Don't Tell the Groom

by Anna Bell

  ‘I know. It will come round before you know it.’

  ‘I hope it doesn’t come round too quickly. I still feel like I have loads to do before the big day, and I’ve got the hen do next weekend.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that in my day. We didn’t even have a hen do. Well-wishers just popped in for a cup of tea. Now it’s all Blackpool and Vegas. I watch the telly. Big waste of money, if you ask me.’

  I guess things were really different then. You didn’t know, like Violet, if your husband was ever going to come back from the front line. I guess hen parties would have seemed too trivial back then.

  I desperately want to ask Violet about the conversation I overheard with her and Ted, and what he told me after. But I can’t think of a clever way to manipulate the conversation.

  ‘Mind you, weddings are a big waste of money too these days, if you ask me. They don’t seem to last five minutes before they ditch each other and are on to the next.’

  ‘I agree with you that people do spend too much on weddings, but not everyone gives up on their marriage. A lot of people still have long happy marriages.’

  I see Violet raising her eyebrows. Does she honestly think that Mark and I won’t be together this time next year?

  ‘You don’t have anything to worry about with me and Mark; we’re like two peas in a pod.’

  ‘Are you, now?’ asks Violet.

  She holds my gaze as she drinks her tea and it makes me shiver like someone has walked over my grave.

  ‘Violet, have I done something wrong? It’s just you seemed so excited about the wedding and now you seem to be encouraging Mark and me to break up.’

  ‘I’m not doing anything of the sort.’

  Great. Now Violet is pouting. I’m not letting her get away with this. Just because she is nearly eighty-eight, it does not mean to say that I’m going to drop it.

  ‘Yes, you are. You’ve been giving me funny looks ever since we decided on May for the wedding. What’s wrong? Are you ill?’

  I promised Mark I’d be subtle and not come straight out with this, but it just sort of slips out.

  ‘No, I’m not ill. Whatever gave you that idea?’

  ‘Mark was worried as you called him Geoffrey.’

  ‘I did? Oh,’ she says.

  Perhaps I should have kept that to myself. Nanny Violet has gone very pale – the colour has completely drained from her face.

  ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you,’ I say.

  Mark is going to kill me. I was supposed to subtly see whether his nan was ill, not cause her to have a heart attack. She didn’t look ill when I first walked in, but now she looks positively peaky.

  ‘No, dear, you were right to tell me. I don’t want Mark worrying. He has enough to worry about with your upcoming wedding without thinking I’m about to keel over.’

  ‘Just because he doesn’t know any details about the wedding does not mean that he has something to worry about,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, Penelope, it isn’t the actual wedding I was referring to; it’s your little secret.’

  Now, if my life was actually an EastEnders episode then this is the moment where the duffers would go off and viewers would be left hanging, wondering what’s going to happen next. But as this is my actual life there is no dramatic music playing. Instead it is my turn to go pale and lose all the colour from my face.

  ‘How did you know?’ I say in practically a whisper.

  I mean there was no way of her finding out. I’ve been so careful.

  ‘I saw you in the community centre. I go there sometimes, and I saw you.’

  Oh, I had been careful, but I’d also gone to the gamblers’ support meetings at the community centre. She would only have had to ask at the front desk what the room was rented out for and she’d have been told.

  I can’t speak to Violet. I’m so ashamed.

  ‘I thought you had a secret. You looked so shifty when you were setting the wedding date. I recognised it. I, too, had a secret on my wedding day.’

  ‘You did?’

  I’m barely listening to Violet as my mind is racing ten to the dozen. Thoughts of whether she’ll tell Mark or his family are buzzing around my mind.

  ‘Not to Mark’s grandfather, but I was married before.’

  If she had started this story five minutes ago I would have been delighted that she’d almost read my mind and answered the question about her first husband. But now I can’t get excited that she’s opening up.

  ‘Geoffrey?’ I say as a guess.

  ‘Yes, his name was Geoffrey. Lovely fellow he was. All tall and dapper. I knew him a bit from our childhood and then we started courting when I left school.

  ‘Then one day, not long after we started stepping out, he signed up for the war and off he went. We wrote to each other, of course. How I loved to get those letters. After his basic training he asked me to marry him. We decided that when he was next on leave we’d set a date.’

  Violet pauses and it makes me realise how sucked into the story I am. I’ve momentarily forgotten about the pain and mayhem that’s about to ensue and instead I’m hanging on every word.

  ‘Then what happened?’ I ask.

  Of course I ultimately know the ending, but for some reason I don’t think that is why Violet is telling me this story.

  ‘He was away for a long time. He went off to North Africa and I didn’t hear from him as much. I tried not to think about him as I couldn’t bear the worry. It was after the first year of our engagement, and I hadn’t seen him in all that time, that I started to become friendly with one of his friends. Theodore had been invalided out of the war after he was shot in his shoulder and he had started working at one of the factories. He often accompanied me to the dances – not that he could dance. At first it was so that he could look out for his friend’s girl. But as we spent more time together, we started to realise how much we had in common. And one night when he walked me back to my mother’s we kissed. Not just a kiss of friends, but something more.

  ‘I felt awful the next day. I’m sure you know all about that feeling. All loss and regret and wishing you could go back and change how it happened.’

  I can feel myself welling up at Nanny Violet’s story. That is exactly how I feel with Mark. I do desperately want to go back into my very own DeLorean time machine and rip up my mood boards sooner and then I never would be in this very sorry post-bingo mess.

  ‘Geoffrey sent a telegram later that week and told me he was coming back on leave the next weekend. I didn’t have time to wonder whether I should cancel the wedding or not. I just booked the church and told my relatives. By the time Theodore found out he was livid, and he told me that I should be marrying him, not Geoffrey. But I had made my promise; I was going to marry Geoffrey.

  ‘And I did just that. I felt guilty every day of our short marriage. I felt that I’d let him down by not being honest with him. I decided that I would tell him when he came back, when the war was over. Only he died on the beaches of Normandy. Twenty, he was.’

  Violet stops talking and I see her wipe a tear from her eye. Every instinct in me is telling me to rush up to her and give her a massive hug, but I know that she wouldn’t want me to. She’s far too proud for hugs.

  ‘And what about Theodore?’ I ask. Even though I know that Violet didn’t end up with him.

  ‘Theodore felt just as guilty as I did when Geoffrey died. He did try to take me out after, as friends again, but I wouldn’t let him. I couldn’t spend time with him as he just reminded me of how awfully I’d behaved with both of them.’

  ‘But you must have been so young.’

  ‘I was sixteen. But sixteen in those days was mature, mind. I’d left school at fourteen and been working for two years by then.’

  ‘And so you met Albert after?’

  ‘A few years after. I met him when I was nineteen. Because of my relationship with Geoffrey I’d learnt how important it was to be honest with one another, and I never, even in the sixty-five
years we were married, kept anything from him.’

  I can’t help wondering what would have happened if Violet had picked Ted instead of Geoffrey, and how if that had happened I wouldn’t be marrying my lovely Mark. If I wasn’t feeling so awful that Violet knew my secret I’d be thinking deeply about fate and what life throws at you.

  ‘You see, Penelope, I could see something in your eyes. It was the look I had when I was married to Geoffrey,’ says Violet.

  ‘But I can’t tell Mark; it would crush him.’

  ‘Is it still going on?’

  ‘No, it stopped ages ago. It really did. Mark means too much for me to lose him. Please, Violet, don’t tell Mark. I love him more than anything in the world and I know now, more than ever, that I never want to do anything to hurt him.’

  ‘It’s a bit late for that.’

  Oh my God. She’s going to tell Mark and then he’ll know my deep, dark secret. There is absolutely no way on this earth that he will marry me if he finds out what I’ve done. I’ve dug myself a massive pit of lies and I can’t explain my way out of it.

  ‘Please, Violet, please don’t tell him.’

  I’m so far off the edge of the couch that I’m practically on the floor begging her not to tell Mark.

  ‘It’s not my place to tell him, dear. But if you want to learn from my mistakes then you’ll tell him yourself. You may be surprised with Mark. He has a big heart.’

  ‘No, he’ll never forgive me,’ I say, shaking my head.

  ‘Well, I’ll leave it up to you, dear. But know this, when you get him down the aisle it won’t change things. That secret will eat away at you. You mark my words.’

  I put my cup of tea down on the coffee table. It is suddenly making me feel really sick.

  ‘I should be going,’ I say. I know I’ve barely been here half an hour but I just need to get some fresh air.

  ‘Penelope, look, I’m not going to tell Mark. You don’t have to tell him either. If you say it is in the past then I believe you. I can see that you sincerely regret it.’

  ‘I do, I do,’ I say, agreeing with her.

  Maybe she understands after all. Maybe she won’t make me tell Mark.

  ‘You know, you’re putting me in a difficult position, Mark being my grandson. I only want what’s best for him.’

  ‘And so do I, Violet. So do I. I may have made a mistake, but I want to move forward with my life, with Mark by my side.’

  ‘I really hoped that by telling you my story you’d confess to Mark, but I’m not going to force you. If I’ve learnt anything from living as many years as I have it’s that everything works out for the best in the end.’

  I’m not entirely sure what Nanny Violet is trying to say, but all I know is I have to get out of here as soon as possible, before I faint.

  ‘I’ll see you at the wedding,’ I say to Violet as I dash out of the living room and towards the front door.

  ‘I’ll be there,’ she says after me.

  Far from giving me the fresh air I need, the warm air hits me as I leave the bungalow.

  I know that Violet doesn’t agree with me not telling Mark, but this is completely different from her situation. She fell for her husband’s best friend. It’s not like I’m having an affair or anything.

  I’m sure once the wedding is over the guilt will fade and the wedding will just be one of many magically memorable days for us. That’s just as long as Violet is true to her word and doesn’t tell Mark.

  Chapter Twenty

  This time next week I’ll be waking up a picture of peace and tranquillity as I glide through my preparations as the calmest bride ever on a wedding day. Or more likely, I’ll wake up in a blind panic wondering how I’m possibly going to be ready on time for my big day with the biggest spot you’ve ever seen which, knowing my skin, will have popped up overnight on my nose. That is how my life works out.

  It has been almost a week since Nanny Violet revealed she knew my secret. Despite being on tenterhooks for the first few days when Mark got back from his stag do, I’m now convinced that she is as good as her word. The bonds of sisterhood seem to be tighter than those of blood at the moment.

  Coming to the museum today feels odd. I’m suddenly not sure how I’m supposed to act around Ted. Now that I know his secret and I know that at one point he wanted to marry Violet, it is all too much to take in.

  I know that Ted did get married, as his wife died a couple of years ago. That’s why he volunteers here, so that he gets out and about and mixes with other people. It’s weird to think that he could have been married to Violet; their lives could have been so drastically different.

  Looking at my watch I realise I’ve only got half an hour left before Lou picks me up for the hen do. I can’t wait.

  I know that I’m going to have much more fun on the hen do than Mark did on his stag do. From the little snippets I’ve found out about, it seemed like the stag do was a form of cruel and unusual punishment.

  I also hope with Lou being pregnant that I don’t come back looking as rough as Mark did. Although unfairly he’s bounced back quickly; I’m not sure I’d do the same.

  Today at the museum we’re supposed to be making tunic bags, but there has been a bit of a halt in the production line as we’ve run out of Velcro. Lilian and Betty have gone off for a cup of tea in the tea rooms and Nina seems to have passed out in the corner. She looks how I imagine I will tomorrow morning, like she’s had no sleep and has been dragged through a hedge backwards and forwards.

  I decide to pass the time by texting Mark, who should be just back from his Saturday golf.

  PENNY

  Are you missing me already? x

  He’s clearly assumed the position for watching sport and is tucked up in his armchair as he texts back almost instantly.

  MARK

  No more than normal. You’ve only been gone two hours. x

  That might be true but Mark obviously failed the first test there. He’s supposed to say of course he misses me, and that he always misses me when we’re apart.

  PENNY

  What are your plans for the day? Lots of sport? x

  MARK

  I was thinking of tidying the spare room. Don’t forget my cousin Liz is going to stay there the night of the wedding.

  I had forgotten that. She is a student and she can’t afford to stay in the hotel where we are all staying. Mark’s mum thought it was a good idea to have someone in the house. Something about wedding announcements in the paper and wedding gifts in the house.

  I make a mental note to make sure we have enough clean sheets as my mum will be staying the night before to keep me company, and then I make a mental note to get Mum to change the sheets after she gets up. It’s not like I can do it. I’ll have far more important things to do as the bride.

  Once I’ve made all the mental notes a slight sweat breaks out across my forehead as I realise the enormity of the situation. Mark is going to clean out the spare room. The spare room where I keep my secret shoe supply. Surely he’ll twig that I bought them in secret if he sees all the boxes and the shoes?

  PENNY

  Don’t bother with that. She’s a student, she’s used to mess.

  Stereotyping students? Me? Never.

  MARK

  Well, it will need to be done at some point soon as I’m sure we’ll be looking at stage six after the wedding.

  My stomach does a tiny somersault as it always does when Mark hints about babies. There is something so sexy about it. I can just imagine Mark with a baby resting on his shoulder, topless and suddenly in black and white. Oh, whoops! I’ve put Mark into an Athena poster of the late eighties. Ah, my first real love.

  PENNY

  Just leave it. We’ll have plenty of time to worry about that after the wedding x x

  I put an extra kiss on that text to make him realise that I didn’t mean to be harsh. I just wish he wouldn’t do sorting out stuff when I’m not there to supervise. And by supervise, I mean hide all the stuff I do
n’t want him to see.

  MARK

  Don’t worry, I know about your secret shoe stash. I’ve always known. I don’t have that bad a memory, you know, Miss ‘These are old, I’ve had them years’.

  Oh bugger; I’m busted. I can’t believe he’s known all this time. For years I’ve been buying shoes and trotting round the patio in them before he gets home from work, just to scuff the bottoms up a bit. And he’s known all along. I can’t believe he didn’t say.

  PENNY

  Oh, in that case bring on the cleaning spree! x x

  I can now relax once more and my shoulders are no longer rubbing the bottom of my earlobes. My phone buzzes into life. Lou is calling; she must be early.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hey, I’m here at reception!’

  ‘Be up in a second.’

  It’s not like anyone is going to miss me with the Velcro drama that has unfolded.

  ‘Nina, can you tell Cathy I’ve gone?’

  Nina doesn’t answer me back. I’m about to lift her head to see if she is still breathing when her fingers scrunch together and she forms a thumbs -p motion.

  I grab my bag and run upstairs. As I’ve been volunteering here for three months I’ve learned there is a sneaky way to reception that avoids the maze of corridors. It does involve me appearing out of the back of a Home Guard tableau and getting quite intimate with one of the mannequins. But Captain Mainuring, as the mannequin is known, has never complained. You just have to make sure there are no visitors in the vicinity or else they think the mannequins have come to life and you scare them off.

  When I get into reception the small area is full of pink helium balloons.

  ‘What the …?’ I mutter before I see underneath all the pink foil is Lou.

  ‘Happy hen night!’ she says, thrusting three helium balloons into my hand. Each balloon is bright pink and has a different cheesy last-night-of-freedom type motto.

  Before I know it, Lou has dressed me up in the tackiest of outfits. I’m still in my jeans and jumper, but I now have a tiara, a veil and LED-flashing L-plates.

  Lilian and Ted are standing there and I give them a look that says ‘Please help me’. But they take it to mean I’m fine and they give me a little wave before bundling me and the balloons out through the revolving doors. I’m sure that the flashing L-plates aren’t good for the low levels of lighting needed at the museum.