Jenny Oliver - Four Weddings And A White Christmas

Hannah opened the bag.

He heard Annie gasp, but annoyingly she was blocking his view of the dress inside. He peered over as subtly as he could and not wake the baby. His arm still throbbing with cramp.

The suspense was painful. Like one of those moments when he’d be forced to watch X-Factor at his parents’ house and the person on stage was so terrible that it made his mum cover her face with a cushion and his dad sit forward with glee.

This was a potential cushion moment.

Annie was silent.

Hannah looked like she might burst into tears.

Every muscle in Harry’s body had tensed in anticipation.

Annie moved slightly to her right as she reached forward to touch the fabric giving Harry the view he’d been waiting for.

Oh dear god.

What he saw was quite possibly the craziest, brightest monstrosity he’d ever seen. Shocking swatches of hot-pink fabric, a marshmallow frothy skirt, scraps of netting dotted with green and blue beads. Is that what wedding dresses looked like nowadays?

‘Oh my god.’ Annie put her hands over her mouth.

Quite so, Harry thought. She hates it.

‘Anything you don’t like I can change,’ Hannah said quickly. ‘But remember it’s not finished.’

‘You’ve done all this in just two months?’ Annie said, her voice a bit wobbly.

She likes it?

Hannah nodded.

‘I can’t believe it. My mum’s going to have a fit when she sees what we’ve done to her dress.’ Annie did a little snort hiccup that sounded like she might have started crying.

She hates it.

He felt for Hannah. She was holding the dress a bit like he was holding the baby, like her life depended on it.

‘But seriously, Annie, what do you think? Remember all the drawings you’ve seen – that’s what it will look like in the end,’ Hannah said, her voice wavering.

Harry felt his stomach clenching. There was no way, he thought, that she could transform this into something half-decent in four days.

But clearly Annie thought different because she wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands, and sighed, ‘I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I can completely see it. I can see the vision.’

And, while even squinting his eyes Harry couldn’t see the vision one little bit, he found himself exhaling with unexpected relief.

Feeling more like his mum poking her head round the cushion when it was all over, than his dad who always wanted the judges to stick the boot in even more, he leant back in his seat, able now to relax. Surprised at how involved he’d got. He never cared one iota what happened to the rubbish X-Factor contestant, he was usually just wishing he wasn’t watching X-Factor .

‘You’re a miracle worker. Amazing. I completely trust everything you’re doing,’ Annie said and Harry watched Hannah’s reaction. Her hands had stopped shaking, she was smiling and, to his surprise, he was smiling too. Grinning even. He stopped as soon as he caught himself. He was not a grinner.

But it was too late, Hannah had seen him and was giving him a coy little smile back.

Oh god, Harry sighed to himself, she thought he was flirting.

But then she said, ‘Urm, I think the baby might have been urm, might have been sick on you.’

Harry frowned and looked down. His black wool jumper was covered in white baby vomit. Great.

‘Here,’ Annie said, with a laugh. ‘Here’s a tea towel. You clean yourself up, Harry.’

Chapter Three

For Hannah, Christmas Day passed in a rainy haze of food, presents, stress and sewing. Her five-year-old daughter, Jemima, was up at four and then six and by seven she was dragging her stocking behind her and clambering onto Hannah’s bed, jabbing her forehead to wake her up.

Hannah, her sister, Robyn, her brother, her brother’s boyfriend and her parents had all gone to bed at one in the morning – each having been working on a job concerning either the dress or Christmas Day.

If Hannah had the time and breathing space to have taken a step back from the proceedings she would have realised how lovely it was – all of them dotted about her parents’ kitchen either sewing or chopping or reading the cooking instructions for the turkey. Her dad walking round making sure everyone’s glasses were topped up, her mum, Clarice, reminiscing about bygone Christmases while her sister challenged the memories and her brother, Dylan, asked Hannah annoying questions:

‘So you think it was Harry Fontaine or you know it was Harry Fontaine? I mean, did he just look like him or was it him?’

‘I don’t know,’ Hannah said, pins in her mouth, kneeling in front of the dressmaker’s dummy hemming the silk skirt of Annie’s wedding dress.

‘Well why didn’t you ask him?’ Her brother made a face.

‘Because he wasn’t very friendly – just watching my panic, all smug.’

Her brother paused his flicking through the recipe book. Always the one to look busy but not actually do anything. ‘We ate at his restaurant once when we were in New York – The Bonfire – do you remember?’ he said, glancing over to where his partner Tony was helping Hannah’s sister ice the Christmas cake. Tony nodded without looking up.

Her brother went on, ‘He came out the kitchen and asked a table to leave because they were all on their mobile phones. Can you imagine? Just clapped his hands and pointed to the door. They were so embarrassed. You could see the whole restaurant sliding their phones from their tables and into their pockets.’

‘He looked a bit of a pain,’ Hannah said.

Tony glanced up from the cake that was being edged with tiny gingerbread houses like a wraparound street scene and said, ‘Very good-looking though.’

Hannah shook her head. ‘I didn’t notice.’

She saw her mum look up sharply from her beadwork, smile and then look back down again.

‘What?’ Hannah asked.

‘I met your father at a wedding,’ she said, standing up to grab another strip of beaded net from the table that needed finishing.

‘That’s nice,’ Hannah said, one brow raised as she carried on pinning the hem.

‘I’m just saying!’ Her mum laughed and went back to her chair to start on the new piece of fabric.

Now, as Hannah lay in bed and Jemima prodded her and she felt her back click into place as she turned over, the aching from the hours of sewing taking its toll, she thought, not for the first time, of couples who shared this role fifty-fifty. And she considered what a luxury that must be. To have someone else in the bed who would let her sleep for maybe another half an hour and take Jemima to look at the Christmas tree, or go with her to make Hannah a cup of tea. Wow, a cup of tea in bed. That would be a treat. She had a sudden image of the good-looking guy, Harry, in the cafe holding the sleeping, vomiting baby in his arms but dismissed it just as quickly – he was not the type to make someone a cup of tea in the morning.

‘Wake up, Mummy. Wake up!’

There was always Jemima. How old did someone have to be before they could be put to use to make tea?

‘I’m here, I’m here! I’m awake. OK.’

She was so tired she felt sick, but as Jemima snuggled up next to her Hannah leant down and smelled her hair. All soft and warm and sleepy like when she was a baby. Her warm little pyjama-clad body pressed up close to Hannah, the grin splitting her face in two as she pulled chocolates and light-up pens and crayons out of her stocking made Hannah remember the last five Christmases that had gone by. And think how different each one had been. The early years when Jemima just shook the Christmas tree and all the decorations fell off, while Hannah was still in the shocked new parent daze, to now when she stood and stared wide-eyed at the Christmas lights in the street, cried at Santa in John Lewis, petted reindeer at the farm, and sang loud and out of tune as an octopus in the bizarre nursery nativity, making Hannah shed a little tear and Dylan stand up and clap while other parents ssh’d him. They were a little unit now. The epicentre. The two of them tightly bound with her relatives added on like pompoms.