Vivien Brown - Five Unforgivable Things

The dress. What can I say about the dress? We did try a few bridal shops, Mum and me, and a couple of local dressmakers who worked from their front rooms, but apparently it takes time to make one, a proper posh one anyway, and time was something I didn’t have a lot of. With all the detailed measuring involved, I also knew damn well that, weeks later, the thing would never fit the way it should, unless I came clean about being up the duff. And why should I? To some total stranger.

So, we trawled around the ordinary shops, the department stores and boutiques, looking for something at least partially white, and long, and a teensy bit loose. What we found was pretty, in its own hippy kind of way. It was made of thin creamy-coloured cheesecloth, with several layers of lining to give it a bit of shape and stop the sun shining right through and revealing my knickers, a wide lace-edged neckline, and a big bow that tied at the back. I twirled about in front of the full-length mirror in a changing room no bigger than an under-stairs cupboard, and tried to imagine myself wearing it in the church. Was it just a touch too ordinary? A touch too flimsy? Would I be too cold? What would it look like from behind? That was the view everyone was going to get throughout the ceremony, after all, except for the groom and the vicar. I bought it, though. Or Mum did, insisting on paying for the shoes too.

I held it again now, staring out at the fields, the steeple of the small village church poking its old head above the lines of leaf-stripped trees. I was in the same bedroom I’d had that first time I’d visited the farm, but sharing with Linda this time. A vase of holly, packed with fat red berries, had replaced the flowers, but everything else was just the same. I had hoped we might have snow to make things just a little more magical, but despite a harsh grey sky and a chilly draught that seeped in through the gaps around the ancient windows, it had not obliged.

Linda and I had unpacked the bags all over the bed, declaring the room a girls-only zone and banning Dan, and in fact anyone of the male persuasion, from crossing the threshold at any time from now until the wedding was over, and were now giggling like tipsy teenagers as we moved an old towelling dressing gown, trying to guess who it belonged to, and hung our dresses in its place on the hook on the back of the door.

‘You sure you want to do this, Kate?’ Linda said, shoving the messy heap of toiletries and underwear aside and flopping down flat on her back on the eiderdown.

‘It’s a bit late to ask me that now, isn’t it?’

‘Of course not. It’s never too late, right up to the bit where you say ‘I do.’ A cousin of mine did a runner the moment she stood in the church doorway and saw all those people inside in their fancy hats, all standing up and turning to look at her when the organ started knocking out the music. She said that was when it all became real. What she was doing, and committing to, for ever. All that expectation on their faces. Up until then it had just been a fantasy thing, the chance to dress up and be the centre of attention. She ended up being that, all right, legging it down the road in her wedding dress and hopping on the first bus that came along!’

‘Linda! I’m not going to do anything like that, all right? I am getting married because I want to.’

‘And because you have to.’

‘Oh, don’t say it like that. I didn’t have to do it at all. There are always other options, but we chose not to take them. So, no, I am not backing out. And neither is Dan.’

‘Fine. Just felt I had to ask. A bridesmaid’s duty and all that. Especially as you haven’t got a dad to do it.’

‘Is that what dads do? Is that why you see them whispering a few last words to the bride before they come arm in arm down the aisle? It’s the ‘last chance to stop it all’ speech, is it?’

‘Do you know, Kate, I think it quite often is. Really. Even when dads have spent all that money they will still abandon the whole thing if they think for a moment that their precious little girl might be making a mistake.’

‘Oh, stop it. You’re making me cry now.’ Thinking about my dad did that, a lot. Would he have approved of Dan, considered him the right choice, or urged me not to be hurried into something I might regret? I’d never know, would I?

‘Sorry. Had to be done. But now I am going to be the perfect bridesmaid and make sure you are extra specially cosseted and super-happy, like a beautiful blushing bride should be.’ Linda bounced back upright, swung her legs over onto the faded rag rug beside the bed, and made for the door.

‘Blushing?’

‘Well, I could have said blooming, but we don’t want the guests to put two and two together, do we? Now, where’s the toilet? I’m bursting after all that drink I put away on the train.’

***

‘Ready?’ Linda put the hairbrush down, tweaked a few loose strands around my face, and gazed into the mirror.

‘I think so.’

‘You look lovely.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And Dan will think so too. He’ll be bowled over, I just know it.’ Linda looked at her watch. ‘In around … forty eight minutes. Assuming he turns up!’

‘Well, if he doesn’t, he won’t be hard to track down and drag back, will he? Not in a village this size, where most of the locals have shotguns! And he’s not likely to get lost or stuck in traffic, either, when the church is only five minutes down the lane.’

‘I guess the wedding’s going ahead, then! How are you feeling? Nervous?’

‘A bit sick, actually. And I’ve got butterflies in my tummy, bumping around so much they must think they’re having a party!’

‘Want a tablet? ‘

I put a hand on my tummy and shook my head. ‘Better not.’

‘Brandy?’

I laughed. ‘I’d love one, but …’

‘Better not?’

‘It’s no joke being pregnant, is it? So many things I can’t have, can’t do …’

‘Is sex allowed?’

‘Linda!’

‘Well, it is your wedding night tonight. It’s expected. And it’d be a shame not to, wouldn’t it? Grounds for annulment if the deed doesn’t get done, so I hear.’

‘Probably not in our case, with a baby on the way. It’s pretty clear the deed’s already been done! And who says either of us would want an annulment anyway? This marriage is for keeps.’

It took me a while to realise that the pains might be more than just nerves. The sick feeling was getting worse, and my back was hurting. It reminded me of the worst kind of periods, the ones that creep up on you and strike right out of the blue and take your whole body over. From okay to agony in minutes, so all you want is a bed and a hot water bottle, and to be left alone to curl up and cry. But this couldn’t be a period, could it? I hadn’t had one of those in a while. And the chances of being left alone, today of all days, were absolutely zero.

‘I think I need to have a bit of a lie down, Lin.’ I turned away from the dressing table and stood up, clutching the edge to stop me from wobbling. ‘Just for a moment or two. I don’t feel quite right all of a sudden. How long have we got?’

She checked her watch again. ‘Twenty-two minutes and …’ She giggled. ‘Fifteen seconds!’

‘You know, I might have to risk a couple of tablets after all, just to sort me out before we set off.’

‘Oh, my God!’

‘What? What’s the matter?’

Linda’s hands had flown up to cover her mouth and she was staring at me as if she’d seen a ghost. Suddenly she wasn’t laughing any more.

‘I don’t want to panic you, Kate, but I think you should just take a look over your shoulder. In the mirror. Your dress …’

So I looked, thinking maybe there was a spider on my back, or my zip had burst open at the seams, but no. It was much, much worse than that. There, seeping through my lovely cream dress, right on the bit I’d been sitting on just seconds before, was a small red stain.