The Wedding Dress

by Dani Atkins

  This was it. I was really doing this.

  With almost balletic synchronicity, my father and Wayne presented their outstretched hands. There were gasps as I placed mine in theirs. Most of our guests knew I could stand, some of them had even seen me do it. But no one had seen me walk. Even the man whose name I was about to take thought two steps was all I could manage.

  The hands supporting me were as steady as rocks, but I wasn’t looking at Dad or Wayne as I took that first step. My gaze was locked on the person at the end of the aisle. Previously, I’d always looked down as I walked, watching each foot move forward, willing it not to fail. Today there was no need. I knew they wouldn’t.

  He was crying before I was halfway up the aisle, the tears coursing down his face. He made no effort to wipe them away. I saw him mouth I love you, not just once, but over and over again, like a chorus of a hymn you can’t stop singing.

  Nine steps easily became eleven. I swear I could have gone up and down that aisle all day long, powered by the love that surrounded me. When I reached the altar, his arms slid around me, and breaking with tradition the groom kissed the bride before the ceremony had even begun, and everybody cheered.

  *

  I clinked the back of my dessert spoon against my wine glass, hoping it wasn’t about to shatter and spill shards all over the top table. Like a Mexican wave, silence settled across the room. Every eye was looking my way, every mouth was smiling. Using the arms of the velvet-covered chair, I pushed myself to my feet for the second time that day. To be fair, it got less of a reaction this time around.

  ‘I know it’s not usual for the bride to begin the speeches,’ I began. Behind me, I could feel my husband’s hand move to the small of my back, his touch a gentle caress.

  ‘I promise I’ll be brief. But before Dad embarrasses me with his speech and then the best man reveals all kinds of things someone really ought to have told me about my husband before today…’ – I glanced down and caught his look of feigned horror – ‘I wanted to say a few words. I think most of you know it’s not been an easy year for me. And without the love and support of my family, my friends, but most of all of the man sitting beside me, well, I don’t think I’d be standing here at all.’

  The smile my words earned me almost made me give up on the rest of my speech and just kiss him instead. God knows it was what I wanted to do. I tore my eyes away from him and refocused. ‘It’s a little-known fact, but did you realise that eighteen per cent of people who meet on a roller-coaster end up getting married?’

  Beside me, I heard Will laugh.

  ‘So, to roller-coasters,’ I said, raising my glass.

  ‘To roller-coasters,’ the room replied.

  PART THREE

  Mandy

  21

  She told me first.

  It wasn’t until much later, lying in my single bed listening to the sounds of the house settling for the night, that I realised what a big deal that was. She told me first.

  Across the hallway, snoring loudly enough for the sound to travel through the closed bedroom door, was the man she should have spoken to. Beside him, probably curled against his back, was her second possible confidante. But she hadn’t chosen to share her secret with either of my parents. She told me first.

  It left me feeling humbled, overwhelmed and a little bit scared, to be perfectly honest. The one thing I didn’t feel was surprise that she’d chosen me. We’d always been close, far closer than any of my friends were to their grandparents. For a start, I was named for her: Mandy for me, Amanda for her. But it wasn’t just that. She’d passed on so much to me, things that went way deeper than just her rich auburn hair and brilliant green eyes. Hers had lost their lustre now, but when I looked at old photographs of when she was my age, we could have passed for sisters. But the greatest of all her legacies to me had been music. The love of it, the way it could change a mood, a day, even a life. My grandmother had been a piano teacher, until arthritis had robbed her of the ability to play. So I played for both of us now. And each time I sat down at the piano that had once been hers, I could feel her beside me, moving my fingers fluidly over the keys, making me sway as I played. It didn’t matter if it was a Bach prelude or a Bruno Mars classic, she was always with me.

  When Grandad passed away five years ago, there were members of our family – my dad included – who thought Gran wouldn’t be capable of coping by herself. But not me. I knew better. My grandfather had always been a larger-than-life, take-charge kind of person, but Gran had never been in his shadow; she’d just chosen to walk in the shade. And after he passed away, she stepped out of it.

  With very little fuss or outside assistance, she’d sold her far-too-big-for-one-person house and put down a deposit to secure a place in a newly built retirement complex on the other side of town. Dad, who was probably worried people would think he’d ‘put her in a home’, had been keen for her to move in with us, but Gran was having none of it.

  ‘I know you have my best interests at heart, Gerald, and I love you for it, but for once I would like to be the one to decide the direction my life will take from now on. And my choice is to move to Sunnymede.’

  Sometime over the last five years, and I really couldn’t remember when it happened, Dad had developed selective amnesia and now seemed to think he was the one who had found Gran her new home. He liked nothing better than to show people the glossy Sunnymede brochure, declaring as he did, ‘It’s really a wonderful place. More like a five-star hotel than an old folks’ home.’

  Gran didn’t care. She was happy there, really happy. Perhaps even more than she’d been when living with Grandad, I’d secretly thought more than once. Although Gran of course would never admit to any such thing; she was far too loyal to his memory. Or so I’d always thought… until today.

  And now here I was, lying awake in the middle of the night, with a secret so huge it felt like a bomb ticking quietly away in my head. I couldn’t defuse it, and it was far too big to ignore. The best I could hope for was that when this whole thing blew up, in the way I knew it surely would, we’d somehow be able to put the pieces of our family back together again.

  *

  What I liked most about Sunnymede, more than its luxuriously appointed suites (they didn’t call them rooms), elegant communal lounges or rolling landscaped gardens, was that it was only a ten-minute bus ride from my school. I probably saw more of Gran now than I did when she’d lived in her own home. The rest of the family tended to visit her at weekends, when the home was bustling with relatives, but I preferred the less hectic atmosphere of the late afternoons or early evenings.

  Not that Gran was the kind of person to sit around waiting for visitors. Since moving into Sunnymede, she’d made a whole new circle of friends. It was rare to find her sitting alone in her room. She was far more likely to be involved in one of the many activities on offer to the residents. Unsurprisingly, the ones she loved best were those that involved music.

  There’d been one today. A string quartet from the nearby university had been invited to give a recital to the residents, and Gran had been keen for me to attend. She’d been my first music teacher, back when my legs were so short I’d needed her help to climb on to the piano stool, and she still liked nothing better than sharing her greatest passion with me. It was our thing.

  The concert had already started by the time I’d hurriedly signed myself into the visitors’ book at Reception and sped along the familiar corridors to reach the lounge, from where the sound of a Haydn sonata could already be heard. Gran’s welcoming smile – the one I liked to think she kept just for me – had creased her face into accordion-like folds. As soon as there was a suitable break in the music she’d motioned me into the lounge, shuffling along the sofa she was sitting on to make room. She leant to her left and whispered something in the ear of an elderly woman seated beside her. Her companion turned and looked in my direction, smiling warmly as she did. It was Josie, one of Gran’s closest friends at Sunnymede.

&n
bsp; I apologised and ‘excuse me’d as I negotiated a pathway over an obstacle course of walking sticks, parked Zimmer frames, and swollen-ankled legs in thick surgical stockings. I sank down on the sofa just as the music began again. It was a snug fit, offering just enough room for an average-sized seventeen-year-old and two old ladies in their seventies.

  Today’s music wasn’t really my kind of thing, but Gran was always telling me I should keep an open mind, particularly if I was serious about taking a degree in music when I left school. So I sat back and let the sonata wash over me, enjoying the performance because that’s what the woman sitting beside me was doing. I loved the way Gran’s gnarled fingers absently kept time with the music against her bony knees. She might not be able to play any more, but her timing and musicality were still far better than mine would ever be. Josie, bless her, was also tapping her hand to the music, except she was a million miles away from the beat the musicians were following. Very sweetly, Gran laid her hand over Josie’s until she found the correct rhythm. I guess it didn’t matter how old she was, Gran would always be a music teacher.

  The concert ended with a mixed response. Many of the audience members clapped enthusiastically – I may even have given a small whoop or two, because actually it had been surprisingly good. Others got to their feet with vacant smiles and shuffled dreamily out of the room, off to who-knows-where. A few – who’d somehow managed to sleep through the entire performance – were jerked awake by the applause, and looked around in confusion at all the noise.

  ‘Ah, that was so lovely,’ sighed Josie, swaying slightly as she got to her feet. My hand shot out to steady her, but Gran got there first, her twisted fingers still plenty strong enough to grip hold of her friend’s wrinkled hand to offer support.

  ‘You know you’re meant to use this to get up,’ she chided gently, setting her friend’s walking stick firmly beneath her hand. I breathed a little easier as a potential broken hip catastrophe was successfully averted.

  Josie’s smile was endearingly sweet as she looked over at me. ‘That’s your Gran for you, always worrying about everyone else. She needs to look after herself too, you tell her that.’

  I nodded, feeling the first frisson of concern start somewhere at the base of my spine and steadily begin climbing up my vertebrae. Was there something wrong with Gran? Was that what Josie meant? I looked at the woman who I’d loved and admired for every single day of my life, and was suddenly overcome with fear for something I could neither change nor stop. In this place, death and ill health were frequent visitors. I still shuddered every time I walked down the corridor to see a room stripped bare, when only the day before it had been filled with personal possessions and furniture. There were armchairs that were kept forever empty in the recreation room, the presence of their former occupants too powerful to forget. Damn that concert, it had put me in a very strange mood.

  ‘Well, I’ll leave you two to have a nice little chat in peace,’ said Josie, taking a cautious step, and when that one didn’t end in disaster, following it with a second one. By the time she reached the door, I felt quite exhausted. Gran too had watched her friend’s every step. Josie was right; she needed to relax more.

  With considerably less effort, Gran got to her feet. Thankfully, the arthritis that had attacked her hands was taking a more leisurely journey to other regions. Nevertheless, I slowed my pace to hers as we walked side by side down the corridor and back to her suite. She had a lovely room, with a separate sitting area furnished with two comfy armchairs she’d brought with her from the home she’d shared with Grandad.

  ‘Would you like something to drink, Mandy?’ Gran asked, lowering herself on to one of the velvet-cushioned chairs. ‘I’m sure one of the helpers could rustle us up a cuppa if I asked.’

  ‘No, Gran, don’t worry. I’m fine. I can’t stay too long. I’ve a ton of coursework I need to do before—’

  ‘—sneaking out to meet that young man of yours?’

  Shock and surprise had a quick battle to see which expression would be reflected on my face. It was a tie.

  ‘What?’ chuckled Gran softly. ‘Did you think I didn’t know you were still seeing him?’

  I blushed, turning my already pink face – they kept the home ridiculously warm – hot enough to make my foundation melt.

  ‘I… I…’ I had nothing to say. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘You were always a bad fibber, Mandy, even when you were a little girl.’

  The blush was going nowhere, and I could feel myself squirming under Gran’s surprisingly astute gaze. ‘Besides, you’re wearing a turtle neck on a warm spring day, so I imagine there’s something beneath it you don’t want everyone to see.’

  My hand instinctively flew to the love bite I knew was safely hidden beneath the neck of my jumper.

  ‘Ah, necking,’ said Gran fondly, as though embarking on a jaunt down memory lane. As close as we were, I really hoped she wasn’t about to share confidences with me about her and Grandad back in the day.

  ‘I don’t think they call it that any more, Gran,’ I said, somehow managing to smile, even though I was still mightily embarrassed and also a little worried. ‘You won’t tell Mum and Dad, will you? You know how Dad feels about Jamie.’

  Gran made a noise, which made me smile. ‘Your dad needs to understand that it’s not up to him to decide who you fall in love with.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure Jamie and I are actually in love, but…’ My voice trailed away, momentarily lost in a daydream of a pair of bright blue eyes and a shock of hair, in a shade magazines call ‘dirty blond’, that fell floppily across his forehead no matter what he did to stop it. Without meaning to, I found myself smiling.

  ‘I won’t say anything to your dad. That will have to be your job, my girl.’

  I swallowed nervously, remembering the rows we’d had when I’d told them the boy who’d asked me out had dropped out of school and had no intention of ever going back. Dad hadn’t been happy, and that was before he’d even seen Jamie – or his tattoos.

  ‘Just don’t tell them, Gran. At least, not until after my exams.’

  ‘Your secret is safe with me,’ said Gran, pantomiming turning an invisible key against the softly puckered skin around her lips. ‘But I would imagine your mum already knows. She’s a smart cookie, and far less judgemental than your dad.’

  It was strange to hear Gran say anything negative about Dad, even though she was absolutely right on this one. Dad was the kind of man who liked to keep everything in his life in neatly defined columns. It was probably the accountant in him. Having a straight-A daughter destined for a red-brick university falling for a tattooed apprentice mechanic… well, that simply didn’t add up at all. Not in his books.

  ‘Just follow your heart, Mandy. That’s the best advice I can give you.’

  Gran’s hand reached out and straightened a vase of flowers that to me looked perfectly okay where it was, and then picked up and put down a magazine. She was definitely acting strangely.

  ‘Gran, is anything wrong? You seem a bit, I don’t know… distracted… today?’

  She jolted guiltily, and was shaking her head long before the denial had left her lips.

  ‘Do I? How strange. No, I’m fine. Absolutely fine.’

  Except she wasn’t. Anyone could see that, and somehow her anxiety was becoming contagious.

  ‘Gran?’

  For a long moment she looked at me, and I could almost see an inner war being waged in the faded green of her eyes. The decision to tell me flared as bright as a comet in their cloudy depths.

  ‘What I just said, Mandy, about the heart…’

  My blood turned to ice; I could feel it freezing in every vein and capillary. She had a heart condition, I thought, my panic already galloping off ahead of me. Angina, or maybe something even worse.

  ‘Gran, are you ill? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?’

  Those eyes, so like mine, widened in response.

  ‘No, my love. It’s n
othing like that.’

  ‘Then, what is it?’ I asked, leaning forward, my elbows resting on my denim-clad thighs. ‘Please tell me, because you’re making me worried.’

  Gran’s smile was soft and full of love. ‘That’s the last thing I want to do. But yes, you’re right, I do have something I want to tell you. It’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you for quite a while now.’

  She paused, and it took every ounce of my self-restraint to remain quiet as she worked out how to begin. Before speaking, she reached up to a shelf beside her chair, where a row of framed family photographs was kept. She took down one of my grandfather, staring fondly at it for several moments. It showed a man I had never known, with hair still full and dark, and skin unmarked by the passage of time. It made me realise how remarkably alike he was to my dad.

  ‘I loved your grandfather. He was a good and decent man.’ I nodded, somehow sensing that to speak now might derail her. ‘My parents were delighted when we got engaged, did I ever tell you that?’

  I shook my head, wondering why in all these years we’d never spoken about her life before she’d become a wife, a mother, and ultimately a grandparent.

  ‘Your grandad was quite a catch. He could easily have had any girl he wanted in our town.’

  ‘Well, he got the best one,’ I declared loyally, a funny feeling beginning to grow deep in my stomach. This conversation was going somewhere I had never been before, and I wasn’t entirely sure I was ready for the journey. ‘He was lucky to have you.’

  She smiled, more than a little lost in the past now, I think. One arthritic finger ran gently down the face of the man she had spent almost fifty years of her life with. Her eyes were a little misty as she looked up and met mine.