‘I’m beginning to understand why you have that rule about not going to any of the weddings you’re invited to,’ Heidi said to Melanie. ‘Come Saturday lunchtime, I don’t honestly care if no one ever marries again in the history of the whole bloody world.’
‘Do you want to come over to my house for dinner tonight?’ Sarah asked. ‘I’ve got loads of leftovers from the buffet I did for Princess Kate.’
‘That’s kind, Sarah, but I’ve already got plans.’
Sarah and Heidi looked disbelieving. They knew that Phil the widower had been off the scene since February and Melanie hadn’t mentioned anybody else.
‘Where are you going?’ Heidi asked, because she knew that Sarah wouldn’t dare.
‘Just out,’ said Melanie.
‘Come on, you can tell us.’
‘All right,’ said Melanie. ‘I’m going to a wedding.’
Chapter Fifty-Three
Preparations for Diana’s wedding were almost complete. Diana was resplendent in her dress, sipping from a flute of pink champagne while her seven bridesmaids buzzed around her skirts. Pete, the photographer, was recording every moment. Outside, her father, Dave, had just arrived. He’d tricked out his old silver Jaguar with white ribbons so that Susie, Diana’s grandmother and two of the bridesmaids could be driven to the cathedral in style. He’d even persuaded one of his fitters to don a chauffeur’s cap and play driver for the occasion.
‘I had it valeted,’ Dave told Susie as she admired the shine on the bonnet.
Susie smiled at her ex-husband for the first time since they swapped expletives outside a supermarket on the day Susie heard he was getting remarried, ten years before.
‘Thank you, Dave,’ she said now. ‘That means a lot to me.’
‘It’s all for our little girl,’ said Dave. ‘Would you look at her?’
They could see Diana through the living-room window. Nicole was helping her step into her Louboutins.
‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Every bit the princess she was named after.’
‘At least one good thing came of our marriage,’ Susie agreed.
As they stood on the front doorstep exchanging pleasantries, Susie and Dave heard the sound of horses’ hooves at the top of the street. They turned to see the bridal carriage pulling into the cul de sac. It was a white, open-topped carriage straight out of a Disney cartoon. A liveried driver held the reins. A matching footman balanced on the running board. The carriage was pulled by not one but two perfectly white horses. But these were no ordinary horses. They were unicorns.
‘Oh my God,’ said Susie. ‘Are they for real?’
Each horse wore a very convincing prosthetic horn on its forehead.
‘Don’t you remember that first wedding drawing Diana did when she was six years old?’ said Dave. ‘She told me she wanted to be taken to her wedding by unicorns. Unicorns is what Diana wants and so unicorns is what Diana gets.’
The bride and her attendants gawped from the window. Diana leaned out.
‘Your carriage awaits,’ Dave said with a chivalrous bow.
‘Oh my God, Dad! Unicorns! You remembered!’ Diana raced out of the house as fast as her huge dress would allow her and soon she was on the verge of happy tears.
‘Don’t cry. Don’t cry!’ The make-up artist bobbed around her. ‘Your false eyelashes will come off.’
Diana was wearing a pair of falsies that put the long lashes of her ‘unicorns’ to shame. Susie handed her a handkerchief so that she might dab her tears and protect them.
‘Oh, Dad,’ said Diana, ‘this is the best bridal carriage ever.’
‘Because you’re the best girl in the world.’
‘Aaaaah,’ chorused the bridesmaids, led by Nicole. The bridesmaids were all dressed in pink. It didn’t suit all of them, but it did match Diana’s flowers.
‘Dad’ – Diana gave him a hug that left a big foundation-coloured smear on his collar – ‘I know you haven’t always been the best father in the world, but I want you to know that I forgive you. I forgive you for leaving Mum and marrying Chelsea. I even forgive you for having Charlie.’
‘He would have loved to have seen his big sister getting married,’ said Dave.
‘I didn’t say I would ever think of him as my brother, Dad.’
‘We’re going to head on to the cathedral in the Jag,’ said Susie before an argument could start. ‘Have you got everything you need, Diana love?’
‘I think so.’
‘Something old?’
‘My baby charm bracelet.’ She waggled her wrist to jangle the bracelet that Dave had bought the day he discovered she was a girl and not the automatic Southampton FC season ticket he’d hoped for.
‘Something new?’
‘My dress, obviously.’
‘Something borrowed?’
‘Nicole’s belly-button ring.’
‘Nice touch,’ said Pete, giving Nicole a saucy wink.
‘Something blue.’
Diana hitched up her skirt to show a garter with a bow of blue ribbon. The older bridesmaids whooped.
‘All present and correct,’ Diana confirmed.
‘Hang on. She still needs a silver sixpence for her shoe,’ said Diana’s grandmother.
Diana looked panicked.
‘I haven’t got one!’
‘I’ve got one for you,’ said her grandmother, pulling a little velvet pouch out of her handbag. ‘Well, it’s not a sixpence, but it is a silver coin. Your grandfather bought it for you on the day you were born. They were minting them especially for the royal wedding. He said I should hang on to it until you got married. He would have loved to see this day.’
Diana took the velvet pouch and tipped the commemorative coin out into her palm. On one side was the familiar image of the queen, on the other side Charles and Diana in profile.
‘Oh, Gran, that’s brilliant,’ said Diana.
‘You’ve got to put it in your shoe,’ her dad reminded her.
Diana had Nicole help her take one of her shoes off again, so that she could slip the coin inside, but it was thicker than the silver sixpence of the rhyme and it was far too uncomfortable for Diana to be able to walk around with it in place. She took the coin out and handed it back to her gran.
‘You’ll have to carry it.’
‘At least you know that your grandfather is with you in spirit today.’
‘Yes, Gran. I can feel it. Now, shouldn’t you all be on your way to the cathedral?’
Diana’s grandmother, her mother and two of the bridesmaids squeezed into the back of the Jaguar. The other five bridesmaids would be following in a people carrier, but not before they had helped Diana up into her fairy-princess carriage with its unicorns. Up and down the street, Susie’s neighbours had turned out to watch the bride set off on her journey to the cathedral. They had always known that Diana Ashcroft would get a spectacular send-off, but no one had expected unicorns. At least, no one in their right mind had expected unicorns.
‘Daddy’ – Diana cuddled close to her father in the back of the carriage, as Pete fired off another fifty photographs – ‘this is the best day of my life.’
The horses took off at a far statelier pace than they had arrived at, thanks to the weight of two new passengers and a wedding dress that weighed the same as a child. Diana made the most of the slow exit from the cul de sac. She gave her mother’s neighbours a regal wave. Two young girls were open-mouthed with awe at the spectacle of this cross between Kate Middleton and Katie Price.
‘I bet that one day they’ll ask their fathers for a carriage just like this,’ Diana observed as she blew the girls kisses.
‘I bet they will,’ her father agreed.
At the top of the road, Diana’s carriage passed the recycling truck. The bin men waved and whistled at the bride before they carried on into the cul de sac, where they would be picking up one particularly important bag of rubbish.
Chapter Fifty-Four
All the time her sister and f
ather searched for her, Kate was not far away. She was sitting on the seafront in Warsham. She’d been sitting there for ages, since seven that morning. She had, as her mother suspected, climbed out of the bedroom window. It was a ground-floor window. It was easy. Far easier than leaving through the front door and having to answer questions about where she was going at such an early hour and why.
Where to begin? Somehow, Kate thought to herself, I never really believed I would get to this day. Even when the wedding was just twenty-four hours away and the dress was ready and the flowers being arranged, Kate had not been able to imagine herself into place at the top of the aisle. And she realised then that when she had managed to think herself into a wedding scene, she had not been able to picture Ian standing beside her. The idea had never really taken shape in her mind. That frightened her.
Now the moment when she should be standing by Ian’s side was just a few hours away. Out on the Solent, an ordinary Saturday morning was in progress. A flotilla of small sailboats containing eager children was pulled out to sea by a tug, like a family of ducklings following the mother duck. In the middle distance, the Isle of Wight ferry took holidaymakers, enjoying the long weekend, to visit Osborne House or browse for dinosaur bones on the beach. Behind the ferry, a container ship headed into the docks at Southampton. That ship was as big as a block of flats. It dwarfed the refinery as it moved on by, silent as a ghost.
Kate idly wondered what Princess Kate was doing that morning. Did she have a hangover? Was she full of excitement at the start of her married life, or was she wondering what the hell she had just signed up to?
One day, she hoped she would be able to tell Ian what she had been through these past few months and how what should have been one of the happiest moments in her life had become such an almighty source of misery. She hoped that he would understand. He probably wouldn’t like what she had to say, but he was a good man and she knew that he had only ever wanted the best for her. Just like her dad.
Kate had always felt a similarity of mind with her father, so she wasn’t in the least bit surprised that it was he who tracked her down. Actually, the first family member that morning to get to her was her sister’s dog. Snowy, who had never really taken to training, leaped at Kate’s back in her excitement and almost pushed her off the sea wall.
‘Snowy!’
Snowy had no idea that today should be any different from normal. She was full of her usual exuberance at the idea of a walk. Any walk.
‘There you are,’ said John.
‘Dad.’
‘Do you want me to find you, or shall I go back and tell your mother that you called to say you were on your way to Rio while I was walking the dog?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know we’ll still love you whatever you decide to do. It doesn’t matter about what anyone else says. It’s your life, Kate. It’s your decision.’
‘What are you talking about? I’m just getting a breath of fresh air.’
‘But it’s nearly ten o’clock.’
Kate looked at her watch. ‘What?’ She sprang to her feet. ‘I didn’t realise how long I’d been sitting here. Has the hairdresser arrived? Is Tess there? Has she got Lily ready? Oh, Dad, I’ve just been sitting here thinking, having a moment of calm before the storm.’
‘But you climbed out of the window.’
‘I was going to climb back in before anyone woke up. I just wanted to get out of the house without having to answer loads of questions. I just wanted a moment on my own.’
‘Your mother thinks you’ve run away.’
‘Oh my God, I’m sorry. Let’s go back.’
Kate jumped up and brushed down her jeans.
Snowy jumped with her, excited to be on the move again.
‘Are you sure you weren’t really running away?’ asked John. ‘Because, you know, if you’re not sure, your mother and I and your sister and Mike and Lily, we’re all right behind you. Well, perhaps not Lily. She’ll raise merry hell if she doesn’t get to be a bridesmaid.’
Kate laughed.
‘I know, Dad. But I am sure. I’ve never been so sure in my life.’
Elaine burst into tears as her elder daughter walked into the kitchen.
Tess threw her arms round her sister’s neck. ‘Am I getting the dress out of the car or what?’
‘Get the dress,’ Kate instructed. ‘Mum, put the kettle on.’
Chapter Fifty-Five
Dave peered closely at the message on his mobile phone.
‘What is it?’ Diana asked.
‘It’s from your mother.’
‘What does she say?’
‘She says she thinks we should go round the block another time.’
Dave conveyed the instruction to the carriage driver.
‘What do we have to go round the block again for?’ Diana persisted. The cathedral was within sight.
‘Well, I suppose your mother thinks that we should keep everyone waiting a little bit longer. It’s tradition for the bride to be late.’
‘Yeah, but I don’t want to be too late. There’s a lot to get through at the reception. The string quartet is only booked till half past three. God knows how long this ceremony will take. The bishop has a tendency to go on.’
‘It’ll be fine, my love,’ Dave assured her. He patted her hand. ‘We’ve got all the time in the world.’
But by the time they had ‘been round the block’ again, Dave had received another text message from Susie asking him to ‘just keep going’.
‘What’s going on?’ Now Diana was suspicious.
‘Nothing.’ Dave gave his daughter’s knee a squeeze. ‘Nothing at all. The traffic’s been bad on the road from Portsmouth and there are just a few people yet to arrive. We don’t want to start the ceremony without them.’
That kept Diana quiet for another minute.
‘Dad,’ she asked eventually, ‘who exactly hasn’t arrived?’
Dave didn’t need to say anything. The look of sheer panic on his face told Diana everything she needed to know.
‘You are joking,’ she said. ‘Dad, tell me you’re bloody well joking!’
Dave could only shake his head.
Diana’s mouth dropped open. For a second she was lost for words. Just for a second.
‘He wouldn’t do that to me. He loves me. He wouldn’t do that.’
‘Let’s just wait in this nice layby.’
‘No! Take us straight to the cathedral!’ Diana shouted at the guy who was driving the carriage.
‘Sweetheart, I think we should wait here,’ said Dave. ‘Your mother has got everything under control. There’s no point us rushing in there just yet. If I know Ben, he won’t let you down. There will be some perfectly reasonable explanation. Maybe there’s traffic.’
‘There had better be bloody traffic,’ Diana hissed. She was prevented from phoning Ben because she didn’t have her phone with her and Ben’s number wasn’t on her father’s, but she was not going to take her father’s advice and hang around in a layby looking like a refugee from a pantomime because nobody could tell her where her fiancé was.
‘Drive on,’ she commanded.
The carriage driver didn’t know who to take his orders from. Should he listen to the father, who seemed to be the voice of reason, or the bride, who looked as if she might at any moment lose her head?
‘Drive on,’ said Diana. Her expression was steely. She was not to be messed with.
‘We need to wait here,’ said Dave. He wasn’t to be messed with either.
The driver looked from one to the other. Which one would be the less angry? In the end, Diana made the decision for him. While the driver was hesitating, trying to remember if his wife, who arranged the rental, had already cashed the cheque, Diana clambered over the seats and grabbed the reins from his hands. Giving the reins a swift jerk, she scared the horses into motion again and fell back heavily into her father’s lap when they took off at a gallop.
‘Whoa!’ The driver
tried in vain to bring his horses back under control, but there was no chance. Somehow Diana had frightened them beyond such reason as one can expect from an animal and now they were hurtling towards the traffic.
‘Make them slow down!’ Diana yelled.
‘Stay calm, stay calm. Just hang on to the carriage,’ the driver instructed as Diana and her father embarked upon the ride of their lives.
‘Stay calm!’ the driver shouted again, but soon Dave was cowering on the floor of the carriage with Diana right on top of him. Dave hung on to the side of the carriage. Diana hung on to her father. Her enormous dress billowed around her, but, alas, didn’t seem to act as any kind of brake. Her cathedral-length veil was ripped from her head as they passed beneath a low-hanging branch.
‘Daaaaaddd!’ Diana screamed. ‘You’ve got to get us out of here.’
At this point, the driver, terrified by the dual carriageway in his near future, hurled himself onto a dogshit-covered grass verge. The footman had fallen off long before. Now Diana and her father were completely alone.
The horses thundered on, as though they were late for the Apocalypse. There was nothing Diana or Dave could do except pray that the other road users would be able to avoid them. Father and daughter clung together as the mad dash continued for long enough for a local news network to pick up the spectacle on the camera on their traffic helicopter.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, you’re never going to believe this – we have what looks like an out-of-control carriage pulled by a pair of wild unicorns.’
Chapter Fifty-Six
‘Jeez,’ said Tess as she hauled Kate’s dress into the house, ‘I have put my back out.’
‘You should try wearing it,’ said Kate. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m two inches shorter by the end of the day.’
‘Thank God I don’t have to iron it,’ said Elaine. ‘I had to iron my own wedding dress, you know.’
‘Yes, Mum,’ Tess and Kate chorused.
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