The Accidental Family

by Rowan Coleman

  Grace sighed. “Vincent was just a boy fighting for his country’s freedom, fighting for his life. He was so young …so serious and so handsome; Sophie, you should have seen him. Dark hair, so thick and curly you couldn’t run your fingers through it, never mind a comb, and eyes as violet as the lavender in the lane. You have to try and imagine that we were frightened all the time, death was always just a heartbeat away. We saw it, smelled it all around us. We saw our friends, people we loved, killed or taken from us. It’s easy to love when you live that way—it’s hard not to love because when you love, you know you are still alive. And I loved Vincent with all my heart. We didn’t plan to get married, but then I got pregnant. And he was a good French Catholic boy. We had a secret midnight wedding in a chapel in the town, but it wasn’t legal. I never knew his real name and he didn’t know mine.”

  “You married a man whose name you didn’t know—but wasn’t it sort of important to know that about him? Sometimes I think I don’t know nearly enough about Louis, but at least I know his real name. Or I think I do.”

  “It wasn’t important,” Grace told her. “All I needed to know about him was that he was there, his heart beating for me. At first I used to beg him to tell me his real name, but he wouldn’t and he never asked me for mine. At first I was angry with him, but then I realized he was only trying to protect me. He didn’t ask me because he loved me. So the local priest risked his life to conduct a sham marriage, because to us it was real …it was …what’s the word? Sacred. We always said that after the war, we’d do it properly, but I think even then we knew that wouldn’t happen, we knew that one of us wouldn’t make it. I tried to keep my pregnancy a secret, but my controller found out and pulled me out. That was in 1944. I didn’t want to leave him. I was desperate to stay, even with the baby.” Grace dropped her head, her eyes traveling over her blue-veined hands. “I knew the night I said good-bye to him that it would be the last time I saw him alive. We clung to each other for the longest time in the darkness in the field where the plane landed to pick me up, and he promised he’d be there when the baby was born …”

  She trailed off, looking up into the distance.

  “But he didn’t make it?” Sophie asked her, breathless.

  “Killed the next week. Shot by the Nazis,” Grace said. “They always used to say, it’s when you’ve got something to live for, when you are afraid of dying, that you were in trouble, because you’d hesitate and make mistakes. They were right.”

  “And the baby, is that Frank?” Sophie referred to Mrs. Tregowan’s eldest son, who she had never met but who, from Grace’s description of him, sounded frankly awful.

  “No, that was my poppet, my little girl Claudette,” Grace said. “Pneumonia took her before she was three months old.” She smiled at Sophie and patted her chest where her heart was. “I keep her here now with her dad. I loved Vincent. I loved him with all of my heart. Would I have loved him if I’d met him on a normal day at a normal time when there weren’t bombs falling out of the sky and death squads on the march? To be honest, I don’t know.” She smiled at Sophie, showing her slender yellowed teeth. “The trick is, Sophie, to love while love has you. Enjoy it, savor it, revel in it. So what if you’re rushing into marriage with a man you hardly know? Marry him while you love him. What’s the point in waiting till he bores you?”

  “Grace,” Sophie said as she heard Carmen’s car pull up, “did anyone ever tell you how amazing and brave you were, and did anyone ever say thank you to you?”

  “What for?” Grace sniffed, looking at the TV. “I did my bit, that’s all.”

  “Bloody hell,” Sophie said as she and Carmen walked into Plymouth Pavilions, where the wedding fair was being held. The huge space had been decked out with white and gold balloons and there was stall after stall of wedding paraphernalia, from dresses to table favors to romantic doves and helium-balloon sculptures. The vast room was crowded with women of all ages, mothers and daughters, sisters and best friends, all of them with that faintly manic glint in their eyes, that special glow that said “I’m going to have a great big massive party that’s all about me and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  As she scanned the crowd, Sophie spotted the odd beleaguered-looking man, mostly fathers, but sometimes a groom trailing along after his woman like a relic from a former age, when more was required of the groom than standing at the altar and saying, “I do.”

  “Look at all this wedding stuff and look at all the people here looking at all the wedding stuff. Who knew that so many people got married?” Sophie said.

  “I know, and they all look a bit scary to me,” Carmen said, hooking her arm through Sophie’s. “What is it about weddings that makes women go all feral?”

  “I don’t know, but what if one of them gets to my dress before I do?” Sophie asked, that manic glint lighting her eyes. “We need to get in there now.”

  “We can do this,” Carmen said, as if they were about to go over the top of some trenches. “I’m a pastry chef, and you, you were the premier corporate-event organizer in London, Europe, and North America. You know everything there is to know about planning parties.”

  “You’re right,” Sophie affirmed. “I’m the woman who once organized a book launch in a hot-air balloon, and two years ago I did a satellite linkup with the Russian space station for a Russian energy company. I’m Sophie Mills, none of these other chicks stands a chance.”

  “Dress stands twelve o’clock,” Carmen said, pointing across the vast hall.

  “Marvelous,” Sophie said. “Cover me, I’m going in.”

  • • •

  “I need cake,” Sophie said, emerging from the dress section of the exhibition with her hair tousled. Her lipstick was smudged and her shirt buttoned up wrong, as if she’d just had secret sex, except that what she had been doing was a million times better than that. She’d tried on every single style of wedding dress that had ever been brought into existence. From the giant puffy meringue to a white lace thigh-length miniskirt with a detachable train, Sophie had tried them all on and then for good measure so had Carmen. “Look, there’s the wedding-cake section. Let’s go over there and score some cake.”

  “I thought you were giving up cake, because you need to if you want to wear that minidress,” Carmen said as she followed her.

  “I am giving up cake. I’m just exhausted from all the lace and sequins. I can feel my blood sugar level dropping and we haven’t even started yet. I need emergency cake. It’s medicinal.”

  “I like the last dress with the bustle and the sleeves,” Carmen offered as she hurried after Sophie, struggling to keep up with her friend’s sensible heels as she tottered beside her in her high-heeled ankle boots.

  “God no! That one made me look like a sheep carcass dressed as mutton!” Sophie said.

  “Okay, well, that gold one with the bows and the glitter effect was really something.”

  “Yes, it was something. It was something that a lady does not repeat. I loved trying on all of the dresses, especially the one with the butterflies and the diamanté—”

  “And the one with the neckline that was so plunging the vicar could get a good look at your navel—”

  “But none of those dresses was right, Carmen. I need the right dress and I need it today or tomorrow. What am I going to do? I’ve just tried on every single wedding dress in the history of wedding dresses and I haven’t found the right one and …I really need cake. Now.

  “Look over there,” Sophie said, pointing at a stall with a sign hanging over it that read CELESTIAL CAKES—BLISS IN A BITE. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  “The main thing is that you looked stunning,” Carmen said, trotting along trying to keep up with her. “Truly you did. In every single gown, even the hideous ones …you glowed. You’re so lucky you’re getting to marry the man you love.”

  “You could marry James if you wanted to, couldn’t you?” Sophie asked her, stopping so suddenly by the Celestial Cakes stand th
at Carmen bumped into Sophie’s back.

  “Not really—I’m still married,” Carmen said with a shrug.

  “Then why not divorce your ex?” Sophie asked her.

  “I don’t know,” Carmen said, sighing as she looked over the cake samples that were on display. “I’m waiting, I suppose …”

  “Waiting for what?” Sophie asked her. “You’ve moved down here, you live with James. St. Ives is your home now. What is there to wait for?”

  Carmen thought for a moment and looked as if she were about to say something more. Then her eyes slid past Sophie to something behind her and widened.

  “That’s your dress,” she breathed. “That’s the perfect dress for you.”

  Sophie turned round to see a model walk past serenely in an ivory satin dress, simply cut so that it skimmed the model’s hips and swished around her feet, like the froth of an incoming tide, as she walked. The scoop neckline and low back were edged simply with seed pearls, and the light reflecting off the material seemed to make the girl’s skin shine.

  “Want that dress,” Sophie said, suddenly monosyllabic. “I really need to follow that dress and get that dress. I wonder what size that model is, because that’s the dress for me, maybe I could have her dress and take it home today. What do you think? Do you think they’d do alterations on it now, you know, stick material in where her hips and thighs should have been, because I need that dress and I’ve got only ninety days—”

  Carmen picked up a square of iced fruit cake from the Celestial Cakes table and shoved it in Sophie’s mouth. “Calm down, woman.”

  Sophie was appalled by Carmen’s silencing tactic, but the cake really was delicious.

  “Eat the cake, love the cake, think only of the cake, and relax. In a minute we’ll go over to where they are having the catwalk, and we’ll find out who makes the dress, and you can try it on. Everything will be fine.” Carmen talked as Sophie munched. “Now I don’t know what your policy on hats is going to be, but I’m thinking of a fascinator for me as your head bridesmaid. What do you think? You can swallow before you answer that.”

  The two women stared at each other for several seconds, long enough for Sophie to have a stunning idea.

  “That’s it!” she exclaimed, clutching Carmen’s arm. “I’ve got it!”

  “Got what? Is it catching? I’m only thinking of Louis.”

  “Everything I’ve got to do for this wedding is practically giving me a nervous breakdown, right?”

  “Well, I didn’t like to say so, but I was thinking of lacing your tea with Prozac, yes.”

  “And okay, there are wedding planners here, but none I’d entrust my own wedding to.”

  “Okay, well, good—you’ve worked out that you’re too controlling to hire a wedding planner. I have to say that’s not a surprise to me.”

  “No, silly—I’m going to start my own business. I’m going to be a wedding planner. You said it yourself, I’ve got years of experience in events and more than that, I’ve got ideas. Money’s tight right now, but people still get married, and what they want for their money is originality and something unique—special. I had this brilliant idea for Cal about unusual party venues in London. Well, I can do that here. I can find venues—castles, private houses, galleries, cliff tops, beaches, tin mines—who knows? I can approach the owners directly and then persuade them to get licensed to hold weddings—but only through my company. I’ll have exclusivity. And bolted on to that I can choose local dress designers who will work only through me, amazing bespoke caterers—like you—and wonderful and original photographers like Louis! Everything I offer will be unique and exclusive. Like clotted cream and scone canapés or fish and chips for your wedding breakfast! I can choose all the best things to make a truly special day and bring them all together under my company; people will love it. Think about it, Carmen—second marriages, stepfamilies being brought together, gay couples—the last thing couples like that want is a stuffy old hotel or church. Even funky first-timers. They want a day that reflects them and their love. I’m telling you, people will actually flock to Cornwall to be married by me!”

  “Are you a secret vicar then—or a ship’s captain?” Carmen repressed a smile, delighted by the enthusiasm in her friend’s eyes.

  “Stop joking and admit it—it’s a genius idea, right?”

  “It does seem a bit mad that no one else has done it before …” Carmen looked around the vast hall. They’d been here for hours and hadn’t seen anything that came close to Sophie’s vision.

  “Everyone knows that the best ideas are the most obvious ones!” Sophie said and beamed. “Look around you. If I see one more hotel wedding brochure or balloon sculpture, I’ll kill myself. This industry’s crying out for me!” Sophie flung her arms around Carmen and hugged her tightly.

  “You know what?” Carmen said, managing to squeeze out a breath. “I think it is—it is a good idea, it’s a great idea. It’s just that starting a new business while getting married might be a bridge too far for your mental health.”

  “I know that!” Sophie laughed, her eyes bright as her idea caught fire and spread. “Which is why I’m going to treat my wedding like my first commission. You know, use the experience to start my empire.”

  “Romantic.” Carmen nodded. “Well, all the more important then that you have the kind of head bridesmaid you can rely on.”

  “Ah yes, well you see, the issue over head bridesmaid isn’t fully resolved yet,” Sophie said, thinking of the three adults and two children who so far were vying for the post. “Not because I don’t love you or anything but more owing to the fact that due to the principal reason of the fact that …oh thank god, there’s Louis! What’s he doing here?”

  She felt a rush of relief as she saw the back of Louis’s head and shoulders a few stalls away, at the wedding underwear stand. For some reason he seemed to be riffling through a box of frilly knickers.

  “Louis!” she called out, but he did not turn round.

  “Are you sure that’s him?” Carmen asked her, momentarily diverted from her bridesmaid pitch. “What on earth would he be doing here unless he’s got a thong habit that he wasn’t planning to share with you until the wedding night? Why’s he got his head in a box full of knickers?”

  Sophie began to hurry over to where he was standing.

  “Well, he said if it wasn’t for the shoot, he’d have popped down with us to do some industrial spying on the wedding photographer, find out his rates and things. Maybe the shoot finished early and he’s come to find me. Come on, let’s get him and show him that dress—”

  “Over my dead body,” Carmen gasped, stopping Sophie with a hand on her shoulder. “You do not show the prospective groom the prospective wedding dress! Do you know nothing about basic wedding etiquette? You know, stuff like asking your only adult female friend who goes with you to wedding fairs to be head bridesmaid, for example. Besides, that’s not Louis, since when has Louis worn low-rise tight black jeans and a studded leather belt?”

  Sophie stopped and looked again at the figure. Carmen was right. It wasn’t Louis.

  “But he really bloody looks like him, doesn’t he?” Sophie said. “His hair, his shoulders, even the way he’s standing there. It could be …” Her sentence ground to a halt as the subject in question turned round. “Louis.”

  He was a young man, perhaps twenty or twenty-one; he still had a bit of acne around his chin, but he stood with the confidence and self-assurance of a much older man. He had none of the awkward posture that characterizes young men who haven’t yet worked out how to get all their limbs moving at once. And he looked almost exactly like Louis.

  “He does look like him,” Carmen said, digging Sophie in the ribs. “Here, take a photo on your phone, we can tease Louis about having a secret love child when we get home.”

  “He must be a relation,” Sophie said, watching the young man as he hung bits of frilly underwear on a stand without even a hint of self-consciousness. “A cousin or someth
ing. He has to be. Look at his mouth …those lips are just like Louis’s. He must be related. I have to ask him, because Louis has no family that I know of. I bet he’d be really excited if I found him a cousin or something. A long-lost relative—it would be the perfect wedding present.”

  “I wouldn’t mind him for Christmas,” Carmen breathed as they watched the young man effortlessly flirt with a bride and her mother over blue and cream frilly garters.

  “Hands off, Carmen,” Sophie said, feeling unexpectedly territorial. “Your younger-man quota is filled. This one’s mine.” Brushing cake crumbs from around her mouth and briefly running her fingers through her hair, Sophie approached the young man, feeling a bit as if she had stepped back in time and was getting the chance to meet the love of her life when he was younger and hadn’t yet acquired any baggage.

  “Hello,” she said, smiling at him. His returning smile was confident and attractive. Sophie struggled to contain the confusion of butterflies that went off in her chest and found herself coloring.

  “You really are a blushing bride.” He smiled, holding her gaze. “Come on, you can tell me what you’re after—I’m unshockable.”

  “Actually, it’s you I’m interested in, not your thongs,” Sophie said, surprised to find herself flirting with him, not least because she never flirted with anyone. She wasn’t even sure if she’d ever flirted with Louis. It just wasn’t something that came naturally to her.

  “Best news I’ve had all day.” The boy grinned at her.

  “Do you mind if I ask you your name?” Sophie asked him.

  “Probably best if we’re going to be going on a date,” the boy said. Sophie found herself giggling, but Carmen’s raised eyebrows brought her back to her senses.

  “Seth,” he told her, holding out a hand. “And you?”

  “Seth,” Sophie said, repeating his name. “I’m Sophie Mills and I’m not asking you out on a date—it’s just that you look an awful lot like my boyfriend …fiancé …betrothed. Still not really sure what to call him.”