Catherine Ferguson - Four Weddings and a Fiasco

AVON

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2016

Copyright © Catherine Ferguson 2016

Catherine Ferguson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008163617

Ebook Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9780008142230

Version: 2017-11-14

For my lovely Dad, who would have been so proud

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

A Spring Wedding

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

A Summer Wedding

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

An Autumn Wedding

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

A Winter Wedding

Chapter Forty-One

Epilogue

Q&a With the Author

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Advert

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

Some moments in life stay with you.

A vivid memory, full of colour and texture, which, years later, still has the power to make the breath catch in your throat thinking of it.

Of course, they’re not always the moments you’d expect to live on in your mind.

I can’t remember a thing about my first kiss, for example. Nor can I recall what I ate for breakfast the morning I turned twenty-one. And as for my first day in the job as a shy, newly qualified photographer at the advertising agency all those years ago? Well, stomach-churning nerves probably crowded out the details of that particular milestone.

But that moment with my sister, laughing and clinging onto each other, jumping up and down like five-year-olds who’ve over-dosed on gummy bears?

That was one of those moments …

I’d called in at our local printer’s in Willows Edge on the way home to collect the glossy leaflets we’d designed for our brand new business. The brown package lay on the passenger seat, one of the leaflets taped to the front, and every time I glanced over and saw the words, Sister Act Photography, printed in that elegant, curly script we’d chosen, a little bubble of excitement rose up in me.

When I arrived home, Sienna’s car was parked outside. My sister – at twenty-one, almost a decade younger than me – was still living at home with Mum. But we’d decided to use my house as our business headquarters, so she had a key.

I let myself in, yelling, ‘I’m back!’ and I was about to run upstairs when Sienna appeared in the hallway.

‘Got a surprise for you,’ she said, her eyes sparkling.

Curious, I followed her through to the living room.

‘To celebrate you starting up the business.’ Stepping to one side, she gestured with a flourish. ‘Ta-dah!’

I could hardly believe my eyes.

There was a piano in my living room.

‘What do you think?’ asked Sienna eagerly, beaming at my amazed delight. ‘You always said you wanted to learn how to play. Well, now you can!’

‘Wow. Thank you.’ I shook my head and laughed. ‘But how could you afford it?’

Sienna was fresh out of college where, like me, she had studied photography. Hardly Miss Moneybags. A lump rose in my throat.

She shrugged. ‘A friend wanted rid of it so I persuaded him to sell it to me for a ridiculously low price. Do you like it?’

‘Like it? I love it!’ I said, attempting ‘Chopsticks’ through slightly blurry eyes and hitting the wrong notes entirely.

‘Bloody hell!’ she groaned. ‘You definitely need lessons.’

I shrugged. ‘Even Chopin had to start somewhere.’

‘Are they the leaflets?’ She pointed at the package under my arm.

Nodding, I opened it up and passed one to her. She stared at it with glee. ‘You know, you really are a chip off the old block.’

We smiled at each other, remembering Dad and his various business ventures, some a great success and a few frankly disastrous.

‘You, too,’ I said, but Sienna shook her head.

‘I’d never have the balls to go it alone. Not without you taking the lead, Big Sis!’

I leaned over her shoulder and we read the leaflet together, poring over it as though we didn’t already know the words off by heart.

‘Oh, my God, Katy. It’s official.’ She turned to me, her eyes shining. ‘We are Sister Act Photography!’

‘Yeah, watch out world, here we come,’ I grinned.

We looked at each other, mad-eyed, and squealed in unison.

I grabbed her arms and yelled, ‘We’re going into business!’ At which point we started jumping up and down, singing raucously, ‘We’re going into business! We’re going into business!’

I caught a glimpse of us in the mirror above the fireplace.

Two sisters.

Two blonde heads.

Sienna’s hair so pale it was almost white, chopped in a short style that highlighted her porcelain skin, blue eyes and small, delicate features. She had a look of Dad when she laughed like that.

And me.

The protective big sister. Taller than Sienna and not quite so fine-featured. My own hair a darker, caramel blonde, shoulder-length. The image of Mum, in photos from the Seventies, with my almond-shaped green eyes, larger nose and fuller lips.

Both of us laughing, almost hysterical with excitement, high on the feeling that we were balanced on the brink of something really special …

I grabbed my camera and captured the moment with a selfie.

It’s a brilliant photo, if I say so myself.

But it’s packed away in a box now with other photos of my sister.

Back then, life seemed so full of promise.

We’d lost our lovely dad six months earlier and it had been tough for us all, especially Mum. I’d long had dreams of setting up on my own as a wedding photographer, and Dad’s death was the catalyst for me handing in my notice at the advertising agency in London and moving back to Willows Edge, the village where I’d grown up. I needed to be there for Mum and Sienna. It felt odd leaving the bustle of the capital for the rather sleepy village of my childhood but it was only an hour’s drive from London, so I could easily stay in touch with all my friends there.