Diana’s only problem was that a girl with as much to offer as she had needed a really special man. During Diana’s teenage years, boyfriends were picked up and discarded for all manner of reasons: not good-looking enough, not rich enough, not well connected enough in the nightclubs around town . . . Very few lasted for more than a month. From the age of twenty to twenty-three, Diana dated a nightclub promoter, but she dropped him when he said he had no intention of getting married before he hit fifty. (He was twenty-five.) Diana was not prepared to wait around.
She had hoped that ditching the promoter would be the wake-up call he needed. When he didn’t immediately give in to her demands, Diana knew she needed a different strategy. The strategy was to make him jealous. The man she intended to use to make him jealous was Ben.
Diana had been aware of Ben for years. He’d been in the year above her at secondary school. She’d seen him making gooey eyes at her in the corridors. She’d never returned the honour, because back then he just wasn’t cool enough to warrant her attention, but now Ben was back in Southampton after three years away at university and three years working in London and the geeky boy she remembered had blossomed into an altogether more attractive prospect. Having gained experience while running the student union, Ben was promoting a new club to rival Diana’s ex-lover’s. Diana and Nicole went along to the opening night and Diana quickly made her interest known.
Having reintroduced herself to Ben and spent half an hour putting in the spadework of making sure he knew that he might be in with a chance, Diana set about leading him a merry dance, which included insisting on a rendezvous at her ex-boyfriend’s club night. Mesmerised by any hint of attention from the most beautiful girl in school, Ben would have followed Diana anywhere. It took three months for him to get her into bed. The very next day, Diana had Ben take her for Sunday lunch at her ex-boyfriend’s local. She just about managed to hide her fury when her ex told her, ‘I’m glad you’re moving on.’
Faced with that obvious uninterest, Diana convinced herself that she was actually moving on. Rather than viewing Ben as a stepping stone to getting her ex back, she started to look for evidence that she had in fact traded up. He was good-looking. He was from a great family. One of his cousins had trialled for the Chelsea youth team. Plus, he was just starting out as a promoter. He had a glittering career ahead of him, she was sure.
But Ben’s club-promotion career never quite took off. There were problems with drug-dealing and underage drinking. The police were there night after night. It was possible that Diana’s ex had set him up. For whatever reason, Ben decided that the life of a promoter wasn’t for him. He diverted more energy into his day job in IT.
When Ben announced that he was retiring from the club scene, Diana was disappointed not to be the girlfriend of a promoter any more, but she decided that being the partner of an IT expert might be just as good. Certainly, Ben made more money at his day job. His bonuses were quite impressive. She was very happy to cruise around town in his big, new Audi. As she entered her late twenties, Diana was increasingly aware of competition in the form of younger girls. It was time to settle down, Diana decided. With her behind him, Ben could achieve great things. They could make it work.
Surprisingly, though Diana had always considered herself to be the ‘bigger catch’, Ben seemed as reluctant to make things official as Diana’s ex had been. Eventually, she persuaded him that it was worth their buying a house. Panicked by the seemingly inexorable rise of house prices, Ben had agreed. However, he didn’t really have enough to buy the kind of place that Diana wanted. It was with help from Diana’s father that they bought a new-build four-bedroomed house at the very height of the market.
After that, Diana concentrated her efforts on getting an engagement ring. She spoke glowingly of the advantages of marriage. She invited her married friends over all the time, as though to prove to Ben that settling down needn’t mean an end to having fun. Still Ben resisted. He said they were too young.
The last thing Diana expected was for her big break to come in the shape of Ben’s infidelity. Had she known how it would play out, she might have tried an ultimatum before. But perhaps it was the fact that her threat to leave Ben was so very real that this ultimatum worked.
‘I was so frightened you’d leave me,’ said Ben when Diana agreed to stay if and only if they got engaged.
Ben had no idea how frightened Diana had been that she would be the one who ended up on a dating site. She was nearing thirty and she had no intention of passing that milestone alone. She was never going to let him go.
Chapter Thirteen
16 November 2010
‘Oh my God!’
The busy showroom of Bride on Time was brought to a halt by a scream from the backroom.
‘OhmiGod, ohmiGod, ohmiGod.’
Sarah, who, at twenty-three years old, was the youngest of the three full-time bridal consultants, came out of the backroom flapping her hands and hyperventilating. She couldn’t get her words out. She skipped round the salon three times before Melanie pulled up a chair and pushed her down into it.
‘Whatever’s the matter?’
A bridal consultant gone loopy would not be good for business. The showroom was packed that afternoon. Four brides and their attendants all stopped and stared.
On the chair, Sarah continued to fight to find the breath to speak. She fanned her face with a Pronovias catalogue. She mouthed words but made no sound.
‘Sarah? Sarah? Whatever is up?’ Melanie asked.
‘You’re not going to believe it,’ Sarah said at last. ‘They’re getting married.’
An awful lot of people who came to Bride on Time were getting married, Melanie pointed out. ‘Who?’
‘Prince William and Kate Middleton. There’s an announcement on the Mail’s website!’
One of the brides being fitted that afternoon had an iPhone. She quickly tapped through to the Daily Mail’s website. It was true. The palace had announced the young couple’s engagement just that afternoon.
‘Oh, that’s wonderful,’ said Melanie. The phone was passed around. There was much cooing over the royal fiancée and her prince. The good feeling generated by the news was palpable. There wasn’t a woman in the room who didn’t remember Prince William as the child behind his mother’s coffin and for that reason alone everyone automatically wished him every happiness.
‘It’s exactly what his mother would have wanted,’ said Heidi. ‘Him marrying a commoner.’
‘Kate Middleton is hardly common,’ said Sarah. ‘She’s privately educated. She has millionaire parents.’
‘You know what I mean. She doesn’t have a title. Her mother was an air hostess.’
‘Nothing wrong with that,’ said Melanie, quickly remembering that one of that afternoon’s brides worked for Virgin Atlantic. ‘Well,’ she addressed the crowd, ‘I think this is cause for celebration. Sarah, there’s a bottle of Prosecco in the fridge. Will you bring it out here and’ – she did a quick headcount – ‘thirteen paper cups. Make it fourteen. Thirteen’s unlucky.’
‘But . . .’ Sarah hesitated. She glanced at the sign with the scored-through teacup. What about the salon’s strict no-food-and-beverages policy?
‘It’s a special occasion,’ said Melanie, ‘and I know these ladies will be very careful . . . Open the bottle over the sink.’
There was hardly enough sparkling wine for each of the assembled women to have a thimbleful, but Melanie knew it was important to mark the occasion. In her experience, women in love were a superstitious lot and to hear the announcement of a royal wedding while in a bridal salon would doubtless come to mean something for all the assembled brides. It was up to Melanie to make sure they assumed it was a good omen. Good omens meant better sales. While the Prosecco was poured, there was much excited talk about the possible choice of wedding date. Would sharing a wedding date with the royal couple be a good or a bad thing? one of the brides asked.
‘It might distract from your day,’ sa
id another.
‘But there’ll be a national holiday, won’t there? Your guests would get an extra day off and could make a long weekend of it.’
‘Why don’t you let me tell you my experience,’ said Melanie.
Melanie remembered how excited she had felt when she first learned that Charles and Diana would share her wedding day, 29 July 1981. She and Keith had chosen the day well ahead of the royal couple since, for them, getting married meant saving hard for at least two years beforehand. Melanie’s parents chipped in their traditional share, of course, but for the kind of party Melanie wanted, extra funding was required. She and Keith worked all hours to pay for their evening do. They wanted a really big bash.
‘We’re only going to do this once,’ said Keith.
When Charles and Diana announced their date, Melanie had whooped with delight. Melanie loved that she was getting married on the same day as the royal couple. The entire population of Southampton really went to town in their preparations to celebrate the future king and his wife, and Melanie was happy to imagine that the flags and the bunting were for her too. For her and Keith. How could having the entire nation in such high spirits have failed to have anything but a positive effect on anyone else getting married that day?
The only problem Melanie and Keith encountered was that one of his elderly aunts was prevented from getting to the church on time after getting lost on the drive there thanks to all the street-party road closures, but even that wasn’t too much of a headache. Auntie Mildred had been perfectly happy to spend an afternoon sipping sherry with strangers. Nobody was a stranger that day. The nation was united in the celebration of love.
Mel and Keith’s wedding reception was held in a country-house hotel. As a wedding gift, Keith’s parents had booked a room there for the happy couple on their inaugural night as Mr and Mrs Harris. Before the wedding breakfast was served, Melanie and Keith sneaked up there for a moment alone. On the tele-vision, Prince Charles and his new princess had just appeared on the balcony at Buckingham Palace, where they shared their first public kiss, to the cheers of the crowds lining the Mall.
Melanie and Keith sat on the end of the bed and watched the moment unfold.
‘I love you, Mrs Harris.’
‘I love you, Mr Harris.’
‘I love you more.’
‘It was perfect. Any bride who gets to share her wedding day with Kate Middleton can count herself lucky, in my opinion. As far as I’m concerned, getting married on the same day as Charles and Diana really made my wedding,’ Melanie concluded. ‘It seemed as though the whole country was wishing us well.’
The assembled brides murmured their assent. Melanie thought she was preaching to the choir.
‘But look how their marriage turned out,’ said one of that day’s customers, a younger sister who wasn’t impressed with being picked as a bridesmaid. She was dressed all in black and had a stud through her nose. She didn’t look as though she had much time for anything romantic. ‘I don’t think marrying Charles was lucky for Diana at all,’ she continued. ‘If she hadn’t married him, she wouldn’t have ended up being dead in a car crash, would she?’
The young woman’s words had everyone looking pensive. It was hard to disagree with her view that marriage to Charles had been the first step on the path that led Diana to her horrible death. All the same, Melanie made a gargantuan effort to put a happier spin on things.
‘Without Diana marrying Charles, lovely Kate wouldn’t have her own prince to marry,’ Melanie pointed out. ‘The silver lining is those beautiful boys of hers. Her spirit lives on through both of them.’
The older women agreed and Melanie was glad she had successfully defended romance again, even though she, more than any of the women present could know, had reason to find Diana’s story particularly sad.
‘Now, let’s get back to work, girls!’ Melanie clapped her hands. ‘You ladies need to choose your frocks and get them ordered before that Kate Middleton comes down here and takes up all our time.’
There was a ripple of laughter. As if Kate Middleton would ever set foot in Washam.
Melanie collected up all the paper cups and took them into the backroom. Alone at last, she leaned against the sink for a moment, looking out onto the road down below. Outside, it was dark already, though it was only four o’clock. Melanie wished that it were later so she could close up for the night. She could do without having to go back out into the salon in her role as cheerleader for all those happy, newly engaged romantics. Thinking about Princess Diana never failed to make her feel sad.
Melanie hadn’t told many people how much Princess Diana’s death had affected her. Sometimes it seemed ridiculous, like crying over the break-up of the Bay City Rollers. It wasn’t as though she’d ever actually met the woman. But Diana’s death had been a pivotal moment in her life. Melanie had been right there, in Paris, the night the princess died. As crazy as it sounded, Melanie felt almost as though the dead princess’s ghost had walked right through her on her way to the afterlife.
Back in the UK after that awful weekend, Melanie had taken a train up to London to pay her respects in Kensington Gardens. She lay flowers with all those other flowers, which filled the air with such a heady scent that Melanie felt faint to be close to them. She had cried all the way back to Southampton. Such a waste of a life. And of love. If a woman as beautiful and lovely as Princess Diana couldn’t make love work, then how could anyone else have a chance?
If she’d lived, Diana would have turned fifty in 2011 and Melanie and her husband would have celebrated their thirtieth anniversary. Tuning in to the chatter in the salon, Melanie heard Sarah explain to her client that Melanie’s royal wedding story actually had a sad ending.
‘She’s a widow,’ said Sarah in a stage whisper that was clearly audible in the backroom.
‘Melanie!’ Heidi shouted next. ‘Can we have the cathedral-length veils for Jessica Stott?’
Melanie snapped back to the present.
A cathedral-length veil would make Jessica Stott, who was all of five feet in her heels, look like a child dressing up as a ghost for Halloween, but Melanie always catered to her customers’ wishes. She was pretty sure that as soon as Jessica had the first veil on, she would ask for something shorter.
‘Coming right out,’ she said.
Melanie paused by a mirror. She stuck her fingers in the dimples that Keith had always loved.
‘Happy face.’ She smiled, pulling the corners of her sad mouth upwards.
Chapter Fourteen
The day of Kate and William’s engagement announcement brought much less welcome news for the Williamson family. Elaine’s biopsy had confirmed the presence of malignant cells. Cancer. Suddenly, the much-maligned NHS swung into impressive action as the oncologists drew up a treatment plan. There was no question that Elaine would have to have a lumpectomy. After that, there would be radiotherapy and perhaps a whole bunch of other therapies that sounded nowhere near as much fun as the therapies Kate indulged in at the beauty salon near her office.
‘This is terrible,’ Kate said to Tess.
‘It’s not a death sentence,’ Tess reminded her. ‘Plenty of people get through this.’
But Kate had never had her younger sister’s stoicism. She couldn’t just treat the news of her mother’s breast tumour as she might have treated news of something like, say, a gallstone. Though in theory you could just as likely die while having your gall bladder removed as a tumour, the word ‘cancer’ was so much more evocative. It was as though the letters of the word themselves were shrouded in the black cape of death.
Having Lily to care for meant that Tess couldn’t spend all day dwelling on their mother’s illness, but Kate could not think of anything else even while she was in the office. She spent hours online looking up breast-cancer statistics. Her mother had DCIS, ductal carcinoma in situ, which was, according to many of the websites, the simplest kind of breast cancer to deal with. And it had been caught early. There was no reason to b
elieve the cancer had spread elsewhere. Kate printed out a stack of learned papers on the subject and tried to make sense of them in her lunch break. It shouldn’t have been hard for a lawyer, right? But Kate’s head swam with the unfamiliar acronyms; the difference of one or two letters could mean the difference between twenty more years or just a few months.
At four o’clock, her father called for a chat. The effort of remaining calm and upbeat for the duration of the conversation was tremendous. She told her father that her ‘extensive research’ seemed to suggest that everything would be fine. These days, getting rid of a couple of tiny breast tumours was no more complicated than filling a rotten tooth, she assured him. Survival rates were getting higher and better year on year. She hoped that her father left the conversation feeling reassured, though Kate herself felt horribly drained. And then she had to go straight into a meeting and be her usual impressively professional self. Only she couldn’t. For a start, she had spent more time looking up breast cancer than she had reading the papers she should be discussing with her colleagues. Her attention drifted back to her mother whenever she wasn’t called on to speak for a while. She gazed out of the window while other people gave their opinions. She managed to make herself cry by imagining her niece’s next birthday party. The prognosis for DCIS sufferers was generally good, but what if Elaine fell into the small bracket of people who were unlucky, for whom a lumpectomy didn’t work? What if Elaine wasn’t there to see her granddaughter turn seven? What if she couldn’t make Kate’s wedding? It was unthinkable. Elaine was the lynchpin of every Williamson family gathering.
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