White Wedding Read online

  ‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ said Max. She herself had never wanted children. Her healthy womb was going to be wasted and she suddenly felt really guilty about it.

  ‘Oh come on, Max, how were you to know? Anyway, having kids is a privilege, not a right,’ said Bel kindly. ‘There’s always adoption for people like me, so don’t worry. It’s just one of those things that can’t be helped.’ She smiled and sounded a lot stronger than she felt; she always did when she was on that particular subject. She had honed the hiding of her true feelings about it to a fine art.

  ‘Oh I see the adverts are over.’ Bel alerted Max to the television in the corner as part three of the gypsy-bride programme started.

  ‘How can she possibly wee in that frock?’ asked Bel, spellbound by the antics on the screen as the bride’s mother and three of the bridesmaids were lifting the big dress over the back of a chair so the bride was able to sit down at the top table. Those bridesmaids, with cleavages bigger than Pat Butcher’s backside, were bursting out of their harlot-red corset tops. Bel imagined that shade of red against Shaden’s golden hair. There was no doubt she’d be the true centre of attention in her strawberry-coloured dress. As she so deserved to be.

  ‘Look at the bride’s hair,’ yelled Max. ‘That wig is taller than the Empire State Building. I want one.’ But it wasn’t just the wig that Max wanted, it was the dress, the flowers, the cake – it was everything. There was a seismic rumble within Max. All those stored visions of her as a princess bride were shaking off their cobwebs and preparing to burst out of her head into the real world.

  ‘You’d better tell Stuart to buy a defibrillator then because he’s going to need one if he sees you coming towards him like that when he’s expecting a woman in a beige suit,’ chuckled Violet.

  ‘Men are easy to get round,’ said Bel, stuffing in more tortilla chips. ‘Just give them a blow-job and they forget everything they’ve said before.’ She laughed, and Violet noticed how strangely bitter she sounded.

  Max sipped at her wine and thought that in seven weeks exactly this would be her last night as a single woman. That didn’t give her a lot of time to change her plans – a thought that was both scary and exhilarating at the same time. Max was at her best whenever an improbable challenge lay ahead of her.

  ‘Violet, are you still going up to White Wedding tomorrow?’ asked Bel.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I’ll come with you if that’s okay.’

  ‘Course you can.’

  ‘Don’t leave me out,’ said Max. ‘The beige suit is toast as from today.’

  ‘I’ll pick you up at half-past nine, shall I?’ said Violet to Bel. ‘Then we’ll both come round for you, Max.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. That’s too far out of your way,’ Max protested.

  But Violet insisted. ‘No, really. I don’t mind. It’s a lovely drive up there.’

  ‘I’ve nothing better to do either,’ added Bel.

  ‘Okay, then,’ said Max. ‘Bel, since this is your official hen night, totally shite as it is, I think we ought to have a toast.’

  ‘Oh yes, we must toast you,’ agreed Violet, raising her glass. ‘ To our lovely new friend Bel.’

  ‘To Bel, may your wedding day be one to remember for ever.’

  Bel raised her glass and chinked it against theirs. ‘I think I can safely guarantee that it will be,’ she nodded with a syrupy smile.

  ‘What the heck is that mother of the bride wearing?’ laughed Violet, catching sight of a huge woman on the television in a banana-yellow-and-white spotted dress that barely covered her knickers. The woman’s spray-tanned skin was the colour of a teak sideboard. ‘Do you think your mum would dress like that, Max, if you really do have a gypsy wedding?’

  ‘There’s no “if” about it,’ Max said. And once Max had spoken, it would happen – and on no small scale. Max by name and max by nature. When Max put a plan into action, nothing stood in her way.

  She sighed, drifting back into the fabulous world of the young traveller brides. All Stuart’s plans for a small no-fuss registry-office wedding had been blasted into oblivion that evening. In place of the intended simple suit already hanging in her wardrobe, she was going to source a dress like no other. She saw acres of net and fairy lights that lit up as she glided down the aisle. She saw a sugar-iced palace cake, Kew Garden-sized flower displays. She imagined herself spray-tanned not so much to a sun-kissed mocha shade but to sun-shagged mahogany, and waving to passers-by in a carriage led by a team of white horses.

  Bel watched the gypsy bride posing for photographs, her dress and flowers filling even a wide-angled lens. As mad as it appeared, it was still a real wedding, for a real bride in real love with her man.

  As for Violet, she gulped at the emotion in young gypsy Margaret’s face as she turned to kiss her handsome floppy-haired Joseph. They looked truly besotted with each other, which was just as well because they were expected to be together for the rest of their lives. Marriage was for good. Till death us do part. Or maybe even for eternity. An ice-cold shiver accompanied that thought.

  Chapter 2

  ‘Where have you been until this time?’ Glyn called, leaning out of the open window.

  ‘What are you doing, still up?’ Violet raised her hand to wave a small goodbye to the taxi driver then she entered through the security door, taking the stairs at no rushed speed up to the first-floor flat. Glyn was waiting to greet her dressed in his faithful blue dressing gown, which had been voluminous on him when he bought it last year but now had barely an overlap of material at the front.

  ‘You know I can’t sleep until you’re back home safely. There are so many nutters out there. Doesn’t help that I’ve just been watching a Crimewatch special about a rapist on the loose in Sheffield.’ He ushered her in through the door and helped her off with her coat.

  ‘You worry too much, Glyn,’ said Violet, as he leaned over and kissed her cheek, all smiles now that she was safely back in his world. Once upon a time she used to melt thinking about how much he cared and worried about her.

  ‘I’ve just put the kettle on.’

  Violet knew that kettle would have been on a constant boil for at least an hour in readiness for her return.

  ‘Want some toast as well?’

  ‘No, thanks. We had a Mexican at Bel’s. I’m full to bursting.’

  Glyn stuck his head near to her face and sniffed. ‘I know, I can smell the garlic. Lucky for you I like it second-hand.’ He grinned and tweaked her cheek, then went back to the job of brewing a fresh pot of tea. She noticed he had a huge plate of biscuits waiting on the coffee table as well. These days his life seemed so food-orientated. She often wondered if he was trying to fatten her up so much that she wouldn’t be able to get out of the door.

  ‘So tell me all the details,’ Glyn said, taking the milk out of the fridge. ‘I suppose it was all girly wedding talk.’

  ‘More or less,’ replied Violet. ‘We watched that My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding programme on the television.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And that was it really. Talked a bit.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Things.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  Violet shrugged. ‘Can’t really remember, to be honest. All forgettable stuff.’

  Glyn brought the tea into the lounge in his and hers mugs, a present from his mother. ‘Want a biccy to dunk?’

  She took the tea. She didn’t want it but it was easier just to accept it and sip at it, otherwise there might have been an inquisition on the subject of why she didn’t want a drink.

  ‘Thanks, but I’ll pass on the biscuit.’

  ‘It’s only one biscuit, Letty. You’ll not get fat on a jam ring.’

  ‘I said I’m stuffed, Glyn,’ said Violet.

  ‘Oh. I nipped to the shop and got them in especially,’ said Glyn, his smile falling into a glum downward arc.

  Violet watched his bottom lip start to curl over. She reached out and took a chocolat
e finger to pacify him. The sunshine flooded back into his expression again as he stared at her, relishing the sight of her eating one of the biscuits that he had so lovingly bought for her. When she was a little girl, Violet used to dream of being looked at so intently by a man.

  ‘How tired are you?’ he asked.

  Oh God. ‘Very,’ Violet replied, forcing out a yawn. ‘And I’ve got a full day ahead of me tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh. Okay,’ he sighed. Again that little cloud had floated over his head. ‘I put the electric blanket on tonight as it’s a bit chilly. It’ll be lovely and extra-cosy in bed.’

  Violet tried not to roll her eyes. She hated climbing into a bed that was already warm. She liked cool cotton sheets and sleeping with the window open so that a breeze could waft over her during the night. Glyn always had the heating turned up to full blast and all the windows closed. Violet found it hard to breathe in his flat sometimes.

  She went through the pretence of drinking some more before taking her mug to the sink and pouring the tea down the drain. Then she sneaked her half-uneaten biscuit into the flip-top bin in the corner.

  ‘I’ll just have a quick shower,’ she announced, heading for the bathroom.

  ‘Want some company?’ Glyn winked at her and snatched another biscuit.

  ‘Not worth it, I’ll only be in for two minutes. I’m too tired to stay in there for long. See you in bed,’ she called briskly.

  She would rather have had a long hot soak in the bath, but at least by saying that she was taking a quick shower she had more chance of some privacy. Still, she half expected to feel the waterproof curtain shift and then his naked body pressing into hers from behind. But, for once, that didn’t happen. He was waiting for her in bed, though; ready to slip his arms round her and cuddle into her back until he fell asleep. Then she shifted ever so carefully away from his sweat-sticky fleshy stomach to the furthest edge of the bed.

  Chapter 3

  Max floated home on a vision of billowing net, silk, satin and white horses. She swaggered up the drive to the front door of her double-fronted detached house imagining that she was swathed in the world’s biggest frock, the train stretching so far behind her that she needed binoculars to see the end of it. Hundreds of lights were sewn into the material, their glow soft and as fuzzily gorgeous as a soft-focus portrait. Gypsy Margaret had pink flashing flowers sewn on her dress. Max imagined butterflies for herself, with such vividly coloured wings that they showed up on Google Earth. At almost six foot tall, with curves that made the Alps look like a Dutch landscape, Maxine McBride was not built for subtle. And there was no place for anything discreet at a gypsy wedding.

  Stuart was still up when she got home. He was watching a documentary about some old cricket player who had recently died. Max felt so happy about her newly revised plans for her wedding that she almost squashed her fiancé when she plonked herself on the sofa beside him and threw herself at him for a kiss.

  ‘You’ve been on the vino, I see,’ he laughed. ‘How many glasses have you had, then?’

  ‘Not that many,’ she replied. ‘I’m just high on life.’

  ‘Have you eaten or shall we be really naughty and order a pizza?’

  ‘Oh Stuart, I couldn’t fit in so much as a Tic Tac,’ said Max, puffing out her cheeks. ‘Bel made a very large and garlicky chilli.’ Then she breathed on him and he pretended to choke.

  ‘Wonderful,’ he said. ‘I look forward to having relations with you tonight, then.’

  ‘Ooh, are we doing it?’ squealed Max. ‘I’ll go and eat a tube of toothpaste, shall I?’

  She made to get up, but Stuart pulled her back.

  ‘Don’t you go anywhere,’ he said. ‘A mere smidgen of garlic won’t put me off rogering my wife-to-be.’

  ‘So what’s put you in such a randy mood?’ chuckled Max as Stuart moved in for a snog. ‘You must watch programmes about dead cricketers more often. Can we buy some on Blu-Ray? Does that constitute cricket porn?’

  ‘What’s put me in a randy mood is actually seeing you for once. I’ve almost forgotten what you look like,’ said Stuart, pushing his lips against Max’s. ‘If you aren’t working you’re talking weddings with your new mates.’

  ‘I’ll make it up to you,’ said Max, thinking what Bel had said about blow-jobs being the way to a man’s heart. Or at least, so she hoped, to the changing of it.

  Chapter 4

  Bel was unloading the dishwasher when her mobile went off. She picked it up and looked at the name on the screen: Richard.

  She pressed the ‘connect’ button. ‘Hi,’ she said sweetly.

  ‘So, had a nice time tonight?’ he asked.

  ‘Lovely, thank you. You can’t go wrong with food, wine and girly gossip. What about you? What have you been doing?’

  ‘I’ve been doing some very boring work. Friday night and I’ve been number-crunching. Can you believe?’

  ‘Of course I believe you,’ Bel’s laugh tinkled down the receiver. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Shall I come over and give you one?’

  ‘Naughty, Richard,’ purred Bel. ‘You know perfectly well there is a bonk embargo on us until after the wedding.’

  ‘But Bel, my knackers are the size of basketballs.’

  ‘No buts. Think how good it will be on the wedding night. Think about me unbuttoning your shirt and kissing your chest.’

  ‘I’d stop talking like that if I were you,’ replied Richard breathlessly. ‘It’s cruel.’

  Bel slipped into full seductive Fenella Fielding mode and lasciviously gave Richard a few more examples of how good their wedding night was going to be. She enjoyed teasing him. Boy, was she was going to blow his head off next week.

  She put down the phone after working him up to such a pitch that his head – and other bodily parts – were in danger of exploding. She relished the thought of him wanting her and counting off the days until she did all the things she had just promised. Richard couldn’t even imagine the half of what was waiting in store for him on their wedding day.

  Chapter 5

  Violet tried to sneak out of bed without waking Glyn, but failed, as usual.

  ‘Come back to bed,’ he yawned, attempting to pull her into his chest.

  ‘I have to get up and go wedding-dress hunting.’ She shrugged off his hold but he didn’t seem to mind because the reason for her desertion pleased him.

  ‘I can’t wait to be married to you and for you to be Mrs Violet Leach,’ he said as she gathered up her clothes. When she didn’t say the same back to him, he sat up in bed and prompted her.

  ‘Well? You’re supposed to say, “I can’t wait to be married to you either, Mr Leach.”’

  ‘Of course,’ said Violet with a tut. ‘You know that.’

  ‘Men need to hear the words just as much as women do, you know.’ He sank his head back on to the pillow. ‘Sometimes . . .’ he began, then stopped with a heavy sigh.

  ‘Sometimes what, Glyn?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, in a sad low voice. The word trailed in the air like a hook in the water with a big fat worm on it waiting for the fish to bite. But Violet was in no mood for a ‘why the dramatic pause’ game and took herself into the bathroom to get washed and dressed.

  When she returned to the bedroom for her shoes she found Glyn still staring up at the ceiling with that glum expression on his face. She tried to ignore the accompanying small-but-meant-to-be-heard sighs and said breezily, ‘Right, I’m off. I’ll see you later.’

  ‘What time?’ His head turned slowly to her. She saw that his eyes looked a little watery.

  ‘Oh it may take three hours, possibly four. I’ll ring you if I’m going to be late.’

  ‘You could be gone four hours?’ Glyn’s eyebrows knotted together.

  ‘Yes. I’ve got to go to the shop after the dress hunt. I’m meeting a painter up there, remember? I’ll be back for lunch.’

  ‘Well, I’ll cook us something really nice.’ Glyn held out his arms for a hug. Violet
leaned over him and turned her mouth away abruptly when he tried to kiss it.

  ‘Watch out – I’ve just put my lipstick on,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll kiss your cheek, then.’ He studied her face as they drew apart. ‘Is that a new shade of lipstick? It’s very bright.’

  ‘Yes, it’s new. I wouldn’t have said it was bright, though,’ said Violet.

  ‘What was wrong with the old colour?’

  Violet tried not to react. It was hard sometimes not to scream at Glyn.

  ‘Nothing was wrong with it. I wanted a change.’

  As soon as she shut the flat door, Violet knew that Glyn’s brain would be over-analysing why she had veered from the path of neutral colours and ventured into the realm of darker shades of lippy. She expected he would have devised a list of questions about it by the time she got home.

  Glyn carried on staring up at the bedroom ceiling and listened to the sound of Violet’s car driving off. The question whirling round in his head was: why was she wearing a different lipstick? What did it mean? He threw himself out of bed and dragged open the curtains to cast some light into the room while he searched through Violet’s drawers to see what else she had bought recently that was different. He knew something was amiss. And he would find out what it was. It never crossed his mind that a new lipstick could be anything as simple as an act of rebellion against a corset-tight existence.

  Chapter 6

  ‘Your lift’s here,’ said Stuart, hearing a car horn beep outside. He pulled back the blind and waved at Violet and Bel. He saw two hands flapping back at him.

  ‘Ooh lovely,’ said Max. ‘Quick, kiss me before I go.’ She threw her arms round him. They were on eye level with each other when she was in her heels, although her darkest-red hair piled up in its customary bun gave her the final height advantage.