If only, just for once, my shift had finished on time. I wouldn’t have been swallowed up in the throng of early-evening commuters en route to Paddington tube station, pushed the longer way back towards Marble Arch. And she wouldn’t have seen me.
By the time I round the corner onto Connaught Street, past a vet’s with its window filled with colourful doggie outfits and a café serving flavoured macchiatos, the chill October air is already biting at my face. I realise my gloves are still sitting in the staffroom next to the family-sized tin of Christmas-is-coming Quality Street chocolates. There is a moment where I consider going back for them but the crowd marching forth behind me, their heads bowed penguin-like to the wind, is more of a barrier than I can be bothered to deal with.
I try really hard not to notice at first. I even cross to the other side of the street because I can see what’s coming. But the boutique’s floor-to-ceiling glass windows wrap around the corner it sits on, making it impossible to miss. The walls inside have been painted a dark grey and the bright light is bouncing off every one of those white dresses, illuminating the entire shop like some giant searchlight calling me home. It’s all so pristine and orderly, the exact opposite of the frantic mess I’ve just left behind.
As she steps out from the fitting room, I can’t help it, I cross back over the road, not even bothering to look for oncoming traffic, and as I get closer, I can hear the warm laughter and giddy squeals enveloping her. Who are they, I wonder? It looks like her grandmother, a sister perhaps and a bridesmaid or two. Then I see what must surely be her mum. They share the same pretty almond eyes and confident smile. She’s seated in a deep blush-pink chair and as her daughter steps forward she starts to rise, her hands moving slowly up to her heart.
Oh my goodness, that dress! Clearly, I don’t know one end of a wedding gown from the other, but this one looks regal. There’s so much of it for a start and the closer I look, the more I see: tiny glass beads that catch the light, sequins that seem to shower down the skirt like precious raindrops. Whoever made this knew what they were doing. She looks like she’s been stitched into it; it fits her so perfectly.
I step closer to the window now, place the tips of my fingers onto the pane of glass and watch, completely absorbed, as her mum gathers her beautiful daughter up in her arms. The love. I can feel it through two inches of toughened glass and I realise I’m holding my breath. As my fingers creep higher up the window and my nose gently touches it, I see how everyone is so lost in the moment. There could be a riot going off on the streets out here and none of them would notice. My thoughts flick to my own mother and her last letter, ‘When You’re Missing Me’ written on the envelope in unusually untidy handwriting – perhaps the pain or medication was starting to overwhelm her by then.
There’s something about this time of year, when the weather turns and the first signs of Christmas start to magically appear overnight in all the shops on Oxford Street when no one’s looking. After dark, the windows of Selfridges fill with an explosion of designer colour, an exciting surprise for all the commuters passing on the bus the next morning. For me it just means I’m coming to the end of another year without her and I can feel my spirits physically sag inside me at the thought of it. Twelve years now and I still miss her desperately and the way she used to dismiss every problem with a cheery ‘Everything will be alright in the end. And if it’s not alright, it’s not the end.’ Well, not always, Mum.
Oh, the bride is twirling now, sending a whoosh of air up under that skirt, and I have to use my freezing fingers to wipe my frosted breath from the window pane to get a better look. Her mum is crying. No big heaving sobs, just a few delicate little tears picking their way down her perfectly made-up face. Then she’s pulling out an embroidered hanky and dabbing at the corners of her eyes. I bet this family are going to have the most magical Christmas together. I’ll be working.
It was last Thursday when someone decided we needed to sort out all the Christmas rotas at work – those with husbands and young children bagging all the best days off, those without (me) getting lumbered with everything else. I went straight home, untied the little bundle of notes Mum left for me and gently teased the missing me one open through sad little sobs. I’ve read so many of them since Mum lost her battle with breast cancer when I was just sixteen. Dad read them to me at first. We used to sit on my bed, under the star-scattered canopy and a string of fairy lights that Mum had spent one afternoon putting up and I could never bring myself to take down, and off he’d go. Letter in one hand, my tense little fingers squeezed in the other, forcing himself not to cry because that’s not what she wanted. First Boyfriend, First Broken Heart, Graduation Day. How she had the strength to write those letters, I’ll never know, and as a vulnerable teenager sometimes I couldn’t bear to listen to them. Now, I tackle them myself.
Come on, Jenny, you’re made of tougher stuff than you know. Remember, you are me and I am you. Promise me you won’t let anything ruin the big, beautiful life you are yet to live – not even if you must do it without your mum. What is it we used to say? Pull on your big-girl pants and get on with it! That always made us giggle, didn’t it? It makes me smile now as I’m writing the words again. You can do it, I know you can. Try your very, very best. Think of the fun times we shared, then go and find your own fun, because there is plenty out there waiting for you. Don’t waste your tears on me, darling, they won’t bring me back. I haven’t gone, I’m watching you every day…
I’m not sure if it’s the cold or the memory of her, but I’m starting to shake a little. I need to go. Just as I make that decision, the door to the boutique flies open and the friendly smile of an older woman holds me there. Her face is so inviting and kind. She looks like the sort of woman who floats elegantly through life, one who would never get her hair wet at the swimming pool. I try to make my escape, muttering a quick apology, stepping back guiltily from the window, but she’s pulling me in.
‘Are you wanting to make an appointment? I won’t have you standing out there in the cold until we’ve finished. Come on, I can book you in quickly.’ She’s fiddling around by the till now, pulling out a huge concertina file. ‘What’s your name?’
‘It’s Jenny, but I er…’ The bride-to-be’s family have noticed me now and I’m feeling a bit ashamed of the bobbling Topshop duffle coat I thought I’d try to get one more winter out of. I see my reflection from the other side of those huge glass windows. Urgh! Major hair fail. Attacked by the cold evening air, it has erupted into a giant lollipop of frizz. My cheeks are unflatteringly flushed and, now that I’m in the warm, I can feel my nose start to run and I’m wondering if I can get away with a quick wipe on my sleeve. I am so far from the vision of styled perfection in front of me.
Naturally, everyone else is a bit dressed up for the occasion. This is special, right? The mum’s in a pastel tweed skirt and jacket while the girls are all cream cashmere, chic cropped trousers skimming above pretty embellished flats – the sort that always seem to make my ankles look thick – or floaty floral dresses belted at the waist to show off their neat figures. Even Granny looks all elegant in a midnight blue dress that flares at the sleeves, a ring of tiny pearls at both wrists.
‘OK, you are in luck, Jenny, because I have a cancellation tomorrow at 6 p.m., otherwise you’re looking at a six-week wait, I’m afraid. And I’m so sorry, I haven’t even bothered to introduce myself. I’m Helen, I own The White Gallery.’
‘I’d take it if I were you.’ The bride, who’s got to be a good three years younger than my twenty-eight, is turning her full attention to me now. ‘I’ve been to just about every wedding boutique in London and Helen knew immediately that this dress was the one for me, long before I did. She’s the best there is.’
‘It’s from the Elie Saab Fall 2018 collection,’ smiles Helen, looking all proud of herself. And rightly so, she’s nailed it. ‘A dress that has about 230 hours of handwork in it. See the way all the detail cascades down over the tulle? Only the very finest embellisher could create something so beautiful, so faultless.’
‘OK, tomorrow it is!’ Then – crazy woman alert – I actually start to do a quick bit of mental arithmetic to see if I’ll have enough time to leg it back here when my shift ends tomorrow. No! I need to get out of here before I start inviting them all to my big day. I can always call and cancel it later and no one will be any the wiser. Anything is better than admitting I just got busted having a right good nose at total strangers enjoying such a private moment.
‘Perfect! I’ll see you then.’ Helen squeezes the file shut, sending a waft of warm air up into her immaculately blow-dried hair.
Then I’m back out into the flow of determined commuters, hurrying against each other, fighting to make the lights, fighting to dive into the last seat on the tube, then fighting to be the first out the sliding doors when it finally flies into their station. The whole thing is exhausting. As I sit, counting down the ten stops to East Putney, I can still smell the day on me. I wonder if the man sitting next to me, legs splayed open so he’s helping himself to more than his fair share of my seat, can smell it too. My thoughts drift back to Mrs Rodgers, and how she struggled to get her newborn to latch on – the reason I was so late finishing today. That and two births, one very stroppy matron and a delivery ward full of dads-to-be convinced ‘we’re contracting’.
Sweat, tears, blood, vomit, urine… I’ve had it all on me today. From the second my shift started at St Mary’s, it was brutally busy. I got Mrs Johnson, a first-timer who’d done her homework and produced a birth plan three sheets long. As she handed it over, she looked at me and asked the same question most of them do: ‘Are you a mum?’ Then I watched as the confidence drained from her face when the answer was no. It’s not a medical thing, I’m sure she knows I can do my job. But just then, right at the beginning when she’s scared of everything that’s about to happen to her, she needs to know I know how terrified she is and that I came out the other side and everything was OK. I can’t offer her that, but I feel her worry. It’s hard for me too. Every time I ease a new life into this world, I wonder if I will ever be on the receiving end of that most precious gift. Will my hands, the very first to touch every newborn I deliver, ever cradle my own? Will I ever open the letter marked ‘You’re a Mum!’? And now I think about it, why was she so sure I would be? I suppose it’s not quite the same, writing ‘Now that you’ve been barren for fifteen years’, is it? Mum’s letters didn’t come with instructions, I guess she only wanted me to open them when they’re relevant. But she must have known I’ll eventually open them all regardless, just to hear her voice dance around my head again.
By the time I force my key into the lock of my basement flat and step over the mountain of unpaired shoes that Marianne, my frequently absent and chaotic flatmate, has dumped there, I’m struggling to feel my fingers. I should have gone back for the gloves. That lovely bride might have been out of her dress by then and on her own way home too.
But I can’t get her out of my head. I’m thinking about that dress as I’m stabbing the fork through the film of a microwaveable meatballs and rice; her mum’s face as I’m picking up Marianne’s trail of clothes that are running from her room down the dark, narrow corridor to our shared bathroom – always falling short of the laundry bin; and as I draw the curtains across the metal security bars that criss-cross the window and sit on my bed to eat dinner, I’m thinking about what feels like the next letter Mum intended me to read. The one that says ‘You’re Engaged!’ on the front. I can tell from the exaggerated exclamation mark how excited she was trying to feel when she wrote it.
I don’t know why I decide to read it tonight. I’m about as far away from an engagement as Marianne is from owning a pair of rubber gloves. But I do. Maybe I just want to feel close to Mum again. To hear the sound of her voice surround me. To pretend for a moment that I am fulfilling all the hopes and wishes she had for me.
How old are you, I wonder, poppet? I was twenty-seven when your father proposed and that felt just about the perfect age to me. And now, here you are! On the tip of something so magical, I barely know how to describe it to you. The thought that you have found someone you love so much that you want to spend the rest of your life with them is all the comfort I need today. The knowledge that someone else out there loves and adores you is no surprise at all.
The truth is, if I was there, I’d be a mess. The thought of letting you go to build a life that might include me a little less used to keep me awake at night, even when you were just a little girl. It would stir up so much sorrow and excitement in me, leaving me staring at the ceiling for hours. I used to drive Dad nuts, worrying about things he said didn’t need worrying about.
I’ve thought a lot about what advice I should give you at this point in your life and actually, it’s far simpler than you think: just love each other. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? But when life gets in the way, don’t let him be the thing you push to the bottom of your list. Cherish him and be sure he does the same for you. Be kind to each other. Let him be the one person who never finds fault in you. Let you be the one person he can talk to about anything – everything. Build a little wall around you both so no one can ever hurt you.
And your wedding day! I’ve written another letter for you to open that morning, Jenny, but since you’ll be planning it now, this is what I say. Go Big! Go white! Go over the top! Don’t shy away from what should be a huge, joyous celebration. Buy the enormous dress, order too many flowers, drink too much champagne, overspend (a little!) on the honeymoon. Don’t ever look back and wish you’d gone for the six-tier cake. Have it! You deserve it, my darling. We’ve made sure the money is there for you, so now is not the time to be sensible!
I’m so sorry I’m not there to help you with all the wonderful planning – we would have had so much fun together – but perhaps I will guide you in some way neither of us expected. Think of me when you’re smelling those roses, or choosing the scent you’ll wear on your wedding morning. I’ll be there in every twinkle of the cut-glass crystal during your toast, I’ll be the sound of laughter travelling across your reception after the speeches. Don’t cry any tears for me on your wedding day, Jenny, it would break my heart to think of that. Instead, place a beautiful bouquet of flowers where I might have sat.
And know that I will love you forever, even longer if I can. I won’t waste my words being sad about what might have been, just like you mustn’t waste your time being sad for what you’ll miss. The fact you have opened this letter at all is all the peace I need. You’ve found him. You’ll be happy and I can rest now. Congratulations! I honestly feel like I might explode with pride. Love Mum x
That’s when I dig out Mum’s engagement ring from my bedside drawer. Dad gave it to me the day before he proposed to Sylvie, sixty-four days after we buried Mum and another twenty-eight before my heartbroken older sister Lulu packed up her own life and took the marketing job up North. It’s an Art Deco emerald-cut aquamarine, encircled with a halo of diamonds. She never took it off, until Dad had to. She loved it. And so do I, because it carries all the promise of a life so much more glamorous than my own. Perhaps that’s why I decide to keep it on now.
I slip it on to the third finger of my left hand, like I have many times before. But I leave it there this time and huff back into the kitchen to dump my half-eaten excuse for dinner into the bin. If they’re going to advertise this as ‘Meatballs & Rice’, they might have the decency to put a meatball in it. I open the fridge to retrieve the Curly Wurly I’ve hidden at the back behind the out-of-date Greek yoghurt and some cheese that’s really starting to whiff. I’ve Post-it-noted my name all over the chocolate but, no surprise at all, Marianne has beaten me to it and helped herself. Still, nice of her to leave the empty wrapper in there for me to bin.
Perhaps I shouldn’t entirely blame my thieving flatmate for putting me in this devil-may-care mood, but I decide there and then not to cancel Helen tomorrow. For once, I’m going to be the silly one and do something spectacularly stupid.
Whoever is banging that hammer against the inside of Nat’s head really needs to sod off. The hangover! It’s tearing through her, waves of nausea swaying up over her, setting her stomach to sea as it twists and churns under – oh hell – last night’s dress. It’s still glued to her and rather sadly, stinking a bit, smattered in what she hopes is buttercream but could just as easily be toothpaste – a starting gun for the first unwelcome flashback from yesterday. That mortifying dance the bride made her do up the aisle to Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’ – damn YouTube and its never-ending gallery of inspirational ‘Our Wedding!’ films. It’s not the first time Nat’s had to publicly humiliate herself in the name of being a bride-slave and sure as hell won’t be the last. But she can see it all now: the two girls sat three rows from the front, clearly having a damn good bitch about her as she fixed a determined grin to her face, threw her hips from side to side, pumped her head back and forth and ploughed on towards the celebrant as quickly as the lilac spray-on satin sheath would allow; the bewildered faces of everyone over the age of twelve who just didn’t understand what the frig was going on. Still, that’s what the bride wanted and so that’s what she got. One of the most toe-curling starts to a marriage ceremony Nat has ever been part of. And considering this is her fifteenth time up the aisle this year, that’s no small brag.
Urgh! Why does she do this to herself? Why would anyone do it to themselves, she wonders again, as the last bit of moisture evaporates from the back of her throat and she starts to contemplate the Herculean task of getting out of bed. Not just the expense and the big show-off but why marry at all? Aside from the important stuff she is yet to work out the answers to – like, is there any such thing as true love? Could she ever conform to someone else’s timeline of the perfect life or happily cast aside all those feminist objections about one man giving her away to another? Aside from all that, there is the seriously big stuff: someone else insisting she picks her knickers up off the floor; sharing her bed every night with someone who might do something as grotesquely anatomical as break wind. How would she stop herself getting bored with him quicker than most people migrate from Pret’s double-berry muffin to the white chocolate and cranberry? Plus, she likes her name and wants to keep it, and could she ever, with any sense of dignity, pull on a white dress when she’s bonked as many best men as she has? Nat makes a feeble attempt to raise the duvet from her sticky, sweaty body then drops it swiftly as the stale smell of last night’s booze and fake tan hits her nostrils. Rank!
No, there is a good reason why she once got savaged by a bride for physically punching away the bouquet toss and why, yes, she can handle being an enduring disappointment to most people for not even being engaged. Because the idea of her own wedding, even a low-key one in a registry office where the previous customer might have been doing something as devastatingly romantic as renewing their driver’s licence is just not that appealing. There will be no Godly union for this girl because she is yet to convince herself that even the most thrilling moment – tearing the wrapping off the new pepper grinder from the gift list – is going to enhance her life in any way.
Oh, for a Nurofen within arm’s reach right now! She stretches for her mobile instead to check the time: eleven o’clock. Not bad. As a rule, she doesn’t get hammered at weddings. Tipsy, yes, for sure. But yesterday was different. Apart from the aisle dance there was also the dedication she was forced to sing in front of the entire three-hundred strong reception, the words to which charted the passionate love affair between bride and groom. All to the tune of ‘Oh Happy Day’. Every word that screeched out of her made her skin flush a deeper shade of fearsome red. No one could get through that without booze. So, in between endless reassurances to the bride that she looked more ravishing than the groom’s ex, who, unfortunately, he’d invited, Nat was knocking back the gin miniatures from the hotel minibar. And when they were done, it was out with the half-bottle of prosecco that she always carries with her for such emergency situations – resulting in the sort of messy post-wedding situation that she is glad only she has to witness. How wonderful to be single. Earning her own money, and blasting it just as quickly in Space NK. Dating is easy, thanks to the captive audience of up-for-it single men hanging off her at the weddings she’s constantly attending and, well, she prefers her own company most of the time.
She’s still festering in bed, three floors up in the new-build block of flats where she can hear every toilet flush and the wake-up alarm of the couple living next door to her, which is not ideal when they get up as conventionally early as they do. She has to match their TV viewing or be forced to listen as their soundtrack competes with the noise of her own widescreen. Feeling the migraine swell within her, she looks down at the pastel-coloured spots stuck to her cleavage. Once moist confetti, it’s now crusted hard there. She can hear the buses passing on the main road outside, rattling the window frames as they make their way into Wimbledon town centre. It’s Monday morning. Maybe it’s a good thing she hasn’t got a proper job. One that might require her to be at a desk by now. Although, she can’t carry on like this forever either. But for now, her day is going to consist of a half-head of highlights – her brassy yellow locks begging for the familiar fingers of Charles Worthington. Then, major perk of the job, dress shopping.
OK, she’s not going to feel bad about yesterday’s performance. At least she’s being honest with herself, not something she can say for every woman she follows up the aisle, including Miranda Forbes – now Mrs Christopher Barings – the New York investment manager who prioritises personal wealth over private friendships and whose train Nat was fluffing less than twenty-four hours ago. Miranda flew in to London on business two years ago and Nat was her relocation manager at the estate agency, sourcing the Mayfair apartment she needed for three months while Miranda stopped a very wealthy client taking his family’s business to a rival bank. As Nat went above and beyond the call of duty, accompanying Miranda to theatre productions, spending weekends exploring the capital’s visiting exhibitions and helping her hammer the plastic in Selfridges’ personal shopping department, the two became close. Inseparable, even. There was no one else Miranda wanted to spend four hours trawling the beauty hall in Harvey Nichols on her behalf, hunting down the best waterproof mascara. It had to be Nat. Her best friend in the world – despite living on opposite sides of the Atlantic. That was their story and they were sticking to it. Everyone swallowed it. Even Christopher. No reason not to.
Nat finally wrestles herself free of the duvet, drags herself through into the kitchen and drinks enough water to fill a goldfish bowl, noticing in the window that her skin has all the telltale signs of yesterday’s abuse. It’s blotchy, make-up smeared, tired and grey. No high-street face mask is going to sort this out. She needs something weapons-grade; an overdose of vitamin C-rich serum and a level of hyaluronic acid that could double as bathroom cleaner.
She moves into the lounge and scans the mantelpiece above her faux-coal fire. Lined up in date order are invitations to the eight other weddings she will attend this year, the first indication of the kind of day each will be. The pristine white, bevelled card from Smythson, embossed with smart bronze lettering that sits perfectly within its tissue-lined pale blue envelope. The bespoke cartoon of a couple bungee jumping together. The pop-up 3D country house that’s the couple’s venue. Far right is the invitation to the last one of the year, on Christmas Eve. OK, a bit of a pain in the arse to be needed aisle-side that day, but what the hell? It’s an illustration of a girl with a mop of blonde curls leaning over a man at a typewriter above the words ‘Our Love Story’. This bride has been amazingly low-maintenance so far, leaving it entirely to Nat to find the designer and order the invitations. Nat’s loved her over-to-you approach from the start. This one will be a doddle.
One restorative bacon double cheeseburger and two hundred quid’s worth of caramel highlights later and Nat is breezing into The White Gallery on Connaught Street, feeling jubilantly near-human again.
‘Helen, how are you?’ She’s perfectly on schedule by the looks of it. The boutique’s owner already has a fresh brew waiting for Nat, requisite bone china teapot positioned on a rose-gold, glass-topped table, together with a gilt-edged plate of pale pink macaroons. It’s like Helen knows Nat’s sugar slump is about to hit.
‘I’m wonderful, Natalie, my dear. And I am so happy to see you again. Come on, tell me how yesterday’s wedding went?’ She has both arms around Nat’s shoulders and is guiding her into the boutique. ‘I honestly don’t know another woman alive who gets invited to as many as you do.’
‘Ha! Just perfect, thank you, Helen. And I loved the dress so much, I woke up in it this morning!’ As usual, she’ll spare Helen the more unsavoury details of what she really looked and smelt like in that dress when the hangover forced her awake.
‘Thrilled to hear it! Now, everything is ready for you, exactly as discussed. You’re choosing the dress you’ll wear to Alice’s wedding today, I believe? Make yourself at home and I will bring your rail t. . .
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