by Jane Linfoot
‘Cate, Immie, come on in,’ Jess purrs. ‘You both know Sera don’t you?’
Sera, her back jammed against the rough planks of the fitting room wall as she sketches, leans into view and gives a wave. ‘I’m working on some designs for bridesmaids dresses now, so I hope it’s okay if I give you guys a hand? Get a feel for what bridesmaids want?’
‘Of course,’ Cate flashes a momentary smile at Sera, then looks straight back to the dresses she’s hovering next to. As she skims past the bright colours and comes to a halt next to the pastel, extra-floaty dresses, Immie groans and makes a silent throat cutting sign behind Cate’s back.
Ignoring Immie, I grab some glasses from the tray on the pale pink dressing table, and pour Sera and Jess some wine. In my hurry to get this started, I’ve come down in my Uggs and jeans rather than the black pumps, black trousers and black top that Jess likes us assistants to wear when we’re helping out in the shop. But given we’re all friends, I doubt she’ll mind this once. When I was at my worst after the break up, slurping about in my pyjamas all day, Jess thoughtfully provided me with a black pair, so I could wander round the shop without the customers realising I wasn’t really dressed.
‘So, make yourselves comfy.’ Jess waves Cate and Immie to a couple of Louis XIV chairs with ice blue linen cushions and white rope tassels. ‘I’ll let Poppy show you the different dresses, and then you can decide which you’d like to try.’
‘Great.’ I tentatively flick through the dresses, wondering where to begin. ‘So, we’ve got a selection of styles here, but all the dresses can be ordered in lots of different colour ways.’ I’m trying to keep to the simple styles, given Cate’s buying for eight here. As my hand comes to rest on a short plain silk one, Immie gives it the thumbs up by waving her wine so hard it sloshes onto her jeans.
‘Definitely not.’ Cate mops Immie with a tissue, and vetoes the dress with one determined head shake. ‘In fact I can see the one I want from here.’ She gets up and reaches towards the floaty chiffon.
‘These are at the expensive end,’ I say, turning to Jess for back up.
‘We sell a lot more of these,’ Jess says diplomatically, whisking out an almost identical, much cheaper dress. ‘How about this one?’
‘No way.’ Immie gasps under her breath, and slumps down in her seat.
‘The first one’s definitely the one I want.’ Cate sounds decided.
‘Are you sure?’ I ask. We bridesmaids had mentioned paying for our own dresses, but we couldn’t afford these. She’s picked the most expensive bridesmaid dress in the shop. ‘Those are £595 each.’ That’s after the friends and family discount I’ve negotiated, too. ‘Times eight,’ I say, desperately trying to do the maths.
Jess holds up yet another dress, offering her an out. ‘Here, this one’s similar, but half the price. Not that I’m supposed to say it, but other dresses are just as well made for a lot less than the make you’ve picked out.’
‘Nooo, I’ll look like a pregnant fairy in all of these,’ wails Immie.
‘We’ll try the first one,’ Cate insists. ‘I’m only doing this once, I’m damn well doing it with bridesmaids looking how I want them.’ She reaches out, and smiles as she runs her hand over the fabric. ‘Dreamy isn’t it? I haven’t finally decided if I want them in cream or nude. It’ll depend which wedding dress I finally go for.’
Which reminds me, we haven’t even started on Cate’s dress, but that’s a whole other story. I pretend not to notice that Immie’s miming being sick over the arm of her chair.
Jess turns to Sera, who’s blinking at what she’s witnessing, and whispers, ‘Brides with firm ideas are a dream to work with, Sera. When you try to please all the bridesmaids everyone ends up compromising. It’s fabulous when a bride decides to please herself.’
Cate sends Immie a firm frown, then turns back to me. ‘This dress was in the wedding magazine I bought the morning Liam proposed.’ She folds her arms decidedly. ‘I’ve known all along those are the ones I’m having.’
What’s she talking about? She got engaged months ago. ‘So why are we even looking at others?’ I ask. What’s worse, I’m going through my own agonies here. My blotchy orange hair is going to look so cheap and trashy beside this upmarket dress.
Cate gives another grin. ‘It was to show Liam that we’d explored every option before we settled on this one.’
Immie’s aghast. ‘Times eight, and I’ve run out of fingers. I hope you’ve got something spectacular up your sleeve for when Liam finally does his calculations and finds out how much this is costing, Cate.’ Immie’s given up on her glass and she’s drowning her bridesmaid sorrows straight from the bottle.
‘I’m the accountant in the family. If Liam ever does the sums, he’s in for the dirtiest night of his life.’ Cate laughs. ‘Although this is nothing compared to the other thing I splurged on this week.’
Immie and I both squint at her. When did careful Cate turn into a cash splasher?
‘The marquee company got in touch with a special offer on the most gorgeous open sided tents. I couldn’t resist so I ordered two.’
‘What, instead of the main marquee?’ I’m not sure ‘open’ is a good idea, as for two …
From Cate’s airy waft of her hand, she might have been talking about tenner-a-go pop up tents, not three grand a time event venues. ‘No, I’ve ordered these as well, I thought they’d make a nice extra.’
I’m still picking my jaw up off the floor, but Immie’s covered it. ‘Liam’s going to be up to his boxers in filthy sex when this shit hits the fan.’ Eloquent as ever, she takes another swig.
Jess looks at her watch. ‘Time to try on then?’
She’s got a bride coming in for a final fitting at six, so she’ll have to go downstairs for that. Given Immie’s stroppy scowl from behind the prosecco bottle it may be no bad thing.
‘You go to your bride,’ I say to Jess. ‘Sera and I can carry on here.’
I knew I should have given Immie twice as much fizz before we started. With Immie the line between making her compliant and keeping her standing is indiscernible. She goes from saying no to falling over, with barely a second to catch her saying yes.
As Jess slips away, Immie’s starting to rant.
‘Do I look like I’m ready to be transformed into a trifle?’
To be fair, she’s a committed jeans and sweatshirt girl, so I’m not sure how this is going to go. The last time she wore a skirt out of school was probably when she was a carnival rosebud, thirty years ago. I don’t have to dig too deep to come up with the kind of bribe she’ll go for.
‘You try on the dress, Immie, and we’ll send Sera for another bottle of fizz.’
Sera grins at me and heads for the stairs.
Immie rolls her eyes, and sighs, but she gets up. As soon as she’s on her feet I shoulder her into the fitting room, shove the dress in with her, and whisk the curtain closed.
Cate and I take deep breaths as we retire to a safe distance.
Cate frowns and turns to me. ‘I’ve been thinking, you can’t struggle with a man as difficult as Rafe from now until September.’ She runs her fingers through her hair. ‘There must be something we can do to soften him up.’
I shrug. ‘He doesn’t respond to cake.’
Cate sniffs. ‘He probably needs a good roll in the hay, we’ll have to find him a woman.’
After Immie’s rundown on the history of his nonexistent love life, I grin. ‘Good luck with that one.’
‘There is one person he doesn’t object to.’ Cate’s lips are flickering. ‘Immie has him eating out of her hand. That has to mean something.’
I’m not sure I agree with Cate here. ‘It means she scares the bejesus out of him.’
‘But he spends a lot of time with Morgan,’ Cate observes.
She’s right about that. Morgan’s always dragging what I assume to be bits of broken tractor round the farmyard after Rafe.
‘Rafe wouldn’t take an interest in Morgan if he
wasn’t interested in Immie, would he?’ Cate leans in, and she’s whispering. ‘In the interest of smoothing the way for my wedding …’ She says those two last words very close and very loudly. ‘I think you might need to sprinkle some cupid dust on Rafe and Immie, okay?’
I reel. Cate’s not usually this forceful. ‘Hold it there Bridezilla, how exactly am I supposed to do that?’
‘Organise a Daisy Hill Farm night out, and we’ll work on it together.’
‘Night out?’ I query, as I sink onto a stripy director’s chair. ‘What did you have in mind?’
‘Cocktails here in town might be good?’ Cate gives a satisfied nod, as if it’s already in the bag. ‘You’ll thank me for this. It’ll make the run up to the wedding easier for all of us.’
Cate’s wiggling her eyebrows excitedly. ‘We could start at Jaggers.’
‘You go to Jaggers too? So does Jess.’ If I hadn’t already sunk into a chair, I would do now.
‘We often call in there on Fridays, they do great mojitos, you should try them.’ She shakes her head at me. ‘You need to get out more, Poppy. Starting this week. I’ve been too easy on you, giving you the excuse of babysitting for me. I shouldn’t be taking advantage. You need a life too.’
And here’s me thinking that Cate and Liam barely get further than the village pub. Has the whole world gone mad while I’ve been hiding under my duvet?
‘Everything going okay here?’ Jess breezes through the doorway that leads to the shoe department, a pair of rhinestone stilettos balanced on each hand.
‘Immie’s currently trying the Miranda, in blush,’ I tell her. Every dress in the shop is allocated a different girls name, and that’s how we refer to them.
‘Well done, we don’t often get bridesmaids as reluctant as Immie,’ Jess raises her eyebrows. ‘There’s good news from downstairs too, Poppy.’
‘Celebrity gossip?’ Given the fall out after last week’s Josie Redman Twitter storm and Sera’s huge spike in popularity, I’m not sure I can cope with more.
‘No, no much closer to home … I think I’ve found your lost couple.’ Jess flashes a triumphant beam. ‘My six o’clock bride just mentioned she’s getting married at Daisy Hill Farm the week before Easter. I’ll give you her number later.’ Jess gazes doubtfully at the shoes in her hands. ‘I’m not sure these will mix with mud though. If you’re going to be putting on lots of weddings in fields we’ll need to order in some sparkly wellies.’
Before I have time to tell Jess that any weddings in fields will be strictly short term she’s sped off back to her bride, and Immie is pushing her way out of the fitting room, face like a stormy sea.
‘Great news, we’ve found our missing Easter bride.’ I say it brightly to take her mind off what she’s wearing.
Immie’s talking through gritted teeth. ‘Well my news is, I’d rather wear the curtains than this dress.’ She’s wading through waves of chiffon.
As Cate and I stand back to assess, I’m ready for the worst.
We both hold our breath.
‘It is a bit long,’ I say, ‘but actually you’ve got curves for the first time since … forever.’ It’s surprising to think Immie’s been hiding that hour glass figure under her baggy T-shirts. ‘You have to admit, you’re looking pretty sassy.’ Despite her cropped hair, the pretty dress suits her.
Immie’s holding her hand in front of her chest, screwing up her face. ‘You know I hate fitting rooms,’ she protests. ‘I refuse to look, it’s too humiliating.’
Cate bites her lip. ‘If you lose the anger, and have a yard chopped off the bottom, you’ll look amazing. Maybe with a little tiara too …’
Immie lets out a yowl. ‘I’m not wearing a fucking …’
Cate laughs. ‘Okay, no tiaras.’ She bites back a grin. ‘How about floral crowns made from daisies?’
‘Worse and worse.’ Immie’s pulling her vomit face again.
‘There’s no such thing as a happy bridesmaid,’ I say to Sera. Given she’s brought up three bottles of prosecco, I’d say she’s catching on fast.
‘Okay, my turn next.’ I grab a Miranda in cream, and head into the empty fitting room.
I’ve helped with enough bridesmaid fittings this last few months to know the majority of bridesmaids walk down the aisle in a dress they would prefer not to be wearing. But they all love their brides too much to argue. I’m already cringing at how the scoop back is going to show off my muffin tops. But that’s a minor worry when I think that next week I’m going to have to make contact with a bride and groom to plan their special day and admit I know nothing about it. And somehow I have to persuade the worst tempered guy in Cornwall to come out for cocktails. Cate might think throwing Immie and Rafe together is the recipe for true love and an easy year, but from what I know of both of them, tiaras or no tiaras, it’s more likely to cause World War Three.
11
In the office at Daisy Hill Farm: Monday blues and craggy trees
Things to do first thing Monday …
Chase up the missing Bride and Groom, who’ve had their phone off all weekend
Tackle Rafe about sharing office with chickens!!!!
Chase up Portaloo company
Organise work trip to Jaggers
Sort out Daisy Hill Website
Daisy Hill Farm Weddings Facebook Page??? :(
‘Morning Pops!’ Immie dashes into the office, trips over a chicken, and sends us both into a spin as she saves herself by grabbing onto the padded arm of my executive swivel chair. As she comes to a halt, she’s practically sitting in my lap. ‘Oh my god, you’re on Facebook …’ Her squawk echoes in my ear, as her chin bumps against my shoulder.
So this is me with my self-imposed Facebook embargo, caught red handed. It’s the first time I’ve logged on since the morning I had the second most horrible shock of my life – being faced with Brett, tagged right left and centre in a friend’s stag night photos, his mouth surgically attached to some bimbo. It wasn’t as if it was just the once. This tonsil hockey was on a tournament scale, and they looked like they were playing for England. And enjoying it. Even thinking about it now brings the sick into my throat. Two days later we’d broken up, and I’ve stayed away from Facebook since.
‘Happy Monday to you too.’ I take a slurp of the coffee I made when I arrived half an hour earlier, and try to change the subject. ‘Drink?’ Brett was full of excuses, but with thirty odd guys all posting their take on the party, his cheating was covered from every angle. I scoured the photos frame by frame. I pieced the whole sordid evening together before you could say ‘hangover’. There’s nowhere to hide when a thousand people around the world have seen the pictures.
‘No time for tea, I’ve got lots of cottages to sort after weekend checkouts.’ Immie slides back to standing, addressing me, then the bird. ‘Sorry for squashing you, Pops. Sorry for kicking you, Henrietta.’
We’ll have words about her talking to the poultry later, not to mention the whole ‘hens in the office’ issue. As for Brett, in the end he put the blame on me, and at the time I went with that, because I wasn’t in the habit of disagreeing with him.
‘So why Facebook? After all this time?’ Immie screws up her face as she puzzles. You have to give her full marks for persistence. ‘You vowed you’d never go on again.’
I sigh. ‘The farm needs a Facebook presence.’ We both know that’s true. ‘And when I looked down today’s work list, making a Facebook page for the wedding venue was the easiest job.’ I’ve rushed the page together, using a picture of calves from my phone, from last week’s farm tour, and added in some dreamy half focused photos of lace and sparkles I took in the shop yesterday. Somehow using Facebook for work is okay. The last thing I’m going to do is stalk Brett. ‘The rest of my jobs for today are worse, believe me.’ Explaining to the bride that we’d lost her details is bad enough. Reassuring her that she can trust us with her wedding is something else.
‘Nice photos.’ Immie nods as she scrolls down the screen
looking at the new Facebook page. ‘I think you should call the page Weddings at Daisy Hill Farm though.’
‘Brilliant idea,’ I say. ‘I wanted to get the page up and running, to catch people who might have fallen through the holes in Carrie’s booking net. If we get everyone we know to share the page, I can offer a gift for every couple with a booking who get in touch via the page.’
There’s a flurry of wings and feathers and squawks in the corner, as Henrietta flies onto the top of the filing cabinet.
‘Good thinking Mrs.’ Immie scratches Henrietta’s head as she settles herself down next to the broken document shredder.
I’m cringing at the thought of touching feathers, when there’s a knock, and the door pushes open. Immie and I turn. As a guy in a soft grey parka walks in, muffled against the cold with a bright stripey scarf, our mouths open in a silent, but collective, ‘wow’.
There aren’t that many guys around here who look like they’ve escaped from some high fashion magazine, complete with the expensive clothes. True, there are some good looking surfer types at the beach, but none of them go in for the kind of grooming we’ve got here.
‘Hi.’ He shakes his perfectly cut, artfully messy, nut brown hair, and holds out his hand. ‘I’m Jules, I’m here for the photo shoot. Rafe said to come on in.’ His gaze is a startling topaz blue. ‘I take it that’s okay?’ As his coat slips open to reveal a chunky knit that might have walked off the pages of Telegraph Living, there’s a delicious waft of expensive aftershave.
He has to keep on talking, because Immie and I are still gawping. We’re halfway between being lost for words, and convulsing in giggles.
No surprise that Immie recovers first. ‘Fine, come on in.’ Immie leaps forward and grabs his hand which looks clean and buffed. ‘I’m not sure you’re at the right place though,’ she adds doubtfully ‘Definitely haven’t seen any cameras or lights anywhere round here this morning.’
That makes him smile, and when he smiles his cheeks crack into deep lines. You know those long ironic dimples you get on guys like Johnny Depp? The ones that make your legs dissolve? That’s what I’m talking here. And from the way Immie has sprawled against the desk, I’m guessing in her case, dissolving is fully complete.