White Wedding (41 page)

‘Were you nervous, marrying Grandad, Nan?’

Nan tilted her head back and conjured up a host of warm old memories, and they, at least, were still as sharp as the day they were made.

‘Nice nervous,’ she responded with a nostalgic grin. ‘I was so in love. It couldn’t come fast enough for me. I took that aisle in leaps and bounds. I shall look forward
to seeing him again. I bet he says, “Nanette Flockton, where have you been till this bloody time?”’ and she laughed. ‘Eternity with your grandad still wouldn’t be long
enough. I miss that man every day of my life.’

An eternity with Glyn. Violet felt as if her head was a cake mix in a blender.

‘You know it means a lot for me to see you settled before I go,’ said Nan, as Violet drank the coffee and hoped it would push down the rising emotion in her throat. ‘He is good
to you – Glyn – isn’t he? He looks after you, doesn’t he?’

‘Oh yes, he looks after me,’ said Violet, with no warmth in her voice.

‘I wish he had a bit more spark to him but I know he loves you a lot.’

‘Yes,’ said Violet.

‘I’m so looking forward to the wedding,’ said Nan with a chuckle. ‘So is your mum. Oh I must tell you. I’ve got an outfit for the wedding. It cost me nearly two
hundred pounds.’

‘Oh Nan,’ said Violet, not sure she could hold herself back from crying any longer. She felt as if her body was cracking and her tears were going to spurt through the faults at any
moment.

‘Will you make me another coffee, love? The one you’ve just made was far too strong for my tastes,’ said Nan.

And Violet knew that her nan was slipping away from her fast. Violet’s constants were changing. She was losing hope of ever escaping the quicksand that her life had become.
And life
without hope is a living death
.

Glyn snatched up the plates of half-eaten lasagne and scraped them roughly into the bin. Then he up-ended the almost full salad bowl on top of it instead of putting it in the
fridge.

Of course he knew that Violet didn’t want to marry him. He knew that he had railroaded her into it, but he had done that because he also knew that she would grow to love him again. No one
would ever care for or cherish her like he would.

He could tell straight away when he saw Pav that he would use women and leave them heartbroken. Most men did, especially the good-looking ones. He remembered how fragile Violet was when he first
met her, crushed by the ex who had left for her someone else. In fact his last five girlfriends had all been mashed by men and he had loved them and given them back their faith before they, in
their turn, dumped him so cruelly. He had been determined from the first that Violet wouldn’t do that to him. So when he felt the pattern begin to repeat, he made sure that it would not end
the same way as the others. What was wrong with women? They wanted someone who wouldn’t hit them, would love them, put them on a pedestal, cuddle them in bed, and then when they found someone
like that they ended up dumping him for another man. For someone like fucking
Pav
.

Richard had a meeting on the Wednesday evening, so suggested that he and Bel have lunch in Leeds instead. He knew of a very swish new restaurant he was keen to try out, and
there was no one he would rather try it out with – so he said.

The last time they had been to Leeds together was when they picked their wedding rings, Bel recalled. They’d had dinner at the Hilton and energetic sex afterwards in a suite upstairs.

Lunch was very swish, even if the salmon portion was the size of a tadpole, served with a single asparagus spear. Maybe the restaurant owners didn’t think anyone would notice the
ridiculously small – but ludicrously expensive – portions if they dressed the walls in sumptuous red silk and concentrated all their efforts on the wine list. Bel felt as hungry when
she left it as when she’d entered.

They strolled around the arcades like they did on the wedding-ring-buying day. There was a large knot of people gathered outside Quillers, a small independent bookshop.

‘They must be doing a signing,’ sniffed Richard, turning the other way. He had no interest in books or authors.

‘Ooh let’s see who it is,’ said Bel, tugging at his sleeve.

She couldn’t see at first because there were too many people. Then she spotted the poster.

Bel felt her hands prickle. Dan Regent was in there, behind that glass window. Then a couple in front of his signing desk moved and she saw him. He was talking to a quivery woman who was holding
out her book for him to enscribe. Bel’s whole body started to vibrate from a chemical rush. He’s had a haircut, she thought. It wasn’t as wild as it was when she had encountered
him in Emily.
Emily, where they had laughed at Ricky Gervais and dipped cheese toasties into soup, where they had waged war over a tin opener – and where he had once nearly kissed her
after a cushion fight
. She watched as he held his head at an angle, listening patiently to the twittering fan, and felt herself smiling – inside and out.

She tapped lightly on the window and he turned towards her. She saw his eyes widen, a grin appear, watched him spring from behind the table, manoeuvre himself through the crowd and throw
apologies behind him as he did so, and then he was there outside on the pavement, in front of her, his hands on her shoulders.

‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t Jane Eyre herself.’

‘Strangled any brides recently?’ she smiled up at him, sounding more composed than she felt. Her heart appeared to have traded places with her cochlea and was booming in her
ears.

‘It’s so good to see you,’ he said, his eyes grinning as much as the lovely curve of his mouth was.

‘You too,’ she said, thinking, how could I ever have imagined you were a loony psychopath? His eyes were gentle and shining and looking at her with sheer undisguised delight.

‘Are you—’ he began, then his eyes shifted focus to the man who had just appeared behind Bel and who didn’t look that happy to see another man’s hands on his
wife’s shoulders.

Dan’s arms dropped to his side. Bel thought she saw the light fade in his eyes, as if a dimmer switch in them had just been turned down.

‘Dan, this is Richard,’ she felt obliged to add, ‘my husband.’

Oh God, she hoped Dan didn’t hit him.

‘Richard, this is Dan. He’s an . . . author friend of Dad’s.’

‘Hi,’ said Dan, making no attempt to hold out his hand. There was a stiffness to his jaw that hadn’t been there seconds ago.

‘Hello,’ returned Richard, politely but cool. Then he swivelled his head round imperiously and looked bored.

‘Well, I’d better get back inside,’ said Dan, taking a step backwards. ‘To my adoring fans.’

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Bel, not wanting him to go.

‘It’s been really great seeing you again,’ he said, flicking his eyes towards Richard. ‘I’m happy for you.’

No, I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet, she wanted to shout, not that she could really do that with Richard at the side of her, his hand now possessively on her arm.

‘Take care,’ said Dan – and he was gone, swallowed up in the crowds inside the book shop. Bel felt as if the temperature around her had dropped by twenty degrees.

‘Who’s that, did you say?’ said Richard.

‘He’s an author called John North,’ said Bel, drifting reluctantly away from the bookshop behind Richard. She tried to catch another glimpse of Dan through the window but there
were too many people standing round the desk.

‘Never heard of him,’ Richard sniffed.

‘Let’s go for a coffee,’ said Bel, hoping to divert her chaotic thoughts with cake.

‘Okay, where?’

‘There’s a lovely little shop down by the old post office,’ said Bel, steering Richard in that direction.

‘What, here?’ he said, when they arrived at it. His nose wrinkled at the shabby facade and the blackboard menu swinging at the side of the door.

‘I know it doesn’t look much from the outside but the cakes are delicious. I always come here when I’m in the centre.’

‘There’s the Queens Hotel nearby. If you must insist on having afternoon tea that would be a better place, surely?’

‘I’m not bothered about a posh afternoon tea,’ Bel pushed open the door to the café. ‘You’ll love it. They do the best coffee and walnut cake in the
world.’

‘Coffee and walnut cake? Are you sure you’ve got the right person, Bel?’ Richard snickered. ‘Come on, let’s go to the Queens. It’s just over there.’

Bel let the door close and allowed Richard steer her to the Queens. But she had no appetite for the tiny macaroons and minuscule scone rounds that came with the tea. Because it wasn’t just
about the cake.

Violet had not managed to visit Carousel at the weekend because Nan had fallen, sprained her wrist and shaken herself up and Violet had spent a large chunk of Saturday sitting
in the hospital with her, and then keeping her company at home on Sunday. Nan appeared to be fading before her eyes. She looked as tiny and frail as a spring chick.

When Violet returned to her ice-cream parlour on Monday, she’d found that Pav must have been working solidly over the weekend. The mural was almost complete; it was almost time for him to
go. He had not turned up that day, or for the two days after. As Violet made test batches of ice cream she keenly felt his absence, though she knew it was going to be something that she would have
to get used to.

The shop was beautiful but Violet had little energy to appreciate it at the moment. All she could think was that she felt as trapped as one of the horses that Pav had drawn on her wall –
destined to go round in circles in one direction only, operated by someone else’s will, never riding free.

Violet locked up shop and wondered what she had to go home to because she’d had a very strange call from Glyn at eleven that morning. Did she have a favourite font, he’d asked. She
didn’t but answered ‘French Script’ to satisfy him because she’d just used that for her menus and it was the first one that came to mind.

Whatever Violet imagined would be waiting for her fell short by a golden mile. She parked the car and got out. When she looked up it was to see Glyn’s face at the window. He was grinning
and waving at her to hurry up.

‘I’ve got a surprise for you,’ he said, trotting so close behind her as she walked into the kitchen that he trod on her heels.

‘Oh have you?’ she tried to inject some enthusiasm into her voice. ‘What is it?’

He waggled his finger at her. ‘Ah-ha. Can’t tell you. You have to spot it.’

Violet looked around the room. ‘Is it in here?’ she asked, bored already by this game.

‘Yes,’ he said, grinning. It wasn’t a nice grin. It was almost manic. The sort of grin that Jack Nicholson did a lot in
The Shining
. He was practically tittering with
childish excitement as Violet pretended to be interested in searching the room. She hoped he didn’t expect her to open every drawer.

‘Am I getting warm?’ she asked.

‘Nope,’ he grinned.

She shrugged her shoulders impatiently.

‘Come on, guess,’ Glyn urged. ‘What do people in love do?’

He’d bought her some jewellery and had it engraved, it was obvious.

‘Oh Glyn, I hope you haven’t spent a lot of money on me.’

He grinned even more widely. ‘Not
on you
. But
for you
.’

He was making
The Times
crossword look like a two-piece jigsaw.

Violet pretended to think, but everything she guessed at resulted in a ‘Nope’.

‘Give up? Okay, then, I’ll tell you,’ he said. ‘Ta da.’

He presented her with his arm and started rolling up his sleeve. Violet’s first thought was that he had a new watch, but it was just his old one that his parents had bought for his
twenty-first and that he always wore. Violet noticed the skin on his arm was getting redder as more of it was revealed. Then she saw the black writing, a tattoo in French Script: Glyn & Letty.
The words were bordered with a long twisted stem of tiny roses and thorns. Violet’s eyes focused on it all but seemed reluctant to pass the information to her brain for then it would be real,
not a mirage. A swell of claustrophobia overcame her, as if it was she and Glyn themselves who were bound together in a tight and inescapable rope of thorns and not just their names.

‘Don’t you like it?’ he said, puppy eyes pleading for approval.

‘What have you done?’ said Violet, her voice a horrified whisper.

‘I’ve done it for us.’

‘You’ve scarred yourself for life,’ said Violet.

‘Oh the redness will die down and it doesn’t hurt that much,’ he chuckled. ‘I thought you’d like it. I know you are partial to a tattoo or two.’

‘I said Johnny Depp had a nice painted tattoo in a film, I didn’t mean for you to go out and copy him.’

‘Well, I know I’m not exactly Johnny Depp,’ said Glyn, his spirits nose-diving before her eyes, ‘but I thought you’d be a little bit pleased at least.’

He had rolled his sleeve down but the sight of that tattoo was ingrained on her retinas.

Glyn & Letty
,
Glyn & Letty
. He was the only one who ever called her that and she didn’t like the version of her name, never had. She’d thought it churlish to
say, ‘Don’t call me that,’ so she had left it, but it grated on her. She should have spoken up. About that and everything else. She was a fool, an idiot. How had things got this
far?

She was picking up her wedding dress tomorrow. Then, the next day they were having a birthday tea with the Leachs Senior as it was Joy’s birthday. There would be more wedding talk about
caravans and babies. It was just a non-stop thrill fest.

Violet feigned a headache and went to bed early without having a bath. She didn’t want to feel Glyn’s hands massaging her shoulders, neither did she want to see his curled and sulky
hurt lip if she shrugged him off. When she eventually got to sleep, it was to dream that Glyn had tattooed their names all over her body in all sorts of different colours and fonts.
Glyn &
Letty
,
Glyn & Letty
,
Glyn & Letty
.