by Jane Linfoot
‘We’ve never argued this badly.’ If she tugs the belt of her lightweight mac any tighter, she’ll cut herself in two. ‘Not even when he cleaned his bike with my two hundred quid Nicole …’ Her wail subsides midsentence.
Liam’s buffing blunder is memorable enough for every detail to be etched on my brain. ‘Liam polishing chrome with your Nicole Farhi cami was partly your fault,’ I say, picking up the thread. ‘You were the one who put it next to his dusters in the laundry pile.’ I mean, who, apart from Cate, irons bike cloths? It was hardly Liam’s fault that he couldn’t tell the difference. For my money, most guys would have made the same mistake.
But Cate’s not listening, because her distracted gaze has somehow locked on a point somewhere beyond my left ear.
‘Is that Josie’s dress?’ she asks.
With the wall to wall coverage downstairs, it’s an obvious get-out I’d overlooked.
‘Josie’s?’ As I open and close my mouth like a guppy, I consider where lying has landed Cate, and decide to come clean. ‘Nope, this one’s mine.’ In response to Cate opening and closing her mouth back at me, I stick my chin in the air, and carry on. ‘I’m selling it because I don’t need it any more. And I’m donating the proceeds to your wedding fund.’
‘You and Brett were …?’ Cate grimaces, and as she comes towards me it’s obvious she’s completely missed the bit about the money going towards her wedding. ‘Oh shit, I had no idea … my poor lamb … why on earth didn’t you say?’ Before I reply she’s squeezed me into the bear-hug of the decade. When she finally releases her grip I’m dizzy all over again.
Glancing at my watch, I move across and slip the cover back over the dress, pull up the zip, and it’s gone. ‘Actually I need to pack it up before I go.’ I’ll have to tell her about the wedding donation again a bit later, as she’s obviously missed it. So much for my heartfelt goodbye-to-the-dress ceremony, although it’s probably better this way.
‘Here, let me help.’ Cate picks up the packaging and puts it on the sofa. ‘Mind that coffee, I’m so damned pleased I came round,’ she says, bustling across to where the dress is hanging. ‘Imagine if you’d had to do this on your own.’
She likes to take charge, and this morning I’m not going to stop her.
Ten minutes later as I throw the dress onto the back seat of the car it’s nothing more than a cardboard box swathed in a hundred metres of parcel tape.
43
In the office at Daisy Hill Farm: Ragged jeans and late bids
The dress looks amazing on the laptop screen.
Beautiful Seraphina East Wedding Dress, size 14, as worn by Josie Redman
‘Auction ending soon’ the banner says. If my eyes are pricking as I read it, it’s probably down to tiredness. However much I threw my sheet around and punched the pillow last night, I never made the transition into sleep. As the seconds tick away on the eBay clock, and I flick through the pictures one last time, my hand quivers over the track pad on my laptop.
Ivory lace, silk and tulle, soft vintage style wedding dress
There are sixteen photos, views from every possible angle, yet none of them quite capture the fabulous cut. The whispering way it will transform a woman to a bride. Shut away in the office, the door is firmly closed on the heat of the day, the breeze, and the world outside. The last thing I want is an interruption, although I’m pretty safe, as Rafe’s gone off with a rep, and Immie’s in town. After seven days of build up, I can barely believe this ending is about to happen.
Seventy bids and counting. It’s already five times the price I paid for it, but that’s the rub. eBay is where items find their true value, where the strongest will wins. And there are some gritty buyers here. Each time the price flips higher I hitch in my breath, thinking of how I can help Cate and Liam, and know I must go through with this.
Purchased from the designer’s sample sale. Unworn, with original tags.
Unworn. If you only knew how much Jess and I agonised over that word. Whether it implied bad luck. But then there’s the clincher that over rides the rest.
Rare sample. As worn by Josie Redman.
Enough said. The picture of Josie in her version is the whole reason this auction is going wild.
‘What’s going on Pops?’ Immie’s husky shout precedes her as the office door bursts open. ‘Cate just rang me, I’d had my phone off all morning.’
I should have known Cate would tell her. And if I’d wanted to be on my own, I should have locked the door. Finding the door ajar, Henrietta struts across the tiles, complete with a procession of her now adolescent and much less fluffy chicks. Then Jet follows, and flops on the floor, with a loud grunt.
‘Definitely no hens on the desk.’ I nudge the first flapping mountaineer onto the floor, because you have to make a stand about these things early on. ‘It’s no big deal Immie.’ I make my croak as casual as I can. ‘I’m just selling a wedding dress I bought a while ago.’
‘Bloody hell, let me see.’ She’s already butted between me and the screen. ‘Jeez, have you seen the price of it? That’s ridiculous.’
‘That’s the idea.’ I say. I don’t often roll my eyes but I do now, as I push away another hen, nudge Immie out of the way, and muscle my way back to the trackpad.
‘And it’s ending right now,’ she says, helpfully.
‘What’s ending?’
Fuck, it’s Rafe. That’s all we need. The ragged jeans, and beaten up boots I catch out of the corner of my eye tell me he’s come in too, to hover. This wasn’t meant to be a show.
‘That’s the wedding dress you’ve been watching all week.’ He’s right behind me now, his voice rising anxiously. And who knew he’d even noticed? ‘Bloody hell, it’s not for you is it?’
‘Poppy’s selling a dress.’ Immie says. She’s really surpassing herself today. ‘On eBay.’
Rafe turns on Immie. ‘I can see it’s eBay, I’m not …’
‘For someone else,’ I add in the loudest voice I can, giving Immie a sharp prod in the ribs.
‘Okay, Pop’s is selling a dress for someone,’ Immie glares at me. ‘And the auction’s ending, like, any minute.’
‘Great, well that’s all good then.’ Despite Rafe’s dismissive laugh, he’s leaning in for a closer look.
My heart is banging as I see thirty seconds flash up on the screen. I may possibly have stopped breathing sometime back when Immie came in. The price is changing, going up, and up. And suddenly, out of nowhere, I’m gripped by the will to hang on. The flash of a feeling that, actually, I don’t want to sell at all. That the last seven days has just been me going through the motions. And then my hands are flying across the keys, and I’m typing numbers in the offer box. A monster figure. A line of noughts so long it will blast every other bid out of the park.
‘Pops, why the hell are you bidding?’ Immie’s voice is coming through a haze. ‘Are you crazy?’
Five seconds are never longer than at the end of an eBay auction. My pulse is hammering in my ears, as I slide the cursor over the Submit Bid button. One click will save my dress. One tiny click will put me back where I started. My finger freezes …
In the last moments a frenzy of final bids hit the mix, and the price jerks up. Up. Up. And then it’s finished, and I breathe again.
‘Auction over.’
As Immie reads the prompt, the dress disappears from the screen, and I sag back in my chair.
I didn’t bid. The only chance I have of keeping my dress now is if the buyer doesn’t pay.
‘Jeez, how tense was that?’ Immie’s wiping the sweat off her brow with her wrist.
There’s a ping as an email lands in my inbox, then another. As I open the first my tummy lurches as I see the final price of the sale, then as I open the next, and take in a PayPal payment, my chest deflates.
‘Shit,’ I murmur. ‘They’ve paid already. How fast was that?’
‘Well done, Pops.’ Immie drags me to my feet. ‘Upwards and onwards.’
As
she flings her arms around me, over her shoulder I see Jess and Cate dashing towards us across the yard. A second later Jess’s loafers are clattering on the floor tiles.
‘I can’t believe we missed it.’ Running flat out from her car has left Jess gasping. ‘There were cows all over the road at Juniper Bottom.’
‘Come here, sweets, you’re so brave.’ Cate takes over as Immie’s hug ends.
Jess is beaming. ‘That’s what I call a result. I saw the final figure on my phone.’ She winks at me. ‘Who’s bought it?’
After unwinding Cate’s arms, then pausing for an air kiss with Jess, I go back to the desk, where the address labels are waiting. ‘The lucky bride’s called glitterknickers28,’ I say, scrolling through the email and grabbing a pen. Although I try hard to stop my hand shaking, as I write the address my caps are coming out very wobbly. ‘She’s from Slough.’
‘Great, is this the dress?’ Jess scoops the parcel from the side of the filing cabinet, slides it onto the desk, and a moment later, she’s taped the labels into place. ‘Cate’s brought you a picnic lunch, so I’ll leave you all to it. Don’t worry, I’ll get this dispatched for you right away.’ Two air kisses later she’s off across the yard, package in her outstretched arms.
Cate blinks at me, with a bemused smile. ‘What a powerhouse. If you weren’t careful she could take over.’
I’m too busy smiling about the irony of Cate’s observation to dwell on my dress heading in the direction of St Aidan on the back seat of Jess’s car.
Immie’s already moved on too. ‘Did Jess say something about lunch?’ She pats her stomach. ‘All this excitement, I’m starving.’
Rafe swings out into the sunshine. ‘Feel free to use the garden at the farmhouse for lunch, ladies.’ He sends a parting grin over his shoulder. ‘Sorry for crashing the eBay party, I only dropped in to say I’m off for a tractor part. See you later.’
44
In the garden at Daisy Hill Farm: Party food and pained frowns
‘Sparkling elderflower and raspberry?’ The jewel pink liquid fizzes as Immie splashes it into glasses.
Okay, the champagne flutes are plastic. And we’re sitting on a checked quilt cover from the boot of Cate’s car. But we’ve thrown it out on the lawn in the shade of the apple tree, and the scent of the roses rambling up the garden wall is wafting in the warm air.
‘There you go.’ Immie passes me my drink. ‘Bottoms up.’
‘Cheers.’ I take a sip, desperate for a sugar hit. ‘Actually, I haven’t been hungry all week, and now I’m starving.’
Immie looks at me, with what I call her professor expression. ‘Hypoglycaemia, low blood sugar, very common after stress,’ she mutters. ‘Don’t worry, when we’ve had our picnic nibbles and Cate’s gone back to work, we’ll get you a double chip butty from the pub.’
Cate strides across the terrace, clutching a stack of party food. As the adrenalin of the auction drains away, the lazy buzz of bees is making my eyes droop. Although the sun is dappled under the leaf canopy, Immie and I are melting to a collective grease spot. She’s kicked off her sneakers and has sweat patches on her T-shirt, and I’ve slipped off my flip flops and rolled up the legs of my jump suit. Whereas Cate, as ever, is cool and unruffled in her cream courts and pistachio linen dress. At least she’s lost the mac she was wearing earlier.
‘Hope you don’t mind alcohol-free fizz?’ Cate hands us the boxes of food, then smoothes her skirt, and slides out of her heels, as she prepares to sit down. ‘I need a clear head for this afternoon’s finance meeting. I’ve screwed up so badly with my own calculations, I can’t do the same at work.’
Cate managing the county budget when she let her own run so far out of control makes the mind boggle. In financial terms, her wedding is the equivalent of Cornwall Council sending their own astronaut into outer space.
‘Don’t worry, you’re still going to have a fab day. We promise we’ll still come even if you’ve cancelled the spa tent.’ I’m making a joke of it, but that was only one of the later wild and expansive items we crossed off her list. ‘Rafe’s offered to put the friendliest calves and sheep in pens too, so the kids can have their fluffy animal fix.’
‘Rafe’s such a lamb these days.’ Cate’s narrow eyed glance is too searching for my liking, but luckily it softens to a grateful smile. ‘And Liam says he can’t thank you enough for offering to help with your windfall. I rang him at break, and we’re good again.’ She bends to squeeze my hand. ‘I can’t believe how far apart Liam and I were on this. I mean, when is the right moment to tell someone your wedding dreams?’
‘Don’t sweat it,’ Immie says, ‘but I bet if he’d had a whiff of your wedding wish list when you first met him at rugby coaching, he’d have started running and he wouldn’t have stopped.’
‘Maybe you should’ve shared your wedding vision that first time you jumped him behind the changing rooms?’ I’m teasing, but Cate’s taking me seriously.
‘We were too busy hiding from my kids,’ she says, then catches sight of my grin. ‘We’ll pay you back, I promise. ’
‘No problem, I’m happy to do it,’ I say, because I mean it. ‘And I know my mum would be happy too. She saw you so often she loved you almost as much as if you’d been hers.’ I add quickly, ‘you too, Immie.’
Immie laughs her loud guffaw. ‘At least she got paid for looking after you, Cate. My nan just used to shove me at her over the garden fence, then leg it to the Goose and Duck.’
Although my mum never minded that. Somehow Cate and Immie filling the cottage with noise made up for it just being me and my mum on our own.
Cate gazes at the climbing roses. ‘I know it’s much bigger, but this place reminds me a lot of your mum’s garden.’
‘True.’ Immie nods in agreement. ‘Without the downside of having my gran next door, singing her way back from the pub every night.’ Her grin is rueful.
‘You two have always been here for me in a way Brett never was,’ I say.
Immie butts in. ‘Dickhead of the Decade you mean? Proposing, and then snogging the face off some slag? It’s way worse than we thought.’
Not that I’m defending him, but I need to explain, at least a bit. ‘He never actually went down on one knee – one day he suddenly started saying we shouldn’t put off getting married, and I saw the dress and grabbed it.’
Cate shakes her head. ‘No-one can blame you for being enthusiastic, you’d been desperate for him to ask you for years.’
Nothing like best friends for home truths. I wasn’t aware I’d been quite that obvious. ‘Brett was under the impression the Chamber of Commerce wanted their top brass to have wives on their arms. It was nothing more than that.’ That sounds cynical, I know, but sadly, it’s true. ‘Getting married was a necessary evil for Brett. He couldn’t reach the dizzy heights he was destined for as a single guy.’
Cate’s face wrinkles into a pained frown. ‘Then when reality kicked in, he cheated on you to get out of the wedding?’
‘Something like that,’ I shrug. There’s no point dragging up the worst details. ‘I mentioned I’d been looking at dresses, and the next thing I knew he was in flagrante all over Facebook. I guess he wasn’t ready to commit.’
‘Low life.’ Immie spits.
The sigh I give is resigned. ‘Now I’ve got some distance, I can see that Brett liked having someone to be in awe of him, and run round after him, but it was never two way traffic. You two were my support. To be honest, I could never rely on Brett.’
‘That’s right …’ Cate says. ‘If ever you had a crisis, he was always spectacularly absent. Like when your mum died.’
‘Exactly.’ I stare at the bubbles rising in my drink. ‘In many ways, I’m no more alone now than when I was with Brett. And the dress was all part of me believing I had something I didn’t. It’s best that it’s gone.’
As Cate kneels down beside me, I catch the gloss of nylon stretched across her knees. Of all of us, only Cate could fulfil the requireme
nt for a senior female executive, and still be wearing tights when it’s baking hot.
Immie grabs a pack of canapés from the pile of boxes, smacking her lips as she tears off the wrapper. ‘Oooo, thanks Cate, my favourite. Saint Michael, patron saint of yummy food.’
As I pick up the next pack to open, the signage is achingly familiar. ‘They’re still doing these same Luxury Bite-size Open Sandwiches then?’ I squint more closely at the contents, and sure enough, they’re the ones I worked on, when I was in London. ‘I helped design these.’ I’ve probably claimed the credit for this a thousand times before. ‘The grape garnishes on the brie and cranberry ones were down to me, and the chopped chives on the smoked salmon and cream cheese ones.’ It’s ridiculous that I still feel proud.
Immie pops one into her mouth. ‘Take it from me, still truly delish,’ she says, licking her fingers and reaching for another.
Funny, it seems like light years ago. ‘Back then I had such a battle to include pastrami, because people didn’t know what it was.’ Given Immie’s blank look, she still hasn’t got a clue, even though she just downed three in succession. But that’s rural living for you.
‘If they have any jobs for tasters, or psychological assessors, I’m in.’ Immie laughs.
I catch my breath, because there’s an unexpected opportunity to say what I’ve been trying to get around to for a few days now. ‘Actually, I emailed my old boss last week.’ Instead of the roar of protest I’d anticipated there’s a big silent space, so I rush on. ‘Just to see if there might be any openings.’
Cate’s eyebrows descend into a worried frown. ‘Why do that when there’s so much going for you here?’
That’s a question I’ve been asking myself too, especially this last week when I’ve been too wound up to sleep. But I need to face reality. ‘Yours is almost the last Daisy Hill Farm wedding, Cate – and that’s only a few weeks away, in case you’d forgotten.’ Even if it’s slipped Cate’s notice, I’m very aware that once she’s married I’ll be back to existing from the cakes I bake. Baking cakes is what I love doing, but I’m not sure I’ve built up enough business to survive in the long term. ‘A new start might be good for me.’ I’m saying it tentatively, because moving back to a job in the food industry would terrify the pants off me. But in another way, it might put me back to where I started before I made the mistake of moving in with Brett, and I’ll only have lost seven years of my life. ‘I doubt there’ll be anything though, all I’ve had so far is out of office replies.’