“It’s… fantastic,” I say huskily. “Really lovely.”
“Now, come and look at the garden!” says Mum, and I follow her dumbly through to the French windows, where I see a team of uniformed gardeners working away in the flower beds.
“They’re going to plant ‘Luke and Becky’ in pansies!” says Mum. “Just in time for June.” And we’re having a new water feature put in, right by where the entrance to the marquee will be. I saw it in Modern Garden.”
“It sounds… great.”
“And it lights up at night, so when we have the fireworks—”
“What fireworks?” I say, and Mum looks at me in surprise.
“I sent you a fax about the fireworks, Becky! Don’t say you’ve forgotten.”
“No! Of course not!”
My mind flicks back to the pile of faxes Mum’s been sending me, and which I’ve been guiltily thrusting under the bed, some skimmed over, some completely unread.
What have I been doing? Why haven’t I paid attention to what’s been going on?
“Becky, love, you don’t look at all well,” says Mum. “You must be tired after the flight. Come and have a nice cup of coffee.”
We walk into the kitchen, and I feel my insides gripped with new horror.
“Have you installed a new kitchen too?”
“Oh, no!” says Mum gaily. “We just had the units repainted. They look pretty, don’t they? Now. Have a nice croissant. They come from the new bakery.”
She hands me a basket — but I can’t eat. I feel sick.
“Becky?” Mum peers at me. “Is something wrong?”
“No!” I say quickly. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s all… perfect.”
What am I going to do?
“You know… I think I’ll just go and unpack,” I say, and manage a weak smile. “Sort myself out a bit.”
As I close my bedroom door behind me, the weak smile is still pasted to my face, but inside my heart is thumping wildly.
This is not going as planned.
This is not going remotely as planned. New wallpaper? Water features? Fireworks displays? How come I didn’t know about any of this? I should have been more attentive. This is all my own fault. Oh God, oh God…
How can I tell Mum and Dad this has all got to be called off? How can I do it?
I can’t.
But I have to.
But I can’t, I just can’t.
It’s my wedding, I remind myself firmly, trying to regain my New York kick-ass confidence. I can have it where I like.
But the words ring false in my brain, making me wince. Maybe that was true at the beginning. Before anything had been done, before any effort had been made. But now… this isn’t just my wedding anymore. This is Mum’s and Dad’s gift to me. It’s the biggest present they’ve ever given me in my life, and they’ve invested it with all the love and care they can muster.
And I’m proposing to reject it. To say thanks, but no thanks.
What have I been thinking?
Heart thumping, I reach into my pocket for the notes I scribbled on the plane, trying to remember all my justifications.
Reasons why our wedding should be at the Plaza:
1. Wouldn’t you love a trip to New York, all expenses paid?
2. The Plaza is a fantastic hotel.
3. You won’t have to make any effort.
4. A marquee would only mess up the garden.
5. You won’t have to invite Auntie Sylvia.
6. You get free Tiffany frames.
They seemed so convincing when I was writing them. Now they seem like jokes. Mum and Dad don’t know anything about the Plaza. Why would they want to fly off to some snooty hotel they’ve never clapped eyes on? Why would they want to give up hosting the wedding they’ve always dreamed of? I’m their only daughter. Their one and only child.
So… what am I going to do?
I sit staring at the page, breathing hard, letting my thoughts fight it out. I’m scrabbling desperately for a solution, a loophole to wriggle through, unwilling to give up until I’ve tried every last possibility. Round and round, over the same old ground.
“Becky?”
Mum comes in and I give a guilty start, crumpling the list in my hand.
“Hi!” I say brightly. “Ooh. Coffee. Lovely.”
“It’s decaffeinated,” says Mum, handing me a mug reading You Don’t Have to Be Mad to Organize a Wedding But Your Mother Does. “I thought maybe you were drinking decaffeinated these days.”
“No,” I say in surprise. “But it doesn’t matter.”
“And how are you feeling?” Mum sits down next to me and I surreptitiously transfer my screwed-up piece of paper from one hand to the other. “A little bit tired? Sick, too, probably.”
“Not too bad.” I give a slightly heavier sigh than I meant to. “The airline food was pretty grim, though.”
“You must keep your strength up!” Mum squeezes my arm. “Now, I’ve got something for you, darling!” She hands me a piece of paper. “What do you think?”
I unfold the paper and stare at it in bewilderment. It’s house details. A four-bedroom house in Oxshott, to be precise.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Mum’s face is glowing. “Look at all the features!”
“You’re not going to move, are you?”
“Not for us, silly! You’d be just round the corner from us! Look, it’s got a built-in barbecue, two en-suite bathrooms…”
“Mum, we live in New York.”
“You do at the moment. But you won’t want to stay in New York forever, will you? Not in the long term.”
There’s a sudden thread of concern in her voice; and although she’s smiling, I can see the tension in her eyes. I open my mouth to answer — then realize, to my own surprise, that Luke and I haven’t ever talked properly about the long term.
I suppose I’ve always assumed that we’ll come back to Britain one day. But when?
“You’re not planning to stay there for good, surely?” she adds, and gives a little laugh.
“I don’t know,” I say confusedly. “I don’t know what we want to do.”
“You couldn’t bring up a family in that poky flat! You’ll want to come home! You’ll want a nice house with a garden! Especially now.”
“Now what?”
“Now…” She makes a euphemistic circling gesture.
“What?”
“Oh, Becky.” Mum sighs. “I can understand if you’re a little… shy about telling people. But it’s all right, darling! These days, it’s perfectly acceptable. There’s no stigma!”
“Stigma? What are you—”
“The only thing we’ll need to know”—she pauses delicately—“is how much to let the dress out by? For the day?”
Let out the dress? What on…
Hang on.
“Mum! You haven’t got the idea that I’m… I’m…” I make the same euphemistic gesture that she made.
“You’re not?” Mum’s face falls in disappointment.
“No! Of course I’m not! Why on earth would you think that?”
“You said you had something important to discuss with us!” says Mum, defensively taking a sip of coffee. “It wasn’t Luke, it wasn’t your job, and it wasn’t your bank manager. And Suzie’s having a baby, and you two girls always do things together, so we assumed…”
“Well, I’m not, OK? And I’m not on drugs either, before you ask.”
“So, then, what did you want to tell us?” She puts her coffee down and looks at me anxiously. “What was so important that you had to come home?”
There’s silence in the bedroom. My fingers tighten around my mug.
This is it. This is my lead-in moment. This is my opportunity to confess everything. If I’m going to do it, I have to do it right now. Before they go any further. Before they spend any more money.
“Well, it’s…” I clear my throat. “It’s just that…”
I stop, and take a sip of coffee. My throat is
tight and I feel slightly sick. How can I possibly do this?
I close my eyes and allow the glitter of the Plaza to flash before my eyes, trying to summon up all the excitement and glamour again. The gilded rooms, the plushiness everywhere. Images of myself sweeping around that huge shiny dance floor before an admiring crowd.
But somehow… it doesn’t seem quite as overpowering as it did before. Somehow it doesn’t seem as convincing.
Oh God. What do I want? What do I really want?
“I knew it!”
I look up to see Mum gazing at me in dismay. “I knew it! You and Luke have fallen out, haven’t you?”
“Mum—”
“I just knew it! I said to your father several times, ‘I can feel it in my bones, Becky’s coming home to call off the wedding.’ He said nonsense, but I could just feel it, here.” Mum clasps her chest. “A mother knows these things. And I was right, wasn’t I? You do want to cancel the wedding, don’t you?”
I stare at her dumbly. She knows I came home to cancel the wedding. How does she know that?
“Becky? Are you all right?” Mum puts an arm round my shoulders. “Darling, listen. We won’t mind. All Dad and I want is the best for you. And if that means calling off the wedding, then that’s what we’ll do. Love, you mustn’t go ahead with it unless you’re 100 percent sure—110 percent!”
“But… but you’ve made so much effort…” I mumble. “You’ve spent all this money…”
“That doesn’t matter! Money doesn’t matter!” She squeezes me tight. “Becky, if you have any doubts at all, we’ll cancel straight away. We just want you to be happy. That’s all we want.”
Mum sounds so sympathetic and understanding, for a few instants I can’t speak. Here she is, offering me the very thing I came home to ask for. Without any questions, without any recriminations. Without anything but love and support.
As I look at her kind, cozy, familiar face, I know, beyond any doubt, that it’s impossible.
“It’s all right,” I manage at last. “Mum, Luke and I haven’t fallen out. The… the wedding’s still on.” I rub my face. “You know, I think I’ll just go outside and… and get some air.”
As I step out into the garden, a couple of of the hired gardeners look up and say hello, and I smile weakly back. I feel completely paranoid, as though my secret is so huge, I must somehow be giving it away. As though people must be able to see it, bulging out of me, or floating above my head in bubble captions. I have another wedding planned.For the same day as this one.My parents have no idea.Yes, I know I’m in trouble.Yes, I know I’ve been stupid.Oh, just piss off and leave me alone, can’t you see how completely stressed out I am?
“Hello, Becky.”
I give a start of surprise and turn round. Standing at the garden fence in the next-door garden, looking mournfully at me, is Tom.
“Tom! Hi!” I say, trying not to give away my shock at his appearance.
But… blimey. He looks awful, all pale and miserable and wearing absolutely terrible clothes. Not that Tom’s ever been a style king — but while he was with Lucy, he did acquire a veneer of OK-ness. In fact, his hair went through quite a groovy stage. But now it’s back to greasy hair and the maroon jumper Janice gave him five Christmases ago.
“Sorry to hear about…” I pause awkwardly.
“That’s all right.”
He hunches his shoulders miserably and looks around at all the gardeners digging and clipping away behind me. “So, how are the wedding preparations going?”
“Oh… fine,” I say brightly. “You know, it’s all lists at this stage. Things to do, things to check, little details to… to… finalize…”
Like which continent to get married in. Oh God. Oh God.
“So… er, how are your parents?”
“I remember the preparations for our wedding.” Tom shakes his head. “Seems a million years ago now. Different people.”
“Oh, Tom.” I bite my lip. “I’m sorry. Let’s change the—”
“You know the worst thing?” says Tom, ignoring me.
“Er…” Your hair, I nearly say.
“The worst thing is, I thought I understood Lucy. We understood each other. But all the time…” He breaks off, reaches in his pocket for a handkerchief, and blows his nose. “I mean, now I look back, of course I can see there were signs.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes,” says Tom. “I just didn’t pick up on them.”
“Such as…” I prompt gently, trying not to give away how curious I am.
“Well.” He thinks for a moment. “Like the way she kept saying if she had to live in Reigate for one more minute she’d shoot herself.”
“Right,” I say, slightly taken aback.
“Then there was the screaming fit she had in Furniture Village…”
“Screaming fit?”
“She began yelling, ‘I’m twenty-seven! I’m twenty-seven! What am I doing here?’ Security had to come in the end, and calm her down.”
“But I don’t understand. I thought she loved Reigate! You two seemed so…”
Smug is the word I’m searching for.
“So… happy!”
“She was happy until all the wedding presents were unwrapped,” says Tom thoughtfully. “Then… it was like she suddenly looked around and realized… this was her life now. And she didn’t like what she saw. Including me, I expect.”
“Oh, Tom.”
“She started saying she was sick of the suburbs, and she wanted to have a bit of life while she was young. But I thought, we’ve just repainted the house, we’re halfway through the new conservatory, this isn’t a good time to move—” He looks up, his eyes full of misery. “I should have listened, shouldn’t I? Maybe I should even have got the tattoo.”
“She wanted you to get a tattoo?”
“To match hers.”
Lucy Webster with a tattoo! I almost want to laugh. But then, as I look at Tom’s miserable face, I feel a surge of anger. OK, Tom and I haven’t always seen eye to eye over the years. But he doesn’t deserve this. He is what he is. And if Lucy wasn’t happy with that, then why did she get married to him in the first place?
“Tom, you can’t blame yourself,” I say firmly. “It sounds like Lucy was having her own problems.”
“Do you think?”
“Of course. She was very lucky to have you. More fool her, not appreciating it.” Impulsively I lean across the fence and give him a hug. As I draw away again, he stares at me with huge eyes, like a dog.
“You’ve always understood me, Becky.”
“Well, we’ve known each other a long time.”
“No one else knows me like you do.”
His hands are still round my shoulders, and he doesn’t seem about to let go, so I step backward under the pretext of gesturing at the house, where a man in overalls is painting a window frame.
“Have you seen all the work Mum and Dad are having done? It’s incredible.”
“Oh, yes. They’re really pushing the boat out. I heard about the fireworks display. You must be very excited.”
“I’m really looking forward to it,” I say automatically. It’s what I’ve said at once, every time anyone’s mentioned the wedding to me. But now, as I watch our old, familiar house being smartened up, like a lady putting on makeup, I start to feel a strange sensation. A strange tugging at my heart.
With a sudden pang, I realize I am looking forward to it.
I’m looking forward to seeing our garden all bedecked with balloons. To seeing Mum all dressed up and happy. Getting ready in my own bedroom, at my own dressing table. Saying good-bye to my old life properly. Not in some impersonal suite in a hotel… but here. At home, where I grew up.
While I was in New York, I couldn’t begin to envisage this wedding. It seemed so tiny and humdrum in comparison to the glamour of the Plaza. But now that I’m here, it’s the Plaza that’s starting to seem unreal. It’s the Plaza that’s slipping away, like an exotic, far-off holida
y, which I’m already starting to forget. It’s been a lot of fun playing the part of a New York princess bride, tasting sumptuous dishes and discussing vintage champagne and million-dollar flower arrangements. But that’s the point. I’ve been playing a part.
The truth is, this is where I belong. Right here in this English garden I’ve known all my life.
So what am I going to do?
Am I really going to…
I can barely even think it.
Am I really even contemplating canceling that whole, huge, expensive wedding?
Just the thought of it makes my insides shrivel up.
“Becky?” Mum’s voice penetrates my thoughts and I look up dazedly, to see her standing at the patio doors, holding a tablecloth. “Becky! There’s a phone call for you inside.”
“Oh. OK. Who is it?”
“Someone called Robin,” says Mum. “Hello, Tom, love!”
“Robin?” I frown puzzledly as I walk back toward the house. “Robin who?”
I’m not sure I know any Robins. Apart from Robin Anderson who used to work for Investment Monthly, but I hardly knew him, really—
“I didn’t catch the surname, I’m afraid,” says Mum. “But she seems very nice. She said she was calling from New York…”
Robyn?
I can’t move. I’m pinioned with horror to the patio steps.
Robyn is on the phone… here?
This is all wrong. Robyn doesn’t belong in this world, she belongs in New York. This is like when people go back in time and mess up World War II.
“Is she a friend?” Mum’s saying innocently. “We’ve just had a nice little chat about the wedding…”
The ground wobbles beneath me.
“What… what did she say?” I manage.
“Nothing in particular!” Mum stares at me in surprise. “She asked me what color I was going to wear… and she kept saying something odd about violinists. You don’t want violinists at the wedding, do you, love?”
“Of course not!” My voice rises shrilly. “What would I want violinists for?”
“Becky, darling, are you all right?” Mum peers at me. “I’ll tell her you’ll call back, shall I?”
“No! Don’t talk to her again! I mean… it’s fine. I’ll take it.”