The Shoestring Club (36 page)

‘I can imagine,’ I murmur.

Arietty continues. ‘Luckily I spotted one of the girls from my class who was always fun, Denise. She was chatting to a gang of girls who were pretty much the brains of our year – Ash and Stephanie – nice girls, quiet, tended to keep to themselves. They all looked amazing in these 1950s style dresses, vintage Chanel and Dior apparently. Their make up was perfect, red lips and smoky eyes, and their hair was in fab old-fashioned buns. I honestly didn’t recognize any of them. Turns out they’d all hired their dresses in this vintage shop in Blackrock called Cocobelle and the owner had organized a hair and make up artist for them too. They’d had a day of pampering. You could do something like that here, girls.’

Pandora nods. ‘That’s not a bad idea. Certainly something to consider. And what did they think of the Farenze?’

Arietty beams. ‘Swooned over it. And they loved the jacket. I felt like a movie star. I told them all about your shop too.’

‘Good woman,’ Pandora says.

‘And what were the D4s wearing?’ I ask, already guessing the answer.

Arietty rolls her eyes. ‘Full-length evening dresses slashed to their belly buttons and buckets of orange fake tan, very footballers’ wives. It’s funny, compared to Denise and her friends, they looked really out of date. But Sasha’s dress was pretty spectacular, red silk, slashed across the breasts and at the stomach. The D4s do love their slashes.’

‘Who’s Sasha?’ Pandora asks.

‘Sorry, Pandora,’ Arietty says, ‘she was head girl, and a real bully. But I have to admit she looked amazing. It was a while before I spotted her. I felt someone staring at me so I turned around and there she was.’

Arietty puts on a snide sounding D4 accent. ‘She said “If it isn’t Little Miss Exotic? If it wasn’t for . . . like, you know, your skin, I never would have recognized you.”’

I snort. ‘Cheeky little minx.’

‘She sounds a right cow,’ Pandora adds.

‘It gets worse, believe me,’ Arietty says. ‘From the way Sasha was slurring her words, I think she’d already had quite a bit to drink. After drinks, we sat down for dinner. Luckily only the top table was seated so I joined Denise’s gang. Then Sasha climbed onto a podium and welcomed us to ‘her’ reunion and then warned us she had lots of juicy gossip for her after-dinner speech. During dinner we chatted about what we were all up to now. Denise is almost qualified as a doctor which is pretty impressive. When I told them where I worked and what I did they all thought it was cool.’

‘Why wouldn’t they?’ I say. ‘It
is
cool.’

She shrugs. ‘I think so. But I guess I was nervous of saying anything because of Sasha’s reaction. Anyway I spent most of the meal telling them about Beatrix and Enid and the gang.’

Arietty pauses as Klaudia arrives with our food. We decided against starters, the desserts in Shoestring are to die for and we all want to leave room.

I tuck quickly into my steak, practically moaning as I chew the tender meat. After several mouthfuls I realize I’m being very rude.

‘Sorry, Arietty,’ I say. ‘I’m ravenous. Tell us more about Denise and the gang. They sound really nice.’

Arietty shrugs. ‘Yeah, they are. But apart from school we don’t have much in common. Although at the end of the evening, Denise did suggest starting a Sasha Davenport hate club, meeting every month to stick pins in a wax doll. Sasha’s speech was pretty appalling.’

‘Go on,’ Pandora says eagerly. ‘What did she say?’

Arietty shifts around in her seat a little, getting comfortable. ‘It all started off innocently enough. But it was clear she’d been laying into the wine at dinner big time. She staggered back onto the podium and thanked the usual people. Then she pulled out this sheet of paper, said it was her gossip list. Admitted she’d spent the previous month googling old girls, checking out their Facebook pages and basically stalking everyone. There was a lot of nervous coughing in the room as you can imagine.’

‘OK, Arietty,’ I say, ‘that’s just freaky.’

‘I know,’ Arietty says. ‘And she didn’t hold back during her speech. First up she read out a list of people who had sent their regrets. One of them was Em Hardman. She read out her email which said she couldn’t come to the reunion ’cause she’d lost a baby recently and wasn’t up to socializing. Sasha read out every word, including some really personal stuff that I’m sure was meant just for her.’

Pandora gasps. ‘Seriously said that? In front of everyone?’

Arietty nods. ‘Yep. But believe me, it gets worse. Sasha spot- ted Denise and waved. She said, “I found a lovely picture of you on the Dublin LGBTQ Pride march last year, Denise.” Then she explained that
LGBTQ
stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning. And she flashed up a picture on this big tv screen of Denise in a curly pink wig, holding a placard saying, “Out and Proud”. Denise was mortified at first, but then everyone started clapping and cheering and yelling, “Good for you, Denise” and I think she was quite touched. But Sasha didn’t look too pleased. I’m sure she thought we’d all be shocked.

‘Then a video clip started playing on the screen. This time it was me, talking to some children at the zoo. The sound wasn’t great so you couldn’t hear what I was saying, but during the clip Beatrix squirts me with water from her trunk and I get drenched. It’s on the Dublin Zoo website. Apparently it’s one of the most popular clips – kids love it.

‘So anyway, Sasha said, “Even the elephants think Arietty smells. You see, Arietty spends her day shovelling elephant crap, don’t you Arietty?”

‘At that stage I’d had enough, so I yelled, “I wish I could shovel some over your head right now, Sasha. You’ve always been full of shit. And you’ve always been a bully and you’re still a bully.”’

‘Go, Arietty!’ Pandora says, and I give Arietty a big pat on the back.

‘What happened then?’ I ask, all ears.

‘She opened her mouth to say something else but one of her D4 friends grabbed her and dragged her off the stage and out of the room. It was pretty dramatic.’

I stare at Arietty. I’ve forgotten all about my food. From the way Pandora’s staring at her too, mouth open, she’s exactly the same.

‘No kidding,’ I say. ‘How long did you stay after that, Arietty?’

‘Not long. After dinner, when everything had died down a bit, I tried to make my way towards the door, but loads of girls came up to me and said hi. Said they’d always been in awe of Sasha, but not any more. And every single one of them said how beautiful I looked and how much they loved the elephant video clip. So in the end it wasn’t such a bad night after all, I’m glad I went. But I hope I never set eyes on Sasha Davenport again.’

I give a low whistle. ‘That’s quite a story, Arietty. Well done for sticking up for yourself, I’m proud of you. Now we’d all better tuck in before our food gets cold.’

Pandora looks a little worried.

‘What is it, sis?’ I ask.

‘I’m just trying to figure out how we write that one up on the Shoestring blog.’

I smile. ‘I think we’ll stick to photographs of Arietty in the Farenze.’

Pandora laughs. ‘Probably best.’

‘So it’s you next, Jules,’ Arietty says, picking up her knife and fork and cutting into her tartlet. ‘To wear the dress I mean. Pandora hung it up somewhere.’

‘In the office,’ Pandora says. ‘Along with the silver belt and the Rick Owens jacket. It’s all safe.’

Arietty is still looking at me. ‘You OK about tomorrow?’

My fingers tingle with nerves. I’d almost forgotten. It’s D-Day – Ed and Lainey’s wedding.

I shrug. ‘After your experience, tomorrow will be a doddle.’

Pandora and Arietty both look at me.

‘What?’ I say. ‘It’s only a wedding.’ But even I know that I’m kidding myself. The steak starts to taste like cardboard in my mouth but I soldier on. At least I’ll look stunning and I’ll make quite the entrance with Declan on my arm. And that’s half the battle.

‘You ready, Jules?’ Declan asks. We’re sitting in his car on the side of the road opposite St Jude’s Church and my hands are shak- ing like a leaf. My stomach was so tight this morning I couldn’t eat a thing. God knows what a glass of champagne would do to me in this state, so it’s just as well I’m teetotal these days.

I’m actually rather proud of myself. It’s been exactly six and a half days since I last had a drink. I can’t deny I’ve had cravings, like at dinner last night, but I managed to stick to soft drinks instead. And in fact being sober while out wasn’t as bad or as scary as I thought it would be. And I didn’t miss the hangover this morning, that’s for sure.

‘One more minute,’ I tell him, then stare out of the window at all the familiar faces passing us by – Lainey’s aunts, uncles and cousins; mutual friends I haven’t seen in a long time; a couple of Lainey’s work colleagues in neat pastel-coloured shift dresses. I’m wearing dark glasses and no one’s spotted me yet.

No sign of Noel, thank God. I never got around to asking Ed, but after the whole Dicey Reilly business, he couldn’t be on the guest list.

‘We’d better get inside before the bridal party arrives,’ Declan says gently. ‘And I think that might be them.’ He nods at the Rolls-Royce that is waiting to pull into the church gates.

My stomach lurches. Declan’s right. It’s now or never. I take a deep breath, open the door and climb out. Declan locks the car and then takes my arm.

‘Ready?’ He gives me a reassuring smile.

‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’

We walk up the path together. I fix my eyes on the church doorway, blocking everything to my right and left, concentrating on looking happy and confident. Having Declan to literally lean on makes all the difference. When Pandora first suggested asking him to be my plus one I thought she was crazy.

‘And why would he do that exactly?’ I asked her.

‘Because he’s a decent guy and he understands about betrayal and keeping up appearances. Go on, ask him, see what he says.’

So I did. I was expecting him to let me down gently, but Pandora was right. After I explained the background, how I just wanted to show my face, prove that Ed and Lainey hadn’t broken me, he said he’d be delighted to be my plus one. There was one small hitch, he had to collect his daughter from a party at four. He explained that things were difficult with his ex-wife at the moment so he had to turn up in person, but he’d happily walk me up the aisle, drive me to the reception and stick around for as long as he could. It was more than I could have hoped for and I’m deeply grateful for the support. He really is one of life’s good guys.

Declan holds tight as we walk into the church.

‘Bride or groom,’ a dark-haired man I don’t recognize asks us. He must be one of Lainey’s English cousins I’ve never met.

The other usher I do know. It’s Danny.

‘Hiya, Jules,’ Danny says gently, leaning down to kiss my cheek. He looks inquiringly at Declan but I don’t introduce them and Danny doesn’t ask.

‘Where do you want to sit, babes?’ Danny says.

‘With Clara if she’s here.’

He shakes his head. ‘She’s been off work all week. Some sort of flu thing.’

‘Then Ed’s side, please,’ I say firmly. I was up all night thinking about the wedding, and where I sit in the church is one thing I
do
have control over, so I’m going to call the shots. Plus I know sitting there will get up Lainey and her sisters’ noses.

And sure enough, as soon as Declan and I sit down halfway up the church on the right-hand side, the whispers start.

‘Who’s that on Julia’s arm?’ I hear one of Lainey’s deaf aunts say a little too loudly. ‘Rather fine-looking chap, isn’t he?’

‘Shush,’ someone tells her, but it’s too late. I can feel several sets of eyes gazing at me and Declan, and I bury my head in the wedding missal.

Declan takes my hand in his and squeezes it. I look at him and smile. He said he’d done lots of amateur dramatics in college and was sure he could pull off ‘deeply in love and besotted’. And sure enough, his eyes are soft and doe-like, and a goofy smile is playing on his lips.

I squeeze his hand back and chuckle to myself. My stomach is still a riot of nerves, but I’m coping.

But then I spot two figures at the top of the church talking to the clergyman. It’s Ed and his best man, his cousin, Harry. Ed looks incredible in a traditional grey morning suit, the sky-blue of his waistcoat making his eyes shine like sapphires. My knees almost buckle.

‘You OK?’ Declan whispers.

‘Talk to me,’ I say frantically. ‘About anything.’

‘You look stunning,’ he says. ‘Pandora’s dress looks amazing on you.’

I don’t correct him. I’m delighted for Pandora that he’s remembered what she was wearing at the ball.

‘It looks better on her,’ I say instead. ‘She’s got the height for it.’

He shrugs. ‘It suits you both in different ways. And I love the jacket. And the hair.’

I smile at him. ‘You say all the right things.’ I’m wearing the same Rick Owens that Arietty wore to her reunion, and, inspired by Arietty’s friends, I asked the hairdresser to give me a 1950s-style bun. In mid-height heels – last thing I want to do is to trip today – the silver Bohinc belt (I was humming and hawing about it this morning, but Pandora insisted, said it really finished off the outfit) and the jacket, I feel pretty good. Pandora helped me with my make up, simple eyes and strong ruby- red lips. She also gave me a stirring pep talk.