After Ever After (2 page)

‘Hands up, come on.’ Georgina barely managed to suppress a snap, clearly impatient with my reverie. Dora caught my eye, pulling down the corners of her mouth in a sympathetic grimace. I remembered that technically I was getting married to this woman too today, so I stood my ground, just a little bit.

‘Well, we didn’t want to wait. Anyway we
had
planned to go away and get married …’ I tried not to sound wistful as I remembered Fergus persuading me to let his mother take over with her plans.

‘Think of it like this,’ he’d said. ‘She hasn’t got a daughter, only a son, and you haven’t got a mother. It will be perfect for both of you. Give you a chance to get to know each other. I just know that when she gets to know you she’ll adore you.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ I’d said, but as it turned out I had nothing to worry about on that score. Through the short wedding preparation period Georgina had frog-marched me from designated store to designated store overruling my choices on flowers, decorations and colour scheme until finally we came to the frock, at which point I was so determined to dig my heels in that I almost didn’t let her bully me into her choice of impeccably tailored gown. But it was beautiful and worse than that she was right – it was the right dress.

‘You look great,’ I said to Georgina meekly, conciliatory as I lifted my hands over my head and became lost to all, for a brief moment bound in the comforting muffle of acres of cream netting. She blinked in response, or maybe because she was going to anyway.

‘Right, breathe in. Have you put on a few pounds?’ Georgina asked me as she buttoned up the back of the dress. I avoided looking her in the eye and thought about my period that had been due two weeks ago and was surely late due to pre-wedding stress. In fact, I was so certain that I’d relax the moment the ring was on my finger that I’d stuffed Camille’s muff full of tampons in readiness. There wasn’t room in Dora’s, it was full of fags.

‘Right,’ she said, nodding decisively. ‘Very nice.’ She wheeled a full-length mahogany-framed reproduction Victorian mirror round to meet me. I looked at the stranger in the mirror, blinked and looked at Dora.

‘Well, look who’s the fairest of them all,’ Dora said with a slow smile. ‘Bloody hell, mate, you look fucking incredible.’ And for once I didn’t think she was taking the piss.

‘You do, you look wonderful.’ Camille’s eyes were bright with tears. ‘Oh God, I’m going to cry again!’

I looked at myself. My dyed red hair had been returned to its natural deep brown and it fell undressed and in loose waves around my shoulders. I had had nightmares about the dress ever since the moment I’d let Dad pay for it. In my memory Georgina had tricked me into buying a huge ballooning edifice, and I woke up sweating, seeing myself getting stuck halfway down the aisle like a huge puffball mushroom. Now that it was on I felt like Grace Kelly, like Cinderella going to the ball. Like Calamity Jane when she gets her posh frock on and makes Buffalo Bill fall in love with her, because men don’t fall in love with girls wearing trousers. Like a woman worthy of Fergus Kelly’s love – the one for him.

Georgina looked me up and down and nodded.

‘Well, come on.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘We haven’t got time for moping about. The car’s due in five minutes and you haven’t got your fur-trimmed bolero jacket on yet!’

I was laughing as I slipped the jacket over my bare shoulders.

‘Kitty?’ My father’s voice sounded on the other side of the door. We all froze.

I looked at Dora and Dora looked at Camille. Camille gave me an encouraging smile, mouthing, ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be okay.’ At least I think that’s what she mouthed.

Fergus had despatched his best man to go and pick Dad up and bring him here because Dad couldn’t go anywhere on his own. He wasn’t agoraphobic exactly – he could make it to the local shops and back; he was just terrified of pretty much everything new.

‘Kitty, is it all right to come in?’ As usual he sounded hesitant and unsure, and as usual it irritated me. I composed myself.

‘Yes, Dad. Come in!’ I called out. I almost didn’t want to see his face when he saw me, I almost wanted to turn my back and run in the opposite direction.

‘My word,’ Dad said, and in that split second I prayed that he’d say anything, anything at all except for what I knew he was about to say. ‘You look just like her …’ I watched him lost for a moment, his face a picture of remote reverie. He’d said exactly the wrong thing.

‘Thanks,’ I said, trying to hide my disappointment. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to remember her, it was just that every other day of my life had been about her death and I so wanted this day to be about my life. I know that Mum would have wanted it too. Dad took my hand and squeezed it; his was a little sweaty.

‘She’s here, you know, she’s with us even now,’ he said, his eyes brimming with tears. I closed my eyes on the last image I remember of my mother and tried to chase it away with happier ones. ‘She would have loved this day.’ He dropped my hand and turned his face to the wall, shutting the world out. I glanced awkwardly at the others in the room and laid my hand on his shoulder.

‘I know, Dad, and she’d want us to be happy,’ I said briskly to him. ‘So let’s make her proud, okay?’ Slightly taller than him in my shoes, I turned him back to face me, straightened the cravat I could see he felt so uncomfortable wearing and smoothed down what was left of his hair.

‘Ready?’ I said, wishing that I could ask him if he’d remembered to take his antidepressants, but not wanting Georgina to hear.

‘Ready,’ he said a little uncertainly.

‘Come on, girls, let’s roll!’ I said excitedly. ‘I’m getting married in ten minutes!’ I sang, and as we left the house Fergus had grown up in, the winter sun broke through the clouds and made the rain-soaked pavements shine as if they were laid with gold.

In the last second before he stood up, Fergus drained both his champagne glass and then mine, whispering, ‘What’s yours is mine an’ all that …’ I smiled. I knew how much he was dreading this moment, how he’d holed himself up for weeks on end fretting about getting it just right.

‘Look, relax, all you have to do is thank the bridesmaids, say what a babe I am and sit down,’ I’d told him, secretly much more worried about my dad’s effort and his best man’s hilarious line in dirty ‘gags’, as he referred to them.

‘No, Kits, you don’t get it. This is my moment to tell everyone what you mean to me. And I’m not blowing it.’

As it had turned out, Dad hadn’t done so badly. He’d gone through the book I’d bought him and pretty much read ‘Father of the Bride Example Speech A’ verbatim, and I was grateful for the bland pleasantries and borrowed anecdotes. He’d even omitted mentioning my mother beyond how much we both missed her, and I knew it cost him, but on today of all days, my perfect day, I didn’t want the spectre of her death hanging over us. If Dad didn’t understand then I knew that Mum would.

‘A speech.’ Fergus’s clear voice cut through the murmur that filled the hall as he prepared himself. ‘If there was ever a reason that I nearly didn’t propose it was the thought of standing up in front of two hundred of my friends and family and making a speech …’ Fergus winked at me and I knew he was thinking of the empty beach and guest list of two that we had had to forgo.

‘Get on with it then!’ Colin the best man shouted, and a rumble of chuckles rolled around the room. Colin perked up, visibly heartened after his joke about the sex mad mother-in-law had fallen so flat.

‘Um, right.’ Fergus studied his dog-eared cue cards for a moment, his black hair falling over his winter-sky-blue eyes, and my heart leapt to his defence. My Fergus, so constantly confident, now suddenly shy and vulnerable.

‘So, anyway. I had to think of reasons that were good enough to make it worth my while …’

‘She’s up the duff!’ Colin hollered and the stony silence that greeted him sent him back into his shell as a failed stand-up. It
was
funny, really. No one here, not even Georgina’s stuffed-shirt heavy mob, believed that a twenty-first-century couple would get married over an unplanned pregnancy. And that wasn’t the reason at all, not at all. I tallied up my tear-fuelled tantrums over the last couple of weeks and was certain that I was in the midst of a particularly prolonged bout of PMT.

‘Ha, no.’ I saw that my husband’s long fingers were trembling. ‘No. It’s simple really. In the last thirty-odd years I have often wondered what kind of woman would make me want to marry her. When I was about eight I decided it was Princess Leah in her gold bikini.’ Two hundred people smiled. ‘And she pretty much headed the field for the next ten years or so. But truth be told, as I grew into a man I never thought I’d fall prey to the big “C”. Commitment. Things happened and eventually I stopped believing in love. I thought that that kind of love existed only in storybooks and on movie screens and I knew I didn’t want to settle for less.

‘It seems foolish now, but I had a kind of a “vision” of my perfect woman. I mean, I didn’t know what she looked like, or what her name was, I only knew that when I met this person I’d know her, know that she was my soulmate. After a long time looking I thought I’d never find her.’ Fergus caught my hand and held it tight. ‘And then I met Kitty and I knew I’d found her. I thought it would probably weird her out too much to tell her that in the first half an hour after we’d met, so I tried to keep it to myself. In fact I more or less sat on the information for all of a week and then I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer. Imagine, then, how happy I was, how lucky and blessed, to know that Kitty felt the same way about me.’ I smiled up at him, nodding.

‘Kitty makes me laugh, laugh so much I can’t breathe. She makes me sing, and I mean literally. You know you’re happy when you find yourself attempting a Craig David song in a tuneless baritone first thing in the morning and you don’t even know who Craig David is. Then you know you’ve found someone you have to hold on to. Although my neighbours might not think so. I really can’t sing.’ A ripple of laughter swelled at the back of the room and spread through the guests until it broke against the top table. Fergus seemed visibly heartened.

‘Kitty makes me hold my breath. Every day when I know I’m going to see her again, even if she’s just been in the next room, I’m so excited about the prospect that I forget to breathe. She’s simply the most beautiful person I know, and today more than ever.’

The guests let out a collective ‘ahhhh’ and a ripple of applause swept around the room. Fergus pulled me to my feet and put his arm around my waist, drawing me into the strength of his body.

‘Most of all, Kitty inspires me. She makes me want to be more than I already am, she makes me want to strive to be the kind of man that she deserves – and that’s why I asked her to marry me. And because if I had to make a speech, at least I knew I could use it to tell you about the magic that this woman has brought to my life.’

A whoop of cheers and laughter hit the ceiling and filled the room. Even Dora gave a little smile.

The corners of Fergus’s mouth curled up as he kissed me.

At last, I thought. At last, I’m saved. My prince has come.

It’s raining. Gene Kelly skips off the kerb opposite my house and splashes in a puddle, happy again, apparently, and, what’s more, ready for love. I blink hard twice and look at the faintly luminescent hands of Ella’s cow-jumping-over-the-moon night light-and-clock combo. Four twenty-five a.m. I am not surprised to see Gene, it’s usually around this time that I start to hallucinate. I rub my eyes (one at a time) and return my gaze out of the window to the rain-soaked street now empty of musical stars and quiet again,
so
empty and
so
quiet in a way I’d never known in my native Hackney. One year on and small-town life is still taking some getting used to.

Ella has been asleep for twenty minutes or so, the side of her face half lost against my breast and her small fingers closed tightly around the neck of my nightshirt, gently snoring in dream-free abandon. I really should go back to bed now, but if I get out of this stupid rocking chair that Fergus had made for me to nurse her in, there’s a chance that it may creak. It doesn’t always creak, usually only every twelve or so rocks, but I lost count when I was getting her back to sleep and I can’t be sure what number I got up to. And even if I get out of the chair successfully and manage to lower her into the cot without waking her like it says in The Book; (
Chapter One: Everything You Need to Know about Motherhood, page 32: … maintain body contact with your baby for as long as possible as you lower him into the cot. This enhances the feeling of well-being and reduces the trauma of separation
. Well, that’s all very well, but they don’t tell you how you don’t wake your baby up whilst standing on tiptoe and attempting a bend at the waist that would tax the abdominal muscles of a twenty-year-old who
hadn’t
recently acquired a whole new layer of padding to their stomach. But I digress.) even then there’s a creaky floorboard by the door, to add to which, even if I do manage to remember where it is and even if I do succeed in skipping over it without landing on the other creaky floorboard in the hallway, I might breathe out and that would wake her up again.

During the day, six-month-old Ella can sleep through the TV, the radio, the workmen, emergency service sirens – not that you hear them so much round here – but for some reason as soon as the sun sets, and especially when her mother thinks it might be time to get some sleep, she becomes a Ninja light sleeper, ready to leap into action at the slightest snap of a twig. In fact, so convinced am I that any attempt to return her to her cot will be futile, I’m tempted just to stay in this ridiculous chair all night and go to sleep dreaming about Gene, even if I do wake up with a dead arm and a crick in my neck that would have me looking permanently to the left. However, The Book, which, let’s face it, is the nearest thing I have to maternal advice, says you can’t totally abandon your normal life to cater to your baby’s every whim (
lie
), so as my normal life is lying in the dark staring at the ceiling waiting for Fergus’s next snore, I should try to return to the bedroom.