he probably wouldn’t have made it to the wedding, because there’d probably have been a “big game” on, or something. And while I’m sad for her that her two-year relationship has ended (though I have to be honest, she doesn’t seem all that sad about it herself), at least this really gives her the chance to focus on the adoption, either alone or with another, more serious man. I’m crossing every single digit I have that it works out for her.
And if it doesn’t—well, as Dev said, when we talked about it on Christmas Eve, I’m just going to have to put every ounce of my energies into allowing her to become the most amazing aunt …
I know. I can’t believe it either. That I’m sitting here, in my old bedroom, the night before my wedding, and that I’m actually talking about things like having children. That I don’t feel sick with guilt anymore that I can do that when Bella can’t. That Dev has made me realize that, despite what I’ve been telling myself, it isn’t really my fault that Bella can’t.
It’s so strange to think that this is the very bedroom I was in on that horrendous night ten years ago when Dad came barging in, white as a ghost, to tell me that Bella had been in an accident and that we had to get to the hospital before, probably, she died. The very bed; the very duvet; the very pillows, even. (My mother isn’t a big one for bothering to refresh her household items—there are mildew cultures on the shower curtain in her bathroom that are older than I am.)
And you know that letter I’ve told you about, Julia? The one I was in the process of writing, at the very moment that Dad barged in with the news about the accident? Well, that’s in here, too. In this silly old shoebox, under my bed, where I used to store all my precious things—my diaries, and old friendship bracelets from Grace, and other letters, too, from boys I fancied, or the little notelets I’d get from Bella after she first moved to Bristol, mostly instructing me to do my homework and make sure I always ate breakfast. But of course this particular letter was one I was writing to Bella for a change. One I would have sent her, too, if it hadn’t been for what happened just as I was finishing it.
I know you’ve always been a big one for “perspective,” Julia. I know you think it’s important that people look backward to moments in their past, so that we get a sense of why we are where we are, and hopefully how far we’ve come. So I pulled the shoebox out a few minutes ago, because with your wisdom in mind I thought it might be good for me to reread the letter. Look back to the scared, silly little girl who wrote it and realize what a mature, sensible woman I’ve become.
But I couldn’t read it. I couldn’t even open the envelope.
I just think, Julia, that some things are best left buried. I’ve unearthed them enough to come clean to Dev. But I’m not sure what good it would do to unearth them any further. To bring them blinking into the daylight.
You might think it’s living a lie. But I’d rather live a lie forever, I think, than risk telling the truth and destroying my relationship with my sister.
So I’ve put the letter back. Back in the shoebox, back under the bed. When I’ve moved all my old stuff to the house in Wimbledon, I’ll decide what to finally do with it. Burn it, perhaps. Lock it away, more probably. Pass it on to my children one day, maybe, as a lesson about what NOT to do with their lives. The mistakes it’s not OK to make.
I’ve gone on for far too long, as usual. Scared of Bella coming up to bed herself before I’m asleep and laying into me for ignoring her instructions about the early night! She’s still hard at it in the kitchen, bless her, getting all the food prepped for the Big Day tomorrow. So I think the least I can do is follow her instructions and turn out the light.
P x
August 3, 2001
Dear Bella,
This is the hardest letter I’ve ever had to write to you.
Actually, come to think of it, it’s just about the only letter I’ve ever had to write to you. I think I might have sent you the occasional postcard, like that Easter a few years back when me, Mum, and Dad went to Woolacombe and you stayed at home to revise for your GCSEs. In fact, I’m pretty sure I sent you a postcard almost every day that week because we kept eating the most amazing cream teas and I desperately wanted to tell you about them. And obviously I’ve sent you plenty of emails, especially since you’ve moved to Bristol and I haven’t got as much credit as I need on my mobile. Letters, though—not so much
. Letters are tricky. But I’ve got something to tell you and I think it’s going to be easier to explain it in a letter than tell it to your face.
Plus there’s the fact that I’m a pathetic coward, I suppose.
Bella, I’ve done the most awful thing.
I’ve slept with Christian.
Oh, God, actually, it’s even worse than that. I’ve been sleeping with Christian. More than once. It’s happened four or five times, in fact, over the last few weeks. The first time—and I don’t know if this is going to help at all; somehow I doubt it—I was very, very drunk indeed. You remember that weekend, after our exams, when me and Grace came to stay with you? Well, that’s when it was. You were working late at the restaurant the night we arrived, and we were going to go out clubbing right away, but Christian said he’d cook for us while we had a couple of glasses of wine. And I think we lost track of time, not to mention how much we were drinking. Because somehow it suddenly ended up being past midnight, and we hadn’t gone out clubbing at all, and Grace was passed out on the sofa in the living room, and Christian was kissing me.
And then we were in the guest bedroom, and he was doing more than just kissing me.
I’m not sure if I really wanted it. On the other hand—and I’m trying to be honest with you here, even though I know it’s probably far too little, far too late—I definitely didn’t want to stop him. I don’t think I knew I could stop him. And I didn’t even really know what was happening until it had already happened.
Which isn’t me trying to offer up some feeble excuse, by the way. “Oh, I was so drunk, I didn’t know what I was doing.” That sounds like Mum, after she’s hit the G&Ts on a Sunday lunchtime and then plowed her way through two platefuls of Dad’s lasagne and three portions of tiramisu. Followed by hours of self-loathing before she finally works out who she’s going to blame it on (usually you, or whoever it was who gave her the second G&T) and then starts recriminating outwards instead of inwards. All right, I may not have known what I was doing that first time, but I certainly knew exactly what I was doing the next time. And the times after that.
Look, I don’t really think I should go into any more details. Not until I get the courage to actually face you in person. I feel sick even writing any of this down, knowing how much it’s going to hurt you. And even though I know it would be a terrible, terrible lie, I wouldn’t tell you unless I had to. I wouldn’t inflict that kind of pain on you. But I have to tell you, Bells, because Christian has … well, he’s not letting this go. Not letting me go, I mean. He’s phoning me all the time, and now he’s started leaving messages saying that he can’t be with you now that this has happened between us. And he’s going to call off the wedding.
Look, Bella, I desperately want that to happen. I desperately don’t want you to marry him. What I’ve done to you, by sleeping with him, is horribly, horribly wrong—but he did it to you, too. So no, I don’t want him to marry you. But I don’t want him to call off the wedding. I want you to call off the wedding.
This is why I have to tell you.
And if that means you never, ever speak to me again—well, maybe it’s worth it. Just so you can understand that you’re not the one who’s done anything wrong. It’s your horrible fiancé. And your even more horrible sister.
When you’ve read this letter, which I’m going to post to you first thing in the morning, please call me. Call me and scream at me. Better yet, come home and scream at me. Throw things at me; hit me, even, if you want. But just, please, don’t … don’t misunderstand me. Don’t think that I meant to do this. Don’t think I wouldn’t undo it if I could. Don’t think I’m not sorry.
I really hope that one day, you’ll
Bella
Thursday, December 31
Polly’s wedding day. It’s bright and sunny.
Of course it is. What things in my sister’s life aren’t bright and sunny?
All morning, I’ve moved through the tasks I’ve had to do like a zombie.
Up at six thirty to make a start on the mise-en-place for the canapés.
By eight thirty, letting the florist into the tent to do the centerpieces, and dealing with the fact that said tent has sprung a leak overnight, dribbling last night’s heavy showers all down over the seat at the head table where—where else?—I was supposed to sit.
By nine, dashing across the village to St. Michael’s to make sure everything’s ready over there, from making sure the right hymn numbers are up to finishing off the holly and ivy decorations that Grace was supposed to do yesterday before she went swanning off shopping with Mum and Polly instead.
By ten, back to the kitchen to help Brian with the dishes for the cold section of the buffet—poached salmon, posh homemade pork pie, four different kinds of salad, despite the fact I thought we’d agreed on just a rocket-and-Parmesan and a classic Waldorf.
By eleven thirty, everything coming to a grinding halt to deal with the fallout from Anji the hair and makeup girl’s suggestion that maybe Mum would like to try a special light-diffusing foundation that works particularly well with mature skin.
By twelve fifteen, finally calming down poor shaken Anji enough that she can make a start on Polly’s hair and makeup, while I jump in the (ice-cold) shower.
By twelve thirty, starting my own hair and makeup, because the car is coming to pick us up at one fifteen and there isn’t time, after Mum’s temper tantrum, for Anji to do hair and makeup for me and Grace as well.
Now, at twelve forty-five, sitting on the bed in Polly’s old room, dressed in my dove gray prom dress and new L.K. Bennett sale-purchase shoes, staring at my newly made-up face in the mirror, and thinking.
No, scratch that. I’m not thinking. I can’t think. My head’s not clear enough to think. All I can do right now is feel.
Which is why, when there’s a knock on the door and Grace sticks her head around it, I almost jump a mile.
“Sorry,” she says, coming into the room.
She looks stunning and supermodel-like, as always, in her own dove gray dress—she went for the drapey, above-the-knee version, the one for skinny-minnies with endless legs but (look, I have to find some way to feel better about standing next to her) no proper boobs—and the showy-off pair of Jimmy Choo shoes I saw her unpacking yesterday. I got the feeling, from the way she kind of clutched them to her chest when she got them out of the suitcase, that they might have been a present from her pretty-boy fancy-man. The fancy-man, incidentally, who turned up late last night and has spent all morning charming the pants off Mum (admittedly it’s not like he had to make much effort, with looks like his) and mucking in, in a rather annoyingly confident and cheerful way, with any helpful odd job he could possibly find. For the last hour or so he’s been using that absurdly swanky sports car of his to ferry some of the random relatives from the train station to the church. I’ve already received two excitable phone calls from the Durham cousins asking who the hot chauffeur is, and if there’s any chance he’s single.
It’s no wonder, I suppose, that Grace seems so spectacularly unaffected by her horrible husband cheating on her. We’d all like a husband to cheat on us if we ended up with a prime specimen like that.
“I just came in to see if you needed any help with the heated rollers,” Grace adds.
“No.” I’ve ignored the heated rollers, in fact, in favor of putting my hair up.
“But I thought Polly wanted us to leave our hair down, to match her?”
“Yes. But I’m putting mine up.”
“Right. Um, are you sure? Because Polly hasn’t been Bridezilla-ish about anything, really, and if she wants us to wear our hair down, it’s not really too much to ask …”
“Maybe not. But I’m already vertically challenged next to you and Polly. And I don’t think piling my hair on top of my head to add a couple of precious inches to my height is too much to ask.”
“No, no, of course. Well! You look great, anyway, Bella. The hair up really suits you! So, I’m just going to go and see how
Polly’s doing with the finishing touches to her makeup, if you don’t need me for anything else?”
I shake my head.
“Good!” She turns back to the door, then stops. “Um, Bella, don’t snap at me or anything, but … well, are you OK?”
I don’t snap at her. I just stare at her without saying anything at all.
“I mean, I know you’ve hardly had a moment to yourself all morning,” she carries on, “but now it’s all about to kick off and I suppose I thought you’d be a bit more excited! About the car, and the church, and watching Poll walk down the aisle in her dress, and the big party in the tent with all your amazing food …”
“I found the letter.”
“What letter?”
“This letter.” I reach under the bed, where I dug it out of one of Polly’s old shoeboxes, labeled Important and Precious Stuff, while Polly herself snored loudly above me, late last night. I root in the shoebox, pull it out, and hand it to her. “The one Polly wrote me the night I had my car accident. The one telling me about her and Christian.”
Grace’s blue eyes widen, displaying alarm that has obviously been ten years in the making. She opens her mouth as if she’s about to start babbling and denying things, but then she closes it again. She takes the letter, glances down at it, and says, “Oh. That letter.”
“Yes.”
There’s another silence.
“How did you find out about it?”
“I’ve been reading Polly’s emails.” It seems a tiny thing to admit now. “She writes to her counselor, this woman called Julia, back in New York.”
There Goes the Bride Page 36