The Winter Wedding

by Abby Clements

  ‘I hope so,’ Lila said.

  ‘ You will,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks for being here,’ she said. ‘It’s kind of lonely.’

  ‘I guess it must be,’ I said, looking around at the adult ward.

  ‘I don’t like the quiet. Not really,’ Lila said. ‘Because when it’s quiet, I hear it all more.’

  ‘Hear what?’ I asked, nervously.

  ‘The bad stuff.’

  ‘Don’t,’ I said, covering her delicate, frail hand with my own. ‘You’re going to be OK, you know.’

  Lila’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Am I? I feel like I’m a hundred years old right now.’

  ‘ You’ll be fine,’ I said, telling myself as much as her.

  Lila looked up and her green eyes met mine. There was desperation in her gaze. As if she was reaching out to me to bring her back up to the surface again. ‘Hazel. I need you to understand. I need you to be different.’

  Chapter 11

  The next day at work, Josh caught me in the corridor.

  ‘You OK today, Haze?’

  I’d been able to push Lila from my mind for the first hour of the day, but now, with these words from Josh, I felt as if I might cry.

  ‘Yes.’ Our eyes met. I gave him the most convincing smile I could muster.

  ‘Come in here a second.’ He led me into the empty meeting room and pulled up chairs for us both. From a tin left on the side he produced a biscuit, which I nibbled on gratefully.

  ‘How did it go yesterday?’

  ‘I’m not really sure,’ I said. ‘I saw Lila. And she says she’s fine, but I don’t know – I just don’t buy it, Josh. I’m worried that the pressure of everything might be getting to her.’

  ‘The wedding?’

  ‘That – and her rehearsals. Lila’s a perfectionist, always has been. And when things don’t go exactly as she wants them to . . .’ My voice cracked as I thought about how badly things could go wrong. In over a decade, Lila had, as far as I knew, not had a relapse. She’d seen a counsellor for three years after things got bad, and would still check in a few times a year. But Lila had told me before that it was always there, it never went away, and that she knew one day it could come back.

  ‘I feel like there’s nothing I can do,’ I said.

  ‘You showed her that you’re there for her,’ Josh said, reassuringly.

  ‘I guess.’ It didn’t feel enough.

  ‘Keep showing her.’

  I felt tears well in my eyes again and start to spill on to my cheeks. Perhaps the very wedding I was helping to plan was the thing that was causing the problem.

  Gently, Josh brushed the tear from my cheek with his thumb.

  He’d never been so close to me before, but it felt comfortable. More than comfortable. It felt good.

  I spent lunchtime on my own at my desk, sending out invites for Lila’s hen night. I’d arranged a workshop making fascinators for the wedding followed by a night out in Soho. It felt a little surreal, making these final preparations for the wedding when my gut told me that there was something going on, something serious enough that it might end up compromising the whole thing.

  At around three I went out to the courtyard to get some fresh air, and Josh came over. ‘I got you something,’ he said. ‘I might not be able to fix things for you, but I’m pretty good with distractions.’

  He passed me some tickets to an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, a display of the best sets for musical theatre through the past century. ‘They were selling out really quickly, so I thought I’d bike it over there and get them.’ I felt comforted by the warmth in his brown eyes.

  My face flushed in surprise at the gesture. I’d seen the exhibition advertised and it looked really inspiring. ‘Thank you,’ I said, taking the tickets he was holding out. ‘You didn’t need to . . .’

  ‘Entirely selfish really,’ Josh said modestly.

  ‘Selfish?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know I didn’t have to. But I don’t ever want to see you sad, Hazel.’

  My gaze drifted down to his full mouth, and for the briefest of moments, before sense kicked back in, I wondered what it might be like to kiss him.

  August arrived, sultry and warm, and a hum of activity filled every crevice of the city. Workers cast off their blazers and suit jackets, and used them as makeshift rugs while they spread out in London’s green spaces to eat their Pret sandwiches and sushi.

  The days passed in a blur. From the final wedding-dress fittings, to confirming details at the venue and stage-managing Lila’s hen night, organising the wedding had become a full-time job alongside my full-time job. Lila was caught up in the whirlwind, and seemed to have shaken off the melancholy I’d picked up on in her. We were all excited, and she was too. I didn’t ask her again. But I hope I made it clear that if she wanted to talk to me, I was there. We shared late nights together going over the final details, and arranging the playlist.

  I enjoyed the whirl of organisation too. Maybe because it helped me to push the feelings that I’d started to have for Josh to one side. They seemed to have come from nowhere, and I was very keen for them to go right back there.

  Mum and Grandma Joyce were still clamouring to get more involved, but Lila wanted to keep them at arm’s length. We let them loose on the table plan, which they took to with great enthusiasm, and then subtly rearranged a couple of people’s places afterwards. Ben RSVPd yes, at long last, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

  To see Lila at her hen night, surrounded by her best girlfriends and fellow ballet dancers, laughing again, meant everything. It was finally time to see my twin sister get married.

  Chapter 12

  You are cordially invited to the wedding of

  Lila Delaney and Ollie Neal

  At: The Ballet School, Leamington Spa

  It was the day before the wedding.

  ‘It’s easier than it looks, I promise,’ Amber reassured me, as I eyed the four separate cakes she’d baked on their individual cooling racks on the counter. We’d settled on a multi-tier affair, with the top layer covered in edible rose petals. I’d begun to wonder if perhaps we’d been a little ambitious.

  She lowered the second-largest cake and then, at the last moment, dropped it onto the bottom one. ‘See?’ she said proudly. If it weren’t for the tiniest bead of sweat on her brow I would have thought she’d had no doubts at all about the success of the manoeuvre.

  ‘Now it’s your turn,’ she said, pointing to the next-largest cake.

  ‘No – honestly, it’s fine,’ I said. ‘You do it, you did most of the baking, after all – I don’t want to mess anything up now.’

  ‘You won’t,’ Amber said.

  She led me over to the cake. All I could picture was Lila and Ollie’s wedding, the scene set, everything perfect except for the cake, once beautiful and glistening, and now a patched-up mess after my actions.

  Like all the details of Lila and Ollie’s day – the cake really mattered. It would be the centrepiece at the reception, and Amber had worked for days getting the design and recipe just right.

  I held the cake gently in my hands, and steadied my nerves with a deep breath. With an encouraging nod from Amber, I lifted it. I felt like I had the whole of Lila’s wedding in my hands – and it was down to me not to drop it.

  Lowering it onto the two bottom tiers seemed to take for ever. Then, at the final moment, just as Amber had done, I let the cake drop. It fell into position and I realised I’d been holding my breath – I let it out as a wave of relief passed over me.

  ‘Hooray,’ Amber said, smiling proudly at me, and adding the top cake, as if it were no effort at all. ‘See? I told you so,’ she said.

  ‘God,’ I said, turning to Amber. ‘It’s just hit me. How much is at stake.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Her eyes, kind, reminded me that I had an ally, whatever happened tomorrow. ‘It’s going to go perfectly. Trust me.’

  The next day, Amber and I drove up to my fam
ily’s home with the cake. She’d be coming to the wedding as my plus one, so she’d have a chance to enjoy the party as well. We’d booked Amber into a local B&B, while I stayed at the cottage. That evening, Lila, Mum and I were sitting around the kitchen table. It was the table that had nurtured in Lila and me the desire to have a gathering place in our own homes.

  ‘You look pale, sweetie,’ Mum said to Lila, who was nursing a cold cup of tea.

  ‘I’m fine, Mum,’ she insisted. With Ollie staying at a hotel that night, I was seeing her on her own for the first time in what felt like months. Mum was right. She looked terrible.

  ‘Last-minute nerves?’ Mum asked.

  Lila shrugged. ‘I guess.’

  ‘It’s not too late to back out, you know,’ Ben, our little brother, said. From anyone else, it would have been a joke, but from Ben – well. But at least he was here, sitting at the table in a work shirt undone at the collar, and a day’s worth of dark stubble. It had taken more than a couple of nudges from me and Mum, but he was here.

  ‘I need some time on my own,’ Lila said, getting to her feet. We watched her leave the room, and then heard the front door close behind her.

  ‘She’s upset, isn’t she?’ Dad said. In contrast to my brother, whose default setting seemed to be sneering these days, my Dad is unfailingly kind. ‘Shall I go after her?’

  I knew if anyone could help Lila relax, it would be Dad. He’d always had a particular skill for calming a situation. We’d joked in the past that he should be a hostage negotiator rather than an accountant, but he’d always insisted that managing our family was front-line enough for him.

  ‘Let’s give her a few minutes on her own first,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe she’s changed her mind, and decided she wants someone who actually earns a living,’ Ben said.

  ‘Ollie’s a lovely boy,’ Mum said.

  ‘Man,’ I corrected her.

  ‘Exactly, that’s what I said.’ She turned to Dad and put her hand on top of his, in that way they had.

  ‘Now, shall I put the kettle on?’ Mum said. ‘I’ll get Lila a cup of peppermint, that should help her when she’s back.’

  Ben’s phone rang and he got to his feet. ‘Yes, yes, I’m familiar with them,’ Ben said, switching into work mode. I rolled my eyes as he left the room. ‘Even now, he’s not going to switch that thing off?’

  Mum turned to me. ‘Go easy on him,’ she said. ‘It’s just a phase. Don’t let it wind you up.’

  ‘Just a phase, Mum?’ I said. ‘He’s twenty-five. You shouldn’t be making excuses for him – especially not when he’s as rude as he was just now about Ollie.’

  Mum looked out the window as the kettle boiled, watching the back of Lila’s head as she paced slowly up and down outside. ‘He’ll be all right in a little while. They both will.’

  Silence fell between us for a moment.

  ‘You don’t think she has got cold feet, do you, Hazel?’ Mum asked me quietly.

  ‘No.’ I shook my head confidently. ‘She and Ollie are just as hopelessly in love as always, believe me, I’ve spent the last few days witnessing it at particularly close quarters.’

  ‘She doesn’t seem herself, though,’ Mum said.

  Of course, I was wondering the same thing, couldn’t stop wondering, but I didn’t see that it would help anything to let Mum know that.

  ‘All brides get nervous.’

  ‘I suppose,’ she said. I could see it in her eyes, the same worry that had been plaguing me.

  ‘Everything will be fine tomorrow,’ I said, hoping it would be true.

  When Lila came back inside, she walked right through the kitchen and up the stairs, barely looking at us.

  A few moments later, I followed her. As I’d expected, she was up in the attic, in the corner. It wasn’t a proper room, more of a den, the beanbags and cushions we’d sat on as children still strewn around. She must’ve heard my feet on the floorboards, as she looked up to face me, her face streaked with tears. I sat beside her, my hand gently covering her bare feet.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked her softly.

  ‘It’s not just one thing,’ Lila said, her voice cracking. ‘I just feel sort of overwhelmed by it all. The pressure, all the people. And what we’re doing – Ollie and me. Sometimes it seems like the most natural thing in the world, and then at other times I wonder if we’re crazy.’

  ‘You’re not. You guys are perfect together,’ I reassured her. ‘Tomorrow will be beautiful – I can promise you that much. And the rest of your lives – you and Ollie will work that all out.’

  ‘I guess,’ she said, forcing a smile.

  ‘Have you been feeling OK?’ I enquired gently. ‘I mean, it must be difficult, what with the performances, and then all of this . . .’

  ‘Mostly, yes,’ she said, and I could see she’d registered what I was really asking. ‘I’m not going to pretend it’s been easy, there have been moments that I’ve worried it was happening again. There have been days when thoughts have flickered across my mind and I’ve had to force them back out. And that’s one of the things on my mind. Just because I haven’t got sick again, that doesn’t mean that I won’t. How can I expect Ollie to be there for me, through all of that . . . ’

  ‘Because he’ll want to be there,’ I said. ‘I hope it never happens, and with any luck it won’t. But if it does – he’ll want to be there for you, Lila – just like I did. Just like all of our family did.’

  She dried her eyes roughly with the back of her hand, and met my gaze.

  ‘Anyway – who knows how things will pan out, it could just as easily be you that needs to be there for him.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘And isn’t that what marriage is supposed to be all about?’

  She nodded.

  ‘There’s something else, too,’ she said. ‘Connected to what happened back then.’

  She looked more fragile for a moment, as she took herself back there.

  ‘Ollie knows about what happened, but not the full story – nothing about the hospital, or how bad things really got. I didn’t want us – this good, happy thing – getting tarnished with the general messed-up-ness of me.’

  I shook my head. ‘Lila, you shouldn’t see it like that . . .’

  ‘Well, I do. I don’t want him to think I married him on false pretences, got him to sign up to a life with me thinking I was sorted, when I’m not . . .’

  ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t want you to be anything other than the woman you are.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lila said, welling up. ‘On a good day I think that. But now I’m starting to think that that past – the one I’ve been trying for years to leave behind, might end up being part of our present too. And our future. I was a teenager back then, and what the doctors told me didn’t really sink in. Hazel, they said that after everything that happened, all that my body’s been through, there was likely to be some permanent damage.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. She hadn’t mentioned it to me at the time, and perhaps my parents had shielded me from it too.

  ‘Ollie wants a baby. And so, I think, do I. But I’m scared. I’m worried it’s not going to happen.’

  ‘Have you told him that?’

  She nodded. ‘I said I wasn’t sure if it would be possible.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘He says he loves me and wants to be with me no matter what,’ Lila said, rubbing away a tear.

  ‘Well, there you go,’ I said. ‘OK, so things might not be straightforward for you, but no one has any guarantees. You love each other and want to get married – don’t let this stand in your way.’

  Her eyes met mine, and she took my hand. ‘Thank you.’

  Chapter 13

  15 August

  The School of Ballet, Warwickshire

  Fairy lights traced the edges of the windows of the ballet school, and tealights hung from the surrounding trees, twinkling in the dusk. Lila stepped out of the car, a vintage V8 Pilot, a stol
e draped around her shoulders, setting off her floor-length ivory gown to perfection, our dad smiling proudly by her side. There was a collective gasp from the wedding guests, as we all walked into the room.

  Lila looked beautiful – and it was nothing to do with the dress, or anything she was wearing. After our chat the previous night, her anxieties seemed to have disappeared, replaced with a kind of calm contentment. She was ready.

  Her hair, small sections curled and pinned in silver-screen style, suited her perfectly – I knew then I’d been right to choose Andy as the hairdresser. The actresses on the top costume dramas raved about him. When Lila and I had first talked about 1920s styling, back in the spring, Andy had sprung to mind immediately. He might have been pure TOWIE on the surface, but under that deep spray tan, he had a comprehensive knowledge of period hairstyles and a way of making even the most highly strung female feel relaxed.

  I focused on my sister – and the look that Ollie was giving her as he watched her walk towards him up the aisle.

  Lila’s voice was shaking a little as she said her vows, and I noticed Ollie give her hand a squeeze. As they kissed, a cheer went up from the crowd. I glanced back and saw Mum and Dad on the bench seats behind us. They were next to each other, and both beaming with pride.

  After the ceremony, Lila and her new husband descended the stone steps, and we showered them with flower petal confetti.

  ‘She looks very happy,’ Mum whispered to me.

  ‘He’s a lucky man,’ Dad added. There were tears of pride in his eye.

  ‘He is,’ Mum said.

  Dad put his arm around Mum and held her close.

  Amber and I were just congratulating ourselves on a job well done, during the speeches, when the room fell quiet and I saw Ben making his way over to the microphone. My chest went tight. This was not in the plan – my brother, who had been so vague and unpredictable lately – had definitely not been invited to give a speech at the wedding.

  Lila hadn’t noticed. Her back was to him, and she was gazing into Ollie’s eyes, oblivious to whatever it was that was about to unfold.